1066 and all that, smugglers’ hideouts, Europe's biggest beachside fishing fleet and two cliff railways… yep, it’s camping in Hastings. Huzzah to Hastings campsites and all who sail in them, for verily they will find themselves in the midst of so much to do they may want to hide here forevermore.
Tracing things all the way back to King Harold’s unfortunate accident on the end of a Norman arrow in the eleventh century, Hastings holidaymakers of a historical bent can shoot to ancient attractions like Hastings Castle in town and the 1066 Battle Abbey and Battlefield at the inventively named town of Battle a quick drive inland. A bit more modernly, A Smugglers Adventure at St Clements Caves covers the smuggling, hiding and World War II shelter history of the area, and Hastings Old Town has stacks of old pubs and shops – see it best from a clifftop viewpoint on the East and West Hill Lifts.
Hastings’s history of fishing can be netted at the Hastings Fisherman's Museum at Rock-a-Nore and on guided tours of the Old Town’s fishing quarter from the Lifeboat Station. A-fish-onados (sorry) can then shoot along to The Stade, the shingle beach that’s had fishing vessels landing on it for over a millennium.
