Park O 4ChiddinglyeSat 20 June, 2026

Report

Big thanks to the team of Samantha and Joe on SI, Tom for the map, Steve for advising, Neil for printing, Garry for route gadget, Di on newcomers and Garry, kate and Andy for collecting. Thanks also to the Chiddinglye estate for letting us use their land. Thankfully not too sunny. Most people made mistakes, with places amongst the top 10 constantly shifting throughout the race, although there was no common culprit control. I knew it was going to be longer than your standard Parko given the more challenging terrain and level of difficulty. I leant towards giving competitors a good experience by incorporating all the areas of interest but this did lead to a longer course. At 3.4k optimum route I’d imagine an elite could get below 20 minutes, not taking anything away from our fab winner of course🙂. It was an area of high contrast between fast running one moment followed by some technical nav into the control. I felt many of the mistakes came from competitors not slowing down at the right moment and picking their final attack point, of which there were plenty. It’s very hard to slow down and put your mind to fine navigation when you have just run hard for 200 metres. Maybe today was more about traffic lighting than raw speed. Thanks for coming along.

RouteGadget

Is a web app for sharing and comparing orienteering routes. You can draw your own route or upload a GPS track from your watch. It also allows you to watch an animated replay with a simulated mass start.

Pre event info

STAY HYDRATED - BRING YOUR OWN WATER. A super charged forest sprint in stunning Sussex countryside. Full leg cover mandatory and shoes with good grip recommended. Many thanks to the Chiddinglye Estate and Missing Link Brewing for permission to use the area. They have not charged us anything but please show your thanks by visiting the Taproom for some tasty brunch, smashed burgers, cake and drinks. Taproom info here. Always good to book in advance. Only food purchased at Chiddinglye may be consumed in the registration field.

Location Info

Nearest town: West Hoathly

• Postcode: *
• Lat,Lng:51.08110,-0.06420
• Grid Ref:
• Google Map
• Streetmap (OS 50k)
• Bing Map (OS 50k)
• OpenStreetMap

* Postcodes are not very precise in some areas, so don't rely on them for an exact location.

Directions / Parking

W3W

///solution.hiring.every
https://w3w.co/solution.hiring...

Parking £1/car to go towards the new pig fence.

Follow the orienteering signs from the end of the drive. Please drive slowly, there are children roaming.

Public Transport

East Grinstead and Three Bridges train station are both within 6 miles

Course Information

Sprint: 2.8k 24 controls

Orange: 1.9k, 13 controls

Yellow: 1.7k, 11 controls

Safety Bearing NE

Entry Details

Entry via Racesignup. Newcomers are welcome and eligible for a free trial session - if you'd like to reserve a map or discuss the event please email our membership secretary.

Entry fees: Sprint £5.00, Orange £2.50, Yellow £2.50 (SO Juniors free - use code SOjuniors)

SI card hire: Seniors £1 (£2 for SIAC), Juniors 50p (£1 for SIAC

Registration

From 9:45 to 10:45

Start Times

From 10:00 to 11:00 Courses close at 12:00

Map Details

1:4,000 with 2.5m contours. Mapping to ISSprOM 2019-2 specification. Mapped in April 2026 by Thomas Jarvis

Terrain Description

CLIMBING OVER ANY FENCE IS FORBIDDEN - USE THE CROSSING POINTS ON THE MAP - FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN DISQUALIFICATION. THE ONLY EXCEPTION IS UNMAPPED ELECTRIC FENCES WHICH YOU MAY COME ACROSS IN THE FIELDS. THESE MAY BE CROSSED AND WILL NOT BE ELECTRIFIED ON THE DAY.
This event is close to being a forest sprint. Full leg cover mandatory and shoes with good grip recommended. Mixture of open fields with long grass, woodland, contour detail, rocky outcrops, shallow stream crossings, steep slopes and significant bracken. Courses have been designed to avoid the worst bracken.

Dog restrictions

Dogs on leads in finish and parking field, not on course. Livestock in fields.

Facilities

Toilets are available in the taproom.

Miscellaneous

The Origins of Chiddinglye

The name Chiddinglye comes from South Saxon and means “the forest clearing or land (lye) of the tribe (Ing) of Chitta or Chidda.” The Chitta tribe was a pre-Roman people who inhabited parts of Sussex and Surrey. Their name also appears in nearby places such as Chiddingstone, Chiddingfold, and Chiddingly near East Hoathly.

Human activity in the Chiddinglye area dates back to shortly after the last Ice Age, over 12,000 years ago, when Sussex emerged from permafrost conditions. Archaeological evidence found among the rock overhangs in Chiddinglye Wood suggests that Mesolithic and Neolithic people used these natural shelters. Excavations carried out by Sussex University in 2008–9 uncovered large quantities of worked flint and pottery at a depth of one metre, dating to around 3700 BC.

Historic Buildings at Chiddinglye

Chiddinglye Farmhouse dates from the 1460s. It was originally a two-bay oak timber-framed hall with wattle-and-daub walls, later covered with weather tiling. In the late sixteenth century, when the house belonged to an ironmaster, a fireplace, chimney, and stone extension were added. This allowed a ceiling to be inserted into the hall, creating an upper floor with additional rooms.

Chiddinglye House was built in 1865 and was originally known as Rockhurst. In 1934, the 5th Earl and Countess of Limerick purchased the estate for £7,750, renamed the house Chiddinglye, and moved in the following spring. The family has lived here ever since, and their daughter Anne still lives in the adjacent farmhouse.

Geology of the High Weald

The rocks of the High Weald are entirely sedimentary. The iron-rich clays and sandstones of the Hastings Group were laid down around 130 million years ago in a landscape of floodplains and rivers. Later, the Weald Clay Formation was deposited before the whole area sank beneath the sea around 110 million years ago, eventually being covered by chalk.

Between 70 and 75 million years ago, tectonic uplift created the Wealden Anticline, a vast chalk-topped dome that may once have reached nearly 970 metres above sea level. Over millions of years, erosion stripped away the chalk and softer clays, leaving the North Downs and South Downs as a rim around the edges and exposing the older Hastings Group rocks at the centre. Continued erosion reduced the anticline to its present height, with the highest point now Crowborough Beacon at 241 metres.

The differing resistance of clays and sandstones, combined with folding and faulting, has produced today’s distinctive ridged landscape, steep-sided ghylls, and sheltered, damp microclimates.

Rock Shelters and Defences

Moving westwards, the sandstone cliffs grow in height and lead to Adullam’s Cave, a prehistoric rock shelter used for millennia and possibly inhabited by a hermit until the early 20th century. Further south lies a narrow rocky passage thought by some archaeologists to be a third entrance to the fort.

At the southeastern face, we encounter Big On Little (or Great Upon Little), a dramatic rock formation where a massive sandstone block rests on a narrow base due to differential erosion. Like Adullam’s Cave, it was used as a prehistoric shelter and has yielded archaeological finds.

Clay Pits and Local Building

Clay extraction has also been an important local industry, particularly from the medieval period onwards. Wealden clay was dug from shallow pits and used to make bricks, tiles, and pottery, often close to where it was extracted.

This local production shaped the distinctive architecture of Sussex villages. Clay soils also influenced farming practices: heavy and poorly drained, they were better suited to pasture than arable farming. Many former clay pits later filled with water or reverted to woodland, leaving ponds and hollows still visible in the landscape today.

Philpots Promontory Fort

Philpots Promontory Fort, also known as Philpots Camp, is a late Iron Age fort located on a sandstone spur in the High Weald, about one mile southwest of West Hoathly. A promontory fort is a defended enclosure created by cutting off access to a spur of land using banks and ditches.

The fort covers approximately 15 acres and is triangular in shape. One side is defended by a bank and ditch, while the others are protected by steep sandstone cliffs up to 15 metres high. The fort dates from around 100 BC to the Roman invasion in AD 43, but archaeological evidence from rock shelters beneath the cliffs shows human activity here as early as 10,000 BC.

Finds include worked flints, Horsham Points, leaf-shaped arrowheads, and early Neolithic pottery, suggesting both hunting and early farming activity.

Excavations in 1931 identified two original gateways through the bank. The surviving earthworks are much eroded, but the ditch was once around 2 metres deep, and the bank may have supported a timber palisade. Charcoal fragments suggest it may have been destroyed by fire—possibly during a Roman attack.

Ironworking and Early Industry

There is extensive evidence of historic ironworking throughout Chiddinglye’s woods and valleys, including hammer ponds and slag deposits. The High Weald was a major centre for iron production from around 800 BC through to the Roman period. Ironstone occurs naturally in the local geology and is often close to the surface, making it relatively easy for early communities to exploit.

Iron smelting relied on charcoal produced from nearby woodland, which led to large areas of forest being carefully managed through coppicing. This makes the Weald one of Britain’s earliest industrial landscapes. While furnaces and mines may no longer be visible, subtle changes in ground level, shallow pits, and slag deposits still mark their presence. These early industries shaped settlement patterns and laid the foundations for later medieval and post-medieval ironworking.

Wildlife and Conservation

Chiddinglye lies within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and some of its woods are designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest due to rare ferns, liverworts, and bryophytes.

One of the rarest plants found here is the Tunbridge filmy fern, which grows only in deeply shaded, permanently damp environments such as ghyll woodlands. It is extremely sensitive to drying, pollution, and changes in light levels. Its presence indicates long-term woodland continuity and minimal disturbance, making its protection vital to the wider ecosystem.

The dominance of oak trees in the ancient woodland suggests historic pannage, where pigs were grazed on acorns—a common Wealden practice before mechanised farming.

Gardens and Landscape

The gardens at Chiddinglye are exceptional and feature sequoias, camellias, azaleas, and rhododendrons. Although originally laid out in 1865, they were fully developed from 1935 onwards by the 5th Earl, who employed six men to manage the estate and gardens.

Sequoias are among the most striking features here. Although not native, they were introduced to Britain in the mid-19th century, when landowners planted exotic species as symbols of prestige, scientific curiosity, and progress.

Chiddinglye Today

Since 2013, Chiddinglye has been under the stewardship of Edmund, 7th Earl of Limerick. The estate was formerly a mixed dairy and arable farm, but the dairy herd was sold in 2005 and replaced with beef cattle and sheep.

Since then, a range of diversification projects have been introduced, including commercial lets in former farm buildings, weddings, public events, and the hosting of the Into the Wild Festival in 2018 and 2019. Renewable energy initiatives include a biomass boiler installed in 2013 and a 5-megawatt solar farm completed in 2016.

Also in 2016, work began on Missing Link Brewing, now a fully operational microbrewery with a taproom, canning line, and annual production of up to 5,000 hectolitres. The estate also includes a commercial orchard producing apples for juice and cider. Chiddinglye remains a working farm, with land managed under Higher Level Stewardship to support wildlife and conservation.

Contacts / Officials

Planner: Will Heap

Organiser: Advisor Steve Jarvis

Controller: