Eastbourne has kept its Victorian looks better than almost any resort in England — but even here, much has vanished. A royal holiday home shaped like a windmill, the country’s grandest salt-water baths, an exotic Indian palace, a whole fishing hamlet: all gone. This is Lost Eastbourne — the buildings the town no longer has, and the stories they left behind.
The royal Round House
Eastbourne’s most romantic lost building stood close to where the entrance of the pier is today. The Round House was a former horizontal windmill, converted into a most unusual seaside residence — and in 1780 it lodged royalty, when Prince Edward stayed during the celebrated royal children’s holiday that first made Eastbourne fashionable. Other royal youngsters used it in the years that followed. Battered by the sea and the shifting shore, the curious circular house was demolished in 1841 — three decades before the pier arrived to claim its spot in the town’s affections.
The vanished hamlets
Whole communities have disappeared too. Before the resort, the shoreline here belonged to Sea Houses, a little seaside settlement whose name goes back to the 14th century — it was in Sea Houses that George III’s children stayed in 1780. As the planned town rose in the 19th century, the old hamlet was gradually absorbed and rebuilt, surviving today only in the historic houses of Marine Parade and in old prints. Away to the west, the fishing hamlet at Holywell met a more abrupt end, cleared away in the 1890s to protect the springs that supplied the town’s water. Between them, these two lost communities book-end the seafront — the Eastbourne that existed before “Eastbourne”.
Lost pleasure palaces
The Victorian resort built lavishly for fun — and not all of it survived. Grandest of the losses were the Devonshire Baths of 1874, financed by the 7th Duke and in their day the largest heated salt-water baths in the country. Generations of Eastbourne children learned to swim there (nearly all of them, memory insists, in freezing water); the baths closed in the 1990s and were demolished in June 1999. Nearby stood the Indian Pavilion of 1891, an exotic confection in Devonshire Park that hosted concerts and exhibitions for seventy years before being taken down in 1963 to make way for the Congress Theatre. Happily their sibling survived: the Winter Garden of 1875–76, with its innovative zinc-clad iron roof, still stands and is Grade II listed.
Did you know? Even the railway has its ghosts: Eastbourne’s first station of 1849 was a simple timber building, its 1866 successor was replaced in turn by the present 1886 station — and the great seven-track engine shed of 1911 was wrecked by wartime bombing and never rebuilt. Read more in our railway history.
The lost churches
Eastbourne’s forest of Victorian spires has thinned over the decades. The saddest case is St Peter’s Church in Meads, a handsome stone Gothic Revival church demolished in 1971 — in the very same year it was granted listed status, a race the bulldozers won. Pevensey Road Congregational Church and others followed over the years, and as recently as 2019 the Upperton church was taken down. More than seventy places of worship have been lost across East Sussex, and Eastbourne has contributed its share — a reminder that even a conservation-minded town keeps changing.
What the bombs took
The single greatest destroyer of old Eastbourne was the Luftwaffe. As the most-raided town on the south east coast, Eastbourne lost shops, churches, schools and hundreds of homes — among them the town-centre Marks & Spencer, St John’s Church in Meads, and Caffyn’s garage on Seaside, whose destruction in a 1943 raid nearly took the neighbouring Royal Hippodrome theatre with it. The full story of those years — and the 180-plus civilians who died — is told in our guide to Eastbourne in the Second World War. One post-war memorial to the loss has itself been lost: the Wish Tower Sun Lounge café, built beside the Western Lawns with funds from bookseller Gilbert Foyle in memory of the civilian dead, fell into disrepair and was demolished in the early 2010s.
Losses — and survivals
Set against all this, the remarkable thing is how much Eastbourne has kept. Thanks to the Devonshire estate’s careful stewardship and more than 130 listed buildings, the town retains its Victorian seafront, its theatres, its great hotels and its historic Old Town largely intact — while lost treasures live on in photographs, memories and the town’s archives. To explore what survives, start with our guide to the most historic places to visit in Eastbourne.
Good to know: Old photographs of many of these lost buildings survive in local archives and collections — the Devonshire Baths and Indian Pavilion were much photographed in their heyday, and they regularly feature in local nostalgia features.
Lost Eastbourne: FAQs
What happened to the Devonshire Baths?
Built in 1874 as the largest heated salt-water baths in the country, they closed in the 1990s and were demolished in June 1999 — though they live on vividly in the memories of everyone who learned to swim there.
What was the Indian Pavilion in Eastbourne?
An exotic entertainment pavilion built in Devonshire Park in 1891. It was demolished in 1963 to make way for the Congress Theatre, which stands on the site today.
Did Eastbourne lose many buildings in WWII?
Yes — as the most-raided town in the South East, it lost shops, churches, schools and hundreds of homes to bombing, including the town-centre Marks & Spencer and St John’s Church in Meads.
Why has so much of Eastbourne survived?
Largely thanks to the Devonshire estate’s long control over development and the town’s 130-plus listed buildings, which have protected the Victorian seafront, theatres and Old Town from the wholesale redevelopment other resorts suffered.
Explore what remains: the most historic places in Eastbourne, the story of Devonshire Park, and Eastbourne in World War Two.