SEASIDE COTTAGES
Camber

As autumn arrives, thoughts of summer holidays become distant memories but British coastal towns can come into their own at this time of year, as a recent trip to Camber Sands in East Sussex revealed.

We were here to visit new self-catering properties from Bramley & Teal just minutes from the beach.

Shaker-style clapboard and brick houses have pristine white picket fences, well-equipped kitchens with gleaming new appliances, and Roberts radios and cookbooks for homely touches; elsewhere in our house, Seaside Cottage, organic lemongrass soaps, games and jigsaws added to this effect.

Picture-perfect Rye is a five-minute drive away, full of cobbled streets and half-timbered Georgian buildings.

You can stock up on local and English cheeses at the Rye Deli - most shops around here are big on local produce.

There is an old-fashioned sweet shop with nostalgia-inducing jars of rhubarb and custard and pear drops sold in tiny white paper bags, and antiques and bric-a-brac shops for the adults.

We chose to eat lunch at Webbe's The Fish Café, a noticeably sophisticated-looking venue with its grey exterior brick.

My roast loin of monkfish with pak choi, linguini and basil sauce was a good-looking dish and perfectly cooked; Alistair's "surf and turf" - half a lobster with grilled steak - was also good, and for once we saw the point of this strange-sounding combo.

Webbe's is also a cookery school (day classes from £75 include a visit to Hastings market and lunch), and this summer they opened a fish restaurant in the fishing quarter of Hastings Old Town, between the smugglers' caves and the historic fisherman's-net hut.

On the way back to the car we stopped off at the farmer's market to see black pigs and geese, wool jumpers (a little Gyles Brandreth), sausages and fine cheeses.

We worked off lunch along the two-mile stretch of beach at Camber.

People were walking dogs, riding horses, flying kites, exercising and generally enjoying this gorgeous sandy stretch of grassy dune-backed beach, which doubled as the Sahara in the Carry On film Follow That Camel and as the Normandy beaches in The Longest Day.

Dinner was at The Place At the Beach in Camber. Even with our cottage's fine kitchen it would have been hard to cook when this much-lauded restaurant-hotel was just around the corner.

An enthusiastic new owner/manager, Tudor Hopkins, took over this summer but this is already a successful spot and Hopkins's background in London five-star hotels is sure to translate into greater things.

The place feels friendly with easy-going staff and a light, airy feel. Children's books were thoughtfully left at the entrance, and intimate round tables created a cosy ambience as we ate juicy prawn cocktails which didn't disappoint - although I have a feeling these may disappear from the menu as the changes unfold - and grilled chicken, with prosecco fittingly served by a charming Italian waitress.

Hopkins told how a friend had come to visit on the Eurostar link to Ashford.

Door-to-door from King's Cross to sitting with a glass of wine in his restaurant had taken barely an hour. Now there really is no excuse not to visit.

Way to go

SEASIDE COTTAGES
Two nights from £190 for a two-bedroom cottage and £260 for a three-bedroom, www.bramleyandteal.co.uk

Rye's bonfire night and torchlit procession, 14 November.

Webbe's The Fish Café, 17 Tower Street, Rye, www.thefishcafe.com

The Place At the Beach Hotel and Brasserie, New Lydd Road, www.theplaceatthebeach.co.uk