“How oft around thy Ring, sweet Hill,
    A Boy, I used to play,
  And form my plans to plant thy top
    On some auspicious day. 
  How oft among thy broken turf
    With what delight I trod,
  With what delight I placed those twigs
    Beneath thy maiden sod. 
  And then an almost hopeless wish
    Would creep within my breast,
  Oh! could I live to see thy top
    In all its beauty dress’d. 
  That time’s arrived; I’ve had my wish,
    And lived to eighty-five;
  I’ll thank my God who gave such grace
    As long as e’er I live. 
  Still when the morning sun in Spring,
    Whilst I enjoy my sight,
  Shall gild thy new-clothed Beech and sides,
    I’ll view thee with delight.”

Chanctonbury must have had an overpowering effect on our ancestors; the correspondent quoted below perhaps saw the hill through one of the mists which come in from the sea and render every object monstrous or mysterious.

“Chanckbury, the Wrekin or Cenis of the South Downs, is said to be 1,000 perpendicular yards above the level of the sea; on the summum jugum, or vertex, is a ring of trees planted by Mr. Goring of Whiston, and if they were arrived at maturity, would form no indifferent imitation of an ancient Druidical grove.” (Gentleman’s Magazine, 1819.)

The descent from the ring is made past a pond whose origin is unknown; judging by its appearance it may well have supplied the men who first occupied the fortifications on the hill top.  The white path below eventually leads, by a narrow and steep gully, very slippery after rain, directly to the village of Washington on the Horsham-Worthing high road.  The church stands above the village in a picturesque situation, but is of little interest.  With the exception of the tower, it was rebuilt in 1866.  Here is a sixteenth-century tomb of John Byne from the old building, and in the churchyard may be seen the grave of Charles Goring.  Hillaire Belloc has immortalized the village inn thus:—­

  “They sell good beer at Haslemere
    And under Guildford Hill;
  At little Cowfold, as I’ve been told,
    A beggar may drink his fill. 
  There is good brew at Amberley too. 
    And by the bridge also;
  But the swipes they takes in at the Washington Inn
    Is the very best beer I know.”

A great find of silver coins of the time of the last Saxon Kings was made in 1866 on Chancton Farm; a ploughman turning up an urn containing over three thousand.  This was an effective rebuke to those who laugh at “old wives’ tales,” for a local tradition of buried treasure must have been in existence for eight hundred years.

[Illustration:  CHANCTONBURY RING.]