No Worthing venue has registered for the 11 to 20 September festival. The nearest five free openings are in Sompting and Shoreham, and one caps tours at 12.

England’s largest free history festival runs from 11 to 20 September, and not one venue in Worthing borough has signed up for it.

The Heritage Open Days page for Worthing says: “No events have been registered in Worthing at the moment.” The festival’s West Sussex list carries 25 openings across the county, and none of them has a Worthing address.

The nearest are close, though. Five free openings sit just over the borough boundary in Adur, at four places, The closest, Sompting, is under two miles from Worthing High Street as the crow flies.

The five nearest free openings

St Mary’s Church, Sompting. Church Lane, Sompting, Lancing, BN15 0AZ. Open Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 September, then Tuesday 15 to Sunday 20 September. Guided tours run at 10.30am, 12.30pm and 2.30pm on the full days, and at 11.30am and 2.30pm on the Sundays. Tours last 45 minutes and are capped at 12 people, so pre-booking is preferred. Medieval re-enactors Haestingas Regias work the churchyard on 12 and 13 September only. There is a harvest festival service at 9am on Sunday 20 September, followed by Morris dancing.

Shoreham Fort evening tour. Shoreham Fort, Forthaven, Shoreham Beach, BN43 5HY. Friday 11 September, 6.30pm. Pre-booking is required through Eventbrite and the place is capped at 25. Booking closes at 6.30pm on the day itself.

Shoreham Fort open day. Same site, Saturday 12 September, 11am to 4pm. No booking needed. Living history groups, including the Royal Sussex Living History Group, put on displays, and military vehicles come onto the site.

St Mary de Haura, New Shoreham. Church Street, Shoreham-by-Sea, BN43 5DQ. Hour-long tours on Friday 11 September at 11.30am, Thursday 17 September at 2.30pm, Friday 18 September at 10.30am and Saturday 19 September at 2.30pm. Groups are capped at 20. No booking. The parish’s own festival entry dates the church to 1103, calls it Grade I listed and says it is the largest church between Brighton and Worthing.

Capturing Old Shoreham. Skyway Gallery, The Shoreham Centre, Pond Road, BN43 5WU. Open 10am to 4pm on 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 September. No booking. A community exhibition of maps, artwork, photography, textiles and a soundscape built by local volunteers, artists, historians and schools.

Which days are busiest

Bar chart of how many free Heritage Open Days sessions run near Worthing on each day of the festival: three on Friday 11, Saturday 12, Thursday 17, Friday 18 and Saturday 19 September, two on Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16, and one on Sunday 13, Monday 14 and Sunday 20 September
Openings per day across the five nearest listings. Graphic by The Worthing Express.
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There is no single peak day here, which is unusual. Across this network the pattern is normally a heavy clustering on the first Saturday. Near Worthing the load is spread: three openings on each of 11, 12, 17, 18 and 19 September, two on 15 and 16, and one on each of 13, 14 and 20.

Monday 14 September is the thinnest day. Only the Skyway Gallery exhibition is open, and Sompting is shut.

The organ repair that shifts one date

The festival opens on Friday 11 September, but St Mary’s Sompting does not.

The church’s own site says it is closed from 7 to 11 September for repairs to its 1887 organ, and that it “will definitely be open 12-13 September and 15-20 September” for its scheduled open days. That matches the timings on its festival listing exactly, so anyone planning to reach Sompting on the opening Friday should not.

It is worth going the other days. For most of the year the church is open to visitors on Tuesdays only. The Friends of Sompting Church, a registered charity (number 285958), raises the money that keeps the building repaired, and its own pages call the Saxon tower the reason the church is known internationally.

What it means for you

  • Everything listed here is free. Two of the five need you to act in advance: Shoreham Fort’s Friday evening tour must be booked on Eventbrite, and Sompting prefers a booking for its guided tours.
  • The caps are small. Twelve people per tour at Sompting, 20 at St Mary de Haura, 25 on the Shoreham Fort evening tour. Turning up on the day at a capped event is a gamble.
  • Sompting is reachable without a car on weekdays. The bus goes to Lyons Farm, and it is a walk across the fields from there. The organisers note there is no Sunday service.
  • Shoreham-by-Sea is on our line. The station is under half a mile from St Mary de Haura and from the Skyway Gallery, and the coastal railway runs there from all four Worthing stations.
  • Wheelchair access is limited at both churches. Sompting says access is “difficult but not impossible” and the paths rise. St Mary de Haura’s step-free entrance is the south door, and structural work for new toilets may block it.
  • If you want things closer to home in the meantime, our things to do in Worthing page covers what is open all year.

Sources