At first it seemed as if only a handful of people would arrive for the talk, but by 8 o'clock the hall was full, although the terrible events in America of the previous few hours were never far away in our thoughts throughout the evening. Our Chairman welcomed Trevor Povey, who spoke enthusiastically about the River Adur and it's history. We knew this would be a popular topic, and it attracted anglers and ramblers, as well as historians!

Many moons ago the area that we are in was a massive hill. As the water receded, it took clay out of the area, leaving a large depression. That is now called the Sussex Weald, and it is bounded by the North and South Downs, which are made of chalk. Water that falls in the Weald will be held under the clay or come across the top of the clay, and because it is so wet that is where we find our forests: both Tilgate Forest and St. Leonards Forest are full of springs. Even though large areas of the Weald have now been built upon, underground streams still exist, and any water that we don't use, takes about 3 months to find its way through the chalk of the South Downs and out to the coast.

The Adur has two main tributaries: the western one rises south of Horsham in the Shipley / West Grinstead area, while the eastern tributary rises south of Haywards Heath at Ditchling Common. Starting at the northern end in the Parish of West Grinstead, past Lock Farm (named after a family who owned the farm) the Adur was a 'navigation', that is it had man-made locks and weirs added to the natural flow. Beyond West Grinstead and Shipley, in 1825 the Bay Bridge Navigation was built by Lord Egremont (of Petworth House) and Mr. Burrell (of Knepp Castle), to give access to a warf and lime kiln but, with the coming of the railways in 1861, by 1875 it had fallen into disrepair.

Large barges, of 20-30 tons, which could be pulled by man or horse, had access up the Adur. We were shown a photo of the derelict lock at West Grinstead (c 1950), from which you could clearly see how wide the barges were (56 inches). Remains beside the lock were presumed to be those of the lock-keeper's cottage. The 'maximum lift' of the whole of the navigation and the canal was only 5 feet. There were rules governing the building of a canal: you could not interfere with the proper flow of the water, and obviously if there was a water mill upstream then you couldn't use all the water.

On the eastern tributary, at Great Betley Farm, the Adur became a 'navigation' in 1807 and Betley Lock was built, ending at Mock Bridge, just north of Henfield. Barges may have had access to Shermanbury Mill, and the people who lived at Outlands Farm nearby must have had influence because they had their own 'cut' to the navigation.

In earlier times, the River provided vital links between the various manors - Shermanbury, Stretham, Horton, Southwick, Kingston - and, of course, the Priory at Upper Beeding as well as Bramble Castle. Sele Priory was a religious as well as financial centre and was much larger than Bramber Castle. The Castle, which was the home of the De Braose family, had a wonderful view right out to sea, and it's moat was directly filled by the River. The Bridge at Bramber was fortified to protect the Castle, and people were unable to cross without good reason for doing so. Nearby, Kings Barn at Steyning was the King's warehouse and King's warf. Upper Beeding and Bramber are both situated in the middle of the flood plain, which was badly flooded in the early 1900s and, of course, again more recently: we saw photos of the floods of 1912.

Ship building in Shoreham relied upon the St. Leonard's Forest near Horsham for timber, and enormous rafts of logs were sent down the River towards Shoreham. Coal was transported up the River and transferred onto carts, until colliers collected from the harbour themselves, and we were shown the rates of payment to pass through the Toll Gate at Beeding (now re-erected at Singleton Museum). The Cement Works at Upper Beeding relied on clay brought from the Medway around the coast and up the River in barges. From 1903 to 1929 clay was extracted from Horton pit and then taken back down to the cement works, and we saw a photo of a barge with a steam engine chugging along the river. It carried sacks of coal for fuel, and its funnel could be lowered to go under the bridge. It towed behind another barge carrying 70 tons of clay. With the coming of the railway, however, by Edwardian times, things had changed: most of the little pubs alongside the Adur let out rowing boats for pleasure, but they could only row upstream because the publicans were fed up with recovering their boats from Shoreham! Beside Beeding Bridge was a small business which typified the commerce which grew alongside the River: rowing boats were made and repaired.

Sussex Pad was on Lancing Salts (as the tide receded, so the salt would be left and then evaporated): the Sussex Pad was burned down in 1905, and the building we see today is totally different. Old Shoreham Bridge was built in 1780 in order to make the journey to Worthing a little quicker: it was rebuilt in the first world war, and again in the 1980s. The narrow Toll Bridge can tell some interesting stories: in 1949 a bus fell into the River and its passengers had to be rescued.

At the estuary, its dimensions widen to its former size as it flowed past Henfield. The old Harbour was located in what is now The Meads housing estate, and we were shown the location of the lost village of Penn which once existed on the coast. An inland waterway running at right-angles to the Adur, flowed from Broadwater in Worthing to Hove Street in Hove: Widewater at Lancing is all that remains. On the beach itself, 55,000 tons of oysters a year were harvested, and the harbour entrance was regularly dredged to allow easy passage to boats: valuable blue flint was taken away and sold to the Staffordshire potteries.

This talk offered many different dimensions on the River - geographical, historical, environmental, industrial, recreational - that it's been very difficult to summarise. The following websites will provide photographs and further reading on this very interesting topic.