(1) The Sussex Landscape (by Michael Smith) |(2) 'The Elms'| No
tender hearted garden crowns,A slightly more resistant stratum
of chalk results in a discontinuous, but clearly visible,
secondary escarpment set back from the main one. The major
escarpment has a crest at about or just above 800' and the
highest spots are individually named Kipling produced a charming
poem The Run of the Downs, in which the whole sequence is given.
No bosomed woods adorn, Our blunt, bow-headed whale-backed
Downs, But gnarled and writhen thorn - The Weald is good,. the
Downs are best -Chalk absorbs rainfall and snow melt but
underneath the chalk is an impervious clay layer which acts as a
barrier to any further downward percolation so that water builds
up beneath a "water-table". Where that water-table intersects
the surface, water can gush out in the form of springs or
intermittent streams. On the downland surface there is an
absence of running water, but there are many valleys which were
obviously, at one time, eroded by stream