Thorney Island Circular

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Lowland and Hill Walks
Sep 29
2018

19 people attending

6 places left

Your price
£10.00
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Distance is 14 km (9 miles); total ascent is just 33 m; terrain is tarmac, gravel, sand and grass.

Thorney Island (really a peninsula cut off from the mainland by a narrow creek) lies in the southwest of West Sussex in Chichester Harbour. Being flat and encircled by the Sussex Border Path the island is highly accessible and open, yet as it's also an RAF base (and has been since 1936), the interior is excitingly inaccessible and secret. Just the coastal strip is public, which is sufficient to give wonderful views of Chichester Harbour to Chidham and Emsworth with the South Downs on the horizon.

The public are also permitted, with good reason, to see West Thorney church. St Nicholas is a humble and honest 13th century affair, but more moving still is the cemetery adjoining it where Commonwealth and German airmen lie side-by-side - a poignant gesture of reconciliation. The interest doesn't stop there because Pilsey Island to the south is a secluded sandbank accessible at low tide, and Prinsted village is very pleasant: a Y-shape of lanes with justifiably some of the prettiest cottages on the south coast.

The route begins by heading south from Southbourne via lanes and footpaths, which will soon take us to the coast. From there we'll walk past the engagingly scruffy boatyards of Prinsted, across the 'neck' of the island and through the gate to the RAF base and around the island. We'll past Wickor Point and Marker Point. At the far south of the peninsula is Pilsey Island to which low tide will be enable us to cross. From there we'll complete our circuit of the island, heading past Stanbury Point after we've seen what we're permitted to see of West Thorney village and church. We'll walk back through pretty Prinsted and head back to the station at Southbourne.

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