Sussex County
(Historic)

Map Reference: (51.006013, -0.026148)

Sussex is a maritime county on the south coast of England. Sussex, once a Kingdom, has a history, an identity and a culture dating back 1,500 years. A string of resort towns line the coast, including Brighton, Hove, Bognor Regis, Worthing, Eastbourne, Hastings and Bexhill-on-Sea. Brighton is a most remarkable town, its heart is the higgledy-piggledy maze of The Lanes, and behind it the rampant indo-chinoiserie of King George IV’s seaside palace, the Brighton Pavilion. Above the seaside towns the Downs rise sharply, and here Sussex shows some of its greatest glories. The chalk can make a great rolling wave, falling into the sea in spectacular white cliffs as at the Seven Sisters and Beachey Head. The open grassland is fine sheep country, or elsewhere the clay feeds rich broadleaved forest. Lewes, the county town, sits in a gap in the South Downs, cut through by the River Ouse. Inland, the Weald is a hilly district of woods and coombes, the remains of the great forest which covered much of the South East. The inland towns of Sussex include the outer edge of the London commuter belt and Crawley, an industrial town serving Gatwick Airport just over the border in Surrey. Chichester is a modest cathedral city, sitting on a Roman foundation and centred on a mediæval market cross.