Southdown sheep wool and cereals due to rising volumes of imports from the British Empire was accompanied by the Wet Years - a six-year period of cold, wet weather with little sun. In the Second World War, the South Downs were commandeered for military training, only fringe farms being left to produce milk for the towns. Sheep farming declined further after the war, although it is now being encouraged again through the designation of the downland as an environmentally sensitive area, and the restoration of arable land to sheepwalk. The Southdown has been placed on a watch list by the Rare Breeds
Southdown Motor Services one of four "airport network" service connecting Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton and Stansted with Central London. Southdown celebrated its 70th anniversary in 1985, the year before deregulation, and buses carried a special logo (shown above) which also appeared on publicity. With deregulation, the company adopted "Southdown East & Mid Sussex" and "Southdown West Sussex" fleetnames, while the Brighton & Hove operations became a separate company (Brighton & Hove). The East Sussex division registered a fairly basic network from the outset, linking a number of services together to form trunk services linking the major towns, sometimes by fairly circuitous routes. A version