Worthing; Sunday, 25 January, 2026

I checked out of the hotel, leaving my bag with reception and stepped out into the tail end of a heavy shower that I’d been hoping would pass sooner, but I needed to get down to the pier to pick up another bus to head out of town to the downs again. This time taking the bus out past the edge of Worthing and to the bottom of Highdown Hill.

Much like Cissbury the hill is topped by a Hill Fort, albeit in Highdown’s case its significantly smaller, though possibly much older dating from the Bronze age rather than the Iron age. The hill also has royal connections being the traditional burial site of the Kings of Sussex and in the 18th century the burial place for a local miller and eccentric John Oliver, whose tomb still stands at the halfway point between the car park and the top of the hill.

The views from up here are possibly even more spectacular than on Cissbury, if only for the fact that they include views of the much larger fort on the top of Cissbury Hill. I spent quite a bit of time wandering around the site, though eventually the pounding rain and increasing wind made me retreat back down the hill towards the shelter of Highdown Gardens.

The gardens were created in the first part of the 20th century in a former chalk pit and form an important collection of rare plants, specialising in species that thrive in the limited soil and high alkalinity of chalk areas.

Located just next to the gardens is The Highdown hotel, pub and tea room and the latter was my final port of call of the visit to have a very pleasant lunch before heading back down to the bus stop to catch the bus back into Worthing.

I headed back to the hotel and picked up my bag before heading back to Worthing station, which – like many on the lines along the south coast – is not very close to the seafront, being a good 20 minutes walk back from the waters edge.

Normally the journey back to Croydon would have been just over an hour, but this was a Sunday, so Network Rail were busy doing Engineering Works which meant that I had to take a bus from Three Bridges to East Grinsted on a totally different railway line and catch the train from there into Croydon, arriving the best part of an hour later than I would normally have been, and well after the last of the light of the day had gone.