Bognor one

A leisurely drive down to Bognor last week, with the first stop at Billingshurst. Not spotting a tea shop until it was too late, we turned in the 'King's Head', an old country-town pub with a big front bar, nicely renovated at some point. Seemed to be functioning mainly as a club for older gents., retired or semi-retired. And they were able to do perfectly respectable teas and coffees.

Out to investigate the church, which was shut, but which did kick off the shingles hare. See reference 1. We also passed lots of healthy looking pubs, perhaps kept afloat by all the housing estates which seemed to be clustered around the old town. Old enough for a chunk of the high street to be called 'Stane Street', from the days of the Romans.

But forward thinking enough to have erected a women's hall, well before women's liberation kicked off in London.

Next stop was to have been Greatham Bridge over the Arun, said to double as a fine picnic spot, but the road seemed to be closed for repairs, so we pushed onto Bury. Turn off the main road and find ourselves in a narrow lane lined with palatial thatched cottages, presumably catering to the better-off retired. The church was both old and open, old which must have been tastefully restored at some point. Restoration which did not include chucking out the coffin trolley (aka bier) tucked into the store under the tower. But not as grand as those we found in Norfolk, some years ago now, and noticed at reference 2.

Coffin trolley centre, between the post and the bell pull.

Incumbents were listed from 1296, although one suspects that there was a church on the site before that. The list also showed that, having started out as a branch of Fécamp Abbey, the living then moved around a bit, and at some point (1930 or so) fell into the clutches of Pembroke College, Oxford, where it remains.

Back out in the church yard. we met an older lady who first came to Bury, complete with label, as an évacuée from Croydon during the second world war, getting on so well in her second billet, that she wound up coming back for good, as it happened to be married in this very church. As it also happened her father, like FIL, had bad eyesight and was not thought fit for the front line, in his case winding up as a fireman rather than a nurse. I think she said he was a painter and decorator in civil life.

An early flicker of the yew chase, noticed at reference 3. Then, after picnicking in the church yard, we wandered down to the Arun.

First view of the Arun.

Second view of the Arun, not many seconds later. Maybe the sun had come out.

From Bury, the idea was to go to inspect the castle at Amberley, perhaps to find out why they needed two castles so close together, to guard the lower reaches of the Arun. We got near enough to find that it was something of a tourist hot-spot with lots of eager looking older walkers about, no doubt doing the south downs way. There were also what looked like river cliffs in the chalk behind the railway station, but this may have been no more than the scars left by digging out what was needed for the railway embankment, quite high at this point.

And so to Bognor Regis, or at least to Felpham, just beyond the Butlins.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/shingles.html.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=coffin+norfolk+walsingham.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/yew-trees.html.