Four Marks

Four Marks spent the best part of a thousand years as the dry bit of ridge that the neighbouring parishes used as common land, because nobody sensible wanted to farm thin soil with no water. Then the post-war years discovered that nobody sensible minded either, provided the house was detached, the drive took two cars and the bungalow had a conservatory, and the commons filled up in exactly that order. It sits on the old pilgrims' road to Canterbury, at the edge of the South Downs, and the Windmill Inn at the ancient crossroads is now the Co-op. That's where the pilgrimage goes these days.