A fascinating diary charting the final days of a Worthing soldier who fought and died in the Crimean War has been preserved for posterity.

The diary, in remarkably good condition considering its age, contains a selection of letters, drawings, newspaper cuttings and photographs relating to William Henry Cecil George Pechell.

The gallant officer, who was born at Castle Goring, was killed repelling an attack by the Russians on the advanced trenches before Sebastopol. The date was September 3, 1855.

William's body was brought home in a lead coffin and he is buried in the graveyard of St Margaret's Church, Angmering, but the tombstone inscription is badly worn and most people pass by without realising the historical significance of the site. There is also a plaque in St Margaret's, and another at St Mary's Church in Goring.

The diary is now owned by descendant John FitzRoy Pechell Somerset and his wife Marigold, who live at Holt Farm, off the A27, near Castle Goring.

William, 24, was a captain in the 77th Regiment and embarked for the Crimea aboard the steam vessel Prince, which was later sunk during a hurricane that decimated the Allied fleet in the harbour at Balaclava.

He was a prolific letter writer, giving a vivid account of a soldier's life in the Crimea, when the British Army was dogged by dreadful hardship, including extreme weather, poor clothing, inadequate food and disease, which ultimately claimed more lives than enemy action.

William penned his last letter on September 1, 1855. It arrived several weeks after his death. A fellow officer told how William had been shot through the heart and buried in a temporary grave.

He wrote: "It is sad news that was brought up from the trenches last night, for your gallant son has, as many good spirits before him, paid the penalty of war, and fallen honorably in difficult and dangerous service.

"The loss of the good and gallant blood of English gentlemen is most painful."

Another colleague wrote: "A soldier's funeral is always an impressive one. I have attended many but I never witnessed one more affecting.

"We consigned his body to the grave on the heights of Sebastopol.

"The incessant and awful din of that terrible bombardment at a spot within range of the enemy's batteries did not prevent us from joining heartily in the service which was read over his body.

"The effect of this produced emotion rarely excited in the minds of men so hardened to death and dangers as were the actors in this last scene. His loss is a most severe blow to his family."

After William's death, his sisters Henrietta and Adelaide compiled the diary which may now be handed on to the County Records Office at Chichester.

William was the son of Admiral Sir George Pechell, MP for Brighton, and in 1859 the town's residents raised enough cash to pay for a statue of the late soldier.

The statue was first displayed in the garden of the Royal Pavilion but was moved over the years, at one time gracing the courtyard of the King and Queen pub in Marlborough Place.

It eventually ended up in the council's parks and maintenance area at Stanmer, missing his hat and part of a foot. In 1982, the statue was saved from obscurity and sent to the Middlesex Regiment Museum in London.