We dawdle at a crossways, puzzling over our map. The guide instructs us to take the path through the larch trees, but the entire stand of conifers has been felled, the logs stacked to dry in neat pyramids by the side of the track. Honey coloured globs of resin ooze from the cut stumps, infusing the air with a sweet menthol aroma.
We continue on, and after a 15-minute trudge along the mud churned bridleway we spot our next route marker up ahead, one of the 14 chalk stones by the environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy.
Installed in June 2002 the roughhewn 1.8-metre (6ft) diameter spheres form a five-mile trail between West Dean and Cocking Hill on the neighbouring Cowdray estate. The once-white ball is weatherworn and dulled by a grey lichen patina, but today it appears surrounded by a halo, the radiant haze of a colony of more than a million wild daffodils that spill out of the wood, down the primrose studded bank and flood across the glade like a rippling river of gold.
Narcissus pseudonarcissus is the only species of daffodil native to the UK, and was once widespread, but numbers began declining rapidly during the 19th century due to habitat loss, woodland neglect, illegal uprooting for transplantation into gardens, and hybridisation with more vigorous non-native varieties.
Here, the Sussex Wildlife Trust has preserved the traditional management system of hazel coppice with ancient oak standards, controlling the bracken and brambles that can shade out the daffodil bulbs.
Wild daffodils are also known as the Lent lily, since they often flower and die away between Ash Wednesday and Easter. But with the celebration falling early this year they are just reaching their peak.
Lacking the gaudy fripperies of cultivated varieties, they have a far more delicate beauty. Standing just 15cm tall they are half the size of commercial daffodils and more subtly coloured, their lemon-hued trumpets surrounded by petals the pale yellow of clotted cream, but en masse they are resplendent. We watch them bob and shimmy in the breeze, while a trio of nectaring male brimstone butterflies flicker from bloom to bloom on sun-kissed wings.
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