Slindon sits on the southern slope of the South Downs and there are attractive views to the Downs in the north, to the coast in the south and to the ancient woods in the east from many points in the parish.

The geology of Slindon is typical of a transitional landscape. The chalk with flint is the geological characteristic of Slindon though, at the lower end of the village, the chalk gives way to sand and gravel. Underlying the gravel and chalk of the Downs is clay, at the lower level not more than two feet down. In this subsoil, as in the chalk, are numerous flints also many marine fossils, a legacy from the period when this area was under the sea. Brickearch deposited towards the end of the Ice Age accounts for the occasional seam of good loam that break across the light chalky soil throughout Slindon.

As well as the Downland landscape, Slindon is surrounded by ancient woodland, much of it owned by the National Trust. In spring the woods are filled with bluebells, primroses, wild violets and wood anemones

Other notable flora includes bee, twayblade, early spotted and common spotted orchids as well as Autumn Ladies Tresses.

Slindon Common, perhaps because it has not been overly “managed”, is one of the best places to see many different fungi, including Amethyst Deceiver, Dead Man’s Fingers, Excelsior, Sulphur Tuft, Death Cap, Fly Agaric, various Bolete, Russula and Puffball species as well as a variety of bracket and jelly fungi.

In June 2002, 42 species of bird were identified on Slindon Common including the nightjar, blackcap, spotted flycatcher, chiffchaff and little and tawny owls.

In 2001, a pair of hobby were recorded for the first time on Slindon Common apparently attempting to nest. The presence of a climax predator species such as the hobby indicates a healthy and diverse food chain.

Badgers and foxes have “denned” on Slindon Common for at least 20 years. Roe deer are a common sight and there are also occasional sightings of hare and fallow deer.

Butterflies and moths are present in great numbers. Notable species identified in recent years include White Admiral , Silver-Washed Fritillary, Pearl-Bordered Fritillary and Scarce Merville du Jour.

Dragonflies, lizards, adders, grass snakes and beetles abound including rare beetles such as Glow-worm and Stag Beetle, a BAP1 species.

Archaeology

Just to the north of the A27 lies the Palaeolithic Beach and the Beach line – a reminder of the days when the sea came up to Slindon There is considerable evidence of the Roman occupation of Slindon including villas and farmsteads and a principal road from the Downs running north-south partly on and slightly to the east of the present Mill Road which linked with the Arundel-Chichester Road to the south of the present A27. A Roman burial cyst and Roman coins have been found.

Village History

People have lived in Slindon since pre-history. Flint axes and arrow-heads found in the area suggest there were settlements here from very early times.

In 686AD King Caedwalla donated the Manor of Slindon (a far larger area than today’s parish) to the Church and it became the summer residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury until the time of Henry VIII. During this period, hunting through the woods was a favourite pastime and the woods – if not the hunting – still stretch through the area.

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, Slindon was a centre of smuggling and the old Dog and Partridge Inn on Slindon Common was a regular rendezvous of the smugglers. The Inn had capacious cellars – far larger than normally needed by a small country inn! – which extended northwards under the A29 to the fields opposite (and the gibbet from which smugglers were hanged stood at the former crossroads on Slindon Common, situated slightly to the north of Mill Farm).

Slindon Common has always been an important part of the village (indeed around 40% of the population live in this part of the village). Until the 1860’s it was just that – a sparsely populated Common, used by villager copyholders (a kind of perpetual tenancy) to graze animals. The Common was “eliminated” under the Enclosure Acts in the 1860s and the copyholders were compensated under the Slindon Enclosure Award with plots of land on Slindon Common.

“The majority of new holdings were eventually sold, mainly as building plots, which means that many properties in the village are ‘twinned’ with properties on Slindon Common. For example, Dairy Cottage is ‘twinned’ with Pine Trees, Biddleside Cottage with Bridle Cottage and The Presbytery (now St. Richard’s House) with Linden Lea.”
Ref: Slindon Parish Magazine, 1983,
Bernard Keeling, a former resident and Clerk of Slindon Parish
Council

Although the oldest are thought to date from the early 16th Century, the bulk of the houses in the western part of the village are of 18th and 19th Century origin – indeed it is thought that only 5 houses have been built in this part of the village in the past 60 years.

The other significant building phase occurred after ‘the Slindon by-pass’ was constructed in the 1920’s (the section of the A29 known as The Spur). In the 1920’s and 30’s the houses in Reynolds Lane and The Coronation Hall were built, and Meadsway was created immediately after the Second World War.

Slindon House

The history of Slindon, like many villages, is inextricably linked to the history of ‘the big house’.

The current Slindon House was originally built in the time of Elizabeth I by the Kempe family, who were staunch Catholics and for over 300 years mass was held in a secret chapel on the house until St Richards, the Catholic church in Top Road, was built in the 1860’s at the bequest of the Countess of Newburgh, a key figure in the recent history of Slindon House. (Hence the presence of two fine churches in the village).

The Countess appointed herself guardian and benefactress of the village and one of her other more enduring contributions is The Folly, on Nore Hill, built around 1814, partly for picnics, but also to provide work for villagers during the depression following the Napoleonic Wars.

In 1913, Slindon House and Estate was purchased by Mr F. Wootton-Isaacson who carried out extensive alterations. When he died in 1948 he bequeathed his Estate, comprising 3,600 acres, Slindon House and many other properties, to the National Trust. The bequest was conditional on “the whole to be maintained as far as possible as a Sussex Estate”.

James Lees-Milne, the distinguished surveyor of potential bequests to the National Trust at the time, visited the Estate in May 1944 and described the Park and estate as “a dream of beauty” – but he was less than kind about Slindon House.

“…the house is a travesty. Originally Elizabethan brick with flint courses, it underwent extensive Georgian alterations outside and in. The present owner mistakenly removed nearly all of these after the last war, inserting bogus ceilings and pasterine ribs. The main facade is practically rebuilt with ‘Jacobeathan’ bays where none existed before, and windows of plate glass in lieu of sash. The only good features left are the seventeenth century screen in the hall, and the overdoors, the pretty eighteenth century wrought-iron balastrade of the staircase and rococo plaster ceiling above it”
Prophesying Peace, James Lees-Milne, Chatto & Windus,1977 p 57