Hove Huts
By Jim Stephenson
29 May 2007
There's a statistic I can't remember about never being further than a few miles from the sea when you live in England. The number of miles is the part I forget.
Since the clinically insane Prince Regent made Brighton and Hove a fashionable place for all the gentry to come and sleep with farm maids and bathe in the sea (under doctors orders) in the mid eighteenth century, people have been building little huts to keep everything they need for the sunshine in. To be prepared.
Martha Gunn is probably Brighton's favourite daughter. She built an industry around "dipping" - the process of picking up an aristocrat and carrying them down to the sea, dipping them under and carrying them back. Lazy, yes. But in fairness the pebbles on Brighton beach are a pain in the arse bare-foot. They started to build huts, to reduce the distance poor Martha had to trudge.
There are now around 20,000 beach huts in the UK. The Queen has one in North Norfolk. Or rather, she had one until someone burnt it down in 2003. I have been fascinated since I was a kid - lugging all my buckets and spades up and down the Norfolk coastline, running for the car, in the usual British downpours wishing I had a tiny hut to shelter in until the sun came out again.
I now live in Brighton and Hove and can't help but take photos of these huts. "Hove Huts" that line the promenade between Hove lawns and the beach are ahout one half beautiful architecture, one half British folly and one half decrepit. They fetch around £9,000, on top of maintenance fees and land rental. There are strict rules about upkeep - colour and design and the waiting list is full ten times over.
Beach huts remain popular as a reminder that summer could appear at any moment. But it is England, so it will be sudden and it will be brief - so you have to be bloody prepared.
More Photo Essays
More stories by Jim Stephenson
