APRIL 2026 · PATINA
Hastings Beach - Fisherman Huts
Hastings, England
The net huts are what you come for. Thirty-nine tarred wooden towers on The Stade, the tallest reaching twelve metres, some of them here since the sixteenth century. The original constraint was the plot width — eight feet — which forced the structures upward. You needed height to hang your nets to dry. The plots haven't changed. The eight-foot constraint forced everything upward.
They are black. Not dark wood, not weathered timber, black from the coal tar applied and reapplied across centuries of maintenance. Up close the cladding shows the grain of the boards through the tar. Three of them together: stepped rooflines, overcast sky, the proportions wrong compared to any other building you've seen today.
I photographed the gaps between them as much as the huts themselves. A narrow gap between two huts frames boat RX37 on the shingle beyond. The gap between a hut and the beach frames a blue hull and a yellow one with a dinghy in the foreground. These compressed views are what the long focal length and the tight spacing produce — the huts become a series of frames within frames, the beach glimpsed rather than presented.
Not dark wood, not weathered timber — black from the coal tar applied and reapplied across centuries.
Hastings Beach — April 2026
Behind the huts, in the muddy yard on the landward side, the working clutter takes over. An orange gas cylinder beside fishing gear. Stacked lobster pots. A moss-covered breeze-block wall leading toward a passage and a red boat hull. Bent net frames, broken plastic containers, old boat sections. A cluttered derelict yard with a Union Jack flying from somewhere above the working sheds.
The mackerel mural on one of the black sheds — a large painted fish on the cladding, the Union Jack visible on the beach behind. The mural is good. It's been there long enough to weather.
A faded boat hull with red abstract marks and graffiti lettering, wild rocket growing around the base of it. The hull on wooden runners, the rocket self-seeded. The most specific thing in the series, and the most accidental.
Green-gunwaled wooden rowing boat with fishing net on Hastings shingle, flanked by black tarred net huts
Three tall black-tarred net huts on The Stade, Hastings, stepped rooflines under an overcast sky
Close composition of black-tarred timber cladding with tall net huts receding behind, Hastings Stade
Hastings net huts and working yard with Union Jack flying, ladder and timber debris, The Stade
Muddy working yard on Hastings Stade, orange gas cylinder and fishing gear, boats on the shingle beyond
Narrow gap between black net huts looking out to Hastings beach and fishing boat RX37 on the shingle
Large mackerel mural painted on a black-clad fishing shed, scattered timber and equipment, Hastings Stade
Peeling pale blue boat hull on wooden runners beside stacked lobster pots and an orange fish crate, Hastings
Faded painted boat hull with red abstract marks and graffiti lettering, wild rocket growing around the base, Hastings
Narrow alley between Hastings fishing sheds piled with lobster pots, blue tarps and coloured fish crates
Gap between Hastings net hut and the shingle beach, fishing boats RX142 and a yellow hull, dinghy in foreground
Moss-covered breeze-block wall and passage leading to stacked fish crates and a red boat hull, Hastings
Muddy working yard behind the Hastings net huts, lobster pots and coloured bins, sea visible in the gap beyond
Cluttered derelict yard on Hastings Stade, bent net frames, broken plastic containers and old boat sections
Mackerel mural on a black Hastings net shed, fishing boat RX142 and Union Jack visible on the beach beyond
Overgrown Hastings fishing yard, weathered blue boat, stacked lobster pots and orange signal flag flying
Stacked labelled fish crates and a blue barrel beside a broken window in a black Hastings net shed