Highdown, Worthing, West Sussex, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

An early to mid-20th-century plantsman's garden, created and developed in and around a former chalk pit by Sir Frederick and Lady Stern

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Highdown Garden lies 0.4km due north of the A259 east to west Littlehampton to Worthing road, between the settlements of Angmering and Goring. The 4.5 hectare, square-shaped registered site, comprising the house, the surrounding gardens and the drive, is situated on the gentle, south-facing upper slopes of Highdown Hill, a southward extension of the South Downs, and enjoys panoramic views of the coastal plain and the sea. The lower slopes of the Hill, to the east, west and south of the site, are under arable cultivation while to the north and north-west, open downland and scrub cover the crest of the Hill. The site is enclosed along most of its north, west and south sides by close-boarded fencing (erected in the 1980s) and by internal shelter belts of mixed evergreen and deciduous trees, largely replanted after the storm of 1987 and the ravages of Dutch elm disease. A public footpath lined by hedgerows runs alongside the west boundary fence, while to the east the drive forms the boundary to the partially fenced site.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Country Life, 81 (20 February 1937), pp 198-203

F C Stern, A Chalk Garden (1960)

A Hellyer, A Shell Guide to Gardens (1977)

Highdown Chalk Gardens, guide leaflet, (Worthing Borough Council, no date)

Maps

OS 6" to 1 mile: 2nd edition published 1899

OS 25" to 1 mile: 3rd edition published 1912; 1932 edition
 

Description written: November 1997

Edited: June 2000