Two weeks in England: Detour to Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex; beating the bank holiday traffic; De La Warr Pavilion; Laetitia Yhap art exhibition; Relais Cooden Beach; via Lewes to London; Docklands and Canary Wharf; shopping disappointment; two London shows; Blackheath pub grub; Gatwick Sofitel and EasyJet to Montpellier
It’s over 300 miles (480km) from Liverpool to the Sussex east coast, where I’d managed to convince Roy to take us to spend the night at the Relais Cooden Beach, at Bexhill-on-Sea. (As mentioned before, I do freelance writing and editing work for the Relais Group, which also took us to The Relais Henley the previous week: see Part 1 of Two Weeks in England, here). On the other hand, it would be just a two-hour drive the next day from Bexhill-on-Sea to London, the last stop before France.
We expected a good 5.5 hour drive from Liverpool, plus the frequent pit-stops that this flesh of mine is hostage to; so leaving early was a good idea. Like most Brits, Roy vehemently dislikes being wrested untimely from his bed; but we were surprisingly up, out, and on the road by 7.15am… and that was how we beat the Monday bank holiday traffic.
Bexhill-on-Sea
Relais Cooden Beach is located in the southern part of Bexhill-on-Sea.
We were lucky to have a sunny day for our arrival in Bexhill-on-Sea, so we stopped to admire its beachfront.
De La Warr Pavilion
A main attraction is the famous De La Warr Pavilion, built in 1935. Described as an example of Modernist and International Style, its architecture must have been quite something at the time.
If, like me, you find yourself immediately wondering who or what De La Warr signifies, here’s the abbreviated answer:
- It was the seventh Earl De La Warr (died 1896) who decided to transform the rural living of Bexhill into an exclusive seaside resort. He had the sea wall constructed, along with the parade, and the Sackville Hotel, which opened in 1890 and included a house for his family.
- After his death, the 8th Earl De La Warr built the Kursaal, a pavilion for refined entertainment and relaxation; and in 1902 held England’s first-ever motorcar races along De la Warr Parade.
- It was the 9th Earl De La Warr who championed the construction of the modern pavilion, designed by Bauhaus architects Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff, and opened in 1935.
- The 9th Earl also built a holiday home for his family in the southern part of Bexhill-on-Sea, the mock-Tudor style building that is now the Relais Cooden Beach, where we stayed.
The Pavilion is still a major attraction, and its big, busy tearoom served up a good, hot English breakfast brew that succeeded in washing down a surprisingly solid scone.
It’s long been a cultural hub, and today we enjoyed an evocative exhibition by British artist Laetitia Yhap (born in 1941 of Austrian and Chinese heritage), that captures the lost era of fishing off Hastings beach.
An Ending to a Beginning
De La Warr Pavilion, 2024, Laetitia Yhap
Relais Cooden Beach
All about Relais Cooden Beach
I recently described the hotel as follows in a brochure:
Atmospheric Cooden Beach is picturesquely situated on the Sussex coast between the towns of Eastbourne and Hastings. Established in the early 1900s, it was part of the development of fashionable Bexhill-on-Sea, just two miles along the coast.
This 1920s landmark was built in 1928 in the mock-Tudor style so typical of the era. The two-acre dream beachfront site has a stunning view of Beachy Head and uninterrupted vistas across the English Channel.
Built on a two-acre dream beachfront site as a private residence for the De La Warr family, its many notable guests included King George VI and his family: the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret played on the shingle beach. The Duke of Windsor and Wallace Simpson came here too, as did Winston Churchill.
This now independently owned hostelry has recently been restored and renovated to the highest standards, paying homage to both its evocative history and to its gorgeous seaside aesthetics. Stylish public areas include an expansive open-plan bar and lounge, plus both indoor and outdoor restaurants where the expert culinary team creates magic with local Sussex fishermen’s catch of the day.
Our 45 delightful en-suite guest rooms – single, double, twin and family accommodation, some with fabulous sea views – make Relais Cooden Beach the ideal venue for your dream wedding.
Overnight at Relais Cooden Beach
Obviously I’m not unbiased, but we both thoroughly enjoyed this side-trip and the opportunity to discover a place – and, for me, a beach – that we’d otherwise probably otherwise not have chosen to visit.
Once checked in, I took off alone into the wind along the shingle (pebble) beach, going as far as I thought sensible, before returning along the narrow coastal road named Herbrand Walk. Staff member Al says she recommends taking a longer hike to Beachy Head – well worth it, she says. I didn’t have time, but I got to see the windsurfers and kite-surfers braving the strong, gusty conditions and catch the sweet, herbal aromas wafting from one or two camper-vans.
Dinner at Relais Cooden Beach
After a G&T and a single malt at the Rally bar, we had dinner with a view of the sea. I do love these long English summer nights, just as much as I dislike the short days of winter.
What did we have? I had a seafood cocktail; Roy had the burrato; I had the rump steak, and he had the delicious salmon.
Bed & Breakfast
A lovely, stylish room with an enchanting view over the ever-changing sea, eight hours in a comfortable bed, and a good shower – what more could you want ?
And I must say that for people who claim not to have breakfast, we did remarkably well. Eggs Florentine for me, and a ham and cheese omelette for the driver.
Thanks, Relais Coooden Beach! We had a lovely stay.
Via Lewes to London
Then to London via Lewes, reputed to be an exceptionally vibrant and arty town, where friend Alix Burrell has decided to settle.
She recently bought a stunning new home in the small Brewer’s Lane development, in the midst of what she calls an industrial area. If that is true, it’s a rapidly gentrifying industrial area. There’s an artisanal brewery on one side, and on the other a great little coffee roaster joint called Tiger Moth that supplies excellent beans, ground coffee, hot coffees and unnecessarily delicious cakes to the good people of the neighbourhood – of whom Alix is now a member. May she live here happily ever after.
41 Millharbour, Canary Wharf
The “luxury apartment” Roy booked at 41 Millharbour (£200 a night) was a bit worn around the edges, but it gave us plenty of space, a full kitchen with dishwasher to soothe his troubled heart, and a washing machine to gladden mine. Once he’d killed the central heating, it was fine.
The rental Citroën slept in the basement garage for four days, costing an additional £20 for each one of them. The Tesco Express around the corner was good for the three basic food groups: eggs for omelettes, milk for our filter coffee and Pellegrino for our whiskey.
It’s a three-minute walk along the canals to Docklands Light Railway station South Quay, and five minutes further to Canary Wharf London Underground Station. The area is flat, and safe for walking or running.
One of the big barges has been converted into a Theatre Boat, where we had a glass of so-so organic wine in its unsurprisingly mouldy interior. We could have come back the next evening for a Mystery Night, said the bartender. (She tried to explain, but alas, the mystery lingers.)
Shopping
Even before we left Perth, I’d promised to buy Roy a special black tie dinner shirt from Budd’s in Piccadilly Arcade. Every year, they used to come up with a new design, and he loved them: the collar, cuffs and shirt-front are plain white piqué, as you’d expect; but the rest of the shirt, revealed in all its glory only if and when you take off your jacket, is an unexpected riot of colour and pattern.
Tragically, Budd no longer does them; and Roy’s small collection has outgrown him, so to speak, since he lost weight. So now he has nothing to wear. And (perhaps in a fit of piqué?) he wanted nothing else – not even one of these decadent satin dressing gowns from a neighbouring shop.
Fortunately, all was not lost. I managed to find a couple of items at Zara, thereby slightly padding out the unrealistically minimalistic wardrobe that I’d been reduced to by Roy’s paranoia regarding overweight luggage on our upcoming EasyJet flight to Montpellier, France.
Two West End Shows
First up was the critically acclaimed performance of Eugene O’Neill’s play Long Day’s Journey into Night, starring Brian Cox of Succession fame. It was well done, if a bit harrowing; “hard work”, said Roy. I suspected it would be, having had to write an essay on it as part of my BA English Major finals, although I really hadn’t studied the play. (Only because the gut-twisting option was an essay on James Joyce’s Ulysses, which I hadn’t even read. At. All.) This is the only time I remember suffering sweaty panic in anything but high-school maths exams, where terror was par for the course.
As usual, several Proseccos beforehand and during the interval lightened things up for me. Not much was open by the time we got back to Canary Wharf – except for The Alchemist, another branch of the place where we’d had lunch in Liverpool – but a ham and cheese omelette back at the apartment did the trick.
Les Mis
And the next afternoon, a fabulous Les Misérables matinée at the Sondheim Theatre. It’s been a while since we last saw it, and was Roy’s fourth or fifth time; my third, I think. We remember going with Sally, possibly while we were living in London in 2000. Anyway, it’s at a different theatre now, with different staging and some great new effects. The soloists were incredible.
Pre-theatre Lunch in Chinatown
Nowadays, I prefer a matinée to an evening show. You can have lunch beforehand – as we did in a dim sum place in Chinatown, conveniently off Shaftesbury Avenue in the theatre district. We shared a table with a sweet couple who turned out to be Singaporeans, oddly enough.
Not a Pub Man…
And, if Roy’s in an amenable mood – as he was, after such a great show – you can stop for a half-pint of Guinness afterwards at a pub like this, The Cambridge. (But just the one. I may have mentioned before that Roy is not a pub man.)
… and yet
Having said that, he had a creditable go at being a pub man the next night, a Friday night and our last night in London. James Morris picked us up outside the flat and drove us to Blackheath, where he and Sue still live with now-grown-up daughter Abbie. First up was a pint (OK, and a half) of Guinness at newly refurbished The Crown.
We have good memories of Blackheath over three decades, literally: boozy tapas dinners at El Pirata (now a pizza place) with my sister Dale and Colin, when they used to live in nearby Lee. In January 2000, we stayed at James and Sue’s Gopher’s House flat, right on Blackheath Common, looking after their cats for a week while they were away. (One of those cats took a single look at me and fled into the distance, only deigning to come back, to my huge relief, once the Morrises had returned.)
Tonight (no photos, sorry!), Abbie would be serving us at another lovely Blackheath institution, The Princess of Wales. Great food! We shared the squid starter and the Camembert, roasted with herbs in a little hollowed-out loaf, yum. I then had the shepherd’s pie: pulled lamb topped with clotted cream mashed potatoes and baked. If there were veggies, I don’t remember. Roy had the oven-roasted cod with fingerling potatoes, we shared the rhubarb and apple crumble, and of course drank too much red wine.
The men had been talking some childish nonsense about Roy and I catching the 108 bus from Blackheath to Canary Wharf; but in the end, we sensibly took an Uber home.
Getting to France
Gatwick Sofitel (Saturday, 1 June) and then EasyJet to Montpellier, France (2 June)
Getting out of London would have been a lot easier if the Blackwall Tunnel hadn’t been closed for the weekend; or, alternatively, if we’d known it would be closed. Eventually, we navigated our way to the Dartford Crossing and headed for the Sofitel Gatwick Airport.
The Sofitel is really nice – especially for an airport hotel. After an early dinner at its French restaurant, Le Petit Rêveur (goat’s cheese and beetroot starter for me, pork cheek for Roy; bouillabaisse for me, some sort of chicken for him), we did the twilight luggage drop-off at 8pm and hied ourselves to bed in preparation for an ungodly 5am alarm.
Though much dreaded, the EasyJet experience was, err, easy. We had the front row to ourselves, the plane was only half-full for the 90-minute flight to Montpellier, and it left early. Who wants to eat at that time of the morning, anyway? – and we’d had a Costa coffee and a pain au raisin at the airport. Plus it was cheap, at £268 GBP including the extra legroom and extra baggage, which also gives you speedy boarding.
So, that’s it for England. Next up? A month in France!
