Qaroline's Qonundrums: Roadtrip: Arundel, Worthing and Petworth

Worthing Pier

I am back from my short November roadtrip and managed to squeeze quite a lot into two days. While passing Arundel on my way back from Rye last year I had thought that the city looked very interesting, with the prominent castle and cathedral and had planned to go back there and explore.

I arrived early in the morning and went up to Arundel Park, then had some coffee in the town centre and waited for everything to open. The park is very hilly and later in the day I decided to take a shortcut over one of the steep meadows to get back on the same level as the cathedral. Managed to cut my hand on some barbed wire and arrived back in town out of breath, decidedly sweaty and bleeding a fair bit ... after visiting the cathedral and St Nicholas (pix below) I drove on to Worthing, checked into my hotel and walked around some more, including a visit to the Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, which has some very interesting exhibitions on at the moment. I loved 'A Leaf on a Sea Breeze', the touring exhibition of artefacts from 'an idiosyncratic folk museum in the fictitious village of Leasingstede' (as it is described on the website), created by Jane Williams. Because I had just wandered into the exhibition space without really knowing what I would see, the quirky artwork, and the stories behind the artefacts, were a wonderful surprise.

Over night the weather changed from grey and drizzly to crisp and breezy and early in the morning I went out onto the empty pier of Worthing, had more coffee and afterwards plonked myself down in on one of the shelters on the promenade and just soaked up the sun, while listening to the waves.

I had sort of planned to go home via Chichester but after Arundel I was a bit 'churched out' and decided to go to Petworth instead. Some of the house is closed for winter but the park is well worth a visit (including the pond that Turner made quite a few sketches of) and the house has a large collection of Turner's works, some of which were on display in the North Gallery.

Over the next days/weeks I am going to put up the other pictures in batches, all the way back to Spring!

Much love,
Qaroline

One of the lodges in Arundel Park

View over Arundel Park, early in the morning

Arundel Castle

On the other side of Arundel Park

A cormorant in the Park

Mosses and ferns in the Park

The 'There But Not There' installation in Arundel Cathedral. Each transparent silhouette represents a victim of the First World War. The cathedral was built during Victorian times.

St Nicholas in Arundel, 14th century

The Dome, a cinema first opened 1911 - I saw the second part of Fantastical Beasts although I hadn't seen the first one - just wanted to get inside ...