Photo by Amy Shamblen/Unsplash, multicoloured paper ice cream decor
OPED
Simon Montgomery
Pevensey Bay Journal, edition 27
News that an arts and crafts shop is coming to Pevensey Bay appears to have been confirmed (21 July) with an informed source suggesting, “a builder is beginning work asap on the inside of the shop, this is definitely going to be an art shop”.
The story that the old newsagents, ‘Pevensey Village Store’, in the shopping parade in the Eastbourne Road in Pevensey Bay may become an arts and crafts shop was broken by the Pevensey Bay Journal on 9 July.
The opening of an arts and crafts shop in Pevensey Bay will mark another step change moment in the fortunes of the little shopping parade.
In the last year we have seen the arrival in the parade of shops of both the Belle En Soi beauty saloon and Harper Hair co.
Both enterprises have gone from strength to strength.
The arrival of an arts and crafts shop might be a natural creative fit for the location that is currently empty between the two enterprises.
The shop could become a complement for the growing arts profile of Pevensey Bay.
A pocket art gallery has sprung up at the Bay Hotel driven by a thriving local arts scene that includes the flagship group “Arts Crafts and Photographs”. They also meet at the Bay Hotel.
An arts and crafts shop is likely to be welcomed with open arms by the arts community here.
This small coastal community is beginning to change seen from a business perspective.
The arts and crafts movement here is strong, as are some aspects of our architectural history, that we see with Beachlands, the Sandcastle and the seafront and the Lutyens style arts and craft kit homes on the seafront.
Up to £500,000 is being spent on the renovation of the Bay Hotel., to return the hotel to a former glory.
With prescience the Guardian said in one of their ‘Let’s Move to’ features (18 September 2015) , “with big skies, forgotten towns and shingly beaches, this melancholy marshland has everything to keep bleak geeks happy.
They added, “What’s going for it? We may be few, but our numbers are growing: bleak geeks, or aficionados of picturesque melancholy. (Pretty, unthreatening melancholy, not the post-apocalyptic kind; we’re very particular.) Our homeland – Dungeness in Kent, with its power station and permanently autumnal skies – is for sale at £1.5m. There’s money in mournfulness. A few miles west, though, is my tip: the Pevensey Levels, beached between Bexhill and Eastbourne. This is a rare breach in the south coast’s line of cliffs, one spotted by William the Conqueror: Normans Bay is where 1066 and all that began. Here, you get all we bleak geeks could possibly desire: big skies, quiet, forgotten-about towns, roads with names like Sluice Lane, shingly beaches fronted by settlements straight out of an Ealing comedy (Peter Sellers used to visit his mum at Pevensey Bay) – just not for £1.5m, or anything close.
They also suggested, “the seafront at Pevensey Bay might not be Malibu, but it is splendidly eccentric, with Edwardian town houses cheek-by-jowl with shacks and the 1930s-50s bungalow estate of Beachlands”.
Small coastal communities have suffered in the of Austerity, as have High Streets up and down the land, but things are starting to change in some communities. The internet, like the coming of the railways, has changed everything.
Localism is also changing everything, perhaps not in spite of the Age of Austerity, but because of the Age of Austerity.
Shops like the Zero Waste enterprise in Eastbourne are showing the way, as people begin to understand that localism means giving local people the power to decide what kinds of shop they want to see.
We desperately need to see our tiny shopping network enhanced. Shops and services are the glue that holds communities together. Without visitors we will not survive.
The quality and range of shops marks the distinction and uniqueness of a community. We need to add to that quality and widen the range of our shops and service beyond estate agents, hairdressers, cafes and take-aways.
Pevenesy Bay has a proud 200 year old record of quirkiness and uniqueness on which to build a sandcastle of more dreams.
An arts and crafts shop will add a new perspective to the little parade of shops on our High Street.
Perhaps we will see other shops and services being considered now, to sit alongside the fabulous £500,000 long term investment opportunity seen at the Bay Hotel.
Small seaside communities are most definitely back on the visitor map. The notion of the small seaside experience and their historic place in the story of the country is now making waves again in the mainstream media.
Every day you will see families through the seasons, exploring the delights of places like the award winning cafe, the Ocean Bakery. Often these couples and families have come from across Europe with their route maps and itinerary.
With an enhanced Pevensey castle experience now on offer, courtesy at long last of English Heritage round the corner, we have a story to tell.
Pevensey appears as a billboard on the Bayeux Tapestry, the gift of a 1,000 year old promotion..The arrival of the Normans in 1066 changed this country for ever, we are a part of that story, being at the heart of 1066 country. We have much to offer visitors to the Bay as the gateway to this so important historic story and life changing moment in the story of England.
Visitors turning the corner in their cars from traffic lights at Coast Road into the Bay will be seeing some changes in the next few months.
A new arts and crafts shop for Pevensey Bay is only a little venture, but welcome.
Sceptical local observers may suggest that a little arts an crafts shop will not last in the Internet Age and that the shop will make no difference at all to the Bay anyway.
Time will tell if we are seeing radical change of some description beginning to happen here both for residents and visitors. The best radical changes are incremental.
Local shops and services work best in clusters. One shop attracts another. With increased footfall everyone benefits. Perhaps we will be seeing more creative shops and services choosing to invest and come here in the next few years..
As the Guardian suggested in 2015 we have our own identity which is attractive to some kinds of niche business and the people here and visitors who love the place,
Perhaps we should hang the Guardian description on a new gateway to the Bay,”the seafront at Pevensey Bay might not be Malibu, but it is splendidly eccentric, with Edwardian town houses cheek-by-jowl with shacks and the 1930s-50s bungalow estate of Beachlands”.
