The quintessential British seaside resort that’s every bit as good as Margate

Twelve years ago I was so in love with Deal, which is just eight miles from the white cliffs of Dover on the Kent coast, that I wrote letters to the owners of about twenty houses along the coast asking if they would consider selling. The result of my forward thinking was the purchase of a fixer upper circa 1770, a decision we have never regretted. When I first rented a cottage a few years earlier in 2008 (after a hasty Google search for "sea view cottage, two hours from London"), "Where on earth is Deal?" was the question I ...