IMAGE ARTWORK: Jan Barron, all rights to this illustration are reserved, without exception, by the artist.
Just to let u know beach tav just sold for 330,00 telephone bidder—regular Bay Life reader, 27 July 2016
Although we can not verify this story we believe that it is likely to be accurate.
We will publish further news about this vital story to Pevenaey Bay when we have more information, including details about the new owner, what is planned and what is likely to happen from here, dependent on what is planned for one of the key buildings in the community.
A telephone bidder would indicate that the new owner is someone not resident locally. The price is interesting, coming close to the asking price. We will be looking at this issue in detail.
The Bay Life view is that the building occupies a unique position in the village as part of the economic life of Pevensey Bay and that to lose the building to economic activity would be to the detriment of business activity within the whole village.
The location over many years has been a feature in the business life of Pevensey Bay, having been the Honey Pot Tea Rooms for some time and in recent years a successful venture offering live music and a home to a number of commmunity organisations, as well as a homely local public house that has been popular with residents.
As the Honey Pot Tea Rooms, the location was also said to have been one of the very few public places serving tea and cakes in East Sussex that offered a viewing of the Coronation of Elizabeth II on a public TV on 2 June 1953.
The particulars for sale offered by Clive Emson Auctioneers, included, in November 2015 at the first proposed auction, three possible uses for the Beach Tavern, these potential uses mentioned development, continued use as a public house or alternatively as suitable for a supermarket chain.
“in need of some refurbishment and re-decoration the Beach Tavern is considered ideal for owner occupation or could again be let to provide a good income. Alternatively it is considered the site could be re-developed to provide residential accommodation or may be suitable for a supermarket chain or similar commercial space, subject to all necessary consents being obtainable”—Clive Emson Auctioneers, particulars for sale, Beach Tavern Public House, November 2015
District Councillor, Dianne Dear, who is also the publisher of Bay Life has placed on public record her view that, “I’m concerned about who will buy especially as a big supermarket chain could take over and ruin Pevensey Bay”.
Already comments are coming to us about the sale at auction, with one observer suggesting, perhaps with insight, “That’ll be a block of flats by this time next year!!”
A key point is that Pevensey Bay has a fragile economic base.
Pevensey Bay is a day visitor destination and a place loved by people from across this part of East Sussex as a weekend destination for public houses and restaurants.
In addition the locality is loved by campers and by three generations of caravaneers and many other people in search of ‘the hidden jewels in the crown of Sussex’.
Residents love the place with a passion. Who can doubt that something as simple as a walk on the shingle beach here at sunset, amongst the tarnished groynes, with loved ones, friends and family, is a special daily life enriching experience for so many people?
With so much history on the doorstep and a unique traditional seaside profile, it is clear that the building is in a cornerstone position.
There is an element of resurgence in interest with the notion of traditional seaside locations. This is something that is happening in some small seaside locations across the country.
There is some interest and growth in the vernacular heritage and history industries. Some of this activity is the result of the Localism Act of 2011, which is the biggest shake up of parish governance since 1894, with significant opportunities and challenges for parish councils that represent 16 million people.
In our own case with our long association with the Goon Show in the fifties, it is no surprise to see the moves to establish a national Goon Show archive here.
The story of the Pevensey Whale, beached in 1865, with the name Normans Bay emerging from the story. will become national news for the locality in early 2017, when a new £19.8 million museum opens in Cambridge.
The star of the show is to be the skeleton of the 71ft finback Pevensey Whale, suspended over two floors in an architect designed annexe.
The voices of children at Pevensey and Westham Primary school recorded by curators of the museum in 2015 and the sound of the community recorded in a song cycle at St. Nicolas Church in Pevensey in 2015 , will welcome people to ‘Whale Hall”.
Whale Hall will become one of the wonders of the modern museum world in this country. People will be able to experience the Pevensey Whale from below and above, with a walkway, already constructed, to witness the unique specimen from above.
There will be an opportunity to promote the ‘beaching of the Pevensey Whale’ here in the locality to visitors coming to visit the place where the story of the Pevensey Whale began.
Merchandise is already appearing in Pevensey Bay promoting the story. Wealden Council has funded plans for a dramatic enactment of the story which will involve children recreating a skippimg rhyme that was sung in local school playgrounds in 1865 about the beaching of the whale.
It is interesting, but perhaps a coincidence, that the sale has taken place at the same time, after seven long years of dereliction, of the Castle Cottage Tea Room adjoining Pevensey Castle. The iconic building has been leased to become again, “a traditional tea room serving tea like it used to be”.
People have also noted that the local library is to re-open on August 30, after an eighteen month campaign led by the Friends of Pevensey Bay Library.
What is happening in some ways represents significant economic activity for such small places. There is also a resurgence of elebratory activity taking place in the locality, as well as a new interest in maintaining the ‘precious community assets’ in the locality.
The twice sponsored Wealden Food and Wine Festival promoted by Wealden Council in the grounds of Pevensey Castle in 2014 and 2016 are textbook examples of how to promote this celebration of the local landscape. In 2014, 9,200 people came to the festival. over the weekend. The Scarecrow Festivals of 2015 and 2016 are another example of this vernacular celebration of life and the landscape here.
These kinds of seedcorn projects can have sustainable value to the profile of the local communities and the economic and social wellbeing of residents. They add a vital element of focus and interest to activity here.
In September 2015, The Guardian newspaper recorded an interesting view of Pevensey Bay as a relocation possibility in their magazine feature “Let’s Move To Pevensey and Pevensey Bay”.
The newspaper suggested, “What’s going for it? …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”.
The first recorded ‘day trip’ to Pevensey Bay by horse and cart in what we would now call a taxi, was in 1806, a story told to us by a fifth generation taxi driver based in Eastbourne.
As someone commented to Bay Life, during the process of the sale of the Beach Tavern Public House, which has been a long convoluted story, “put it this way, people do not come to Pevensey Bay to see flats”.
We will follow this story with interest and hope to update news about the situation in the coming days.
