Cocking to Amberley and Arundel

The Malthouse, where we had spent a pleasant night, and Moonlight Cottage operate as a single B&B business, and breakfast is served in the tea room at Moonlight Cottage. This may or may not be currently operating as a tea room, but Sue and Steve Redshaw provided us with an excellent breakfast (and with sandwiches for lunch) despite the fact that both B&Bs were full and everyone had requested breakfast for 8am. "Everyone" comprised us, our friends the Americans, another couple (cyclists?) who were also eating in the Bluebell last night and a larger group of cyclists. We sat in the back room with the Americans, with whom will be parting company today because they are staying two nights in the Amberley area before continuing their walk. They are actually being met in Amberley and taken by taxi to Washington, which seems a bit odd (the B&B that Macs Adventures use in Amberley couldn't take them for two nights); writing with the added benefit of hindsight, I would strongly encourage anyone to do as we did and take the train one short hop to Arundel for a night in this delightful town.

I'm getting ahead of myself. We left Cocking around 9am and climbed back up the track to the South Downs Way at the saw mill, farm shop and and yellow-windowed buildings at the place marked on the map as Hill Barn. We continued to climb, up Manorfarm Down (which is above the disused quarry that we could see yesterday and from Cocking), with lovely views opening up behind us to the route we had walked in the rain yesterday. There were a few spots of rain in the wind now, but it didn't come to anything and that remained the case all day until after we had reached Arundel, when there was more substantial rain.

After climbing we reached a more level section with trees on either side of the path, sometimes close by but mostly at a distance, with us walking on a wide green avenue between separate areas of woodland. Some other writers are damnatory of this section because the views are restricted, but we loved it. After changing map from Outdoor Leisure Sheet 8 (Chichester) to OL Sheet 10 (Arundel and Pulborough) we did a dog-leg left and right and passed a row of tumuli; later we passed several of the Graffham nature reserves, one of which contained more ancient remains (two different types of barrow and a cross dyke) whilst another had a useful information board which allowed us to confirm our identification of the purple flowers that had been appearing from time to time alongside the ubiquitous cowslips as pyramid orchids.

There were several intersections with other paths heading, amongst other places, left to the village of Graffham and, later, left to Duncton and right to East Dean. The West Sussex Literary Trail, which had been sharing or close to our route for several miles, parted company with us here. Eventually the views opened up and our direction of travel, which had been almost due east, became more to the south-east as we descended to towards the A285. We crossed a chalky field with a curious mobile signpost but as we approached Littleton Farm we were on a tree-lined track; there were depressingly good views of the climb the other side of the road, up towards Sutton Down and the radio masts on Glatting Beacon. We were looking for somewhere to stop for lunch and considered the edge of the track just above Littleton Farm, but I was put off by the close proximity of a herd of cows, albeit on the other side of a fence. We crossed the A285 and found a good place to stop for lunch on the double bend in the track just to the south of the road. A few people passed us as we ate our lunch.

As often seemed to be the case on the South Downs Way, the climb from our lunch-spot to Sutton Down was not as difficult as I'd expected, and the countryside was varied and attractive. From Sutton Down we continued through a sheep field past Glatting Beacon (complete with radio masts) and crossed the old Roman Road of Stane Street, close to but not, I think, actually intersecting with the route of the Monarch's Way (which was to the south of us for the whole of today's walk). There were good views to the coast (Bognor Regis here, I think!) and we passed a wooden sign indicating the direction to Noviomagus (Chichester) and Bignor. We then passed through a car park and soon we were walking across the open expanse of Bignor Hill.

We were curious to see "Toby's Stone" and somewhat surprised/disppointed to discover that this is actually a mounting block for getting on a horse; it felt more appropriate when we discovered that this is a memorial to a huntsman (described in the guidebook as Toby Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, one time secretary of the Cowdray Hounds, though much more interestingly, it is possible that this is the same Toby who would have been heir to the Wentworth-Fitzwilliam family fortune had he been able to prove that he wasn't illegitimate; HOWEVER, I'm really not convinced this is the same Toby, so I'll stop there; the internet can too easily lead to 2 + 2 making 5!). Toby's Stone bears just the simple inscription: "Here he lies where he longed to be, home is the sailor home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill".

The track we were on curved first right and then left and descended steeply towards some farm buildings, with much muttering about losing height only to regain it again. However, again, the ascent onto Westburton Hill was really not that bad. We stopped for a rest, then descended slightly to the A29, and once we had crossed the road (by means of a right and then left turn) it was downhill all the way! We passed a dump of manure and straw, but things improved as we descended, with good views to the River Arun and the village of Bury, about a kilometre to the north. From our vantage point Bury looked to be a pretty place, and the West Sussex Literary Way goes through the village, the home of novelist and playwright John Galsworthy, before rejoining our route on the South Downs Way as we reached the River Arun. The Monarch's Way, meanwhile, passes through the village of Houghton, just a few hundred metres to the south of the South Downs Way on its approach to the river.

The flat floodplain of the River Arun is in marked contrast with the surrounding downs, but none the less attractive for that; unfortunately our memory of it is slightly tarnished by a text received from Richard's parents' wonderful neighbour, to tell us that they were struggling. This resulted in much of our walk along and across the River being preoccupied by thought and talk of whether we should abandon our holiday and go to help out. Rightly or wrongly we didn't, but Richard rang them from Amberley Station and agreed to go at the weekend. By the time this was sorted out and we'd bought train tickets, the train was approaching - perfect timing! For some reason that we never quite worked out, trains were running more frequently than on working days, though closer to London the line was closed with rail replacement buses in operation. The volume of passengers didn't warrant the frequency of the service, indeed the guard told us that we were the only passengers on the whole train!; I think that's a first, though our walking adventures in remote parts of the UK have led us to be the only passengers on a bus on several occasions.

The journey to Arundel only took about 5 minutes and as we approached there were good views to the Castle. Arundel Station is about a kilometre from the town centre and there were more good views as we walked along the busty A27 to the start of the Arundel by-pass, then on into the town. I'd never been to Arundel before and Richard's memory of a school trip there, many years ago, appeared to be dominated by the fact that he was sick on the coach! Arden House, where we were booked to stay, is just to the south of the river, close to our route from the station, but we walked on for a first look at the town, meeting up with the Monarch's Way again by the river. Then we returned to Arden House where Lucie showed us to a good-sized room with a lot of windows (so it was lovely and light, but would the light disturb us in the night? - the answer to this question turned out to be "no"!). I'm getting ahead of myself again; in the evening we were fortunate to get a table at the China Palace where we had a lovely meal, then we continued our exploration of the town, walking past impressive Victorian Roman Catholic Cathedral, the much older Anglican Parish Church, and up to Arundel Park. We continued to explore the town until failing light and rain drove us back to Arden House.

Following leg