Hastings, August 1999

John Burke's Hastings, August 1999
Lionsdown Guest House, Hastings

Saturday 31 July 1999

5:30am at Mum and Dad's caravan and we are ready to set off to Hastings for our annual trip where we show the locals how thankful they should be - not having us there permanently!

The journey down is uneventful and fairly swift and we are in Hastings before dinner time. We are staying at the Lionsdown Hotel in the Old Town, High Street (below).

Mmmmmm... There is one thing that can help make and can certainly destroy a holiday and that is the hotel or guest house.

This one definitely helps make it! The guest house is a 15th Century house amidst a whole street of unique and similarly aged dwellings.

The fireplace in the dining room was huge and had candle holders fastened into the brickwork. The electricity wasn't working properly when the original owners moved in...

All the rooms had white walls and old oak beams. Below is a postcard that was available free of charge and shows the hotel. Our room was the one with the iron bed head. The other bedroom was on the front of the house and was Mum and Dad's.

The pink-walled room (or white but the photo has a colour cast?) was a self-contained flat. There were three rooms besides the flat - our two were en-suite with toilet and shower.

Sharon, the landlady, had been to catering college and presented even breakfasts in a special way - scrambled eggs were shaped into pyramids for instance. The place offered bed and breakfast only - as Sharon and her husband ran the pub down the road. Are we in? Unpacked? Ok - let's go for a look round!