De La Warr Pavilion

The curved white walls of this 1930s modernist building rise unexpectedly from Bexhill's seafront like something from a design magazine that somehow made it into actual brick and steel. Built in 1935, the De La Warr Pavilion is proper architecture - the sort of thing that makes you stop and actually look at a building rather than just walk past it.

Inside, there's a theatre, galleries, and a cafe that looks out over the pebble beach. What you do here depends on what's on - exhibitions rotate through, so it could be contemporary art one month, photography the next. The architecture itself is the main draw for most visitors, though, and wandering around taking in the lines and the light through those big windows is genuinely absorbing. There's no charge to poke about the building and grab a coffee, though ticketed shows and exhibitions will cost you.

Families with older kids who won't groan at modernist design will find it interesting for an hour or so. Walkers heading along the Sussex coast should definitely detour here - it's right on the seafront path. Architecture enthusiasts will spend longer, genuinely soaking it in.

If you're based at one of the nearby parks - Park Holidays UK is barely a mile away, or Combe Haven just over two miles - it's an easy morning visit before the beach. Not a day-long thing, but a proper highlight of a coastal trip. Go when there's an exhibition on if possible; it gives you a reason to linger beyond the photography angle.