Munch your lunch to a soundtrack of squawking seagulls and the crashing of sea water on shingle.

As you walk back up the beach to reclaim your bicycle, don’t forget to glance inland. Your eyes cannot help but be drawn to Lancing College Chapel, a Victorian Gothic edifice of improbable size and setting.

It’s back on the road again for a few minutes before an uninterrupted section of recently completed path leads you on, alongside the artificially created Widewater Lagoon, to South Lancing. The brackish waters of the lagoon, replenished by the sea at high tide, are backed on to their northern shore by an uninterrupted stretch of houses and flats.

It is nevertheless popular with wild birds and many types of wildlife, and provides a pleasant backdrop to a coastal cycle ride. National Cycle Network Route 2 will eventually connect with many towns and cities along the south coast. From here it offers near perfect traffic free cycling and is great for building bike confidence and cycling skills in children and those nervous of cycling on main roads. Watch out though as this part of the route does get congested with pedestrians, skaters, dogs and children on scooters, especially at weekends and during the summer months.

After almost two miles of traffic free cycling take care as the route briefly joins an unsegregated shared-use footway beside the main A259 at South Lancing. After a short distance you’re back on a shared use traffic free path as Brooklands Pleasure Park, with its numerous family attractions, opens out to your right.

It’s another uninterrupted traffic free run from here to Worthing, home of the English Bowling Association and the National Bowls championships and several of the country’s finest bowling greens. Note the traditional wooden fishing boats moored on the beach with their distinctive black flags.

And don’t let Worthing’s self professed status as “England’s bowls Mecca” put you off this once sleepy seaside town. Slowly but surely Worthing is becoming as cool and funky as it’s near neighbour Brighton & Hove and boasts a burgeoning cafe culture. It’s also a great place for enjoying good old fish and chips, either on the beach or in one of several excellent, family-run fish restaurants.

Sustrans is the charity behind practical and innovative solutions to some of the UK’s biggest transport challenges, including the award-winning National Cycle Network, Safe Routes to Schools, Bike It and TravelSmart. www.sustrans.org.uk Tel: 0845 1130065

If this information is needed in an alternative format please contact us and we will try and meet your needs. Call 01243 753835

Published by West Sussex County Council, Environment and Development May 2007

www.westsussex.gov.ukGeneral Enquiries: 01243 642105

CyclingWest

SussexShoreham to Worthing

Coastal Route,Cycle Mapand Guide

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Carat’s Cafe Bar, a beacon of hospitality and comfort food amid the industrial landscape of Shoreham Harbour, is the starting point for this fantastic seven mile, mainly traffic free, coastal cycle route from Southwick Beach to Worthing.

While much of this recommended route, which forms part of National Cycle Network Route 2, is on shared use, traffic free cycle paths, the one and a half miles between the harbour and Shoreham-By-Sea town centre is principally on unmarked residential roads.

From just beyond Carat’s cafe, a blue National Cycle Network sign leads cyclists and pedestrians northwards across Shoreham’s historic port, via a footpath running along the top of two impressively large lock gates.

Shoreham Harbour remains the largest port between Dover and Portsmouth. Fishing activity has increased since the 1990s and you’d be unlucky not to spot several interesting vessels.

On leaving the port, which sits at the eastern side of the mouth of the River Adur, cyclists turn left on to a short section of the busy A259 before turning quickly right, at the blue National Cycle Network sign to Shoreham Station, into the much quieter Grange Road. It’s usually quicker, and undoubtedly safer, especially if cycling with children, to dismount at the entrance to the port and push your bikes over the pedestrian crossing.

After passing under the railway bridge bear immediately left at the war memorial in front of Southwick Green, into what soon becomes Park Lane, following this relatively quiet route, marked periodically with National Cycle Network signs, for about a mile. From Southwick you pass into Kingston-By-Sea and then the outskirts of Shoreham.

A very short section on on-road cycle lane leads to traffic lights where Middle Road meets Eastern Avenue. Again follow the National Cycle Network sign ahead, this time onto a short section of shared use pedestrian/cycle path alongside an unadopted road. This leads you onwards and then left, around some allotments, into a cul-de-sac and residential roads, and eventually into Buckingham Road, the main road into Shoreham town centre.

Following the one way arrows into Shoreham, the route zigzags into Brunswick Road then St Mary’s Road, past some interesting local shops and on your right, the beautiful, 12th century Church of Saint Mary de Haura (meaning “at the harbour”).An important regional town until the 14th century, when it was half destroyed by marine encroachment, Shoreham is much smaller and quieter than neighbouring Brighton & Hove. It nevertheless boasts some good pubs, cafes and restaurants.

Dismount where East Street meets the A259, cross this main road, and then push your bicycle across the impressive concrete footbridge that spans the

Adur, linking the town centre to the thin residential peninsula of Shoreham Beach. Note the numerous houseboats in various states of repair moored, or possibly abandoned alongside the river’s edge, and the small aircraft from nearby Shoreham Airport that buzz, almost constantly, overhead.

Shoreham Beach is a shingle spit of about three miles in length protected from the encroaching sea by wooden and rock groynes. A strip of seemingly lifeless pebbles above the high tide line bursts into flames of colour in April and May, with the flowering of a distinctive collection of well established plants, specially adapted to the harsh coastal conditions.

On reaching Shoreham Beach turn immediately right into a footpath and then left, across the main road, into Weald Dyke. This takes you to South Beach, the coastal road which, although not sign posted thus, leads you westwards, all the way to South Lancing.

After heading right, into South Beach, follow the coast into a short section of unadopted road which runs behind a stretch of pale cream coloured beach huts and a curious, sand coloured bench adorned with a mosaic of abandoned items. Nearby is a great spot for eating a picnic lunch; chain your bikes to a post and head down to the beach. This part of the coastline is surprisingly wild. Rotting wooden groynes are interspersed with more recently installed, elongated piles of huge imported boulders. Sit on one of these and look westwards towards Brighton and the chalk cliffs beyond.