There Is Nothing Like A Beach Hut

If Brits had been in charge of writing the Declaration of Independence, their unalienable rights would have read: ”Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness and a Beach Hut.” I’m pretty sure. Because they love beach huts. What are beach huts? Well, beach huts are basically wooden sheds, located, as their name suggests, on a beach. All along the coasts of England, you will find beach huts. Not every coast, no, but most. In fact, were you an invading army, there would be no need for Brits to lay down tank traps, no enemy would get past the rows of beach huts.

Americans do not understand the concept of beach huts. At least this one doesn’t. She finds it, what’s the word? Bonkers.

Okay let’s get critical for a minute. If I lived an hour away from the coast, in Bury St. Edmunds or somewhere inland and fancied a day trip to the beach, I can see how having a beach hut in which to store stuff might be useful. Maybe. But here in the village? A five minute walk from the sea? I don’t get it.

The worst is, if you own a beach hut, you have to talk about it a lot. For example, any plans to go read the Sunday papers or take an ice cream down to eat at the hut need to be announced; you have to invite non-hut-owners to stop by for an instant coffee made on some sort of bottled gas burner that takes forever to light; and if anyone is expecting friends from London or abroad for the weekend, you have to cry out: “Use my beach hut!” as if it’s a Top Suffolk Tourist Attraction and a no-brainer.

A standard wooden beach hut measures 6 foot X 6 foot to 8 X 12. They can be bigger but only slightly, the size depends on the rules of the local council. The huts come with ridged roofs, sometimes a window or two (often shuttered and caged ie burglar-proof), and a door which locks and unlocks by means of a complicated configuration of hasps and iron bars, keys and padlocks, around which plastic bags are wired to keep the salt air from screwing up the hardware. It takes six years to open up a beach hut. More if the key has rusted (or is the wrong one).

The door or double doors swing open towards you, then need to be latched open with giant hooks and eyes so the wind doesn’t slam them back onto you. You either enter via a plank or stone or something rustic and unstable, or get the kind that has a little covered porch or “veranda” at the front, where you can sit and chat and watch the world of instant coffee drinkers go by. Depending on regulations, huts can be a few feet away from one another or almost touching, so you could, should you choose, sit on your own veranda and hold hands with a person on the one next to it. But only if you set down your coffee first.

The village huts are all painted black like traditional Suffolk fishermen’s shacks, but others, say the ones over the river in Southwold are painted in bright colours. You can use one solid colour or a contrasting shade for the trim or even alternate colours on the clapboards for a candy cane effect.

Huts have to be named and that acts as your address ie “Come down the steps, turn right, we’re fifteen along after the cafe, blue with yellow shutters. ‘Sunny Hunny.’” Other cute names are The Dolls House. High C’eas. Jagger the Hut. Sea-Rene. Clo-Jac. Or you can go the descriptive route with say, Beachside Bliss, Pearl By The Sea. Sand Dune Delight. You paint its name on a board and nail the board to the hut.

Beach huts can be rented or bought, which brings me to the really excellent news.

The ones in Southwold sell for between £75,000 ($100,911) and £250,000 ($336,371) but if you want to spend more for a shed that has no running water, no electricity, no insulation, head for a place called Mudeford down in Dorset where a beach hut recently changed hands for £575,000 ($773,654.).

The reason I know as much as I do about beach huts is because five years ago, my friend Jan gave me a key to her newly-acquired beach hut as a birthday present. I keep thinking I need to use it, since I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but so far have not used it because I don’t know what I’m going to do there besides try to get it unlocked.

“But,” Jan asks, “ where do you change in and out of your swimming costumes (bathing suits) in America?”

“We wear them under our shorts and T-Shirts and put a towel down driving home if we’re still damp.”

“But where do you make cups of tea?!”

“We don’t drink cups of tea at the beach.”

“Well then,” she says, “answer me this: where do you go in bad weather???”

I said we stayed home.

Still, it is kind of a nice key.