Hastings

Hastings sits where the Sussex Downs meet the Channel, a working town that has never entirely settled into being a resort. Its name is borrowed by history books for a battle that actually happened seven miles inland at Battle, but the town itself has spent a thousand years since getting on with fishing, smuggling, shipbuilding and, more recently, attracting artists and Londoners priced out of the capital. The result is a place with more texture than most seaside towns: a medieval Old Town of timber-framed buildings and steep twittens, a beach still launched by working trawlers, and a skyline of black tarred net shops that look like nothing else in England.

The town splits naturally into distinct characters. The Old Town, tucked beneath the East and West Hills, is all cobbled lanes, antique shops and pubs that have barely changed their floor plan in centuries. The seafront around White Rock and the pier is more conventionally British-seaside, with amusements, a rebuilt pier and Victorian terraces. Push west and Hastings blurs into St Leonards-on-Sea, James Burton's planned Regency town, now the epicentre of the area's creative revival, full of independent galleries, natural wine bars and slow-renovated townhouses. None of it feels manicured, which is exactly why people who dislike twee seaside towns tend to like Hastings.

What ties it together is the coastline itself. Sandstone cliffs rise sharply either side of the town, cut through with sunken lanes and glens, and the beach at the Stade remains, by most counts, the largest beach-launched fishing fleet in Europe. Boats still come in most mornings, winched up the shingle by cable, and the catch goes straight into the fish stalls and restaurants a few dozen yards away. It is a rare thing: a British seaside town where the fishing industry is not a museum piece but a daily, visible business.

Top things to do in Hastings

Hastings rewards a couple of days of unhurried wandering as much as any single big-ticket attraction. The highlights worth building a visit around include:

• Hastings Old Town — a warren of narrow lanes, courtyards and passages (locally called twittens) lined with antique dealers, junk shops and some of the town's oldest pubs, largely untouched by chain retail.
• The Stade and the net shops — the tall, black-tarred wooden huts on the beach, built from the 1800s to store fishing nets and gear, remain in daily use and are a genuinely unique piece of vernacular architecture.
• Hastings Castle — the ruined clifftop fortress built shortly after 1066 on West Hill, with a small exhibition on the Norman Conquest and sweeping views over the Old Town and Channel.
• East Hill Cliff Railway — England's steepest funicular railway, hauling visitors up to Hastings Country Park in under a minute, avoiding a stiff climb on foot.
• Hastings Country Park and Fairlight Glen — several miles of clifftop and wooded glen walking east of the town, with dramatic views towards Fairlight and a long smuggling history.
• Hastings Contemporary — a striking black-clad gallery on the seafront showing modern and contemporary art, including a permanent collection of work connected to the town.
• Hastings Pier — rebuilt after a 2010 fire and award-winning for its stripped-back, community-owned redesign, now hosting events, markets and a bar rather than traditional amusements.
• Alexandra Park — a large Victorian park inland from the centre with a lake, mature woodland and formal gardens, a good counterpoint to a day on the shingle.

Getting to Hastings

Hastings has a direct rail line to London, with trains from London Charing Cross and London St Pancras (changing at Ashford International for the high-speed service) taking around 90 minutes to just under two hours depending on the route and time of day. Southeastern also runs services along the coast connecting Hastings with Ashford, Rye, Eastbourne and Brighton, making it straightforward to combine with other Sussex and Kent towns.

By road, the most direct route from London is the A21 south from the M25, a journey of roughly an hour and forty minutes outside peak traffic, though the final stretch through the Weald can be slow. From the west, the A259 coast road links Hastings to Eastbourne and Brighton, while from Kent the A259 or A21 both funnel traffic in via Rye or Battle. Parking in the centre and Old Town is limited and largely metered; the seafront car parks at the White Rock and the Stade, along with a park-and-ride at weekends in peak season, are the most reliable options.

The nearest major airport is London Gatwick, around an hour to ninety minutes' drive depending on the route, with London City and Heathrow both a little further. There is no airport serving Hastings directly, so most overseas visitors will arrive via London.

Best time to visit Hastings

Spring brings the town's most distinctive event, Jack in the Green, a May Day folk festival with Old Town processions, drumming and a giant foliage-covered figure paraded through the streets, alongside quieter beaches and reliably fresh seafood as the fleet gets back into its rhythm after winter. Summer is peak season on the beach and pier, with the Old Town at its busiest and the best weather for the clifftop walks east towards Fairlight, though rooms book up fastest in July and August.

Autumn suits visitors more interested in history and food than sunbathing: the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings falls in October, with re-enactments at Battle Abbey a short drive inland, and the town's restaurants lean into the new fishing and game seasons. Winter is the quietest and often the most atmospheric time, with Hastings Bonfire (traditionally in October, part of the wider Sussex bonfire society calendar) drawing large crowds for torchlit processions and fireworks, and the storm-battered coastline making for dramatic, near-empty walks along the cliffs.

Where to stay in Hastings

The Old Town is the obvious choice for visitors who want to be within walking distance of the castle, the net shops and the best pubs, and it has a concentration of characterful B&Bs in Georgian and Victorian townhouses, generally with a handful of rooms rather than large-scale hotels. St Leonards-on-Sea, immediately west, suits anyone drawn to the town's creative, independent-shop side of life, with Regency squares, sea-view guest houses and an increasingly good choice of places to eat and drink within a short stroll of the seafront.

The central seafront around White Rock and the pier is the most practical base for families or anyone without a car, close to the theatre, main shops and beach, with a wider spread of conventional hotels. For a quieter, more rural stay, the countryside towards Battle and the 1066 Country villages inland offer spa hotels and country houses set in woodland and gardens, a good fit for anyone treating Hastings as one stop on a longer Sussex tour rather than the whole trip.

Food and drink in Hastings

Seafood is the obvious starting point, given the boats hauled up on the beach a few steps from most of the town's fish restaurants and stalls; expect the catch of the day rather than a fixed menu, and it is worth timing a visit around what has actually come in that morning. Rock-a-Nore, the road running along the Stade, is the natural hub for this, with fish and chip shops sitting alongside small independent seafood restaurants using the same boats' catches.

Beyond fish, the town's food scene has grown considerably more varied over the past decade, particularly in St Leonards-on-Sea, where a wave of small, chef-led restaurants, natural wine bars and specialty coffee roasters has opened alongside the area's longer-standing cafés. George Street in the Old Town is worth a slow walk for independent bakeries, delis and pubs, several with strong local ale selections from Sussex breweries. Hastings also has a lively market and festival calendar, including a seafront food and drink festival in summer and regular farmers' and vintage markets in the Old Town, both good ways to try a cross-section of what the wider area produces.