West Sussex

Until 1834 provision for the poor and destitute in West Sussex was made at parish level. From 1835 until 1948 eleven Poor Law Unions, each catering for several parishes, took on the job.[10]

(See also: Geology of West Sussex)

General map of West Sussex.

West Sussex is bordered by Hampshire to the west, Surrey to the north and East Sussex to the east. The English Channel lies to the south. The area has been formed from Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous rock strata, part of the Weald–Artois Anticline. The eastern part of this ridge, the Weald of Kent, Sussex and Surrey has been greatly eroded, with the chalk surface removed to expose older Lower Cretaceous rocks of the Wealden Group.[12] In West Sussex the exposed rock becomes older towards the north of the county with Lower Greensand ridges along the border with Surrey including the highest point of the county at Blackdown. Erosion of softer sand and clay strata has hollowed out the basin of the Weald leaving a north facing scarp slope of the chalk which runs east and west across the whole county, broken only by the valleys of the River Arun and River Adur.[13] In addition to these two rivers which drain most of the county a winterbourne, the River Lavant, flows intermittently from springs on the dip slope of the chalk downs north of Chichester.[14]

The county makes up 1.52% of the total land of England, making it the 30th largest county in the country.[15]

West Sussex is the sunniest county in the United Kingdom, according to Met Office records. Over the last 29 years it has averaged 1902 hours of sunshine per year.[17] Sunshine totals are highest near the coast with Bognor Regis often having the highest in mainland England, including a total of 2237 hours in 1990. Mean annual temperature for southern coastal counties is around 11 °C. The coldest month, January, has mean daily minimum temperatures of around 3 °C near the coast and lower inland. July tends to be the warmest month when mean daily maxima tend to be around 20 °C. A maximum temperature of 35.4 °C occurred at North Heath, Pulborough on 26 June 1976. Coastal high temperatures are often moderated by cooler sea breezes.[18]

Monthly rainfall tends to be highest in autumn and early winter and lowest in the summer months, with July often being the driest month. There is less rainfall from summer convective showers and thunderstorms than in inland areas. The county can suffer both from localised flooding caused by heavy rainfall and from water shortages caused by prolonged periods of below average rainfall. Winter rainfall is needed to recharge the chalk aquifers from which much of the water supply is drawn.[18]

West Sussex County Council (WSCC) is the authority that governs the non-metropolitan county of West Sussex. The county contains 7 district and borough councils (Adur, Arun, Chichester, Crawley, Horsham, Mid Sussex and Worthing), and 159 town, parish and neighbourhood councils.

West Sussex County Council has 71 councillors; the majority of them being Conservative. There are 46 Conservative councillors, 10 UK Independence Party, 8 Liberal Democrats, 6 Labour Party councillors and 1 Independent councillor.[22] The Chief Executive and his team of Executive Directors are responsible for the day-to-day running of the council.

West Sussex County Council is based at County Hall, Chichester and provides a large range of services including education, social services, fire and rescue, libraries, trading standards, town and country planning, refuse disposal and consumer services.

The West Sussex Youth Cabinet is a group of local representatives and four UK Youth Parliament (UKYP) representatives, who are elected by young people in West Sussex.[23] The Youth Cabinet represents the views of the young people West Sussex at county level. Elections for the Youth Cabinet and UKYP in West Sussex run every year in March.

Wakehurst Place Gardens, Ardingly

• Chichester Harbour
• Pagham Harbour – A protected area of wetland that is an important feeding ground for birds.
• RSPB Pulborough Brooks
• Selsey Bill
• South Downs Way – a long distance footpath
• Stansted Park
• St Leonard's Forest
• Tilgate Park
• Wakehurst Place
• Warnham Local Nature Reserve, a 92-acre site with visitor centre[24]
• WWT Arundel (a nature reserve of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust)

• Arundel Castle
• Barnham Windmill
• Bramber Castle
• Christ's Hospital, an old charitable school notable for its archaic uniforms and picturesque campus.
• Goodwood House and Goodwood Motor Circuit
• High Salvington windmill
• Hurstpierpoint College, a public school, notable for its substantial Sussex flint buildings and large campus.
• Lancing College, a public school, notable for its substantial Sussex sandstone chapel and large campus.
• Seaford College, a public school known for its large campus
• Nymans house and gardens, a National Trust property near Handcross, Haywards Heath
• Petworth House and deer park.
• Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, where Sir Archibald McIndoe carried out reconstructive surgery for burns patients during the Second World War.
• Sackville College, a Jacobean almshouse in East Grinstead
• Shipley Windmill, (no longer open to the public).
• Standen, East Grinstead
• Uppark, a 17th-century mansion high on the South Downs.

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, otherwise called Chichester Cathedral, is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Chichester. It was founded as a cathedral in 1075, when the seat of the bishop was moved from Selsey Abbey.[25] The cathedral has architecture in both the Norman and the Gothic styles, and has been called by the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner "the most typical English Cathedral".[26] The Cathedral Church of Our Lady and St Philip Howard in Arundel is the Roman Catholic cathedral of the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton. Built in French Gothic style and dedicated in 1873 as the Catholic parish church of Arundel, it was not designated a cathedral until the foundation of the diocese in 1965.[27]

Bosham Church is partly of Saxon construction and is shown on the Bayeaux Tapestry as the local church of late Saxon and Danish kings of England.[28] Many other Saxon and early Norman have survived in the county with little alteration including the Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin, Sompting, an 11th-century Anglo-Saxon church with a Rhenish helm unique in England and St. Nicholas' Church, Worth, a 10th-century church in Worth, Crawley. Some Anglican churches and many of the numerous nonconformist chapels in the county have been converted to residential use. Cittaviveka is a Buddhist monastery in Chithurst.

• Worthing Museum & Art Gallery
• Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre
• Manor Cottage[29]
• Steyning Museum[30]
• Tangmere Military Aviation Museum[31]
• Horsham Museum
• Weald and Downland Open Air Museum of historic buildings at Singleton
• Wings Museum, Balcombe

Pallant House Gallery in Chichester houses one of the most significant collections of 20th-century British art outside London. It includes a substantial body of early and mid-20th-century work bequeathed by Walter Hussey and many later works donated by Sir Colin St John 'Sandy' Wilson.

Worthing Museum and Art Gallery houses a large collection of Georgian and Victorian costume. The Cass Sculpture Foundation has an outdoor sculpture park at Goodwood.