EAST Grinstead has become one of the latest places to appear on Googles Street View which allows virtual visitors to take a 360 degree tour of the town.

A special camera arrived 18 months ago to photograph every street and capture landmark buildings like East Court, Chequer Mead theatre and Sackville College.

Welcoming the initiative, town tourism officer Simon Kerr said: "What a bonus for people visiting our part of the world. Now they can take a virtual tour of the town, check out where they might want to stay and get some advance clues about what to look out for."

However there will be some surprises for actual, rather than virtual, visitors - when the Google pictures were taken in the second half of 2008, Woolworths was still open in London Road, and the almost completed Aldi site at the entrance to town was still an empty mud patch.

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