 It is significant that Highdown was being used as a cemetery by pagan Saxons at the same time that Romano-British villa at nearby Northbrook, less than a mile away was still in use by local Celtic Christians.This suggests that Celtic Britons and Saxons were able to live side-by-side in relative harmony.The Saxons settled nearby Goring and Sompting and by the 13th century the settlement, then known as Wortinge, was populated primarily by farmers and mackerel fishermen.