One early nineteenth-century writer comments: ‘Several well-connected fairy stories were current, from ancient tradition, towards the close of the last century; and we are enabled, through the aid of one, who, himself a native of the South Downs, has now passed the ‘three-score and ten’ of life, to preserve one or two of these all but obsolete legends, which we shall take the liberty of relating, as nearly as may be collected, in the verba ipsissima of the Master Fowington aforesaid. With regard to the first of these stories, I have only to premise that Burlow Castle formerly stood on an elevated spot near the little river Cuckmere, which is the western boundary of the easternmost group of the Downs’ (Lower 1854, 160-161). He goes on to describe an encounter between fairy and farmer, suggesting Burlow or Burlough Castle was a fairy haunt.

Note the ‘castle’ is marked ‘earthworks’ on the os: note that there is some debate as to the real dates of the construction.