Ancient Flint Mines at Stoke Down, Sussex

Abstract

The object of this report is to record “finds” rather than to deal with the problem of the date of the mines and implements.The Circumstances which led up to the Discovery of the Mining Area at Stoke Down.In 1910 I was ordered to Chichester Barracks for a tour of military duty, and among other things I became Scoutmaster of the 1st Chichester Boy Scout troop. It was these Scouts who first took me to Stoke Down. The Down is situated some three miles due North of the ancient city of Chichester. The boys were busy building a log cabin in the clump of trees on the summit of the Down. The clump is known as Stoke Clump. Being long interested in prehistory my eyes, as was their custom, wandered over the surface. My attention was soon arrested by a considerable quantity of what is generally recognised as Bronze Age Pottery, coarse, red and black, of unwashed clay, with finger nail decoration round the rims.