The Cheeky Walks Guidebook isn’t particularly kind about Newhaven, the location of last weekend’s walk. It compares the town to “a limbless toy discarded and left to rot in the attic, its stuffing long since eaten by rats”. Despite that, this was another fantastic journey, featuring the ghost village of Tide Mills and some lovely cliff-top views.
The town is definitely very run down in places. On leaving the station at Newhaven Harbour, we were immediately faced with Industrial Decay, with the old abandoned station buildings. A little further on was the third train station in a short distance, Newhaven Marine. This is now only used as a stop for Ghost Trains (also known as Parliamentary Trains). Although we didn’t visit, there are some good pictures of the station online.
From the stations we walked down to the seafront where we found the ghost village of Tide Mills. After flooding in 1937, many of the houses were condemned, with the remaining residents evacuated in 1940. The town was then used for artillery target practise during the war. It’s an eerie location.
We did the first part of the walk in a group of four, with Rosy and Olive, who left us at a Cafe on the High Street:
Our meal was filling, but not particularly tasty. The toilets doubled as chair storage, which made using them an adventure, but there was some latin graffiti out the back – non temere beneficiis, which seems to translate as ‘do not fear benefits’.
The second half of the walk took us onto the cliffs of Newhaven Fort, which has some amazing views of the sea. It was a little breezy when we were there, but this would be an amazing place for a summer picnic.
Despite the urban decay in much of Newhaven, this was still a pretty good walk. Lela and I even got a trace of sunburn. We ended up at Rosy’s Dad’s house for a cup of tea. It was a good day.
Just 4 walks and 18.5 miles remaining. If the weather holds, we’re doing a pair of walks next weekend. Whatever are we going to do when these walks are finished?
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