Join us on a winter walk around the village of Amberley in West Sussex, with its historic castle and church, surrounded by the glorious South Downs. Amberley is located approximately 5 miles north of Arundel and 11 miles northeast of Chichester.

Due to its cinematic nature, this video is best watched on a large screen, such as a TV, to fully appreciate the visual detail and immersive aural experience we try to convey.

00:00 Intro
00:16 Intro drone flight
01:07 Amberley castle
02:57 St Michael's church
04:39 The village
06:00 Amberley brooks
08:16 More of the village
09:44 Up the downs
12:00 Return to the village
13:09 Closing drone flight
13:35 Outro

==Our filming equipment==
Camera: Sony A7S M3
Lens: Sony FE 16-35mm F4 G PZ
Gimbal: DJI Ronin SC2
Microphone: Sony ECM-XYST1M stereo
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Camera: Sony A7 M4
Lens: Sony FE 100-400 F4.5 GM
Teleconverter: Sony 1.4x TC E
Monopod: 3LT Legends Alana
Microphone: Sony ECM-XYST1M stereo
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Camera: Sony RX10 M4
Tripod: Manfrotto MT190GOC4 190 Go!
Tripod head: Manfrotto 500 Fluid Head With Flat Base
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Drone: DJI Mini 3 Pro
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After yet another spell of very rainy weather, we knew before we started this walk that we may fail due to flooding. This turned out to be the case so we had to adjust our route accordingly.

We started our walk in the vicinity of St Michael's church and Amberley castle, both of which have roots dating back to the early C12. At a time when the church was all-powerful, and owned the land on which the castle sits, the bishop of Chichester first had a hunting lodge built along with the parish church next door. Over the centuries, subsequent bishops of Chichester had the castle rebuilt and extended, the grounds crenellated, a gatehouse built etc to form a rather grand and elaborate residence. Apparently, the fortifications were required to protect against pirates!

During the Civil War, the castle was damaged and fell into disrepair. Eventually a manor house was built from the ruins, and Amberley Castle became very much what we see today, which is currently run as an exclusive hotel.

A more comprehensive history of the castle may be found on its website - https://www.amberleycastle.co.uk

Information on the C12 St Michael's church may be found at https://sussexparishchurches.org/chur....

After leaving the castle, we passed the small pond (with coots building their nest), and then west towards Amberley Brooks (water meadows) and the River Arun. Given the volume of rain that had fallen in the preceding weeks, we knew that this might be tricky in places. It was, and we eventually had to turn back. Though this was ultimately a fail, on route we did see a large herd if fallow deer still in their winter coats, so definitely a positive!

Retracing our steps, we wandered around the western side of the village before turning south and making our way on to the South Downs. We followed the South Downs Way for a short distance, but our little, old dog is no longer able to do long walks, so, again, it was a case of retracing our steps - there are few public footpath options in the area.

Returning to the village, we enjoyed looking at the beautiful, historic buildings, of which a surprisingly high proportion having thatched roofs.

As ever, we tried to film as much wildlife as possible; it was lovely to see our first Peacock butterfly of the year, even if it was a little tatty! We also saw a couple of Brimstones but were unable to capture these with the camera.

We hope to be able to walk the originally planned route in the summer when the ground should be dry.

All background and natural sounds were recorded during our time filming.

We hope you enjoyed watching as much as we enjoyed walking. If you did, please remember to click the thumbs up (like) button, and leave a comment.

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John & Diana

Music: https://bensound.com and https://pixabay.com/music