Sussex

This new, thoroughly updated edition of Bradt's much-praised guide to Sussex, including the South Downs, Weald and Coast offers a greater and more personal selection of places to explore and discover than any other guide. Resident expert author Tim Locke takes a leisurely, detailed approach that is highly personal, honest and critical, encouraging you to slow down and take time to gain a deeper understanding of what makes this stunning region tick and why it deserves repeat visits. Sussex offers plenty of scope for 'Slow travel' with or without a car, including walks, pottering around on bikes, steam trains, volunteer-run buses, a solar-powered craft in Chichester harbour, or on small boats. This is a guide to the author's favourite places in Sussex - along the coast, in the South Downs and in the Weald. It doesn't attempt to cover everything but picks its way round the places that have particular distinctiveness, including the parts of the South Downs National Park that fall in Sussex. The coast - much loved by pleasure-seekers since the Prince Regent partied away at his Royal Pavilion in Brighton - is densely built up for much of the way, but Tim Locke includes all sorts of gems that could easily be missed, from a full-size replica of the painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in an obscure modern church to a unique factory in Hastings providing cloth flowers for movies and theatres. Also covered are a new walk down the deepest, loveliest dry valley on the Downs, a sheep farmer who opens her farm during the lambing season and, in the High Weald, some of the most magnificent of English gardens created in the 19th and 20th centuries. Sussex is less than 30 miles from the fringes of London, but a very different world, with an irresistible blend of history, archaeology (the author has been taking part in digs at a new site near Barcombe), pleasure-seeking, delectable scenery, world-class gardens, literary connections and some of the most quintessentially English scenery. New since the first edition, the South Downs National Park, established in 2011, was designated an International Dark Sky Reserve in 2016, while Brighton now has its spanking new i360 viewing tower, Hastings has rebuilt its pier and opened the Jerwood Gallery, and Ditchling Museum's spectacular revamp has caught the public imagination. Also new, Chichester's Novium Museum, developments at Battle Abbey, and Rathfinny Vineyard, set to become Britain's largest, along with how Sussex sparkling wine producers are beating the French champagne makers at their own game. From beaches to castles, cathedrals to modern art, restored mansions to vernacular architecture, this is the essential guide for discovering this popular region.