Beach huts are big business: why these sought-after coastal retreats can now cost more than the average UK home

A beach hut is the ultimate in retro chic and can bring in enough rent to pay for your own holiday.
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Arabella Youens19 August 2019

Covered in metal sea defences ready for a German invasion, the Mudeford sandbank in Christchurch, Dorset, was not a pretty sight during the Second World War.

Today though, this much-loved spit of sand boasts the most expensive beach huts in the country. One sold recently for more than £300,000 — well above the average UK property price of £229,431, according to figures from the Land Registry.

This is luxe beach hut living. The timber structures come with considered interior decor, which can include a fitted kitchen with hot water, plus a loo — so there’s no trekking to public beach facilities — and the possibility, in some cases, to sleep up to seven on mattresses, on a mezzanine level, no less.

These “residential huts” are particularly desirable and rare, with owners and renters able to stay overnight from March to October.

But rich or poor, the beach hut is a little charmer. These dolls houses of delight are a quintessential feature of the British seaside, alongside the melody chimes of ice cream vans, saucy postcards, fish and chips and Brighton rock.

They first made an appearance after the First World War when local families spontaneously began building them as places where they could change into bathing kit without having to do the beach towel wriggle, and above all, somewhere to have a nice cup of tea in comfort on a blustery day.

Londoners have always enjoyed escaping to beaches for a bucket and spade weekend with the children and the rows of candy-coloured beach huts add gaiety at Frinton-on-Sea in Essex, Whitstable in Kent, Brighton in East Sussex, Christchurch in Dorset, Lymington in Hampshire and perhaps most famously in Southwold, Suffolk.

Today, the beach hut concept has spawned businesses such as pop-up cafés and beach hut interior design consultancies, among others.

Design ambitions have grown, too: Eastbourne council commissioned the architect Jacob Low of Acton-based JaK Studio to build a beach hut that rotates on a turntable so that renters can follow the sun.

Hotels such as The Cary Arms in Devon and the St Moritz Hotel in Cornwall’s trendy Polzeath have one-bedroom huts as extensions of the hotel which can be used as “day rooms”, for cocktails, or for stargazing.

Prices are rocketing

Prices for beach huts began to rise in the Seventies when, depending on location, you could expect to pay £10,000 for a decent one. In the Eighties that figure rose to £25,000 and by the Noughties, prices were rocketing.

A hut at the coveted southern end of Southwold’s famous pier will now cost up to £150,000 and sometimes more, says Richard Brown of Suffolk estate agents Flick & Son. So prized are they, only one a year might come up for sale, even though you can’t stay overnight in them.

“The last hut we sold south of the pier had 11 offers,” says Florence Bond of Durrants in Southwold. “In the distant past they cost only a few hundred pounds.”

Pay to stay

As with any property, a beach hut’s value is largely based on location.

Research by the online lettings platform Howsy shows that in Mudeford, on the south coast in Dorset, the average cost of renting a hut is £3,816 a month during the summer peak, which is equivalent to the price of renting a small upmarket flat in Chelsea or

Knightsbridge.

Elsewhere, rents are typically £1,500 a month in the best locations on the south and east coasts, including Whitstable, and Sandbanks and Bournemouth in Dorset.

That’s 42 per cent higher than the average rent for all properties in England, and higher than the average monthly rent for family homes in Ealing and Hounslow.

Express yourself: beach hut interiors lend themselves to individual styling
Alamy Stock Photo

A day at the beach

Frinton-on-Sea, Essex

How to get there: trains in 1hr 30mins from Liverpool Street (change at Thorpe-le-Soken)

Day hire: £50

Whitstable, Kent

How to get there: 1hr 20mins from Victoria

Day hire: £50

Brighton, East Sussex

How to get there: 1hr from Victoria

Day hire: £60

Christchurch, Dorset

How to get there: 1hr 45mins from Waterloo

Day hire: £150

Beach Huts for sale

Bright and basic: on the northern side of Southwold Pier in Suffolk, Beach Hut 73 is £69,995 (durrants.com).

Bells and whistles: Beach Hut 112 on Mudeford Spit in Dorset can sleep up to seven people and comes with a fitted kitchen and a loo. The price is £285,000 (denisons.com).

‘I like them so much I bought two’

Anna Davies owns and rents two beach huts at Dovercourt Bay.

Anna Davies sold up in London in 2011 after her husband died. She moved with her three young children to the cheaper coastal town of Harwich in Essex to buy a family home.

With some of the money left over she bought a beach hut at Dovercourt Bay.

"This way we would benefit from the money and should the worst happen I could always sell it, she says.

Anna used a selection of colourful bargain basement cotton fabrics to give it a makeover with a jolly, Cath Kidston-style look — and promptly won an award for best-designed beach hut.

She began to rent the hut to day trippers, charging £40 per day in high season. She now owns and rents out two huts.

When the season is over they are where I go to escape, to get peace and quiet. They are full of all my art, they are all my own hard work, they are my story.

In Mudeford in Dorset, local agent Denisons is marketing a hut for £285,000 and agent Andy Denison says he has a long waiting list of buyers.

Should one of their favourites come up, even in winter, bidding is strong. These huts are always in demand.