Set in lovely gardens in a peaceful South Downs village, Abingworth Hall offers country-house…
Our View
Set in the scenic Arun Valley this is an excellent reserve for year-round family visits. A nature trail winds through hedgerow-lined lanes to viewing hides overlooking water-meadows. During spring and summer, birdsong is at its peak with breeding birds including nightingales and warblers, ducks and wading birds, and nightjars and hobbies on nearby heathland. Unusual wading birds and hedgerow birds regularly pass through on spring and autumn migration. There is also a great display of fungi in the woodlands. In winter thousands of ducks, geese and wading birds can be seen on the wetland pools. Contact for details of special events or see website. Photo credits: pond & family volunteering - Anna Allum; demoiselle & lapwings - Chris Prince; nightingale - Gareth Hughes.
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Discover West Sussex
Divided from East Sussex back in 1888, West Sussex is so typically English that to walk through its landscape will feel like a walk through the whole country. Within its boundaries lies a wide variety of landscape and coastal scenery, but it is the spacious and open South Downs with which the county is most closely associated.
In terms of walking, you’ll be spoilt for choice. Studying the map reveals a multitude of routes – many of them to be found within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park – and an assortment of scenic long-distance trails leading towards distant horizons; all of them offer a perfect way to get to the heart of ‘Sussex by the sea,’ as it has long been known. If you enjoy cycling with the salty tang of the sea for company, try the ride between Chichester and West Wittering. You can vary the return journey by taking the Itchenor ferry to Bosham.
West Sussex is renowned for its many pretty towns, of course. Notably, there is Arundel, littered with period buildings and dominated by the castle, the family home of the Duke of Norfolk, that dates back nearly 1,000 years.
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