For over a thousand years the Bronze Age saw little change and as the weather became damper and warmer there came from the South-East a race known as the Celts. They were warlike and strongly built and although there is no evidence to say that they drove out the existing inhabitants, they became the dominant race over the area.

 

Corndrying Kiln typical of the Iron Age period

 

On the Weald in the remoter forests the descendants of the original Mesolithic hunters probably still survived and adapted themselves to changing conditions by becoming charcoal burners to supply the furnaces of the newly established iron-smelting industry in the Weald North of Hastings; in this way their descendants may have continued as forest nomads until quite recent times.

 

Roman Legionary

 

Hilltop forts and cities were established which were enclosed by defense works that still awe us by their sheer size and strength. Cissbury, The Trundle and Mount Caburn are the more noted sites but smaller fortified sites exist in other parts of Sussex.

 

In 75 B.C. the Belgae invaded and occupied Essex, Hertfordshire and part of Kent. Twenty years later two expeditions by 'Julius Caesar' occupied the South-East of the British Isles Followed four years later by an invasion of the Belgic tribe of the 'Atrebates' who landed on the Isle of Wight and in Hampshire and had overrun the area of Selsey.

 

When the Roman conquest of Britain came, Sussex to the West of Brighton was part of a Belgic state ruled by 'Cogidumnus'. These are the people popularly thought of as naked, woad-painted `Ancient Britons`.

 

'Cogidumnus' was from the beginning an ally of Rome and was appointed as local governor and the area was referred as `The Kingdom` in Roman documents. It was probably 'Cogidumnus' who founded Chichester as the local capital, conveniently on the coast road from Havant to Portslade Stane Street being constructed to link it directly with Londinium, The new commercial centre of Britain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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