Prehistoric flint mine and a Martin Down style enclosure on Harrow hill, 850m south east of Lee Farm

Harrow Hill rises above the South Downs north of Angmering. The hilltop holds a Neolithic flint mine spread across eight hectares, where 245 circular shafts and pits pock the ground. Some hollows reach nearly twenty metres across and almost two metres deep, with spoil heaps up to a metre high. Excavations in the 1920s uncovered a shaft six metres wide and over six metres deep, lined with six radiating galleries. Engraved designs above gallery entrances may have served as miners’ tallies, and an antler pick from the site dates to about 3710 BC. Flint extracted here was likely traded widely, linking Harrow Hill to nearby mines at Cissbury, Church Hill and Blackpatch. A Bronze Age enclosure of the Martin Down style sits on the southern edge of the mining area. This rectangular settlement covers about a third of a hectare, enclosed by a bank up to six metres wide and a surrounding ditch. Pottery from around 600 BC and the skulls of fifty to a hundred oxen were found during a 1936 dig. The entrance once had a timber gateway, and the bank was topped by a timber palisade, marking a domestic space beside the mine. Visitors walk among the shallow hollows and low spoil mounds that mark the flint mine. The enclosure’s low bank and ditch remain visible, with the western entrance still recognisable. The hill offers wide views across the South Downs, linking the prehistoric landscape to the surrounding countryside. The site stands as a quiet reminder of early mining and settlement, preserved within the rolling chalk hills.