Worthing; Saturday, 24 January, 2026

The weather forecast for today had changed so many times over the previous couple of days that it was difficult to tell how the day was going to be, but when I pulled back the curtains of my hotel room it was to be greeted by clear blue skies and a bright winter sun. On the basis that this might not last I had a quick breakfast and headed out of the hotel down towards the pier to catch the bus out towards the back of the town.

Rising up behind Worthing, as it does along most of the Sussex coast is the chalk ridge of the South Downs, and this was my destination for morning, and specifically a particular hill just above the Worthing suburb of Findon Valley.

The hill is one of the highest points in the surrounding landscape and the relatively flat top of the hill has been used for millennia, first as a neolithic mine and then during the Iron Age it was turned into the second larges hill fort in the country, now called Cissbury Ring, in part names for the concentric rings of ramparts defending the hill top.

From the centre of town it was only about 15 minutes on the bus out to Findon and then about another 5 minute walk to the car park at the bottom of the hill, then the real work began as it was a pretty intense 20 minute or so slog up the side of the hill to reach the top, but at the top the reward is the views out across the countryside east towards Brighton and in the west towards the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth, though the haze in the sky meant it wasn’t actually possible to make out the Spinnaker Tower today.

I spent a long time wandering around the fort, including along the defensive ramparts before it was time to start heading back in towards town. Rather than retrace my steps I took a different route down from the opposite side of the hillfort with a path eventually dropping me out much closer to the centre of town in the Broadwater area of Worthing, where – very conveniently – a bus heading back to the centre of town arrived just as I reached the bus stop so I could avoid the pretty dull mile walk back along residential streets to the town centre.

I’d originally planned to spend the afternoon exploring the towns museum and art gallery which, when I was originally booking the trip, were due to reopen following a major refurbishment in the Winter of 2025. Of course, as with any refurbishment something had obviously cropped up that changed the schedule as a check on their website a couple of days earlier revealed that they wouldn’t be reopening until March at the earliest, so instead I headed further into town for a nice lunch.

After lunch I headed back down to the seafront and went for a walk along the prom west, past the hotel and onto the Marine Gardens, a set of formal gardens right at the western edge of the town. By the time I got there sunset was only about 20 minutes away, but the increasing cloud suggested that it was unlikely there would be much to see and as I headed back towards the hotel I could feel the first drops of rain falling.

The rain came in several waves during the evening, which at least whilst I was heading out for a curry at the nearby restaurant I managed to miss, but it was back pouring down as I left the restaurant and went for a short wander through the town centre at night before returning, slightly damp, to the hotel to finish off digesting a very nice meal and have a decent nights sleep.