Harrow Hill, West Sussex facts for kids
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The earthworks on the crown of the hill
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 Location in West Sussex
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| Location | near Angmering, West Sussex |
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| Coordinates | 50°52′44″N 0°27′49″W / 50.87889°N 0.46361°W |
| History | |
| Periods | Neolithic Bronze Age |
| Designated | 22 February 1933 |
| Reference no. | 1015239 |
Harrow Hill is a really old and interesting place in West Sussex, England. It's an archaeological site, which means people study it to learn about the past. You can find it on the South Downs, a beautiful area of hills. It's about 3 miles north of a village called Angmering and 5 miles north-west of Worthing.
Long, long ago, during the Stone Age and Bronze Age, people used Harrow Hill for important activities. They dug for flint here, which was like a valuable rock back then. There's also an ancient settlement from the Bronze Age. Because it's so important, Harrow Hill is protected as a scheduled monument. This means it's a special place that the government protects so it won't be damaged.
Discovering Harrow Hill's Ancient Secrets
Harrow Hill is a fascinating place where archaeologists have found clues about how people lived thousands of years ago. The main discoveries here are an ancient flint mine and a Bronze Age settlement. These sites help us understand early human life in Britain.
The Ancient Flint Mines
Imagine people digging deep underground to find a special type of rock! That's what happened at Harrow Hill. On top of the hill, there's a huge area, about the size of 15 football fields, covered in old flint mines. There are around 245 mine shafts and pits here.
These shafts look like big circular hollows in the ground today. Some are quite wide, up to 64 feet across, and about 6 feet deep. Next to these hollows, you can see piles of earth. These are called "spoil heaps," which are the leftover dirt and rocks from the digging.
Archaeologists dug into one of these shafts in 1924-1925. They found it was about 20 feet wide and 22 feet deep. At the very bottom, there were six tunnels, like spokes on a wheel, leading out from the main shaft. Some of these tunnels even had cool designs carved above their entrances! These carvings might have been like notes or tallies left by the miners.
One of the tools found in a shaft was an antler pick. Scientists used a method called radiocarbon dating to figure out how old it was. They found it was from around 3710 BC! This tells us just how long ago these mines were active.
People probably mined flint at Harrow Hill to trade it with other communities. Flint was super important back then because it was used to make tools like knives, arrowheads, and axes. There were other flint mines nearby too, like at Cissbury Ring, Church Hill, and Blackpatch. These mines were all active around the same time.
The Bronze Age Settlement
Besides the mines, Harrow Hill also has an ancient settlement from the Bronze Age. This type of settlement is called a "Martin Down style enclosure." It's named after a similar site found in Hampshire.
This settlement was shaped like a rectangle and was used as a place where people lived. It's located near the flint mining area, and part of it even sits on top of some of the older mine shafts. The settlement was surrounded by a bank of earth, about 20 feet wide and 2 feet high, with a ditch outside it. This was like a protective wall for the people living inside.
There was an entrance on the west side of the settlement. When archaeologists dug there in 1936, they found pieces of pottery from around 600 BC. They also found the skulls of many oxen, which are a type of cattle. This tells us that people raised animals here. It seems the entrance once had a wooden gate, and the earth bank had a wooden fence, called a palisade, to keep people and animals safe.
