Josh H.
Yelp
The little town of Arundel is built around the castle, which is visible from afar and is as mythological-looking as it gets. A mass of turrets and buttresses, it seems to have been extended so often that it's more extension than original, and towers are stuck on almost indiscriminately. The town is great for shopping and cafés, and other town attractions include the boating lake, wetland centre and the river Arun, on which you can hire a 6 or 12 seater boat to navigate yourself, or be driven on tours throughout the day. In August the town is transformed for the Arundel Festival, featuring everything from street performance and free outdoor gigs to opera on a temporary stage in the grounds of the castle. The general feeling of the town is like a social-climbing Lewes, sadly without much of Lewes' flair and creativity. Having said that, there's an open house art trail in festival season, but it errs more towards the watercolours and faux-modernity than anything genuinely original.
It's a very pretty town just to wander round. There's a local museum, and gentle strolls along the river banks as well as more challenging walks further out of town. Having spent a great deal of time just roving about, I can testify to the fact that it's easy to amuse oneself for hours just window shopping and losing oneself in the narrow, winding lanes. The cathedral is also rather breathtaking, with spiky Gothic spires and stained glass aplenty. Arundel condenses so much into a small space that it's difficult to be bored, and if you add to that the proliferation of free events in summer, it's well worth the drive or train journey out of Brighton. If you get off at Barnham instead of Arundel, you can even reach it over the fields, which is a great hike with the right boots on.