We love sand sculpture workshops on the beach. When Lee Walther, the area ranger for the National Trust at East Head and Bosham in West Sussex contacted us to ask if we could come and show the beach goers of West Wittering how to make sand sculptures, we leapt at the chance.
West Wittering is a beautiful beach on the mouth of Chichester Harbour. The wetlands there are a haven for waterfowl, who like to spend the winter there and raise their chicks. Birds such as sanderlings, ringed plover and Brent geese can often be seen wading in the shallows. Lee is especially concerned with how these birds are affected by people bringing their dogs to the beach and letting them off the lead to run around. He wanted the engagement workshops to raise awareness of the birdlife of Chichester Harbour and to educate people to keep their dogs on a lead so they don’t scare off or harm the birds.
Rich Spence and Katie Phillips packed the Sand In Your Eye van full of our sand sculpting tools and made their way down the length of England to the south coast. There are some great beaches for our family workshops dotted along the whole coastline, and West Wittering is a prime example. The tide goes out for a mile, so luckily Lee collected sea water for the children’s workshops in his 4×4. Thanks Lee, you can’t imagine how much of a help that was – it certainly beats carrying buckets of water all that way!!
The workshops ran all day and some fantastic sea birds and sea creatures were created using professional sand sculpting techniques – even some creatures that you wouldn’t expect to find on a beach!
We look forward to returning to the south coast and to West Wittering for more engagement workshops very soon.
