Saddlescombe Farm

This is an old stone farm tucked in a valley just by Devil’s Dyke. It is owned by the National Trust, as is quite a lot of the land in that area. Walking in to Saddlescomb farm you walk past a duckpond. If you head straight on and round to the right you walk past stone outhouses, and old farming machinery. In one of the fields is a donkey wheel, kind of like a giant hamster wheel but for a donkey, used to grind corn. Chickens run out to meet you. In one of the courtyards is a little trailer selling cakes, cream teas and sandwiches. You can get pots of tea, and on the tables there are cutesy sugar bowls and salt and pepper cellars the likes of which you would find in an old ladies house or at a boot fair; our salt and pepper cellars for example were a pair of Mallard ducks: pepper in the drake, salt in the hen. It’s really incredibly quaint, there are a few information boards about the farm, and after tea you can go for a lovely refreshing walk around the downs. Top notch.