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Worthing ( ) is a seaside town and borough in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 113,094 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Hove built-up area, the 15th most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Northern parts of the borough, including the Worthing Downland Estate, form part of the South Downs National Park. In 2019, the Art Deco Worthing Pier was dubbed the best in Britain.
Dating from around 4000 BC, the at Cissbury and nearby Church Hill, Blackpatch and Harrow Hill are amongst the earliest Neolithic monuments in Britain. The Iron Age hill fort of Cissbury Ring is one of Britain's largest. The recorded history of Worthing began with the Domesday Book. Worthing is historically part of Sussex, mostly in the rape of Bramber; Goring-by-Sea, which forms part of the rape of Arundel, was incorporated in 1929. Worthing was a small mackerel fishing hamlet for many centuries until, in the late 18th century, it developed into an elegant Georgian era seaside resort and attracted the well-known and wealthy of the day. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the area was one of Britain's chief market gardening centres.
Modern Worthing has a large service industry, particularly in financial services. It has three theatres and one of Britain's oldest cinemas, the Dome. Writers Oscar Wilde and Harold Pinter lived and worked in the town.
The etymology of the root Worth- is uncertain. Wyrt is the Old English word for "plant," "vegetable," "herb" or "spice," Wiktionary, though there is no obvious connection with the name of the town. Additionally, the "y" was a front-loaded vowel that was indistinguishable from "i" by the end of the Anglo-Saxon period and the spelling never evolved in that direction. The more obvious Middle English worth is not likely as well, as there was a dramatic Norman language influence on the spelling at the time of the Domesday Book. A more probable root is the word for an Anglo-Saxon goddess - Wyrd, known in Norse mythology as Urðr - with a shift of the alveolar consonant d to t as evidenced by the eleventh century evolution of the word.
The suffix -ing is a cognate of inge, an ethnonym for the Germanic peoples Ingaevones peoples, said variously to mean "of Yngvi" - of Freyr in Norse mythology,Wilfried Seibricke (1996). 311014445X, de Gruyter. 311014445X "family, people or followers of" or a Genitive case plural form of an inhabitant appellation.
During the Iron Age, one of Britain's largest hill forts was built at Cissbury Ring. The area was part of the civitas of the Regni during the Romano-British period. Several of the borough's roads date from this era and lie in a grid layout known as centuriation. A Romano-British farmstead once stood in the centre of the town, at a site close to Worthing Town Hall. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the area became part of the Kingdom of Sussex. The place names of the area, including the name Worthing itself, date from this period.
Worthing remained an agricultural and fishing hamlet for centuries until the arrival of wealthy visitors in the 1750s. Princess Amelia stayed in the town in 1798 and the fashionable and wealthy continued to stay in Worthing, which became a town in 1803. The town expanded and elegant developments such as Park Crescent and Liverpool Terrace were begun. The area was a stronghold of smugglers in the 19th century and was the site of rioting by the Skeleton Army in the 1880s.
Oscar Wilde holidayed in the town in 1893 and 1894, writing the Importance of Being Earnest during his second visit. The town was home to several literary figures in the 20th century, including Nobel Prize-winner Harold Pinter. On 9 October 1934 violent confrontations took place in the town between protestors and Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists which subsequently became known as the Battle of South Street. During the Second World War, Worthing was home to several allied military divisions in preparation for the D-Day landings, in particular many Canadian divisions.
Worthing became the world's 229th Transition town in October 2009. The project explored the town's transition to life after oil, and was established by local residents as a way of planning the town's Energy Descent Action Plan.
The town currently returns nine councillors from nine single-member electoral divisions to West Sussex County Council out of a total of 70. At the 2021 West Sussex County Council election, Worthing returned five Labour and four Conservative councillors. The council is responsible for services including school education, social care and highways. The county council has been controlled by the Conservative Party since 1974, with the exception of the period 1993—97 when the council was under no overall control.
Since 2014, Worthing has also been within the area of the Greater Brighton City Region. The borough is represented on the City Region's Economic Board by the leader of the borough council.
The town has two Members of Parliament (MPs): Beccy Cooper (Labour) for Worthing West and Tom Rutland (Labour) for East Worthing and Shoreham.
At the 2017 general election, the East Worthing and Shoreham seat became a marginal seat for the first time, with both seats having been held by their incumbents since the seats' creation before the 1997 general election. From 1945 to 1997 Worthing returned one MP. From 1945 until 2024 Worthing had always returned Conservative MPs. Until 1945 Worthing formed part of the Horsham and Worthing parliamentary constituency.
With a population of about 200,000,The combined population in 2011 of the Worthing urban subdivision (109,120), the Littlehampton subdivision (55,706), Sompting (8,561) and Lancing (18,810) was 192,197 the Centre for Cities identifies the wider primary urban area of Worthing as one of the 63 largest cities and towns in the UK. Extending from Littlehampton to Lancing, the primary urban area is roughly equivalent to the present day borough and the area administered from 1933 to 1974 as the Worthing Rural District, or the 01903 Worthing telephone code area. Worthing forms the second-largest part of the Brighton and Hove built-up area, England's 12th largest conurbation, with a population in 2011 of over 470,000. The borough of Worthing is bordered by the West Sussex local authority of Arun District in the north and west, and Adur in the east.
Worthing is situated on a mix of two beds of sedimentary rock. The large part of the town, including the town centre, is built upon chalk (part of the Chalk Group), with a bed of London clay found in a band heading west from Lancing through Broadwater and Durrington.
Worthing lies roughly midway between the Rivers River Arun and River Adur. The Teville Stream and the partially-culverted Ferring Rife run through the town. One of the Ferring Rife's sources is in Titnore Wood, a Site of Nature Conservation Interest and one of the last remaining blocks of ancient woodland on the coastal plain.
The development along the coastal strip is interrupted by strategic gaps at the borough boundaries in the east and west, referred to as the Goring-by-Sea and the Sompting. Each gap falling largely outside the borough boundaries. The borough of Worthing contains no nature reserves: the nearest is Widewater Lagoon in Lancing.
| +Historic and projected population growth in Worthing since 1801 | |
In 2021, 4.02% of residents, rising to 7.08% in central Worthing identified as a sexual orientation other than heterosexual, compared with an average in England and Wales of 3.2%. The figure for under-35s in the borough of Worthing rose to 7.9% compared with an England and Wales average of 6.2%.
The town also has some notable communities from overseas. At the 2021 census 0.79% (864 people) were born in Poland, 0.70% of its population (778 people) were born in British Indian, 0.68% (753 people) were born in the Philippines and 0.65% (724 people) were born in Romania.
| Christians | 70,387 | 72.1 | 60,817 | 58.1 | 48,897 | 43.9 |
| Buddhism | 330 | 0.3 | 600 | 0.6 | 704 | 0.6 |
| Hinduism | 214 | 0.2 | 546 | 0.5 | 739 | 0.7 |
| Jews | 256 | 0.3 | 227 | 0.2 | 274 | 0.2 |
| Islam | 733 | 0.8 | 1,348 | 1.3 | 1,912 | 1.7 |
| Sikhism | 106 | 0.1 | 122 | 0.1 | 124 | 0.1 |
| Other religion | 451 | 0.5 | 666 | 0.6 | 778 | 0.7 |
More people in Worthing identify as Christian than any other religion (43.9% in 2021) and the borough has about 50 active Christian places of worship. Worthing's Churches Together organisation encourages ecumenical work and links between the town's churches.
Worthing's first Anglican church, St Paul's, was built in 1812; previously, worshippers had to travel to the ancient parish church of Broadwater. Residential growth in the 19th century led to several other opening in the town centre: Christ Church was started in 1840 and survived a closure threat in 2006; Arthur Blomfield's St Andrew's Church brought the controversial "High Church" form of worship to the town in the 1880s—its "Worthing Madonna" icon was particularly contentious; and Holy Trinity church opened at the same time but with less dispute.
Other Anglican churches were built in the 20th century to serve new residential areas such as High Salvington and Maybridge; and the ancient villages which were absorbed into Worthing Borough between 1890 and 1929 each had their own church: Broadwater's had Anglo-Saxons origins, St Mary's at Goring-by-Sea was Norman (although it was rebuilt in 1837), St Andrew's at West Tarring was 13th century, and St Botolph's at Heene and St Symphorian's at Durrington were rebuilt from medieval ruins. All of the borough's churches are in the Rural Deanery of Worthing and the Diocese of Chichester.
The first Roman Catholic church in Worthing opened in 1864; the centrally located St Mary of the Angels Church has since been joined by others at East Worthing, Goring-by-Sea and High Salvington. All are in Worthing Deanery in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton. Protestant Nonconformism has a long history in Worthing: the town's first place of worship was an Independent chapel. Methodism, Baptists, the United Reformed Church and Evangelicalism groups each have several churches in the borough, and other denominations represented include Christadelphians, Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Plymouth Brethren. A Coptic Orthodox church is also present in the town. The Salvation Army have been established for more than a century, but their arrival in Worthing prompted large-scale riots involving a group called the Skeleton Army. These continued intermittently for several years in the 1880s. Other Christian organisations include Worthing Churches Homeless Projects and Street Pastors.
In 2021, 1.7% of the population of Worthing were Muslim. Since 1994 the Muslim community has had a mosque at the Worthing Islamic Cultural Centre, also known as Worthing Masjid (Worthing Mosque) or Masjid Assalam (Mosque of Peace, or Mosque of Allah) which follows the Sunni Islam tradition and holds prayer, education, and funeral services for the local community.
There are also small communities of Buddhism (0.6% in 2021) in Worthing, including a community of Triratna Buddhists. There is a small Jewish community (0.2% in 2021) and the town had a synagogue in the 1930s. In 2011, 0.7% of the population were Hinduism, 0.1% were Sikh and 0.7% followed another religion. A small community of the Baháʼí Faith practises in Worthing. 45.7% claimed no religious affiliation, a figure significantly higher than the average for England and Wales of 37.2%, and 6.3% did not state their religion.
Founded by 1890 as the Worthing School of Art and Science, Northbrook College's main campus is located on the outskirts of Worthing at West Durrington, where its creative arts degrees are validated by the University of the Arts London. Northbrook's Broadwater campus is set to close in 2025 and courses are to be consolidated at West Durrington and at the Broadwater campus of the town's sixth form college, Worthing College. Northbrook and Worthing Colleges share a principal and are both part of the Chichester College Group.
West Sussex County Council provides six state secondary schools: Bohunt School Worthing in Broadwater is a coeducational academy school, Durrington High School and St Andrews High School and Worthing High School are all coeducational, with St Andrew's taking in girls from 2021. Davison High School in East Worthing is a girls' school. St Oscar Romero Catholic School in Goring is a Catholic School. Our Lady of Sion School in the town centre is a private school for children aged 3–18.
| +Labour profile Data is taken from the ONS annual business inquiry employee analysis and refers to 2008 |
| 63.9% |
| 36.1% |
| 7.5% |
| 2.4% |
| 88.7% |
| 22.0% |
| 3.3% |
| 22.0% |
| 36.9% |
| 4.6% |
| 7.0% |
In October 2009, GlaxoSmithKline confirmed that 250 employees in Worthing would lose their jobs at the factory, which makes the antibiotics Co-amoxiclav and Amoxicillin and hundreds of other products. , there were approximately 43,000 jobs in the borough.
Although Worthing was voted the most profitable town in Britain for three consecutive years at the end of the 1990s, the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2009 found that Worthing residents' mean pre-tax pay is only £452 per week, compared to £487 for West Sussex and £535 for South East England as a whole.
In 2008, Worthing was in the top 10 urban areas in England for jobs in each of three key sectors, thought to have a significant impact on economic performance: creative, high-tech industries and knowledge-intensive business services. The 2012 UK Town and City Index from Santander UK ranked Worthing as the second highest town or city in the UK for connectivity and ranked fifth in the UK overall out of 74 towns and cities.
In the longer term, the area around Worthing's museum, art gallery, library and town hall—collectively described as the "Worthing Cultural and Civic Hub"—is to be revamped to provide extra facilities and new housing. In 2009, Worthing Borough Council applied for a £5 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to redevelop and enlarge the museum. A new £16 million municipal swimming pool, Splash Point Leisure Centre, has been designed by Stirling Prize-winning architects Wilkinson Eyre; it was opened by Paralympian Ellie Simmonds in June 2013. It has been proposed that Montague Place is pedestrianised to improve the link between the town centre and the seafront.
Completed regeneration projects include the reopening of the Dome Cinema in 2007 after major investment from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and a £5.5 million mixed-use development on the site of a former hotel near Teville Gate.
Most local and long-distance buses are operated by Stagecoach South which has its origins in Southdown Motor Services—founded in 1915 with one route to Pulborough. Stagecoach in the South Downs operates several routes around the town and to Midhurst, Brighton and Portsmouth. The most frequent service, between Lancing and Durrington, was branded PULSE in 2006. Worthing-based Compass Travel have routes to Angmering, Chichester, Henfield and Lancing; and other companies serve Horsham, Crawley, Brighton and intermediate destinations. National Express coaches run between London's Victoria Coach Station and Marine Parade. During the 1920s and 1930s, a fleet of up to 15 converted Shelvoke & Drewry Garbage truck—the Worthing Tramocars—operated local bus services alongside more conventional vehicles.
The borough has five railway stations: East Worthing, Worthing, West Worthing, Durrington-on-Sea and Goring-by-Sea. All are on the West Coastway Line and are managed and operated by Govia Thameslink Railway. Worthing opened on 24 November 1845 as a temporary terminus of the line from Brighton, which was extended to Chichester the following year and electrified in the 1930s. Regular services run to destinations such as London, Gatwick Airport, Brighton, Littlehampton and Portsmouth.
Shoreham Airport is about east of Worthing. The nearest international airport is Gatwick Airport, about to the northeast.
Worthing Hospital is administered by the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. The 500-bed facility on Lyndhurst Road was founded in 1881 as an 18-bed infirmary. It replaced older hospitals on Ann Street and Chapel Road. Other medical care facilities include two mental health units (Greenacres and Meadowfield Hospital) and a 38-bed private hospital in the Listed building Goring Hall.
Gas was manufactured in Worthing for nearly 100 years until 1931, but Scotia Gas Networks now supply the town through their Southern Gas Networks division. Electricity generation took place locally between 1901 and 1961; EDF Energy now supply the town. Southern Water, who have been based in Durrington since 1989, have controlled Worthing's water supply, drainage and sewerage since 1974. The town's first waterworks was built in 1852. Drainage and sewage disposal was poorly developed in the 19th century, but a fatal typhoid outbreak in 1893 prompted investment in sewage works and better pipes.
Many films and television programmes have been filmed using Worthing as the backdrop including: Pinter's The Birthday Party (1968), directed by William Friedkin (best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973), Black Mirror (2023), Dance with a Stranger (1985), Wish You Were Here (1987), Stan & Ollie (2018), My Policeman (2022), Vindication Swim (2024) and Wicked Little Letters (2024) as well as the television drama series Cuffs (2015) and The Death of Bunny Munro (2025).
Music venues include the Assembly Hall, the Worthing Pier, The Venue, the Factory Live, Jungle and the Cellar Arts Club. The Assembly Hall is home to the Worthing Symphony Orchestra, the Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra and the Sussex International Piano Competition. Howarth of London, the UK's largest manufacturer of professional standard oboes are based in Worthing.
In the visual arts, painter Copley Fielding lived at 5 Park Crescent in the mid-18th century. and more recently Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin created cult comic figure Tank Girl while at college in the town in the 1980s./ The town has a famous work by sculptor Elisabeth Frink. Uniquely in England, Desert Quartet (1990), Frink's penultimate sculpture, was given Grade II* listing in 2007, less than 30 years from its creation. It may be seen on the building opposite Liverpool Gardens. Hand-painted by Gary Bevans over more than five years, English Martyrs' Catholic Church in Goring has the world's only known reproduction of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling.
There are 213 in the borough of Worthing. Three of these—Castle Goring, St Mary's Church at Broadwater and the Archbishop's Palace at West Tarring—are classified at Grade I, which is used for buildings "of exceptional interest, sometimes considered to be internationally important". Worthing Pier, Park Crescent, Beach House and several churches are also listed. Since 1896, when Warwick House was demolished, many historic buildings have been lost and others altered. The town's first and most distinguished theatre, the Theatre Royal, and the adjacent Omega Cottage (the home of the theatre's first manager) were lost in 1970 when the Guildbourne Centre was built; Warne's Hotel and the Royal Sea House burnt down; the early bath-houses which were vital to Worthing's success as a fashionable resort were all demolished in the 20th century; Broadwater's ancient rectory rotted away after it fell out of use in 1924; and several old streets in the town centre had all their buildings demolished for postwar redevelopment.
Pale yellow bricks have been made locally since about 1780, and are commonly encountered as a building material. Flint is the other predominant structural material: its local abundance has ensured its frequent use. The combination of flint and red brick is characteristic of Worthing. In particular, walls built alongside streets or to mark out boundaries were almost always built of flint with brick dressings, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Boat porches are a unique architectural feature of Worthing. These structures surround the entrance doors of some early 19th-century houses, and take the form of a porch with an ogee-headed roof which resembles the bottom of a boat. Historians have speculated that the cottages, examples of which are in Albert Place, Warwick Place and elsewhere, may have been built by local fishermen who used their boats as a basis for the design.
The town has a small number of residential high-rise buildings including Bayside Vista at , completed in 2022, and Manor Lea at , built in 1967. The Splashpoint Leisure Centre won a World Architecture Festival award in 2013.
It was once believed that monsters known as lived in bottomless ponds called . There were several knuckerholes in Sussex, including one in Worthing by Ham Bridge (on the present Ham Road), close to East Worthing railway station and Teville Stream.
According to legend, a tunnel several miles long led from the now-demolished medieval Offington to the Neolithic flint mines and Iron Age hill fort at Cissbury. It was said to be sealed, and there was treasure at the far end; the owner of the Hall "had offered half the money to anyone who would clear out the subterranean passage and several persons had begun digging, but all had been driven back by large snakes springing at them with open mouths and angry hisses".
In January, the ancient custom of wassailing takes place in Tarring to bless the apple trees. A flaming torchlit procession takes place down Tarring High Street culminating in hundreds of people gathering around an apple tree to shout, chant and sing to drive away evil spirits. The apple trees are toasted with wassail, cider and apple cake, followed by fireworks. On May Day, a procession and dancing takes place in Worthing town centre, culminating in the crowning of the May Queen.
In 1921 its scope was extended to include Littlehampton, and it was renamed accordingly. The Worthing Herald was founded in 1920; it acquired the Gazette in 1963, but continued to publish the newspapers separately until 1981. Since then, a single newspaper has been published weekly under the Herald name, but it is officially known as the Worthing Herald incorporating the Worthing Gazette. It is now owned by Johnston Press, and has been based at Cannon House in Chatsworth Road since 1991. The Brighton-based daily The Argus, owned by Newsquest, also serves Worthing. An anarchic local newsletter called The Porkbolter, focusing on environmental issues, has been published monthly since 1997.
Worthing is served by the BBC South television studios based in Southampton, BBC South East from Tunbridge Wells, and by the ITV franchise Meridian Broadcasting, also with studios in Southampton. Television signals come from the Rowridge or Whitehawk Hill .
More Radio Worthing is Worthing's local commercial radio station. Launched in 2003 it broadcasts from the Guildbourne Centre on 107.7FM. Heart South, a Global Radio-owned commercial station, also covers Worthing. BBC Local Radio coverage is provided by BBC Sussex.
The South Downs is commonly used for hiking and mountain-biking, with around 22 trail-heads within the borough. Both of Worthing's golf clubs, including Worthing Golf Club are on the Downs. The Three Forts Marathon is a ultramarathon from Broadwater to the three Iron Age hill forts of Cissbury Ring, Chanctonbury Ring and Devil's Dyke.
Worthing F.C., nicknamed "The Rebels" or "The Mackerel Men", formed in 1886 is the town's main football club. The men's team play in the National League South, having won the 2021—22 Isthmian League Premier Division and the women's team play in the FA Women's National League South East. Worthing United F.C. nicknamed 'the "Mavericks" were playing in the Division One of the Sussex County League in 2013. Nicknamed Worthing Raiders, Worthing Rugby Football Club play in National League 2 East and since 1977 have been based in the nearby village of Angmering. Formed in 1999 Worthing Thunder play in the National Basketball League. The Worthing Bears (now defunct) won the British Basketball League in 1992—93. Worthing Hockey Club was formed in 1896 and has a number of teams. The home pitches are at Manor Sports Ground.[3]
The promenade is the route used by the Worthing parkrun which has been taking place since June 2016. The free, weekly timed 5 km run had 420 people attending the first event.
Alongside Johannesburg and Adelaide, Worthing is one of only three locations in the world to have hosted the men's World Bowls Championship twice. The events were held in 1972 and 1992, both at Beach House Park, which is sometimes known as the spiritual home of bowls, and is also the venue for the annual National Championships each August. Beach House Park also hosted the Women's World Bowls Championship in 1977.
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| Worthing Cricket Club | Cricket | Sussex Premier League | Manor Sports Ground | 1855 | |
| Worthing Football Club | The Rebels | Football | National League South | Woodside Road | 1886 |
| Worthing Rugby Football Club | Raiders | Rugby union | National League 2 East | Roundstone Lane, Angmering | 1920 |
| Worthing United Football Club | The Mavericks | Football | Southern Combination Football League | Robert Albon Memorial Ground | 1988 |
| Worthing Thunder | Thunder | Basketball | English Basketball League | Worthing Leisure Centre | 1999 |
| Worthing F.C. Women | The Rebels or the Reds | Football | FA Women's National League South East | Woodside Road |
In the 20th century, these writers chose to live in the town:
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