24hrs in Hastings; An Itinerary *

*Contains gifted items

Recently, Mike said to me that he fancied a few days away and he didn’t really mind where, so with me being me, I had a list of places all ready to go that were a short drive from London as to not eat into our time away.

When I suggest we do a night in Hastings followed by a night in Rye, Mike agreed and let me get to planning our itinerary, which I am going to share with you now. I used the Visit 1066 Country website to help source plenty of places to visit and things to do.

Where to Stay

The Moore House Hotel was where we called home for the night and it was lovely!

We booked room RX4 as you’re able to select your room on booking as they’re all slightly different with it being a boutique hotel as the big windows and stunning jellyfish wallpaper took our fancy!

The location was spot on as it was in the middle of the High Street so we were able to go everywhere by foot and the breakfast offering was wonderful; I had sourdough toast with homemade guacamole and smoked salmon.

📍 57 High Street, TN34 3EN
💰 £157 – booked directly

Where to Park

The Bourne Car Park is perfectly situated for your stay at The Moore House Hotel as it’s less than a 5 minute walk away, with a cut through straight into the High Street. We paid just under £11 for 24 hours.

📍 104 The Bourne, Hastings TN34 3BD

We then moved the car down to St Margaret’s Road Car Park as this was closer to our plans the next morning and the weather stated there would be rain so we prepped ahead… of course, there wasn’t any rain!

📍39 St Margaret’s Rd, Hastings, TN37 6EH

All car parks and parking tariffs for Hastings can be found here.

What to Do

The West Hill Lift *

As a sucker for anything slightly old fashioned, the original Victorian coaches on this short, but sweet funicular railway obviously called to me. The funicular railway even goes through a tunnel which is rather rare for these!

This journey on the West Hill Lift saves you walking up hundred of stairs to take in some lovely views over Hastings seafront and all the way to Beachy Head in the west and out across the English Channel.

📍 43 George St, Hastings TN34 3EA
💰 Adult Return – £4.20 / Child Return – £2.60

Smugglers Adventure*

Hastings and its surround towns are filled to the brim with stories of smugglers and how they helped the locals get their hands on items such as tea, silk and tobacco. Not quite the things the pop to mind when you think of smuggling right?!

Smugglers Adventure takes you through the very caves where these items had been bought in land and stored with the help of over 70 life-sized characters bringing the story to life. It’s such a fun way to learn about a huge part of the towns history without even realising! We absolutely loved this attraction and were gutted when it came to an end!

📍 St Clement’s Caves, Hastings TN34 3JJ
💰 Adult £10.75 / 3-12 years £8.75

Shipwreck Museum

As you can probably tell from my face above, I had a whale of a time at the Shipwreck Museum! I’m sat upon a fossilised Iguanadon footprint, whilst holding a piece of an Iguanadon spine found locally and 100% in my dinosaur loving element; a grand twist on the things we found in the Shipwreck Museum!

Less filled with twists were the incredible amount of artefacts on show from many ships wrecked in the English Channel from the Goodwin Sands in Kent to Pevensey Bay in East Sussex. Amazing displays of bottles, bones, and even jewellery from the bottom of the sea.

Big shoutout to Tim, a trustee of the museum, who showed us around, filled us with facts and really made this visit even more fun!

📍 Rock-a-Nore Rd, Hastings TN34 3DW
💰 Free entry

Fishermen’s Museum

Hasting is very rich in fishing history and even now, fishing plays a huge part in the towns income so it makes so much sense to visit the Fishermen’s Museum to learn a little more.

We also learnt about Hasting’s annual celebration of Jack in the Green, an annual folk custom that was revived in Hastings in 1983 by Mad Jack’s Morris..

📍 Rock-a-Nore Rd, Hastings TN34 3DW
💰 Free entry

The True Crime Museum

If, like me, you are fascinated by the morbid, this needs to be on your list to visit, but it does come with a warning; some of the displays are quite visual.

You’ll spend a good hour to two hours here, reading all of the interesting facts, looking in the cabinets at all there is to take in and you’ll be truly amazed at just how much you learn. I thought I was pretty good with True Crime but there was much I didn’t know on show to learn!

When you visit, see if you can find what display one of my family members is in!

📍 Palace Court, White Rock, Hastings TN34 1JP
💰 £7.50 to £9.50

Source Park Skate Park

Source Park is a huge underground skatepark home to two skateparks which are combined with Source Skate Co. and Source BMX shop, and an open courtyard home to plenty of places to eat and drink. It’s such a cool space right on the seafront.

You can even book lessons in skateboarding and BMX if you have less fear than I do! I always wanted to learn to skateboard, but my scarred knees from my first attempt told me all I needed to know!

📍 White Rock, Hastings TN34 1JA
💰 Free entry to observe, sessions start from £13

Where to Eat & Drink

Maggie’s Fish & Chips *

You can’t visit the seaside without getting fish and chips, it’s like an unwritten rule so we popped along to Maggie’s on the seafront.

Having been around for as long as I’ve been alive, the team at Maggie’s have really nailed their batter; I’m such a stickler for batter and this one was just right. The fish is direct from the market below their cafe and the specials are straight off the boats with the morning catch so it’s real fresh!

Highly recommend a glass of the Picpoul as it compliments the fish and chips perfectly on a summers day.

📍8-9 Rock-a-Nore Rd, Hastings TN34 3DW

The Stag Inn *

Down the oldest residential street in the heart of Hastings Old Town, The Stag Inn is a 16th Century pub that has a tiered garden that makes you feel just so at home. They have 2 bars, stunning inglenook fireplaces, and a dining room where the food is rumoured to be pretty darn good.

A great selection of local beers also caught our eye so we tucked into a couple of them taking in the sunshine and really feeling like we weren’t in England anymore!

📍14 All Saints’ St, Hastings TN34 3BJ

Seed Tapas

As we were enjoying our evening so much, I didn’t take any photos of what we ate, shame on me! But that does say so much about the atmosphere, food, drink and service!

We are tapas fiends, we eat it everywhere we can and the food we had at Seed was some of the best we’ve had in a very long time. It was fresh, flavoursome and filling – maybe as we did go in for a second round of plates as the first lot were so good.

The jug of sangria was also delicious and exactly what you have to order when you have tapas.

📍50 George St, Hastings TN34 3EA

Porter’s Wine Bar

Our final stop was next door to our hotel, so it would have been rude to not stop for a night cap, right?!

We did just stop in for a final glass of wine, but the value for money was so good that we actually bought a bottle and spent the rest of our evening chatting with the lovely staff. The bar had a lovely ambience and often have live music for you to while away the hours too.

📍56 High St, Hastings TN34 3EN