IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Ratton Drive, EASTBOURNE, BN20 9BJ

A case of a "Walk" with no separate provision for walkers.

The former gate to Ratton Manor still acts as the entrance to the estate built on it with the former lodge to the left. Park Lane itself was part of the estate linking the manor with parklands on what is modern day Hampden Park. The road it crosses is the A2270, Willingdon Road.

This well established magnolia tree unfailingly gives a spectacular display of white to pink flowers every Spring.

Behind the spectacular magnolia tree, in the centre of the photo, lies part of a line of yew trees, known as the Twelve Apostles. These trees were planted in the 15th century by the monks who lived in the nearby Benedictine Abbey. Reputedly a monk lies buried beneath each of the Twelve Apostles and that a curse linked to the trees means that anyone cutting one of them will soon die.

Separating Willingdon Golf Course beyond the fence to the left and Ratton Village beyond the walls to the right. The latter was built on the site of Ratton Manor some of whose boundary walls still survive. The bridleway begins on Willingdon Road, the A2270, and joins the South Downs Way on Bourne Hill.

From an area that has been cleared of diseased trees, Eastbourne and the coast is seen over the rooftops of the houses of Old Mansion Close. The Jubilee Way runs along the 300-foot contour of the wooded slopes of the South Downs escarpment overlooking Eastbourne. Some 6 miles long, the path runs from Willingdon through meadows and woodland to Eastbourne seafront. The path was named the Jubilee Way in 1977 in celebration of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Ash dieback disease has decimated the area.