Sumners Ponds Fishery and Campsite

Campers will find a food shop and pub just 400 yards from the site, as well as restaurants, golfing, tennis, swimming, horse riding and watersports less than four miles away.

Sumners Ponds is in a good spot for exploring the South East, with fast access to the coast and the South Downs, and to masses of family attractions.

It’s animaltastic around here. Drusilla’s Park in Alfriston has otters, penguins and bats, plus train rides and the Playland adventure playground. Twitchers flock to the Arundel Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and Birdworld in Farnham, and there are more birds, plus a fabulous selection of vintage cars, at the Bentley Wildfowl and Motor Museum. Fishers Farm Park and Horton Park Childrens Farm offer close encounters of a farmyard kind (plus other attractions) and Earnley Butterflies, Birds and Beasts does what it says on the tin. Or you could wander around the Raystede Centre for Animal Welfare, where over a thousand animals and birds live happily...

For fishy fun, there are ocean-dwellers galore at the Brighton Sea Life Centre (about 35 minutes away by car); or try the Blue Reef Aquarium in Hastings, where you can also visit the Castle to hear about 1066 and all that, and get lost in the mysterious tunnels and caverns of Smugglers Adventure.

As well as the famous theme parks of Thorpe Park. Chessington and Legoland, there’s fun to be had at Harbour Park on the seafront at Littlehampton, and at Treasure Island and Fort Fun in Eastbourne.

For a more genteel feel, visitors could hop on the steam-powered Bluebell Railway at Uckfield, go on a boat tour in charming Chichester, or take to two wheels to explore the forest and seaside trails at the Cuckmere Cycle Company centre near Seaford.

Holidaymakers can find out about the region’s industrial heritage and bygone crafts at the Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre. There are lovely botanical gardens at Paradise Park in Newhaven, and the area is not short of National Trust properties, either.

You could even head into London for the day - it’s just an hour away by train...