Escape the gloom in Britain’s sunniest town

Paul Miles loves nothing more than catching some winter rays – and his trip to Eastbourne proves you needn’t go far to banish the January blues

Three orange-billed oystercatchers fly in to land on the beach as if to greet me as I brave a morning sea swim below a paling sky. The sun rises into the cloudless blue. I am an addict. My work, friendships and family life all suffer. My addiction? Winter sunshine. I can’t bear to be indoors. The first brilliant sunlight and I’m in shorts and T-shirt – or in the sea – as if summer were here.

December was the dullest since 1956, with an average of just 27.6 hours of sunshine, says the Met Office. Now, in January, the eye of heaven has been burning bright. So I went to the coast.

Eastbourne claims the title of sunniest resort in the UK. This is based on UK Met Office statistics which show that the East Sussex town enjoyed the sunniest single month in recorded history – 383.9 hours in July. In, ahem, July 1911, that is. Understandably, other destinations like to boast of more recent data. The Isle of Wight, for instance, holds the record for annual average sunshine hours, says the Met Office.

To be fair, much of Britain has enjoyed clear skies these past few days as high pressure has dominated. This weather brings out the best in us. Strangers smile and greet each other. “Someone else in shorts? I thought I’d be the only mad one!” says a man as we pass on the coastal path from Eastbourne to Cuckmere Haven, a roller coaster walk of some nine miles and more than 500ft of ascent up and down Beachy Head and the dazzling white cliff faces of the Seven Sisters.

There is a newly revamped visitors’ centre at the top of Beachy Head, 40 minutes’ hike from the western end of Eastbourne’s four-mile-long promenade (or an easy ride on an e-bike from the exciting new Cadence cycling hub).

The Beachy Head Story opened last May. The centre – which is free to enter – explains the history of this headland from millions of years ago until the present. The stories that accompany the fossils, ancient tools and the skeleton of a woman who died here two millennia ago all evoke the magic of the place. As do the projections and sounds of sea creatures, sheep bells and skylarks.

The text, too, is full of pathos; a poignant reminder of our brief existence. “The Beaker people, Celts, Romans and Saxons… We piece their lives together through finding the things they dropped, discarded or buried… We know they were here, living… loving… laughing… mourning… feeling all the things we feel today yet separated by generations. That separation shouldn’t make them distant, though. Spend time on the Downs; listen, feel the wind on your face and smell the air. Some of those sensations are the same these people experienced. In those moments, the past can seem very close indeed.”

I snap back into the modern world with a pint of lime and soda in the Beachy Head Inn next door before continuing westwards. Tourists lean dangerously over the cliffs to photograph the stripy lighthouse while stonechats perch easily on yellow flowering gorse.

After passing the teetering cottages of Birling Gap, I stop for a picnic in Flagstaff Bottom, one of the low points between two of the “sisters”. I lie on long dry grass loosely embroidered with strands of spider silk that shimmer in an almost imperceptible breeze. A flock of black-backed gulls pass below the cliff edge. The sea is flat, calm and glitters brightly. The only sound is that of gentle waves breaking on pebbles far below. I would not be here if it weren’t for this sunshine. This is what holidays are all about. No wonder sunlight reduces stress levels and lowers blood pressure. Not to mention making vitamin D and zapping bacteria.

When I reach the snaking Cuckmere river, a bird of prey is quartering the golden grassland. “A short-eared owl,” says a twitcher. “They’re winter visitors from Scandinavia.” Dozens of twitchers are out to catch a glimpse.

The afternoon sun gilds the grass in the valley, where chunks of pale winter sky are scattered, reflected in water everywhere, including the puddled path. The clifftops, though, had been mostly dry; December’s abundant rain filtering through the chalk beneath.

I catch the number 12 bus back to Eastbourne (£3.30), sitting on the top deck for sunset views. On the seafront, the evening murmuration of starlings above the pier is under way. With the town and headland silhouetted against a lilac sky bleeding to a cadmium orange horizon, hundreds of birds flicker and shape-shift, a spaceship one moment, an exclamation mark the next.

Eastbourne, too, is changing; morphing from its identity as a pensioners’ enclave. The Victorian resort is becoming popular with a more youthful crowd, as evidenced by its newest seafront hotel. Port Hotel opened in May last year and already features in fashion magazines. Its daring matt black facade in a seafront painted mostly white has “challenged the norm and certainly announced our arrival”, says lawyerturned-property developer-turned hotelier Peter Cadwallader, who was amused to learn that a coat of paint could cause controversy.

Cadwallader has chosen Eastbourne for the first of what he intends to be several similar properties around the UK, “a new British seaside hotel brand”. The town is “on the up”, he says. “With changing work patterns, where people only go into the office once or twice a week, young families are moving here to live. London is only 90 minutes on the train.” As for attractions, “the Towner is one of the best art galleries in the country and there’s a lively theatre scene. There’s some beautiful architecture too, but the best thing is the South Downs.”

Port Hotel is all cork and terrazzo and Farrow & Ball paints with names such as Dead Salmon. The minimalist rooms feature baths with sea views and Haeckels’ bladderwrack and fennel hand soap in dispensers. The menus highlight how old I am. Not only is the font impossibly small but some ingredients are puzzling. Sriracha? Yuzu?

What I do know is that Luka, the personable bar manager, makes a mean margarita that I enjoy with a plate of delicious spicy red lentil dip and homemade nigella seed crispbreads while I stare into a backlit pink onyx circle behind the bar that is like a permanently setting sun.

Port Hotel (01323 438 526; porthotel. co.uk) offers double rooms from

£120 per night, excluding breakfast. For more information see visiteastbourne.com

i Eastbourne is shaking off its image as an enclave for pensioners and appealing to ‘a more youthful crowd’ ih Making waves: the Port Hotel has caused a stir since it opened last year

i ‘Someone else in shorts? I thought I’d be the only mad one!’: Paul met a fellow sun addict at Beachy Head