England - South Downs Attractions

The building stone most often seen in the Downs is flint, which occurs in layers of chalk. It is usually found in walls or on the facades of buildings, used either as a whole pebble ("knitwork") or broken up and laid out in dark shimmering pieces on mortar ("flushwork").

The chalk cliffs were once both famous and infamous for their reef pirates and smugglers. During the 18th century, the heyday of smuggling, approximately one-third of English sea trade slipped through as "free trade", and it is thought that half the gin and almost a third of the tea entering the country was handled by the gangs of smugglers in Kent and Sussex. Neither harsh punishments nor strengthening of the coastguard could stop the well-organized smugglers, until 1840 when the Government finally employed their strongest weapon: a drastic reduction in taxes.