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The southeast corner of England was traditionally where London went on holiday. In the past, trainloads of Eastenders were shuttled to the hop fields and orchards of Kent for a working break from the city; boats ferried people down the Thames to the beach at Margate; and everyone from royalty to cuckolding couples enjoyed the seaside at Brighton, a blot of decadence in the otherwise sedate county of Sussex . Of the three, Surrey is the least pastoral and historically significant - the home of wealthy metropolitan professionals prepared to commute from what has become known as the "stockbroker belt". The late twentieth century brought big changes to the southeast region. In purely administrative terms the three counties have become four, since local government reorganization split Sussex into East and West. More significantly, many of the coastal towns have faced an uphill struggle to keep their tourist custom in the face of evermore accessible foreign destinations. To make matters worse, Brighton , long known as "London beside the sea", now matches the capital with one of the highest proportions of homeless people in the country. The proximity of Kent and Sussex to the continent has dictated the history of this region, which has served as a gateway for an array of invaders, both rapacious and benign. Roman remains dot the landscape - the most spectacular are at Bignor , near Arundel - and many roads, including the London-to-Dover A2, follow the straight lines laid by the legionaries. When post-Roman Christianity spread through Europe, it arrived in Britain on the Isle of Thanet - the northeast tip of Kent, although older orders already existed among the Celts in the north and west of the country. In 597 AD Augustine moved inland and established a monastery at Canterbury , still the home of the Church of England and the county's prime historic attraction. (Surprisingly, Sussex was among the last counties to accept the Cross - due more to the region's then impenetrable forest than to its innate ungodliness.) The last successful invasion of England took place in 1066, when the Normans overran King Harold's army near Hastings , on a site now marked by Battle Abbey . The Normans left their mark all over this corner of England and Kent remains unmatched in its profusion of medieval castles, among them Dover 's sprawling cliff-top fortress guarding against continental invasion and Rochester 's huge, box-like citadel, close to the old dockyards of Chatham , power base of the formerly invincible British Navy. Away from the great historic sites, you can spend unhurried days in elegant old towns such as Rye, Royal Tunbridge Wells and Lewes , or enjoy the less elevated charms of the traditional resorts, of which Brighton is far and away the best, combining the buzz of a university town with a good time atmosphere and an excellent range of eating options. Dramatic scenery may be in short supply, but in places the South Downs Way offers an expanse of rolling chalk uplands that, as much as anywhere in the crowded southeast, gets you away from it all. And of course Surrey, Kent and Sussex harbour some of the country's finest gardens , ranging from the lush flowerbeds of Sissinghurst to the great landscaped estates of Petworth and Sheffield Park .
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