We arrived at Hastings via East Hill.  There is an Iron Age fort here; its embankments can still be seen.  We wandered down the slope towards the town.

East Hill narrows towards its western end, the lie of the land gently herding all visitors towards the steps (or for the less energetic, the lift) of East Cliff, leading down to Hastings Old Town.  To the north side of the hill were views over the rooftops.

To the south side were views over the working beach.

We walked down the steps and were immediately presented by a series of high, black huts.  These are the famous Net Shops.  It is widely believed that these huts were originally designed as tall and narrow so that fishing nets could be hung out to dry from the top level.  In fact, the nets were dried on the beaches.  The huts were used to store the nets and were built this way purely due to lack of space.  They are in a tight cluster on a small plot of land.  The solution?  Fishing industry skyscrapers – multi-storey net parks!

Points on this part of the walk (copy and paste the co-ordinates into Google Earth):

• East Hill Iron Age Settlement:  N 50° 51.570 E 000° 36.120
• Steps down to Hastings:  N 50° 51.390 E 000° 35.678
• East Cliff Lift:  N 50° 51.400 E 000° 35.720
• Net Shops:  N 50° 51.362 E 000° 35.638

Walk #44 Statistics (of which this post forms the final part):

• Date of Walk: 9 February 2013
• Walk #44 total distance covered: 9.20 miles
• Coast of Britain Walk Total Distance Covered: 354.31 miles
• CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO INTERACTIVE MAP!!!