I first saw Cuckmere Haven — the flood plain where the Cuckmere flows into the Channel — on a drive to the beach at Birling Gap. I remember stopping and staring at the river as it snaked in great sparkly meanders to the sea, and wondering how I hadn’t come across it before. I have been back several times, staying in one of the six pared-back rustic rooms at Saltmarsh, a 16th-century farmhouse and walkers’ café that is just steps from the river in the Saxon village of Exceat. And when lockdown eased it was the first place I escaped to with my family, leaving London at dawn to go and clamber over the pillboxes with the sheep, swim beneath the chalk-white Seven Sisters cliffs, eat cake from the café in Friston Forest, then hurtle, Famous Five-like, down the hill known as the Stairway to Heaven.
I liked to think of this haven, eight miles west of Eastbourne, as my own private refuge. But, of course, a lot of people discovered it before me — from the Luftwaffe, which eyed it as a landing stage for invasion, to the British artist Eric Ravilious, who captured its serene and serpentine beauty in a delicately cross-hatched watercolour in 1939. This year — as the Towner Eastbourne, the gallery that holds the original Ravilious painting, celebrates its centenary and prepares to host the Turner prize, and Cuckmere Haven plans to mark the opening of the England Coast Path with a five-day walking festival — that number will grow.
Since 2019, when the Towner commissioned the German artist Lothar Götz to paint its exterior with a razzle-dazzle colour-block mural, the gallery has become the trump card of a renascent Eastbourne that is becoming ever more enticing as a weekend escape. If you arrive by train, as my ten-year-old daughter and I did, the place to start is Little Chelsea, in the area around Grove Road and South Street, with their charming mix of chic cafés, charity shops and indie stores. At the Mad Catter we stroked 16 cats snoozing in the sunshine (£3; book ahead; madcatter.pet); at All Things Analogue we admired a rainbow display of Leuchtturm notebooks and Artline pens (allthingsanalogue.co.uk); at Camilla’s Bookshop I left my daughter singing Hey Jude with Archie the resident parrot while I tunnelled off through towers of 500,000 second-hand and antiquarian books (camillasbookshop.com). Ask anyone for brunch or lunch recommendations and they will point you to Skylark, where my daughter enjoyed her buttermilk pancakes with bacon and maple syrup as much as I did my wild mushrooms on toast (mains from £12; skylarkeastbourne.co.uk).
From Skylark it was a ten-minute walk to the Towner, where — with families queuing outside its new studio spaces and people milling in its arthouse cinema — the atmosphere on the ground floor was more village fête than art gallery.
To celebrate its centenary the gallery has put on two excellent exhibitions, The Living Collection (until August 28) and Unseen (until May 14), which present highlights of its 5,000-strong collection of modern and contemporary art. These will be followed by Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life (May 27 to September 3) and — alongside the Turner prize (September 28 to January 14) — a “fringe” programme that aims to engage every over-ten in the region (townereastbourne.co.uk).
“The big things for me are place, and creating a warm and friendly space that everyone can enjoy,” said Joe Hill, the Towner’s director, introducing us to its art store and the entire permanent gallery devoted to Ravilious. The Towner is also expanding its top-floor café and developing a second venue at a 19th-century farmstead at Beachy Head, scheduled to open in 2025.
From the Towner we walked to the seafront, where the Grand Hotel looms large over a gloriously empty promenade and seafront, the golden domes of the pier glinting in the east. Originally built in 1875 for William Earp, his wife and their 13 children, the vast “white palace” is evidence of Eastbourne’s Victorian heyday. Today endless corridors lead to its 152 rooms, the two-AA rosette Mirabelle restaurant and Grand Hall. Afternoon tea comes on a delicate tiered stand, the miniature lemon meringue sprinkled with gold (from £30; grandeastbourne.com).
While the Grand represents traditional Eastbourne, the Levels wine shop and bar behind it is a leading light of the city’s evolving food and wine scene. Its owner, Hardy Ovaisi, who trained at Plumpton College, presides over two Enomatic machines dispensing still and sparkling English wines (levelswine.co.uk). Another is the Port, a newish boutique hotel to the east of the pier with a black façade, 19 rooms (six have sea views), a distinctive palette of blush pink and black, lovely staff and a commendably sustainable outlook. Its restaurant is highly regarded, but open only from Thursday to Saturday, so we ordered in from the Turkish restaurant Meze and ate from stylish plates in the open-plan bar and restaurant (from £10; meze-restaurant.co.uk).
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After a superb breakfast overlooking the sea (£16pp for two courses) it was time to explore the South Downs Way. There are several ways to do this, one being on a sublime seven-mile circular walk to Birling Gap, taking in the Beachy Head and Belle Tout lighthouses and the village of East Dean (nationaltrail.co.uk). Alternatively, jump on the No 12 bus for a scenic journey that takes you through Eastbourne old town to Cuckmere Haven, where change is afoot too.
Saltmarsh Farmhouse was taken over in October by Emma Neill, a local who is in the process of turning what was essentially a stylish B&B with help-yourself hotpot dining into a hotel with a summer bar in the walled garden (B&B doubles from £190; saltmarshfarmhouse.co.uk). The excellent Seven Sisters visitor centre has been revamped, and in the spring the park is planning to reopen its Foxhole Campsite, along with three renovated self-catering cottages (sevensisters.org.uk). And from September 20 to 24 Cuckmere Haven will host Walk the Chalk, funded by the national lottery to mark the opening of the 2,795-mile coast path (walkthechalk.org).
At the heart of the festival will be three short guided walks through this beautiful and biodiverse area, aimed at raising awareness of the threat of coastal erosion and climate change, and introducing people to the fascinating flora and fauna, history and geology. I’ll be there.
Lisa Johnson was a guest of the Port, which has room-only doubles from £85 (porthotel.co.uk)
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