England (2) – Bodiam -> Petworth House

Rye Cathedral

In the morning, we first reached Rye, a small and historic harbour town.
We found a parking along the street near the harbour and went to explore it.

low tide
high tide

Rye has beautiful cobbled streets, little shops and a lovely church in the center.

At the harbour was a little market on Wednesday morning and we bought gooseberry ice-cream.

On the way to Battle, our navigation introduced us to the small roads of England where we scratched on the bushes on both sides of the road and prayed that no car would come the other way.

road just wide enough for our camper ..
Abbey of Battle

We visited the remains of the Abbey of Battle, built on the spot where Herald the King of England was killed. A little museum and a walk around the battlefield gave as a good impression of this important battle of 1066.

Abbey of Battle
Dormitory of the Abbey of Battle
waiting for tea ..

After our first Cream Tea in front of the Abbey Gate, we drove to the
Castle of Bodiam, which we reached in the late afternoon, shortly before
closing time.

Prototype of a Medieval Castle

We were nearly alone on the ground, only a fierce duck defended the castle.

Duck defending the castle …
Castle of Bodiam

For the night, we drove to a small parking close to the Long Man of Wilmington. It was a little challenge to park, as the spot was full of holes and bumps, but we managed somehow to park evenly.

The next morning, we first had a proper look at this figure carved into the hillside.

Long Man of Wilmington

We then returned to the coast near Eastbourne at Beachy Head, where we took a walk along the cliff.

a breeze at the cliff …

We stopped again at Birling Gap, where the visitor centre shows impressively how fast the coastline changes. Even last night a piece of the cliff had sledded down. Nevertheless there were people on the beach.

impressive coastline
coastline is retreating 0,4 meters per year

Our next stopp was at Brighton. We could park not far from the Pier which we wanted to visit. The weather had finally changed and it was overcast.

the famous Pier of Brighton
Brighton as it is ..

Outside of Brighton, we stopped at Devil’s Dyke, the deepest and longest gorge of England?

Devil´s Dyke

It had started to rain, so we drove on to find a place for the night. We finally ended after Chichester where we first had supper at The Lamb’s Inn, before we stayed at Wicks Camping.

the Lamb Inn
the famous Lamb Burger

The next morning, we had a look at the beach and then headed to a small Natural Park at West Stoke where we walked through a forest of ancient yew trees.

ancient yew trees

Now, we were ready for more culture at Petworth House, where we could admire a huge number of important paintings of the Petworth art collection and the impressive state rooms designed to showcase them. Lord and Lady Egremont still occupy the southern part of the house.

Petworth House
Petworth House
Looking at Anthony van Dyck´s painting in detail

The painting shows Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland and founder of the Petworth Collection, his First Wife, Lady Anne Cecil and their Daughter, Lady Katherine Percy.

In the evening, we tried to find a pub, where we could stay for the night but failed, getting stuck in narrow streets and arriving at Pubs with tiny parkings. So we ended at a parking next to the street which was fine.

In general, it was hard to find a place to park a camper. Most of the time we felt like an elephant in a miniature park.

Part 3 comes soon ….

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