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Worthing

Worthing is a large seaside town with borough status in West Sussex, forming part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. It is situated at the foot of the South Downs, 10 miles (16 km) west of Brighton, and 18 miles (29 km) east of the county town of Chichester. The borough covers an area of 12.5 square miles (32.37 km²) and has a population of 100,200.^[1]

The area around Worthing has been populated for at least 6,000 years and contains Britain's greatest concentration of Stone Age flint mines, which are some of the earliest mines in Europe. Lying within the borough, the Iron Age hill fort of Cissbury Ring is one of Britain's largest. Worthing means "(place of) Worth/WorÅ?'s people", from the Old English personal name Worth/WorÅ? (the name means "valiant one, one who is noble"), and -ingas "people of" (reduced to -ing in the modern name). For many centuries Worthing was a small mackerel fishing hamlet until in the late 18th century it developed into an elegant Georgian seaside resort and attracted the well-known and wealthy of the day. In the 19th and 20th centuries the area was one of Britain's chief market gardening centres.

Modern Worthing has a large service industry, particularly in financial services. It has three theatres and one of Britain's oldest cinemas. It has a historical reputation for connections with figures from the world of the arts, including Oscar Wilde, Harold Pinter and the group The Ordinary Boys. The town once had the largest population of over-65s in Britain, although now has a more balanced demographic.

History

In the Neolithic period of the Stone Age, the South Downs around Worthing was one of Britain's chief flint mining areas, with four of the UK's 14 known flint mines lying within 7 miles (11km) of the centre of Worthing. An excavation at Little High Street dates the earliest remains from Worthing town centre to the Bronze Age. There is also an important Bronze Age hill fort on the western fringes of the modern borough at Highdown Hill. During the Iron Age, one of Britain's largest hill forts was built at Cissbury Ring. The area was part of the civitas of the Regni during the Romano-British period. Several of the borough's roads date from this era and lie in a grid layout known as 'centuriation'. A Romano-British farmstead once stood in the centre of the town, at a site close to the town hall. In the 5th and centuries, the area became part of the kingdom of Sussex. The place names of the area, including the name Worthing itself, date from this period.

Worthing remained an agricultural and fishing hamlet for centuries until the arrival of wealthy visitors in the 1750s. Princess Amelia stayed in the town in 1798 and the fashionable and wealthy continued to stay in Worthing, which became a town in 1803. The town expanded and elegant developments such as Park Crescent and Liverpool Terrace were begun. The area was a stronghold of smugglers in the 19th century and was the site of rioting by the Skeleton Army in the 1880s. Oscar Wilde holidayed in the town in 1893 and 1894, writing the Importance of Being Earnest during his second visit. The town was home to several literary figures in the 20th century, including Nobel prize-winner Harold Pinter. During the Second World War, Worthing was home to several allied military divisions in preparation for the D-Day landings.

Etymology

Worthing means "(place of) Worth/Weorð/WorÅ?'s people", from the Old English personal name Worth, Weorð or WorÅ? (meaning "valiant one, one who is noble"), and -ingas (meaning "people of", and reduced to -ing in the modern name). The name was first recorded as Weoroingas in Old English; then as Ordinges in the Domesday Book of 1086, Wuroininege in 1183, Wurdingg in 1218, Wording or Wurthing in 1240, Worthinges in 1288 and Wyrthyng in 1397. Worthen was used as late as 1720. The modern name was first documented in 1297.^[2][3]

Older local people sometimes claim that the name of Worthing is derived from a natural annual phenomenon. Seaweed beds off nearby Bognor Regis are ripped up by summer storms and prevailing Atlantic currents deposit it on the beach. A rich source of nitrates, it makes good fertiliser. The decaying weed was sought by farmers from the surrounding area. Thus the town would have become known as Wort (weed) -inge (people).^{[citation needed]}

Governance

Worthing was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1890, when the towns absorbed the neighbouring civil parish of Heene.^[4] Subsequent enlargements took place in 1902, 1929 and 1933 before being reincorporated as a borough in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972.^[4] Since its inception as a borough, the authority has granted freedom of the town to some 18 individuals.^[5]

The borough's coat of arms includes three silver mackerel, a Horn of Plenty overflowing with corn and fruit on a cloth of gold, and the figure of a woman, considered likely to be Hygieia, the Ancient Greek goddess of health, holding a snake. The images represent the health given from the seas, the fullness and riches gained from the earth and the power of healing.^[6][7]

Worthing's motto is the Latin Ex terra copiam e mari salutem, which translates as 'From the land plenty and from the sea health'.^[6]

The borough is divided into 13 wards, each returning either two or three councillors to form a total council of 37 members. The borough is unparished.^[8]

As of the 2008 local elections, the authority is Conservative-controlled, with seats allocated as follows:

Party political make-up of Worthing Borough Council

	Party	Seats	Worthing Borough Council 2008–
	Conservative	25
	Lib Dems	12
	Labour	0

Worthing remains part of the two-tier structure of local government, with some services being provided by West Sussex County Council. The town currently returns 9 councillors to the county council from six electoral divisions. This will be amended from 2009 to allow for nine single-member wards in the borough following a review carried out in 2008.^[9]

The town has two Members of Parliament (MPs): Tim Loughton (Conservative) for East Worthing and Shoreham, who is Shadow Minister for Children;^[10] and Peter Bottomley (Conservative) for Worthing West.^[11] At the 2005 general election, both seats were safe Conservative seats and have been held by the incumbents since the seats' creation in 1997.

From 1945 to 1997 Worthing returned one MP. Since 1945 Worthing has always returned Conservative MPs.^[12][13] Until 1945 Worthing formed part of the Horsham and Worthing parliamentary constituency.

Worthing is included in the South East England constituency for elections to the European Parliament.

Geography

At 50°48′52″N 0°22′24″W / 50.81444°N 0.37333°W / 50.81444; -0.37333Coordinates: 50°48′52″N 0°22′24″W / 50.81444°N 0.37333°W / 50.81444; -0.37333 (50.8146, -0.3735), Worthing is situated on the West Sussex coast in South East England, 49 miles (79 km) south of London and 10 miles (16 km) west of Brighton and Hove. It forms part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation along with neighbouring towns and villages in the county such as Littlehampton, Findon, Sompting, Lancing, Shoreham-by-Sea and Southwick.^[14] The area is the United Kingdom's twelfth largest conurbation, with a population of over 460,000.^[15] The borough of Worthing is bordered by the West Sussex local authority districts of Arun in the north and west, and Adur in the east. The town is dominated by the Downs to the north: Cissbury Ring, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, rises to 184 metres (600 ft) in the north of the borough.^[16] A further high point is at West Hill (139m) north-west of High Salvington^[17]

Lying on the south coast of England, Worthing is situated on a mix of two beds of sedimentary rock. The large part of the town, including the town centre is built upon chalk (part of the Southern England Chalk Formation), with a bed of London clay found in a band heading west from Lancing through Broadwater and Durrington.^[18] There are no major rivers within the borough, however the culverted Teville Stream begins as a spring in what is now allotments in Tarring, runs along Tarring Road and Teville Road north of the town centre, passing to the east through Homefield Park and Davison High School before meeting the sea at Brooklands where the Broadwater Brook meets the sea. To the west and also in parts culverted, Ferring Rife rises in Durrington near Littlehampton Road, passing through Maybridge, then west of Ferring into the sea.^[19]

Being located in the South Coast Plain at the foot of the South Downs, some of the undeveloped land in the north of the borough is proposed to form part of the South Downs National Park.^[20] The west of the borough contains some ancient woodland at Titnore Woods.^[21] The development along the coastal strip is interrupted by strategic gaps at the borough boundaries in the east and west, each gap falling largely outside the borough boundaries.^[22] The southwest of the borough contains part of the Goring Gap, a protected area of fields and woodland between Goring and Ferring.^[23] To the east of Worthing lies the Sompting Gap, a protected area that lies between Worthing and Sompting. This area was formerly an inlet of the sea and it is here that the Broadwater Brook (also known as Sompting Brook) flows into Brooklands Park and on into the sea. Some of the reedbeds in the Sompting Gap at Lower Cokeham have been designated a Site of Nature Conservation Importance.^[24] The borough of Worthing contains no nature reserves: the nearest is Widewater Lagoon in Lancing.^[25]

Marine environment

Lying some three miles off the coast of Worthing, the Worthing Lumps are a series of underwater chalk cliff faces, up to three metres high. The lumps are the best example of the unusual habitat and are home to rare fish such as blennies and the lesser spotted dogfish.^[26][27] The site has been declared a Site of Nature Conservation Importance (SNCI) (a site of county importance) by West Sussex County Council.^[28]

Climate

Worthing has a temperate climate: its Koppen climate classification is Cfb. Its mean annual temperature of 9.6 Â°C is similar to that experienced along the Sussex coast, and slightly warmer than nearby areas such as the Sussex weald.^[29]

Districts

Broadwater

Durrington

Findon Valley

Goring

Heene

High Salvington

Offington

Salvington

(West) Tarring

Demography

People from Worthing are known as Worthingites.

Worthing underwent dramatic population growth both in the early 1800s as the hamlet had newly become a town and again in the 1880s. The town experienced further growth in the 1930s, and again when new estates were built, using prisoner of war labour, to the west of the town from 1948.

Religion

According to the 2001 United Kingdom Census, 97,568 people lived in the borough of Worthing. Of these, 72.14% identified themselves as Christian, 0.75% were Muslim, 0.34% were Buddhist, 0.26% were Jewish, 0.22% were Hindu, 0.11% were Sikh, 0.46% followed another religion, 16.99% claimed no religious affiliation and 8.73% did not state their religion. The proportion of Christians was slightly higher than the 71.74% in England as a whole; Buddhism and other religions were also practised more widely in Worthing than nationally. Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and Sikhism had significantly fewer followers than average: in 2001, 3.1% of people in England were Muslim, 1.1% were Hindu, 0.7% were Sikh and 0.5% were Jewish. The proportion of people with no religious affiliation was much higher than the national figure of 14.59%.^[30]

The borough of Worthing has about 50 active Christian places of worship. There is also a mosque, which follows the Sunni tradition.^[31] There are also 16 former church buildings which are either disused or in secular use.

Worthing's first Anglican church, St Paul's, was built in 1812; previously, worshippers had to travel to the ancient parish church of Broadwater. John Rebecca's classical-style building became structurally unsound and closed in 1995.^[32] The austere design was well regarded at first, but architectural writers have since criticised it.^[33][34] Its importance derives from its status as "the spiritual and social centre around which the town developed".^[35] Residential growth in the 19th century growth led to several other Anglican churches opening in the town centre: Christ Church was started in 1840^[33] and survived a closure threat in 2006;^[36] Arthur Blomfield's St Andrew's Church brought the controversial "High Church" form of worship to the town in the 1880s—its "Worthing Madonna" icon was particularly notorious;^[37][38] and Holy Trinity church opened at the same time but with less dispute.^[38][39] Other Anglican churches were built in the 20th century to serve new residential areas such as High Salvington and Maybridge; and the ancient villages which were absorbed into Worthing Borough between 1890 and 1929^[40] each had their own church: Broadwater's had Saxon origins,^[41] St Mary's at Goring-by-Sea was Norman (although it was rebuilt in 1837),^[42] St Andrew's at West Tarring was 13th century,^[43] and St Botolph's at Heene and St Symphorian's at Durrington were rebuilt from medieval ruins.^[44][45] All of the borough's churches are in the Rural Deanery of Worthing and the Diocese of Chichester.^[46]

The first Roman Catholic church in Worthing opened in 1864; the centrally located St Mary of the Angels Church has since been joined by others at East Worthing, Goring-by-Sea and High Salvington. All are in Worthing Deanery in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton.^[47] Protestant Nonconformism has a long history in Worthing: the town's first place of worship was an Independent chapel.^[48] Methodists, Baptists, the United Reformed Church and Evangelical Christian groups each have several churches in the borough, and other denominations represented include Christadelphians, Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Plymouth Brethren.^[49] The Salvation Army have been established for more than a century, but their arrival in Worthing prompted large-scale riots involving a group called the Skeleton Army. These continued intermittently for several years in the 1880s.^[50][51]

Worthing's Churches Together organisation, currently chaired by Nigel O'Dwyer,^[52] encourages ecumenical work and links between the town's churches. Church leaders meet regularly to pray for the town and to organise events together through PrayerNet. A townwide youth service, CrossRoads, brings together young people from all denominations. New Song Cafe performs a similar function for the town's church musicians. Other Christian organisations include Worthing Churches Homeless Projects and Street Pastors. In October 2009, a Mission Festival Weekend was held to celebrate the range of mission agencies based in Worthing; the centrepiece was a parade from Worthing Pier to St Paul's Church.^[53]

Education

Schools in the borough are provided by West Sussex County Council. There are some 23 primary schools, 6 secondary schools and two colleges of further education. Broadly speaking, the town has a system of First-Middle-High progression, and so the 23 primary schools are made up of a combination of first, middle and combined schools.

Economy and regeneration

Worthing's economy is dominated by the service industry, particularly financial services. Major employers include GlaxoSmithKline,^[54] HM Revenue & Customs,^[55] Aviva (formerly Norwich Union),^[56] MGM Advantage^[57] and Southern Water.^[58] In June 2008, Norwich Union announced that all 660 employees at its office in Broadwater would be made redundant by 2010.^[56] In October 2009, GlaxoSmithKline confirmed that 250 employees in Worthing would lose their jobs at the factory, which makes the antibiotics co-amoxiclav (Augmentin) and amoxicillin (Amoxin) and hundreds of other products.^[54][59] As of 2009, there were approximately 43,000 jobs in the borough.^[60]

In June 2006, Worthing Borough Council agreed a masterplan for the town's regeneration,^[61][62] focused on improving the town centre and seafront. A new £150 million development is proposed for Teville Gate, opposite Worthing railway station. It is expected to include 18-storey and 11-storey residential towers, shops and leisure facilities.^[63] The developers applied for planning permission in April 2009.^[64] Redevelopment is also planned for the Grafton Street car park area;^[65] and the town's major undercover shopping centre, the Guildbourne Centre, may also be rebuilt entirely and extended to Union Place, covering the site of the town's former police station. Work planned for the seafront includes the installation of an artwork named Suncloud, gardens and public space.^[66][67] The former Eardley Hotel, overlooking Splash Point, is being demolished and rebuilt in a similar style as luxury flats.^[68][69] Swiss electronics firm LEMO are building a news headquarters in North Street; the building, nicknamed "The Peanut", is due to open in 2010.^[70] In early 2008, the town's further education college, Northbrook College, announced proposals to invest £70 million to consolidate its operations on to one campus in Broadwater.^[71] Worthing College, the town's sixth form college, has also had plans approved for a £42 million redevelopment of its campus near Durrington railway station. In 2009, both schemes were threatened by delays in receiving money from the Learning and Skills Council.^[72]

In the longer term, the area around Worthing's museum, art gallery, library and town hall—collectively described as the "Worthing Cultural and Civic Hub"—is to be revamped to provide extra facilities and new housing.^[73] In 2009, Worthing Borough Council applied for a £5 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to redevelop and enlarge the museum.^[74] A new £24 million municipal swimming pool is being designed by Stirling Prize-winning architects Wilkinson Eyre^[75] for the town centre—possibly next to the existing pool at the Aquarena, which would be redeveloped.^[76] It has also been proposed that Montague Place is pedestrianised to improve the link between the town centre and the seafront.^[77]

Completed regeneration projects include the reopening of the Dome Cinema in 2007 after major investment from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and a £5.5 million mixed-use development on the site of a former hotel near Teville Gate.^[78]

Although Worthing was voted the most profitable town in Britain for three consecutive years at the end of the 1990s,^[79][80] the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2009 found that Worthing residents' mean pre-tax pay is only £452 per week, compared to £487 for West Sussex and £535 for South East England as a whole.^[60]

Transport

A turnpike was opened in 1803 to connect Worthing with London,^[81][82] and similar toll roads were built later in the 19th century to connect nearby villages.^[82][83] Stagecoach traffic grew rapidly until 1845, when the opening of a railway line from Brighton brought about an immediate decline.^[84] The former turnpike is now the A24, a primary route which runs northwards to London via Horsham. Two east–west routes run through the borough: the A27 trunk road runs to Brighton, Chichester and Portsmouth, and the A259 follows a coastal route between Hampshire and Kent.^[85]

Most local and long-distance buses are operated by Stagecoach in the South Downs, a division of Stagecoach Group plc which has its origins in Southdown Motor Services—founded in 1915 with one route to Pulborough.^[86] Stagecoach in the South Downs operates several routes around the town and to Midhurst, Brighton and Portsmouth.^[87] The most frequent service, between Lancing and Durrington, was branded PULSE in 2006.^[88] Worthing-based Compass Bus have routes to Angmering, Chichester, Henfield and Lancing;^[89] and other companies serve Horsham, Crawley,^[90] Brighton^[91] and intermediate destinations. National Express coaches run between London's Victoria Coach Station and Marine Parade.^[92]

The borough has five railway stations: East Worthing, Worthing, West Worthing, Durrington-on-Sea and Goring-by-Sea. All are on the West Coastway Line and are managed and operated by the Southern train operating company.^[93] Worthing opened on 24 November 1845 as a temporary terminus of the line from Brighton, which was extended to Chichester the following year and electrified in the 1930s.^[94] Regular services run to destinations such as London, Gatwick Airport, Brighton, Littlehampton and Portsmouth.^[95]

Shoreham Airport is about 5 miles (8 km) east of Worthing. The nearest international airport is London Gatwick, about 28 miles (45 km) to the northeast.^[85]

Public services

Home Office policing in Worthing is provided by the Worthing district of the West Downs division of Sussex Police.^[96] The district is divided into three neighbourhood policing teams—Town, East and West—for operational purposes. The police station is in Chatsworth Road.^[97] The West Downs division's headquarters is at Centenary House in Durrington.^[98] Worthing's fire station has been in Broadwater since 1962. The borough had been in charge of fire protection since 1891, after several decades in which volunteers provided the service. A fire station was built on Worthing High Street in 1908; it was demolished after the move to Broadwater.^[99] The Worthing and Adur District Team, part of the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service,^[100] employs 60 full-time and 18 retained firefighters.^[101]

Worthing Hospital is administered by the Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust.^[102] The 500-bed facility on Lyndhurst Road was founded in 1881 as an 18-bed infirmary.^[99][103] It replaced older hospitals on Ann Street and Chapel Road.^[103] Other medical care facilities include two mental health units (Greenacres and Meadowfield Hospital)^[104][105] and a 38-bed private hospital in the Grade II-listed Goring Hall.^[106]

Gas was manufactured in Worthing for nearly 100 years until 1931,^[99][107] but Scotia Gas Networks now supply the town through their Southern Gas Networks division.^[108] Electricity generation took place locally between 1901 and 1961;^[99][107] EDF Energy now supply the town.^[109] Southern Water, who have been based in Durrington since 1989, have controlled Worthing's water supply, drainage and sewerage since 1974. The town's first waterworks was built in 1852.^[110] Drainage and sewage disposal was poorly developed in the 19th century, but a fatal typhoid outbreak in 1893 prompted investment in sewage works and better pipes.^[99][111]

Buildings and architecture

There are 213 listed buildings in the borough of Worthing. Three of these—Castle Goring, St Mary's Church at Broadwater and the Archbishop's Palace at West Tarring—are classified at Grade I, which is used for buildings "of exceptional interest, sometimes considered to be internationally important".^[112] Worthing Pier, Park Crescent, Beach House and several churches are also listed.^[113]

Since 1896, when Warwick House was demolished, many historic buildings have been lost and others altered.^[114] The town's first and most distinguished theatre, the Theatre Royal, and the adjacent Omega Cottage (the home of the theatre's first manager) were lost in 1970 when the Guildbourne Centre was built;^[115][116] Warne's Hotel and the Royal Sea House burnt down;^[117][118] the early bath-houses which were vital to Worthing's success as a fashionable resort were all demolished in the 20th century;^[119] Broadwater's ancient rectory rotted away after it fell out of use in 1924;^[86] and several old streets in the town centre had all their buildings demolished for postwar redevelopment.^[116]

Pale yellow bricks have been made locally since about 1780, and are commonly encountered as a building material.^[120] Flint is the other predominant structural material: its local abundance has ensured its frequent use. The combination of flint and red brick is characteristic of Worthing. In particular, walls built alongside streets or to mark out boundaries were almost always built of flint with brick dressings, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.^[121]

Boat porches are a unique architectural feature of Worthing. These structures surround the entrance doors of some early 19th-century houses, and take the form of an stuccoed porch with an ogee-headed roof which resembles the bottom of a boat. Historians have speculated that the cottages, examples of which are in Albert Place, Warwick Place and elsewhere, may have been built by local fishermen who used their boats as a basis for the design.^[58]

Folklore

The Midsummer Tree, an oak, stands near Broadwater Green and is said to be around 300 years old. Until the 19th century, it was believed that on Midsummer's Eve skeletons would rise from the tree and dance around it until dawn, when they would sink back into the ground.^[122] The legend was first recorded by folklorist Charlotte Latham in 1868.^[123]

It was once believed that monsters known as knuckers lived in bottomless ponds called knuckerholes. There were several knuckerholes in Sussex, including one in Worthing by Ham Bridge (on the present Ham Road), close to East Worthing railway station and Teville Stream.^[124]

According to legend, a tunnel several miles long led from the now-demolished medieval Offington Hall to the Neolithic flint mines and Iron Age hill fort at Cissbury. It was said to be sealed, and there was treasure at the far end; the owner of the Hall "had offered half the money to anyone who would clear out the subterranean passage and several persons had begun digging, but all had been driven back by large snakes springing at them with open mouths and angry hisses".^[123][125]

Arts

The history of film in Worthing dates back to exhibitions on Worthing Pier in 1896, and two years later William Kennedy Dickson—inventor of the Kinetoscope, a pioneering motion picture device—visited the town to film daily life. In the early 20th century, several cinemas were established, although most were short-lived.^[126][127] Other former cinemas include the Rivoli (1924–1960), the 2,000-capacity Plaza (1933–1968) and the 1,600-capacity Odeon (1934–1986).^[127] The Kursaal was built in 1910 as a combined skating rink and theatre by Swiss impresario Carl Adolf Seebold. It was renamed The Dome in 1915 in response to anti-German sentiment during World War One. Seebold opened the 950-capacity Dome Cinema in place of the skating rink in 1922;^[126] it is still open, and is one of Britain's oldest operational cinemas.^[128] The Connaught Screen 2 cinema (formerly The Ritz, and before that Connaught Hall) was established in 1995.^[127][129]

Theatre has been performed in Worthing since 1796. Thomas Trotter, the early promoter and manager at the town's temporary venues,^[130] was asked to open a permanent theatre in 1807; his Theatre Royal opened on 7 July of that year and operated until 1855. The building survived until 1870. The 1,000-capacity New Theatre Royal in Bath Place, run by Carl Adolf Seebold for several years, lasted from 1897 until 1929.^[115] Several other venues have been used for theatrical productions,^[131] but as of 2010 Worthing has three council-owned theatres: the Art Deco Connaught Theatre, the Baroque Pavilion Theatre^[115] and the Modernist, Grade II-listed Assembly Hall, which is mostly used for musical performances (including since 1950 an annual music festival).^[132][133] The Assembly Hall is home to the Worthing Symphony Orchestra and the Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra.^[133]

Worthing Museum and Art Gallery was built in 1908 as the town's museum and library. Alfred Cortis, the first mayor of Worthing, and the international philanthropist Andrew Carnegie funded the construction.^[134] West Sussex County Council built a new library in 1975^[135] and the museum has had a chequered history ever since, fighting off closure in 2003 with the support of local residents.^{[citation needed]}

Open spaces

Beach House Park - named after nearby Beach House, the park is home to one of the world's most well-known venues for the sport of bowls. The park is also home to a possibly unique memorial to homing pigeons that served in the Second World War.

Beach House Green

Broadwater Green - Broadwater's 'village green'.

Brooklands Park

Denton Gardens

Goring Green

Highdown Gardens - a beautiful garden at the foot of the South Downs, deemed to be of national importance.

Homefield Park - formerly known as the 'People's Park' it was once home to Worthing F.C.

Liverpool Gardens - overlooking the graceful Georgian Liverpool Terrace, the gardens and terrace are named after Lord Liverpool. Overlooking the park from the east are four bronze heads known as Desert Quartet, sculptured by Dame Elisabeth Frink.

Marine Gardens

Palatine Park

Promenade Waterwise Garden

Steyne Gardens - which includes a sunken garden re-landscaped in 2007 with a fountain of the Ancient Greek sea god, Triton, by sculptor William Bloye.

Victoria Park - was donated by the Heene Estate to the poor of Worthing in commemoration of the death of Queen Victoria. (Taken from title deeds to property owned in St. Matthews Road.) The land was previously used for market gardening and once sported a paddling pool which was closed due to foot infections in the children. Victoria Park is very popular for club and casual footballers.

West Park - has a running track and basketball court and lies next to Worthing Leisure Centre.

Annual events

In January, the ancient custom of wassailing takes place in Tarring to bless the apple trees. A flaming torchlit procession takes place down Tarring High Street culminating in hundreds of people gathering around an apple tree to shout, chant and sing to drive away evil spirits.^[136] The apple trees are toasted with wassail, apple cider and apple cake, followed by fireworks.^[137]

At the end of January 2009, Worthing will hold its first Ice Prince Arts Festival, which will commemorate the sinking of the Ice Prince in 2008 which brought many tonnes of timber to the town's beaches.^[138] As part of this festival, the annual fruit-flinging contest which is usually held on the beach each March is being brought forward from March to Sunday 25 January 2009. The contest is to mark the sinking of the 1000-ton SS Indiana off the coast of Worthing in 1901. The ship was sailing to London from Venice via Valencia and crashed into another ship off Worthing. The ship's cargo of oranges and lemons was washed up on the beach to the delight of the town's inhabitants.

Every February, to coincide with Valentine's Day, the Revolutionary Arts Group stage the We Love You festival, a small event which includes artistic interventions around the town.

On May Day, a procession and dancing takes place in Worthing town centre, culminating in the crowning of the May Queen.^[139] Also in May, the Three Forts Marathon starts and finishes at the Norwich Union building on the outskirts of Worthing before taking in the ancient hill forts of Cissbury Ring, Devil's Dyke and Chanctonbury Ring over the rough and steep terrain of the South Downs.^[140]

The Artists and Makers Festival, organised by the Revolutionary Arts Group, takes place in the first two-three weeks every July, and includes artists' open houses, studios and gardens; a textile arts trail; and music and theatre, including Rainbow Shakespeare which takes place in Highdown Gardens.

The Worthing Festival is held in the last two weeks each July with open-air concerts in the town centre and a fairground along the town's promenade.

Pier Day takes place on Worthing Pier and the nearby promenade every September.

Worthing is now the home to the International Birdman Rally (formerly hosted in Bognor Regis). The 2009 International Birdman took place on the 22 and 23 August.^[141]

Cannabis culture

Worthing was one of the first towns in the UK to have cannabis "cafés". Chris Baldwin (a Legalise Cannabis Alliance activist) first opened one in a back room of his shop, "Bongchuffa", on Rowlands Road. It was named "The Quantum Leaf" and there was so much demand that he opened another called "Buddies", and simultaneously set up "The Herb Connection". Both cafés were subject to continuous police raids. The first was shut when the landlord withdrew the lease for the property shortly followed by the second which closed due to police intercepting users on their way out of the property.

Another such establishment, operating in a less obvious, but still public manner was also opened and operated freely in Worthing for over two years, by a group not associated with the LCA and was continuously raided. The site of this cafe was reduced to rubble within months of the last raid.

Media

In the early 19th century, Worthing was served by newspapers with a wider geographical circulation, such as the Brighton Gazette, Brighton Herald, Sussex Daily News, Sussex Weekly Advertiser and West Sussex Gazette.^[142] Weekly or monthly publications such as the Worthing Visitors' List and Advertising Sheet (notorious for its condemnation of people who had displeased its owner, Owen Breads),^[143] the Worthing Monthly Record & District Chronicle and the Worthing Intelligencer^[144] provided some local coverage from the middle of the century onwards; but the town's first regular local newspaper was the Worthing Gazette, introduced in 1883.^[144] It favoured the Conservative Party at first, and supported the Skeleton Army's anti-Salvation Army riots later that decade.^[145] In 1921 its scope was extended to include Littlehampton, and it was renamed accordingly.^[144] The Worthing Herald was founded in 1920; it acquired the Gazette in 1963, but continued to publish the newspapers separately until 1981. Since then, a single newspaper has been published weekly under the Herald name, but it is officially known as the Worthing Herald incorporating the Worthing Gazette.^[144] It is now owned by Johnston Press, and has been based at Cannon House in Chatsworth Road since 1991.^[144][146] The Brighton-based daily The Argus, owned by Newsquest, also serves Worthing. An anarchic local newsletter called The Porkbolter, focusing on environmental issues, has been published monthly since 1997.^[147]

Worthing is served by the BBC South television studios based in Southampton,^[148][149] and by the ITV franchise Meridian Broadcasting, also with studios in Southampton.^[150] Television signals come from the Rowridge or Whitehawk Hill transmitters.^[151][152]

Splash FM is Worthing's local commercial radio station. Launched in 2003 and owned by Media Sound Holdings Ltd, it broadcasts from the Guildbourne Centre on 107.7FM.^[153] Heart Sussex, a Global Radio-owned commercial station, also covers Worthing.^[154] BBC Local Radio coverage is provided by BBC Sussex (formerly BBC Southern Counties Radio).^[155]

Sport

Nicknamed "The Rebels", Worthing F.C. is the town's main football club. They play in the Isthmian League Division One South, having been relegated from the Premier Division at the end of the 2006/07 season.

Worthing United F.C. play in the First Division of the Sussex County League.

Eric "The Rabbit" Parsons played for West Ham United, Chelsea and Brentford in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born in Worthing and continues to live in the town.

Chelsea and England goalkeeper Peter Bonetti grew up in the town, having moved to Worthing from London with his parents in 1948 and having played for Worthing Catholics in the 1950s.

Scott Harris, who used to play for Portsmouth was born in Worthing in 1985.

Basketball

Worthing Thunder, formed after local team Worthing Bears moved to Brighton, play basketball in the British Basketball League, the United Kingdom's top basketball league. Until 2008 the club competed in the English Basketball League for several years, which they won in 2005/06 and 2006/07. As the Worthing Bears, Worthing won the British Basketball League in 1992/93.

Ten-pin bowling

Women's ten-pin bowling champion Lisa John lives in the town.

Bowls

Worthing is the home of the English Bowling Association (EBA). Beach House Park in Worthing is also one of the world's most famous bowls venues. Five international standard bowling greens play host to the annual EBA National Championships. These are held every summer (mid/late August) and are the highlight of the EBA calendar. Competitors come from all over England to compete in the various events which culminate in the inter-county Middleton Cup that takes place on the final day each year.

Various other representative and international bowls fixtures take place at Beach House Park from time to time including British Isles Championships, Junior Internationals. The men's World Bowls Championships were held in Worthing in 1972 and 1992 and the women's World Bowls Championships in 1977.

David Bryant, former multiple world bowls champion, lives in the town.

Cricket

Former Test cricketer Donald Smith was born in Broadwater in 1923.

Sussex cricketer Jason Lewry was born in the town in 1971 and was a member of Sussex's County Championship-winning sides of 2006 and 2007.

Former Sussex cricketer and England under 19 captain Neil Lenham was born in Worthing in 1965.

Worthing's oldest cricket club is Broadwater Cricket Club, which was founded in 1771. In 1837 the club hosted a match on Broadwater Green between a Sussex XI and an England XI. As the town of Worthing grew separately from Broadwater in the 1800s, Worthing Cricket Club was formed in 1855.

Chippingdale Cricket Club is Worthing's oldest cricket club (if we disregard those with a geographical base). The club was founded in 1897 by Frank Sandell for the employees of his building firm. The club was the first in Worthing to achieve Clubmark status in April 2007.

Golf

Professional golfer Gary Evans is from Worthing and now lives in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Golf instructor David Leadbetter is originally from Worthing and now lives in Florida, USA. Worthing has three golf clubs - Worthing Golf Club, Hill Barn Golf Club and Brooklands Golf Club - a par three 9-hole course.

Ice hockey

Byron Dafoe, goaltender for the Washington Capitals was born in the town in 1971.

Kitesurfing

Worthing is home to Lewis Crathern, British Kitesurfing Champion and Neil Hilder, another top UK kitesurfer.^[156] Kitesurfing takes place along the coast at Worthing and in particular at Goring Gap between the Goring area of the town and Ferring.

Rowing

Worthing Rowing Club was formed in 1880^[157] and has held an annual rowing regatta since the 19th century.

Rugby Union

Worthing RUFC were formed at York House in the town in September, 1920 and play in the nearby village of Angmering. They are currently in National Division Three South and have been Sussex county champions every year from 2001-present.

Swimming

Worthing Swimming Club was formed in 1890 in the YMCA Rooms in Warwick Street.

Tennis

Former Great Britain Davis Cup player Martin Lee is from Worthing and attended Worthing High School.

Wrestling

Worthing is home to a self funded wrestling organisation called the JWF which began in 2001. a large number of local church halls and youth centres have been home to the JWF including, the Sydney Walter Centre, the Glynn Owen Centre (connected to Worthing High School) and currently St Richard's Church Hall in Durrington.

Worthing has also been a mainstay for wrestling promoter John Freemantle and his Premier Promotions wrestling bouts, these have been a staple of entertainment in both the Worthing Pavilion and the Assembly Halls for years.

Notable people

The town has a long history of notable inhabitants, including pioneer Edward Henty, born in West Tarring in 1810,^[158] horticulturalist James Bateman,^[159] mathematician and inventor Thomas Shaw Brandreth^[160] and artist Copley Fielding.^[161] In the 20th century, many writers settled in the town, from poet Beatrice Hastings^[162] to playwright Harold Pinter.^[163]

Twin towns

Le Pays des Olonnes (the area around Les Sables-d'Olonne), France

Elztal, Germany