IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Harping Hill, NEWHAVEN, BN9 9AJ

Flint faced cottage that possibly hides a 17th century timber framed structure underneath. Harping Hill is the old route of the Lewes to Newhaven road that once climbed up onto the Downs to avoid the wet flood plain below. It was replaced by the current route in the 1820s. Beyond is the entrance to Image

Modern building built in a former chalk pit around 1982. The house clings to the side of a cliff face and is accessed via the top floor on Harping Hill. See also Image for another view. The former quarry lies directly opposite Image the only survivor of the former tile and brick works that later became a whiting works. Viewed from Lewes Road, the C7.

A modern house built around 1982 down the side of a cliff face of an old chalk quarry. This is the view from Harping Hill though the one from Lewes Road makes a much bolder statement, see Image The actual entrance to the house is from the top floor, see Image

From left to right the dwellings are; River House, The Lair and Kiln Cottage with Headlands perched on the cliff above. The round conical tower behind The Lair is a former brick kiln that was rebuilt from original materials in 1982 and is a remnant of a former brick and tile works that once existed on the site. The brickyard was opened in the early 19th century and survived, albeit as a whiting works, to 1913. Headlands is built on top of the old chalk quarry that served the site whilst Kiln Cottage to the right was built in the 1920s and originally known as Brickyard House. A small wharf existed out of shot to the left.

Located next to Lewes Road and believed to be the last bottle shaped kiln left in the country. Kiln Cottage (previously Brickyard Cottage) is on the left whilst the roof to The Liar is on the right. Both were built in the 1920s on the site of a former brickworks that later became a whiting works. The first reference to a brickyard in this location occurs in the 1817 Land Tax registry which probably gives some idea of the construction of the original kiln. The brickworks and subsequent whiting works continued until its closure in 1913 with much of the former industrial buildings removed and the land given over to house building. However, the kiln survived but began to deteriorate until the late 1970s when it was decided to restore it. The restoration involved the careful dismantling of the structure and a painstaking rebuild using as many of the original materials as possible. See pages 2-24 of Sussex Industrial History (1982) for a detailed article on the reconstruction, http://sias.pastfinder.org.uk/sih_1970_2008/12-1982.pdf

The conical kiln is an 18th/19th century grade II listed building. The site is where a whiting works was.

The view as it enters the village of Piddinghoe. The houses in view are Kiln Cottage and The River House which are split by Image the only survivor of a former tile and brick works, later a whiting works, which operated from the site between 1817 and 1913. This section of Lewes Road was built around the same time as the works opened to replace the steeper and much windier route over higher ground. It later became the A275 until the late 1970s when the newly opened Lewes Bypass and Newhaven's ring roads pushed all port traffic up the eastern side of the Ouse valley to avoid the narrow streets of Lewes. The road is now designated the C7.

Located on Lewes Road at the northern end of Piddinghoe and dating from the 18th century. For much of the following century it was the home of the Baker family who ran the adjacent brickyard. The cottage along with Image, which is behind the hedge on the right side of the road, are the only surviving buildings of the brickyard. The right angled nature of the cottage vis-a-vis the road is due to it being built to face the old route of the Lewes to Newhaven road that ran from the right then to the left up Harping Hill. The current road in view was not built until the 1820s and actually split the brickyard from its chalk quarry.

The section that runs from Lewes Road up onto the Downs is exceptionally nasty and overgrown and requires either a very thick hide or a chain saw. Waist high nettles coupled with low hanging trees and thorn bushes required much stooping and additional swearing. The barbed wire fence on the left did not help matters either. A real shame as once the path climbs away from this section it is beautiful open downland until Peacehaven.