Jugg's Road: Fishy . . . Rude & Haunted?
This cache is the 7th in a series of 11 caches which will take you on a fine scenic circuit from the pretty, historic Kingson-near-Lewes up, onto and across part of the South Downs, then back down an ancient lane into the village - with a side-arm to visit another viewpoint and old windmill. Without caches, it can be completed in around an hour, but with plenty of caches to find . . . you might need 2 hours or more.
This is also the 2nd of 3 caches along what could be called the Ashcombe Spur - a branch off the main Kingston Trail circuit which goes along Kingston Ridge, crosses the main road Ashcombe Lane/Hollow and proceeds a little further to Ashcombe Mill - all along Jugg's Road.
Please note that the terrain rating and relevant attributes are based on the assumption that you will be following the cache sequence.
The cache, a camo-taped 35mm film pot, is hidden just off this ancient road a short distance up from the junction where it crosses Ashcombe Hollow.
Juggs Road (otherwise known as Juggs Lane, or Juggs Way - and with or without an apostrophe!) is a medieval drove or drovers road which runs for around 8 miles/13km from Brighton to Lewes and is an example of an ancient ridgeway - a path or road following a ridge - the highest part of the local landscape.
It was named after the Brighton fishwives who transported their fish for the market in Lewes by donkey in either baskets or earthenware jugs. Jug or Jugg was also a nickname for the Brighton fisherman.
See here for a mapped description of the Jugg's Road walk. See here for a video of a walk west from Juggs Corner (where Juggs Road crosses Ashcombe Hollow, along Kingston Ridge and up onto the Downs as the road heads towards Brighton.
The nearby crossroads is known locally as Jugg's Corner or Nan Kemp's Corner. Generations of Kingston kids have scared themselves silly by trying to conjure up the ghost of Nan Kemp. Exactly when she lived has been lost in local folklore, but her grisly crime has been handed down (and no doubt elaborated upon) with squeamish relish.
Mrs Kemp was said to have murdered her baby and served up the unfortunate infant in a pie for her husband when he came in from the fields. She was in due course, tried, hanged and supposedly buried in Kingston's Ashcombe Lane. Local legend said if you ran around her grave three times with your eyes shut her spirit would appear. The exact location of her last resting place also became a little hazy as the years went by, but at the top of Ashcombe Lane is Nan Kemp's Cottage and the grave was always thought to be nearby.
In an effort to clean up the smut all around them, in 2009 Lewes District Council decided to crack down on offensive names in their district and enacted a measure to ban suggestive, rude or just unpleasant road names from the map.
So they decided to ban Hoare Road because of the potential homonymic mix up with ladies of the night, but felt that Juggs Road was okay. Other banned names included Gasworks Road, Tip House and Coalpit Lane, all of which were deemed 'aesthetically unsuitable' as well as 'names capable of deliberate misinterpretation' like the aforementioned Hoare Road and Typple Avenue, Quare Street and Corfe Close. However, Jugg's Road and Cockshut Road strangely remained unbanned.
See here for a mapped description of the Jugg's Road walk and here for a video of a walk west from Juggs Corner (where Juggs Road crosses Ashcombe Hollow, along Kingston Ridge and up onto the Downs as the road heads towards Brighton.
