Send me yours
I have been collecting what people say about Chanctonbury Ring for about a year. Most of it I found already written down, on forums and in comment sections and in books, and that is over on the Accounts page. The rest of it people sent me, and that is at the bottom of this one.
If you have been up there, I would like to hear about it.
Including if nothing happened.
That is the part I want to be clear about, because it is the part everyone assumes I do not mean. Almost everything ever written about Chanctonbury was written by somebody who had an experience. Nobody writes a forum post about the afternoon they walked up a hill and had a nice time. So the record is bent, and it has been bent for as long as anyone has been writing it down, and there is no way to straighten it except to ask.
If you have walked up there two hundred times since 1974 and it has always just been a hill with some trees on it, that is genuinely useful and I would like it written down.
What happens to it
I read everything. Nothing goes on the site unless I put it there, and I will leave your name off unless you tell me not to. There is no account to make and nothing to log into. It comes to my inbox.
If you would rather see what is already there first, the Accounts page has everything I found elsewhere, sorted by the sort of thing it is.
Sent in
These arrived through the form above. There's no source line on them because there's no source to give you: somebody typed them and sent them to me. I read everything before it goes up. This section will grow.
Walked up from the Washington side last autumn and honestly the main thing I remember is the mud on the track, it was ankle deep in places. We got to the top, had a look, and came straight back down because it started raining. Nothing to report at all really. Sorry.
Neil · Roughly when: Last autumn · Time of day: Afternoon · Heard the stories beforehand: No
I went up on purpose after reading about it online, with a friend, and we stayed until about half eleven. Sat on the bank on the north side and waited. Absolutely nothing happened. It was quite nice actually apart from being much colder than I'd dressed for. Not sure what I was expecting to be honest. Someone's car alarm was going off down towards Steyning for about twenty minutes which rather spoiled the mood.
K.M. · Roughly when: Last October · Time of day: Evening, until about 11.30 · Heard the stories beforehand: Yes
I've walked up Chanctonbury loads of times and never felt anything at all, sorry. The place that does it for me is a bit of woodland behind where I grew up in Hampshire, near Liphook. There's a sunken lane there and I have never liked it, not as a kid and not now, and I'm 54. My sister's the same about it and we've never really talked about why. Chanctonbury is just a nice walk with a good view. Hope that's still useful.
Jules · Roughly when: On and off over about thirty years · Time of day: All sorts, mostly daytime · Heard the stories beforehand: Yes