Home / Whitstable
The house guide
A town that still smells of salt and diesel, thankfully.
Whitstable never gentrified so much as sharpened. The fishing fleet still lands, the high street still argues, and the sunsets still stop traffic. Everything below is walkable from our front door, most of it in sight of the water.
First, the front
Turn left, keep the sea on your right.
The sea wall runs from our door past the fishermen's huts and the harbour, then climbs to Tankerton slopes and its parade of beach huts. At low tide the Street appears, a shingle spit that lets you walk half a mile out to sea, and obliges you to check the tide table before you do. There is one taped to the front desk and one in every room.
Where we actually send people
The front desk list.
Swim, then earn breakfast twice
The sea swimmers gather by the Street at eight, all year, all weathers. Borrow a robe from the desk, join them for ten minutes, and breakfast at The Shuck will taste like a triumph.
The harbour and the high street
Fish market on the south quay, the whelk stalls, then the high street's independents: the bookshop that wraps in brown paper, the record shop, the cheesemonger who will not be rushed.
The sunset bench
Rare thing on an east coast: the sun sets over the water here. The bench at the top of Tankerton slopes is the seat. Take a bottle, take a coat, argue about whether Turner exaggerated. He did not.
Getting here
London St Pancras to Whitstable in around 80 minutes, then ten minutes on foot along the front. By car, the A299 and a permit for Keam's Yard from the desk.
Further afield
Canterbury and its cathedral, twenty minutes inland. Margate and the Turner Contemporary, half an hour east along the coast. Faversham's breweries, fifteen minutes west.
The tide
Everything good here answers to it: the Street, the swimming, the boats, half the menu downstairs. Tide tables at the desk, in your room, and taped inside our hearts.