There is a particular kind of West Sussex day that stays with you long after you have come home. It begins with pastries and a sea view, the kind of morning where you are in no hurry because you know everything is fifteen minutes away. By mid-morning you are in Arundel, one of the most quietly extraordinary small towns in England, wandering streets that have barely changed in two hundred years. By afternoon you are back on the coast, the wind off the sea doing exactly what it should. By evening you are somewhere very comfortable with something very good to drink.

Most people searching for accommodation near Arundel head straight for the town itself. The ones who know better stay at the coast and drive in. Fifteen minutes from East Beach Guest House in Littlehampton, Arundel is the perfect day out from the perfect base. Castle, food, antiques, craft, festivals: all of it on your doorstep, none of it crowding your evening.

We have been sending guests on that day for years. This summer, the reasons to do it have never been better.

I took my mother to Arundel for the first time she ever visited. She was sceptical before we arrived. Once you have seen one castle, she said, you have seen them all. She has not said that since.

Arundel Castle is not a castle in the way that phrase tends to diminish things. It is a living, breathing, continuously occupied family home that has stood on its hill above the River Arun for nearly a thousand years, the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Norfolk and home to some of the most remarkable interiors, gardens and family history in England. The gardens alone, awarded Historic Houses Garden of the Year in 2025, are worth the visit. My mother spent an hour in them and had to be persuaded to leave. It is the kind of place that restores your faith in finding things genuinely warm and interesting, particularly for visits that span more than one generation. Children, grandparents, history lovers, garden enthusiasts: Arundel Castle works for all of them in the same afternoon.

After the castle, the town opens up. Arundel’s high street is the kind that independent businesses still own, where the shops have something to say and the cafés know what they are doing. Spend a day here and you will leave with a very clear sense of why people who discover it keep coming back. And why staying fifteen minutes down the road at the coast gives you the best of both worlds.

Juniper on Tarrant Street is where we send every guest who asks for a lunch recommendation in Arundel without hesitation. It is a small team of four with one clear interest: taking quality ingredients and making good food. There is a bakery in the basement, a seasonal menu that shifts with what is available locally, and a changing counter of freshly baked goods that makes it almost impossible to leave empty handed.

The sourdough has its own devoted following among guests who have discovered it. The cinnamon buns are the ones people message us about afterwards. But it was the flapjacks, dense and properly made, the kind that remind you what a flapjack is supposed to be, that stopped us in our tracks on our last visit. Enjoyed alongside a lemongrass and ginger tea that was bright and warming in equal measure, the kind of thing that makes you ask where it comes from. The team know their suppliers and are happy to tell you.

Open Wednesday to Saturday, with Friday evenings running until 9pm for a more relaxed supper service. Book ahead at weekends. juniperarundel.co.uk.

For morning pastries and afternoon tea, Motte and Bailey on the High Street is the natural destination. A proper tearoom in the best sense, freshly baked scones made on the premises every morning, excellent coffee, and the kind of easy warmth that makes you want to stay longer than you planned. They have just opened a new artisan bakery next door, a takeaway operation open from 7am Wednesday to Sunday, where breads, pastries and cakes are handcrafted on site every morning. If you are passing through Arundel early, it is the best possible reason to arrive before the castle opens.

On Wednesday to Saturday evenings the café transforms into a candlelit Moroccan and Spanish inspired tapas restaurant, with wines, cocktails and sherries alongside a kitchen that clearly enjoys the change of pace as much as its guests do. Worth booking ahead if you want to eat in Arundel rather than head back to the coast for dinner.

Arundel is one of the finest antiques towns in the south of England, and we have been quietly sourcing pieces for the guest house here for years. The room details our guests notice and stop to ask about, the mid-century paintings, the found objects with a story behind them, the things that make a room feel considered rather than assembled, many of them have an Arundel provenance.

The shop we return to most is not easy to find, which is part of the point. Follow Fitzalan Road away from the town centre, past the Co-op, to the last remaining buildings of the 19th century Swallow Brewery, and you will find Arundel Eccentrics tucked behind the streets of Arundel, brimming to the rafters with special finds sourced by Nass.

Brenda and Nass are a husband and wife team who have spent years tracking down battered Victorian bamboo furniture, bringing it back to their Arundel studio and restoring it piece by piece. The surface work is decoupage using 19th century botanical images, cut by hand and applied with a patience that makes the finished pieces something entirely other than what they started as. Their original style has featured in national and international interiors magazines and in 2016 they were invited to take the fourth floor of Liberty London. They also won Arun Business Partnership Best Small Business of the Year in 2018.

We have been sourcing pieces for East Beach Guest House here for years. The marble-topped French bedside cupboards in Room 7, our Deluxe King Four Poster, came from Arundel Eccentrics, as did several of the mid-century paintings our guests stop to ask about. When you find a source this good you keep going back.

And if you cannot find exactly what you are looking for, Nass will source it for you. Think of it as having your own personal antiques shopper, someone who knows every room of that warehouse and every dealer in the town, working quietly on your behalf until the right piece turns up.

Open Friday and Saturday, 11am to 4pm. Other times by appointment: they are happy to open any time, just call or email ahead. arundeleccentrics.com.

What makes Arundel special as an antiques destination is that the whole town is part of the experience. Tarrant Street has a concentration of dealers worth an afternoon of your time. And if you want to do it with genuine expert company, Sarah Parker’s Foraging for Antiques tour is the answer. Sarah is a museum curator with thirty years of experience, including curatorial work at Historic Royal Palaces, and she leads bespoke guided tours of Arundel’s best antiques and vintage shops with afternoon tea included. It is exactly what the Antiques Road Trip promised and never quite delivered: expert eyes, a town full of good things to find, and no camera crew following you around. Details at foragingforantiques.co.uk.

Arundel has been selected as one of only two Craft Towns in Sussex for Sussex Craft Week 2026, running from 20th to 28th June. Organised by ROSA, the Review of Sussex Arts, in partnership with West Dean College, this is the second edition of a festival that launched to wide acclaim in 2025 and has grown into something genuinely important for the region. The other designated Craft Town is Alfriston in East Sussex. To be one of two is a real recognition of what Arundel already is: a town where craft, community, locality and heritage come together in a way that is rare anywhere in England.

During the nine days of the festival, Arundel presents a town-wide programme that brings craft into daily life. Six venues across the town host contemporary craft exhibitions. The Arundel Craft Window Trail sees work by Sussex makers displayed across the high street. Open studios, workshops, talks and a MarketPlace for buying directly from makers complete the picture. Pick up a map at any of the venues and let the town lead you to things you would not otherwise have found.

For guests staying at East Beach Guest House during Craft Week, Arundel is fifteen minutes away and a day spent moving between the exhibitions, the antique shops of Tarrant Street and lunch at Juniper is one of the better ways we know to spend a June afternoon in West Sussex. Full programme and booking information at rosamagazine.co.uk and sussexcraftweek.com.

If June is a month of craft and culture in Arundel, August is when the town announces itself at full volume. Two of the finest events in the West Sussex calendar happen within weeks of each other, and both are worth planning a stay around.

The International Jousting Tournament returns to Arundel Castle from 21st to 26th July, eight world-class competitors from England, France, Canada and the USA competing over six days in what is genuinely one of the most spectacular live events in the country. Knights charging down the tilt rail with lances shattering on opponents’ shields, falconry displays, archery, axe throwing, the Kids Battle for younger visitors, and a medieval feast at the Knights’ Table. It sounds like something you might read about. It is something you actually have to see.

Then from 22nd to 31st August, the Arundel Festival of the Arts takes the whole town. Ten days of music, theatre, literature, street entertainment, food and drink, running through the streets and venues of Arundel with a programme that has welcomed David Hockney, Nigel Kennedy and Katherine Jenkins in its nearly fifty-year history. The Gallery Trail alone, transforming the town into an open gallery with over a hundred artists and makers opening their studios and homes to visitors, is worth a day of anyone’s time. It is the kind of event that turns a very good visit into an unforgettable one.

East Beach Guest House is your base for all of it. Fifteen minutes from the castle gates, back to a sea view and a glass of something local by early evening. Book your summer stay early at eastbeachhouse.co.uk. This is the stretch of the West Sussex calendar that fills fastest.

East Beach Café turns nineteen this June. That is nineteen years of the Thomas Heatherwick building sitting on the Littlehampton promenade in a way that still makes people stop and look, and nineteen years of a kitchen that has never stopped pushing to be better than last season.

This summer you can feel that in the new menu. The chefs have spent months on it: tastings, refinements, the kind of quiet, serious work that only shows up on the plate. The result is a summer offering that feels genuinely of this place and this moment. An afternoon mezze of hummus, olives and flatbreads. Prawn and chorizo with patatas bravas. A lemon posset with shortbread that finishes things in exactly the right way. The new drinks list runs alongside it: Wiston Estate sparkling wine on the decking, homemade lemonade as the light changes over the sea.

From June, the Café is opening on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, which changes what a stay in Littlehampton can look like. There is now a proper reason to still be here as the sun goes down, watching the promenade empty out and the sea settle. The team are briefed, the kitchen is ready, and the birthday month is the moment to experience it for the first time.

One of the things we love most about being part of this town is watching what happens when independent businesses find each other.

Meet the Makers is a new monthly event series coming to Littlehampton this summer, and it is exactly the kind of thing that makes us proud to be based here. Each month, at a different venue across the town, local crafters, makers and artisans come together to share their work: ceramics, textiles, sculpture, the kind of things made slowly and carefully by people who genuinely care what they are making. The aim is not just a market. It is a community, one that strengthens the creative businesses already here and opens a path for new ones to find their feet in the town.

East Beach Café is championing Meet the Makers this summer on behalf of the Littlehampton Business Forum. You can find details and follow the series through lovelittlehampton.co.uk and visitlittlehampton.co.uk as the programme builds. We will be sharing updates through our own channels too. If you are the kind of guest who comes to Littlehampton for the independent spirit of the place as much as the sea and the coast, this is worth keeping an eye on.

This summer we are launching the new Home Suite Beachfront, and we wanted to tell you about it properly.

It is a room for people who want more than a room. Warm terracotta walls and deep earthy tones, a private courtyard for morning coffee and evening wine, a self-catering kitchen for the days when you want the coast entirely on your own terms. The kind of space our guests describe when they call East Beach Guest House a real gem: somewhere that gives you back a sense of ease rather than simply somewhere to sleep.

The Home Suite Beachfront is available to book direct at eastbeachhouse.co.uk, where you will always find the best rates and personalised recommendations before you arrive. Drive to Arundel in the morning. Come back to this in the evening. There is no better base on the West Sussex coast.

You do not need to be a surfer. You just need to be someone who has quietly wondered what it would feel like to have the beach almost entirely to yourself.

Our Surfers Sunday package is built for exactly that. Book a Sunday night at East Beach Guest House and save up to 20%: 10% off your room rate as standard, stacked with your subscriber discount for a total of 20% off when you book direct. Check in on Saturday evening if you like, but it is Sunday that changes things. The beach empties. The promenade quietens. The sea is right there and it is yours in a way it simply is not on a Saturday in summer.

Sleep in. Take a long breakfast in the guest lounge with the sea in the window. Walk down to The Beach Watersports if the wind is right and let Mikey and the team take care of the rest: kitesurfing, wingfoiling, paddleboarding, all of it available with 10% off for our guests. Or do nothing more than walk West Beach through the dunes as the morning light comes in low over the water.

Start Monday with a swim in the sea. There are worse ways to begin a week.

Wake up in the new Home Suite Beachfront, coffee in the courtyard, pastries from the breakfast tray, then drive to Arundel for the castle and the gardens in the morning. Juniper for lunch on Tarrant Street. Arundel Eccentrics in the afternoon, which is where the mid-century painting above the fireplace at home is going to come from.

Before you leave town, stop at Pallant of Arundel at the foot of the High Street. It is an independent specialist deli and wine merchant that has been quietly doing things properly for years: over a hundred British and European cheeses sourced from local dairies, daily delivered bread, charcuterie, local honey, handmade scotch eggs and pies, and a Sussex picnic hamper built for two. Pick one up and drive back to Littlehampton.

Walk through the dunes to West Beach. Find a spot on the sand. Open the hamper. The Isle of Wight is on the horizon on a clear day and the beach is yours in the way it only is when you have walked to reach it. That is the afternoon taken care of.

Back to East Beach Guest House by early evening, a walk along the river path to watch the fishing boats coming into the harbour, then something very good from the new summer menu at East Beach Café as the light fades over the sea.

Dog owners already know what East Beach Guest House is. The most dog friendly guest house we have ever stayed in, one guest told us. West Beach is dog friendly all year. The dunes are better with a dog in them.

Some guests book the Home Suite for three nights and barely leave the courtyard. The castle is a very good reason to leave it.

All of it is within reach. That is the point of this part of West Sussex. And East Beach Guest House is where the day begins and ends.

Not everything worth booking is happening this month. Some of the best reasons to come back are worth putting in the diary now.

Tracey, who owns Arcade Bookshop on the Littlehampton high street, is creating the town’s first ever Book Festival, and the date is already one to circle: Saturday 24th October 2026. That is the same weekend as the famous Littlehampton Bonfire Parade, which means one of the most atmospheric autumn evenings on the West Sussex coast becomes the backdrop to a celebration of books, independent publishing and the written word.

The festival poster is being designed by Ben Cavanagh, known locally as Ben Cav, a Littlehampton-based mural artist and illustrator whose bold, colourful work has appeared on walls, art trails and public commissions across West Sussex, including a piece for the WWT Arundel Wetland Centre. Having a local artist at the heart of a local literary event feels entirely right for a town that is building a cultural identity worth paying attention to.

Details are still coming together. What is already clear is that this is worth planning a stay around. A Saturday in Littlehampton in late October, the book festival during the day, the bonfire parade as evening falls, and East Beach Guest House to come back to when the night is over. The autumn coast at its very best.

The walk along the River Arun at dusk is one of our favourite things to recommend to guests. The working harbour, the smell of salt and river, the quiet dignity of a stretch of water that has been at the heart of this town for centuries. It is the kind of thing that stays with you.

Which is why what happened here on a Sunday evening in May matters.

Sussex Underwater, working alongside Freemasons from across the local area and members of the Bognor Fishermen’s Association, took to the River Arun to tackle a problem that is invisible to most visitors but deeply damaging to the wildlife that depends on this water. Years of abandoned nylon crabbing lines, lost and discarded below the surface, had steadily accumulated in the harbour, creating a silent hazard for birds and sea life. On the evening of 17th May, volunteers met at the Harbour Master’s office on Pier Road and set to work, using boats and considerable determination to retrieve metres of ghost gear from the riverbed. The gathered lines were laid out on the harbour wall and collected by Sussex Wildlife Trust for recycling, as part of their ongoing programme to remove ghost gear from the sea.

The photographs that documented the clean-up were taken by Domaculas Pictures, a film and photography studio based in nearby Bognor Regis. Their work is creative, moody and captivating, the kind of images that make you stop scrolling and look properly. If you want to see this stretch of the West Sussex coast through a genuinely talented lens, find them at @domaculaspictures on Instagram.

This is what a community that cares about its harbour looks like. Littlehampton is a town that is quietly, seriously getting its house in order, and the River Arun is part of that story. If you walk the river path during your stay, and we hope you will, you are walking a stretch of water that a group of volunteers gave their Sunday evening to protect.

Arundel is fifteen minutes away. The sea is on your doorstep. East Beach Guest House is the base that makes the whole of this part of West Sussex yours.

Book direct at eastbeachhouse.co.uk for the best rates, personalised recommendations before you arrive, and the Surfers Sunday stacking deal that saves subscribers up to 20% on a Sunday night on the West Sussex coast.

eastbeachhouse.co.uk