Why the Cultural Coastal Trail should be your next UK weekend break

I see a box of heads. Human heads, carved from wood. Then an eerie cast bronze bird, unsettling in a half-defined form. Then a mood-flipping collection of pleasant Sussex scenes: bends on the River Cuckmere and a boat in Newhaven harbour.

As a start to a weekend of walking, this is wonderfully, wildly different.

I’m at the Towner Eastbourne art gallery, the start (or end) of the Coastal Culture Trail, an 18-mile bike-or-hike route tracking the East Sussex shore. Launched in 2013, it runs between Eastbourne and Hastings via Bexhill-on-Sea, linking the flagship galleries in each: the Towner, De La Warr Pavilion and Hastings Contemporary.

And though I meet no one else walking the trail the whole weekend, its popularity is probably about to peak. From 28 September 2023 to 14 April 2024, the Towner hosts the Turner Prize, the premier art award in Britain. It’s the climax of a year spent celebrating the Towner’s centenary and, if you want to make an adventure of it, the perfect opportunity to tackle the CCT.

“The whole of the visual art world and, to some extent, the wider creative scene has their eyes on Eastbourne for that moment,” Joe Hill, Towner director, tells me.

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“It will certainly bring in a huge amount of new visitors that we wouldn’t normally expect at that period of year. And that’s really critical. In a seaside town, those months can be quite difficult so if it can bring in more spending in those businesses, contributing to that economy, that’s fantastic for everybody.”

The economic ripples are already being felt. I hand over £3.50 at the Welcome Building, home to the local visitor centre, for the trail map, a suitably artistic depiction by illustrator Ben Phillips.

I’m accompanied by my partner Beth and our first day is through classic Sussex-shore scenery: beach huts, acrobatic gulls and pebbly beaches. It’s first around the Towner (we check out The Living Collection, a varied assortment of works reflecting the history of the Towner as a gallery), then along the Eastbourne promenade, through the mazey Sovereign Harbour, along a shingley stretch of Pevensey Bay and finally to Cooden, where we have a room at the Relais Cooden Beach hotel.