Folk Rite & Fertility · Wilmington, East Sussex

The Long Man of Wilmington

A 235ft chalk giant clasping two staves, a focus for neo-pagan and May-Day fertility ritual where the Long Man Morris Men dance at dawn. A 2003 excavation led by Professor Martin Bell of the University of Reading (with the Open University's Landscape Mysteries) strongly suggested the figure dates from the Early Modern period — the 16th or 17th century AD.

StatusDocumented + folklore
Datefigure probably 16th–17th c.; May-Day rites ongoing
The peopleanonymous makers, Long Man Morris Men
The siteHill figure, Windover Hill, Wilmington (Sussex Archaeological Society)
Coordinates50.81000, 0.18800 (confidence 5/5)