May festivals

Hastings holds the annual Jack in the Green Festival over the May Day (3rd-6th) weekend. This is a joyful event with Morris dancing, music and fantastical costumes. See the programme below, and find out more here.

There is also the Charleston Festival, held annually in May (16th-27th this year) at Vanessa & Clive Bell's house at the foot of the South Downs. Vanessa was Virginia Woolf's sister, and Charleston farmhouse was a meeting place for artistic, literary and political figures of the time. Berwick Church (St Michael & All Angels church)  nearby has frescoes painted by Vanessa and her lover Duncan Grant, who also lived at Charleston.

Bexhill Horse & Dog show is on Monday 27th May, 9am-5pm at the Polegrove.