61-530: The International Birdman was a series of English competitions held in the West Sussex towns of Bognor Regis , Selsey and Worthing . The competition involved human 'birdmen' attempting to fly off the end of a pier into the sea for prize money. The event began in 1971 and was held on piers in West Sussex , on the south coast of England. First held in Selsey , the event moved to Bognor Regis in 1978. In 2008 and 2009
122-635: A Rhenish helm unique in England and St. Nicholas Church, Worth , a 10th-century church in Worth , Crawley . Some Anglican churches and many of the numerous nonconformist chapels in the county have been converted to residential use. Cittaviveka is a Buddhist monastery in Chithurst . Pallant House Gallery in Chichester houses one of the most significant collections of 20th-century British art outside London. It includes
183-657: A Roman province . During the Early Middle Ages , the Saxons settled the area, establishing the Kingdom of Sussex in 477, which lasted until c. 827 when the kingdom was annexed by Wessex . It has a number of stately homes including Goodwood , Petworth House and Uppark , and castles such as Arundel Castle and Bramber Castle . The name Sussex, derived from the Old English 'Sūþseaxe' (' South Saxons '), dates from
244-489: A clew (or ball of string) in order to help Theseus escape the labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur. Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings for himself and his son, made of metal feathers held to a leather frame by beeswax. Before trying to escape the island, he warned his son to follow his flight path and not fly too close to the sun or the sea. Overcome by giddiness while flying, Icarus disobeyed his father and soared higher into
305-571: A cathedral until the foundation of the diocese in 1965. Bosham Church is partly of Saxon construction and is shown on the Bayeux Tapestry as the local church of late Saxon and Danish kings of England. Many other Saxon and early Norman churches have survived in the county with little alteration including the Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin, Sompting , an 11th-century Anglo-Saxon church with
366-741: A grass airfield handling light aircraft and helicopters at Chichester/Goodwood Airport . There are three main railway routes: the Brighton Main Line , the Arun Valley Line and the West Coastway Line . The Portsmouth Direct Line serves and occasionally enters the westernmost part of West Sussex, although it has no railway stations in the county. Since the 2024 general election , West Sussex has been represented by two Conservative , Three Labour and three Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament (MPs). West Sussex County Council (WSCC)
427-516: A height they jump from. I've seen people seriously winded. There's a boat to collect them from the water. Dod Miller in The Guardian , 6 July 2022 In 2009, Steve Elkins flew the 100m course entering the water at the finishing markers. A £30,000 prize was offered to any competitor completing the distance. Organisers said that he had fallen at 99.8m, 20 cm short of the 100m marker. However, Elkins claimed that video footage showed he had exceeded
488-500: A knight in shining armour ... What I like about these pictures is that these are English eccentrics hoping to fly – with all the connotations of Icarus – and the joke is that they only go down, not out ... There was an array of bird costumes, of course. You'd see hats with propellers attached, while one guy tried to get a lift by holding massive bunches of helium balloons . It wasn't all men: there were some very brave women too. Many contenders are raising money for charity – and it's quite
549-437: A photograph of a birdman dressed as a knight in armour jumping off a pier was his best shot. He commented: At Bognor and Worthing ... people would launch themselves off piers strapped into homemade contraptions – often in fancy dress – and try to fly. ... I don't know who the guy in this image is. There was metalwork involved in the horse, or dragon, or whatever it was, and it was on wheels. He started out riding on top of it like
610-413: A place called Cymenshore in three ships with his three sons and killed or put to flight the local inhabitants. The foundation story is regarded as somewhat of a myth by most historians, although the archaeology suggests that Saxons did start to settle in the area in the late 5th century. The Kingdom of Sussex was absorbed into Wessex as an earldom and became the county of Sussex. With its origins in
671-597: A result of the safety concerns. After safety checks in 2009 the water depth was cleared by the Health and Safety Executive as safe for competition. Events have subsequently been staged in both Worthing and Bognor Regis, creating the International Birdman series. Bognor's 2014 event was cancelled, but the event returned there in 2015. Birdman competitions have also been held in Eastbourne , East Sussex . In February 2016
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#1733086112126732-617: A substantial body of early and mid-20th-century work bequeathed by Walter Hussey and many later works donated by Colin St. John Wilson . Worthing Museum and Art Gallery houses a large collection of Georgian and Victorian costume. The Cass Sculpture Foundation has an outdoor sculpture park at Goodwood . Significant companies in the county include Rolls-Royce Motor Cars , a substantial employer near Chichester. Gatwick Airport , with associated airlines including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic ,
793-460: A tomb for him. Accounts of Icarus's story are found in Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca (Epitome i.12–13); Diodorus Siculus's Bibliotheca historica (4.77.5–9); Hyginus's Fabulae (40); Virgil's Aeneid (vi.14–33); and Ovid's Metamorphoses (viii.183–235). A number of other ancient writers allude to the story in passing, notably Lucian . The account by Pseudo-Apollodorus
854-463: A two-tier non-metropolitan county administered by West Sussex County Council . West Sussex and East Sussex were historically the single county Sussex . The South Downs are a defining feature of the county, crossing it from east to west and dividing the north and south. The downs are a chalk escarpment which falls away sharply into the Weald to the north and more gently toward the south, where there
915-621: Is a major source of direct and indirect employment. Thales Group also has a presence in the county. Nestlé has their UK headquarters in Crawley. West Sussex developed distinctive land uses along with its neighbours in the weald. The Landrace cattle transformed into Sussex cattle and Sussex chickens emerged about the time of the Roman conquest. Some of the earliest evidence of horses in Britain has been found at Boxgrove , dated to 500,000 BC. Viticulture
976-556: Is a narrow strip of flat land between the hills and the coast. The coastal strip widens to the west, where it is punctuated by Chichester Harbour which is a ria . The county has a long history of human settlement dating back to the Lower Paleolithic era. During the Roman conquest of Britain , Romans conquered the Atrebates , West Sussex's indigenous Britons, and incorporated the area as
1037-453: Is a part of the economy, with wineries producing mainly sparkling wine of varied quality. The table below shows the population change up to the 2011 census, contrasting the previous census. It also shows the proportion of residents in each district reliant upon lowest income and/or joblessness benefits, the national average proportion of which was 4.5% as at August 2012, the year for which latest datasets have been published. It can be seen that
1098-708: Is brief. Ovid 's account in the Metamorphoses is among the lengthiest, and the Latin poet refers to Icarus's myth elsewhere. Hyginus , among the Augustan writers who wrote about it in Latin in his Fabulae , tells of the bovine love affair of Pasiphaë , daughter of the Sun, that resulted in the birth of the Minotaur . Ovid's version of the Icarus myth and its connection to Phaethon influenced
1159-606: Is needed to recharge the chalk aquifers from which much of the water supply is drawn. The M23 motorway runs from London to the south of Crawley . The A23 and A24 roads run from London to Brighton and Worthing respectively with the A29 a little further west ending in Bognor Regis . Other major roads are the A272 which runs east to west through the middle of the county and the A27 which does
1220-559: Is provided by the University of Chichester and Chichester College . At least 40 sports are active in West Sussex. Sussex CCC was the first first-class county cricket club, formed in 1839, and was a cradle for club cricket. Sussex is home to Fontwell Park Racecourse . The county has one Football League club located in Crawley , that is Crawley Town F.C. BBC South television covers
1281-433: Is provided through a mix of around 240 infant , junior , primary , first and middle schools. Colleges include The College of Richard Collyer , Central Sussex College , Northbrook College and The Weald School . Independent schools in the county include Christ's Hospital near Horsham , whose students wear Tudor style uniform, Seaford College , Lancing College and Hurstpierpoint College . Tertiary education
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#17330861121261342-571: Is the authority that governs the non-metropolitan county of West Sussex. The county contains 7 district and borough councils ( Adur , Arun , Chichester , Crawley , Horsham , Mid Sussex and Worthing ), and 159 town, parish and neighbourhood councils. West Sussex County Council has 70 councillors ; the majority of them being Conservative. There are 46 Conservative councillors, 11 Liberal Democrats , 9 Labour Party councillors and 4 Green and Independent Alliance councillors. The Chief Executive and their team of executive directors are responsible for
1403-765: The Norman and the Gothic styles, and has been called by the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner "the most typical English Cathedral". The Cathedral Church of Our Lady and St Philip Howard in Arundel is the Roman Catholic cathedral of the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton . Built in French Gothic style and dedicated in 1873 as the Catholic parish church of Arundel, it was not designated
1464-571: The Sun himself, and the god punished him by directing his powerful rays at him, melting the beeswax. Afterwards, it was Helios who named the Icarian Sea after Icarus. Hellenistic writers give euhemerising variants in which the escape from Crete was actually by boat, provided by Pasiphaë , for which Daedalus invented the first sails, to outstrip Minos's pursuing galleys , that Icarus fell overboard en route to Sicily and drowned, and that Heracles erected
1525-413: The kingdom of Sussex , the later county of Sussex was traditionally divided into six units known as rapes . By the 16th century, the three western rapes were grouped together informally, having their own separate Quarter Sessions . These were governed by a separate county council from 1888, the county of Sussex being divided into the administrative counties of East and West Sussex. In 1974, West Sussex
1586-426: The 29 years to 2011 it averaged 1902 hours of sunshine per year. Sunshine totals are highest near the coast with Bognor Regis often having the highest in mainland England, including a total of 2237 hours in 1990. Mean annual temperature for southern coastal counties is around 11 °C. The coldest month, January, has mean daily minimum temperatures of around 3 °C near the coast and lower inland. July tends to be
1647-804: The Fall of Icarus , ) attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder , was the inspiration for two of the 20th century's most notable ekphrastic English-language poems, " Musée des Beaux Arts " by W. H. Auden and " Landscape with the Fall of Icarus " by William Carlos Williams . Other English-language poems referring to the Icarus myth are "To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph" by Anne Sexton ; "Icarus" by John Updike ; "Icarus Again" by Alan Devenish; "Mrs Icarus" by Carol Ann Duffy ; "Failing and Flying" by Jack Gilbert ; "It Should Have Been Winter" by Nancy Chen Long, " Up like Icarus " by Mark Antony Owen, "Age 10, 3am" by Sheri Wright, and "Yesterday's Myth" by Jennifer Chang. While
1708-595: The International Bird-Man Rally in Selsey on the coast of Sussex . The event was initiated by George Abel, as part of a fund-raising activity for the Selsey branch of the Royal Air Forces Association (RAFA) Club. Abel, a former RAF photographer, emigrated to Australia shortly afterwards, where he also helped to organise Birdman events. In 1978 organisers were informed they could no longer use
1769-730: The Saxon period between AD 477 to 1066, and the history of human habitation in Sussex goes back to the Old Stone Age . The oldest hominin remains known in Britain were found at Eartham Pit, Boxgrove . Prehistoric monuments include the Devil's Jumps , a group of Bronze Age burial mounds, and the Iron Age Cissbury Ring and Chanctonbury Ring hill forts on the South Downs. The Roman period saw
1830-651: The building of Fishbourne Roman Palace and rural villas such as Bignor Roman Villa together with a network of roads including Stane Street , the Chichester to Silchester Way and the Sussex Greensand Way . The Romans used the Weald for iron production on an industrial scale. The foundation of the Kingdom of Sussex is recorded by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year AD 477; it says that Ælle arrived at
1891-475: The competition relocated to Worthing Pier due to renovations of Bognor Regis Pier . From 2010 Bognor Regis and Worthing have both held Birdman competition, forming the International Birdman Series, which ended in 2016. It was the longest running Birdman Rally in the world. The competition involves running off an elevated ramp of 20 to 35 feet high at the end of a pier and attempting to 'fly'
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1952-534: The county a winterbourne , the River Lavant , flows intermittently from springs on the dip slope of the chalk downs north of Chichester. Some intermittent streams are known in the local dialect as "rifes". The county makes up 1.52% of the total land of England , making it the 30th largest county in the country . West Sussex is the sunniest county in the United Kingdom, according to Met Office records. Over
2013-419: The county are More Radio Worthing (serving Worthing , Shoreham , and Littlehampton ), More Radio Mid-Sussex (serving Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath ), 107 Meridian FM (for East Grinstead ) and V2 Radio (for Chichester ). Icarus In Greek mythology , Icarus ( / ˈ ɪ k ə r ə s / ; Ancient Greek : Ἴκαρος , romanized : Íkaros , pronounced [ǐːkaros] )
2074-537: The county excluding Haywards Heath , Burgess Hill , East Grinstead and Shoreham-by-Sea which are covered by BBC South East . ITV Meridian also covers the county. Crawley is covered by both regions and by BBC London and ITV London . BBC Radio Sussex is the BBC local radio station for the county, broadcast from studios in Brighton . The commercial local radio station is Heart South , and community radio stations in
2135-695: The county town, has a cathedral and city status , and is situated not far from the border with Hampshire . Other conurbations of a similar size are Burgess Hill , East Grinstead and Haywards Heath in the Mid Sussex district, Littlehampton in the Arun district , and Lancing , Southwick and Shoreham in the Adur district. Much of the coastal town population is part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation . Rustington and Southwater are
2196-496: The day-to-day running of the council. West Sussex County Council is based at County Hall, Chichester and provides a large range of services including education, social services, fire and rescue, libraries, trading standards, town and country planning, refuse disposal and consumer services. The West Sussex Youth Cabinet is a group of local representatives and four UK Youth Parliament (UKYP) representatives, who are elected by young people in West Sussex. The Youth Cabinet represents
2257-520: The distance. Elkins took the event organisers to court, but in February 2014 a judge ruled against him, saying that he was ‘not satisfied’ that the competitor had crossed the mark. [REDACTED] Media related to International Birdman at Wikimedia Commons West Sussex West Sussex is a ceremonial county in South East England . It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to
2318-483: The east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Crawley , and the county town is the city of Chichester . The county has a land area of 1,991 square kilometres (769 sq mi) and a population of 892,336. Along the south coast is a near-continuous urban area which includes the towns of Bognor Regis (63,855), Littlehampton (55,706), and Worthing (111,338);
2379-535: The east. The English Channel lies to the south. The area has been formed from Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous rock strata, part of the Weald–Artois Anticline . The eastern part of this ridge, the Weald of Kent, Sussex and Surrey has been greatly eroded, with the chalk surface removed to expose older Lower Cretaceous rocks of the Wealden Group . In West Sussex the exposed rock becomes older towards
2440-590: The furthest distance. There was an initial prize of £1,000 for anyone who could travel beyond 50 yards (46 m). Since starting, the prize money and qualifying distance has increased and in 2009 at Worthing it stood at £30,000 for reaching 100 metres (330 ft). The competition is divided between serious aviators mainly flying hang-gliders (Condor Class), inventors with home designed and built machines (Leonardo da Vinci Class), and people in fancy dress with little or no actual flying ability (Kingfisher Class), raising money for charity . The event started in 1971 as
2501-511: The idiom, " fly too close to the sun ." In some versions of the tale, Daedalus and Icarus escape by ship. Icarus's father Daedalus , a very talented Athenian craftsman, built a labyrinth for King Minos of Crete near his palace at Knossos to imprison the Minotaur , a half-man, half-bull monster born of his wife and the Cretan bull . Minos imprisoned Daedalus himself in the labyrinth because he believed Daedalus gave Minos's daughter, Ariadne ,
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2562-504: The job. Most settlements in West Sussex are either along the south coast or in Mid Sussex, near the M23 / A23 corridor. The town of Crawley is the largest in the county with an estimated population of 106,600. The coastal settlement of Worthing closely follows with a population of 104,600. The seaside resort of Bognor Regis and the market town of Horsham are both large towns. Chichester,
2623-419: The latter two are part of the Brighton and Hove built-up area , which extends into East Sussex and has a total population of 474,485. The interior of the county is generally rural; the largest towns are Crawley (118,493) and Horsham (50,934), both located in the north-east; Chichester is in the south-west and has a population of 26,795. West Sussex contains seven local government districts , which are part of
2684-414: The leather straps from their sandals, and beeswax. Before escaping, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too low or the water would soak the feathers and not to fly too close to the sun or the heat would melt the wax. Icarus ignored Daedalus's instructions not to fly too close to the sun, causing the beeswax in his wings to melt. Icarus fell from the sky, plunged into the sea, and drowned. The myth gave rise to
2745-399: The most populous district of West Sussex is Arun containing the towns of Arundel , Bognor Regis and Littlehampton : The current total population of the county makes up 1.53% of England's population. West Sussex has a comprehensive education system, with a mix of county-maintained secondary schools and academies and over twenty independent senior schools. In addition primary education
2806-683: The myth is a major subtext throughout Hiromi Yoshida's Icarus tetralogy poetry chapbooks, Icarus is a metaphor for troubled modern young men in the Norwegian Axel Jensen 's novel Icarus: A Young Man in Sahara (1957). He is also the subject of the 2017 novel, Icarus , by Adam Wing. According to the New York Times Book Review , the hero of Andrew Boryga’s “Victim” is an “inner-city Icarus” who exaggerates his victimization narrative until it implodes. Literary interpretation has considered
2867-577: The myth of Icarus as a consequence of excessive ambition. An Icarus-related study of the Daedalus myth was published by the French hellenist Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux . In psychology, there have been synthetic studies of the Icarus complex with respect to the alleged relationship between fascination for fire, enuresis , high ambition, and Ascensionism. In the psychiatric mind, features of disease were perceived in
2928-696: The mythological tradition in English literature reflected in the writings of Chaucer , Marlowe , Shakespeare , Milton , and Joyce . In Renaissance iconography , the significance of Icarus depends on context: in the Orion Fountain at Messina, he is one of many figures associated with water; but he is also shown on the Bankruptcy Court of the Amsterdam Town Hall – where he symbolizes high-flying ambition. The 16th-century painting Landscape with
2989-563: The nearest land Icaria (an island southwest of Samos ) in the memory of him. Today, the supposed site of his burial on the island bears his name, and the sea near Icaria in which he drowned is called the Icarian Sea . With much grief, Daedalus went to the temple of Apollo in Sicily, hung up his own wings as an offering, and promised to never attempt to fly again. According to scholia on Euripides , Icarus thought himself greater than Helios ,
3050-426: The next largest settlements in the county. There are several more towns in West Sussex, including Arundel , Midhurst , Petworth , Selsey , Steyning , Henfield , Pulborough and Storrington . Other notable villages include Billingshurst , Copthorne , Crawley Down , Cuckfield , Hassocks , Hurstpierpoint and Lindfield . West Sussex is bordered by Hampshire to the west, Surrey to the north and East Sussex to
3111-491: The north of the county with Lower Greensand ridges along the border with Surrey including the highest point of the county at Blackdown . Erosion of softer sand and clay strata has hollowed out the basin of the Weald leaving a north facing scarp slope of the chalk which runs east and west across the whole county, broken only by the valleys of the River Arun and River Adur . In addition to these two rivers which drain most of
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#17330861121263172-537: The organisers of the Worthing event announced its cancellation for the foreseeable future. Bognor Birdman took place on 3 and 4 September 2016, although the second day's flying was curtailed because of safety concerns over high winds and choppy sea. International Bognor Birdman 2021 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic , but was expected to return in 2022. In 1984 Harold Zimmer from West Germany flew 57.8 metres to claim
3233-460: The pier at Selsey and the event was moved to Bognor Regis. By 1983 the competition had attracted European teams and the attention of the BBC . In 2008, because of the demolition of an 18 metre (60 ft) length of the end of Bognor pier, the 2008 Birdman event was not staged in Bognor, due to safety concerns over water depth at high tide being 13 feet (4.0 m) at the new end of the pier. The 2008 and 2009 competitions were held in Worthing as
3294-401: The same but closer to the coast. The A259 is a local alternate route to the A27 in the eastern coastal strip. Gatwick Airport , which handled over 33 million passengers and had over 250,000 aircraft movements in 2011, is located within the borders of Crawley , and is the second largest airport in the United Kingdom. There is also a considerably smaller local airport at Shoreham Airport and
3355-411: The shape of the pendulous emotional ecstatic- high and depressive- low of bipolar disorder. Henry Murray having proposed the term Icarus complex , apparently found symptoms particularly in mania where a person is fond of heights, fascinated by both fire and water, narcissistic and observed with fantastical or far-fetched imaginary cognition. Seth Godin 's 2012 The Icarus Deception, points to
3416-457: The sky. Without warning, the heat from the sun softened (and melted) the wax. Icarus could feel melted wax dripping down his arms. The feathers then fell one by one. Icarus kept flapping his "wings", trying to stay aloft. But he realized that he had no feathers left. He was only flapping his bare arms. He also saw loose feathers falling like snowflakes. Finally, he fell into the sea, sank to the bottom, and drowned. Daedalus wept for his son and called
3477-748: The top prize, which then stood at £10,000. By 1990 the record was 71 metres, the prize distance had been increased to 100 metres and the prize money was £25,000. The prize money later stood at £30,000 for successfully reaching 100m, and for three consecutive years – 2013, 2014 and 2015 – that record was broken at Worthing. From 1994 until 2001, in Brighton, Eastbourne and Bognor Regis, Dod Miller immortalised these human birds with his Rolleiflex camera. Supermen, witches, dinosaurs, butterflies, ostriches, penguins and winged species of all kinds posed for Miller ready for their take off, armed with goggles and swimming flippers. Julie Bonzon in Dod Miller's Birdmen . Photographer Dodik "Dod" Miller (born 1960) has said that
3538-417: The views of the young people West Sussex at county level. Elections for the Youth Cabinet and UKYP in West Sussex run every year in March. The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, otherwise called Chichester Cathedral , is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Chichester . It was founded as a cathedral in 1075, when the seat of the bishop was moved from Selsey Abbey . The cathedral has architecture in both
3599-638: The warmest month when mean daily maxima tend to be around 20 °C. A maximum temperature of 35.4 °C occurred at North Heath, Pulborough on 26 June 1976. Coastal high temperatures are often moderated by cooler sea breezes. Monthly rainfall tends to be highest in autumn and early winter and lowest in the summer months, with July often being the driest month. There is less rainfall from summer convective showers and thunderstorms than in inland areas. The county can suffer both from localised flooding caused by heavy rainfall and from water shortages caused by prolonged periods of below average rainfall. Winter rainfall
3660-488: Was made a single ceremonial county with the coming into force of the Local Government Act 1972 . At the same time a large part of the eastern rape of Lewes (the Mid Sussex district which includes the towns of Haywards Heath , Burgess Hill and East Grinstead ) was transferred into West Sussex. Until 1834, provision for the poor and destitute in West Sussex was made at parish level. From 1835 until 1948 eleven Poor Law Unions , each catering for several parishes, took on
3721-498: Was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus , the architect of the labyrinth of Crete . After Theseus , king of Athens and enemy of Minos, escaped from the labyrinth, King Minos suspected that Icarus and Daedalus had revealed the labyrinth's secrets and imprisoned them—either in a large tower overlooking the ocean or in the labyrinth itself, depending upon the account. Icarus and Daedalus escaped using wings Daedalus constructed from birds’ molted feathers, threads from blankets,
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