Two Sussex hotels named among UK’s best

The Guardian has chosen ten of the UK’s best new and revamped seaside hotels.

The list features Worthing’s Sleep eco hotel and Rottingdean's brand new The White Horses hotel, which is set to open next month.

In a million pound project, 37 Richmond Road in Worthing was revitalised to provide nine guest accommodation rooms with related facilities. The site – originally built as a grand wash house – has been returned to its 1910 civic stature.

Known as Sleep, the hotel combines a carbon neutral business providing tourism and employment whilst also ‘restoring and protecting’ the building for ‘many future generations’.

Worthing businessman, and the man behind the venture, Andy Sparsis said Sleep is a ‘groundbreaking concept’.

He added: “The establishment ushers in a modern hotel experience that puts guests in complete control of their stay.

"Bid farewell to the inconvenience of time-consuming check-ins and check-outs. Thanks to a seamless online platform, Sleep offers guests effortless room access through digital entrance door codes, ensuring they maximize their precious time and relish unparalleled freedom and flexibility throughout their stay.”

The hotel’s innovative approach has turned heads at The Guardian.

Writer Rachel Dixon noted: “Over the past century, this Edwardian redbrick building, a couple of blocks inland from Worthing beach, has been a washhouse, a library, a school and a vaccination centre.

"This is perhaps its most intriguing incarnation – a thoroughly modern, no-frills, sustainable hotel for the 21st century.

"The Sleep Eco Inn is all-electric, with a modern heating and cooling system that it calculates will save 12 tonnes of carbon a year. The nine stylish guest rooms have high ceilings, huge windows, comfy beds, and colourful throws and cushions, but traditional hotel facilities are stripped back – there’s keyless self-check-in, a vending machine for hot drinks (no breakfast), a 24/7 digital concierge service – and actual humans a phone call away.

"Doubles from £78 room-only, sleepecohotel.co.uk.”

The first hotel to open from the exclusive Everly Hotels Collection, The White Horses is a new premium hotel situated on the East Sussex coastline, which is set to transform the Rottingdean seafront with beautifully appointed accommodation and dining filled with local influences.

The Guardian was impressed after a look behind the scenes at the new hotel.

The article read: “There’s nothing between you and the sea views at this new boutique hotel overlooking the pebble beach at Rottingdean.

"A huge revamp has given the tired 1930s building a new lease of life, with 32 elegant bedrooms and a sea view terrace restaurant serving crowd-pleasers such as baked Sussex camembert, seafood chowder, fish and chips and roast lamb rump, accompanied by craft ales and wines from local vineyards.

"Backed by white cliffs and rolling downland, the genteel seaside village of Rottingdean is famous for its hilltop windmill and as the former home of novelist Rudyard Kipling, who wrote some of his Just So stories while living here with his family. And if that all sounds too sedate, Brighton Marina is just a couple of miles away, via the famous Undercliff Walk.

"Doubles from £100 room-only, bookable from July, thewhitehorseshotel-rottingdean.co.uk.”