Once or twice a year, we cross the county border into East Sussex for a day in Rye. Less frequently we venture to Hastings, and the last time we did so, we walked along the seafront to St Leonards, saw the signs pointing to Bexhill-on-Sea and dearly wished we could have gone further if we’d only had the time. Now this, in part, is down to my daughter and I being big Agatha Christie fans, and the ABC Murders is one of our favourites. I’ve never been filled with a desire to visit Andover or Doncaster, two of the destinations that feature in the story, but Bexhill is far easier to reach – and as a lover of all things coastal, I’m a sucker for any town which has ‘on sea’ in its name!

The plan was almost two years in the making, but on a disappointingly overcast day (the forecast had been for sunshine!), we finally headed to Bexhill-on-Sea, with the intention of walking back to Hastings. It’s a bit of a lengthy outward journey because it involves a change of trains at Ashford International with a 50 minute wait for the connection, but we passed the time reading, and rather than spending money in Starbucks, decided to wait for a coffee stop until we reached our destination.

As usual, I had been on trip advisor, and drawn up a short list of some likely looking independent cafes, and so we headed straight to the seafront and towards the De La Warr Pavilion – only to discover that our chosen stop (Hughie’s Beach Cafe) was boarded up with a notice announcing that it was closed due to unforeseen circumstances. It was already 12 o’clock, and we didn’t want to head back into town, so we settled for the cafe next door, which is just below where this photo was taken.

It was fine for just a drink, although as we were sitting outside, we also had a cheeky piece of homemade chocolate chip shortbread that I’d brought along to keep us going. (This is my new favourite recipe and I am making it far too often!) Thus fortified, we were ready to set off.

The Bexhill promenade is two miles long which makes for easy walking. The beach was lovely and I experienced my usual seaside home envy.

At Glyne Gap, the promenade ended and we continued walking on a sandy path between the beach and low sandstone cliffs,

before emerging to run parallel to the railway line that we had travelled along earlier – and when a train passed, it felt good to be the person walking along the path that I had been looking enviously out of the window at.

There was a nice little cafe along this stretch, but despite being properly lunchtime, we felt it was still a bit too early in the walk for another stop – and a bit too soon after the shortbread – so we pressed on to Bulverhythe beach, where apparently at very low tides you can see the remains of a 4000 year old forest, that became buried under layers of silt and clay as the sea levels rose. You can also a shipwreck, although I think that spotting the forest would be more exciting.

We reached the outskirts of St Leonards, where there were lots of beach huts. I have mentioned my love of beach huts before. These ones are much cheaper than the Whitstable huts (I found one for sale for £20,00), although it wouldn’t be so practical for getting to – and is still sadly beyond my budget!

This was the view looking back the way we had come.

We stopped for a very late lunch at Goat Ledge, a St Leonards cafe that we had noticed on our last visit. It is very colourful, so you couldn’t help but notice it!

They had tables and chairs along the edge of the prom, as well as deckchairs on a decking area on the beach itself. As I love a deckchair as much as I love a beach hut, we settled ourselves in two vacant deck chairs that were right on the end of the deck, with the sea in front of us, and a great view towards Hastings and the pier over to our left. And the sun came out!

My pescatarian daughter had the crispy classic breaded plaice bap which she said was delicious. I went for the halloumi bap which, although I love halloumi, seemed less exciting. However, the tomato and pepper relish and aoli took it to another level, and it was fantastic. I would thoroughly recommend it for a lunch stop and we would certainly go back.

And we will be going back because, as we sat there, we decided that Sussex is not so very far away and not only should we visit more often, but it would be fun to walk the whole of the Sussex Coast concurrently with the Kent Coast (although I must confess that there is an orderly part of my brain that would rather not be tackling the walks in opposite directions!). We would probably start in Rye, although I would push for Camber Sands, as that was where I started the Kent Coast Walk and so it would provide a better link between the two – I need to get some order in this plan! Realistically, we would only do one or two sections a year so it will take a very long time to complete, but that doesn’t matter, it still seems an exciting prospect.

Continuing along the promenade, we came to Bottle Alley. Built in the 1930s as an undercover walkway for bad weather, it got its name from the multi coloured pieces of glass bottles that are embedded in the concrete walls. It was fascinating, and there were so many different colours, though it did smell a bit of wee in places!!

When we emerged we were right by Hastings pier. It has suffered from both storm and fire damage, and was only reopened in 2016, but they have made the best of it with a cafe and some children’s rides and we took a turn along it, because that’s what you have to do when you come across a pier. Despite the summer holidays, it was pretty deserted and seemed less bustling than Herne Bay pier. There were more bored teenagers manning the empty rides than there were visitors – although the fact that they were playing very loud drum and bass music to amuse themselves may have perhaps contributed to the lack of custom!

I had probably walked enough by this stage, but of course I wanted to keep going, and so we strolled past the amusements and crazy golf towards the iconic fishermen’s huts (known as Net Shops, these were designed for storing and mending the nets). There’s a miniature railway that runs along the seafront here, and there’s also a funicular railway that runs up the cliff.

When we could go no further, we sat on a bench, contemplating the sandstone cliffs, and the view across the sea to Dungeness Power station in the distance, which of course made me even more enthusiastic about joining the dots in my coastal walking journey.

We nipped into the Old Town on our way back, and as we had only had water from our water bottles with our lunch, there was just enough time for an all important final pit stop before we headed to the station.

Back at home we watched the ABC Murders, and were delighted to see that the Bexhill sections had indeed been filmed in Bexhill, because to be honest, we weren’t certain that they hadn’t just used another seaside location. But there was the De La Warr Pavilion (and next time we really need to pop inside to appreciate the beautiful art deco staircase that was featured in the denoument of the episode) and there were Poirot, Hastings and Japp walking along the same promenade that we had walked along. In one scene, a small plane flew over the seafront, bearing the banner ‘Bexhill is so bonny’ and we couldn’t help but agree. This section of coastline is definitely worth a visit.