What's it like living in East Sussex?

I am interested in moving there one day :smile:

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Bit of an open question & I'm not sure it's in the right forum! I lived in Brighton for university and worked all around East Sussex so I know it pretty well. Personally I love Brighton, it's a really fun, young and vibrant city. I wasn't such a fan of how busy it got during summer, but being there for spring/autumn made up for it. Along the coast there's some really lovely countryside; the Sussex Downs National Park is lovely for walks and cute village pubs, the Seven Sisters cliffs (including Beachy Head) are beautiful...etc. It's definitely not a cheap place to be however, and it's not amazingly quiet (say, traffic-wise in the rural areas) either. Transport links around Brighton are pretty great though; the 5 pounds day ticket on the main bus company enables you to travel all the way to Eastbourne (20 odd miles) along the coast, and you could go up to Tunbridge Wells too (30 miles). Wouldn't recommend the latter for a day trip though as the bus takes quite a while...

Reply 2

marcusfox

Everyone moves to East Sussex one day.

Down by the coast it's like heaven's waiting room.

Reply 3

LETSJaM

Original post by marcusfox

Everyone moves to East Sussex one day.

Down by the coast it's like heaven's waiting room.

This.

There are pockets of youthfulness but a large % of people are old. :biggrin:

<3 x

Reply 4

thirstysailor

West Sussex is significantly better. Your's sincerely a neutral party.

But seriously once you get away from the coast east sussex is nothing more than villages hamlets and a couple of smallish towns. It's not the most exciting or cosmopolitan county.

Reply 5

swbp

Brighton is probably the main "youthful" area in the county. The rest consists of smallish towns like Lewes, which in their defence are nice places to be.

Reply 6

soup_dragon87

Original post by swbp

Brighton is probably the main "youthful" area in the county. The rest consists of smallish towns like Lewes, which in their defence are nice places to be.

You get rep for bigging up Lewes, my hometown!

Sussex is beautiful! It's in the sunny South-East, if you live in/around Brighton you're only an hour from London Victoria on the train, you've got Gatwick in easy reach... why NOT move to Sussex?? Beats living somewhere dingy and rainy *cough*Northumberland*cough*!

Reply 7

ra-ra-ra

Original post by soup_dragon87

The November 5th celebrations in Lewes are crazy! Such a big thing down there!

Reply 8

louiegy

I've lived in Brighton and then Lewes for most of my life after moving down from London quite young.

I guess being my home town it is all too easy to point out the bad aspects rather than the good.

Brighton is a great place but in all honesty I think it does punch above it's weight a little bit. Lewes is such a lovely place but certainly not somewhere to spend your 20's and 30's in my opinion.

What was it that makes you want to move to East Sussex? If it was for Brighton then I'm sure you would enjoy it - most people seem to. However if it's for the countryside and you have no specific ties to being in Sussex such as friends or family then there are many more wild places on the south coast you could live.

Louie

Reply 9

Eunuch

Thanks for your replies :biggrin:

Original post by louiegy

I went there for the first time three weeks ago and it was lovely. I loved the fact that it was on the coast, and I've always wanted to live near the sea. I live in a city for uni and I plan on moving to London once I graduate but there was something about East Sussex which I loved.

However I know absolutely nobody in England and would go there purely for the fact that it was clean and fresh ... Kind of hard to explain but once you've been in a city for two years, being next to the sea was wonderful :smile:

However I did notice the number of old people there. Maybe I should save it for when I retire :colondollar:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 10

louiegy

Original post by Eunuch

Thanks for your replies :biggrin:

However I did notice the number of old people there. Maybe I should save it for when I retire :colondollar:

Yeah I do love the fact that it is by the sea. Although the water is not particularly great for swimming it is still great to be able to breath the clean sea air.

I think it all depends what you want from the place you live mate. I would say Lewes or Brighton are the only interesting places to live in E Sussex unless you want a proper country town.

That said if you are extremely driven by your career then London is more than likely the only place you should be. I've seen far too many Londoners move down to Brighton only to find it frustrating and eventually move back up.

Louie

Reply 11

brightonlad89

I've lived in both Brighton and Hastings and adore both. This time of year is fantastic-- I regularly go out for drives to smaller towns and have a drink in a country pub and wander around with some friends. There are way too many beautiful places to mention-- but certainly Rye, Camber, Battle, Lewes are a few personal favourite drive to East Sussex gems.

Reply 12

username133326

Unless you live on the coast it's boring. Boring as ****. Also, forget going anywhere other than London by train.

Oh what's that? You want to get a train to a town 10 miles away? How about no. London? No problem!

Reply 13

AdvStudy

Having lived in Brighton & Hove for my whole life, I can say that it's really nice. It is mainly students in Brighton, but then if you go to Worthing or Shoreham then you start to see a load of old people!

Not a fan of the beach though, a pebble beach is awful! So painful walking barefoot on the beach as well as tiring.

Nightlife is quite good, though it starts to get a bit repetitive. Brighton Wheel has just gone up as well, looks quite cool. Need to give that a shot!

I don't actually know anyone who has generations of family from Sussex. Most people in my experience have parents from London, or from Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France etc.

Reply 14

louiegy

Original post by AdvStudy

I don't actually know anyone who has generations of family from Sussex. Most people in my experience have parents from London, or from Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France etc.

Agree with you there mate, I don't know anyone either who's family has been in Brighton for generations. Lewes on the other hand is a totally different kettle of fish...

Reply 15

Jstreeton

Original post by AdvStudy

Having lived in Brighton & Hove for my whole life...
Brighton Wheel has just gone up as well, looks quite cool. Need to give that a shot!

No.

Why would you go up in it to see what you already know is there...

Everything else you said is fine though lol.

Reply 16

louiegy

Original post by Jstreeton

No.

Why would you go up in it to see what you already know is there...

Everything else you said is fine though lol.

Got to agree here. What are you going to look at? Preston Park? Churchill SQ?

That wheel was such a terrible idea. I got home from Japan only to find this thing had been erected whilst I was gone. Definitely would have been out protesting against it ha.

Reply 17

AdvStudy

Original post by Jstreeton

No.

Why would you go up in it to see what you already know is there...

Everything else you said is fine though lol.

I've not seen Brighton from above though :tongue:

Reply 18

Jstreeton

Original post by AdvStudy

I've not seen Brighton from above though :tongue:

Haha, true true.

Some of the hills and road in Brighton are higher up though. You can go for a walk and take in a lot more visually pleasing sights as well as seeing all of Brighton and best of all, it's FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE.