DEAL, KENT

We stayed a few days in Deal, which is contributing to the revival of the Kent and Sussex seaside. It’s a sober resort with a couple of little galleries, a maritime museum and a modernist pier built in the 1950s. Norman Wisdom spent a miserable childhood in Deal and Charles Hawtrey a miserable retirement.

We were attracted to The Rose Hotel, which descended from family and commercial house to roughest pub in town. Then it was reinvented as boutique hotel with London chef. Restaurant open Wednesday to Sunday. (We stayed Sunday to Tuesday.) There’s nice attention to detail, such as the room numbers painted by a sign writer.

Next door is St George’s Church, neo-classical with 19th and 20th century additions and 21st century subtractions: its happy-clappy vicar has taken out the furniture for pop-music services. Gravestones are stacked against the wall to make a park for dog-walkers and joggers, lovely in the early-morning mist.

The foreshore, as you walk to Kingsdown, is part of a site of special scientific interest, unfortunately without an information board. Wild fennel grows in the shingle and in the gardens. Soon the chalk rises to form the famous White Cliffs.

A flat in this 1920s coastguard house (now a café) is on sale for £1.25m. There’s a bunker underneath it, excavated in the war as part of the Channel defences. Seeing the coast of France 18 miles away made me wonder how we stopped the German invasion. An exhibit at St Margaret’s Bay, evacuated for use by the armed forces, helps to explain.