Hastings

Walks: Winchelsea to Hastings, Winchelsea to Hastings via Three Oaks, Hastings to Rye, Eastbourne to Hastings via Bexhill

With a busy road along the seafront and the various seafront amusements, there is something rather urban about the beach at Hastings, which, like others on the south coast, is shingle shelving down moderately to flat sand at very low tide. Once you are in the water, however, it is quite scenic, with the old castle ruins towering above you and the newly re-opened pier (worth a visit) to one side. If you want seclusion, Fairlight Glen is better, however (see below)

• Food and drink: the seafront swarms with the usual fish and chip shops and cafes, but for a classier atmosphere, seek out the old town, inland just before the fishing huts at the east end of the beach.


• On sunny summer weekends, when crowds swarm to Hastings, the adjacent town of St Leonards offers less crowded beaches. Walk a mile or so west along the seafront promenade, or get off at St Leonard's Warrior Square station. At low tide, there are underwater rocks along this coast, but the section of beach in front of the Royal Victoria Hotel is rock-free. The seafront has many elegant buildings, but the town itself has seen better days. 

Fairlight Glen

Walks: Winchelsea to Hastings, Winchelsea to Hastings via Three Oaks, Hastings to Rye

Fairlight Glen is the only place between Hastings and Pett Level where you can get down to the seashore, though the crumbling cliffs make it slightly perilous. Your reward is a long curving pebble beach backed by high wooded cliffs that has a wild and secluded air unlike any in the south east. For this reason, it is also popular with naturists.

• The path down to the beach takes some finding. The turning off the coast path is in a wooded gully in the second major dip in the cliffs when coming from Hastings, at a point where the path crosses a stream. The path is no longer fenced off, but a sign warns you that you use it at your own risk. Use your own judgement here, as this is an unstable coast where landslips often happen, but the naturists that use this beach usually keep a route open, often with ropes or steps to help you down the steeper bits.


• Except at very low tide you have to navigate your way across underwater boulders to get into the sea. This is easier at high tide than at mid-states of the tide. At low tide you can usually just walk beyond the rocks to a sandy beach beyond, but you then have to go further out to find a good depth of water for swimming.

Pett Level

Walks: Hastings to Winchelsea

Where the soft muddy cliffs beyond Hastings end, a long expanse of beach opens up, with the flatlands of Pett Level behind it. On a cloudy day, it can look windswept and bleak, but when the sun shines it is a nice enough place for a dip. The shingle shelves gently down to a flat muddy bottom, quite a lot of which is exposed at low tide. At such times you have to wade some way out to get a good depth for swimming, but on the other hand you can go right out in the bay and not be out of your depth.

• Underwater rocks are a problem at mid to low tide at the eastern end of the beach. The problem is not that the rocks are particularly large or even densely packed, but rather that the murky water makes them impossible to see till you trip over them: one moment you are on flat easy sand and the next you are stuck in the middle of a seamingly endless boulder field. If you encounter this problem, try going westwards for 100 metres or so to see if the beach is rock-free there.


• One benefit of low tide is that you can check out the remains of a flooded forest (the result of the rise in sea levels at the end of the last ice age) on the flat part of the beach towards the cliffs. What look like recently washed-up logs and branches turn out on closer examination to be 10,000 year old tree trunks preserved in a semi-fossilised state.


• Buses go hourly from Pett Level to Hastings or Rye