Church Norton

This is a brief circular walk starting off at Church Norton where there's parking.  The highlight is the view of Pagham Harbour, the sea is also good, then it returns along an inland path. St Wilfred's chapel, a pretty little church that was built in the 13th century sits in the midst of an extensive graveyard. It's now redundant but apparently is on the site of an earlier monastery built by St Wilfreds and was the parish church for Seal Island or Selsey as it's more usually know now.

Adjacent to it is Church Norton Mound which is what remains of a Norman castle built at the end of the 11th Century. There's some impressive earthworks and a moat of sorts but not much else to comment on apart
from the occasional moorhen.

The path leads down to the harbour which is frequented by bird watchers,

usually seen lugging great telescopes and tripods with them. In the picture there's a group of them, they like being together, perhaps a rarity has been reported which is certain to attract a band of twitchers. The Harbour is managed by the RSPB and renowned for the Little Terns that breed on an island in the middle; however this is winter and they aren't there today, just lots of seagulls.

You can follow the edge of the harbour round to the spit which leads out to the harbour entrance. This adds a bit of interest to the walk as well as making it a bit longer; there's usually more opportunity to see wildfowl here.

Following the sea for a short while, there are excellent views of the coast past Bognor where the Butlins camp is prominent, and on to Worthing. It's always good to see the sea and if it's blowy there can be some quite impressive breakers on the banks offshore.

Heading south you pass some reed beds which look like they're being well maintained which is good to see as they're such an important habitat.

It's not far before you come to a signpost indicating the path inland through some trees and across a field to some farm buildings, welcome to Pigeon Farm. The path turns right in front, and is littered with the rusty wrecks of various old bits of machinery; all sorts from caterpillar dumpers to cranes. One day it's going to cost a fortune to remove them all.

Further on there's what seems to be the remains of a small factory with a several radar domes in the yard at the back. They're clearly maritime in nature, what went on here in the past? Maybe something dating back to the Second World War when there was so much activity here.



At the end of the path is the road leading back to the Church and the car park. It's only 1.9 miles to go round, another mile or so if you go out along the spit; a route to savour the moments rather than the miles.