'Postcard' seaside village in Sussex with links to Disney author and tennis star
With much of both East and West Sussex being on the coast, there are a number of quaint seaside towns and villages.
From cosy locations you may not have heard of to larger settlements, you are sure to have visited, there is a range of spots.
This one we are spotlighting today has a "perfect postcard setting" and has been named among the most beautiful in Britain.
So, here is why you should visit Rottingdean.
Rottingdean is a village in Brighton and Hove on the south coast.
Boasting a historic centre, it is often the subject of picture postcards.
The first recorded mention of the village is 'Rotingeden', in the Domesday Book in the 11th century.
Visit Brighton says its "most fascinating period" is that of "highly organised smuggling involving almost the entire village in the late 1700s".
It is rumoured that the village had a "maze of brick-lined tunnels that led from the cliffs, under the duck pond, right into the locals' houses".
Visit Brighton describes the village today as a "picturesque" spot, boasting a "pretty duck pond and cosy cottages".
It adds: "It is a perfect postcard setting with its own nature reserve and some impressive manicured gardens. As if that isn't appealing enough, it also has its own beach, just a five-minute walk from the village."
Rottingdean saw its beach recently crowned one of the best in Britain, too.
Rottingdean has a number of notable residents.
One of these is famous author Rudyard Kipling, most known for The Jungle Book, a classic collection of short stories and poems first published in 1894
These have been made into several films, with the most well-known being the Disney animated classic from 1967, as well as a live-action remake by Disney in 2016.
Kipling lived in the village, and you can visit Kipling Gardens, which were once part of The Elms, where Rudyard Kipling lived from 1897 to 1902.
Other famous faces with links to the village you might recognise include the former number one tennis player, Fred Perry.
He won three consecutive Wimbledon Championships in the 1930s and was the last British player to win a men's singles Grand Slam title until Andy Murray won the 2012 US Open.
You will likely recognise the name due to the popular clothing company that exists today,
The iconic white cotton sports shirt, made to be similar to René Lacoste's, was launched at Wimbledon in 1952.
The Fred Perry tennis shirt was an immediate success and still remains a large brand today.
British politician Sir Michael Fabricant was born in the village.
Sir Michael Fabricant appeared on Celebrity Big Brother 2025 (Image: ITV) Sir Michael was the MP for Lichfield in Staffordshire, formerly Mid Staffordshire, from 1992 until his defeat in 2024.
You may recognise him for appearing on the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother.
As Visit Brighton says, Rottingdean is home to "plenty of appealing places to stop for a bite to eat", including "warm and cosy pubs, some tea rooms and a few other small shops and cafés".
The Terraces Stage on the seafront boasts a programme of music and theatrical events from June through to September, most of which are free admission.
Recommended reading:
'Beautiful' market town in Sussex named one of Britain's happiest places to live
The 'famous' Sussex town that is a celebrity hotspot and inspired a Disney book
'Secluded hidden gem' in Sussex named one of Britain's most beautiful villages
You could also try The White Horse Hotel, which overlooks the sea and offers "traditional pub grub", or Molly's café down on the beach itself.
The village is also home to the Grange Museum and Art Gallery, which overlooks the pond and village green.
The early Georgian building currently houses a library and tea garden too.
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Gizmodo
6 hours ago
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You can't really describe the plot of 'Reality War,' in so much that it is less a coherent narrative and more of a collection of scenes that barely hold things together—some altogether good, some altogether frustrating—before they are forced to collapse with still a good third of its run time to go, to give way to a sudden long goodbye to Ncuti Gatwa's 15th Doctor—one sudden surprise among several that feels less like it was the plan for this story, and more like bracing for the show's still-uncertain future. Characters, sometimes literally, vanish in and out of proceedings as they're needed (some are shoved into a box, actually literally, which we'll get to). Plot threads built up across the season either get left hanging, cut off abruptly, or in some cases, just undone for the sake of a completely different change in direction. 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It's a shame then, that as spectacle forces all the talking to stop and the action to commence, that 'Reality War' the just as quickly discards this Rani, and its bizarre take on Omega, and brings the episode's whole set of stakes to a juddering crash of a conclusion. As soon as the Rani departs, the Doctor shoves Belinda and Poppy into a literal box—a tiny room built in a handful of hours by Susan Triad, of all people, to protect anyone inside from the effects of the Wish World reality being erased entirely—and tasks Ruby to go confront Conrad, while he chases after the Rani… only to watch Omega emerge from his prison as a giant, baby-ish skeleton, eat her, and then be blasted back into his prison by the Doctor shooting him with the charged up Vindicator. All this—the moment the series has been building towards all season, the return of villains from its past for the first time in decades—is resolved in a handful of minutes in the middle of the episode. The Mrs. Flood incarnation makes a glib Two Ronnies joke and promptly vanishes, but Omega and the new Rani are dealt with all the dramatic weight of a dull thud. The day is not quite yet saved though, as meanwhile, Ruby has to confront the man who first harassed and stalked her, and then re-wrote the entirety of earth into a dystopian reality where strict traditional roles of gender and sexuality rule the day (trans people literally cannot exist in Conrad's world, we learn this week, when Yasmin Finney's Rose Noble pops back into existence early in the episode, if you were excited to add another bigotry to Conrad's long list!) and minorities like the disabled are an invisible second class. Her resolution to this confrontation with arguably one of Doctor Who's most compellingly awful villains in years? 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CNN
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