Thorney Island (West Sussex)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thorney Island is an island (effectively a peninsula) that juts into Chichester Harbour in West Sussex. It is separated from the mainland by a narrow channel called the Great Deep.

An RAF station was set up on Thorney during the Second World War, and the runway is till in situ although the site is currently a (RA) Royal Artillery base. Large C-130 Hercules of 242 OCU and Hawker Siddeley Andover CMk1 tactical transports of No 46 Squadron used to fly from here when it was an RAF base. In the 2001 census the island had a usually resident population of 1,079.