On a countryside ramble in West Sussex, William Cobbett finds the weather turning against him.
William Cobbett’s Rural Rides (1830) was a best-seller in its day, a travelogue of his wanderings through England’s green and pleasant land, and a diary of his meetings with farmers and their families. August 2nd, 1823, found William atop Duncton Hill as he made his way across the South Downs from Petworth to Singleton in West Sussex, looking up at an ominous sky.