East Sussex Walks: Seaford Head to Cuckmere Haven Beach

I absolutely love going for a long walk and exploring new places and to my mind, there is nowhere better to do this than by the sea. I've posted many times about walking the cliffs at Beachy Head, Birling Gap and the Seven Sisters but this was the first time I have walked the cliffs in the opposite direction starting at Seaford Head and walking to the Cuckmere Valley. It really is beautiful and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Drive to Seaford and you can park on the seafront and plenty of it is free for up to 12 hours, so that's great news! Definitely take some time to enjoy walking along the prom and in low season you'll hardly see anyone. They have the classic pastel-coloured beach huts and lots of nice little beach hut cafes as you wander along. We've had coffee at Martello's Coffee before and they have plenty of seating on a deck right on the beach. But my favourite is Frankie's cafe where you can get a slice of homemade cake and a toastie for a very reasonable price. 

Walk down the seafront towards Splash Point. You can fail to notice the enormous white cliff face there, so you'll know you're heading in the right direction. In parts, there is quite an incline to climb up onto the clifftop and I wouldn't say I'm the most proficient hill walker, but I managed fine.  So just make sure you have on good shoes and wear a backpack, rather than a handbag like I did. Turn back to look over Seaford as you head up as it is a really nice view and not too spoilt. You see the gold course at the start of this walk and I can't say I'd fancy golfing on the cliff.

Visiting Bewl Water, East Sussex/ Kent - Fun for all the Family

I'm so optimistic about this summer with better weather and a greater ability to be able to see friends and family in the coming months. Of course, not all is lost at the moment though as there are places we can safely go and visit and as of tomorrow, we'll even be back to the rule of 6 or able to meet with another household outdoors.

Bewl Water is a perfect place to be able to visit now or later in the year as it is all open air and there is so much space to explore. The reservoir itself is a huge 308 hectares and if you take the walking path around the reservoir will keep going for just over 12 miles. With this kind of space, it is perfect for exploring on bikes, foot, sailing or even horseriding.

We visited last year for the first time and had an enjoyable couple of hours there in the early summer sun, there were plenty of families with children paddling in the shallow waters by the adventure playground, but I'm not sure they are supposed to! lol

Before you travel check the current opening hours but right now in March, they are 8am - 4pm for the car park and adventure playground. The toilets are open from 9am to 4pm and the cafe (for take-away only) is just Wednesday to Sunday 11am - 3pm currently. 

National Trust Bodiam Castle - Wider River Walk, East Sussex

I adore the National Trust, I make no secret of that and I've posted so many times about the sites we have visited. Bodiam Castle is probably the closest site to my home, so we have been there dozens and dozens of times. My husband and one of our daughters love to feed the ducks (with birdseed, no human food please), whilst I have a coffee and read my book. It works well. This is one of my husband's photos from a recent visit.

You can read about our previous visits to Bodiam Castle, about the superb Living History events they put on in normal times and how it is fabulous for all ages. This post is about the wider area, if you park at Bodiam Castle you can take a 3KM river walk and enjoy some great views as well as time at the castle itself.

This is perfect at the moment, as you can't explore inside the castle right now, so it gives you somewhere extra to walk and make your visit really worthwhile, as the actual Bodiam Castle grounds are not very extensive. 

We are all being encouraged to book in advance before visiting any National Trust site at the moment as this allows the site to prepare and ensure that social distancing can be maintained. We have been to Bodiam Castle a number of times in the last year and we have always felt safe with sanitiser available, toilet entry being managed, the cafe having a one way system and card payments only and as the site is outside, you can keep a good distance from other people. 

National Trust - Sheffield Park - Summer in Pictures

We've visited the National Trust site Sheffield Park a couple of times before and both times had a lovely visit, but recently with the kids away my husband and I decided to visit again and see what the colours and plant life were like in the summer months (we visited at the beginning of August). 

Sheffield Park is acres of landscaped gardens, surrounded by parkland and woodland. There is a gorgeous looking stately home there too, but that is a private residence and you can only see if from afar.

So far my favourite time to visit has been Autumn as there is an abundance of colour across the gardens and we could see this developing in August. The colours at this time of year mostly seem to come from the trees and foliage. There isn't really many floral plants there.

I do love the four lakes, they are probably my favourite feature and there is a nice variety of styles and bridges that you can cross and get great pictures on. You can really see the influence of Capability Brown.

Spending Time with my Girl at Arlington Bluebell Walk, East Sussex

A couple of years ago we visited Arlington bluebell walk as it a family. It was mid-May and the bluebell season was coming to an end but we loved our visit and I've been meaning to go back ever since. This year I was ahead of the game and we visited on 20th April just as the bluebells were really coming into their own, but there was still evidence of the beautiful white wood anemones. So it made for some interesting pictures with both the white and blue flowers.

This year the bluebell walk and farm trail is open from 11th April to 19th May (10am - 5pm each day). I'd definitely recommend a visit, and it is so much more than just pretty woods with lots of bluebells.  You can choose from five walks of differing lengths, and each has a unique view and some pass through local working farms so you may see horses, cows, sheep and chickens. The walks are really varied with lake views, fields, rivers, woodland and farms.

Enjoying our Time at Masterpiece Pottery Painting Studio - East Sussex

The girls received some money for Christmas and from the first envelope opened Miss E was adamant that we would have to head over to Masterpiece pottery painting studio, near Hailsham in East Sussex. It's somewhere we've been a couple of times before and enjoyed, so I was happy to promise that we would go over there during the Christmas school break.

Pottery Studio
Masterpiece is a pottery painting studio based on the Holmes Hill Estate, on the A22 heading from Eastbourne to Lewes. There is an abundance of free parking and also onsite is a furniture store, fabric warehouse, cafe and a couple of nice lakes where you can sit or walk. You're always best to call first and book in so that a table can be ready for you but on occasions where we have turned up without a booking, we have been able to be accommodated, just maybe on a shared table.

Cliff Walking this Summer - National Trust - East Sussex

One of the advantages of living on a small island country is the amount of amazing coastline we have to explore and it's not all the same, the diversity of our coast is amazing and makes for some wonderful trips across the UK.

Whilst it's nice to visit the beach, we often enjoy the contrast of walking along the cliffs and being up high. Luckily for us, we are only about 30/40 minutes away from the National Trust maintained coastline that is the Seven Sisters/ Birling Gap and Beachy Head. There is no entry charge to explore the area and parking is just £2 for a half-day or £4 for the full day so great value.

We have been here more times than I can count and we often take the mini-bus so we have a ton of people with us to enjoy the glorious views and fresh air. At the beginning of July, we took a party of 16 people and had a great time skimming stones on the beach, jumping the waves and then walking the cliffs of the Seven Sisters.

One thing I can't fail to say is that you MUST stay away from the edge. Please keep at least 10 metres back from the edge as chalk cliffs are prone to falling away and there has been so much erosion over the last few years. You really can't be too careful!

Let me share a few photos from our fun day -

You can see the National Trust cafe, shop and Visitor Centre in the bottom right corner and the metal steps that extend out from the cliffs and allow you to walk down to the pebbly beach. When the sea is out this is a wonderful place for rock-pooling.

You can get a great cream tea here with amazing views, it is worth the drive up for that alone!

3 East Sussex Seaside Towns to Visit with the Kids in Half-Term

I know some people are put off visiting the seaside when the weather is not so good but actually, we just go for it. Of course, it helps that we are only 20-30 minutes from numerous beaches nowadays but even when we lived further afield we used to take a day trip and enjoy the fun of the seaside whatever the weather. The big pull of visiting in the Winter of course is that there aren't any crowds and you really can enjoy all that space with your kids.

There are loads of great seaside towns to visit in our home country of East Sussex and you can take your pick but the three I am giving a shout-out to today are Bexhill-on-Sea, Eastbourne and Hastings.

Family visit to Batemans - National Trust

Back in February, we bought a family membership to the National Trust and we have been enjoying some days out together exploring our local area. This time we headed to Batemans, which was the home of the Jungle Book author Rudyard Kipling. We went there purely on location as it is pretty close to our home and we only had about 3 or 4 hours all in, I have to be honest and say we did not expect it to thrill the children as looking at the National Trust web pages it appeared to have less on offer for children than many of the national trust properties, no child-specific activity/ trail or play area available.

I'm pleased to say though that even on a regular day our 6 and 10-year-old kids had a good time. I really love that all these kind of places we are visiting are not only teaching our kids some valuable history but also giving them precious lessons in making their own fun, finding the beauty in nature and being quiet, calm and respectful in historic places.

I do think that pictures speak a thousand words, so take a look at this stunning property, gardens and mill -

The staff in the mill were really good at chatting to the kids and explaining the processes and how things would have worked in years gone by.

So much space to walk, run and explore. I just loved all the greenery -

I often think it is when you allow children time to just be that they have the most fun, whilst we sat and had coffee and I photographed some birds the kids ran off to play a type of charades games and it was so nice to watch them together giggling.

and also to witness their companionable silence as they watched the fish jumping out the water -

We had a super family day at Batemans and I'm sure we will be back again in the summer to take one of the many country walks.

We also visited Batemans in 2017 for a WWI themed weekend, which was amazing and for a Christmas family visit in 2020.

Check out all our other National Trust reviews over here. 

Living History at Bodiam Castle, East Sussex

A National Trust leaflet fell out of a magazine the other day and tempted me to spend just over £70 on a year's membership for all the family. So given that I had just spent out, we decided we better start to make good use of it and off we went to the 14th century Bodiam Castle.

We had visited back in the Autumn before we were members and you can have a great walk around just for the cost of the car park (£3 for a car) and you only have to pay if you want to go in the castle. This time armed with our temporary membership card we accessed all areas and had a fabulous time looking around.

When we went it was half-term and there was archery available on site if we wished (with a charge) but we felt it was too windy and when we went in the autumn there were craft activities for £1 per child.

This time around there were some great living history actors in the castle and it was great to chat to them and find out what life was like and they also took a little talk which included some drama that we all got involved with and my twins were star actresses, turning the spit for a roasting hog! lol

There are some good displays in the castle if you wish to learn more and a small room with an informative video to watch. The girls had an 'eye-spy' sheet and they had to spot things around the castle and JJ had an A3 map of how the castle would have looked and he loved being our tour guide and telling us what would have happened in each room.

The boys climbed up the narrow and steep staircase and took a windy wall across the top of the front of the castle whilst the girls and I explored some more.

All the children enjoyed our time at Bodiam Castle, there are plenty of fields to run around and normally there is a WW2 shelter that the kids can play in but today it was closed due to the flooding and a fallen tree. We were looking around for a good couple of hours and no-one was bored. It would be a great place to take a picnic when the weather is finer.

We finished off our afternoon in the cafe with a cream tea. The prices were fairly reasonable, I spent £14.00 on drinks and a cream scone for all 5 of us.

Check out the National Trust site for full details of costs, opening times etc.

Our day finished in a harmonious way, which is always amazing with my kids, so nice to see them having fun and getting along without any squabbles!

Check out my more recent post from 2020 about visiting Bodiam Castle as a family with older kids.

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