Worthing (England)

...this town.

Worthing is the nearest town to where I live, I work in Worthing, shop in Worthing, swim at Worthing, have been to the theatre in Worthing and generally visit Worthing several days a week, so thought a review about the town would come easy. Wrong! There is a lot I don't know about the town so after a little research I now know more about Worthing than I did.

I didn't know that Worthing is the largest town ...
.../> Something I did know. Worthing used only to be a sort of suburb of Broadwater which was the main town, you used to be able to walk through unmade up roads and spend a day at the sea, this would have been nearly a hundred years ago now and was told to me by a very old man I used to visit when I worked in the community.

Where is it and how to get there?

It is about 60 miles south of London, and ten miles west of Brighton, ... more

A while ago when driving to work and listening to the radio there came an announcement that Jordan was going to buy a house in Worthing. This was also front-page news in the daily newspapers. Now, not everyone will have heard of Worthing, but apparently most people have heard of Jordan so I thought I would write a review enlightening people about this town.

Worthing is the nearest town to where I live, I work in Worthing, shop in Worthing, swim at Worthing, have been to the theatre in Worthing and generally visit Worthing several days a week, so thought a review about the town would come easy. Wrong! There is a lot I don't know about the town so after a little research I now know more about Worthing than I did.

I didn't know that Worthing is the largest town in West Sussex with almost 10,000 inhabitants (read people living there).

Something I did know. Worthing used only to be a sort of suburb of Broadwater which was the main town, you used to be able to walk through unmade up roads and spend a day at the sea, this would have been nearly a hundred years ago now and was told to me by a very old man I used to visit when I worked in the community.

Where is it and how to get there?

It is about 60 miles south of London, and ten miles west of Brighton, 8 miles from Arundel with it's famous castle and cathedral. Worthing nestles between the South Downs and the sea.

To the North runs the A27, east to west or west to east, there are signs at Durrington and Broadwater leading you to the town and sea front. Along the south coast runs the A259, this veers in a bit but the signs are clear leading to the coast.

Driving past Worthing on either road you have views of the South Downs to the north, a special patch of the South of England. Along the coast road of course you can see the sea although not as much of it as years ago. Due to erosion and the sea coming over and flooding the road the council has been building up the beach with stones and rocks brought in from elsewhere. Now you need to be in a fairly high vehicle to get much of a view of the sea.

There are some blocks of flats along the sea front and on the higher floors you can look out of your front window and look out to sea and look out your back window and see across to the downs, this is where my husband would like to retire, the views are beautiful.

The town itself

Worthing has a bustling town centre, along the main shopping parade are all the usual large stores like Marks and Spencers, British Home Stores, Boots, Superdrug, Bentals and Woolworths, in between these are smaller shops selling almost everything. Pound shops, charity shops abound. There are a couple of good music stores and a couple of good book shops. A few cafes with tables and chairs outside, a fish and chip take away, and of course McDonalds. The centre circle just off the sea front has a bandstand and the flower ladies. These ladies sell flowers and have done for generations. They sit amongst their buckets of flowers yelling prices as you walk past. I bought all the flowers for my daughters wedding from one of these ladies and arranged them myself. I think I saved something over a hundred pounds and the venue was beautiful massed with flowers all ordered just a few days before and collected on the morning of the wedding.

A walk along the seafront you will find places to eat, places to stay, the pier which houses a theatre and the usual games room and fishermen sitting on the end. My son once caught a plaice from the end of the pier and it was the best fish we had eaten. Looking towards the town from the end of the pier gives a view of a typical seaside seafront with palm trees along the front and brightly planted flowers in strategic places. Blocks of flats and shops, nothing outstanding but very pretty on a sunny day.

Worthing is famous for it's bowls tournaments, these are held in Beach House Park, which is full of flowers in summer and the bowling greens offer a cool place in summer to sit under a tree and watch the people play. There is a nice tearoom also here where you can sit in or out to enjoy a cream tea.

Worthing has a swimming pool, the Aquarena, here you can swim in lanes, play on the slide, (not for me) and join Pulse city health and fitness suite, I have pounded the miles on the treadmills here and tried to build muscles, I have sat in the sauna and steam room, but best of all I just love to swim and see friends.

There are two theatres. The Pavilion on the pier and the Connaught, I have been to both, the seats aren't exactly plush, and they are both quite old buildings but the shows have been spectacular and most enjoyable. If you are visiting this summer you can find out what is on at the link below.

http://www.worthingtheatres.co.uk/WhatsOn/June/

Worthing has its fair share of nightclubs, pubs and restaurants, for all ages and all prices.

The market sets up once a week along the main shopping parade, the fair comes to Worthing a couple of times a year. Fireworks are set off from the beach a few times a year also. For the millennium they let the fireworks off from the end of the pier and it was a stunning show, late at night the beach was absolutely crowded, standing room only but worth it all the same.

If you walk along the sea front towards the East you will come across the small boats and fish for sale signs, here you can buy freshly caught fish and have a yarn with seamen who have been fishing through the generations for seemingly forever.

If you have a car you can drive inland just a couple of miles or so and be in the heart of Sussex countryside, small winding roads that pass over and around the hills of the South Downs, small villages with their greens and village pubs.

The weather is better than a lot of the rest of England, the coast curves inwards from Littlehampton in the West and back out towards Beachy Head at Eastbourne so we are a bit sheltered and the Downs to the north shelter us from north winds. That is not to say it is perfect but it has been fairly mild through the winter and the geraniums have lasted in the garden for a couple of years now, we rarely had any frost and then it didn't last. In April the county was asking people to be mindful of water usage, and suggesting that we didn't use our hosepipes because the water table is lower than it has been for years, since then though it has rained a lot so I don't know the state of it at this time.

The Beach

Now, before I knew Worthing, when I was a young lass, my then boyfriend (now husband) brought me here. He said there is a saying "Come to cr…y Worthing and have a sh…y time" and boy oh boy did the beach smell. There is a huge sewage plant outside Worthing to the East and the stuff just got pumped out to sea, then several years ago they spent a lot of time and money updating it, the treatment plant has been modernised and the pipe now goes three miles out to sea. Also due to the curving coast line Worthing Beach gets rather more seaweed in the summer than most places and this lays on the beach rotting away and can smell. Many many years ago, (stories from the old man again) the farmers used to come from all over Sussex and gather the seaweed to spread over their fields, but county being county, one year some bright spark decided to charge them for it and they no longer harvest this rich source of organic fertiliser, shame on the council!

Fifteen to sixteen years ago I used to swim in the early evenings for a couple of summers, there was always a bit of a scum on the surface of the sea and you certainly couldn't stand waist high and see your knees let along your feet. The last couple of years I have swum and the scum has completely gone and the sea is very much clearer, I was surprised to see my feet when I looked down.

The beach itself is mainly pebbles, not good to walk on barefoot but at least you don't get sand in your sandwiches, when the tide is out it is flat sand, hard and clean looking, local fishermen dig for lugworms at low tide, there are usually a few shells to pick up, and dogs can run for miles and miles without bothering anyone, apart from the lugworm diggers and other dog owners anyway.

There is a ban on loose dogs from April to October each year, which is good for families and bathers. In the winter the beaches are empty of visitors unless they have a dog with them or the occasional horse rider galloping across the sand.

So my opinion.

I think Worthing has just about everything, you can shop, eat, go to a pub, club or the theatre, you can wander around a market, you can lick ice cream on a hot day or eat fish and chips out of the paper. You can sit on the beach on a nice day or you can wrap up warm in winter and get a real breath of fresh air on the beach. Go just a few miles north and you are in the heart of the Sussex Countryside and wouldn't know the town was there. People say Worthing is an old peoples town, well, maybe so, but there is enough for most youngsters to do and all youngsters grow older every day anyway. There is a small amount of crime, not as much as bigger towns and cities, parking can be a pain but isn't too expensive and they have park and ride buses from just outside the main centre. There are a couple of multi story car parks, one has a bowling alley at the base of it, and there is sea front parking with metres. I parked this morning for just under an hour and it cost me 90p, which I thought was fair.

There isn't much else I can think of to include. I believe Jordan was going to buy a house in Worthing because it is quieter than Brighton and the prices were less, but don't quote me on that because I never saw another word written about it after that one piece.

Below is the website of the borough council from where you can find out just about anything you want to about the town.

http://www.worthing.gov.uk/Leisure/EventsinandaroundWorthing/

For me it gets four stars because mostly it rains on my days off!

Thanks for reading this, Sue :o)
 

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