Piddinghoe Parish Council

Welcome to the Piddinghoe Parish Website

Today Piddinghoe is a quiet picturesque village in the South Downs National Park close to Newhaven. In 2011 the parish had a population of 255.

The village sits in the beautiful Ouse valley, on the west side of the river, offering opportunities for sailing, boating, wild swimming and fishing. It is a fast-flowing tidal river however, and can be dangerous without local knowledge. The parish church of St. John the Evangelist dates from the early 12th Century and is one of only three round tower churches in Sussex.The cedar tiles were renewed recently and on top of the tower is the ‘fish’ mentioned in Kipling’s poem, Sussex:

I will go north about the shaws

And the deep ghylls that breed

Huge oaks and old, the which we hold

No more than Sussex weed;

Or south where windy Piddinghoe’s

Begilded dolphin veers

And red beside wide-bank’ed Ouse

Lie down our Sussex steers.

St. John’s church in Piddinghoe is one of only three round tower churches in Sussex

Piddinghoe parish also stretches south across the C7 Lewes to Newhaven road to Hoddern Farm, a mile or so up Harping Hill, a name that can be traced back to the days of the Norman Conquest. Hoddern Farm nowadays includes a livery yard, arable fields and sheep pasture.

Besides its agricultural economy Piddinghoe had a quarry and whiting works as well as a clay pit from which material was shipped up and down the river. There is a distinctive 19th Century bottle-shaped brick kiln, restored by the Lewes Archaeological Group.