Hastings

Hastings is famous for a battle fought up the road in a town that had to call itself Battle so anyone would remember. It tried to build a proper harbour under Elizabeth I and again under Victoria, and the sea took the first while the money ran out on the second, so the fishing boats still get hauled up the shingle like it's the Middle Ages. The pier closed, burned down, came back and won an architecture prize, which is roughly how the whole town handles a setback. Anyone who wants a finished seaside town should keep driving, because Hastings has never been finished and stopped apologising for it centuries ago.