My family and I used to enjoy walking along the breakwater to the lighthouse at the end on a Sunday afternoon and watching the fishermen. As a child I used to swim from the beach steps to the breakwater steps at high tide. Does anyone else have memories or photos of the beach area that you would like to add?

I regularly fished the Western side of the breakwater from the top of the arches. My memory also tells me I rode my bike out to the light house above the arches.
circa 1963
Can't even walk it it now!

I remember watching the daytrippers from London chase the water out when the ferry came in, only to see them get swept up and deposited further up the beach. We used to work our way along under the arches during a southwester, wait for the 'wump' sound, then it went dark, so we had to hop up hanging onto the columns as the waves washed around our feet before it drained over the side....how did we ever survive?

Hello every one I come from Germany and so I’ve never lived in this lovely old harbour town named Newhaven. My father in law, and the rest of his family, was born there, but this is a long long time ago. I visited Newhaven just 3 or 4 times but I love it. My husband naturally was more often in Newhaven to visit his family. It is about now nearly 30 years ago when he did a cycling tour with his bike from Germany to England. One of his major stops was naturally Newhaven. But this is not the main thing what I would like to say – on an earlier holiday my dear husband, at the age of 22 -23, visited his relatives in Newhaven. It was summer and so a part of his family went down to the beach (sandy beach). It was a very nice evening but one his female cousins got so on his nerves that he just wanted to disappear. So he told his cousin he would swim around the breakwaters – as he said, he did it. My husband was in the form of his live, marathon runner, extreme sportier, extreme cyclist and so on, (unfortunately there was no triathlon in those days that my husband knew). As he said he swam around the breakwaters with incoming tide, he started at the stony beach. To shorten up a long story he did it, as pictures show he was really bushed when he arrived at the sandy beach. Back home in Germany when he told [the story] to his parents and me, his father (a pure old fashioned English Gentleman) stood up and smacked my husband (we weren’t married then). Later he was more than sorry about his smack but in the end he was so proud of his son. So often he told us about this adventure.

Great story - I wonder how many other people have done this? Andy - Editor.