The Long Man of Wilmington

One of the things we saw during my trip to Sussex was The Long Man of Wilmington near Eastbourne. As its name suggests, it is very long... hehehe.. it's supposed to be 235 feet high on the slopes of Windover Hill in Wilmington. This can be seen from a long long way off because they restored and put concrete blocks on it and kept the blocks painted white so that people can see it from miles away.

The origin of this, as with a lot of things, is unknown. Nobody can figure out why it is there or who put it there. But they do know that long long ago, the Long Man could only be seen under certain light conditions and after light snowfall. Then, people had it marked out in yellow bricks but got the feet positions wrong, the things the Long Man is holding wrong , changed the helmet-shaped head ( they changed this cos it resembled a 'helmeted war god' and was and still is one of the sites where druids and pagans give thanks to nature) and left out details of its manhood (apparently because of the prudish Victorians according to the website http://www.sussexpast.co.uk/property/site.php?site_id=13) Then in 1969, it was restored by concrete blocks so it can be seen a long way off like from the car park at the Wilmington Priory where we took these pictures.

As you can see from the picture, on the day we went, the wind was very strong and it was very cold. But you can see the Long Man in the picture standing on my palm...wahahaha...