Stuccoed Victorian terraces run along a clifftop promenade above gardens that drop through wooded slopes to the harbour and the beach.
What South Cliff looks like
The Esplanade runs along the clifftop in a continuous line of stuccoed Victorian terraces and hotels, three and four storeys with rusticated ground floors under slate roofs. Cast iron verandahs and balconies run along several fronts, and iron railings and gates close off the front gardens behind them.
has a five storey square tower with a pyramid slate roof on its south corner, taller than the stucco terraces either side of it. The forms part of the Wessex Court terrace, its front rendered in the same pale stucco as the houses beside it. The is a stuccoed four storey terrace, eighteen bays long under one roofline.
Below the clifftop terraces, drop through wooded slopes toward the harbour and the beach. The runs down through them on twin tracks, a funicular car linking the clifftop promenade to the Spa at the foot of the cliff. Paths wind down through clipped lawns and mature trees past formal flowerbeds and stone balustrades.
sits apart from the terraces near the south end of the Esplanade, a red brick house set back in its own grounds, with half octagonal corner turrets under copper domed roofs. Gothic revival churches with slate spires and clock towers break the run of stucco where side streets meet the promenade.
Shot in South Cliff
A detached house on the Esplanade played St Aidan's Royal Free Hospital for the whole run of the ITV series The Royal. The production dressed its frontage with false telephone kiosks and hospital signage, added period vehicles outside and covered the modern road markings. Little Voice sent its lead character driving up the Esplanade with South Bay in view, and shot a fundraising scene at the Spa Suncourt below the cliff.
The Royal
Red Court, on the Esplanade. The production dressed the real house as a fictional hospital for eight series without altering the building itself.
The Royal, 2003 to 2011
Red Court
Played St Aidan's Royal Free Hospital, 1960s
Red Court played St Aidan's Royal Free Hospital for the whole run of the series. Production dressed the building with false telephone kiosks, hospital signage and period vehicles and covered the modern road markings outside it. It has never been a working hospital.
Little Voice, 1998
Ray drives his Oldsmobile up the Esplanade with South Bay to the right, Castle Hill rising beyond and the Grand Hotel standing to the left. The same production also shot a fundraising scene at the Spa Suncourt, at the foot of the cliff below.
What South Cliff can double for
The Leas in Folkestone, Kent
The Leas is a clifftop promenade lined with hotels above a funicular to the beach, in matching Victorian and Edwardian stucco and brick. Grand hotels bookend the promenade there the way they do on the Esplanade. The chalk cliff below the Leas is paler and the drop is steeper than South Cliff's, so a low establishing shot gives the difference away. Try searching clifftop promenade hotels now.
Sussex Square and Lewes Crescent sit on the same kind of clifftop above the sea, their stucco terraces built as one unified facade between 1823 and 1855. The scale is much larger than South Cliff's, a continuous crescent rather than short runs of terrace. Kemp Town's crescent curves where the Esplanade runs straight, so a wide establishing shot needs care to avoid the giveaway curve. Try searching stucco clifftop crescent now.
St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex
St Leonards' terraces are pastel stucco, Regency work of the 1820s and 1830s. They sit on a wooded slope down to the sea, the same wooded drop South Cliff's gardens make to the harbour. St Leonards sits closer to sea level than South Cliff's clifftop, so a shot that includes the horizon gives away the flatter approach to the water. Try searching pastel stucco terraces now.
