Sussex: South Lancing to Brighton 9/7/2001

 

From South Lancing we initially took the walkway above a big bank of shingle which was also part of the South Coast Cycle Route, but at times walked along the sandy lower shore below the usual beach huts.  A long pool on the inside of the shingle ridge was part of a nature reserve, described as freshwater, but this must have changed as there were typical salt marsh plants around it.  The higher shore had white stonecrop, ivy-leaved toadflax and sea heath, all naturalised introductions.  Shoreham airport lay just behind and light aircraft kept flying overhead noisily, although not as dramatically as the military ones also exercising here with sudden loud frightening screams.  We continued along the front which was part of a peninsula formed by sedimentation, forcing the River Adur to flow further east before entering the sea.  The shingle was good for plants, with lesser meadow-rue and knotted bur-parsley, although we noticed the latter also occurs in this area as a lawn weed.  Sea kale, viper’s bugloss and yellow horned-poppy were abundant.  We were unfortunately too late to see evidence of the rare starry clover long naturalised here [although we came back in early June 2007 and found it here and at Lee-on-Solent]. After much shingle-bashing we turned the end at a concrete jetty and returned past scrap metal yards (“Charles Muddle the IronMan”) and private houses along the streets of the inner shore, or south bank of the River Adur, until we reached a footbridge over it with views of cormorants and swans on the mud banks.        We were then able to continue east along a busy main road following the north bank of the river through a huge industrial estate, noisy lorries passing at speed.  After the lighthouse at the mouth of the river the road continued in the same vein beside Portslade Harbour with its major docks and industries, until we got to a pathway that went to the sea front over lock gates, although we had to wait here briefly for a large ship to pass through.  At the shore it was time for lunch and all we could find was Carrot’s Café, a sort of lorry-drivers’ caff.  After this a paved way at the top of the beach, apparently part of a walking route called the Monarch Way, led to another road serving more industrial sites, again busy with lorries, polluted and littered, and an ugly concrete wall cut out any view of the sea.  When we did get to the shore it was more like an industrial wasteland, where a family were having a barbecue, the women in a separate group from the men, and the sea fenced off in front of them.  This industrial area only ended when we entered Hove, where there was a wide seafront and what had previously been a commercial harbour was now a boating lake, followed by greens for putting, bowls and croquet.  This is a typical holiday seafront with shelters, seats, lights and railings, and the usual prohibitions against cycling, dogs on the beach, walking on groynes and more.  Later on garish beach-huts were backed by multi-storey apartment buildings.   Hove segued into Brighton, where the grand hotels were again obscured by seedy beach-huts.  The West Pier was dramatically derelict, but about to be restored with National Lottery funding, at the expense of accompanying private sector seafront development.  Central Brighton followed, very busy but slightly tawdry compared to its celebrated past.  We caught a train back to Lancing, seeing a fox beside the tracks on the way.  This day’s walk was taxing not because of the distance but the onslaughts of noise and pollution.

Lesser meadow-rue   Viper’s bugloss Fox

 

Footbridge over River Adur       Grand Hotel, Brighton

Entering Hove   West Pier, Brighton