Hastings is a wonderful place.

Cast of Foyle's War.

I spent last weekend in Hastings for a wedding. I have heard mixed reports of the place. I had heard it was charming. I had also heard it was run down and full of people claiming their benefits by the sea; a problem for many of our coastal resorts and Hastings has a reputation for being amongst the poorest in Southern England.  Upon first arriving and for the first 5 minutes of our taxi ride the latter seemed sadly apt, boarded up buildings, Poundland shops and dodgy geezers sitting on the kerb with cans of beer. 

Hastings Old Town.

However Hastings turns out to be a city of two halves and as we proceeded along the seafront the atmosphere and look of the place changed dramatically. The Old Town of Hastings is the one, visually at least, that we know from the television series Foyle’s War, at any corner you can imagine running into the melancholy detective and his irritating driver. It has delicately hued houses, leany fishermans cottages and half timbered inns. It also has the crazy golf, fish and chip shops and amusement arcades that as far as I am concerned are the prerequesites of 'English seaside'. So what? I hear you say, so do half of the seaside towns in the country? Well there is something about Hastings that is rather distinctive and edge of scruffy relaxed bohemianism mingles with it's more traditional appeal. It manages to be both very English without being parochial and eccentric without being pretentious.

Old town houses.

On the tourist front it is an unusually mixed looking place. There is a ruined castle nestling on the edge of a cliff and next to that an expanse of green lawn, a park boasting amazing views of the sea and a fine edwardian style hilltop café with a terrace enabling you to drown in ozone from the seascape stretching beyond you.  The resort is edged by stony cliffs, which you can traverse via shanks pony or one of two funiculars. The area known as the Stade, down on the sea front  boasts the unique tall dark brown fishermens  huts built high due to a lack of land. Some are made from the sterns of boats, (apparently they tended to be sawn in half by HM Customs when they found one with a false smuggling bottom) that the ever enterprising locals used as huts.  On this part of the seafront a small shanty town of fisherman’s sheds (some selling what looked like deliciously fresh fish) jostles for space with a miniature railway. I liked the scruffiness of this gaggle of sheds backing on to the part of the shingle beach used to berth fishing boats.  The Stade should really be your last call on leaving Hastings as several fish companies sell very fresh looking fish and seafood packed in chilled boxes that would certainly survive a car journey back to London. Close by is a newly built  fashionable café arts centre. An outcrop of the Jerwood Gallery is (controversially) also under construction.

Picture of fishing huts in the Stade taken in the 50's.

George the cat.

We stayed in the High Street of the Old Town in a B and B called  Gallery 53. Run by a couple of artists in their family home we had a very comfy characterful room and the resident cat George had the good manners to keep his distance from this allergic guest. I’d recommend it if you go. 

Our b and b for the weekend: Gallery 53.

The High Street is a good place to base yourself and has a number of small chi chi gift shops and the tourist information office. It was also a good place to be vintage/retro/antique hunting. The High Street Retro Centre was run by fifties enthusiasts and had a good line in vintage repro, a decent amount of mens stuff and some particularly nice hand knitted jumpers from vintage patterns which I thought were good value at about £60.00. In another shop I found a Lucite glitter metal cage purse for £55.00 and in Little Treasures a handsome embroidered 40's dress was tempting. However due to an uncharacteristic outbreak of fiscal sense I satisfied myself with five 1950’s buttons.

Little treasures vintage clothing, High Street.

High Street Retro Centre, particularly good on fifties style clothing.

Whilst shopping is one thing, what really grew on me was the atmosphere of the place itself.  There is something non-conformist about most of the towns on or near that coast. Rye’s arch literary history, Brighton’s louche menace and Lewes’ revolutionary fervour all reflect this but at the same time those towns have a little too much yummy mummied Cath Kidston styled Notting Hillification going on.  Hastings has elements of all these places but seems more genuinely eccentric than any of them and more mixed, it's comparative poverty means it will attract artists, those who value their lifestyle over their income and that the local working class population can still afford to live there. So, in a sense, whilst being very genteel it is also rough around the edges.  Its main cultural obsessions seem to be with pirates, drinking, relaxing and things wiccan, this the home of the Jack in the Green festival every Spring. Like Lewes it has an active bonfire society, never underestimate the Kent/Sussex obsession with burning things. There seem to be an unusually range of cultural interests and people in  the place.

Jack in the Green festival, a very amiable if priapic green man.

Bonfire night,on the beach obviously.

The place is, for want of a better word, very English. People wish you good morning as they pass on a Sunday morning, including the local vicar.  Locals ranging from hippies to tattooed bikers walk dogs, seemingly only ever in pairs or trios and ribaldry is alive and yelling at you from a pub garden.  I suspect this is down to the area’s history as not only the first line of defence in the face of invasion  over the centuries but a history of evasion, largely from tax. The wedding I attended included a spirited rap on the subject of ‘motherf*****g vat’ from the groom.

I liked the place a lot, I can see it really going places when the recession lifts, although I am not sure I would want to see it prettified to the extent of nearby Rye. The pier is derelict due to fire and it is a terrible shame this has not been rectified (surely the lottery could grant it some money?). Quite apart from the fact that it has shops to meander about and a shed load of very well patronised pubs there is quite a lot to do. Nearby Bexhill on Sea has the De La Warr pavilion, St Leonards is another genteel seaside town, Rye is close as is Brighton and Lewes. At night you can mix with the marauding hen nights and the drinking crowds on George Street, having a vodka in Revolver, or you can tuck yourself in the corner of a venerable old pub like The Stag, admire it's mummified cats and quaff real ale.

An hour and a half from Charing Cross, less than £30.00 return rail fare and a very good weekend option for a weekend away from London. We all need a dose of sea side, marauding seagulls and fish and chips every so often. Not to mention a little piracy....

George Street.

Revolver Vodka Bar.

Hastings pirates.

View of the Stade from above.

Fisherman's hut selling fresh fish.

Another view of the Stade.

One of two funiculars.