Climping Beach, Atherington, (nr Littlehampton) W. Sussex

Great locations are part and parcel of the crop circle phenomenon, ancient stones circles, chalk hill figures, hill forts, and barrows. But crop circles by the sea are unusual. This is in fact the second crop circle to appear by the coast in the UK this year. An early circle in oilseed rape (canola) was reported on May 24th close to St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. You can see some footage of the Cornish circle here.

This was to be a very memorable flight for us, along the south coast with views of Southampton, Portsmouth and Chichester harbours, Hayling and Thorney Islands. The little village of Atherington lies between Bognor Regis and Littlehampton in West Sussex and sits beside the charmingly named Climping Beach. The small wheat field is directly adjacent to the seashore so makes for a very picturesque location.

It’s a small formation measuring approximately 150-160ft in diameter in a field of very mature wheat, with heads beginning to drop. The design is an attractive four-fold pattern made from a series of standing circles creating a cross design. The circles are standing and outlined by flattened pathways – it reminds me very much of the circle at Woolstone Hill earlier on in the year which is of a similar design-style. The small central circle is flattened and contains a very pretty weaved floor-lay.

Four is the number of material reality, the material world, or the substance and matter of the world; the building blocks of all that is material. The cross represents the four cardinal points and the classical four states of matter; Fire, Air, Earth and Water. In this design, matter seems to be emanating from a central point where the crop is woven – the Warp and Weft of material reality? With number four comes depth, preceding it are the point, height and width. This is key to the number four as it is the addition of depth that gives substance to matter. It makes reality substantial.

The quaternity (four-fold), was also Jung’s concept of the human as four – Sensing, Thinking, Feeling and Intuiting. It might be said that it is these capacities that give us substance!

The location of the circle by the sea (water/feeling) seemed somehow apt. It made a huge emotional impression on us as we flew around it.

Photographic Enlargements: are now available of many of the 2017 crop circles click here to see our fantastic range.

Visiting the Circles? If you are thinking of visiting any crop circles this summer, please read our Visiting the Crop Circles section. It’s full of useful information and etiquette for visiting the countryside and the crop circles. Please remember that you should not enter any fields without the express permission of the farmer.

Please Help to keep us Flying in 2017: If you have enjoyed looking at our pictures and information please consider making a small donation to keep us flying. There are so few of us left regularly recording the circles it’s really important that we continue. And while some now use drones to record the circles, it is important that there are still images taken from aircraft where the best quality camera equipment can be used and images that include the broad vista of the landscape can be taken. This kind of photography is expensive and it gets harder with each passing year to raise the funds we need to continue our work, but if everyone who regularly looked at this website made a small donation we would meet the funds we need. You can make a donation here.

NOTE: Some of the images below are beautiful landscape scenes. Click on each image to enlarge them and see the whole picture.

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Geometry Gallery

See above for a description of the geometry of four.

This rather lovely Celtic Cross at Climping Beach was interesting to draw and the completed pencil-line drawing looked like waves in water  – which being next to the ocean seemed quite apt. It was almost a shame to finish the painting because the pencil line was so beautiful. However I chose the colours directly from the landscape; the blue of the sky, the pale gold of the sand on the beach and the field of wheat and the blue-green of the sea.

Karen currently has a section of her original paintings (2017) for sale. Click here to see the paintings available.