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tea With
mother
Cake hotspots
Where are some nice places to go on Mother’s
Day (Sun 18th)? It depends on the weather, obviously,
and the age of your kids, or your mother.
But an outing to a cosy tearoom, for excessive
amounts of delicious cake, works whatever the
weather.
Many places where you can go for a lovely walk
also have access to hot drinks and fine baked
goods. If it’s seaside air you’re after, mooch
along the dramatic monochrome of the beach
and rockpools at Birling Gap followed by a trip
to the National Trust café on the cliff, with its
amazing sea views (and, currently, pictures by
our soon-to-be cover artist, Keith Pettit).
East Dean is a charming village with a lovely
green in the middle. The Hiker’s Rest café
runs along one side, and the Tiger Inn, which
serves delicious food, runs along another. And if
you go for a family walk along the meandering
Cuckmere Haven, you can pop into the tearoom
tucked away in the Seven Sisters Visitor Centre
afterwards. Or, after a stroll around Stanmer
Park, you can head to the village tearoom for a
mug of tea and a toastie.
Newhaven Fort is a place that always makes me
thoughtful about mothers, in particular how
stressful a time war must have been for them,
with husbands and sons away, coping with air
raids, and their children being sent away as
evacuees. The Fort is a terrific, thoughtfully created
war museum, and it reopens on 1st March.
In keeping with this column’s tastebud-oriented
theme, it also hosts the NAAFI-like Searchlight
www.vivaLewes.CoM
MoTheR’s day
Café, with great slabs of cake.
For those who like taking tea in a more formal
setting, with waitresses in white pinnies, a proper
brew that requires a strainer and homemade
cakes on doilies, there is the wonderful Hove
Museum. They have a new exhibition opening
this month called My Favourite Toy (10th March
to 6th November, free entry).
Garden lovers might enjoy the early-spring
flowers in a formal garden. The National Trust’s
Sheffield Park Gardens are always a pleasure to
stroll around, looking at dramatic reflections
of the yet-to-leaf trees in the lakes. And mums
on Mother’s Day who book afternoon tea in the
refurbished Coach House Tearoom (£8.95pp,
01825 790231) get into the gardens free. Other
glorious gardens with cafés include Wakehurst
Place, Nyman’s and Borde Hill Gardens near
Haywards Heath, home to Café Elvira, next to
the delightful Jeremy’s restaurant.
Finally, if you’d rather stay local, here are some
thoughts. You might want to visit Spring Barn
Farm, and partake of the special Mother’s Day
menu in the restaurant (book on 488450), mums
then get half-price entry to the Farm Park.
In Lewes itself, you could try Mount Pleasant
Stores, whose lemon polenta cake is second to
none. Or, on the Saturday, you could buy a superb
Bakewell tart to eat at home on Mothering
Sunday from Laporte’s, or the most delicate and
pretty pastel coloured macaroons from Lewes
Patisserie (both closed Sundays).
Emma Chaplin
Photo by alex Leith
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