An Englishman's hut is his castle

From preservers of British modesty to kitsch and unloved relics, our nation’s beach huts are back in vogue.

- Patrick Galbraith

BEYOND the newly painted windows, down on the golden sand at Wells-next-the-Sea, a poodle cross chases the shadow of a seagull. The dog’s owners—a young couple in Wellington boots—help their crying toddler to untangle his kite. It’s a blustery morning in north Norfolk, one of those days when a walk seems like a fine idea before you set off and feels like an achievement when you're back, but is teeth-chattering when you’re actually outside, with conversations lost on the wind.

Beach huts, such as the refurbished one in which I’m drinking tea, were born out of 18th-century prudishness and have since become a cherished part of our coastal heritage. Over the past decade, as our nostalgic romance with seaside kitsch has blossomed, their popularity and prices have soared,but, at the heart of it, the beach hut remains a steadfastly salty place to seek tranquillity, change into your trunks and eat sandwiches sans sand.

Until about 150 years ago, bathing wasn’t something one did ordinarily for fun but was prescribed as a remedy for everything from fever to psychosis. In 1788, George III’s doctor, John Crane, who wrote the seminal book Cursory Observations on Sea-bathing, suggested that the ailing monarch should spend time convalescing in Weymouth, Dorset. Fanny Burney, the English lady of letters, records that, on one occasion, a band ‘concealed in a neighbouring machine’ struck up a verse of God Save Great George our King when the monarch ‘popped his Royal head underwater’.