Hastings Old Town market is a small stallholder market tucked among the timber-framed shops and net huts near the seafront, small enough to walk in ten minutes flat. Go early, around half nine, and you'll catch the stallholders still setting up and happy to chat about what they've brought, before the crowds properly arrive.
I went with just a tote bag, the right shoes and no particular rush.
Hastings Old Town market runs most Saturdays through the summer, tucked in among the timber-framed shops and the net huts down toward the seafront. It's not big. You could walk the whole thing in ten minutes if you wanted to. I never do. Ended up staying three hours.
The first thing that caught my eye was a stack of mismatched plates on a table near the entrance. Different patterns, different eras, clearly not a set. The stallholder said they'd come from three separate house clearances. Somehow they work together anyway. Sometimes the things that don't match on paper look right the moment they're next to each other.
Further along there was a box of paperbacks, 50p each or three for a pound, and I found one I'd been meaning to read for about two years. Then, right near the end, a candle stall with a scent I can only describe as "someone's kitchen on a Sunday." I bought it without really thinking about it. That's usually how the best finds happen. Not researched, not planned. Just there, at the right moment.
None of this cost much. The plates were under a fiver. The candle was three pounds. That's sort of the whole point of coming here rather than somewhere with a car park and a loyalty card. Nobody's trying to sell you anything you don't actually want.
If you're planning your own visit, go early, bring cash (some stalls do cards, most would rather not), and don't rush the first ten minutes just because the market looks small from the entrance. It always has more in it than it looks like from the road.