West Wittering and Snow Hill

This is a short walk of 1.8 miles (3 kms) down at Chichester Harbour entrance near East Head. The car park is a long grass meadow south-west of the village of West Wittering at SZ765984 and there is a charge for using this car park.

Brent geese also use this car park to graze the grass.

My photograph (left top) shows a large flock of them landing on the car park after flying in from the mud flats.

Park at the far end of the harbour mouth and the Winner Sands.

Take the footpath from the far west edge of the car park along the stony shore next to the hedge.

At high tide this might be impassable.

Gorse and bramble and hawthorn bushes line the bank above you.

Towards the west are the mudflats where curlew and redshank, dunlin and teal, feed at low tide.

Grey plover also feed here together with lapwings.

You come out into the open where the Wittering stream drains into the sea at Crab Pool through the sluice.

The pool on your right often has shelduck and occasionally avocet.

Ioncesaw200ruffhereinthe spring on their way to Holland to breed.

This is also a good place for golden plover to feed.

Take the footpath eastwards, leaving the sea wall at Snow Hill hamlet.

The name Snow Hill derives from a very common adjunct on coastal villages and it describes the curl of sand formed by the tide.

Other examples are spelt ‘naze’ as at Walton on the Naze in Essex, or ‘ney’ as at Blakeney in Norfolk.

The lane takes you on to the church near which is the house where Sir Henry Royce lived and worked with his team designing the Silver Ghost car and the engine used in the Spitfire and Lancaster bomber.

This lane follows the Wittering stream with its bogg y meadow and willow trees which is a very good place to look for incoming migrants such as many of the warbler family in the spring.

Take the road south-west back towards the car park and the sand dunes where the tamarisk bushes grow.