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St Leonards-On-Sea
St Leonards was developed as Hastings' upmarket little sister. It is now, by one of those reversals so common in urban areas, Hastings' downmarket little sister. We wandered round yesterday with an eye to its potential as a place to go live when and if we move. Matthew says that would be a big mistake. "Full of thieves and addicts," he says. He must think- because we live on the farm- that we've led sheltered lives; he forgets we arrived here from Greater Manchester. I was once a curate on the Wythenshawe estate; Ailz once ran a pub that catered for the people (including a gangster or two) who had been barred from all the other pubs in its locality.
St Leonards is beautiful and unspoiled. It has marvellous buildings from the Edwardian and art deco periods but the bulk of what's on show is from the early Victorian era. The original developers were James and Decimus Burton, father and son- who also built much of London's west end. It is, as it were, Bloomsbury by the sea.
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I do find it odd, though, how English seaside towns fell out of fashion. Most of them are attractive places and some of them quite strikingly beautiful.
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I didn't know about the pub. I like that.
Sea and marvelous buildings sounds like an ideal combination.
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Most towns have some poor people, some criminals, some drug users. The towns that don't generally have high taxes, high rents, and a lot of covert drug and alcohol abuse. You pays your money and you takes your choice.
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