Giant · Wilmington
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He was walking down the hill, Ann Downs said, until they moved his feet.
See it clearly
Scheduled monument on open access downland; footpath from the Wilmington car park. Check before you go.
A giant with two staves on a chalk hillside. Pilgrim, Green Man or Tudor joke, and nobody agrees which.
The Long Man is a 72 m (235 ft) outline of a man holding two staves, cut into the steep face of Windover Hill above Wilmington. Locally it was once called the Green Man. An early explanation, sometimes given as local tradition, was that monks from Wilmington Priory cut it to show a pilgrim. Antiquarians doubted monks would carve a naked figure. People used to call it Neolithic, but Martin Bell's 2003 dig pointed to the 16th or 17th century. Ann Downs, who grew up at the priory in the 1840s, said the feet once pointed down so the giant seemed to be walking down the hill.