Later on Friday afternoon Mark and I headed out to the Devil’s Dyke. This deep valley, just a short drive away from Brighton, promised stunning views and — more importantly — a pub offering excellent food and drink.
The weather wasn’t too splendid and I stupidly forgot my camera so had to make do with the lousy quality of my mobile phone. But hopefully these pictures will give you some idea of the breathtaking views available:
(I highly recommend the Harveys bitter, by the way)
On the way back we stopped off in the village of Clayton to marvel at Clayton Tunnel. Originally constructed during the building of the line in 1841, it comes from an age when railways still had something to prove to the world, and hence this ostentatious structure was built at the portal.
My picture doesn’t really do it justice, but I hope you get some idea of the impressiveness of the structure. It’s a shame it only gets seen properly by train drivers and the occasional people like us, who stop to peer over the nearby road bridge.
We rounded off the evening by watching Hot Fuzz on DVD. (SWAN!)
28th August 2010 at 12:34 am
Oh, I’ve seen that tunnel! One time we were heading back to Brighton, and I forget why – possibly due to coming from a different part of London – we had to change at the station that overlooks it. Hassocks, is it?
And yeah, Devil’s Dyke is aces. Terrific views. A bugger to get the bus back to Brighton from on a Sunday, though.
28th August 2010 at 12:38 am
… although looking it up on Wikipedia, perhaps it isn’t overlooked by a station and I’m just talking NONSENSE. I definitely remember standing on a station footbridge somewhere on the line towards Brighton looking at a tunnel that looked a bit like that, though!
28th August 2010 at 11:31 am
Yes, Hassocks is the nearest station, we could see it in the distance from our vantage point. I think you would probably just about be able to see the tunnel from the platforms.