Littlehampton is a seaside town and working harbour on the eastern bank of the River Arun in West Sussex, part of the Arun District. It's a relaxed, family-friendly resort with a long shingle beach, a lively harbour full of leisure boats, a good mix of independent shops and familiar high street names, and a genuinely distinctive seafront — which is exactly why this site exists: to bring together everything worth knowing about the town in one place.
From fishing hamlet to seaside resort
Littlehampton's story goes back to prehistoric and Roman times, and it's recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as the hamlet of "Hantone" — a small fishing settlement at the mouth of the Arun. The "Little" was added later to distinguish it from the much larger Southampton, further along the coast. As the port silted up, a new river mouth was cut in 1735, and through the 18th and 19th centuries the town grew from working harbour into fashionable holiday destination, drawing visitors including Lord Byron, Coleridge, Shelley and the painter John Constable. By the 1920s it had become known as "The Children's Paradise".
Seafront, harbour and things to do
Littlehampton's East Beach is home to two of its best-known landmarks: the East Beach Cafe, a striking weathered-steel building designed by Heatherwick Studio, and the Longest Bench, a 324-metre timber bench that runs most of the length of the promenade. Nearby, Harbour Park and Norfolk Gardens offer funfair rides, crazy golf and the UK's oldest 12¼-inch miniature railway, while the harbour itself, at the mouth of the Arun, is busy with sailing boats, a working lifeboat station and boat trips up the river to Arundel.
Getting to and around Littlehampton
Littlehampton sits around 52 miles south-south-west of London and about 19 miles west of Brighton, with a direct rail service to London Victoria and to Brighton, plus good road links via the A259, A284 and A280. That makes it an easy day trip from further afield, while its own identity as a boatbuilding and watersports town, rather than a purely commuter one, has stayed intact.
Whether you're moving to the area, visiting, or you've lived here for years, this site is built to help - browse the menus for the business directory, local schools, restaurants, parks, weather, and much more covering Littlehampton, Wick, Lyminster and Toddington.