A Walk from West Beach to Climping

Start from the West Beach Car Park, at the mouth of the river Arun.

1 Look over the fence into the river from the West Beach Car Park. The water may be flowing either way - the Arun is tidal as far North as Pallingham. It can reach 6.5 knots (faster than you can swim). At low tide you may see a bank of shingle building up
in the river mouth where the sea washes it over the pier. If this is not cleared regularly, it will eventually block the harbour. The Duke of Norfolk fixed the river mouth at Littlehampton in the 1500s to improve Arundel as a port. Before then the river flowed into a
wide estuary which changed with storms and siltingup. The mouth was re-cut here in 1735, 1793 and 1825.

Walk up the river alongside the bollards which line the road.

2 Littlehampton Golf Course, on your left, is one of the oldest in Sussex. When it opened in 1889, the only way to reach it from Littlehampton was on the old chain ferry.
The nearest bridge was at Arundel until a swing bridge was built in 1908. A passenger ferry ran here until 2001.

After the Arun Yacht Club, take the footpath along the top of the river bank.

3 Before the 16th Century, much of this area was saltmarsh. One of the few remaining patches of saltmarsh is here around the little island. Look for the thick, silverygreen leaves of the sea purslane. Saltmarsh is only
found on land which is flooded by salt water and then drained again as the tide goes in and out. It is important for insects and wading birds such as redshank.

Go over the little wooden footbridge onto the island.

During the 18th Century, £28,000 was raised to build Littlehampton Harbour. You can see some of the original timbers still buried in the river.

The footpath rejoins the road at the end of Rope Walk.

4 With the securing of the river mouth, shipbuilding became an important local industry. In Rope Walk people twisted hemp by hand to make rope for the shipbuilders.

For a good view of the river, go up Rope Walk and turn onto the retracting bridge. You can see the gravel yards upriver on the East bank.

From the bridge you can:
Enter Littlehampton for the pubs, shops, cafes, railway station etc.

Or

Follow the river on the West bank all the way to Arundel (5 1/2 miles) and catch the train back.

Or

Head West along Ferry Road to rejoin the main route, either by the footpath or via Brookpits Lane.

5 Take the footpath along the Western side of the golf course. The footpath is signed from the bottom of Rope Walk, where it runs between high fences.

6 The embankment you are walking along was built over 200 years ago to give access from the Mill to the river and town. There is a wide variety of wildlife habitats here, including woodland, ditches, reedbeds, wet grassland, scrub and arable land.
The blackthorn bushes are seeding into the grass bank - without management, much of Sussex would turn to scrub or woodland.

To follow the main route, turn right at the kissing gate where the path forks by The Mill.

Turn left for a short cut to the beach and the SSSI.

7 The Mill appears on an estate map of Atherington Manor made in 1606. It is now a private school.
The path takes you through Long Wood. Most of the trees are elms, and many had to be cut down in the 1970’s because of Dutch Elm Disease. You can seethe regeneration from the old stumps. Volunteers have planted new groups of ash and cherry trees.

At the end of Long Wood continue straight on to Ryebank Rife.

8 “Rife” is a local word for the streams of the coastal plain, which have been adapted for drainage purposes. The Ryebank Rife now takes the drainage water from the area bounded by Bognor Regis, Ford and Yapton.

Turn left at the rife for a short-cut to Bread Lane, the hotel, car park café and beach.

9 Cross the rife and follow the footpath across the fields to the corner of the hedge bank around the converted thatched barns. Follow the hedge to the left to the lane. Turn right onto the lane for a few metres to reach the derelict barn.

There is a tradition that this barn was built with stones from the lost medieval village of Islesham, which was based around Brookpits lane and formed a separate parish from Climping.
Turn left by the barn and take the footpath across the fields to Bread Lane.

For a short cut to Climping Street and the Black Horse Inn, continue straight across.

To reach the beach, turn left down Bread Lane.

The main walk turns right up Bread Lane to St. Mary’s School. Turn left in front of the school and follow the tarmac footpath to The
Street. Take the right fork when you reach the houses.

Turning right up The Street you will find the village pound: here stray animals in the village were impounded.

10 Turn left down The Street. You may find refreshments at the Black Horse Inn, the Bailiffscourt Hotel or the beach café.

Notice the abundance of hart’s-tongue fern in the ditch to the right of The Street. Great crested newts and kingfishers use the
ditches in this area. Ditches form important wildlife corridors, as do roadside verges which are important for wild flowers, insects and small mammals and the birds which eat them.

11 The Bailiffscourt Hotel buildings are remarkable. The Bailiff of the medieval Abbey of Seez in Normandy had built a house here by the 13th century. All that remains of this are a small chapel and the moat.
The other old buildings are 17th and 18th century buildings which were brought in and re-erected by Lord Moyne, who bought the estate in the 1930s. New buildings date from 2003.

I There is a series of ponds along the Atherington Easy Trail here. Although brackish (occasionally flooded by the sea), they support dragonflies and damselflies, sticklebacks and newts.

12 Beware of approaching cars on the bend.
The old barns and cottages here are all that remains of the medieval village and parish of Atherington, the sea having claimed the rest.

13 At the end of Climping Street, go straight on up the slope onto the shingle bank.
At low tide, you can see new outcrops of chalk and flint exposed by the shifting sands. These are already home to sea anenomes, crabs and other creatures.
To the South lies the lost village of Cudlow, which disappeared beneath the waves in the 16th century.
Around the coast to the South West, the new “rock islands” protect Elmer from a similar fate.

14 Turn left along the top of the shingle bank towards the pier at Littlehampton.
The concrete parapet and “tank trap” blocks are defences against invasion from 1940. Compare the level of the strand line with the level of the farm land - only the shingle bank stops the land from flooding with every high tide.

15 Look at the shape of the bushes growing behind the beach. They are “wind pruned” - the buds on the side without shelter are scorched by the wind, and never get the chance to develop into branches. The native blackthorn and the exotic tamarisk are two of
the species that survive in these exposed conditions.

16 The Western end of the dunes has been fenced to protect some rare plants which are sensitive to trampling. Please use the unfenced dunes further on. This area is a SNCI because of the internationally important “vegetated shingle” habitat.

17 There are bare sandy patches on the dunes where they are trampled too much for the grass to grow. Hollows or gulleys may appear as the sand blows away. This is called a “blow-out”. You can see where the roots of the grass which holds the dunes
together are exposed to the air and die.

18 Here an area of dunes is fenced off because of two big blow-outs.
Go up the boardwalk between the fences. The ivy-covered bank and stone walls are the remains of the West Bank Fort, which was
completed in 1854. The Fort should have a view out to sea: the dunes must have built up since then. The boardwalk takes you back to the car park where you started.