Hourly snapshots from a bank holiday trip to the seaside(and a hike inland)
9am Brighton Seafront
This'll be rammed later when the bank holiday crowds sweep down, but for now the seafront is the preserve of delivery drivers, exercise regimes and dogs on leads. The Ben & Jerry's van has arrived to unload two dozen boxes of assorted Marshfield Farm flavours. The lady at the cafe - presumably not Mama Brum herself - is shuffling through yesterday's stock in the freezer cabinet to remove the empty tubs. The van from Fish Galore is next, interrupting the cleaning of the condiments at the chippy in the arch nextdoor by depositing a stack of boxes of freeze-dried chunky chips. Elsewhere on the promenade tables and benches are being shuffled from where they were left last night to where they need to be this morning. Six empty waste bins await the day's empties. All three beach tennis courts are in full play and already with an adoring audience. A few early birds have made a dash for the pebbles and are reclining in the sun, if not the heat. A tattooed vaper walks past with a box of Frosties under his arm. The calmest man on the beach is sitting on Scallywag's upturned hull with a cup of coffee by his side. The skeleton of the West Pier is covered with seagulls because isn't it always? The i360 has yet to emerge from its launchpad. A line of wind turbines stretches out offshore in the general direction of the Isle of Wight. Wish you were here?
→ along the promenade, past the beach huts and up next year's post
10am Hove Park
It's all about the boulder. This is the Goldstone, a 20 ton lump of rock said to have been chucked by the Devil and also said to have been used as a Druidic altar, because that's legends for you. In the 1830s the farmer whose land it stood on got so tired of tourists that he buried it, and then 70 years later a councillor dug it out and plonked it here in the corner of newly-opened Hove Park. This shallow valley has long been known as Goldstone Bottom, and the retail park opposite (the Goldstone Retail Park, obv) was built on the footprint of the Goldstone Ground where Brighton and Hove Albion used to play until 1997. Rarely has a rock left such a diverse legacy. This morning the chalet cafe is already open for caffeinated beverages and the municipal football pitches are louder than the tennis courts. The ball skills session kicks off with crosslegged high fives and the keep fit class ends with a muted round of applause. The council are very proud of Fingermaze, a lime mortar labyrinth on the upper slopes, but not proud enough to properly maintain it. The miniature railway doesn't open until 2pm but a group of gentleman volunteers has already turned up to sit around and drink tea, open Brian's Shed and perhaps escape from their wives. And in case you've been worrying, a separate fibreglass rock has been provided for clambering over so these days the Goldstone merely watches on.
→ up Three Cornered Copse
11am Coney Hill
The northern edge of Brighton is startlingly abrupt, with the belt of the A27 dual carriageway dividing precipitous suburbia from rolling downland. A thin strip of grassland called the Green Ridge provides an additional barrier above Westdene, barely 100m wide but long enough to walk your dog up and down and occasionally enjoy the view. It starts at the Hill Top Cafe, a bikers' haunt and curves round past Patcham Mill to the summit of Coney Hill. You can only hear the main road not see it, unless you know to zigzag down through the trees to a lone footbridge. Three things you don't necessarily need to know are that the windmill is a private residence, the dew pond is a lush habitat with bursting yellow pods and the dogmess bin ("Poo bags only please") additionally contains cans of Fanta and Diet Coke. The number 27 bus occasionally spins by. From the hilltop the centre of Brighton is decipherable on the horizon above the roofs of the uppermost bungalows, and the rest of the city follows the contours on multiple levels inbetween.
→ across the bypass and blast out across the Downs
12 noon Chattri Memorial
The South Downs, when they properly take hold, envelop you in a spectacular undulating upland patchwork. To make progress head through the gate and up the field and keep on climbing. Coming the other way yesterday were a lady with a teeny dog, a couple of orienteers and two men freewheeling on chunky bikes. It's all paths and fields up here plus the very occasional dead end lane and a lot of cattle. Expect to have to walk past a fair few of these cows but it's fine, they're only interested in chewing what's left of the grass and not in you. And keep climbing, and don't forget to look behind you as the city, the i360 and the wind farms in the Channel inexorably reappear. In a cleft below the first summit, a properly long way from anywhere, sits a bright white dome atop three stepped marble slabs. This is the ChattriMemorial and marks the spot where hundreds of Hindu and Sikh soldiers were cremated during WW1, after being injured on the Western Front and hospitalised in Brighton. It's a lovely spot too, you can see why they chose it, with the peace of the Downs all around and the whole of the town tumbling down to the sea in the distance.
→ up harvested fields, and more up, then along the chalky South Downs Way
1pm Jack and Jill
These landmark windmills are a proper tourist attraction, mainly because they have a car park alongside which saves all that pesky hill climbing. A walk along the ridge is much easier if you start here and not six miles away and 200m lower down. Yesterday afternoon a mapless charity worker was trying to walk his collie, two long-haired boys were checking for blackberries and a tattooed couple were regretting bringing their toddler on a tricycle. One lucky girl was being led up the path on ponyback and seemingly hating every second, while two hoodied teenagers hid in the back of their parents' car watching screens because why on earth would they get out? An enterprising caterer was selling slices of vegan sponge and cans of gin and tonic from the back of a horsebox, advertised by signs pasted up all over. An earnest couple puffed up the hill from Clayton clutching a copy of the Time Out Book of Country Walks, because apparently that's still a thing. And Brighton may no longer be visible but from the rim of the scarp a low flat sweep comprising much of Sussex is laid out beneath you, and expect to be down there and part of it in not very many minutes time.
