1. ‘SUSSEx by the Sea’ is the phrase
conveniently devised in the early ’90s to
describe various bits of the south coast –
predominantly Bognor Regis, Arundel
and Littlehampton – between the English
Channel and the South Downs.
By all accounts, Bognor Regis is less
violently unpleasant than its name belies
but unfortunately time constraints meant
I had to skip it, so I opted to centre my
stay in Arundel and visit Littlehampton.
What fascinated me in advance of my
visit was how an area can just be
‘invented’. It certainly hadn’t registered
on my tourism radar before, so was there
any substance behind the rebranding?
Sussex by the Sea Tourism Officer
Deborah West explained to me: “Arun
Local Authority District came into being
in 1974 and the tourism department spent
18 years trying to promote it. But in 1992,
86 per cent of people surveyed still
thought Arun was an island off the coast
of Scotland, so a new destination ‘brand’
was needed. Both Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton had poor images as holiday
destinations so in 1994, the Arun brand
was changed to ‘Sussex by the Sea’.
coastal Sussex touring
August 2010 Camping & Caravanning 3130 Camping & Caravanning August 2010
where the river
meets the sea
after a series of executions and political
problems. The recently-built garden in his
honour is a fantastic tribute to Thomas
and contains an array of gilt fountains,
water features, tropical leaves and even a
green oak version of Oberon’s Palace,
based on designs from the early 1600s.
A 15-minute stroll down the road
from the castle is the Arundel Wildfowl
and Wetlands Trust (WWT) Wetland
Centre – 26 hectares of wetland habitat,
reclaimed from a watercress farm, that’s
home to hundreds of wildfowl and one of
the country’s most successful water vole
reintroduction programmes. Our first
glimpse of one of these endangered
mammals was as a wet, furry and
distinctly podgy face popped from one of
the hundreds of burrows in the ditch walls
around the outskirts of the castle.
Patricia Warren, Marketing Manager
at the Wetlands Centre, told me: “The
It was originally the name of a song
from the First World War and so had
nice, nostalgic, quaint and evocative
associations for people.”
Incidentally, you can listen to that
song at eastsussexconcertband.org.uk.
Arundel itself is a thoroughly pretty,
affluent little town sat in the shadow of
its disproportionately enormous castle. A
visit to this imposing seat of the 12th
century Earls of Arundel was first on my
itinerary and, late on a sunny Tuesday
afternoon, I had the place almost entirely
to myself.
I liked the place a great deal – it had
all the things a castle should, including a
formidable collection of armour and eerie
portraits of brooding ancestors, glowering
down from the stone walls – very Scooby-
Doo. Rather more on the feminine side,
Arundel Castle has strong connections
with Queen Victoria and was the film
location for parts of The Young Victoria,
released in early 2009. If you visit the
suite of rooms specially decorated two
years in advance of the real Queen
Victoria’s three-night stay, you can see
why she and her enormous entourage
liked the place. It’s decorated in her
favourite shades of dusky pink and gold
with a tiny staircase going up to the bed
on to which the short Royal Legs
struggled to clamber.
Throughout your visit, knowledgeable
room stewards offer information and go
misty-eyed as they enthuse about the
current Duke and Duchess of Norfolk’s
various soirées and charity events within
the castle walls. The highlight for me,
however, was the Collector Earl’s Garden.
The nickname ‘Collector Earl’ put me
rather in mind of a wombling fop,
snuffling under sofa cushions for loose
change but I couldn’t have been more
wrong. Thomas Howard, the 14th Earl of
Arundel, was one of England’s first serious
art collectors and had a useful habit of
retrieving deceased family members’
estates, titles and honours too – a fortune
that helped revive the Norfolk family
Below: Boats at Littlehampton
Harbour. Left: Arundel Castle and the
River Arun. Below left to right:
Littlehampton amusements; Arundel
castle; a water vole at Arundel WWT
Photolibrary
In 1994 a slice of the South-East was rebranded in
an effort to attract more tourists to its sunny
shores. Sixteen years on LAURA RAINBOW heads
to the coast to dive into Sussex by the Sea

2. coastal Sussex touring
August 2010 Camping & Caravanning 33
illustrates the town’s maritime and
cultural heritage with interactive displays
and includes a viewing tower with
gorgeous vistas of the coast and
countryside. Harbour Park amusement
park near the seafront offers
family-friendly rides outdoors and an
arcade indoors, and there are little boats
for hire on the oyster pond where
fishermen used to stash their catches of
shellfish. The East Beach is pebbly with
some sand, gently sloping into calm,
shallow sea just right for paddling, while
the West Beach is sandier and part of the
local nature reserve and Climping Beach
Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Among all this mellow, tranquil family
fun, the East Beach Café sticks out like a
sore thumb. This unusual-looking
building, completed in 2007, has won
more than 20 national and international
awards for design, architecture,
steelwork, craftsmanship and
engineering. Its appearance is
apparently inspired by seaside
shapes such as driftwood, ripples
and sand dunes, and, like the
hull of a ship, is a self-
supporting structure. To me, it
felt a little bit like eating and
drinking inside a shell – Laura
the human hermit crab.
What’s admirable about this
place is the little touches of
innovation. On cold winter
nights last year, the café ran
bangers and mash and film
nights for £10 a head, including
locally-made sausages and a
decent schedule of movies.
Sussex food evenings have been
held and the menu always
features fresh, local seafood and
seasonal, regional produce.
While you may not find
enough to amuse yourself for a
whole week in Littlehampton,
especially if the weather is too
bad for beach activities, there’s
still plenty around the area to
get stuck into. You could easily
spend a day or two exploring
the South Downs, a couple of
days eating ice cream, playing
on dodgems and paddling in the
sea at Littlehampton or Bognor
then maybe a day or two
enjoying the attractions and
atmosphere of Arundel. There’s
also ample scope to spend a day
in Chichester or Brighton, and
no shortage of extras in the rest
of Sussex too – surfing at West
Wittering beach, admiring the
chalk cliffs and pretty towns of
the Seven Sisters, exploring
Roman history at Fishbourne or
even timing your visit with a
motor racing event at
Goodwood race track.
Why this area needed a new
name to get tourists to visit is a
mystery to me – it’s a lovely
corner of the country with
everything you need for one of
those endless summer holidays
you had when you were a kid.
hundreds more species. We were mobbed
by moorhen chicks with bizarrely
enormous feet. Insects and marshland
flowers add yet more colour and life to the
marshy surroundings – which will be
explained by your boat guide – and make
for an altogether relaxing and educational
experience.
So, what about the ‘by the sea’
element of this trip? On day two I headed
to Littlehampton at the mouth of the
River Arun and at the base of the South
Downs. According to its own publicity,
the town basks in record levels of
sunshine, which certainly seemed to be
the case on our visit when the sea and
harbour were transformed into sparkling
blue, glassy waters.
In terms of things to do,
Littlehampton seemed fairly traditional.
The harbour-side Look and Sea! centre
water vole reintroduction at the centre
was so successful, they escaped and
established colonies up the road in the
castle grounds. In part, they thrived
because of the mink-proof fences around
the wetlands centre, so there were no
natural predators there.”
More evidence of voles can be found
as you glide silently around the wetlands
centre’s reed beds on a boat trip. You can
hear watery plips of things sliding off the
mud banks, faint rustling from secret dens
and occasionally the sound of crunching
as they gnaw through the rosebay
willowherb and reeds. Sticking out of the
reeds, there are also little platforms where
the voles mark their territories with
droppings, thus helping staff monitor
their numbers. Occasionally, a vole will
even swim past or dive from the
bank.
Birds, however,
are the big thing
at Arundel WWT
and visitors can
enjoy getting up
close to rare
Hawaiian geese,
moorhens, terns, warblers,
migrating martins and
swallows, peregrine
falcons, firecrests,
kingfishers and literally
32 Camping & Caravanning August 2010
Eat Pallant of Arundel (above)
Local cheeses and deli nibbles, regional fruit and
vegetables and a great selection of local beers and
wines. They also do picnic hampers, cakes, juices and
fresh sandwiches.
Tel: 01903 882288 Web: pallantofarundel.co.uk
Stay Graffham, Slindon or Chichester
Graffham Club Site is within the South Downs Area of
Outstanding Natural Beauty. Slindon Club Site is set in
an orchard on National Trust land. Remember though
there’s no toilet or showers. Chichester Club Site is not
far away either and is set near Chichester Harbour.
Tel: 0845 130 7633 or 024 7647 5426
Web: siteseeker.co.uk
Do Wander the South Downs
You can dip into portions of this gorgeous national park
on day trips or walk the whole South Downs Way using
a network of about 2,000 miles of trail. Various options
are available for walkers, horse-riders and cyclists (see
website below).
Tel: 01243 558700 Web: visitsouthdowns.com
See The towns of Sussex
Both lively Brighton and historical Chichester are within
about 20 miles of Arundel and spending a day in each
could turn your weekend break into a longer holiday.
Fairly regular trains and buses go to both from Arundel.
Tel: 01243 263065 Web: visitsussex.org
Tel: 08457 484950 for train information
Web: nationalrail.co.uk
Tel: 01903 690025 for bus information
Web: compass-travel.co.uk
This month August entertainment
The Arundel Festival 2010 takes place from 20 to 30
August, featuring performing arts, music, street
entertainment, a classic car rally, open-air cinema and
opera at the castle.
Web: arundelfestival.co.uk
This picture: A Hawaiian goose. Below left: A
magpie goose. Below far left: A yellow flag iris
found at Arundel WWT. Below right: Colourful
bathers’ huts at Littlehampton
The East Beach
Café, Littlehampton
Pony trekking on
the South Downs
NickCotrell/WWTArundelWetlandCentre
©sussexbythesea.com