Straddling the Hampshire Downs and the distinctive countryside of Sussex, the South Downs is Britain's newest and most visited national park, and is abutted by a long coastline and the surprisingly remote landscapes of the Weald. Slow-travel enthusiast and Sussex resident Tim Locke takes a close-up look at the best of the countryside and places in his back yard, and celebrates what makes the area so distinctive. This is not a book of dry practicalities. Locke's local knowledge leads the reader to his favourite walks, pubs and and places to stay, while his colourful interviews with local craftsmen and characters give visitors a personal acquaintance with the region. Sussex boasts a huge variety of landscapes and architecture, from the chalk South Downs to the salty marshes at Chichester Harbour. The ways of enjoying it are just as diverse, and could include foraging for fungi on the Wealden heaths, watching the unique Sussex pastime of stoolball, paragliding over the Downs or sampling a locally produced wine.
'The Slow guides are the perfect travel companion - warm, witty and stuffed with insider knowledge. I can't think of a better way to unlock the joys of Britain.'
Carl Honoré, author of In Praise of Slow
'Thanks to Tim, I'm now inspired to visit Kingley Vale for myself, not to mention Fishbourne's Roman Palace and Sussex's Purple Patch. I want to go llama trekking in the Ashdown Forest and try paragliding over the Downs, and when I do, this fascinating guide will be the first thing I shall pack.'
Thetraveleditor.com
'It’s a wonderful read that will really help me with exploring my adopted county. I hope it sells well - it deserves to!'
Dr Hew Prendergast, Director, Ashdown Forest Conservators
'Written in a pleasing journalistic style, with plenty of fact-filled anecdotes and personal experience thrown in. A book after Viva's own heart; and one that is likely to spend more time on the desktop or in the shoulder bag than on the bookshelf.'
Viva Lewes
'A book that really gets to the heart of all that’s best about Sussex, whilst taking an approach close to my own heart - a refreshingly slow and sustainable way of appreciating this beautiful corner of the country. No rush; just savour and enjoy!'
Gillian Clarkson, Towner Gallery, East Sussex
'An exceptional new book ... just part of the mixture that makes Slow Sussex and South Downs National Park so compelling. This is no standard guide book. It's a fascinating blend of things to see, things to do - and perhaps how to go about it all on foot.'
Sussex Express
'Locke's wry humour and detailed research make this a readable and informative book. The chatty tone is interlaced with the sort of recommendations that only someone with good local knowledge can provide.'
thetraveleditor.com
'Perhaps if Jerome K Jerome had published guidebooks instead of novels, he might have written books like these... I hope this series does well and becomes international, as it is about time everyone slowed down a bit and appreciated what is around them'
www.wildlifeextra.com
"As much an entertaining armchair read as a practical guide, this book is perfect for newcomers to Sussex as well as locals."
Sussex Wildlife Trust magazine
Customer Reviews:
Reviewed by: hidden europe on 7th September 2011 4:12PM
I knew I was going to love this book when I read on the very first page how the author had, at the age of 14, compiled a little guide awarding Baedeker / Michelin-style stars to features around the family home - his appraisals extending even unto the family cat. That youthful endeavour revealed the same enquiring, possibly slightly quirky, nicely opinionated mindset that underpins Slow Sussex and the South Downs.
This book, one of the latest additions to Bradt Travel Guides' Slow series, is first-class. Author Tim Locke has done Bradt proud. The book is an absolute delight to read. Plenty of well-crafted prose to guide the reader around a splendid part of England which includes a spectacular chalk-cliff coastline, gently contoured downland, acid heaths and rich townscapes.
The book provided a new gloss on places I thought I knew well (from Brighton's Royal Pavilion to Winchester Cathedral), but also encouraged me to explore new terrain: like the footpath that skirts Thorney Island (out-of-bounds to the public I'd always thought, but clearly I was wrong on that point), the Tide Mills near Newhaven and Bexhill's striking Art Deco Pavilion.
Tim Locke has the enviable knack of leading the reader to places she or he surely never thought they would want to go. And he delights them along the way with all manner of intriguing cultural, social or geomorphological detail. Brighton beach, we learn, is reputedly composed of 614 billion pebbles. Locke recounts the tale of Sussex's least successful county cricketer and encourages the reader to play pooh-sticks near Hartfield on the northern fringes of the Ashdown Forest.
This book is a wonderful read, at its best I feel in the sections dealing with rural areas of the Sussex Weald and the South Downs. One has a sense of an author not quite comfortable with his own title. He skips Crawley, Horsham, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, struggles a little to say something nice about Worthing - but then comes up trumps with Shoreham-on-Sea which turns out to be a hundred times more interesting that I would ever have imagined.
The layout is a shade too fussy for my taste, at time detracting from the engaging simplicity of the text. A really big plus is that the glossy accommodation inserts from Alastair Sawday which so undermined the integrity of earlier guides in Bradt's Slow series have mercifully been dropped. They were at very much odds with the tenor of writing in those earlier guides (to Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Yorkshire). In Slow Sussex and the South Downs National Park, Tim Locke commends a great range of spots to stay - and one has a strong sense that they are places the author really likes.
All in all, a super book. Five stars. It'll appeal to visitors, but also to folk who live in Sussex. It deserves to be on display and for sale in every independent bookshop, and in every tea shop and delicatessen, from Winchester to Winchelsea and well beyond.
CONTENTS
GOING SLOW IN SUSSEX AND THE SOUTH DOWNS
NATIONAL PARK iv
1. WINCHESTER AND THE HAMPSHIRE DOWNS 1
Getting around 1, Accommodation 2, Winchester 4,
Into the Hampshire Downs 12
2. CHICHESTER HARBOUR TO THE ARUN 35
Getting around 36, Accommodation 38, Chichester Harbour and Chichester 40,
Sussex’s westernmost Downs 54, The Rother Valley and the north 68,
Into the Low Weald around the upper Arun 81, The lower Arun Valley 83
3. BRIGHTON AND ITS HINTERLAND 97
Getting around 97, Accommodation 99, Worthing and the west 100,
Brighton and Hove 104, East of Brighton 121, Away from the coast 124
4. LEWES DOWNS TO BEACHY HEAD 137
Getting around 137, Accommodation 139, Lewes and the lower Ouse Valley 141,
From the Ouse to the Cuckmere 156, Cuckmere Valley: from Hailsham to the sea 166
5. THE EASTERN HIGH WEALD 185
Getting around 185, Accommodation 186, Wealden gardens and the Forest Ridge 188,
Ashdown Forest and around 204, Towards the Kent border 215
6. EASTBOURNE, HASTINGS AND 1066 COUNTRY 223
Getting around 223, Accommodation 224, The 1066 coast 226, Into the Weald 249
INDEX 256
Tim Locke is a freelance travel writer with special expertise on England and Wales.
Customer Reviews:
Reviewed by: hidden europe on 7th September 2011 4:12PM
I knew I was going to love this book when I read on the very first page how the author had, at the age of 14, compiled a little guide awarding Baedeker / Michelin-style stars to features around the family home - his appraisals extending even unto the family cat. That youthful endeavour revealed the same enquiring, possibly slightly quirky, nicely opinionated mindset that underpins Slow Sussex and the South Downs.
This book, one of the latest additions to Bradt Travel Guides' Slow series, is first-class. Author Tim Locke has done Bradt proud. The book is an absolute delight to read. Plenty of well-crafted prose to guide the reader around a splendid part of England which includes a spectacular chalk-cliff coastline, gently contoured downland, acid heaths and rich townscapes.
The book provided a new gloss on places I thought I knew well (from Brighton's Royal Pavilion to Winchester Cathedral), but also encouraged me to explore new terrain: like the footpath that skirts Thorney Island (out-of-bounds to the public I'd always thought, but clearly I was wrong on that point), the Tide Mills near Newhaven and Bexhill's striking Art Deco Pavilion.
Tim Locke has the enviable knack of leading the reader to places she or he surely never thought they would want to go. And he delights them along the way with all manner of intriguing cultural, social or geomorphological detail. Brighton beach, we learn, is reputedly composed of 614 billion pebbles. Locke recounts the tale of Sussex's least successful county cricketer and encourages the reader to play pooh-sticks near Hartfield on the northern fringes of the Ashdown Forest.
This book is a wonderful read, at its best I feel in the sections dealing with rural areas of the Sussex Weald and the South Downs. One has a sense of an author not quite comfortable with his own title. He skips Crawley, Horsham, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, struggles a little to say something nice about Worthing - but then comes up trumps with Shoreham-on-Sea which turns out to be a hundred times more interesting that I would ever have imagined.
The layout is a shade too fussy for my taste, at time detracting from the engaging simplicity of the text. A really big plus is that the glossy accommodation inserts from Alastair Sawday which so undermined the integrity of earlier guides in Bradt's Slow series have mercifully been dropped. They were at very much odds with the tenor of writing in those earlier guides (to Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Yorkshire). In Slow Sussex and the South Downs National Park, Tim Locke commends a great range of spots to stay - and one has a strong sense that they are places the author really likes.
All in all, a super book. Five stars. It'll appeal to visitors, but also to folk who live in Sussex. It deserves to be on display and for sale in every independent bookshop, and in every tea shop and delicatessen, from Winchester to Winchelsea and well beyond.
Finalist in the British Travel Press Awards