THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE - The Nearby Worthing Stench

I have been to Worthing during some summers in the past when the stench from the seaweed has been really obnoxious and pervading the buildings on the front. I've had to leave and not continue with my shopping. The reeking mass of great swathes of slimy seaweedy-coated shore was so bad that it put me off going to Worthing some twenty-five years ago. In fact, the stink has penetrated this stretch of the south coast for at least the last two hundred years, if not more.

I've heard that the name of Worthing is derived from a natural annual phenomenon. The seaweed just four miles to the south of Findon has always been a struggle between men and sea. I understand the problem starts with the nature of the sea-bed off the nearby coast. This seems to provide an ideal situation for certain kinds of seaweed. The seaweed beds are often ripped up by summer storms and detached by the winds and tide and are then deposited on the Worthing beach by the prevailing Atlantic currents. The seaweed is a rich source of nitrates, and thus makes good fertilizer. Thus the town became known as Wort (weed) inge (people). Seems a logical enough explanation.

The nearby town of Worthing has suffered from evil smells on the beach back in the 1700s and by

1841 the Town Council of the day authorised expenditure ....

"for the purchase of a rake for seaweed clearance".

Back in 1836, a horse race was organised to take place on the shore at Worthing. Great difficulty was encountered when endeavouring to lay out the course due to the masses of seaweed discarded on the sand at low tide. Can you imagine horseracing with stands for spectators, betting booths and refreshment tents on the Worthing Sands. "What sands?" I guess you are saying. The sand at Worthing was so firm in the past that at low tide the gentry drove their carriages pulled by horses, to the edge of the sea.

By 1850, the General Board of Health reported that ...

"the smell of seaweed when it piles up is nothing like as bad as the smell of the sand at the end of the troughs which carry the town's drainage to the sea".

In the 1800s, the seaweed strewn over Worthing's shore was inextricably mixed with the town's sewage ditches. These were emptied to the sea via eight troughs constructed of wood passing under the seafront parade direct to the shore just below the high-tide mark. In 1857 a doctor is reputed to have recalled "There are some now living in Worthing, who remember it a small fishing village. As the population increased, however, the drainage based on cesspools, proved defective. These poured their fluid contents by several trunks (wooden troughs) on the shore, a short distance from the beautiful esplanade, which, especially at the ebb of the tide, could no longer be resorted to (due to the foul stench of sewage on the sands)".

Even as late as 1876 a guide to Worthing referred to ..

"evil smells on the front".

There came a time when Findon farmers were encouraged to cart the seaweed away as a free fertiliser for their fields for the growing of crops. A later money-grabbing administration saw it as a golden opportunity to make extra revenue and began charging 12.6d. per load. The farmers retaliated by saying it was uneconomical and they ceased bringing the fertiliser inland to their fields.

In 1897 a row developed in Worthing over the decline of the sand. Every day horse-drawn carts descended on the beach to take away tons of the sand for the building trade. The sand collecting became so remorseless that some carts are said to have departed empty because the shore was denuded to sand.

In 1907 in response to many complaints about rotting seaweed on the shore, Worthing's Alderman Captain Cortis thought it might be a visitors attraction and remarked that if the council advertised the pong no doubt trippers would come down to smell it.

Back in 1908 the local seaweed was under discussion and a commentator of the day noted:

"There are those who are mortally alarmed at the least suggestion of a deposit of seaweed on the beach, declaring that the odour that emanates from such accumulations from the harvest of the sea is warranted to kill at a thousand yards".

A year later in 1909, a local correspondent wrote ... "Having known Worthing for over 40 years, first as a visitor and for the last 15 years as a resident, I have, with many others, noticed with much sadness the decrease of sand and the increase of sloppy puddles on our seafront year by year. Can this be wondered at when we consider that thousands and thousands of cartloads of sand have been removed during so many years. The wonder is that there is any sand left".

A London newspaper columnist, Jane Doe, wrote in 1928 that nearby Worthing's seaweed strewn shore as...

"It smells fine, but I think, I should like it strained before I bathe in it."

The above photograph shows the Worthing shore in 1936.

The horses and carts were busy at work on the beach at regular intervals and

were laboriously carting seaweed out to sea at low tide — unfortunately it was dragged back onto the beach during the next rough spell of weather.... and they had to start all over again.

Even after the Second World War, sewage was still being discharged into the sea too close to the beach and amongst the piles of stinking rotting seaweed. The Council responded by hiring some bulldozers and pushing the offending weed back whence it came..... to only find that it had returned again on the next in-coming tide.

At least there was no mess left on the beach in the 1950s by this elephant...

On the beach in the 1950s

Pam Stepney of Findon emailed in November 2006 to say that as a child she witnessed a mechanical elephant in the Denton Gardens at nearby Worthing. Her husband, John, found the above photograph — which she says looks very similar to her elephant of years ago. Perhaps it did a tour of the seaside resorts?

The ensuing long hot summers of the 1950s and 1960s proved irresistible to the local kelp fly on the huge piles of Worthing seaweed. The Council even went to the expense of hiring helicopters this time to spray the offending seaweed-based breeding ground with insecticide. It did kill off the flies — but obviously did not stop the seaweed invasion.

Here is a very novel unusual idea that was put forward in 1952. The chairman of the Town Council's Entertainments Committee, Councillor W. W. Spendlow, suggested the building of a large concrete basin on the nearby shore at Worthing to provide improved swimming facilities for all. I guess he was thinking of the tourists. This he said would be replenished daily by the tide.

"To have to walk over very rough shingle and, when you get to the water, to find yourself covered with seaweed, is not good enough".

Operation Dragnet was launched by the Worthing Town Council in 1959. This involved employing trawlers to sweep seaweed clear of a three mile wide stretch of seabed between Littlehampton and Shoreham. This was so the seaweed did not end up on Worthing's beach.

In 1963 at the height of the summer season, the shore was hit by a giant cast of seaweed from which millions of little black flies hatched...... to the consternation of the visitors to the beach.

In 1972, Worthing's annual regatta at Splash Point was utterly ruined by the dreaded seaweed and miserable weather conditions. 1,750 programmes were printed and only 400 sold. Also that year, Worthing's fishermen were chastised for leaving the beach between the pier and Splash Point strewn with unsightly and rotting fish heads and offal..... all adding to the aroma on the beach.

In 1996 it was estimated that if the beastly seaweed washed up on the shore that year had to be carted away by road, it would have filled 60,000 lorries before the beach was clear.

There is relatively little seaweed adorning our nearby shore these days and it is really only visible at low tide. But who knows what tomorrow will bring ....and what about the next high tide!

Continue if you would like to read The Nearby Washington Lime Kilns.