fgfgfg

One very rewarding excursion in to the South Downs is this Iron Age hill fort for only three miles from the centre of Worthing. Formed sometime around 250 BC, Cissbury Ring is on an isolated hilltop at Worthing’s highest point, and has awesome views in all directions. Up here you can make out Portsmouth’s Spinnaker Tower, Beachy Head near Eastbourne and the Isle of Wight. The fort is the second largest in the UK, spreading over 60 hectares and encircled with ditches and banks where the fort’s colossal wall used to stand. Human activity at Cissbury Ring goes back much further as a Neolithic flint mine burrows into the hill, with shafts up to 12 metres deep.

With a National Park in Worthing’s back garden you may be itching to get out into the countryside for walks and bike trips. The South Downs are a range of rolling chalk hills across southern England from Hampshire to East Sussex. In 2011 this became the newest National Park in the UK, conserving a 626 square-mile patch of quiet green countryside. One long -distance walking trail that crosses the downs and passes close to Worthing is Monarch’s Way. This route follows Charles II’s escape from England after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 and concludes just east of Worthing in Shoreham where he set sail for France.

Worthing has a long pebble beach on both sides of the pier, backed by a promenade with cosy copper-topped shelters. Maybe the prettiest part is to the east of the pier, for its imposing Georgian and Victorian townhouses around Steyne Gardens and monuments like the Dome Cinema. A bit further along are the East Beach studios, where pavilions on the promenade house studios for Worthing’s growing community of artists and crafts-people, making and selling paintings, sculpture, clothing, ceramics, carvings and jewellery. For family fun there’s crazy golf, as well as an array of amusements at the Worthing Lido. K66 board sports organises stand-up Paddleboarding lessons and trips, and provides all the equipment you’ll need.

The botanist and horticulturalist Sir Frederick Stern established this spellbinding garden at a former chalk quarry in 1909. Embedded in downland with vistas of the Channel, the quarry had almost no soil and unfavourable planting conditions. But Steyn toiled for 50 years to show that plants could flourish on chalk. The species he introduced to Highdown are now a National Plant Collection of unusual trees and plants. The gardens are at their best in spring and summer when snowdrops, anemones, daffodils, crocuses and then peonies and bearded irises all take turns to bloom.

Worthing’s fine Victorian pier is almost 300 metres long and dates to 1862. Like all English piers, this one has suffered calamities over the years like storm damage, but, unlike most, it has retained its historic pavilions. The 650-seater Pavilion Theatre is Worthing’s main venue for musicals, plays, stand-up comedians and touring bands. From there you can saunter along the pier, which has iron gaslights, painted railings and sweet stained glass panels for shelter from the wind. In the middle is an amusement arcade from the 1930s, while at the far end is the Southern Pavilion, with a function hall and tearoom.

This excellent town museum is in an Edwardian hall from 1908, at what used to be Worthing’s library. The museum’s acclaimed textile and costume collection is one of the largest in the UK, rich with pieces from the Regency and Victorian periods, but also chronicling the dramatic changes to women’s fashion in the 20th century. There are engrossing displays of local archaeology, including axes from Neolithic flint mines in the downs, the Patching hoard of Roman gold coins and the remnants of an Anglo-Saxon longboat. One enthralling exhibit is an Ancient Egyptian vase with a Greek inscription unearthed at an Anglo-Saxon cemetery. The art gallery has painting by Ivon Hitchens, William Holman Hunt and Lucien Pissarro, and sculpture by the Estonian Modernist Dora Gordine.