Littlehampton – November 2009

The town began as the Anglo-Saxon village of Hampton. The name Little Hampton was given to it in the fourteenth century by sailors in order to differentiate it from the larger Southampton.

The port was a royal dockyard of Henry VIII; a quay was built here in the 1670s.

Littlehampton Redoubt was built to guard the town in the 1750s.

Littlehampton used to be a resort of artists and writers, attracted by its peaceful atmosphere compared to larger towns such as Brighton. In particular Shelley and Coleridge spent a lot of time there, as well as Lord Byron who often swam in the river.

In the 1820s Littlehampton overtook Arundel, the oldest port on the Arun as the river's main harbour. Littlehampton officially became a town in 1853.

The town's first lifeboat was captained by Charles Pelham (1885-1940). In 1967 the RNLI station was opened having been funded by an appeal by the television programme Blue Peter. This was the first Blue Peter lifeboat.

Sue outside the Lifeboat Station on the River Arun. Looking south. This small fishing vessel is making heavy weather of ‘going to sea’ because of the very fast incoming tide. The only way to describe it is like water going down a plug hole. This is a view from the retractable footbridge.Worthing beach.We walked along the beach at East Preston and marvelled at the houses. Our plot on the caravan site, on a sunny day. As I write this on Friday 13th it is raining hard and the forecast is not good.One of the geocaches called ‘Open All Hours’ took us to this corner shop which Ronnie Barker used. A morning ‘cuppa’ on the seafront in WorthingWorthing pier and beach.Worthing beach – again.Here we are on the prom, at Littlehampton, with Roy and Sybil who were visiting us for the day.

When we all thought Glyn went to Spain he is actually doing a bit of moonlighting on the south coast!

We visited Arundel a couple of times. The first time was in the rain – not good - and the second on a better day seen here.

Arundel is a small hilltop town with a skyline dominated by the Castle. It was built at the end of the 11th century by Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Arundel and has been the seat of the Dukes of Norfolk and Earls of Arundel for over 700 years.

 The Castle Towards the end of our stay in Littlehampton we had some appalling weather – high winds and oodles of rain. The toilet block has a water harvesting system for flushing the toilets and it harvested 3000 litres of water overnight. It has probably had as much again this morning as well!

A little flooding on site. Fortunately we were not affected by this large puddle.

On Friday we had rain most of the day and this was the view from our caravan window.

Saturday - the weather was better and we managed a very blustery walk.

Littlehampton pier.

We left Littlehampton, for home, a day early because the weather forecast was better for towing a caravan.

A final note: On South Today a news item showed two kite surfers jumping over Worthing Pier – to me it looked like one of the guys reached an altitude of 100 feet! Wow!