Imagine this quiet valley dotted with houses, the smoke of hearths drifting into the sky. The fields are busy with farmers tending crops and livestock. Depending on the time of year, you would see farming families sowing corn, weeding the growing crops or harvesting oats and root crops. The terraces cut into the slope, like 3 fingers, (see right) were created by farmers in the Middle Ages needing deeper soils and flatter land to grow their crops on.
Look across and down the valley to your right for the remains of Norman Pilsbury Castle (see illustration, left). It was built by the Ferrers family to stamp their authority on this part of their estate. The Ferrers were barons, granted land for fighting alongside William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings.