MikePadgett.com

Eastbourne

— What better to way to experience summer on the English South Coast than with some classic English summer weather.”

J and I spent the recent wet Bank Holiday weekend in Eastbourne, visiting Jim Wilding and his son Ashley.

The weather did destroy a lot of good photo opportunities. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we were totally drenched by hard rain and nigh blown away by the crazy coastal winds!

I think we made the best of it in the circumstances.

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J and I spent a windy, wet and thoroughly English Bank Holiday weekend at the seaside.

We trekked down south to Eastbourne, the present home of one Jim Wilding (pronounced ‘Woylding’), Esq and his son Ashley Wilding (also pronounced ‘Woylding’).

At least the welcome, if nothing much else, was warm and hospitable.

Around town

When we weren’t in the Wildingmobile, we were getting soaked. It was the stuff of sterling Englishness, three bedraggled adults led by a sprightly boy who seemed completely oblivious to the cold and wet.

Eastbourne Redoubt

The South Coast of England is peppered with Martello towers and those in and around Eastbourne were supplied by the Redoubt, a small cylindrical fortress originally built in the early 19th century to provide coastal defences against a theoretical French invasion. Such an invasion might have been instigated by Napoleon I, whose hunger for new conquests was well-remarked.

In the twentieth century, the Redoubt served as a wartime storage depot and a temporary base for D-Day soldiers. Today it is a military museum.

Town and country

Once the healthy benefits of seaside trips were recognised, Eastbourne thrived and the town became known somewhat famously as the “Empress of Watering Places”. Its wartime role ushered in a more uncertain era. Eastbourne was a major target for German bombing and as a potential invasion landing point, the military importance of the area severely impacted tourism. Since the war, the town has struggled to recover.

West of Eastbourne is Beachy Head. Unofficially the site of the country’s greatest number of suicides, there were 87 recorded fatalities at the chalk headline between 2002 and 2006. Further down the cliffs, the hamlet of Birling Gap suffers from the coastal erosion caused by a mighty sea.

Birling Gap

The fishing cottages at Birling Gap were built in 1878. Some have fallen into the sea since then and it is noticeable that all of the newer buildings in the National Trust-owned hamlet are no more than semi-permanent installations.

The villages

Alfriston might be the British answer to Stepford, Connecticut. The quaint cafes and shops seem made for superficial tourism, but you have to wonder what sort of people really live here, in an English village that’s more preserved than homemade strawberry jam.

Still, the hymn Morning Has Broken was written here, a hint of secularity in the descriptions of earthly beauty.

The Long Man of Wilmington dates from the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Popular rumour suggests that the Man’s manhood was deliberately obscured during restoration in 1874.

The Long Man was fully obscured during World War Two. Apparently he was so visible that the forces were worried that enemy aircraft might use him as a guide. Duly unveiled after the war, he was recently given a haircut in April 2007.

Pevensey

There has been a fortress at Pevensey, or “Anderitum” as the Romans named it, since around 300AD at which time the whole area was mostly marshland. Overrun by Saxons, the fortress was patched up as a means of defence by Harold Earl of Wessex in 1042. According to popular belief, twenty four years later, Harold (by now King of England) was distracted by Norwegian troubles and William the Conqueror’s Normans landed here uncontested.

After a civil war siege a century later, the castle was allowed to pass quietly into history and Pevensey became more famous for smuggling.

Weeverfish

Only one person, in 1927, is known to have died from the sting of a Weever (not ‘Weaver’) fish. Most of the time we get to enjoy these nasty little buggers in a tasty Bouillabaisse.

Farewell, Eastbourne!

And then it was hometime. Chock full of photos and memories, we headed back on the train.