Ockley grew up along Stane Street, the Roman road from Chichester to London, now the A29, and most of the village sits around a long, broad green on the west side of the road. Cottages, some of them 16th-century, are dotted round it under the trees. On the green is the old well, left to the village by a local governess, Jane Scott, so the poor had clean water; it was used until the 1950s. Leith Hill, the highest point in south-east England, rises to the north, and just south-east of the village Vann Lake and Ockley Woods is ancient woodland round a lake dammed in the 18th century for a mill that was never built.
© David Howard / Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
