Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Combe Hill

Combe Hill stands on the South Downs near Eastbourne, a Neolithic causewayed enclosure made of ditches and banks with gaps called causeways. It overlooks the Weald to the north and is crossed by a footpath running from Jevington to Willingdon. The site has an inner circuit almost complete and traces of an outer circuit enclosing about 1.7 hectares. Three round barrows lie close by, two to the east and one to the west, with one possibly Anglo-Saxon. The enclosure slopes away from the steep north side, so earthworks are not visible from below. The enclosure was built between 3700 and 3500 BC and used for at least two centuries. Charcoal from Reginald Musson’s 1949 excavation dated to 3500–3300 BC, and Veronica Seton-Williams found three polished stone axes in a ditch. Hadrian Allcroft included it in his 1908 book, and E. Cecil Curwen listed it as Neolithic in 1930. The site may have been a meeting place, trading spot or ritual site, with deposits of pottery, animal bone and human remains in the ditches. Visitors walk a footpath across the enclosure, where wider causeways at the south and east may have been entrances. The inner circuit is elliptical, while the outer is less well preserved, possibly levelled in the Neolithic. The site is visible from Butts Brow, another Neolithic enclosure 800 metres away, suggesting linked activity. The cleared area would once have stood out against the wooded landscape, visible from higher ground to the south.