The best local parks and gardens in Worthing

As we get older it’s important to try and keep an active lifestyle, even just a short walk will help muscles and joints to keep their strength. Getting older people to maintain some exercise in to their daily routines can be tricky, so an easy way to get them out and about is a regular visit to a local park of garden.

Worthing and the surrounding areas have plenty of great locations to offer, here are our recommended local parks and gardens to take your senior family and friends.

Highdown Gardens is a beautiful garden nested in the Southdown National Park to the north of Worthing and overlooks the sea. Access is from the West of the A259 Littlehampton Road, turn left up Highdown Rise.

The gardens are renown locally for their calm and peaceful character, they are also highly regarded by international botanical institutes and horticultural societies for their heritage significance and horticultural interest.

Many of the plants and rare trees in the gardens are from an original collection started by keen horticulturist Sir Frederick Stern in 1909.

Highdown is open every day of the year, has plenty of parking, accessible routes and guided tours every Thursday from 2:00-3:00pm.

Mewsbrook Park is just one minute’s walk from the beach in the seaside resort of Littlehampton. The park is approximately four hectares large and includes a boating lake, miniature railway, a popular café and still has its original art deco shelters.

Open throughout the year the park has large shrubs and long herbaceous borders along with bee and butterfly gardens.

Woods Mill Nature Reserve is the headquarters of the Sussex Wildlife Trust and is home to an environmental education centre. Woods Mill gives you a great idea of what our countryside once looked like. Senior visitors can walk past old ponds and lake, through an ancient woodland, alongside streams and waterways into the meadows and wild hedgerows.

There are a variety of trails to walk along and lots of wildlife to look out for. The 47 acres are home to a variety of dragonflies, deer, moorhens and fish so remember to take your camera and binoculars.

Woods Mill Nature Reserve is open all year, with a car park and toilets. The reserve is free to visit. Please note that dogs are not permitted in the reserve. Located on the A2037 just north of Small Dole.