Introduction
We basically spent the holiday walking in different areas nearby the town of Littlehampton, within walking distance or a short train journey. Dad chose the route for most of the walks, and my parents and I were joined on several of them by Bob and Chris (who are also walkers).
Littlehampton is a seaside town where the River Arun runs into the English Channel. It has a harbour (on the river) and is not far from the South Downs. As usual, we found many interesting churches (some of which were built in the 1100s), which make up most of the pictures here. Sorry. :)
I've organised this set of pictures by theme instead of in chronological order.
Church architecture
Arundel, a nearby castle town, was the first place we visited. It has only a recently-built (19th century) Catholic cathedral, which wasn't all that impressive.
The small town - city, I suppose - of Chichester has a large cathedral. Mum stayed behind to attend the 'sung evensong' service there (apparently that isn't a tautology). Before, we'd had tea in a vaulted medieval undercroft which was all that remained of some other old building.
Later in the week we visited a small town called Bosham ('bish-bash Bosham' in my opinion, although apparently it is pronounced more like 'Bozzem').
On the Sunday, appropriately, we went on a church crawl - in the afternoon, not when services were on. Dad planned a walk which circled Littlehampton taking in four churches. (This is not a typical Dad-walk, but there aren't many street festivals in the Littlehampton area - we wouldn't even let him go to the Gay Pride event in Brighton.)
The church at Climping (or Clymping, depending on whom you believe), a tiny village west of Littlehampton, was quite impressive and quite old, having been rebuilt less than the average. We had to ask somebody for the key to get in, but here's the outside.
Other buildings
Back in Arundel, there were other nice buildings.
We didn't actually go inside the castle because it's rather expensive, but we saw it from outside. It is home to the Duke of Norfolk (who is seriously lost). He also appears to own most of the area.
From Arundel we walked through an extensive country park (guess who owned it) to Amberley.
Chichester, meanwhile, had easily-navigable roads (which I think were set out by the Romans or something).
Many thatched cottages in the area had fancy sculptures made from the straw. As ostentatious displays of wealth go, it's rather more picturesque than SUVs.
Church abstract
The church (not cathedral) in Arundel was actually quite nice inside.
Chichester Cathedral had an impressive interior.
On our second walk from Arundel we went some distance out of our way to a local village church (since, amazingly, there weren't any other churches scheduled for that day).
Climping church was great inside too.
Nature and countryside
The walk from Arundel to Amberley, mainly through the Lost Duke's park, included some pretty countryside.
Our circular walk from Arundel covered farmland, hillside, and forest plantations.
From Bosham we walked around Chichester Harbour (a natural harbour that's basically a huge area of inland water, except at low tide, when it's presumably a huge area of inland mud).
On the sand dunes by Littlehampton's West Beach, a huge flock of starlings were perching atop bushes.
Church roofs
Sea
Chichester Harbour had an interesting road around it. We had to turn back and change our plans at one point.
Littlehampton does have beaches.
Church windows
Arundel cathedral (the one I didn't like that much) did have quite nice large towers.
Bosham church was actually pretty unusual inside, with a high-level platform.
Climping church again...
Littlehampton harbour
The harbour was just across the river from us, on a modern footbridge which could retract into the side to allow ships passage (we saw this happen once, from a distance). While not quite as nice as the swing bridge that had been there previously – which we saw pictured in the museum – this did the job.
Church details
A couple of bits from Chichester Cathedral.
Bosham church had this monument to a radio engineer, presumably a local.
Poling church, from the church-crawl.
Finally, Climping church had an interesting sight.
Littlehampton gasholder
Surely the gasholder deserves a section to itself. You can see this for miles (from Arundel, for instance).
