East Sussex Weekend: Part 1

Country lanes and sunsets in Ewhurst

Last weekend Becks and I went away for what turned out to be a very special weekend. The original plan was to head to Whitstable to visit the Mondrian exhibition at the Turner Contemporary Gallery,  but all the decent accommodation in the area was booked so I set about finding a Plan B. Having enjoyed our National Trust weekend earlier in the year I decided to centre the weekend round a visit to Sissinghurst Castle.

We got lucky with the traffic as we headed out of London on the Friday evening and, despite one wrong turn, arrived at our plush B&B in just over an hour and a half. Much better than I feared it might be.

Becks during golden hour

After a short time settling into our room we headed through to the village to the pub for dinner.  As the sunset lit up the countryside village of Ewhurst was looking picture perfect with oast houses, a quaint church and manicured front gardens.

I'd booked a table at The White Dog pub as I heard it could get busy during the summer, but there was lots of space with only a few people in the bar and the restaurant about half full. From the website I'd unfairly pre-judged it as a 'chicken in a basket' type place, but it was far smarter than that. We grabbed a couple of local ales and took a seat outside. Only to decide it was a little chilly for that and headed back inside.

Outside The White Dog pub

For dinner we decided to order the seafood platter to share from the specials board. A huge plate of smoked prawns, king prawns, hot smoked salmon, smoked trout, crab and half a lobster arrived at our table with a small basket of bread from the local Lighthouse bakery.

The small smoked prawns were the stand out of the seafood platter, I also liked the samphire underneath the huge mound of fish. Having to attack the crab claws helped me from scoffing down the seafood too quickly. It isn't the type of dish I'd usually order, but I really enjoyed it.

We left the pub at around ten thirty and the village was pitch black with the moon barely out. It was a very dark walk back to the B&B, we should have taken one of the torches from the room....

The seafood platter