RURAL CULTURE REGENERATION 89


refurbished tastefully in 2022; majoring in contemporary and 20th-century photography, the pale walls and timber floors formed an elegant backdrop to the Eve Arnold show she put on in summer 2023. But she has also brought high-quality delicatessen retailing to the town, and snapped up a variety of ailing pubs and cottages, putting her own boutique B&B/ gastropub stamp on their interiors and the food offering.


Again, it’s the critical mass of attractions


that Jones hopes will draw cultural tourists to the area, building on existing assets such as the Towner Gallery Eastbourne (which hosted the Turner prize exhibition 2023-4), Bexhill’s De La Warr pavilion, and the glorious eccentricity of West Dean College of Arts and Conservation and, of course, the charms of Brighton. Tis percolation of high-spending, art- loving tourists, as well as artists, away from


the cities is far from a UK phenomenon. Wherever creatives have discovered abandoned but still functioning industrial buildings, and had the wherewithal to convert them, new cultural destinations have sprung up, from Provence – where I have visited and written up for FX the hospitality and cultural offer now available to visitors – to Arles, a former railway depot now replete with a Frank Gehry-designed crinkly cultural landmark. As for Berlin, in


Left, from top to bottom Newlands House Gallery is a Georgian townhouse that was refurbished tastefully in 2022 and majors in contemporary and


20th-century photography, such as this Eve Arnold show; the iconic art deco seafront building of De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea; the Towner Gallery Eastbourne, a contemporary art gallery on the south coast


SHUTTERSTOCK \ EYEMATTER EYEMATTER


SHUTTERSTOCK \ TONY SKERL


CHRISTOPHER ISON


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