ANCIENT MOUNDS, ROMANS & BURIALS

One hundred yards south west of Looes Farm in Saltdean Valley, there was an ancient burial ground under a mound of flints inhabited by early bronze age people. Over 150 tonnes of flints were later unearthed - much used for building materials.There is evidence that small groups of stone age people also lived there. In March 1813, Mr Charles Beard a landowner owning most of Saltdean, uncovered three urns in a large barrow with the smallest being well preserved. This contained the ashes and bones of a young person.

Above - A bronze age flanged axe found in Longridge Avenue.

In 1909 a large prehistoric tumulus was discovered on Telscombe Tye, destroyed while building a reservoir, with three internment's buried under the ground. The third burial was a crouched skeleton. Later excavations in 1922 unearthed 23 urns and flints along with pieces of burnt bone and shells.

Left - One of the Urns unearthed by a fox off Tumulus Road



IRON AGE PEOPLE
Urns discovered at Looes Barn have been subsequently dated at 1,700 - 1,300 BC - early Bronze Age.

There seems to have been an Iron Age population in Saltdean as in 1945 two small pits of pottery and cremated bones were discovered in a wartime trench on Telscombe Tye.

Left - Site of the Romano-British Village at Highdole Hill

Highdole Hill between Saltdean and Telscombe was home to a Romano-British village and pottery was found in this area in 1927 but by the 5th Century AD the Romans had left Sussex. New tribes settled in valleys off Tumulus Road and burial grounds were cut into the lynchet or ridge of the adjacent field system. In Ashdown Avenue, two Saxon skeletons were found in August 1959 during a house extension build, the graves having sea urchins and sponges next to the bodies.


ROMANS IN SALTDEAN
Additionally, in 1910 a schoolboy made an important archaeological discovery 18 inches below the cliff edge at Saltdean Gap. He found a cremation Urn that contained young human bones and those of a small pig dated from the first century AD after the Roman Conquest.

Early inhabitants were later pushed westward by Saxon, Jute, Danish and Norman invasions and the Domesday Book in 1086 lists a small hamlet in the area owned by the stepson-in-law of William the Conqueror, William de Warenne.

Above Left - Major archaeological sites in the Saltdean area