The Gallivant

The Gallivant Hotel has just had its busiest weekend on the Monday we arrive, thanks to a quirk of the weather. It’s suddenly sunny: the first breaths of spring after the seemingly never-ending winter. People blink at each other behind scarves as they pass on the adjacent three-mile stretch of golden beach, shaking off the winter torpor.

Camber, home of said sands, is tiny: a Pontins holiday resort, some caravan parks, and a few rows of modest houses all facing out towards the sea. The Gallivant is tucked around the bend as you approach from Rye. What long ago was a motel has been utterly transformed into the luxe beachfront stay you find today: the squat cluster of low-rise rooms – wooden exterior bleached by the sea – are the only remaining hints of its past.

All the action at the Gallivant takes place in its elegant lounge. A roaring fireplace in a central chimney is surrounded by velvet armchairs and sheepskin throws. The light filters through linen blinds in an adjacent games room, with quizzes and chess boards, and big bookcases filled with faded cookery and travel books.

Bring your furry friends: the dog treats are plentiful and dog beds are on hand. We may be only aspiring dog-owners, but Mr Smith and I enjoyed the dog-watching in the lounge, not least the Jack Russell who was a wicked hand at chequers.

By this time it’s early evening and we’re thirsty from the drive. A passing barman seems overjoyed to take a break from restocking bottles at the bar to make us martinis. He tells stories about the gin, made by Chapel Down distillery in nearby Kent, while misting the glass with a twist, and seems genuinely sad to go back to the bottles. The rest of the drinks menu is local and seasonal, featuring gin and tonics, pear bellinis, and English fizz in champagne saucers, but I bet they’d find a way to make you anything you wanted.

Dinner is served in a restaurant with only a handful of tables, surrounded by lush indoor plants. The Gallivant has won awards for its local sourcing and the presentation is unfussy; a starter of smoked salmon is accompanied by a wedge of lemon and a little homemade horseradish, while the pan-roasted cod sits on a toasted almonds and purple broccoli, with soft buttered potatoes on the side.

Dessert is simple and satisfying. The salted caramel tart comes with a scoop of yoghurt sorbet from nearby Northiam dairy and the poached rhubarb comes from Kent. Our fellow diners are couples escaping from the city, babymooners and relaxed country types. We catch drifts of their chatter over the eternal muzak: a single track of inoffensive dinner party jazz that morphs into Balearic chillout by breakfast.

After dinner we crave entertainment. Luckily there are no rules against taking your booze away from the bar. In summer the Gallivant makes up picnic hampers on request, or supplies a chilled bottle for sundowners in the dunes. The days might be brighter, but it’s still winter outside, so we take our beers to the room and make use of the bathtub, with its Bramley bath wash, and stretch out on the bed across oceans of duvet. You can’t see the beach from the hotel – a mountain of sand is in the way – but crack a window and you can hear the waves crashing at night.

The Gallivant has a menu of spa treatments available, but the staff don’t always respond to emails, so call ahead if you want to indulge as the slots do get booked up. We spend our days exploring the area, including nearby Dungeness: Britain’s only desert. It’s where the film director Derek Jarman saw out his last days in a black wooden cottage surrounded by a garden of poppies, valerian and plants native to the shingle. The Dungeness estate traditionally restricts building on the pebble dunes to the size of previous houses. Architects, revelling in these limitations, have furnished the landscape with rubber-covered residences and glass fronted huts. One, ‘the experimental station’, has been refurbished from old government buildings into little dwellings. It looks like it belongs on the moon.

Returning to the Gallivant, we’re encouraged to come to the lounge for complimentary tea and cake – a daily event. Cafetieres, a handsome ceramic teapot and plates of fudgy brownies and pale almond cakes weigh down a trestle table. For an hour, we warm up after a day exploring the windswept countryside, before retreating to the room to relax before dinner. Teatime seems to epitomise this place: homely and understated, bringing guests together for a moment in the day to smile at one another in agreement. This must surely be one of the best hideouts on the Sussex coast.