Felpham circular

By Eddie Start

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The walk from St Mary the Virgin Church in Felpham offers clues to the area's military past, which belies its sleepy South Coast feel

If the idea of England's green and pleasant land and the thought that an ancient biblical city may have been "builded" here appeals to you, then this walk may well exercise your imagination.

Felpham is a village that is now almost part of its larger neighbour Bognor, but there is a more poetic and mystical association.

In the early 1800s, William Blake wrote "Jerusalem", one of our nation's favourite anthems, and at this point in his life, he lived in the village.

However, there is more to this walk than the writings of a troubled and tortured aesthete.

While this is flat, coastal plain walking, seldom more than a few feet above sea level, there is plenty to capture the eye and a reminder of our industrial and military past. Sussex, for some, may be a sleepy, South Coast repose, but the reality is that in the past it has been on the frontline of international conflict.

This walk will provide a few clues.

1. Take the footpath at the right hand end of the front wall of the church of St Mary the Virgin in Felpham. Follow the path around to the right through the churchyard and pass beside some allotments to the main road. Cross the road at the crossing, then continue on the footpath that goes left and then right beside a college and its playing fields.

Follow this path for half-amile and at a primary school cross the road and continue through scrubland to the edge of Bognor Regis golf course. Follow the signed path across the course, which goes half left, then right between trees. After 250 yards, turn left on the path to arrive beside a drainage ditch in a further 200 yards. Turn right, northward, along the edge of the greens.

2. In 250 yards cross a footbridge over Lidsey Rife and go diagonally right to another footpath sign. Continue in the same direction and cross the railway line at a pedestrian access point. Maintain direction and in just over 100 yards take the signed right turn, along a track that can be very muddy after wet weather.

The path continues alongside the railway and takes a left turn towards Lidsey Lodge Farm. At the farm, pass through a gate and continue ahead along Sack

Lane. In 350 yards, take the signed right turn along a treelined path, soon coming to open fields and going briefly left, then right and dropping to a stile.

Go half-left across the next field to a bridge and note from the map that you are close to the area identified as the Old Canal.

3. Cross the bridge, going right, and in a few paces climb some steps up a bank on the left. Turn right and walk towards the industrial buildings ahead, the pungent odour from which will leave you in no doubt as to their function.

Follow the path for half-a-mile to the railway and climb through a leafy tunnel of bushes to the pedestrian crossing. On the eastern side of the line the onward direction is signposted straight on and comes to Barnham Court Farm in a little over a quarter of a mile.

4. It is at this point that the eagle-eyed walker will begin to sense something different about the landscape.

Set to the north of the path is a brick-lined gully, which is the retaining structure of a swing bridge that crossed the Arundel to Portsmouth canal, at this point. The canal was constructed during the Napoleonic wars to connect with the Wey and Arun canal and provide safe navigation from London to Portsmouth. There are a number of bridge sites along what was the towpath of the canal.

Continue for the next one-and-a-quarter miles, noting the bridge locations and Barnham Windmill to the north, close to Tilebarn Farm. There are points along the next section where you can see how the canal was built on the flat coastal plain by constructing the banks to contain the waterway. This was clearly a significant engineering feat to assist the country's war effort and its construction would have had a major impact on the surrounding communities.

5. Our route follows the path to come out at Drove Lane. Turn left to join the B2233 road. Turn right towards Yapton and arrive at a busy road junction, with the Olive Branch pub on the left.

Cross the busy road junction, going straight on, and in 50 yards cross the road to take the signed, rising footpath on the right. In a few yards the path crosses a humpback brick bridge, which was the local crossing point over the canal.

Continue across a small housing area and find the onward signed footpath going southwesterly.

The path rises to cross a small meadow and in 150 yards goes right to Drove Lane.

6. Turn left, pass between the buildings of Drove Lane Farm and walk on the main path, following the footpath signs, to Weststone Bridge in three-quarters of a mile. Continue on the path where it goes slightly left, and then ahead beside a drainage gully, to rise towards a meadow.

Turn right on the signed path over a couple of fields, cross a plank bridge and take a few paces left to the trig point, close to Hoe Farm. This point is a mere 13ft above sea level, unlike some of the markers we have passed on earlier walks.

Take the right footpath towards the trees and turn right along the left field edge to a footbridge. Cross the bridge onto the golf course and go diagonally right to the bank beside Lydsey Rife and the bridge we crossed earlier. Do not cross the bridge, but turn left and follow the outward route back through the golf course and then beside the college to the church in Felpham.

This is a green and pleasant walk, with a reminder of an earlier industrial and military age, but as for biblical cities or dark satanic mills there is not a sign.