Hastings Old Town pub rises from the ashes to celebrate 10 years since re-opening.

Before 2014, the Crown had remained closed for a period and there were fears that it would never re-open as a pub again.

But it was reopened by Tess and Andrew Swan in July 2014, as an independent, family run freehouse. It has won a number of prestigious national awards since then

The Crown was voted as the best place to drink in the UK by The Guardian newspaper and named as the Parliamentary Pub of the Year for the South East.

It has featured in many publications including Time Out, GQ, The Times, The Guardian and The Telegraph. It continues to be listed in Harden’s, The Good Food Guide, CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide and Sawdays Good Pub Guide.

The Crown is known for its menu which is based strongly on locally sourced food using ingredients from our local fishing fleet, farms and producers. There is a strong emphasis on seasonal food and the menu often features Pevensey Blue cheese, made with organic milk from cows that graze the Pevensey Levels. There are plenty of vegan and vegetarian options on the menu.

Bread is made by award winning baker Emmanuel Hadjiandreou, who has published books on how to make sourdough bread. The Crown even holds an annual bread making competition with loaves judged by Emmanuel.

The pub is also popular with beer lovers, offering a wide range of cask and craft beers from local Kent and Sussex breweries as well as having lagers and wheat beers delivered from Germany from breweries in the Black Forest.

It has a carefully curated wine list, including English wines, and a specialist gin and whisky selection. Soft drinks include local sparkling juices, kombucha and cloudy apple juice. The Crown is open every morning from 11am offering coffee from Hastings based Roar Gill roastery or a loose leaf tea from Proper Tea Co along the coast in Pett.

The Crown is dog friendly and welcomes children, providing colouring sheets and a cupboard of toys, books and activities. It often holds seasonal activities for children, such as pumpkin carving.

The pub has a strong community focus and is known for throwing itself wholeheartedly behind local events. Recently the bar was dressed up as a ship, complete with mast and sails for Pirate Day and it is always decked out in greenery for the Jack in the Green celebrations in May.

The Crown has always supported local artists, with exhibitions of work, available to buy changing every month.

Regulars, many of who have been using the pub since the day it re-opened, joined Andrew Tess and the staff recently for a celebratory drink and some birthday cake – made, naturally by the pub’s talented kitchen team.

There was a Crown Inn in Hastings by Tudor times and it was established on the present site by the eighteenth century. The crown was rebuilt in its present smaller style in the 1920s.

A former landlord of the Crown, Alexander James Littlejohn, was a survivor of the Titanic, who escaped from the disaster in a Number 13 lifeboat.

It was in this boat that the youngest passenger aboard, nine weeks old Millvina Dean was rescued. She became the longest surviving passenger and died in 2009, aged 97.

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