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The vicar is almost vibrating with enthusiasm.

It's close to midnight on Christmas Eve, and on this night everyone in the village has come to St. Peter's. They have filed through the low, stone gate of the churchyard, across its damp grounds, past ancient, leaning gravestones and huge monkey-puzzle trees, to fill the narrow wooden pews of the 12th-century church.

And then the great moment for oratory is upon them. The vicar's face grows rosier as he starts in on his theme: the culture's obsession with celebrity (Britney Spears, specifically) and the importance of Christian values. As he begins to soar, some of the crumblies, as we affectionately refer to the elderly, snowy-haired folk, start to nod off.

But the vicar pays no heed. He is in full flight, pate shining under the dim light, belly jiggling, arms gesticulating. He is playing his part in tradition, after all. The parish has always been an important gathering place, and it's the vicar's job to attempt deliverance of some sort.

Nothing changes much in this part of the world. And that's the draw for travellers to towns such as Lodsworth, a hamlet of 600 people in West Sussex. The characters here – some more eccentric than others – are part of a ceaseless pageant, tied to a timeless landscape of narrow, twisting roads and private homes dating back to the 14th century.

I love the feeling that beneath my feet are layers and layers of history, a sort of sediment of humanity. Unlike the thrill of being a rare traveller on virgin territory – in the High Arctic, for example – the joy here is in being just one of a long line of people who understand the area's charms. This landscape has inspired many artists, and every part of it seems to have been trimmed, tilled or touched in some way by human endeavour.

E.H. Shepard, for instance, the illustrator of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, lived in Lodsworth. (His gravestone is on the grounds of St. Peter's Church.) A.A. Milne, the author of those books, resided nearby in East Sussex, where Ashdown Forest was the inspiration for Christopher Robin's Hundred Acre Wood.

It's easy to take in the countryside, as it's laced with public footpaths. Follow one across Winnie-the-Pooh stiles through the spooky forests with arching trees. Or wander across the rolling, quilted landscapes that were captured by the painter J.M.W. Turner.

In Petworth, a large town nearby, there is a vast mansion, built in the late 17th century and now part of the National Trust. In the 1800s, Lord Egremont, its resident (the current lord still lives in part of the estate), would invite Turner to paint there.

You can walk through Petworth Park, too, the 283-hectare grounds surrounding the house. Designed by British landscape architect Lancelot “Capability” Brown, its gently sloping hills are home to the largest and oldest herd of fallow deer in England. The stone walls that undulate around its edges were built by prisoners of war from the Napoleonic conflicts.

THROUGH A BOXWOOD HEDGE

I come here often. My parents, who were born in Canada but have lived in London, England, for nearly 30 years, own a country house on the periphery of Lodsworth. Called the Pound House, it was once the site where stray cattle and sheep were impounded until their ownership was determined. There has been a house on the property since the 1880s, but theirs was erected in the arts and crafts style around 1930.

Still, anyone can find a place that transports them back in time. In nearby towns, there are many historic inns. Guy Fawke used to drink in the oldest part of The Spread Eagle, a popular inn in Midhurst. The Crown Inn in Chiddingfold is one of the oldest drinking establishments in England: Built as a resting place for monks on pilgrimages to Canterbury Cathedral, it dates back 600 years – in 1522 King Edward VI stayed here, and in 1591 Queen Elizabeth I was reportedly a guest.

And it doesn't matter which season you choose to come here. They all have their merits. In the spring, I love to see the bluebells on the forest floor – a brief, spontaneous carpet of iridescence. In the summer, the landscape is rich with colour. The view from my parents' house is facilitated by a crescent-shaped wedge cut in the high boxwood hedge that surrounds their abundant garden, where I have sat on the grass at dusk, greeted by a Beatrix Potter hedgehog who waddled out from the shadows.

In the distance is the South Downs, a protected chalk escarpment. You can walk there on a 160-kilometre footpath, one of Britain's National Trails. Following old routes through villages, past pubs and farms, it can be joined at any point and is clearly marked on maps and by wooden signposts. Beyond it lies the sea.

There are also summer events to enjoy. In Chichester, a cathedral city to the south, I've seen performers such as Ralph Fiennes at the Festival Theatre. In Glyndebourne, the opera festival takes place on the grounds of a 700-year-old mansion; there is nothing so English as eating a light picnic supper in black tie attire on the velvet green lawn at intermission. The summer routine includes a trip to the Goodwood horse races, too.

And I've been here for more fleeting – if memorable – events as well. In August 1999, I sat in the garden of the vicarage to take in the eclipse of the sun (almost complete in Sussex). From a small tin shed, the ebullient vicar wheeled out an enormous, homemade-looking telescopic contraption with which to safely view the eclipse. As the sky suddenly darkened, birds swooping into the trees, he pontificated from the edge of his lily patch about the cosmic wonder.

GHOSTS OF CHRISTMASES PAST

But it is Christmas in Sussex, where I will be again this year, that I most enjoy.

At dusk on Christmas Eve, neighbours gather at the local pub, The Hollist Arms, the only place of business in Lodsworth proper and the town's social and physical centre. The ruddy-faced publican emerges with free mulled wine. Sheets of carol music are passed around, and we sing, flashlights illuminating the words.

The villagers easily accommodate visitors, just as locals in other pubs and inns do. There is so much to discuss: sheep and opera and beer. And ghosts. I once walked through a forest adjacent to Ebernoe, a nearby hamlet, and got so spooked that I had to turn back: Many victims of the Black Plague were buried there, and some walkers have reportedly encountered the ghost of an old man, who sits on a fallen tree and carries on a conversation.

In Lodsworth, meanwhile, in a 15th-century house called Church Cottage, the ghost of an old woman is often seen peering from the windows. On one New Year's Day, the resident of the house regaled me with stories of the ghosts who live there – all friendly, apparently.

More than the indoor joys of Christmas, though – and no one here ever utters the politically correct “Happy Holidays” as part of their hospitality, which includes plum pudding – it's the outdoors that affords the greatest pleasure. It's damp and cold in winter. The snow rarely stays on the ground. But in the forest, holly bushes produce their red berries as if on cue. The landscape is subdued in sepia browns.

One of my family's favourite ways to explore is to walk from Lodsworth to a town called Tillington, which takes about two hours. We put on wellies and warm jackets, setting off before lunch. As we go, we enter forests and traverse fields. The children pick up sticks and toss them from a footbridge into a small stream. My father, in his gentleman's tweed hat, leads us expertly.

Eventually, we arrive at The Horse Guards Inn in Tillington. Named for the royal cavalry regiment that summered in the town in centuries past, the place hums with conviviality – patrons crowd around the wooden bar and a jolly proprietor lists off hearty dishes such as lamb and beef and puddings.

At the close of the meal, we put on our jackets again before we set out, back across the fields, to home, retracing not only our own footsteps, but those of the many who have come before us.

Sarah Hampson is a columnist and feature writer with Globe Life.