Rape Seed, Pond and Cows

Our walk today starts out at East Chiltington Church, a tiny church in the middle of nowhere with a few houses nearby.  Our plan was to find some yellow fields!  Paula has another painting in mind lol.

We crossed a couple of green fields and came upon the bright yellow of the Rape Seed Oil crops.  





And it wasnt just one field!














There were several fields dotted about.

We came across this lovely hidden pond, surrounded by trees, keeping it cool in the hot sunshine. We spotted a family of geese having a swim around. They came and checked us out before swimming off again

 For those that have read my other walks posts, yes, we found more cows lol. We had to push our way past them to get over the stile into the next field. Cows are quite prominent in our lives because we both grew up on a farm.

We found a shady place to have our lunch, with some lovely views of the south downs.









Moving on we could see the 'V' on the downs quite clearly. There are a few stories about this but the one I've heard most is that the trees were planted in a V shape to commemorate Queen Victoria coming to the throne. This seems the most likely story given the age and size of the trees. 












We rounded a corner and found ourselves in a farm yard. 
Next to us was a beautiful old Cromwellian Barn. 

















This is the resulting painting from our walk    

DOWNLAND GOLDThis painting has been chosen to be the Editors favourite in the magazine- 

       "The Leisure Painter" Out on sale on 16th August.

All photographs by Paula Oakley

For more information on the paintings
Paula Oakley Art

For more information on the walk
For the Walk

Wolstonbury Hill

Looking up to Wolstonbury Hill
Our walk today took us to Wolstonbury Hill. This is one of the higher parts of the south downs in our area.

The wildife was rare but we saw one fluffy bunny. 


As we started to ascend the hill through the wooded area at the start, the path became very muddy and wet, we thought we were in for a slippery time but as we climbed the path higher it became dryer. Coming out of the woodland and climbing a field we looked back and saw this unusual view of Jack and Jill Windmills at Clayton. Jill is the white one and Jack is black. Jack is now a private house, but Jill is open to the public several times a year. 

Jack and Jill Windmills

At about half way up I decided to rest on a stile just before the long ascent to the top. It really was as steep as it looks. Not being the fittest person it must have taken me half an hour to get up the final slope.

The long slope up

We also had our lunch looking over the fantastic views. We could see long distance views in every direction, from the sea at Brighton in East Sussex to the ridge of the North Downs in Surrey.

Trig point at the top

Coming to the top we found the trig point. 

Up with the birds

Even though the weather was overcast and a little hazy we could make out various landmarks.

We felt sorry for this lonely little windswept tree near the top.

Very steep slope down

This is me walking back down, which was just as hard as the climb up.  I think if I had lost my footing there I wouldn't have stopped till I reached the bottom. 









Finishing off our walk we came along a little one track lane which came out at Clayton Tunnel. This is the main London to Brighton line and the tunnel is one mile long. One of the longest in the country.

Clayton Tunnel 

We hope you enjoyed our walk today.

Photographs by Paula Oakley- Artist

To see Paula's Art go to this link
http://pa4438.wix.com/paulaoakleyart

The walk can be found on
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/devils-dyke/things-to-see-and-do/view-page/item825112/

To find out more about the windmills visit
http://www.jillwindmill.org.uk/index.html