Hastings past and present with notices of the most remarkable places in the neighbourhood

[ - ]

HASTINGS , PAST AND PRESENT.

[ - ]

HASTINGS , PAST AND PRESENT :

WITH NOTICES OF THE MOST REMARKABLE PLACES

IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD :

AND AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING A LIST OF BOOKS RELATING TO THE DISTRICT,

AND OTHER SUPPLEMENTARY MATTER .

BY THE AUTHOR OF "A HANDBOOK TO HASTINGS AND ST. LEONARDS ;"

' BRAMPTON RECTORY ; " AND OTHER WORKS.

HASTINGS : WILLIAM DIPLOCK, ROYAL MARINE LIBRARY.

LONDON : JOHN RUSSELL SMITH, 36, SOHO-SQUARE.

1855.

[ - ]

[ v ]

PREFACE.

THE Handbook to Hastings and St. Leonards being out of print, it has been thought desirable to supply its place by a work which should more nearly combine the character of a local History with that of a Visitor's Guide ; and for this there are increased facilities in the publications relating to the neighbourhood which have appeared within the last few years. But besides the information which was to be gained from these sources, the writer has to acknowledge the assistance which has been derived from the kindness of friends , to whom it is felt that much of the original matter is to be assigned. The writer's thanks are due especially to the Rev. E. Marshall, of Oxford, who contributed the List of Books in the Appendix, and to whose opportunities of access to the Bodleian Library many of the most [ vi ]interesting particulars are owing. They are due also to the Rev. W. D. Macray, for reference to MSS. in the same library ; to the Rev. H. B. W. Churton, of Icklesham ; the Rev. J. H. Simpson, of Bexhill ; the Rev. J. M. Lukin, of Guestling ; the Rev. Burrell Hayley, of Catsfield , and other clergymen, for information respecting the churches with which they are severally connected ; also to Wm. Holloway, Esq. , of Rye, for an account of Playden Church ; to J. Underwood , Esq . , of Battle , Mr. F. Miller , late of Herstmonceux , and Mr. A. Ransom, of Hastings , for information respecting the plants of the district ; and to Mr. Tumanovicz, of Hastings, for lists of the algae , zoophytes, and fresh-water shells .

For the description of Brede and Northiam , the writer is chiefly indebted to a gentleman intimately acquainted with the history of those parishes. [ vii ]

TABLE OF CONTENTS .

CHAPTER I.
	Page
Situation of Hastings -Some Passages of its History	1-28
CHAPTER II.
The Castle - Internal Changes - Progress of the Town - St. Leonards	28-44
CHAPTER III.
Parishes, Churches, and ancient Ecclesiastical Establishments - Dissenting Chapels - Returns of the Census of Religious Worship	45-66
CHAPTER IV.
THE TOWN.
Public Buildings - Trade - Bathing - Internal Government - Schools - Literary Institutions - Population - Occupations of the Inhabitants	67-88

[ viii ]

TABLE OF CONTENTS .

	Page
CHAPTER V.
Remarkable Characters, Natives, Inhabitants, or Visitors of Hastings - Literary Notices	88-104
CHAPTER VI.
NEIGHBOURHOOD OF HASTINGS.
Ecclesbourne - Fairlight - Pett - Guestling - Old Roar - Hollington - Crowhurst	105-124
CHAPTER VII.
REMARKABLE PLACES NEAR HASTINGS.
Bulverhythe - Bexhill - Hooe - Pevensey - Herstmonceux - Ninfield - Ashburnham	124-158
CHAPTER VIII.
REMARKABLE PLACES NEAR HASTINGS, CONTINUED.
Battle, and some of the neighbouring villages - Etchingham	159-191
CHAPTER IX
REMARKABLE PLACES NEAR HASTINGS, CONTINUED.
Westfield - Brede - Northiam - Bodiam - Sedlescombe	192-216
CHAPTER X.
REMARKABLE PLACES NEAR HASTINGS, CONTINUED.
Winchelsea and Icklesham	217-247

[ ix ]

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XI.
	Page
REMARKABLE PLACES NEAR HASTINGS, CONCLUDED.
Rye and Playden	ix
Bexhill	x
Bodiam	ibid.
Brede	xi
Crowhurst	ibid.
Etchingham	ibid.
Fairlight	ibid.
Hove	ibid.
Herstmonceux	ibid.
Pevensey	xii
Playden	ibid.
Robertsbridge	xiii
Rye	ibid.
Sedlescombe	ibid.
Winchelsea	xiv

[ x ]

			Page
No. II. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES AND CORRECTIONS.
Note	1.	Mint of Hastings	xv
	2.	St. Valery	ibid.
	3.	Landing of William	xvii
	4.	Burial of the body of Harold	ibid.
		Correction, p. 22	xviii
	5.	Descent of Hastings Castle	ibid.
	6.	Harbour and Pier	xix
	7.	The Bourne	xx
	8.	The Town Wall	xxi
	9.	Situation of White Rock	ibid.
	10.	Road by White Rock, &c.	ibid.
	11.	Military State of Hastings	ibid.
	12.	White Rock-place	xxii
	13.	Churches formerly existing at Hastings	ibid.
	13.	Ruins of the Church of St. Andrew	xxiii
	14.	Deans of the College of St. Mary	ibid.
	15.	Remains of the Priory	xxv
	16.	Grant of Sir John Pelham	ibid.
	17.	Mechynge's Will	ibid.
	18.	Canopy borne at Coronation	xxvi
	19.	Cannon Balls fired on the town	xxviii
	20.	Rev. John Goodge Foyster	ibid.
	21.	Church of the Holy Trinity	ibid.
	22.	St. Mary Magdalene	ibid.
	23.	Parish of St. Leonard	xxx
	24.	Elm trees of the Avenue	ibid.
	25.	The East Well	ibid.
	26.	Changes in the Coast	ibid.
	27.	Increase of Population	ibid.
	28.	The Emperor of the French	xxxi
	29.	Distinguished Residents, &c.	xxxi
	30.	Literary Notice of Hastings	xxxi

[ xi ]

			Page
Note	31.	Song on Fairlight Glen	xxxiii
	32.	Font at Hollington.	ibid.
	33.	Wreck of the Amsterdam	ibid.
	34.	Richard de la Wych	ibid.
	35.	Bexhill Church Window	xxxiv
	36.	St. Mark's, Bexhill.	xxxv
	37.	Vicar of Hooe	ibid.
	38.	Pevensey Harbour	ibid.
	39.	Lady Pelham's Letter	ibid.
	40.	Prisoners of Pevensey	xxxvi
	41.	Signification of the word Hurst	xxxvii
	42.	Herstmonceux and Archdeacon Hare	xxxviii
	43.	Charles I. and Mr. Ashburnham	xl
	44.	Relics of Charles I	ibid.
	45.	Sussex Iron Works	xl
	46.	Edmund Cartwright	xliii
	47.	Battle and other Chantries	ibid.
	48.	John Wythine	ibid.
	49.	Scenery around Battle	xlv
	50.	Catsfield Place, &c.	xlvi
	51.	Mountfield Church	xlvii
	52.	Netherfield Church	ibid.
	53.	Cumb and Cwm	ibid.
	54.	The Rother	ibid.
	55.	Church of Rye Harbour	xlviii
	56.	Situation of Rye	xlviii
		Correction, p. 249	l
	57.	Queen Elizabeth's Visit	ibid.
		Correction, p. 255	ibid.
	58.	The Murder of Mr. Grebell	li
	59.	Endogenites erosa	ibid.
	60.	Corallines	ibid.
	61.	Zoophytes	liii
	62.	Turton's Land Shells}	ibid.
	63.	Marine Shells	ibid.

[ xii ]

			Page
	64.	Holt's Library	lvii
	65.	Hours of Service at St. Andrew's	ibid.
		Correction, p. 313	ibid.
	66.	Home for Invalid Gentlewomen	ibid.
	67.	Cemeteries	lix
	68.	List of Schools	lx
	69.	Royal Visit	ibid.
		Correction, p. 124	lxi
	70.	Bulverhythe	ibid.
	71.	Hollington Campanile	ibid.
	72.	Hooe	lxii
	73.	Memorial to Archdeacon Hare	ibid.
	74.	Documents relating to the Harbour, omitted in List of Books	ibid.
	75.	Other additions to the List of Books	lxiv

NOTE To the names of Marine Shells found at Hastings add the following :-

Syndosmya	alba.
	prismatica.
	Tellenidǽ
Mangelia	costata.
	turricula.
	Conidǽ.

[ 1 ]

HASTINGS - PAST AND PRESENT .

CHAPTER I.

By easy marches to the town he came,
Which from the Danish pirate takes its name,
First of those sister ports which since arose,
The nation's guard against invading foes,
When naval services, in ages past, Kings paid with honours which shall ever last.

— Hay's Mount Caburn, p. 16.

SITUATION OF HASTINGS .- SOME PASSAGES OF ITS HISTORY .

THE towns of Hastings and St. Leonards, once distinct, but now united by intermediate lines of building, so as to constitute, in fact, one large watering-place, are situated on the east coast of Sussex, in lat. 50 ° 51 N. , and long. 0 ° 34' E.

They are distant from London, as the crow flies, about fifty-four miles ; by the London, Brighton, and South-Coast Railway, about seventy-six ; by the London and South-Eastern, about seventy-four miles.

North and east of Hastings lie the high grounds of Fairlight, whilst St. Leonards has on its west the flats [ 2 ]of Bulverhythe, and both alike look southwards on the sea lying between Beachy Head and Dungeness.

Hastings is situated in the rape, to which it gives its name. It is in the diocese of Chichester, and the archdeaconry of Lewes. It is a municipal and parliamentary borough, and sends two Members to Parliament, and, as a Cinque Port, has certain liberties of its own.

" The general aspect of the country around Hastings, " says Dr. Mackness, " is undulatory ; the hills rise to considerable heights, but their sides slope so gradually as to deprive them of any very bold or striking effect, and hence the landscape is rather pleasing than grand or picturesque. The distance which the eye can traverse is often very great, when the observer is placed on the summit of one of the hills, and the scene is varied and interesting, woodland being mingled with tracts of arable land - and now a farmhouse, with its barns and hop-kilns- now a village, with its little church-enlivens the scene. Should the day be bright, with now and then a cloud intervening between sun and earth, the effect is much heightened by the shadows which flit across the declivities of the hills ; still the picture wants a more striking background to perfect its beauty.

" The valleys usually run from north to south, and are numerous, owing to the wavy character of the surface.

The country is drained by various small streams, the 'currents of which are slow, and hence arises one cause of  [ 3 ]the difficulty of obtaining good harbours on this part of the coast, the back-water being insufficient to keep the channels clear of shingle. Near the shore may be observed extensive tracts of level land, in which many of the valleys terminate. These flats have, doubtless , at some time been covered by the sea, which has either receded from them , or they themselves have been raised above it by successive deposits of alluvial matter brought down from the higher grounds. A good example of one of these flats is furnished by Pett Level, about four miles from Hastings, on the eastern side. "

The soil of Hastings is composed of immense beds of sand and sand-rock, with calciferous grit, and fuller's earth, slaty clay, and shale, with iron-ore.

On the eastern side, the high and precipitous cliffs, which extend for four miles eastward, to Cliff End, near Winchelsea, are broken by several valleys , in one of which lies the old town of Hastings, the germ of the present watering-place, the ancient Cinque Port, in whose neighbourhood England was lost and won.

The first time Hastings is mentioned in historical recordsis in a charter of Offa, who reigned from 755 to 794, by which Berhtwald, Duke of Sussex, settled on the Abbey of St. Denis, at Paris, the village of Rotherfield, and the havens of Pevensea and Hastings, with their [ 4 ]marshes, in acknowledgment of his recovery from sickness .

Towards the close of the next century, the south coast of England was repeatedly ravaged by the Danish Viking Hasting, who, " having," says Hume, " ravaged all the provinces of France, both along the sea- coast and the Loire and Seine, and being obliged to quit that country, more by the desolation which he himself had occasioned than by the resistance of the inhabitants, appeared off the coast of Kent with a fleet of 330 sail."

" In this year (893), " says the Saxon Chronicle, " the great army, about which we formerly spoke, came again from the eastern kingdom westward to Boulogne, and there was shipped , so that they came over in one passage, horses and all, and they came to land at Limnemouth with 250 ships. This port is in the eastern part of Kent, at the east end of the great wood which we call Andred ; the wood is in length, from east to west, 120 miles or longer, and thirty miles broad ; the river, of which we before spoke, flows out of the weald . On this river they towed up their ships as far as the weald, four miles from the outward harbour, and there stormed a fortress within the fortress a few churls were stationed, and it was in part only constructed . Then, soon after that Hasten, with eighty ships , landed at the mouth of the Thames, and wrought himself a fortress at Milton, and the other army did the like at Appledore. "

The name of the town of Hastings has often been derived from this Danish chief, on the supposition that it might have been the site of one of his temporary fortresses ; but this conjecture, in itself not very probable, is overthrown by the mention of the name in Offa's charter, a century prior to the appearance of Hasting. [ 5 ]

MINT OF HASTINGS.

Amongst Offa's exploits, are mentioned attacks on the Hestingi ; and it has been supposed that these were natives of Hastings. Mr. Durrant Cooper, however, seems to be of opinion that there was a Danish settlement at Hastings, and that it was the only one in Sussex.

The importance of Hastings under the Saxon rule is proved by the fact of its possessing a mint. This was the case from the reign of Athelstan down to the reign of William Rufus. The name of Hastings , in every variety of spelling, occurs on coins of the reigns of Canute, Edward the Confessor, Harold, William the Conqueror, and William Rufus. A considerable number of Anglo-Saxon silver pennies were discovered in 1843 at Alfriston, by Mr. Charles Ade, a member of the Sussex Archǽological Society. Several of these were struck at Hastings by a moneyer named Bridd ; amongst them one very rare coin of Harthenute (Hardicanute).

By whom and at what time the Castle was erected, seems a point involved in obscurity. In the Chronicles of the Dovor Monastery, printed by Leland occurs this passage, " When Arviragus threw off the Roman yoke, it is likely he fortified those places which were most convenient for their invasion, viz. , Richborough, Walmer, Dovor, and Hasting. "

The whole of the south-east coast of England shared in the vicissitudes of the family of Godwin, the powerful and patriotic Earl of Wessex. Many manors in Sussex were held by him, or by his son Harold . Sweyn, the eldest son of Godwin, had been banished by the King for the crime of seducing the Abbess of Leominster. In 1049 he returned, professing submission to Edward. He requested assistance from his cousin Beorn, but being refused, retired to Bosham, whither he afterwards inveigled Beorn, and murdered him. " Then the King and all the army proclaimed Sweyn an outlaw. . . . A little [ 6 ]before this the men of Hastings and thereabouts fought his two ships with their ships, and slew all the men, and brought the ships to Sandwich to the King. Eight ships had he ere he betrayed Beorn, afterwards they all forsook him except two. " He seems then to have taken refuge at Bruges, with Baldwin, Earl of Flanders.

" In the summer of 1052, Godwin, who had been exiled from the kingdom by the influence of King Edward's Norman favourites, set out from Bruges with several vessels , and landed on the coast of Kent. He sent secret messengers to the Saxon garrison of the port of Hastings, in Suthsex (or, by euphony, Sussex). Other emissaries spread themselves north and south. On their solicitations numbers of men fit to bear arms bound themselves by oath to the cause of the exiled chiefs, all vowing to live and die with them. "

Godwin," says the Saxon chronicle, " enticed to him all the men of Kent, and all the butse karls " (crews of the busses, or transports), " from Hastings, and everywhere there by all the sea- coast and all the east end, and Sussex, and Surrey, and much else in addition thereto. Then all declared that they would with him live and die. "

Had not the fleet of Harold been dismissed a fortnight before the Norman invasion, it is not probable, from the attachment of the inhabitants of the coast to his family, that the landing of William would have been so quietly effected .

The mention of the ships and port of Hastings reminds us that, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, Hastings, with Dovor, Sandwich, Hythe, and Romney, was incorporated into the league of the Cinque Ports. The service which Hastings with its members (subsequently added) had to render, was to supply twenty-one ships, and in each ship twenty-one men, with a boy, called a gurmet. On the common seal of the port of Hastings is repre[ 7 ]sented, on the obverse side, the contest of St. Michael and the Dragon ; and it is inferred that St. Michael was the patron saint of the port of Hastings.

Not many years after the incorporation of the Cinque Ports occurred the event which gave to Hastings its place in general history. The death of Edward the Confessor took place on the eve of Twelfth Day, 1066. Harold, though professing no hereditary claim, succeeded to the throne with the general consent of the nation, and his disappointed rival, the Duke of Normandy, immediately prepared to submit his pretensions to the chance of war.

" The point from which the Norman armament set sail has been satisfactorily proved to be St. Valery, at the mouth of the Somme, in Picardy, and not the town of the same name in Normandy, as has been asserted by many historians. St. Valery lies about twenty-five miles to the north-east of Dieppe, in a direction nearly south-south-east of Hastings.... Pevensey is the place to which the majority of historians have given their suffrages for this event (the landing of William), although William of Malmesbury names Hastings.

The words of the Bayeux Tapestry are, 'Here Duke William in a great ship crossed the sea, and came to Pevensey.' "Hic Willelm Dux in magno navigio mare transivit, et venit ad Pevenesǽ" The anonymous chronicler of Battle Abbey says, "Dux ergo . . . . . navigationem aggressus, prospere tandem prope castrum Pevenesel dictum applicuit. ( The Duke having set sail, arrived safely near to the castle called Pevensey. )" The landing of troops from six hundred vessels could not, of course, be confined to one particular point. It most likely extended along Pevensey Bay for several miles, and the easternmost vessels may have reached land at Hastings. This may in some measure justify Malmesbury's assertion. . . . "Food having been obtained by the foragers " (at Hastings, as shown by the Tapestry), " it was cooked upon the shore, and the Duke and his followers dined, Bishop Odo, the chief [ 8 ]ecclesiastic, saying grace. It is not very material where this dinner took place ; it was probably nearer Hastings than Pevensey, although the rock formerly pointed out by tradition as the ' Conqueror's Table ' seems too near the former place. .. .. .. .. The armament of the Normans possessed too many appliances for convenience to render it necessary for their chieftain to dine upon a rock ; and the Tapestry represents the feast as taking place at the usual semi-circular table of the period . The next legend in the Tapestry brings us to Hastings. Iste jussit ut foderetur castellum at Hestengaceastra. ( He-namely, Robert of Moriton, the Duke's half-brother- ordered that a castle should be dug at Hastings. ' ) " It has been supposed that this castle was the ancient castle, the ruins of which now exist, but it is most improbable that any such massive and elaborate works could have been undertaken for the purpose of temporary defence. The castle now built is with more probability supposed to have been an intrenchment of earth, fortified by woodwork, which, as Thierry relates, was brought with them from Normandy. Mr. Lower thinks this camp or castellum was situated in the fields to the right of the London road, between the Priory and Bohemia, therefore very near the site of the present railway station. The great embankment on the East Hill, Mr. Lower supposes, may have been an outpost for observation to the eastward.

The landing of the Norman fleet was effected on the 28th of September. William remained at Hastings till the battle, which took place on the 14th of October. During this interval the Norman army must have subsisted on the spoil of the recent harvest.

" Whatever may have been the Conqueror's orders to restrain his army from plundering " (William of Malmesbury represents him as desiring them to abstain from plundering what must soon be their own), " it is con[ 9 ]clusive from the Domesday Survey ' that they were of no avail. The whole of the country in the neighbourhood of Hastings appears to have been laid waste. Sir Henry Ellis, in the last edition of his General Introduction to Domesday, ' observes, that the destruction occasioned by the Conqueror's army on its first arrival is apparent, more particularly under Hollington, Bexhill, &c. The value of each manor is given as it stood in the reign of the Conqueror ; afterwards it is said, ' Vastatum fuit, ' and then follows the value at the time of the survey. . . . The situation of these manors evidently shows their devastated state to have been owing to the army marching over them ; and this clearly evinces another circumstance relating to the invasion, which is, that William did not land his army at one particular spot, at Bulverhithe or Hastings, as is supposed, but at all the several places proper for landing along the coast from Bexhill to Winchelsea."

In one instance the Bayeux tapestry represents a house being burnt, but that the town of Hastings was not materially injured is proved by its affording shelter to William's troops after the victory. " Harold was at York, wounded and resting from his fatigues, when a messenger arrived in great haste to inform him that William of Normandy had landed and planted his banner on the Anglo-Saxon territory. He immediately marched towards the south with his victorious army, publishing on his way an order to all the provincial governors to arm their fighting men and bring them to London. The militia of the west came without delay ; those of the north were later, on account of the distance ; but there was still reason to believe that the King of the English would soon find himself surrounded by the forces of the whole country. One of those Normans, . . . who now played the part of spies and [ 10 ]secret agents of the invader, sent word to the Duke to be on his guard, for that in four days the son of Godwin would have an hundred thousand men with him . Harold, too impatient, did not await the expiration of the four days ; he could not overcome his desire to close with the foreigners, especially when he learned the ravages of every kind which they were committing round their camp.

The hope of sparing his countrymen further evil, and , perhaps, the desire of attempting against the Normans a sudden and unforeseen attack, like that which had succeeded against the Norwegians, determined him to march to Hastings with an army four times less numerous than that of the Duke of Normandy. [ 11 ]"But William's camp was carefully guarded against a surprise, and his outposts extended to a great distance. Some detachments of cavalry falling back, gave notice of the approach of the Saxon King, who, they said, was advancing furiously. Failing in his design of attacking the enemy by surprise, the Saxon was obliged to moderate his impetuosity ; he halted at a distance of seven miles from the Roman camp, and, suddenly changing his tactics, entrenched himself to await them behind ditches and palisades.

" Some of the Saxon chiefs advised the King to avoid a battle, and to retreat towards London, ravaging the country on his way, to starve out the foreigners . I !' exclaimed Harold, I ravage the country which has [ 12 ]been confided to my care ! By my faith, that were indeed treason, and I prefer taking the chances of battle with the few men I have, my courage, and my good cause. "

The line of the Norman's march, " says Mr. Lower, in his paper on the Battle of Hastings,"from their camp at Hastings to the battle-field, must have lain on the south-western slope of the elevated ridge of land extending from Fairlight to Battel ; that is, to the north of the village of Hollington, through what is now Crowhurst Park, to the elevated spot called Hetheland, but now known as Telham Hill. This district, which is even at the present day encumbered with woods, must have presented many obstacles to the advance of a multitudinous army. But every possible means to facilitate their movements had been employed ; and early on the morning of the fatal 14th of October they stood upon the heights of Telham, in full view of the Saxon camp, more than a mile distant. "

No town or even village, Mr. Lower thinks, existed at Battle in the Saxon times. "It was probably a down, covered with heath and furze, a wild rough common, without houses or trees. " The armies met, according to the Saxon chronicle, "at the hoar apple-tree.

"During the march from Hastings, a distance of about six miles, the Normans had not worn their armour, and it was only when they came in view of the Saxon camp that they proceeded to arm.

"Having arrived at a hill called Hechelande, situated in the direction of Hastings, while they were helping one another on with their armour, there was brought forth a coat of mail for the Duke to put on, and by accident it was handed to him the wrong side foremost. Those who stood by him and saw this cursed it as an unfortunate omen, but the Duke's server, Fitz-Osborne, bade him be of good cheer, and declared that it was a token of good [ 13 ]fortune ; namely, that things which had hitherto kept their ground were about fully to submit themselves to him. The Duke, perfectly unmoved, put on the mail with a placid countenance, and uttered these memorable words : I know, my dearest friends, that if I had any confidence in omens I ought on no account to go to battle to-day ; but committing myself trustfully to my Creator in every matter, I have given no heed to omens, neither have I ever loved sorcerers . Wherefore now secure of His aid, and in order to strengthen the hands and courage of you, who, for my sake, are about to engage in this conflict, I make a vow, that, upon this place of battle, I will found a suitable free monastery, for the salvation of you all, and especially of those who fall ; and this I will do in honour of God and His saints, to the end that the servants of God may be succoured, that even as I shall be enabled to acquire for myself a propitious asylum, so it may be freely offered to all my followers.'

"Among those who heard this vow was a monk of Marmoutier, one William, surnamed Faber, who formerly, while in the service of the Duke, had obtained the name of Faber, or ' the smith.' . . . . .
This man, afterwards changing his profession, betook himself to a religious life at Marmoutier, the fame of which, for sanctity, was then very great. And when the descent of the Duke upon England was everywhere extolled, he, in order to advance the interests of his Church, attached himself to the army. Immediately upon hearing the Duke's vow, which was exactly suitable to his wishes, he proposed that the monastery should be dedicated to the blessed Bishop St. Martin. The pious Duke favoured his suit, and benignly promised that it should be so."

In all William's plans for the acquisition of England, a [ 14 ]great show of zeal for religion was prominent, and it is painful to think that the Church was seduced to sanction his deeds of rapine and injustice. He had, as is well known, trepanned Harold into swearing on the relics of the saints, to assist him in obtaining the kingdom to which he laid claim on the ground of an alleged promise of Edward the Confessor. In virtue of this oath Harold was considered guilty of perjury and sacrilege in resisting him, and, as a token of this, the invader wore round his neck, over his armour, some of the most valuable relics on which Harold had sworn. A banner, blessed by the Pope, was also in the army. "The general influence of superstitious ideas prevented indifferent spectators of this dispute from understanding the patriotic conduct of the son of Godwin, and his scrupulous deference to the will of the people, who had made him king. The opinion of the majority upon the Continent was with William against Harold, with the man who had employed holy things as a snare, and accused of treason the man who refused to commit it. " The approbation of William by the Church was, however, by no means unanimous, for in the assembly of cardinals there were many dissentients, and but for Hildebrand, then an archdeacon, the Norman Duke would scarcely have had the Church's support.

" On the ground, which has ever since borne the name of Battle, the lines of the Anglo- Saxons occupied a long chain of hills, fortified by a rampart of stakes and willow hurdles. In the night of the 13th of October William announced to the Normans that the next day would be the day of battle. Priest and monks, who had followed the invading army in great numbers, attracted , like the soldiers, by the hope of booty, met to pray and chant litanies, while the warriors prepared their arms. The time which remained to them after this first care, was employed by them in confessing their sins, and receiving [ 15 ]the sacrament. In the other army the night was passed in a very different manner ; the Saxons diverted themselves with noisily singing old national songs, and emptying around their fires horns filled with beer and wine.

"When morning came, in the Norman camp, the Bishop of Bayeux, brother, on the mother's side, of Duke William, celebrated mass and blessed the troops, armed with a hauberk, under his rochet ; he then mounted a large white courser, took a baton of command, and drew up the cavalry. . .
" The army soon came in sight of the Saxon camp, north-west of Hastings . The priests and the monks, who accompanied it, retired to a neighbouring hill, to pray and watch the combat. A Norman, [ 16 ]named Taillefer, spurred his horse in front of the array, and began the song, famous throughout Gaul, of Charlemagne and Roland. As he sang he played with his sword, throwing it far into the air, and catching it, as it fell, in his right hand ; the Normans repeated the burthen, or shouted, Dieu-aide ! Dieu-aide !

"Coming within shot, the archers began to discharge their arrows, and the crossbowmen their bolts , but most of the shots were rendered useless by the high parapets of the Saxon redoubts. The infantry, armed with lances, and the cavalry, advanced to the gates of the redoubts, and endeavoured to force them. The Anglo-Saxons, all on foot, around their standard planted in the ground, and forming, behind their palisades, a compact and solid mass, received the assailants with heavy blows of their axes (œvissimœ secures, as the historian calls them), one blow of which broke the lances , and cut through the coats of mail. The Normans, not being able to penetrate the redoubts, or to tear up the stakes, fell back, fatigued with their useless attack , upon the division commanded by William. The Duke then made all his archers advance, and ordered them not to shoot straightforward, but into the air, so that the arrows might fall into the enemy's camp. Many of the English were wounded , most of them in the face, by this manoeuvre . Harold himself had his eye pierced with an arrow ; but, nevertheless, continued to issue his orders and to fight. The attack of the infantry and cavalry again commenced, amid cries of Notre Dame ! Dieu-aide ! Dieu-aide ! But the Normans were driven back from one of the gates of the camp to a deep ravine, covered with brushwood and grass, the growth of time, into which they and their horses fell one upon the other, [ 17 ]and thus perished in great numbers . There was a moment of terror in the foreign army. The report spread that the Duke had been killed, and at this news a retreat commenced. William threw himself before the fugitives and barred their passage, threatening them, and striking them with his lance ; then uncovering, 'I am here,' he exclaimed, Look at me, I still live, and, with the help of God, I will conquer.'

" The cavalry returned to the redoubts, but they could not force the gates nor make a breach ; the Duke then thought of a stratagem to induce the English to quit their position ; he ordered a thousand horse to advance and immediately retreat. The sight of this feigned flight made the Saxons lose their coolness . They all rushed in pursuit, their axes hanging from their necks. At a certain distance, a body, previously disposed, joined the fugitives, who turned ; and the English, surprised in their disorder, were assailed on every side by blows of lances and swords, from which they could not defend themselves, having both their hands occupied in wielding their great battle-axes. When they had lost their ranks, the redoubts were forced ; horse and foot made their way into them, but the combat was still fierce, hand to hand. William had his horse killed under him, Harold and his two brothers fell dead at the foot of their standard, which was torn up and replaced by the banner sent from Rome.

The wreck of the English army, without chief and without standard, prolonged the struggle to the end of the day, so late that the combatants of the two parties only recognized each other by their language.

"Then, and not till then, did this desperate resistance end. Harold's followers dispersed, many dying upon the roads of their wounds and the fatigue of the combat. The ' Norman horse pursued them, granting quarter to none. The victors passed the night on the field of battle, and the next day, at sunrise, Duke William drew up his [ 18 ]troops, and called over the names of all those who had crossed the sea with him, from the list which had been drawn up before their departure from St. Valery.......

" The mothers and wives of those who had come from the neighbourhood to fight and die with their King, united to seek together and bury the bodies of their relations. That of King Harold lay for a long time on the field of battle, without any one daring to claim it. At length, Godwin's widow, Ghitha, subduing for the moment her grief, sent a message to Duke William, asking his permission to render the last honours to her son. She offered, say the Norman historians, to give the weight of his body in gold. But the Duke sternly refused, saying that a man who had been false to his word and his religion, should have no other sepulchre than the sand of the shore. He relented, however, if we are to believe an old tradition, in favour of the monks of Waltham Abbey, which Harold had founded and enriched . "

The chronicles of the time are at variance respecting the ultimate disposal of the corpse-William of Malmesbury asserting that it was given unransomed to his mother, and by her buried in the Abbey of Waltham ; the author of the " Carmen," on the other hand , affirming that it was taken to Hastings, and there buried in the sand of the sea-shore." The popular belief, encouraged, for their own purposes , by the fraternity of Waltham, was, that Harold had found honourable sepulture among them ; though it may deserve a place among historic doubts, whether his real grave is not upon the cliffs of the Sussex shore. "

The Saxon Chronicle gives the following brief summary of the foregoing events :-

" Then came William, Earl of Normandy, into Pevensey, on the eve of St. Michael's-mass ; and, soon [ 19 ]after they were on their way, they constructed a castle at Hasting's-port. This was then made known to King Harold, and he then gathered a great force, and came to meet him at the hoar apple-tree ; and William came against him unawares, before his people were set in order. But the King, nevertheless, strenuously fought against him with those men who would follow him ; and there was great slaughter made on either hand . There was slain King Harold, and Leofwine the eorl, his brother, and Gyrth, the eorl his brother, and many good men ; and the Frenchmen had possession of the place of carnage, all as God granted them, for the people's sins.

This fight was done on the day of Calixtus the Pope. And William the eorl went afterwards again to Hastings, and there awaited to see whether the people would submit to him. But when he understood that they would not come to him, he went upwards with all his army which was left to him, and that which afterwards had come over sea to him, and he plundered all that part which he overran, until he came to Berkhampstead. "

There can be little doubt that Sussex was treated as a conquered territory, and that the neighbourhood of [ 20 ]Hastings had its full share in general misery. The lands of Harold were parcelled out amongst the Norman nobles. The castle and houses of Hastings, with numerous manors, were bestowed by the Conqueror on the Earl of Eu.

In the year 1093, Hastings had the presence of William Rufus and his Court for the space of a month . Nobles and prelates had been assembled to do homage to the King before his departure to Normandy. He was detained by contrary winds, and took up his abode in the castle, which seems then again to have been in possession of the Crown. During this month Robert Blovet was consecrated Bishop of Lincoln, by the celebrated Anselm , Archbishop of Canterbury.

Hastings seems at this time to have been in high repute for ship-building, since the favourite yacht of Henry I. is described in a document as "Esnetka" (Snecca, whence snack) mea de Hasting. " This yacht was frequently used for the conveyance of the Royal family to and from the Continent:

In the wars with the barons, in the reign of Henry III. , [ 21 ]Hastings, like the rest of the Cinque Ports, seems to have favoured the popular party, since, in a letter to the King, from his brother, the King of the Romans, respecting the landing of foreign troops, a doubt is expressed of the friendly disposition of the ports . The letter, which was written at Berkhampstead, and bears date October 23, 1262, is found among the Tower MSS. The passage alluded to is this :
"Because, if entrance be denied the foreigners by the Cinque Ports, we will by other means contrive a sure and abundant readiness to be exhibited towards them," & c., &c.

On the defeat and dispersion of the baronial party, the ports felt it necessary to conciliate their Sovereign, and the authorities of Hastings addressed to him a curiously apologetic letter, which is still in existence, and is as follows :-- "To their most excellent lord, and most dear lord, the most illustrious King of England, his liege and faithful barons of Hastings, greeting, in the Saviour of all , and prompt and ready willingness to obey in all things, even to the division of soul and body, with all subjection, reverence, and honour. We have thought it right to declare by these letters, to the excellence of your Royal Majesty, that extreme grief of heart, and anguish beyond measure, have now for a long time past affected all and each of us, inasmuch as we have neither been able to approach the bodily presence of your loyal clemency during the delay of your long sojourn in remote parts, nor to direct sure messengers in order to ascertain the certainty of the good condition of your person , for the sake of both the love and honour of which, we are ready to be crowned with a victorious death, if necessary. Moreover, let your Royal excellence take notice that we have, up to this time, guarded your town of Hastings for your use and that of your heirs, and at your good pleasure, shall guard it for ever, although anything to the contrary may have been suggested to your pious ears by our enemies against us. [ 22 ]To which enemies, indeed, do not give credence, since they are not to be believed in anything ; and although some persons, without the assent of our community, may have offended your Royal Majesty, we have at no time adopted them nor their evil deeds, but, even in the presence of your Royal Majesty, have disapproved and disavowed them and their evil works, and have never ceased to disapprove them. Wherefore, we humbly implore the clemency of your Royal Majesty, insomuch that you may intimate your good pleasure to us, as to your liege and faithful men, concerning all and singular matters which may please your Royal Majesty. May the excellence of your Royal Majesty be in health, and flourish to endless time ! "

On the 21st of August, 1378 , in the second year of Richard II. , Stowe states that the French became possessed through fraud of the Isle of Wight, which having plundered, they quitted, and coasted to the town of Winchelsea, which was saved by the spirited resistance of the Abbot of Battle. Stowe further states , that the French detached a part of their company to Hastings, where, finding the town almost deserted, they burnt it. That Hastings was not the principal object of attack, would seem to imply that at this time it was considered a less valuable prize than Winchelsea. St. Clement's Church was burnt at this time ; and it has been asserted that, when the town was rebuilt, it was divided into the three parishes of All Saints, St. Clements, and St. Mary in the Castle.

It is remarkable that no mention is made of the castle itself, as affording any defence to the town, from whence Mr. Cooper infers that it was probably at this time already falling into decay.

In the reign of Henry VIII., Hastings was apparently [ 23 ]in a very low state, as the Charter of Incorporation granted to Sussex in 1544, recites, that " The town of Hastings, in our county of Sussex, one of the greatest of the ancient towns of the Ports aforesaid, and near the sea, where the entrance of our enemies and rebels may soonest appear, is, by the flux and reflux of the sea, and by conflagrations there often committed by such our enemies, not only of lands and tenements, but also of the inhabitants, there so reduced to waste, destruction, and poverty, " & c. , &c.; that, in short, it was not able to supply its contingent of shipping, and therefore Seaford was incorporated to make up the deficiency.

It does not appear that in the Civil Wars between Charles I. and his Parliament, Hastings was ever the scene of conflict. It did not, however, escape some of the vexations of those latter times, but was subjected under the Parliamentary rule to the following visitation :-

" On Sunday morning, being the 9th of July, 1643, in time of Divine service, Colonel Morley, the crooked rebel of Sussex, came toward Hasting, one of the Cinque Ports, but in his march being discovered, presently notice was given to Mr. Hinson, Curate of All Saints ' , who, knowing that one end of the Colonel's Sabbath-day's journey was to apprehend him, was compelled to break off Divine service in the midst, and fly into a wood near at hand there to hide himself. The Colonel being entered the town, scattered the body of his horse into several parts to intercept all passages out of the town, and having secured the ports, he summons the Mayor and Jurats, and demands the arms of the town, to which he found ready obedience ; for presently the [ 24 ]Mayor and Jurats sent their servants to command all the inhabitants to deliver up their arms, which was done accordingly ; and one of the Jurats, Fray by name, furnished the Colonel with a waggon. He sent them away to Battell, being a town in Sussex, some five miles from Hasting. That night some soldiers lay in the church where Mr. Hinson officiated, where one Wicker, a common soldier, getting up into the pulpit, preached unto his fellows ; and to show the fruits of so good doctrine, going out of the church, either the preacher or one of his auditory stole away the surpless.' This account is taken from the Mercurius Rusticus.

Mr. Car, " the parson of St. Clement's, " fled away from home the same Sunday, but finding that Colonel Morley had gone to Battle, he ventured to return. On the road he met with Fray, the treacherous Jurat, but being privately warned of his danger, he managed to escape. Mr. Hinson was arrested in his own house on the Tuesday, and after three weeks' imprisonment in the common gaol, was sent with a strong guard to Colonel Morley, and by him forwarded to London, whence he escaped, and joined the King at Oxford.

A curious passage in the history of Hastings is preserved in the Autobiography of Bishop Patrick. Patrick was Bishop of Chichester in 1690, at which time the deposed King, James II., was striving to regain the crown by the assistance of Louis XIV. of France. In July of that year, whilst William III. was absent in Ireland, the French fleet were hovering about the Sussex coast. The good Bishop's account is as follows :-

" In the latter end of May, 1690, I went to settle my family at Chichester, and, blessed be God, had a safe journey thither, and a comfortable habitation there. The thirtieth of June being Monday, I began my visitation at Arundel, and went the next day to Lewis, where I visited on Wednesday, and on Thursday went towards Hastings, [ 25 ]and heard by the way that the French were burning that town. But we resolved to go on, being invited to lie at Sir Nicholas Pelham's, whose house was not many miles from it. He was gone thither with other country gentlemen, the French having attempted to burn some ships that were run on ground there . He sent us word the town was safe, but he could not come home that night. At six in the morning he came, and said there was no danger, but the town in such confusion that it would be to no purpose to go thither ; for the churches were full of soldiers, who lay there all night, and the streets full of country people, and all the women frighted away and fled, so that there were none left to dress any victuals . He invited us, therefore, to stay with him, and entertained us most kindly. But my chancellor, Dr. Briggs, all on a sudden started up, and would go to Hastings, and about noon word was brought us some of the clergy were there ; which made me condemn myself for not going with him, though I followed the best advice I could get. And afterwards it appeared to be the best ; for though some of the clergy appeared, there was no place wherein to visit them ; and, besides, it might have proved dangerous ; for two men were killed with a cannon-bullet in the very next house to that where my chancellor sat, which made him run away in haste before he had done his business, and (as I remember) left some of his books behind him. Sir Nicholas went early the next morning to Hastings, and we heard the French continued before the town. So I went to Battle and confirmed some young people, and in the afternoon went back to Lewis, where on Sunday I preached in St. Michael's Church . The next day I went to Brightelmston, and confirmed such as I found fit foit there. In the afternoon I went to Stennyng, where I heard next day great complaints against the minister, which I found too true, and ordered him to appear at Chichester the next court day. I visited the school also in that [ 26 ]town, and ordered the master to leave it at Lady-day, he being unable in many ways to instruct the children. That evening I returned home, and was entertained with the joyful news of his Majesty's great victory at the Boyne, in Ireland, and of God's wonderful providence in his preservation. The next day but one I visited at Chichester, and preached myself to the clergy ; and, blessed be God, held out well to the end of these labours. "

The town of Hastings was fired on by the combined fleets of the French and Dutch in 1720, a memorial of which is preserved in two balls now fixed to the tower of St. Clement's Church.

In August, 1796, a French privateer came into the roads, and approached so near to the coast as to occasion inquiry what she could be, and what was her object. Some supposed she was a smuggler, but were surprised at her daring. At length all doubt was removed by a boat's crew being put out, who rowed directly to a lime vessel and took possession of her. The privateer immediately made out to sea, followed by the same vessel navigated by French sailors. The fishermen, indignant at this outrage, immediately manned their fishing-boats, taking with them what fire-arms they could collect, and the whole town, including the visitors, became the spectators of the chase. At length the fishing-boats overtook the lime vessel, the French sailors yielded to superior numbers, the vessel was brought back, and, before the sun set, the French sailors were deposited in the cage or prison in the High-street.

To these memorabilia in the history of Hastings may [ 27 ]be added the following account of a curious natural phenomenon related in the " Philosophical Transactions " by Mr. Latham :--

" On Wednesday last, being July 26th (1797), about five o'clock in the afternoon, whilst I was sitting in my dining-room at this place (Hastings), which is situated upon the parade close to the sea-shore, nearly fronting the south, my attention was excited by a great number of people running down to the sea-side. Upon inquiring the reason, I was informed that the coast of France was plainly to be distinguished by the naked eye. I immediately went down to the shore, and was surprised to find that, even without the assistance of a telescope, I could very plainly see the cliffs on the opposite coast, which, at the nearest part, are between forty and fifty miles distant, and are not to be discerned from that low situation by the aid of the best glasses. They appeared to be only a few miles off, and seemed to extend for some leagues along the coast. I pursued my walk along the shore to the eastward, close to the water's edge, conversing with the sailors and fishermen upon the subject. They at first could not be persuaded of the reality of the appearance, but soon became so thoroughly convinced, by the cliffs gradually appearing more elevated, and approaching nearer as it were, that they pointed out, and named to me, the different places they had been accustomed to visit, such as the Bay, the Old Head, or Man, the Windmill, &c., at Boulogne, St. Valery, and other places on the coast of Picardy, which they afterwards confirmed when they viewed them through their telescopes. Their observations were, that the places appeared as near as if they were sailing at a small distance into the harbour.

" Having indulged my curiosity on the shore for nearly an hour, during which the cliffs appeared to be at some times more bright and near, at others more faint and at a greater distance, but never out of sight, I went upon the eastern cliff or hill, which is of a very consider[ 28 ]able height, when a most beautiful scene presented itself to my view, for I could at once see Dungeness, Dovor cliffs, and the French coast, all along from Calais to St. Valery, and, as some of the fishermen affirmed, as far to the westward as Dieppe. By the telescope the French fishing-boats were plainly to be seen at anchor, and the different colours of the land upon the heights, together with the buildings, were perfectly discernible. This curious phenomenon continued in the highest splendour till past eight o'clock (though a black cloud totally obscured the face of the sun for some time), when it gradually vanished . "

A similar instance of atmospheric refraction is said to have occurred here in 1822. [ 29 ]

CHAPTER II.

THE CASTLE. - INTERNAL CHANGES. - PROGRESS OF THE TOWN. - ST. LEONARDS.

BEFORE proceeding to a detailed description of Hastings, some notice must be bestowed on that ancient structure which presided over its rise, watched in silent powerlessness the varied events of its history, and may be destined to survive its decay.

Crowning the summit of the West Hill, and commanding attention when the first glimpse of Hastings is descried, stand the ruins of her Castle. Little is known of its history beyond the names of its successive owners .

The Castle, Honour and Rape of Hastings were bestowed by William the Conqueror on the Earl of Eu, by one of whose descendants they were forfeited to the Crown in the reign of Henry III. After several changes they were granted by Henry IV. to the Earl of Westmoreland, with a reversion to Sir John Pelham . By Sir John Pelham they were conveyed to Sir Thomas Hoo, of Hoo, in Bedfordshire, who seems to have had some claim over them which was a source of dispute with Pelham . Sir Thomas Hoo was created Baron of Hastings by Henry VI., and his descendants became Earls of Huntingdon. Francis, Earl of Huntingdon, died on the 20th November, in the second year of Elizabeth's reign ; and in the valuation of his estates in that year the Honour and Rape of Hastings are estimated at 100l. Henry, the last owner of the Huntingdon family, is described by Dugdale as a person of a gentle disposition , who was [ 30 ]so wrought on by the Puritan party as that he did not a little diminish his estate in cherishing that sort of people. " In 1591 , in consideration of 2,500l . , he sold the Honour, Castle and Rape to Thomas Pelham , amongst whose descendants they have ever since remained .

" At what period the Castle fell into decay is uncertain. The town was only partially fortified. In 1265 Simon de Montford preferred Winchelsea to Hastings for his retreat after his father's defeat at Evesham, and in the fifth of Edward III. , the Dean and Chapter of the King's Free College, to protect their own property, prayed to be allowed to repair the walls of the Castle, which had been devastated by frequent inroads of the sea, and their petition was granted. In Richard II., when the French burnt a portion of the town and the church, the Castle was useless as a protection. The fifth , sixth, and seventh Earls of Eu resided for a long time at their Chateau d'Eu, and founded many monastic establishments in Normandy ; and it is most probable that Hastings Castle was neglected, and fell into decay during the latter half of the twelfth century or the commencement of the thirteenth . "

Besides the Castle itself the lords did not possess any large property within the town as it then existed . The Royal Free Chapel within the walls was not theirs, nor had they the ecclesiastical patronage of the churches, which belonged to the Abbey of Fécamp, and was subsequently granted by Henry VIII. to the possessor of Battle Abbey, Sir Anthony Browne.

A great part of the town also belonged to the Abbey of Fécamp, and formed part of the manor of Brede.The following is a list of the holders of the Honour of Hastings, given in Horsfield's History of Sussex :-
1. King William I., by conquest. [ 31 ]2. Robert, Earl of Eu, by grant. He endowed the church of St. Mary, in the Castle.
3. King William II.; taken by artifice, at the death of King William I., by Eudo de Rie. A parliament was held in the Castle.
4. William, Earl of Eu, by grant.
5. Henry, Earl of Eu, by inheritance. He confirmed to the canons of Hastings all the prebends belonging to the chapel in the Castle.
6. John, Earl of Eu, by inheritance.
7. Henry, Earl of Eu, a minor. He gave the lordship of Worthe to Robertsbridge Abbey.
8. Alice, Countess of Eu, who married Ralph de Ysenden. She adhered to the French cause, 1221 .
9. William de Ysenden, by inheritance.
10. King Henry III., by escheat.
11. Prince Edward, by grant. King Henry III. , a second time, by the surrender of Prince Edward.
12. Peter of Savoy, Earl of Richmond and of Dreux : by grant, in exchange for the manor of Radenhall, Norfolk, 1262 .
13. John Rufus, second Duke of Brittany, by grant. He had the Honour and Rape, 1269, excepto castro de Hastings. Confirmed by Edward I., except the castle and advowson.
14. John, third Duke of Brittany, by inheritance. He married the sister of King Edward I. , 1277, ob. 1304.
15. Arthur, fourth Duke of Brittany, by inheritance.
16. John, his brother ; on creation as Earl of Richmond, the Castle and Honour of Hastings being at that time wrongly assumed to be part of the Earldom of Richmond, though only held by an exchange of Peter of Savoy.
17. John, Earl of Montford, son of Arthur, by the second marriage with the daughter of the fourth Earl of Dreux
18. John, son of John of Montford, by inheritance. He married Mary, daughter of King Edward III . [ 32 ]19. King Edward III.
20. John of Gaunt, as Earl of Richmond, by grant. King Edward III. , a second time, by reconcession from John of Gaunt, at the resignation of, but separate from, the Earldom of Richmond.
21. King Richard II., by inheritance.
22. King Henry IV. , by succession.
23. Sir John Pelham, ob. 7 Henry VI., by grant.
24. Johanna Pelham, by petition .
25. Sir Thomas Hoo, afterwards created Lord Hastings .
26. Sir William, afterwards Lord Hastings, by grant, Castle and Rape. The Honour here returned to the family of Eu, Sir William being the tenth descent from Henry, Earl of Eu, and Ida his wife, about 1140-50 .
27. Humphrey Stafford seized for a short time.
28. Sir Edward Hastings, Lord Hungerford, 1482 ; Lord Hastings, 1483, ob. 1507.
29. George, first Earl of Huntingdon, by inheritance.
30. Francis, second Earl of Huntingdon .
31. Henry, third Earl of Huntingdon.
32. Sir Thomas Pelham, by purchase. In which family the manor or honour has remained to the present day. The sum given by Sir Thomas was 2,500l. , and a reserved rent of 13l. 6s. 8d. per annum.

For more than a century, prior to the year 1824, the area within the walls had been occupied as a pasturage for sheep.

Grose thus describes its appearance in his time, about seventy years before the excavations :-

" The artificial parts of this fortress are in shape nearest two sides of an oblique spherical triangle, having the point of the angle rounded off. The base or south side

completing the triangle is formed bya perpendicular, craggy cliff, in length measuring about 400 feet, which seems to [ 33 ]have had no wall or other fortification.......Its east side, is made by a plain wall, without tower or other defence. This wall measures nearly 300 feet . Its adjoining side, which faces the north-west, is about the same length as the rock, namely, 400 feet......The area included is nearly an acre and a fifth. The walls, which are nowhere entire, are about eight feet thick. The gateway was on the north side, near the northernmost angle ; it is now demolished . Near it, to the westward , is the remains of a small tower, enclosing a circular flight of stairs ; and on the same side, farther on to the west, is a sally port and ruins of another tower. "

In 1824, the late Earl of Chichester caused extensive excavations to be made, under the direction of Mr. Kay, an architect. These were commenced at the steps in the west tower, and by digging downwards the important discovery of the floor and other remains of the church were made. This appeared to have been composed of a chancel, side chapel, nave, and aisle. The whole length of the building measured 110 feet. The walls and chancel arch were rebuilt out of the ruins. The bases, capitals, and other ornaments, were found amongst the fragments, and are of Transition Norman work. The bases of the shafts have leaves springing out of the mouldings lying on the angles of the plinth. Other bases, capitals, and mouldings, were also found amongst the ruins, and, at present, lie piled up in a heap on the turf. Some are also deposited in the gatekeeper's house. The ascent from the nave to the chancel was by several steps. At the upper end of the chancel was the high altar, and in the side wall are the remains of a sedilia. In the side chapel, also, are the traces of an altar. The remains of a font and piscina now stand in the nave. The latter is placed against the west wall, which is also the wall of the Castle. It has marks of a range of arches, which, however, are now nearly hidden by ivy. A door-way communicates with a flight of stone steps in the circular tower, which were discovered at the first commencement of the excavations. The stones [ 34 ]belonging to two stone coffins are in the side aisle, placed nearly as they were found. Two other coffins were also discovered, one containing the skeleton of a child, another of a man, with two skulls, and some bones placed at his feet. The skeletons were in a tolerable state of preservation, and, in the skull of each, the teeth were regular and sound. The coffins were of stone, composed of several pieces, and of the rudest form. They lay, as did the other coffins, about two feet below what was the flooring of the chapel, and were covered with plain slabs of stone.

Imperfect as are these ruins, they must ever be interesting, as marking the site of a church associated with the names of Thomas à Becket and William of Wykeham, and which once echoed to the voice of Anselm of Canterbury.

The spot where the entrance gate to the Castle now stands had always been supposed to be the site of the original gate, but, on proceeding with the excavation along the north side, a gateway was discovered, about eight or nine feet in width, and nineteen in depth. This is considered to have been the keep-gate . There is still remaining the groove for the portcullis, and the hooks on which the hinges of the gate were hung. Some fragments of an old chain, evidently used for fastening the gate, were found near the spot. By digging downwards on the outside of the wall, the semicircular towers, which defended it, came to light. These had been completely hidden under masses of earth and rubbish, which covered what is now a sort of level platform, with a dyke below, cut between the hill on which the Castle stands , and the opposite elevation. The wall is continued on the eastern side, till it reaches the edge of the cliff. It is supported by three semicircular towers.

On the western side the fortifications consist of a lofty wall, supported by towers, one circular, the other square. They are of considerable height. The circular tower, which contains the steps before alluded to, is on a line with the chancel arch, in the ruins of the chapel. In the [ 35 ]interior of this tower, and in other parts of the walls, are courses of herring-bone work. The square tower, further to the southward, has two openings deeply splayed from within. Here are, also, the remains of a sally-port. The walls are pierced with loopholes, through which the besieged might effectually annoy their assailants. The arch, on this side, is very steep.

A spur, ancient keys, half of a bridle-bit, a chain bridle, and a lamp-suspender, are amongst the relics dug up in the ruins, and kept at the lodge.

The area within the Castle walls is now laid out as a pleasure-ground, to which persons are admitted by payment of a small charge. [ 36 ]

THE TOWN.

From the time that Hastings ceased to be of importance as a port, to the time when it rises into notice as a watering-place, very little is known of its internal condition. By the charter quoted at p . 23, it is shown that the place had suffered much from the encroachments of the sea ; and these appear to have recurred at frequent intervals. In the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the pier (which was of wood, and projected from the centre of what is now the Marine Parade towards the south- east) was destroyed by a storm. In 1596, another pier, which was nearly finished, was similarly destroyed .

" Behold, " says the record in the Corporation books, (see Horsfield , i . 449 , ) " when men were most secure, and thought the work to be perpetual, on All Saints' day, 1597, appeared the mighty force of God, Who, with the finger of his hand, at one great and exceeding high spring- tide, with a south-east wind, overthrew this huge work in less than an hour, to the great terror and amazement of all beholders. "

The disappearance of some of the parish churches, mentioned in old records , is probably due to the same causes.

The inhabitants , during the first half of the eighteenth century, appear to have depended chiefly on the fishery and boat-building. A trade in burning lime also existed ; and, up to 1816 , there were lime-kilns at the foot of the Castle-hill. To these lawful trades must be added the unlawful one of smuggling, which all the older inhabitants report to have been carried on here to a great extent. In 1731 , as appears from a letter of Dr. Frewin, of Lewes, to Dr. Jurin, F.R.S. , respecting the prevalence of small-pox here, the whole number of inhabitants was only 1636-782 males, 854 females. The small-pox had then been a year and a-half at Hastings, and had carried off ninety-seven persons ; 608 had it, but recovered.

In 1752, as appears by an entry in the parish register [ 37 ]of All Saints, cited by Moss, Samuel Munn, surgeon, of the parish of St. Clement, contracted to " look after and nourish all manner of diseases, sickness, and human infirmities (if it is in his power) of the poor belonging to this parish, for the sum of three guineas for the whole year."

Towards the end of the century, we find Hastings resorted to by visitors. A library was established at 29, High-street (the house now occupied by Mr. Foster, tailor), which was opened during the summer, and closed during the winter months, indicating that the place now had a summer season. Previous to this, a library was formed in what is now Coburg-place ; and, in 1791 , Mr. Barry opened the library which is now Diplock's, and published a " Guide, " the pages of which amply testify to the watering-place character Hastings had now begun to assume. At the first opening of Barry's Library, it was the practice to transfer the locality of the reading rooms, &c., to a more sheltered situation, during the winter months.

At this period, the town was almost entirely included in the valley between the East and West Hill. High-street and All Saints '- street were the principal thoroughfares , and in the upper stories of their houses were lodged the visitors, even those of distinguished rank.

In the summer of 1794 the Duke of Sussex, with Lady Augusta Murray and Colonel d'Este, then an infant of six months old, occupied East-hill House. Sir John Moore lodged over the shop now occupied by Mr. Amoore, High-street. The peculiarly sheltered situation and mild temperature of the old town, no doubt, contributed to earn for Hastings its reputation as a winter retreat for persons of delicate lungs. The areas between the principal [ 38 ]streets were then not so much built over, and many of the houses had gardens. The Bourne, an open stream, flowed through the town from the north-east to the sea, and supplied the inhabitants with water.

The old houses now or recently remaining, indicate what had been the prevalent style of architecture during the previous century. But few of these old houses now remain. There is one in George-street, by the side of the steps leading up to the Croft ; one in High-street, bearing date 1610 ; and others in All Saints, and the passage connecting it with High-street. The town-wall once extended from the Castle Cliff to the East Cliff, defending the valley towards the sea. It had three gates , one below the Swan Inn, one across the mouth of the Bourne, and one further to the east. A considerable part of this wall was remaining, according to Moss, about forty years prior to the date of his work (1824). There are still portions of it existing in Bourne-street and George-street. The workhouse at this time stood in George-street, which, however, does not seem to have been regularly built till later, as visitors remember the east end being nearly open towards the sea. Where the Comte de Vandes' house now stands, adjoining Diplock's Library, stood the pest-house for paupers. The library was the last house to the westward. The line of cliff, as it existed before Pelham-place was begun, towered grandly above the road. The site of Wellington square was a sloping hill. A bridge separated the Priory Meadow, which was then skirted by trees, from the road. Nearly opposite what is now the Brewery, a little to the south-west of the cliff on which the Priory Station stands, was the White Rock. The road which wound between this rock and the Priory Cliff was frequently covered by the sea and rendered impassable. A gun was planted on the White Rock, during the war.

In 1760, a battery was erected at the eastern extremity of that part of the beach which is now the Parade ; and, about the same time, ground was granted by the Corporation for the erection of the Government house, magazine, & c. [ 39 ]At the commencement of the present century, Hastings wore a military aspect. A body of 12,000 men were quartered in the neighbourhood, and of these the Duke of Wellington had the command in 1806. He resided at Hastings House, where he took up his abode with his bride on the very day of their marriage.

General Spencer occupied a house, on the site of which Nelson's-buildings (High-street) now stands.

Barracks were erected at Halton, for cavalry, infantry, and artillery. There were also camps at Battle, Bexhill , and Fairlight.

Notwithstanding threats of French invasion, and the consequent insecurity of the coast, these large camps had the effect of drawing numerous visitors to Hastings, chiefly indeed those connected with the military there.

In 1801 , the population only amounted to 3,175 .

New buildings, in this period, seem to have been erected chiefly on the declivities of the two ridges which inclose the valley. In 1805, the proprietor of the ground on which the Croft houses now stand , and which, as its name signifies, was then a meadow, very similar to the present Croft meadow, sold the land in building lots, reserving a piece at the south end, which he gave for the erection of the Croft Chapel. The houses built in this locality, of course took their rank as a superior class of residences. Gloucester-place was built in 1817.

The Marine Parade was at first commenced by Mr. Barry, who was desirous of providing a walk for the accommodation of the visitors to his library. An extension of his plan was proposed, subscriptions raised, and the [ 40 ]parade, to the length of 500 feet, completed in 1812. Its length is now 920 feet.

In 1811 , the population was 4,025.

The cessation of the war, and the habits of peace, soon produced an increase in the numbers of those whom health or pleasure brought to the sea-coast, and Hastings began to feel the need of expansion.

The demand for houses fronting the sea, and perhaps their own insecurity, led to the excavation and partial destruction of the front line of cliffs, and the erection of Pelham-place, the Crescent, Breeds-place, and Castle street. These buildings were undertaken and completed between the years 1820-25. St. Mary's Church, in the centre of the Crescent, was consecrated and opened in 1828.

The third edition of Powell's " Guide," the date of which seems by the contents, referrible to the year 1825, gives the names of the following streets, &c. , westward of Barry's (Diplock's) Library :

Pelham-place, 7 houses.
Castle-street, 14 houses.
York-buildings, 14 houses.
Opposite York-buildings, 2 houses.
At the back, 2 houses.
Meadow-cottages, 7 houses .
The Castle Hotel (finished and opened, 1818 ).
Wellington-place.
The east and north sides of Wellington-square, 31 houses.
Blucher-place, 47 houses (part of what is now Bedford place).
Castle-cottages, beneath the Castle-hill, 5 houses .
York-cottages, near the Priory-bridge, 4 houses.
Kentish-buildings, also near the Priory-bridge, 4 houses.

[ 41 ]

Beach-cottages, between the Priory-bridge and Marine Baths, 6 houses.
Caroline-place, 6 houses.
The Rope-walk is spoken of as having some neat cottages, and lodgings are also mentioned on the White Rock-road.

The population in 1821 had increased to 6,300 . The Rope-walk and White Rock-road occupied that site which is now covered with the buildings of Carlisle parade, Robertson-terrace, and Robertson-street. This was formerly a waste tract of land , which had been left by the recession of the sea, and being unclaimed, was covered by the habitations of a sort of squatters, who took possession at their will . It hence obtained the popular name of the American ground. But in 1823 the Crown claimed the land, granted short leases to the inhabitants, and at the expiration of these, cleared off the existing tenements.

A sea-wall was built, the ground enclosed, a foot-path being granted through it - by permission only. It now gained the appellatives of the Government Ground, the Permission Ground, or, more frequently, the Desert. The expulsion of its original settlers took place about the year 1836. The population of the parish of the Holy Trinity, in which this tract is situated, which in 1831 was 1,074, in 1841 sunk to 9.

In 1828, St. Leonards was begun, and though at first it bore the aspect of a distinct town, it required no great prescience to foresee that it would ultimately attract its older neighbour to join it.

In 1834-5 the cliffs near the White Rock were levelled, a new road made, and part of what is now White Rock-place begun. The buildings of the Roman Catholic Institution were erected between 1834 and 1840. The Infirmary was completed in the year 1841 .

But after the completion of the railroad, and the establishment of termini, first at Bo-peep, then at [ 42 ]St. Leonards, and lastly at Hastings, a still greater progress was made. Eversfield-place began to arise in 1850, and the whole line of road between Hastings and St. Leonards, once so wild and solitary, has since become a string of handsome houses on the one hand, and a regular esplanade, on the other. In 1850, also, Government having granted a lease of their piece of land, the once desert tract was laid out for building, and Robertson street, one of its fronts, is now one of the busiest parts of the town. The Hastings station, which is the terminus of three lines of railroad - the London, Brighton, and South-coast, the London and Southeastern, and the Hastings and Dovor(sic), - was opened early in 1851 .

For the present extent and street- nomenclature of the town we must refer to the annexed Plan, and content ourselves here with saying a few words on the origin and topography of

ST. LEONARDS .

The site now occupied by the pretty and flourishing town of St. Leonards had for many centuries but few habitations. It lies partly within the parish of St. Leonard, partly within that of St. Mary Magdalene, and belonged to a family of the name of Lewis, from whence it came to the Eversfields, and was purchased by Mr. Burton for the erection of a new town. It is situated partly in a valley, which opens very prettily at the back, and being wider and less precipitous than the valley in which Hastings nestles, the temperature is more airy, and not so warm.

The Archway is the eastern boundary of the township, but as, in the present postal arrangements, Eversfield-place, Warrior-square, and Grand-parade are included in the St. Leonards delivery, they are in common parlance called St. Leonards. [ 43 ]The Marina extends along the front of the town. At the back of the Marina is the Assembly Room. The Subscription Gardens and Archery Grounds are very prettily laid out on the side of the hill, and afford a grateful retreat from the glare of the sun . Here are several detached residences. Allegria, a villa belonging to James Coster, Esq., Gloucester Lodge, and several others, look into the gardens. The exit from the town on the north is through an archway.

On the West Hill is St. Leonards' Spa. There is a fine sea view from this elevation.

The church or chapel of St. Leonard was begun in 1831 , when the Princess Sophia of Gloucester laid the first stone. It was completed in 1833. It has no particular architectural features.

The Victoria Hotel, which fronts the sea, is a large and handsome building. The Bank, the Library, and the Baths are all comprised in one building, which is on the south side of the Marina.

The descriptions of Theodore Hook, and Dr. Granville, may suitably complete this brief sketch of St. Leonards.

"From the meditation in which he was absorbed, Jack was aroused upon his arrival at that splendid creation of modern art and industry, St. Leonards, which perhaps affords one of the most beautiful and wonderful proofs of individual taste, judgment, and perseverance, that our nation exhibits. Under the superintendence of Mr. Burton a desert has become a thickly-peopled town.
Buildings of an extensive nature and most elegant character rear their heads where but a few years since the barren cliffs presented their chalky (sandy) fronts to the storm and wave, and rippling streams and hanging groves [ 44 ]adorn the valley, which twenty years since, was a sterile and shrubless ravine."

Dr. Granville says, " We should look in vain on any other coast of England for such a range of buildings as those he " (Mr. Burton) " has raised below St. Leonards ' Cliff......None but the unrivalled crescents of Bath and Bristol is superior to the Marina of St. Leonards. " Of the higher sites near the north gate he says, " The whole of this varied region must be a little paradise to invalids ; and the houses, whether those detached as Italian or Lombard villas with gardens, or those placed in rows like a series of Gothic cottages, all equally desirable, are much sought after......The Victoria Hotel has the appearance of a nobleman's mansion. A wide street runs up on each side of it, leading to other and less regular series of buildings constituting the town of St. Leonards, and also to that paradise of detached villas to which I have already alluded. "

Warrior-square he describes, as an " excellent locality in summer as well as winter," because the houses will have varied aspects - be farther removed from the water - not hemmed in between the latter and a lofty cliff behind, neither so much exposed to the gales.

The rise of St. Leonards advanced the population of Hastings in 1831 to 10,231 . [ 45 ]

CHAPTER III .

PARISHES , CHURCHES, AND ANCIENT ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS. - DISSENTING CHAPELS. - RETURNS OF THE CENSUS OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP.

THE history of the ancient parishes and churches of Hastings, and their connexion with the present ecclesiastical divisions, is involved in some obscurity.

Moss says (p . 97), that there is one church mentioned in " Domesday Book, " and that that most probably was All Saints.

In the Taxation of Pope Nicholas, made about 1291 , there is mention made of the churches of St. Margaret, St. Leonard, St. Michael and St. Peter, St. Andrew, St. Clement, and All Saints, and of the Priory of the Holy Trinity of Hastings.

In the Inquisitiones Nonarum, " 1340, the church of St. Leonard, Hastyng, is mentioned .

In the " Valor Ecclesiasticus, " a valuation made in the time of Henry VIII. , St. Clement's and All Saints' are mentioned as churches existing ; and among the places from which the income of the New Priory was derived, mention is made of the parish of St. Michael . [ 46 ]In the " Hastings Guide " (Barry's), 1794, there occurs the following notices of ruined churches :- "It appears there was formerly another church called St. Michael, and an Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene, but no certain accounts are to be obtained respecting them ; and upon the Eastern Hill, in a small square field, stood a church called St. George's, the last remains of which, inconsiderable and of little account, were levelled by the late Rector some twenty-five years ago. There had likewise been a church or chapel on the hill just over the East Hill, human skeletons, bones, and fragments of buildings having been discovered at times on the falling away of the cliff. " - P. 45.

" Walk to Bexhill. Pass the bathing-room under the Castle cliff, and over the White Rock, a little beyond which are the remains of a ruin on the edge of the cliff, supposed to have been St. Leonard's Chapel. " (P. 71.)

" Bo-peep, a public-house by the road-side ......In a field behind the house are the ruins of an ancient church or chapel. " (P. 72. )

Of the church of St. Andrew, mentioned in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas, the Rev. G. S. G. Stonestreet, in his communication given in Horsfield's Sussex, says :-

" The ruins of the church of St. Andrew stood, within fifteen years, a few yards from the north side of Wellington-square, and the site was sold and desecrated to building purposes, in violation of the dead and of the patronage of the rectory, although vested in the Corporation by Royal grant and confirmed by Act of Parliament."

Respecting St. Michael, Mr. Stonestreet says :-

" The road near what is called the 'White Rock' having been washed away early in this year (1834) , in cutting down the adjacent cliffs for materials of repair, the workmen came upon the remains of a church , probably St. Michael, upon what is now known as Cuckoo [ 47 ]Hill. This hill is traditionally a parish in itself. Some years since (it is stated by a respectable inhabitant, at one time tenant) a mill stood on the top. A man employed in it broke his thigh, and the miller was compelled to maintain him during his whole confinement at his own expense."

Respecting St. George's, Mr. Stonestreet goes on to say :-

" There is an old burial-ground, still partly enclosed, but used only as grazing ground, on the top of the East Hill, in All-Saints ' parish. It is called St. George's, for which I have had no satisfactory reason or authority given, and am further at a loss to assign a name to it, as the small decayed benefices already recited were all on the western side of the town."

St. Margaret's, Mr. Stonestreet thinks, was probably a very poor benefice, and therefore, like St. Peter's, soon fell into decay.

The parishes in the Hastings District, as given in the Population Returns for 1851 , are as follows :-

All-Saints ,
St. Clement,
St. Mary-in-the-Castle,
St. Andrew,
Holy Trinity, or Priory,
St. Michael-on-the- Rock,
St. Mary Magdalene,
St. Leonard-on-Sea,
St. Mary Bulverhythe.

All-Saints and St. Clements have ancient churches ; St. Mary-in-the- Castle, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Leonard-on- Sea, had no churches for an indefinite period prior to the present century. St. Andrew, St. Michael, Holy Trinity, and St. Mary Bulverhythe have none now.

Besides parish churches, there were anciently at Hastings three other ecclesiastical foundations, the names of which have descended to some of the present parishes. [ 48 ]

CHAPEL AND COLLEGE OF ST. MARY .

These were, the Royal Free Chapel of St. Mary within the Castle walls, the Priory, and the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene.

The Chapel of St. Mary, the ruins of which have been already described, though inclosed within the Castle. area, was independent of the owners of the Castle and also of the Bishop of Chichester. Mr. Stonestreet observes that its constitution was similar to that of St. George's Chapel, Windsor. By whom the Chapel and College were founded is uncertain, but it is said by Tanner to have been endowed by Henry of Eu.

The original establishment was for a dean and certain secular canons.

The College seal is extant, and represents a female figure holding in her hand a small church, which, it has been conjectured, may have figured the exterior appearance of the building. If so, it was surmounted by a small spire. The seal, which is of oval shape, has the date A. R. 22 Edward III. , - that is, A. D. 1349.

It was in this chapel, as has been mentioned in the extract from Eadmer, that, during the visit of William Rufus, the consecration of Robert Blovet, Bishop of Lincoln, by Anselm the Primate, took place in 1093.

Thomas ầ Becket was Dean of Hastings somewhere between 1157 and 1161. [ 49 ]

COLLEGE OF ST. MARY.

William of Wykeham also held a prebend in this same college.

The chronicle of Battel Abbey describes at length the contest between the Monastery and the See of Chichester, in respect to the right of the former to ecclesiastical independence. In the course of those proceedings mention is made of another person in the diocese who similarly resisted the Bishop's claim, and this was probably the Dean or Head of the Collegiate Chapel of St. Mary, Hastings. This contest was carried on at different periods during the reigns of Stephen and Henry II. At that time the " certain other person, " it appears, made submission and gave up his claim. Whether this were the Principal of St. Mary's or not, there are abundant records that about 120 years after the settling of that dispute, in the reign of Edward I., a contest was going on for the peculiar privileges of the chapel, and was maintained throughout that reign.

In the 7th of Edward I. ( 1279) , William de Lewis and Walter de Tothylle, Chaplains and Canons of the King's Free Chapel at Hastings, residing there, complained to the King that the Bishop of Chichester and his officials grievously and unjustly treated them, by citing them to their Synod, interdicting the church to the said Free Chapel, &c. The King granted a writ, ordering the Bishop to desist. Nevertheless, the Bishop asserted a right to present to, and admit to the prebends . The cause was referred to the Parliament. In the meantime the King issued a prohibition to the Archbishop of Canterbury to restrain him from visiting the chapel and the prebends belonging to it. Twenty-two years after, the Archbishop [ 50 ]

COLLEGE OF ST. MARY.

(Robert de Winchelsey) disregarding this prohibition, prepared to visit the church, when Edward issued a writ to Stephen Sprot, constable of his Castle of Hastings , to prevent him.

Whilst the suit between the Crown and the Bishop of Chichester was pending, the King presented John de Cadomo to one of the prebends, upon which the Archbishop cited the patentee to appear before him to answer for the intrusion, but received the King's prohibition to desist from interference.

In the thirty-third of Edward I. , A.D. 1305 , Archbishop Winchelsey, in his Metropolitan Visitation of the diocese of Chichester, having, against the King's prohibition, gone to the town of Hastings with the intent of visiting the King's Free Chapel there, and excommunicated the keeper of the Castle of Hastings, John de Wicheo, for refusing to admit him into the Castle to visit the chapel, and having afterwards sent commissioners, who, in the absence of the keepers, effected an entrance, visited the chapel, and placed a dean, William de Lewes, therein, the King issued a writ, April 20th, summoning the Archbishop to appear before him , on the morrow of the Feast of the Holy Trinity, to answer these high contempts against his crown and royal dignity ; and on November 9th he ordered Robert de Burghersh, Warden of the Cinque Ports, to go to Hastings, inquire into the truth of the matter, and remove the Dean who had been intruded.

In the reign of Henry VI. the chapel was finally put under the jurisdiction of the see of Chichester.

In the reign of Edward III. the Dean and Chapter, as before related, applied for permission to repair the Castle walls for the security of their church. They received permission to do this, and also to build houses and enjoy the benefit of pasture within the town of Hastings. [ 51 ]

PRIORY OF THE HOLY TRINITY.

Soon after the suppression of the College, it was granted, together with the Deanery, by Henry VIII. to Sir Anthony Browne, but what was the state of the church, or when it fell to ruins , does not appear.

The Priory of Hastings is supposed to have been situated near where the Priory farm-house now stands. A small fragment of wall in the farm-yard marks the site. At the bottom of a pond near this farm-yard was found, some thirty or forty years ago, a deep hole, with the remains of a sluice, deep gates, and other works, supposed to have been constructed by the inhabitants of the convent to keep off the encroachments of the sea.

The Priory was of the order of the Black Canons of St. Augustin, and was dedicated to the Holy Trinity. It was founded by Sir Walter Bricet, in the reign of Richard I. , as is supposed, but little is known of its history. The gradual encroachments of the sea seem to have endangered it, and the church and house having been overflowed, Sir John Pelham, A.D. 1413, gave them lands at Warbleton to erect a new church and monastery . The letters patent made on this grant are quoted by Moss (p. 80), from Dugdale's Monasticon, vol . ii. , and recite as follows :

" Whereas the church of the Holy Trinity of Hastyng and the dwelling of our beloved in Christ, the Prior and Convent of the aforesaid church at Hastyng, have been inundated and laid waste by the sea, so that they could no longer dwell there, as the said Prior and Convent have given us to understand, for which reason our beloved and faithful knight, Sir John Pelham, by our licence hath given and granted to the same Prior and Convent certain lands and tenements in Warbilton, on which lands a new church and dwelling in honour of the Holy Trinity hath been begun, as it is said, " &c., &c.

Of the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen very little is known. It was an almshouse for decayed brothers and sisters, but its site has not been discovered. In the reign of Edward I., Petronella de Cham, of Hastings, gave five [ 52 ]acres to William de Waldern, the Bailiff of Hastings, and the brothers and sisters of the hospital.

There were also two chantries at Hastings, one of them described in the " Valor Ecclesiasticus " as within the Church of St. Clement.

We now come to a more particular description of the existing parishes and churches of Hastings :-

THE PARISH OF ALL SAINTS

Contains 461 acres, having, at the last Census, 562 inhabited houses, 13 uninhabited, and 3 building, with a population of 3,410 persons, viz., 1,633 males, 1,777 females.

Mr. Sharpe, in his lecture on the Architecture of the Sussex Churches ( Sussex Arch. Coll., vol . vii. , p. 13 of the Proceedings at Meeting of the Archaeological Institute), says, " Hastings has two large plain churches, neither of which possess much interest.

The Church of All Saints, which stands at the northern end of All Saints'-street, just at the foot of the East Hill, is by far the most picturesque and venerable object which meets the eye, on entering the town by the old London road.

It appears to have been erected early in the fifteenth century. It consists of a chancel, nave, north and south aisles, and a south porch. At the west end stands an embattled tower, supported by three massive graduated buttresses. Above the west doorway are twelve quatrefoils, under which, on each side, is a shield, now blank, [ 53 ]projecting from a quatrefoil. In the upper story is a small window, with a round-headed arch, the outer moulding of which is pointed, and supported by grotesque heads. The walls on the north are supported by seven, and on the south side by six, buttresses. The porch is entered by a round arch, above which are a cross and two niches, possibly of the twelfth century.

Within the porch, against the east wall, are the remains of a curious stoup, raised on a pannelled shaft and base. It had been built over, and was discovered about ten years ago.

In the south wall of the chancel are three sedilia. The aisles are separated from the nave by pointed arches. A window at the east end of the north aisle, which is said by Moss to be the only one retaining its original form, has some remains of painted glass.

The font is octangular, and ornamented alternately with quatrefoils, inclosing blank shields, and pointed arches with trefoil tracery. It stands upon an octangular shaft, with pointed arches and brackets for figures.

Rickman, in his Gothic Architecture, (4th ed., 8vo., London, 1835,) says of the old churches of Hastings :-

"The Churches of All Saints and St. Clement's, at Hastings, have both been handsome edifices, partly of flint and stone, and mostly of perpendicular character ; but they have been much altered and mutilated ." (p. 247. )

On a black marble stone, at the east end of the north aisle, are the figures of a man and woman with clasped hands. The date of this stone, now obliterated, is given as 1458, in the " Copies of Monumental Inscriptions," by Dr. Rich. Rawlinson (Rawl. MSS . C. , 253), in the Bodleian Library. The female figure is veiled. On removing the floor of the old Corporation pews in 1844, a monumental brass was discovered, with the effigies of a man and woman in the attitude of prayer, and this inscription :-

" Here, under this stone, lyeth the bodies of Thomas Goodenough, sometime burges of this town, and Mar[ 54 ]garet, his wyf, for whose soules, of your charite, say a Paternoster and an Ave."

The most remarkable modern tablets are those to the memory of Mlle. de Ruffo, eldest daughter of Prince Castelcicala ; and one to the memory of Mrs. Beazley, a disciple of Swedenborg.

Amongst other curious entries in the parish books is one of a sum paid to the ringers for ringing on the day of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, 1578 ; also a list of contributions towards the redemption of Christian slaves in Turkey, the principal contributor giving only one shilling.

When Dr. Waddington, Bishop of Chichester in 1724, made inquiries into the state of the diocese, the progress of dissent had reduced the number of communicants at All Saints ' Church, Hastings, from 247 in 1603 , to about forty in 1724.

The Churches of All Saints and St. Clement, with great part of the town of Hastings, and other places in the neighbourhood, anciently belonged to the Abbey of Fểcamp, in Normandy. The Abbot continued to hold them till the dissolution of the alien priories. The manor was then granted to the Monastery of Syon, and at its dissolution to Sir Anthony Browne ; but the Crown seems to have had the ecclesiastical patronage, as, in 1461 , it was granted, with the Rape of Hastings, to William , Lord Hastings.

In 1586, Henry Elks, Clerk and Bachelor of Arts, was executed at Tyburn for counterfeiting the Queen's sign-manual to procure his presentation to the parsonage of All Saints. The forged instrument was directed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishopric of Chichester being void at the time of the transaction.

On the 4th of May, 1636, Christopher Dowe was presented by the King to the Church of All Saints. [ 55 ]The advowson afterwards came into the Webster family. The present patron of both livings is the Rev. J. G. Foyster.

A list of the Rectors of All Saints is here given from Moss (p. 108), with the names of Dowe and Cranston, omitted by him, supplied.

1573.	Robert Holland .
1621.	Alexander Chaderton.
1636.	Christopher Dowe.	Patron,	The King.
1660.	Samuel Otes.	-	John Injanes.
1683.	William Simonds.	-	Richard Barker.
1690.	James Cranston.
1726.	Richard Nairn.
1729.	Thomas Broadway.
1740.	Thomas Jenkins.	Sir Thomas Webster, Bart.
1763.	William Whitear.	Sir Whistler Webster.

In 1770, the smallness of the benefices led to their being united, by consent of the Corporation, and Mr. Whitear held both. (See p. 59.)

Within the last few years they have again been divided, and the present Incumbent of All Saints is the Rev. H. S. Foyster.

ST. CLEMENT'S.

The parish of St. Clement contains 124 acres , 632 inhabited houses, 16 uninhabited, 7 building, with a population of 4,166 persons - 1,971 males, 2,195 females. This includes the district of Halton.

The Church of St. Clement stands on elevated ground to the west of High-street.

In the fourteenth of Edward I. , 1286 , the Abbot of Fềcamp had the King's consent for appropriating a piece of land in Hastings for the foundation of the Church of St. Clement there. Mr. Sharpe cites both the churches [ 56 ]of Hastings, viz. , All Saints' and St. Clement's, as examples of the Rectilinear Period, A.D. 1360 to 1550.

The church consists of a chancel, nave, north and south aisles, an embattled tower at the west end, and north and south porches. The tower is strengthened by graduated buttresses, and has a small octagonal tower at the southwest angle. The original west window in the tower had long disappeared, and the space was partially bricked up, but this has now been opened, and a handsome window put in, corresponding in style to the architecture of the church. A smaller window, in the south side of the tower, was inserted a few years ago. Beneath the west window is an arched doorway, slightly recessed, and having slender shafts , with moulded capitals. The arch is inclosed in a square moulding, the corners being filled with shields . This doorway has just been restored, and in removing the stonework on the south side a niche, which had been built up, was discovered and opened . The roof of the south aisle is embattled . A new porch was erected on this side a few years ago.

The belfry is separated from the rest of the church by two arches (now closed up), one looking east, the other north. The arches rest on circular shafts, separated by hollows. The capitals are plainly moulded, but have foliage between them in the hollows. The eastern arch has, on one side, an animal resembling a dragon, instead of foliage. The roof of the belfry is groined , with carved bosses at the intersections of the ribs. In the south- west corner of the belfry is a small arched doorway, leading to the tower stairs . The whole of the belfry work has been recently cleaned and restored. The windows in the south aisle have also been restored . [ 57 ]The interior of the church consists of a nave, chancel, and two aisles. The aisles are separated from the nave by pointed arches, supported by octangular columns, with small circular columns at the four points ; these are not on a level, some of them projecting more than others, and differing in height and width. On the west side of two of the columns opposite to each other, about the centre of the church, are little niches hollowed out as for figures of saints. These niches have been uncovered within the last few years, when the church was cleaned and repaired , and the whitewash scraped off. It is probable that the chancel once extended as far as these niches, and that the inequality of the arches is due to this cause. The chancel is elevated three steps above the body of the church. The east end was painted by Roger Mortimer, in the year 1721. The ceiling of the chancel is also painted.

The font is of perpendicular work. It is an octagon in shape, and on the sides are carved, in relief, the instruments of Christ's Passion, the nails, scourge, whip, ladder, cross, cock, spear, &c.

Some of the pews are of oak and carved. There are two monumental brasses, the inscription on the one in the aisle is as follows, in old English letters :" Here lyeth the body of Thomas Wekes, late Jurat of Hasting, and Margery his Wyf, which Thomas dyed the Xth day of November in the year of our Lord and God , 1563 , they had issue of hyr body on Daughter named Elizabeth. "

On the other brass is inscribed as follows, in Roman capitals :- "Here under lyeth buried the bones of John Barley late of this town and port of Hasting mercer ; and of Thomas Barley his sonne, and Alyce his daughter, by Mary his wife, daughter of Robert Harley, which John died the last day of March, 1601 , being of the age of 41 years, and the said Thomas died the first of April 1600 , being 19 yeres of age, and the said Alice dyed the 15th day of June, 1592, being of the age of 7 years, to whom God grant a joyful resurrection. "

On the pavement, amongst many other inscriptions, is this :-"HERE LYEth THE BODY OF MT THOMAS FALKNER [ 58 ]CHIRVRGION WHO WAS BVRIED FEBRVARY THE 22nd ANN DOM 1674 .

In the cross aisle the following inscription on brass, the figure having been removed : 66 HERE LYETH BVRIED THE BODIE of THOMAS PIERSE ESQVIRE WHO LIVED HERE " LXXIIIJ YEARES AND DECEASED THE XIIJ DAY OF JVNE IN THE YEARE OF OVR LORD GOD 1606. "

Also the following grave-stone : -" Here lyeth interred the body of Thomas BROMFIELD Esq late of VDMER, in this county who was born on the 2nd of July MDCX and departed this life September the 12th MDCXC ."

In the chancel are monuments to the memory of Edward Milward, Esq., of this town and port, who died the 25th day of July, in the year of our Lord, 1811 , in the 88th year of his age ; also, to the memory of Mary, his wife, daughter of the late John Collier, Esquire, who died the 21st day of June, 1783, aged 58 years.

The monument of Mr. Collier is on the south side of the chancel. It is of marble and porphyry, in the style of the period. The date is 1760.

In the south aisle is also a tablet to the memory of Capt. Thomas Delves, who was one of the barons who bore the canopy over King Charles the Second, at his coronation. Date 1669 .

On the south wall of the chancel is a marble tablet, inscribed to

Edward Milward, Esq.,
Who, during a period of 40 years,
Zealously and impartially discharged
The various duties of a magistrate
For the county of Sussex,
And the Town and Port of Hastings.
He was distinguished in private life,
By the liberal exercise
Of the most generous and disinterested.
Acts of friendship and benevolence,
And died, deeply regretted, On the 10th of May, 1833,
In the 68th year of his age.

There are other inscriptions of interest, which space forbids us to mention. That to John Thomas Justice, [ 59 ]Esq,, was written by himself, and found in his pocket after his death .

The gallery at the west end of the church was built by subscription in 1781 , that on the north side in 1817.

The east end of the north aisle is partitioned off for a vestry room .

The seat at the east end of the south aisle, with a desk affixed to it, is used at the Visitations of the Deanery of Hastings .

The two cannon balls, which are now embedded in the tower, on the south side, were fired on the town by the French and Dutch, in 1720, and are said to have struck the church about that part.

The Rectors of St. Clement's up to 1770 :-

	William Carr	(not mentioned by Moss).
1664.	Samuel Creed.	Patron, Joes. Dunke.
1681.	Philip Searle.
1682.	Joseph Turton.	Patron, Richard Styles.
1731.	Edrus Hill.	Patron, the King.
1742.	William Williams.	Patron, Sir Thos . Webster, Bart.
1763.	William Williams.	Patron, Sir Whistler Webster, Bart.
The Rectors, from the union ( 1770) of the two parishes, to their separation in 1849 ::- -
1773.	William Whitear.	Patron, Sir Whistler Webster, Bart.
1779.	Thomas Fullar.	Idem.
1796.	William Coppard.	Patron, Sir Godfrey Webster, Bart.
1803.	Webster Whistler.	Sir Godfrey Vassall Webster, Bart.

[ 60 ]1832. John Goodge Foyster, the present Rector of St. Clement's.

ST. CLEMENT'S CHAPEL, HALTON.

This |church was erected in 1838. The ground, and the stone of which the building is composed, were given, and an endowment of 1,000l. added, by the present Countess Waldegrave.

The cost of erection was defrayed partly by general subscriptions, and partly by grants from the Incorporated Society for Building Churches and Chapels, and the Diocesan Association. There are 542 sittings, 362 of which are free, and unappropriated for ever.

The parsonage-house, which is in an appropriate style of architecture, adjoins the church. A school-room and comfortable house, for the mistress, are also neat. They were all erected nearly at the expense of the Countess Waldegrave. The patronage is in the gift of the Lord Bishop of Chichester.

ST. MARY- IN-THE-CASTLE.

The parish of St. Mary-in-the-Castle is not mentioned in the " Taxation of Pope Nicholas, " the " Inquisitiones Nonarum," or the " Valor Ecclesiasticus." It was returned, in 1851 , as having an area of 281 acres, 634 inhabited houses, 14 uninhabited, 11 building, and a population of 4,424 persons, 1,805 males, 2,619 females .

No church existed in the parish subsequent to the decay of the chapel in the Castle, till 1825 , when, the population having greatly increased, the need of a church became pressing. The difficulties that arose from the conflicting claims of the parishes of St. Andrew and St. Mary, and the uncertainty which beset the whole subject, may be seen in Horsfield's Sussex, vol. i . p. 457. [ 61 ]The Earl of Chichester, who claimed the advowson, as possessor of the Castle and Manor, obtained an Act of Parliament, and erected the present church of St. Mary at his own expense. The first stone was laid by the Countess of Chichester in 1825, and it was consecrated by Dr. Carr, Bishop of Chichester, in 1828.

It is situated in the centre of Pelham-crescent, and is raised considerably above the road. It is in the semicircular form, having the rock at its back. The portico is recessed, and has a double row of pillars . The following words are inscribed above the portico :" ǼDES SANCTE MARIǼ IN CASTELLO EXSTRUCTA. A.D. MDCCCXXVIII."

The income of the chapel is derived from pew-rents, out of which the Earl of Chichester pays the necessary expenses of public worship, repairs of the building, &c., and also a fixed stipend to the Minister.

The Incumbents of St. Mary's have been as follows :-

Rev. W. Wallinger, 1828 .
Rev. W. T. Marychurch, 1834.
Rev. J. S. Jenkinson, 1835.
Rev. Thos. Vores, M.A., the present minister, who was appointed in 1841 .

Applications for pews and sittings are made at the Pelham Baths.

The chapel is computed to hold 1,200 . There are 500 free sittings, but, these being insufficient, an evening service has been superadded, at which all the seats are considered to be free.

There are vaults beneath the chapel, but burial in them is not now permitted to take place. Amongst the remains already deposited there are those of Dr. Ryder, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, who died at Hastings, in 1836.

THE PARISH OF ST. ANDREW

consists of 19 acres (situated near St. Andrew's-terrace) , and returned, in 1851 , 2 inhabited houses, and a [ 62 ]population of 8 persons, 4 males and 4 females. The site of the ancient church of St. Andrew has been noticed at p. 46. No presentation took place to the living after the reign of Elizabeth. The advowson was the property of the Corporation.

THE PARISH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, OR PRIORY,

returned, in 1851 , 191 acres, 18 inhabited houses, and 12 building. Population, 124 persons, 58 males, 66 females. This parish, in 1831 , had a population of 1,074 persons, there being, at that time, a number of huts, or cottages, inhabited by poor persons, on a piece of ground, which was claimed by the Crown, and the dwellings removed, about the year 1836. In consequence of this, the population, in 1841 , had diminished to 9. The building of Robertson-street and Carlisle-parade had not proceeded far enough, in 1851 , to raise the population to a large number. There is no church at present, but it is decided that one shall be built.

ST. MICHAEL-ON-THE- ROCK

returned, in 1851 , 5 acres, 31 inhabited houses. Population, 269 persons ; 127 males, 142 females. This parish is included in the district of St. Mary Magdalene.

ST. MARY MAGDALENE

returned, in 1851 , 395 acres, 507 inhabited houses, 17 uninhabited, 22 building. Population, 3,803 persons : 1,660 males, 2,143 females.

The great increase of population in that part of Hastings, which lies westward of the Priory, within the last ten or fifteen years, rendered it imperative to erect another church, to take the place of those ancient churches (St. Michael, St. Peter, St. Margaret, &c.), believed to have been washed away by the sea, and which the then decayed state of the place probably made it needless or impracticable to rebuild. An appeal was therefore put forth to the public, setting forth especially, the claims of the poor, who, though now become numerous, had no [ 63 ]other church accommodation than the 200 seats at St. Leonard's church. The Bishop of Chichester gave 3007. towards the church , 2007. to the endowment fund . Charles G. Eversfield, Esq . , of Denne Park, the Lord of the Manor, gave a suitable site, and the rest of the funds were subscribed in smaller sums. The first stone of the building (which stands at the back of Eversfield-place) was laid , June 20th, 1851 , by Countess Waldegrave. It was consecrated by Dr. Gilbert, Bishop of Chichester, and opened for Divine service Sept. 13th, 1852. The Bishop preached in the morning, the late Archdeacon Hare in the evening.

The architecture of the church is chaste and beautiful, and is principally of the Decorated character. The corbel heads, which adorn the nave, are taken from the figures of the Apostles, in Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper. The west window and some of the smaller ones have painted glass . The architect of the church was F. Marrable, Esq.

The number of sittings is 850 , of these 250 are free, and intended solely for the poor.

The patronage is in the disposal of the Bishop of the Diocese.

The present Incumbent is the Rev. William Wheler Hume, M.A.

There is a small endowment, which, with the reserved sittings, constitutes the income of the minister.

A handsome parsonage house has been erected by subscription. It adjoins the church.

THE PARISH OF ST. LEONARD

is partly within the county jurisdiction, partly within the jurisdiction of the Town and Port of Hastings. The Town of St. Leonards is partly within the parish of St. Leonard, partly within that of St. Mary Magdalene, or more properly, St. Margaret. The returns for the whole parish in 1851 give 994 [ 64 ]acres ; 187 inhabited houses, 11 uninhabited, and 2 building. Population, 1,340 persons ; 622 males, 718 females .

The church of St. Leonard was erected at private expense in 1831 , by Act of Parliament. The Princess Sophia of Gloucester laid the first stone of the building, which was completed in 1833. The Rev. J. Alton Hatchard, M.A. , is the present Incumbent, and succeeded the Rev. G. D. St. Quintin in 1853.

The arms on four of the windows are those of the King, the Bishop of Chichester, the Eversfields, and the Burtons . There is a tablet to the memory of James Burton, Esq., the founder of St. Leonards, in the south aisle. He died March 31st, 1837 , and is buried in the cemetery. The church has 840 sittings, exclusive of a gallery erected for the National and Sunday scholars . Of these sittings 160 are allotted by the Act for the support of the minister, 480 are the sole private property of the patron, and 200 are free and unappropriated for the benefit of the poor. The Rev. C. Leslie is the patron.

Of St. Mary Bulverhythe little need be said here. Whether the ruin in a field, visible from the road, is the remains of the ancient church is not known.

In the Census of Religious Worship taken in 1851 , the number of churches and other places of worship connected with the Established Church in the Hastings district are eleven. This includes-besides the five churches then existing in Hastings and St. Leonards, viz. , All Saints, St. Clement's, Halton, St. Mary-in-the-Castle, and St. Leonard's, 0 a room in which service was conducted prior to the completion of St. Mary Magdalene, the churches of Pett, Guestling, Fairlight, and Ore, and a room used for public worship in the village of Ore.

In these eleven buildings the number of sittings was reported as 6,376, of which 2,933 were free, 2,323 appropriated.

The attendance on March 30 , 1851 , was (including Sunday scholars)-Morning, 3,938 ; afternoon, 2,007 ; evening, 2,177. [ 65 ]

DISSENTING CHAPELS,

In the year 1854 a church, erected chiefly at the expense of the Rev. J. G. Foyster and the Rev. H. S. Foyster, and designed for the especial benefit of the fishermen and their families, was opened for Divine worship. It is situated on the beach near the East Well, and is capable of seating 280 persons. The Rev. J. E. Tanner is the minister.

In the Census of Religious Worship the following return is made of places of religious worship belonging to Protestant Dissenting congregations in the Hastings district :- Independents, 2 ; Baptists, 2 ; Wesleyan Methodists, 4 ; Bible Christians, 2 ; undefined , 2.

Number of sittings : Independents, 610 ; 320 free, 290 appropriated.

Baptists, 980 ; 135 free, 845 appropriated.

Wesleyans, 1,027 ; 440 free, 587 appropriated.

Undefined, 310 ; 45 free, 265 appropriated.

Bible Christians , 106 ; 53 free, 53 appropriated.

The Dissenting chapels within the town, returned in the Census report, are the following :-

Croft Chapel, Independent. It is capable of seating 500 persons.

Wesleyan Chapel in Bourne-street. This building was formerly the theatre. Another Wesleyan Chapel in Bohemia-terrace.

Baptist Chapel, Wellington-square, erected 1838. There are sittings for 600 persons.

Ebenezer Chapel, East Hill. Baptist (Calvinistic).

Providence Chapel, Bourne-road, returned as " Independent ;" (but not connected with the Congregational body).

Zoar Chapel, Bourne-street (" Protestant Calvinists " ), with the chapel at St. Leonards, now closed, were the two " Undefined."

The total number of sittings returned for all religious bodies in the Hastings district , exclusive of the Roman [ 66 ]Catholics, who made no return, was 9,424 ; 3,931 free, 4,363 appropriated.

A chapel for the Calvinistic Baptists in Bohemia-road, near Linton-terrace, was erected in 1854. It is neatly finished, and is capable of seating 300 persons.

ALL SOULS.

The Roman Catholic Institution was commenced about 1834, under the auspices of the Rev. J. Jones and the Rev. W. Wilds.

In a circular put forth by them at the time, the design was thus characterized : -" Our object is to inform you, that a commodious piece of freehold land has been purchased at St. Leonards, or Hastings New Town, on the coast of Sussex, for the erection of a Church, and a suitable residence for a Priest. For the better advancement of this purpose, we further design, with God's blessing, and the assistance of a generous public, when the church and house are completed, to associate in the holy work, a community denominated by the Apostolic See, 'THE PIOUS CONGREGATION OF THE RELIGIOUS SISTERS OF CHARITY,' who, to their ordinary occupation of gratuitously serving the poor, but especially the sick poor, will gladly unite the office of training poor females between thirteen and seventeen years of age to all the duties of good and useful household servants, " &c., &c.

The church is not as yet completed, but service is performed in a temporary chapel.

There are Sisters residing in the Institution, with a school under their care.

The buildings are on a hill north- east of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene. The Rev. John Jones died in 1850, and was buried at All Souls. [ 67 ]

CHAPTER IV.

THE TOWN.

PUBLIC BUILDINGS . - TRADE. - BATHING. - INTERNAL GOVERNMENT. - SCHOOLS . - LITERARY INSTITUTIONS. - POPULATION. - OCCUPATIONS, ETC.

THE frontage of Hastings (including in this general term St. Leonards) extends along the sea for two miles and a quarter, reckoning from the East Hill, near the Tamarisk steps, Hastings, to the Fountain Inn , near the Marina, St. Leonards. It occupies a succession of valleys, more or less open, and on the sides of the hills which divide them habitations are all along scattered . The entrance to the valley in which the Old Town lies, and which used formerly to be the London road, is peculiarly picturesque, and the vista which opens on the eye on descending the hill towards High-street is charming. The elm trees of the avenue, the steep sides of the hills covered with gorse, the rock every now and then appearing through the soil, the old church tower, the irregular roofs of the houses rising one above another, and the bright blue sea beyond, with the white or brown sails of the little barks on its bosom, fully justify the character of beauty which impressed itself on those who first arrived at Hastings in the old coach days.

At this end of the town are situated the residences of some of the principal inhabitants. Hastings Lodge, the residence of F. North, Esq., one of the Members for the borough; Halton House, the residence of P. F. Robertson, [ 68 ]Esq., the other Member ; Mansion House, the residence of the Earl and Countess Waldegrave ; Croft House, once the residence of Mr. Gloucester Wilson, now of Miss North ; All Saints' Rectory, Hastings House, the Casino, Belmont, and other detached villas.

In the side of the East Hill, further north, is a cave called the Minnis[96] Rock, in which Moss states (p. 126) , that about forty years previous to the date at which he wrote, there was a cross cut out of the rock in the centre of the cavern, and a niche for the image of a saint. In this place some old people, who had been discharged from the workhouse for ill-conduct (in 1783), found a shelter, and lived on casual charity.

In the side of the opposite hill, at the back of the Croft, are some artificial excavations, called St. Clement's Caves, which were originally made by digging for sand, and were afterwards, it is said, used to deposit contraband goods. They are now kept up for exhibition, and on certain days are illuminated for visitors.

On the West Hill, besides some rows of houses (St. Mary's-terrace and others), is St. Mary's Lodge, the residence of the Rev. Thomas Vores. On the side of the hill, nearer the town, is Castledown House, and a little below it the Cemetery for St. Mary's parish. Higher up, and just below the Castle, is Castledown terrace, and the houses called Castle Hill.

The views from the West Hill on every side are very pleasing. On the south is the sea, with Beachy Head in the distance. On the west, in the valley through which the railroad runs, may be seen the trains hurrying along, and betraying their presence in picturesque clouds of steam, even when buried in the cutting. To the north, the far-stretching country diversified with hill and dale ; and to the east, the old town, the venerable churches, the trees of the Croft, and those which skirt the old London road, and the East Hill sloping beautifully from the back of the town.

The West Hill sinks down into the valley in which [ 69 ]Wellington-square, the Priory, &c. , are situated, and the ground again rises to the hill on which Bohemia, the Roman Catholic Convent, & c. , stand.

Bohemia is spoken of in Barry's " Guide as " Mr. Foster's Farmhouse." This was at one time a favourite walk from Hastings, as refreshments were to be procured at the farm . The present mansion was erected by Mr. Breeds . The Princess Sophia of Gloucester once spent some time in it. It is now the residence of Wastel Brisco, Esq.

Near Bohemia were the ruins of an ancient church or chapel, which Mr. Stonestreet thinks may have been a part of the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene, or perhaps the parish church.

Below this hill opens the vale of Gensing, in which Warrior-square is placed. The ground again rises at the back of St. Leonards, till it finally sinks down about Bo-Peep. The South-coast Railway, which intersects these ridges, passes through two tunnels from St. Leonards to Hastings.

PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

It will not take much space to describe the public buildings in Hastings, which are neither numerous nor remarkable.

The old Town-hall was built in 1700 by John Pulteney and Peter Gott, the then Members for the borough. It occupied the same site as the present building, which stands in High-street, and was erected in 1823. The hall, which is forty-four feet long by eighteen wide, and fifteen feet high, contains a shield taken from the French at the conquest of Quebec, and presented to the Corporation by General Murray, who was a jurat of Hastings. General Murray was the first British Governor of Canada. He lived at Beauport at the commencement of the present century.

Underneath the old Town-hall was the Market-house, now used as the Police-station. A new market was built in 1833 in George-street. The first stone was laid by the [ 70 ]present King of Hanover, then Prince George of Cumberland.

Over the Market-house is a large room used for public meetings. The Assembly-room at the Swan Inn, High-street, and the Assembly-room at St. Leonard's, are used for the same purposes.

The Custom-house is on the beach, near the Cutter Inn. Here also is the Fish-market, and a little beyond, the Stade, where boats are drawn up and merchandise landed . Further on still, at the foot of the East Hill, is a public well, called the East Well. Above the tank, on the exterior of the well-house, are inscribed the words, " Waste not, want not. " Just beyond the East Well is the Fishermen's Church already mentioned.

The General Post-office for Hastings, after being removed from High- street, was until 1854 in George-street, but the changes in the town requiring larger premises and a more central position, it has been transferred to Wellington-place. The General Post-office for St. Leonards is at Southall's Library.

The postal delivery of Hastings extends to the Barrack ground, inclusive, on the north ; to High Wickham, inclusive, on the north-east ; to Verulam-place, inclusive, on the west ; and to Stone field, in the parish of St. Mary-in-the- Castle, on the north-west.

The postal delivery of St. Leonards extends over the whole of St. Leonards, and the parish of St. Mary Magdalene, except Verulam-place and White Rock place.

There are receiving-houses at convenient distances. The Dispensary is at the bottom of High-street. It was established in 1830. The site of the present building was given by the late William Lucas Shadwell, Esq. The Infirmary is near Verulam-place. It was erected in 1839, and contains 22 beds .

TRADE .

The fishery has ever been one of the main sources of local traffic. It is spoken of by Horsfield, Moss, &c. , as [ 71 ]having been much more extensive formerly than it was in the time at which they wrote.

Moss gives the number of boats employed in the fishery as about fifty or sixty, their tonnage as from seven to ten tons each, and a single boat as carrying three men, or two men and a boy. He gives a list, by which it appears that the number of fishing-boats at Hastings in 1803 was ninety- seven, and in 1823 sixty four ; and as the tonnage of the boats seems to have been much the same, this shows a decrease of about one-third in that interval.

The number of fishing-boats is now as follows :-

25 of the 1st class, 34 feet and upwards in length.

These pay 24s. per annum pier dues.

34	of the	2d class,	24	feet to	34,	pay	18s.
21	"	3d class,	18	"	24,	12s.
4	"	4th class,	which, with all small craft using the capstan, pay 5s.

A large boat, which eighteen months since would have cost 800l. , now (in 1855) costs 1,000l. The mackerel-nets for such a boat are two miles and three-quarters in length, consisting of 120 nets, each forty yards long. The herring-nets are a mile and a-quarter long, consisting of seventy-six nets, each thirty yards long. Mackerel-nets are ten feet nine inches deep. Herring-nets are eleven feet seven inches deep.

There are three principal seasons,

The Trauling Season, from the middle of July to the end of September, and from November to April. In this are caught turbots, brill, plaice, soles, gurnet, scallops, crabs, lobsters, &c.

The Mackerel Season, from January to July.

The Herring Season begins in September and lasts till December.

Pandling for shrimps on the sands, and catching prawns in nets called ginns, baited with small crabs, -/ [ 72 ]among the rocks at low water, are practised during the spring and summer.

On the 1st of February, 1846, one boat brought in 12,000 mackerel, and another boat had so large a quantity that the nets sank. Notwithstanding similar occasional instances of great success in the fishery, the fishermen are, as a class, poor. Their gains are precarious, and their losses often severe. A Club exists, in which they can insure their boats and nets, which last are sometimes greatly damaged.

Sixty-seven persons were returned from Hastings by the Census as being, on the night of March 30th, 1851, on vessels employed at sea.

Coal is the principal import at Hastings . The quantity has, of course, greatly increased with the increase of population. In 1833 the quantity amounted to 12,540 chaldrons.

In 1854, the coals imported into the borough were as follows :

	Tons.	Cwt.
By Sea	22,590	14
By Rail	1,276	1
By Land	92	14
Total	23,959	9

Increase over 1852, 2,742 tons.

It has been proposed to ballast the coal vessels on their return with iron ore instead of shingle. Much of the soil at Hastings contains portions of iron, and, as will be seen in the notice of Ashburnham , there were formerly numerous furnaces in Sussex. But the expense of smelting it in the district would now render the trade unremunerative.

Specimens of the iron ore of Hastings were sent to the Great Exhibition of 1851 by Mr. Ross.

Specimens of the white sand were also in this Exhibition. Mr. Sharpe has lately been using this material with success in the manufacture of glass , and has taken a contract for twenty-one years, by which he engages to [ 73 ]remove not less than 3,000 tons, and not more than 4,000, in one year. A writer in the " Hastings and St. Leonards News, "after urging the export of iron ore, goes on to say :-

We see now that our white sand will make excellent glass, that our iron stones will make good iron. It is also true that we have grass near at hand which will make baskets, that we have pebbles on our shores as beautiful as the German agate, that we have wood of peculiar hardness buried in our sands, that we have pipe-clay under our cliffs which has almost driven hearth stones out of the market at Hastings, that we have an extraordinary geology, perplexing railway engineers to the border of distraction ; that Hastings possesses, in short, a variety of peculiarities which we cannot enumerate, many of which we forget even with pen in hand, while many more we doubtless have never known as yet ."

SUBMARINE FOREST

The " wood buried in the sands" in the above paragraph refers to the Submarine Forest, as it is called, at the foot of Carlisle Parade. When a particular tide shifts the sand, traces of a submerged wood are found here. " Embedded in a black-looking deposit, probably formed by the boughs and foliage decayed, is timber, some of which is of considerable size ; also numerous hazel-huts, the shells of which are in a perfect state of preservation, owing to the protection from the air. " Of this wood various articles are made, and exhibited for sale at the Pelham-arcade and other places. The existence of this submerged wood is one fact which shows the changes in the relation of sea and land at this place. The whole of the modern part of Hastings, near the sea, from George street to the Priory, is on a beach foundation.

BATHING.

The machines for bathing in the open sea are placed in front of the Marine Parade, Carlisle Parade, Warrior square, Eversfield-place, and the Marina. [ 74 ]The first warm baths were those erected by Mr. Barry on the Marine Parade, and which were removed in the year 1854. Those now used are the Pelham Baths, in Pelham-place ; and those on the Marina, St. Leonards.

INTERNAL GOVERNMENT OF HASTINGS.

Hastings was first chartered as a Corporation in the thirty-first year of Elizabeth ; before that time, the chief magistrate was called a Bailiff. The first Mayor, chosen in 1588 , was Mr. Thomas Hay.

Under this charter, the Corporation consisted of a Mayor and twelve Jurats. Since the Municipal Reform Bill, the Corporation has consisted of a Mayor, six Aldermen, and eighteen Common Councilmen. Six new Councillors are elected annually, November 1 ; the Mayor on November 9 ; and two Aldermen every three years.

The Municipal Borough of Hastings consists of the parishes of All Saints, St. Clement, St. Andrew, Holy Trinity or Priory, St. Michael-on-the-Rock, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Mary Bulverhythe, part of the parish of Ore, containing 4 inhabitants ; part of the parish of St. Mary-in-the-Castle, containing 4,278 inhabitants ; and part of the parish of St. Leonard-on Sea, containing 827 inhabitants. The population of the borough, thus defined, was, in 1851 , 16,966 persons -7,557 males, 9,409 females .

LIST OF MAYORS.

Moss has given a list of Bailiffs, from 1500 to 1588, and a list of Mayors up to the time at which he wrote. The following list brings up the series to the last election :-

1825.	Charles Steevens Crouch, Esq.
1826.	Frederic North, Esq.
1827.	C. S. Crouch, Esq.
1828.	F. North, Esq.
1829.	C. S. Crouch, Esq.
1830.	F. North, Esq.
1831.	C. S. Crouch, Esq.
1832.	John Goldsworthy Shorter, Esq.

[ 75 ]

1833.	Robert Ranking, Esq.
1834.	William Scrivens, Esq.
1835.	Robert Montague Wilmot, Esq.
1836.	R. M. Wilmot, Esq.
	William Thorpe, Esq.
	R. Ranking, Esq.
1837.	William Duke, Esq.
1838.	Peter Francis MacCabe, Esq.
1839.	Francis Smith, Esq.
1840.	F. Smith, Esq.
1841.	William Duke, Esq.
1842.	Wastel Brisco, Esq.
1843.	P. F. MacCabe, Esq.
1844.	George Scrivens, Esq.
1845.	John Hornby Maw, Esq.
1846.	Frederic Ticehurst, Esq.
1847.	Frederic Ticehurst, Esq.
1848.	Alfred Burton, Esq.
1849.	George Scrivens, Esq.
1850.	James Emary, Esq.
1851.	Thomas Hickes, Esq.
1852.	Thomas Hickes, Esq.
1853.	Charles Clift, Esq.
1854.	Will Ginner, Esq.

The Parliamentary Borough varies slightly in its limits from the municipal. It comprises the sub-district of All Saints, the parishes of St. Andrew, Holy Trinity, St. Michael, St. Mary Magdalene, part of St. Mary in-the-Castle, part of St. Leonards, part of Ore, and the Liberty of the Sluice. The population was, in 1851 , 17,011. It returns two Members. The following is a List of Representatives in Parliament, continued from Moss's list (p. 138) to the present time :[ 76 ]

1826.	Sir William Curteis, Bart. (Chiltern Hundreds)
	Sir Charles Wetherell (Attorney- General)
	James Law Lushington, Esq. (Chiltern Hundreds).
	John Evelyn Denison, Esq.
	Joseph Planta, Esq.
1830.	Sir Henry Fane, Knt.
	J. Planta, Esq.
1831.	Fredk. North, Esq.
	John Ashley Warre, Esq.
1832.	F. North, Esq.
	J. A. Warre, Esq.
1835.	F. North, Esq
	Howard Elphinstone, Esq.
1837.	Right Hon . J. Planta.
	Robert Hollond, Esq.
1841.	Right Hon. J. Planta (Chiltern Hundreds).
	R. Hollond, Esq
	Musgrave Brisco, Esq.
1847.	R. Hollond, Esq,
	M. Brisco, Esq.
1852.	Patrick Francis Robertson, Esq.
	Musgrave Brisco, Esq. , Chiltern Hundreds, 1854 ;
	succeeded by Fredk. North, Esq.

WATER AND GAS WORKS.

The eastern districts of Hastings are supplied with water by waterworks, the reservoirs of which are on the East [ 77 ]Hill, near Belmont. The western districts are supplied from the Eversfield Waterworks in Shornden and Newgate Wood, near Tivoli. The Gasworks are near the Railway Station.

SCHOOLS

Endowed.- There are four Free Schools in Hastings, founded by private individuals, viz.:

One in 1619, by the Rev. William Parker, for youth of the inhabitants of Hastings, to be taught 66 manners and other virtuous education." The actual instruction is in all branches of a useful English education. The School-house is in Castle-place, and was built by the present Master, Mr. John Banks, in 1848.

Three schools endowed by James Saunders, 1708. One is for 70 boys of the parishes of All Saints, St. Clement, and St. Mary-in-the-Castle, to be taught English, Latin, &c. The School-house is in Bourne- road. The others are for 60 children, 30 from each of the two eastern parishes, to be taught reading and spelling.

Supported by Subscriptions and Donations. -National School, for boys, girls, and infants, for the parishes of All Saints and St. Clement's. The boys' school is on the East Hill. A new school for girls, in All Saints- street, erected in 1852-3, was opened April 5 , 1853. The Infant-school is near St. Clement's Church. The sites for all the three schools were presented by Lady Waldegrave, besides large donations. To the school on the East Hill she gave 500l.

Halton Day-school, for boys, girls, and infants. Schoolrooms near the church.-

St. Mary's Day-schools, for boys, girls, and infants. The original school-rooms were built by the Rev. W. Wallinger, then Minister of St. Mary's. A new schoolroom was built for girls by the late Mrs. Vores, mother of the Rev. T. Vores, and was opened on Easter-Tuesday, April 25, 1848. The former Girls ' School is now used for infants. All the three are at the back of Wellington-square . [ 78 ]St. Leonards National Day-schools, for boys, girls, and infants. The school-rooms are near Maze Hill.-

The British and Foreign Lancastrian Schools, for boys and girls. The Boys ' School is held under the Baptist Chapel, Wellington-square ; the girls' in Waterloo-place. There are Sunday-schools connected with all the churches, and also with the Independent, Baptist, and Wesleyan congregations.

A School of Industry was commenced in 1849 , having for its especial object the instruction of elder girls in the duties and employments of domestic servants. Six girls were at first admitted, but the number has been increased to twelve. The girls are boarded, clothed , and instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, plain needlework, and marking, and, as far as possible, in all the various branches of household work. The school is in Albion-place, West Hill. It is supported by private subscription. The Census Report for Education, 1851, gives thirty-nine schools in the municipal borough of Hastings . Of these, thirteen were public, twenty- six private. Number of scholars belonging to these schools, or on the books, 2,701-1,466 males, 1,235 females.

The attendance of scholars on March 31st, 1851 , was 2,280 of both sexes-1,191 males, 1,089 females.

The Sunday-schools in Hastings (municipal borough) are returned as nine.

Number of scholars belonging to the schools, or on the books, 1,928 of both sexes-960 males, 968 females.

Number attending the schools on Sunday, March 31st, 1851 , 1,439 of both sexes-740 males, 699 females.

The proportion of scholars in all schools, private and public, to the population, is returned as-

Of day-scholars	One in 6.52
Sunday-scholars	One in 9.14

In the classification of schools, there are returned for the Registration District of Hastings, which takes in the four parishes of Fairlight, Pett, Guestling, and Ore :-

One school supported by general or local taxation. [ 79 ]Four by endowments.

Twelve by religious bodies. Of these latter, the Church of England supports four National and five others ; the Roman Catholics have one ; and two British Schools are supported by different denominations.

In the Returns of Literary and Scientific Institutions, in the same Report, there were returned for Hastings :

1. The Mechanics' Institute (High-street), with 350 members, who were quarterly subscribers, of whom 335 were males, 15 females . The subscription, 8s. per annum ; the library, 1,200 volumes ; the lectures weekly in winter, their subjects various.

2. Literary and Scientific Institution (George-street). 21 proprietary members, 46 annual subscribers, and 24 others who subscribed for shorter periods ; the subscription, 15s. ; number of volumes in the library, 2,500 ; lectures occasionally.

3. St. Leonards Mechanics' Institute. Members, 243 , subscribing quarterly, and 9 others ; subscription, 2s. and 1s. 6d. per annum ; volumes in the library, 690 ; lectures, weekly during winter, subjects various.

POPULATION.

The population of the borough of Hastings, both in its municipal and Parliamentary limits, has already been given, and also the population of the different parishes of the town taken individually.

The Registration District of Hastings includes three Sub-districts, Ore, All Saints, St. Mary-in-the- Castle.

	Ore contains the parishes of
	Guestling.
	Fairlight.
	Ore.

All Saints' contains the parishes of All Saints ' and St. Clement's .

St. Mary-in-the- Castle contains the parishes of,

St. Mary-in-the- Castle. [ 80 ]

St. Andrew.
Holy Trinity, or Priory.
St. Michael-on-the-Rock.
St. Mary Magdalene.
St. Leonard-on-Sea.
St. Mary Bulverhythe.

Returns for the Registration District, 1851 :Number of persons to the square mile, 968 ; inhabited houses, 3,223 ; families or occupiers, 4,169 ; population, 21,215.

In the following table of the increase of population in the towns of Hastings and St. Leonards, the sub-districts of All Saints and St. Mary- in-the-Castle are alone included.

	Population	Total Increase	Increase per cent.
1801	3,175	......	......
1811	4,025	850	26.77
1821	6,300	2,275	56.53
1831	10,231	3,931	62.40
1841	11,789	1,558	15.23
1851	17,621	5,832	49.45

The greatest increase will be seen to have been in the periods between 1811-21 and 1821-31 . In the first of these periods there was a large extension westward of the parish of St. Mary-in-the-Castle, the population of which was nearly trebled. In the period between 1821-31 the new town of St. Leonards was erected, and the population of the parish of St. Leonards and of St. Mary Magdalene was more than quadrupled. The next period ( 1831-41 ) was a time of great comparative depression, and the increase in the western parishes sank from 313 per cent. to 33 ; whilst in the two eastern parishes there was a slight decrease. But in the period between 1841-51 a fresh start was made, owing, no doubt, chiefly to the increased railway accommodation, and the impetus thereby given. to building.

It appears from a comparison with the returns of other [ 81 ]districts in Sussex, that between 1841-51 the above sub-districts increased more rapidly than even Brighton, and, of course, far more so than any other district of the county. It is believed that the increase still continues.

In 1841 , the males in Hastings and St. Leonards formed 44 per cent. of the whole population, and the females about 56 per cent. In the following ten years the male population increased rather more rapidly than the female ; so that in 1851 the males formed about 45 per cent. , and the females about 55. The greater comparative increase of males during this period must be attributed to the railway works, and also to the building in progress at that date. The male population at this time may be estimated at about 11,600, the female at about 13,300 .

I.- OCCUPATIONS OF THE INHABITANTS .

NOTE.- In making any deductions from this table, the following facts should be borne in mind :

1. That the Census was taken on March 31 , 1851 , and represents the actual population of Hastings on that particular day only.

2. That it includes many who were only visitors at the time.

3. That several of the native population were probably absent, more particularly the fishermen. (See ante, p . 72.)

4. That this table only applies to males, and only includes those of the male sex who are twenty years old and upwards. The number of these in Hastings is set down at 5,331 .

5. That when the Census speaks of " Hastings, " it means the "'District." The entire population of the Parliamentary Borough of Hastings, in 1851 , was 17,011 ; that of the District, 21,215 ; that of the Municipal Borough, 16,966.

6. That the figures given do not represent the state of the population at the present time (though recently pub[ 82 ]lished), for as Hastings is yearly increasing greatly in its habitations, there must have been a considerable increase in its population in the course of the last four years.

7. That each person is entered according to his principal calling only. Hence it must frequently happen that an understatement is made of the numbers following particular employments. (See Hastings and St. Leonards News. )

CLASS I			CLASS III, continued.
Post Office		12	Law Clerks		13
Inland Revenue		4	Law Court Officers and Law Stationers		2
Customs		103	Druggists		19
Other Government Officers		14
Police		14			188
Union Relieving Officers		2
Officer of Local Board		1	CLASS IV
Other Local Officers		17	Authors		2
East India Service		10	Editors, Writers		5
			Painters (Artists)		3
		177	Architects		6
CLASS II			Musicmasters		5
Army Officers		17	Schoolmasters		20
Army Half-pay Officers		3	Other Teachers		11
Soldiers		2
Chelsea Pensioners		12			52
Navy Officers		10	CLASS V
Navy Half-pay Officers		5	Son, Grandson, Brother,
Seamen, R.N.		1	Nephew (not otherwise
Greenwich Pensioners		5	returned)		17
Marines		2	Scholars at school or college		11
		57			28
CLASS III.			CLASS VI.
Clergymen		61	Innkeepers		49
Protestant Ministers		8	Lodging House Keepers		28
Priests and other Religious Teachers		5	Officer of Charitable Institution		1
Barristers		15	Others - Boarding and
Solicitors		20	Lodging		6
Other Lawyers		6	Domestic Servants (General)		180
Physicians		12	Do., Coachmen		19
Surgeons		20	Do., Grooms		17
Other Medical Men		3	Do., Gardeners		6
Parish Clerks		3	Do., Inn Servants		40
Other Church Officers		4	Hairdressers		17

[ 83 ]

CLASS VI., continued.			CLASS VIII., continued.
Hatters		4	Ship Owners		1
Tailors		118	Seamen		120
Hosiers, Haberdashers		2	Pilots		1
Gloves (material not stated)		2	Others connected with Sea
Shoemakers		172	Navigation		2
Patten, Clog Makers		2	Engaged in Warehousing		7
Umbrella, Parasol, Stick			Messengers, Porters (not
Maker		1	Government)		34
Others providing dress		8			368
		672	CLASS IX
CLASS VII			Land Proprietors		51
House Proprietors		29	Farmers		51
Merchants		22	Graziers		2
Bankers		8	Farmers, Grazier's "Sons"
Brokers		9	"Grandsons", "Brothers",
Agents, Factors		6	"Nephews"		14
Auctioneers		13	Farm Bailiffs		13
Accountants		4	Agricultural labourers (out-
Commercial Clerks		25	door)		449
" Travellers		7	Shepherds		8
Pawnbrokers		5	Farm Servants (in-door)		37
Shopkeepers		2	Others connected with Agri-
Hawkers, Pedlars		27	culture		4
Other General Merchants,			Woodmen		4
Dealers and Agents		6	Gardeners		80
			Nurserymen		1
		163
CLASS VII					717
Railway Engine Drivers,			CLASS X
Stokers		22	Horse-dealers		1
Others engaged in Railway			Grooms, Horsekeepers,
Traffic		46	Jockeys		29
Toll Collectors		7	Farriers, Veterinary Sur-
Coach, Cab Owners		7	geons		4
Livery-stable Keepers		9	Cattle, Sheep, Dealers, Sales-
Coachmen (not Domestic			men		1
Servants, Guards, Post-			Drovers		2
boys		67	Gamekeepers		3
Carmen, Carriers, Carters,			Vermin Destroyer		1
Draymen		31	Fishermen		192
Omnibus Owners, Conduc-			Others engaged about Animals		1
tors, Drivers		3
Boat and Bargemen		11			234

[ 84 ]

CLASS XI.			CLASS XII., continued.
Publishers, Booksellers		7	Others dealing in Animal
Bookbinders		3	Food		11
Printers		11	Tallow Chandlers		4
Others engaged about Pub-			Fellmongers		1
lications		1	Curriers		2
Actors		3	Tanners		2
Musicians (not Teachers)		11	Dealers in Featers, Quills.		1
Musical Instrument Makers		1	Woolen Cloth Manufac-
Engravers		3	turers		1
Persons connected with			Clothiers		1
Shows, Games and Sports		5	Woolen Drapers		1
Civil Engineers		5	Other workers, dealers in
Watchmakers		10	Wool		1
Philosophical Instrument			Silk Manufacturers		2
Maker and Dealer		1	Fancy Goods Manufacturers		3
Gunsmiths		4
Engine and Machine Makers		6			146
Toolmaker		1	CLASS XIII
Coachmakers		43	Greengrocers		18
Saddlers		12	Corn Merchants		5
Shipwrights, Shipbuilders		16	Millers		24
Boat, Barge-Builders		10	Bakers		81
Others engaged in fitting			Confectioners		13
Ships		3	Others dealing in Vegetable
Surveyors		6	Food		5
Builders		32	Maltsters		1
Carpenters, Joiners		263	Brewers		29
Bricklayers		193	Licensed Victuallers, Beer-
Masons, Paviors		39	shop Keepers		27
Plasterers		41	Wine and Spirit Merchants		9
Painters, Plumbers, and			Grocers		90
Glaziers		98	Tobacconists		2
Others engaged in House			Others dealing in Drinks,
Construction		2	Stimulants		8
Wheelwrights		27	French Polishers		1
Millwrights		2	Timber Merchants		3
Dyers, Scourers, Calenderers		3	Other dealers, workers in
			Timber		1
		868	Sawyers		41
CLASS XII			Last Makers		6
Cowkeepers, Milksellers		23	Cabinet Makers, Uphol
Butchers		63	sterers		34
Poulterers		8	Turners		3
Fishmongers		22	Chairmakers		4

[ 85 ]

CLASS XIII. continued.			CLASS XIV., continued.
Box Makers		1	Carvers, Gilders		3
Others dealing in Wood			Coppersmiths		2
Furniture		17	Tinmen		9
Coopers		10	Locksmiths, Bellhangers		1
Basket Makers		8	Workers, Dealers in Mixed
Thatchers		5	Metals		3
Rope Makers		4	Iron Manufacture		11
Sailcloth Manufacturers		10	Whitesmiths		10
Other workers, dealers in			Blacksmiths		68
Hemp		1	Ironmongers		11
Drapers		52	Cutlers		1
Lace Manufacturers		1	Grinders (branch unde-
Calico Cotton Printers		1	fined)		1
Stationers		8
Paper Stainers		1			509
Paper Hangers		2	CLASS XV
			Labourers (branch unde-
		515	fined)		468
CLASS XIV			Mechanics, Manufacturers,
Coal Merchants or Dealers		9	Shopmen (branch unde-
Coal Heavers, Coal La-			fined)		5
bourers		7	Others of indefinite occupa-
Chimney Sweepers		7	tion		6
Gas-works Service		8
Other workers in Coal		2			479
Limestone Quarriers, Burn-			CLASS XVI
ers		1	Gentlemen, Independent		30
Brick Makers		46	Annuitants		58
Railway Labourers		248
Other workers in Stone, Clay		34			88
Earthenware Manufacture.		1	CLASS XVII
Earthenware and Glass			Dependent on relatives		1
Dealers		6	Paupers of no stated occu-
Tobacco-pipe Makers and			pation		5
others		3
Water Providers, Dealers		3			6
Workers, Dealers in Precious			Persons of no stated occu-
Stones		4	pations or conditions		55
Goldsmiths, Silversmiths		10
OCCUPATIONS OF FEMALE POPULATION FROM TWENTY YEARS OF AGE AND UPWARDS
NOTE:-In making any deductions from this table, the Rules 1,2,5,6 and 7, given above should be applied,

[ 86 ]merely altering the gender where required, while Rule 4 should be replaced by the following :

This table only applies to females, and only includes those of the female sex who are twenty years old and upwards ; the number of these in the district of Hastings is set down at 6,675, being 1,344 more than the number of males in the preceding table.

CLASS I.			CLASS VI., continued.
Employed by Local Govern-			Domestic Servants (House-
ment		3	maids)		103
CLASS III.			Do. Nurses		59
Church Officers		2	Do., Inn Servants		39
CLASS IV.			Nurses (not Domestic Ser-
Engaged in Literature		3	vants)		53
Engaged in the Fine Arts		1	Charwomen		53
Scientific Persons		1	Hatters		1
Music-mistresses		4	Straw Hat and Bonnet
Schoolmistresses		48	Makers		18
Governesses		44	Furriers		3
Other Teachers		11	Tailors		8
			Milliners		249
		112	Seamstresses		50
CLASS V.			Stay Makers		8
"Wife" (of no specified			Hosiers, Haberdashers		2
occupation)		2,923	Washerwomen, Manglers,
"Widows" (ditto)		234	Laundry Keepers		236
"Daughter," "Grand-			Glovers (material not stated)		1
daughter," "Sister,"			Shoemakers		14
"Niece," (not otherwise			"Shoemaker's Wife"		81
returned)		456
Scholars, under tuition at					2,069
home		3	CLASS VII,
			House Proprietors		49
		3,616	Shop-Keepers		9
CLASS I.			"Shopkeeper's Wife"		3
Innkeepers		5	Hawkers, Pedlars		6
"Innkeeper's Wife"		37
Lodging-house Keepers		108			67
Others - Boarding and			CLASS IX.
Lodging		18	Land Proprietors		43
DomesticServants (General)		736	Farmers		3
Do. Housekeepers		57	Farmer's, Grazier's "Wife"		34
Do. Cooks		145	Ditto, ditto, "Daughter,"

[ 87 ]

CLASS IX., continued			CLASS XIII., continued.
"Granddaughter," "Sis-			Grocers		12
ter," "Niece"		24	Tobacconists		1
Agricultural Labourers (out-			Cabinet Makers, Uphol-
door)		6	sters		6
Farm Servants (in-door)		21	Others dealing in Wood
			Furniture		3
		131	Drapers		4
CLASS XI.			Lace Manufacturers		3
Booksellers		2	Stationers		2
Others engaged about Pub-
lications		1			81
Actresses, and others about			CLASS XIV.
Theatres		2	Dealers, Workers in Coal		1
Musicians, Musical Instru-			Earthenware and Glass
ment Makers		1	Dealers		3
Toy Makers, Dealers		1	Workers, dealers in Precious
Others connected with			Stones		5
Shows, Games		2	Blacksmiths		1
			Other Workers, Dealers in
		9	Iron, Steel		1
CLASS XII.					11
Cowkeepers, Milksellers		4
Butchers		1	CLASS XV.
"Butcher's Wife"		30	Labourers (branch unde-
Fishmongers		9	fined)		1
Others dealing in Animal			Shopwomen (ditto)		1
Food		1
Silk Manufacture		1			2
Fancy Goods Manufacture.		2	CLASS XVI.
Embroiderers		3	Gentlewomen, Independent		46
Other Workers, dealers in			Annuitants		283
Silk		2
					329
		53	CLASS XVII.
CLASS XIII.			Dependent on relative		18
Greengrocers		14	Paupers of no stated occu-
Bakers		4	pation		36
Confectioners		4
Licensed Victuallers, Beer-					54
shop Keepers		5	Persons of no stated occu-
Ditto, ditto, "Wife"		23	pations or conditions		107

[ 88 ]

OCCUPATIONS OF THE INHABITANTS

Class		Males	Females
I.	Persons engaged in the General or Local
	Government of the Country	177	3
II.	Persons engaged in the Defence of the
	Country	577	-
III.	Persons in the Learned Professions
	(with their immediate Subordinates),
	either filling public offices, or in
	private practice	188	2
IV.	Persons engaged in Literature, the Fine
	Arts, and the Sciences	52	112
V.	Persons engaged in the domestic offices
	or duties of Wives, Mothers, Mis-
	tresses of Families, Children, Relatives
	(not returned in other classes)	28	3,616
VI.	Persons engaged in Entertaining, Cloth
	ing, and Performing Personal Offices
	for man	672	2,069
VII.	Persons who Buy or Sell, Keep, Let, or
	Lend, Money, Houses, or Goods of
	various kinds	163	67
VIII.	Persons engaged in the Conveyance of
	Men, Animals, Goods, or Messages	368	-
IX.	Persons possessing or working the Land,
	and engaged in growing Grain, Fruits,
	Grasses, Animals, and other Products	717	131
X.	Persons engaged about Animals	234	-
XI.	Persons engaged in Art and Mechanical
	Productions, in which matters of
	various kinds are employed in combination	868	9
XII.	Persons working and dealing in Animal
	Matters	146	53
XIII.	Persons working and dealing in Matters
	derived from the Vegetable Kingdom	515	81
XIV.	Persons working and dealing in Minerals	509	11
XV.	Labourers and others (branch undefined)	479	2
XVI.	Persons of Rank or property (not re-
	turned under any office or occupation)	88	329
XVII.	Persons supported by the Community,
	and of no specified occupation	6	54
	Other persons of no stated occupations
	or conditions	55	107
	Total	5,322	6,674

[ 89 ]

CHAPTER V.

REMARKABLE CHARACTERS , NATIVE INHABITANTS OR VISITORS OF HASTINGS. - LITERARY NOTICES .

TITUS OATES, one of those persons who, in Pope's forcible language, are " damned to universal fame," was the son of Samuel Otes (Oates), who was at one time chaplain to Colonel Pride, and was Rector of All-Saints ' in 1660. By the entry of his baptism in the parish register for 1619, it would appear that Titus Oates was born at Hastings, and Moss mentions a house in All-Saints'-street as the place of his abode ; but a house near the gate leading to Croft-meadow from the London road has also been pointed out as his residence. Part of the wall of this house still remains, and is built into the wall of a stable which now occupies the site. It is situated a little above Torfield House, at the top of High-street. By an entry in the church books, dated January 4th, 1673, and signed by him, it appears that for that time, at least, he officiated as minister.

Sir Cloudesley Shovell is supposed to have been born at Hastings, and to have lived in his youth in a house in All-Saints'-street. On the fact of his birth-place, however, accounts vary.

Edward Capel, who published an edition of Shakspeare, with an Introduction and Notes, lived for many years at Hastings, in what is now called East Cliffe House.

The following account of him and his residence was written by Mr. Pegge, in Nichols' Illustrations of the Literary History of the Nineteenth Century :[ 90 ]

"As he must show a taste for something, he chose architecture, and built a house on the faith of his own skill in that science, for which he paid exceedingly dear, to the great disappointment of those who succeeded to his fortune. This house was placed in a situation of all others the most uninteresting to a man of taste, who looks for diversity of prospect, lawns, groves, rivulets, &c., for it was close to the sea, at the port of Hastings. Here he was so much cramped in the scope about his house that he was obliged to hire several adjacencies, or pay for them inch meal.' This whim cost him, by his own account, and he was not given to exaggeration, nearly 5,000l. , and lamentable to tell, did not, after his decease, produce much more than 1,3007. Here, for the last twenty years of his life, he passed his hours from May to October, equally unknowing and unknown, for he was of too haughty a temper to associate with the inhabitants, and too much an humourist to be sought for by the neighbouring gentry. At first, indeed, he used to make morning visits to the Earl of Ashburnham and the Bishop of Chichester ( Sir William Ashburnham, who had a patrimonial seat in the neighbourhood) ; but even these wore away, and he at last became as much a hermit at Hastings as in his chambers at the Temple.......He died Jan. 24, 1781 , aged sixty-eight, and was buried at his native place in Suffolk. "

His house, which is sometimes called Scott's House, from having subsequently belonged to a Mr. Scott, was built in 1762. A large mulberry-tree in the garden is said to have been planted by Garrick when on a visit to Mr. Capel, and to have been a slip from Shakspeare's famous tree.

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS .

Doubtless very many persons, eminent by rank, station. or talent, have visited Hastings during the half-century or more in which it has been noted as a watering-place. Of a few only can we trace any records. [ 91 ]In the early books of Diplock's Library occurs, in 1801 , the name of Mallet du Pan, the confidential emissary of Louis XVI . to the Allied Sovereigns in 1792.

The Duke of Wellington's residence has already been noticed.

Lord Byron was at Hastings in 1814 ; his residence was Hastings House, the same dwelling which Sir Arthur Wellesley had occupied in 1806. He thus writes to Mr. Moore, July 8, 1814:

" I am going to the sea, and then to Scotland, and I have been doing nothing-that is, no good."

This was just at the time that Lara was in the press.

He writes from Hastings, August 3 :

"I have been renewing my acquaintance with my old friend Ocean, and I find his bosom as pleasant a pillow for an hour in the morning as his daughters of Paphos could be in the twilight. I have been swimming, and eating turbot, and smuggling neat brandies and silk handkerchiefs, and listening to my friend Hodgson's raptures about a pretty wife-elect of his, and walking on cliffs, and tumbling down hills, and making the most of the dolce far niente for the last fortnight."

The " Hodgson " here mentioned was the translator of Juvenal.

The next extract will remind many that this was a memorable season, and one never since renewed in England, the season of rejoicing for the General Peace.

August 4, 1814, still from Hastings, the poet writes to Mr Murray :

" Not having received the slightest answer to my last three letters, nor the book (the last number of the Edinburgh Review) which they requested, I presume that you were the unfortunate person who perished in the Pagoda on Monday last, and address this rather to your execu[ 92 ]tors than yourself, regretting that you should have had the ill-luck to be the sole victim on that joyous occasion. "

Aug. 12, 1814, to Mr. Moore :

" Before I left Hastings I got in a passion with an ink-bottle, which I flung out of the window one night with a vengeance ;--and what then ? Why, next morning I was horrified by seeing that it had struck and split upon the petticoat of Euterpe's graven imag99e in the garden, and grimed her as if it were on purpose."

"His servant," says the biographer, in a note,

" had brought him a large jar of ink, in which, not supposing it to be full, he had thrust his pen down to the very bottom . Enraged at finding it come out all smeared with ink, he flung the bottle out of the window into the garden, where it lighted, as has been described, upon one of eight leaden Muses that had been imported some time before from Holland ; the ninth having been by some accident left behind."

It was at Hastings, and at this time, that Lord Byron was seen on the rocks by Mrs. Sheppard, and that the interest excited by his appearance, his activity, and the prestige of his talents, found vent in earnest petitions to Almighty God for his spiritual and moral renovation. The prayer committed to paper was dated July 31 , 1814. In Lord Byron's answer to Mr. Sheppard, who, after his wife's death, communicated to him this prayer found amongst her papers, and believed by him to refer to Lord Byron, he says :

" I can assure you, that all the fame which ever cheated humanity into higher notions of its own importance, would never weigh in my mind against the pure and pious interest which a virtuous being may be pleased to take in my welfare. In this point of view I would not exchange the prayer of the deceased in my behalf for the united glory of Homer, Cæsar, and Napoleon, could such be accumulated upon a living head." [ 93 ]This letter is dated Pisa, December 8, 1821 , three years, therefore, before Lord Byron's death.

Thomas Campbell lived five years at St. Leonards. The house in which he resided is that now occupied by Mr. Parks, butcher, in the South Colonnade. During his stay he writes thus :

" I went three evenings ago to the Lover's Leap, with three ladies of unimpeachable virtue, reputation, and beauty ; and by making each and all of them swear that they would love me all their lives, and persuade their papas and mammas to come back to Hastings in the autumn, was persuaded by them not to jump over the precipice. "

In 1831 : " I continue to like St. Leonards very much. My appetite and spirits are better than in London ."

The Princess Sophia Matilda resided at Gloucester Lodge, St. Leonards, in 1831.

In 1834, the Duchess of Kent, with her present Majesty, then Princess Victoria, were at 57 , Marina, subsequently named "Victoria Lodge." It was during this visit that the late Sir Peckham Micklethwait had the opportunity of rendering an important service to the Royal party by stopping the horses of their carriage, which were running away. For this service he obtained his baronetcy.

Adelaide, the Queen Dowager, spent the winter of 1837 at 23, Grand Parade, since named "Adelaide House."

Chevalier Bunsen, when Prussian Ambassador, frequently visited G. M. Wagner, Esq., at St. Leonards

The present Emperor of the French was at Hastings in 1840. He lived at Pelham Cottage, which he left in August, to embark at Folkestone for the famous attempt at Boulogne. Louis-Philippe, his consort, the Duchess of Orleans with her children, the Prince and Princess de Joinville, and their suite, occupied the Victoria Hotel, St. Leonards, during the winter of 1848-49 . They were visited during [ 94 ]their stay by many distinguished persons, amongst them the Queen of the Belgians, also M. Guizot, and other of the ex-Ministers, who met to confer on the prospects of the Orleans dynasty.

The ex-King of the French returned to St. Leonards for a short time, in May, 1850 , during which time he was visited by M. Thiers, who resided at Brunswick House, Hastings, during his stay. Louis-Philippe was then in very declining health, and died at Claremont, in the following August.

The late Samuel Phillips, author of Essays from The Times, &c. , and Mr. Lane, the great Arabic scholar, author of Modern Egyptians, &c. , resided here in the years 1850-1852.

Priscilla Maurice, author of Sickness, its Trials and Blessings, died, after years of protracted suffering, at 23, White Rock-place, on the Tuesday before Easter, 1854.

George Mogridge, known as " Old Humphrey, " died at 4, High Wickham, November 2, 1854, and was buried in All Saints' Churchyard.

LITERARY NOTICES OF HASTINGS .

A few of the incidental notices of the place, both in prose and verse, which are scattered in works of general literature, may here be interesting.

Charles Lamb's playful description of his "penance " at Hastings occurs in the Old Margate Hoy, in the Essays of Elia, published between 1820 and 1833.

" I am fond of passing my vacations......at one or other of the Universities. Next to these my choice would fix me at some woody spot, such as the neighbourhood of Henley affords in abundance, upon the banks of my beloved Thames. But somehow or other my cousin contrives to wheedle me once in three or four seasons to a watering place. Old attachments cling to her in spite of experience. We have been dull at Worthing one summer, duller at Brighton another, dullest at Eastbourn a third, [ 95 ]and are at this moment doing dreary penance at Hastings ! and all because we were happy many years ago for a brief week at- Margate. That was our first sea-side experiment, and many circumstances combined to make it the most agreeable holiday of my life. We had neither of us seen the sea, and we had never been from home so long together in company. ... I love town, or country; but this detestable Cinque Port is neither. I hate these scrubbed shoots, thrusting out their starved foliage from between the horrid fissures of dusty innutritious rocks ; which the amateur calls, 'verdure to the edge of the sea.' I require woods, and they show me stunted coppices. I cry out for the water-brooks, and pant for fresh streams, and inland murmurs. I cannot stand all day on the naked beach, watching the capricious hues of the sea, shifting like the colours of a dying mullet. I am tired of looking out at the windows of this island-prison. I would fain retire into the interior of my cage. While I gaze upon the sea, I want to be on it, over it, across it. It binds me in with chains, as of iron. My thoughts are abroad. I should not feel so in Staffordshire. There is no home for me here. There is no sense of home at Hastings. It is a place of fugitive resort, an heterogeneous assemblage of sea-mews and stock-brokers, Amphitrites of the town, and Misses that coquet with the ocean. If it were what it was in its primitive shape, and what it ought to have remained, a fair honest fishing town, and no more, it were something-with a few straggling fishermen's huts scattered about, artless as its cliffs, and with their materials filched from them, it were something. I could abide to dwell with Meschech ; to assort with fisher-swains, and smugglers . There are, or I dream there are, many of this latter occupation here. Their faces become the place. I like a smuggler. He is the only honest thief. He robs nothing but the revenue, - an abstraction I never greatly cared about. I could go out with them in their mackerel-boats , or about their less ostensible business, with some satisfaction. I can even [ 96 ]tolerate those poor victims to monotony, who from day to day pace along the beach, in endless progress and recurrence, to watch their illicit countrymen-townsfolk or brethren, perchance-whistling to the sheathing or unsheathing of their cutlasses (their only solace), who under the mild name of preventive service, keep up a legitimated civil warfare in the deplorable absence of a foreign one, to show their detestation of run Hollands and their zeal for Old England . But it is the visitants from town, that come here to say that they have been here, with no more relish of the sea than a pond-perch or a dace might be supposed to have, that are my aversion. I feel like a foolish dace in these regions, and have as little toleration for myself here, as for them. What can they want here ? If they had a true relish of the ocean, why have they brought all this land luggage with them ? or why pitch their civilized tents in the desert ? What mean these scanty book-rooms-marine libraries, as they entitle them-- if the sea were, as they would have us believe, a book to read ' strange matter in ? ' What are their foolish concert-rooms, if they come, as they would fain be thought to do, to listen to the music of the waves ? All is false and hollow pretension. They come, because it is the fashion, and to spoil the nature of the place. They are mostly, as I have said , stock-brokers ; but I have watched the better sort of them- Now and then, an honest citizen (of the old stamp) in the simplicity of his heart, shall bring down his wife and daughters, to taste the sea-breezes . I always know the date of their arrival. It is easy to see it in their countenance. A day or two they go wandering on the shingles, picking up cockle-shells, and thinking them great things ; but, in a poor week, imagination slackens : they begin to discover that cockles produce no pearls, and then-oh then ! -if I could interpret for the pretty creatures (I know they have not the courage to confess it themselves) how gladly would they exchange their sea-side rambles for a Sunday walk on the greensward of their accustomed Twickenham meadows!" [ 97 ]Henry Taylor has laid the scene of part of his drama, Edwin the Fair, at Hastings. Leolf, whilst pacing the sea-shore near his castle there, speaks thus : --

"Here again I stand
Again, and on the solitary shore
Old Ocean plays as on an instrument,
Making that ancient music, - when not known
That ancient music, - only not so old
As He who parted ocean from dry land,
And saw that it was good."

The Sussex Garland (see List of books, in Appendix) contains the following.

SONNET NEAR HASTINGS.
From a privately-printed volume by Edward Howel Thurlow,
Lord Thurlow, dated 1821.


O Moon, that shinest on this heathy wild,
And light'st the hill of Hastings with thy ray,
How am I with thy sad delight beguiled !
How hold with fond imagination play !
By thy broad taper I call up the time,
When Harold on the bleeding verdure lay,
Though great in glory, overstained with crime,
And fallen by his fate from kingly sway !
On bleeding knights, and on war-broken arms,
Torn banners, and the dying steeds, you shone,
When this fair England, and her peerless charms,
And all but honour, to the foe were gone.
Here died the King, whom his brave subjects chose;
But dying lay amid his Norman foes ! P. 120.

Campbell has left two worthy memorials of his acquaintance with Hastings ; one, the Lines on the Camp (East) Hill : the other, An Address to the Sea.

LINES ON THE CAMP HILL, NEAR HASTINGS.
In the deep blue of eve,
Ere the twinkling of stars had begun,
Or the lark took his leave
Of the skies and the sweet setting sun,


I climbed to yon heights,
Where the Norman encamped him of old,
With his bowmen and knights,
And his banner all burnished with gold.

[ 98 ]

At the Conqueror's side,
There his minstrelsy sat, harp in hand,
In pavilion wide,
And they chanted the deeds of Roland.


Still the ramparted ground
With a vision my fancy inspires ;
And I hear the trump sound,
As it marshalled our chivalry's sires.


On each turf of that mead
Stood the captors of England's domains,
That ennobled her breed,
And high-mettled the blood of her veins.


O'er hauberk and helm,
As the sun's setting splendour was thrown,
Thence they look'd on a realm,
And to-morrow beheld it their own !

The beautiful Address to the Sea is too long to give entire ; the following are extracts from it :--

ADDRESS TO THE SEA. WRITTEN AT ST. LEONARDS.


Hail to thy face and odours, glorious Sea !
'T were thanklessness in me to bless thee not,
Great beauteous Being, in whose breath and smile
My heart beats calmer, and my very mind
Inhales salubrious thoughts. How welcomer
Thy murmurs than the murmurs of the world !
Though, like the world, thou fluctuat'st, thy din
To me is peace, thy restlessness repose.
E'en gladly I exchange yon spring-green lanes,
With all the darling field-flowers in their prime,
And gardens haunted by the nightingale,
For these wild headlands, and the sea-mew's clang.



With thee beneath my window, pleasant Sea,
I long not to o'erlook earth's fairest glades
And green savannahs. Earth has not a plain
So boundless or so beautiful as thine :
The eagle's vision cannot take it in ;
The lightning's wing, too weak to sweep its pace,
Sinks half-way o'er it, like a wearied bird.
It is the mirror of the stars, where all
Their host within the concave firmament,

[ 99 ]

Gay marching to the music of the spheres,
Can see themselves at once.
Nor on the stage
Of rural landscape are there lights and shades
Of more harmonious dance and play than thine.
How vividly this moment brightens forth,
Between grey, parallel, and leaden breadths,
A belt of hues, that stripes thee many a league,
Flush'd like the rainbow, or the ring-dove's neck,
And giving to the glancing sea-bird's wing
The semblance of a meteor !

Another poetical tribute to St. Leonards is contained in the Sussex Garland, p. 365 : -

ST. LEONARDS. MOONLIGHT.
Whence the soft chains that seem my soul to cramp,
The page I scan fades slowly from mine eyes,
Pale burns the flame within my dying lamp,
And forms of changeful hue around me rise.
Gales breathe upon me as from Paradise,
And free from sunset bar, or morning streak,
Ten thousand waves of glory round me break.
I look upon the sleepy ocean,
That smiles and heaves with a most restful motion,
The moon mounts gradual, and the wavelets wear
Their shining crests, like bright-browed saints in prayer.
Fair moon, fair church, soft gales, and calm of even,
And thou, great Sun, that light'st both earth and heaven,
When shall the hearts of men in prayer agree,
When shall the floods lift up their hands to Thee ?
-REV. C. A. KENNAWAY.

The next poem appeared in the Hastings and St. Leonards News, in the course of the winter of 1853-4. It was anonymous, and dated Nottingham, 1850 :-

LAST MORNING AT HASTINGS.
There was a blueness on the wave,
A dew upon the hill,
Hastings! when last I looked on thee,
Dear spot, remembered still.

There was a solitary bark
Dancing upon the sea,

[ 100 ]

With here and there a lonely one,
Unheeded all by me.

There was a freshness in the air,
Dark ocean's purest gale
Played on my cheek, and wandered by
To gladden hill and dale.

I climbed thy giant steeps, and stood
Upon their summits high,
And seemed upon that lofty throne
The queen of sea and sky.

It was a momentary mood,
A dream of power and pride,
And into quiet sober thought
The glorious vision died.

The shining cliff, the sapphire wave,
Green hill, and valley fair,
They were not my delightful land,
I was a pilgrim there.

For ere that morning closed in night
The vision would be past,
And there I only stood to take
My fondest look, my last.

And yet amid the landscape bright
I should not, would not sigh,
How could I gaze on
Paradise With dim and weeping eye ?



THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS.
Sing-wild and bloody was the day,
The morn had shot its purple ray,
On Harold's helm of gold ;
The noon had seen it red with gore,
At eve it lay on Hastings' shore,
In dust and slaughter rolled.

Night fell : yet still the trumpet rang,
Still rung the axe and armour's clang,
Still twanged the British bow,
Still did their bands unbroken keep,
The march by hill and forest deep,
Like lions, stern and slow.

[ 101 ]

Beneath the torch and cresset's flame,
Heavy and spent the Norman came,
From that scarce conquered field ;
And came his haughty chivalry,
With weary limb and drooping eye,
And shattered helm and shield.

The tents were pitched, the feast was spread,
Was crown'd the monarch's feverish head,
And lovely o'er the throng,
As victor boast and joyous roar,
Sank down, like waves upon the shore,
Was heard the minstrel's song.

Sweet stole the Jongleur's ancient strain,
Of ladies' frowns and lovers' pain,
Till e'en the monarch smiled ;
And every lord to some sweet name,
His day-star on the path to fame,
The golden beaker filled.

The Jongleur paused, he backward flung,
The locks that darkly o'er him hung,
Then dashed his eager hand
Through the rich tumult of the wires,
Till rushed the sounds, like living fires,
Among the warrior band.

"Woe to the lands," the minstrel sang, "
That hear the Norman rider's clang,
Their bloody doom is sealed,
With eye of flame and voice of fear
He comes, the breaker of the spear,
The scorner of the shield !

"Where lies, proud Greek, thy crescent vane,
Its silver light is on the wane,
 Where, Venice, is thy barge ?
Illustrious harlot of the deep,
No longer shall thy banner sweep
The Adria's purple marge.

"Thou mother-queen of nations,
Rome, What arrow tore thy eagle's plume?
Now proudest last of all !
Health to the King ! his wreath is won,
The Norman sits on England's throne,
The sovereign of the hall ! "

[ 102 ]Chatterton has an unfinished poem on the Battle of Hastings .

Cumberland has also a poem on the same subject. (See List of Books, in Appendix. )

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, in his novel of Harold, has described the battle, the finding of the body of the Saxon king, and its burial, but has not given any description of the local scenery.

In Mrs. Norton's tale, Woman's Reward, an incident is described as taking place at the Hastings Theatre.

In the tale of the Lost Brooch, the scene of the first volume is laid at Hastings, and there are occasional notices of places in the neighbourhood.

The following description will be easily recognized by those who recollect the dreariness of that plot of ground, once called the " Government Ground," now covered by the buildings of Carlisle-parade, Robertson-street, & c. It is taken from a little volume, called Quiet Thoughts for Quiet Hours, published by the Religious Tract Society, and is from the pen of a lady, long resident in Verulam place:-

"Returning to my home late one evening, it was my lot to pass over a tract of desert ground, where no human habitation stood. It was one of those still, dark nights which we sometimes observe at the close of autumn, as though Nature was preparing for her last sleep . Not a star shed forth its feeble ray, no struggling moonbeam illumined the gloom. The last streak of light from the west had long faded away, and whichever way I turned my eyes it was darkness still. I paused a moment, doubting what to do. There was one bright lamp in the distance, and I knew that lamp was near my home. Upon that, therefore, I determined to fix my eye, but the intervening space still remained ; and I might stumble over a thousand things before I reached it.

"But now an unexpected circumstance arrested my [ 103 ]attention. Looking down upon the pathway, if haply I might guide my footsteps aright, I found that there was light sufficient to take one step with certainty ; and that accomplished, the light extended to the next. It is true it reached no farther than to the step I was about to take, and all beyond continued in thickest gloom ; but still the light was sufficient to guide me every inch of my way, and I reached home in safety.

"And then I considered how close a parallel might be drawn between this and many a passage in a Christian's life . There are times when difficulties press closely upon him ; when duties which he may not avoid are so irksome that he does not know how to get through them ; when help is denied, and sympathy withheld. Then, taking all this evil together, he looks forward into the gloom ; and finding his own utter inability, it is not to be wondered at if he sits down in despair. It is true there is a beacon-light in the far distance, and he knows that it shines over against his eternal home ; but how shall he pass the intervening space ?

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet," so saith the Psalmist. And what does that word say unto us ? "Take no thought for the morrow". Go boldly up to the duty of to-day, and strength will be given for the performance of it. "The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." With to-morrow's duties will come to-morrow's strength, and it will be amply sufficient for the need.

"The darkness and uncertainty of our present state of being will not last for ever. We are travelling to a world , where all is light, and this thought should cheer our spirits, and animate us to press forward with untiring zeal. And if the track we have to pass be ' desert land, ' only so much the more will it enhance the value of that welcome home, which is promised, and shall be given to every faithful follower of our Lord and Saviour. "

" Old Humphrey" has been already mentioned . In his Memoir, published by the Religious Tract Society, are several notices of Hastings ; amongst them the following reference to his arrival there (in August, 1854) :[ 104 ]"As I moved onward in an open carriage, the fresh gentle breeze much revived me, and familiar objects presented themselves. Two of the three windmills near the West Hill were at work ; the old castle in ruin reminded me that, like my own, the best of its days were passed. The sea was rolling along its sparkling billows, as it was wont to do thousands of years ago ; bathing machines stood on the shore, their wheels partly in and partly out of the water. The Marine Parade was peopled with visitors ; the great dial hanging over High-street pointed to a quarter-past five ; the magnolia, for such I take it to be, covering the house of Earl Waldegrave, was adorned with magnificent flowers. All things appeared as I had before seen them, only that the old man, the knitter of night-caps, who for so many years had occupied a corner at the entrance of the London road, was no longer an inhabitant of the world ." P. 218.

At p. 176 , this notice of All-Saints' Church :- " The church is an ancient, grey, weather-stained building, that might almost pass for being a thousand years old. Both the tower and body of the antique edifice are roofed with red tiles, somewhat out of keeping certainly, but age and moss and revolving years are beginning to make the tiles harmonize with the stone-work. The churchyard is in two parts, with a row of large trees between them. It has hundreds of graves."

At p. 285, this :-"Hastings, with thy parades and pleasant pathways, I owe thee much ; for beneath His indulgent care, Who has spread out the waters with His hand, spangled the sky with stars, and studded the bramble with blackberries, thy breezes have given me health, thy hills and dales added to my enjoyment, and thy Sabbath heralds of mercy ministered largely to my peace. A blessing from above light on thy inhabitants, thy mariners, and the stranger sojourning within thy gates, from St. Leonards to Ecclesbourne, from the windmills to the sea, and from the barons of the Cinque Ports , to the household of the poor fisherman with his basket of blackberries " [ 105 ]

CHAPTER VI.

ECCLESBOURNE.

"ECCLESBOURNE is an interesting spot, with a steep and perilous descent down to the beach, and a grand view of the sea." Lost Brooch.

ABOUT three-quarters of a mile from Hastings, the East Hill slopes down into the picturesque little valley of Ecclesbourne . On the summit of the hill are the remains of what was long considered to be a Roman encampment. Archæologists are now, however, tolerably satisfied that it is not of Roman origin. Mr. Lower's opinion has already been given (p. 3), and his conjecture that the East Hill was one of the Conqueror's outposts. This would be enough to justify Campbell's lines, given in the last chapter. On the brow of the hill stands the cottage of Rocklands, which was often chosen by Mr. Canning as a retreat. It belongs to the Countess Waldegrave, and is now let to Mr. Hutchins, the proprietor of the Marine Hotel. The cliff, at the highest point above Ecclesbourne, is 250 feet from the level of the sea. The hill rises again on the east side of the glen, and again sinks down into the beautiful valley of Fairlight, the loveliest spot in the neighbourhood of Hastings. [ 106 ]

FAIRLIGHT.

The parish of Fairlight is in the sub-district of Ore. In 1851 it had 116 inhabited houses, 2 uninhabited, and 1 building. The population, 625 - 312 males , 313 females . The parish contains 3,309 acres. The village lies on the east side of the turnpike-road, a little beyond the Hare and Hounds.

Fairlight Church stands on a very elevated site, at a considerable distance from the village. It is mentioned by Leland, that the Spaniards, in 1380, entered by night at "Fareley," which he describes as "Fareley where the hygh steple is 3 miles from Winchelesey," which town, he adds, was "sore spoyled." This was the attack which occurred two years after the Abbot of Battle had rescued Winchelsea. It is erroneously ascribed to the Spaniards, as all authorities, except Leland, agree in mentioning it as an attack of the French. The "high" steple was a tall shingled spire, which surmounted the old church, and was conspicuous from the sea. The old church was taken down, and a new one erected , in 1845. Towards this church the Countess Waldegrave contributed 1,000l. , and W. D. L. Shadwell, Esq., 500l. , and all the stone. The building is in the later style of early English. The church is capable of containing 600 persons, and the majority of the seats are free. It consists of a nave, 62 feet long by 24 wide ; a north aisle, 12 feet wide ; a chancel, 20 feet by 17 feet ; a tower at the west end of the north aisle ; a southern porch ; and a vestry at the north-east angle. The nave is separated from the north aisle by three arches, supported on octangular columns, the whole of which is erected in Caen stone. The chancel window is of three lights, and contains some stained glass, having emblematic devices of the Holy Trinity and of the Eucharist. The seats are open. The pulpit and reading-desk are supported on Caen-stone basements.

On the north-west angle stands a massive tower, 50 feet high. This is flanked with massive buttresses at [ 107 ]each angle, and terminating with a trefoil corbel, parapet, and battlements. The eastern gable is surmounted by a foliated cross.

In the west front is a three-light window, with simple geometric tracing in the head ; the label terminations of the window are formed by carvings, to represent the heads of Her Majesty and Prince Albert. The church was consecrated on August 7, 1846, by Dr. Gilbert, Bishop of Chichester.

The living of Fairlight was formerly attached to the Chantry Chapel of Leigh, in Kent. The present patron is the Rev. Julian Charles Young, who is also the Curate. The Rector is the Rev. Hugh Totty, D.D. , Rector of Etchingham.

A little to the north-west of the church is Fairlight Down, the highest ground in the neighbourhood of Hastings. At about 100 yards south-east of the mill the height is 599 feet above the level of the sea.

The sea view from this elevation extends a distance of eighty miles, from the South Foreland to Beachy Head. To the east, Dovor, Rye, and Dungeness are visible ; and, in clear weather, about an hour before sunset, the line of the French coast may be discerned . The inland view is also very extensive.

In the ancient Corporation accounts of Winchelsea, preserved in the Dering MSS., amongst the items, are wood for the beacon of Fairlight, and wages for watching the same. There is now a Coast-Guard Station on the cliff, south of the church.

Fairlight Glen, the Lovers' Seat, and the rest of the [ 108 ]beautiful scenery which has already been noticed, are south of Fairlight-place, and are most directly reached by the lane which leads from Hastings by the back of Belmont, and through the fields belonging to the Fishponds Farmhouse ; but as this is a private road , not open to carriages, the usual way is by the turnpike-road, from which some fields lead to Fairlight-place. This house, which is the property of the Countess Waldegrave, and at present the residence of George Batley, Esq . , is beautifully situated at the head of the glen.

From Fairlight-place, the walk through the glen, down to the sea, is most picturesque. From the sheltered situation, the foliage grows here with great luxuriance, and in spring the sides of the glen are almost a wilderness of flowers. That beautiful little plant, the Golden saxifrage, with its tiny yellow blossoms and green leaves, perfectly carpets the broken sides of the watercourse , and the space beneath the Dripping Well. Its time of flowering is in March and April. The Dripping Well, which is at the head of the glen, is overshadowed by a magnificent beech-tree. The following lines, which appeared in the Hastings and St. Leonards News of November 25th, 1853, pleasingly illustrate the scenery of this lovely spot :

SONG ON FAIRLIGHT GLEN, NEAR HASTINGS.
I loved the lone place in my childish days,
For the primrose blossomed there,
And violets grew among harebells blue,
And the spring birds warbled clear ;
And the green boughs swung in the breeze, and sung,
Like the music of a dream ;
But the charm of all was the waterfall,
And the dripping of the stream.
Drip ! drip ! drip !
The water still falls on the mossy lip
Of the old grey stones in the stream.

I loved the lone place in my youthful days,
When I wandered there alone ;
When, far from the strife of the tide of life,
I mused on the silent stone ;
And the noontide ray of the summer day
Through the trembling leaves would gleam ;

[ 109 ]

But the best of all was the waterfall,
And the music of the stream .
Drip ! drip ! drip !
The water still falls on the mossy lip
Of the old grey stones in the stream.

"It is sweet to rove through the wild-wood grove,
When the heart is dull and sad ;
It is sweet to feel the melody steal
O'er the soul, and make it glad ;
And every sound in the glen around
Is sweet as a gentle dream ;
But the best of all is the waterfall,
And the dripping of the stream.
Drip ! drip ! drip !
The water still falls on the mossy lip
Of the old grey stones in the stream .

There is another Dripping Well in the wood which skirts the upper edge of the hill, and which joins the cliff at the eastern extremity. This spot may be approached by the fields at the back of the farmhouse. The fishponds, which are in this direction were once pretty and admired ; but the trees are now cut down, and the place spoiled of its attractions. The Lovers' Seat is on a ledge of rock, a little way [ 110 ]down the cliff, south of Fairlight Glen. The undercliff at this spot, and, indeed, all along on each side, is clothed with copse-wood. The sea-view is beautiful.

About three miles seaward of this point, was picked up by some fishermen, October 24th, 1853 , the body of Mrs. Butterworth, the wife of Captain Butterworth, the Commander of the Dalhousie, lost, on the 19th of the same month, off Beachy Head, about two a. m. The Captain and all on board, except one man, perished. The remains of Mrs. Butterworth were interred in the burying-ground of the Croft Chapel, Hastings .

The mansion lately built by W. D. L. Shadwell, Esq. , is in this parish. It is in a castellated style of architecture, and situated in the midst of a beautiful landscape.

Pett is a small village north of Fairlight, and lying nearly midway between Hastings and Winchelsea ; being four miles and a-half from the former, and three miles and a-half from the latter. It is in the Registration District [ 111 ]of Hastings, sub-district Ore. It contains 2,350 acres, and had in 1851 sixty-three inhabited houses and one uninhabited. Population at the same date, 364 ; 187 males, 177 females.

The church is small, but beautifully situated. It is dedicated to St. Mary and St. Peter, and is capable of holding 250 persons. The present incumbent is the Rev. Robert West. It contains a monument to the memory of Cordelia Sayer, who died at Hastings Jan. 31 , 1820 , and was at her own desire buried there. She was a daughter of Henry and Sarah Sayer, of London, and granddaughter of John and Mary Collier, of Hastings . The monument is of marble, carved by Westmacott, and has the device of a sickle applied to ears of corn. Besides the name, age, parentage, &c., there are two lines in verse in the inscription.

The font was the gift of the Rev. Diones Geere, Rector in 1753. It is inscribed to that effect, and is an octagon in form.

In the aisle is a brass plate on a slab, with the following inscription :-

"Ædibus his moriens campanam sponte dedisti,
Laudes pulsandæ sunt, Theobalde, tuæ."

"Here lies George Theobald, a lover of bells,
And of this house, as that epitaph tells,
He gave a bell freely to grace the new steeple,
Bring out his prayse, therefore, ye good people. "
::Obiit 10 Martii, Anno Dom. 1641."

From the top of Chick Hill, which is on the road leading from the village to the sea, there is an extensive view. Cliff-end, to which the road leads, is the eastern extremity of the range of steep cliffs, which extends westward as far as Bo-peep beyond St. Leonards. The low coast from Cliff- end towards Winchelsea is thickly set with Martello towers.

At low water during the spring-tides, the remains of a wood may be seen imbedded in the sands. In many parts of Pett several trees have been dug up quite sound [ 112 ]and black, probably overwhelmed by the sea when, in 1250, it overflowed its accustomed bounds and destroyed a vast tract of land.

The Royal Military Canal, which commences at Clift End, about a mile south-east of the village, runs through the level.

Troops were encamped here during the war.

Pett is supposed to be the " Luet" mentioned in Domesday Book.

In an old map given in Camden's Britannia, ed . 1695 , the sea is depicted as over the Level at Pett, and also between Winchelsea and Rye.

Guestling is a village north of Fairlight and Pett. It is also in the Registration District of Hastings, Subdistrict Ore. It contains 3,564 acres ; had in 1851 , 156 inhabited houses, two uninhabited, one building, and a population of 860 persons, - 456 males, 404 females. The turnpike-road from Hastings to Dovor passes through the parish.

Broomham Park, which skirts the side of the road, is a seat belonging to the Ashburnham family, to whom it reverted by marriage in the reign of Henry III. Gilpin mentions this park in his Picturesque Tour.

Thomas Ashburnham, the first possessor, by his will, dated April 12th, 1523, ordered his body to be buried before the image of our Lady in the parish church of Guestling, and that John Walker, parson thereof, should sing in the said chancel during his life, and pray for his soul and all his friends' souls, and to have yearly 4s. 4d . and meat and drink at his manor house at Guestling.

Sir William Ashburnham, Bart. , was born at Broomham Jan. 16th, 1710 , and was Bishop of Chichester from 1754 to 1797, when he died, and was buried in the family vault at Guestling church.

The church is dedicated to St. Laurence. It is a [ 113 ]beautiful and interesting specimen of a Norman church ; though apparently not all built at the same date.

It consists of a nave, north and south aisles, a chancel, and a tower, with a low spire. The nave is separated from the north aisle by two Norman arches, with zig-zag mouldings, resting upon pillars, with ornamented capitals. The south aisle has three pointed arches, springing from octangular columns. The Ashburnham chantry is a part of the south aisle, held by permission by the Ashburnham family. There is another small chantry chapel at the end of the north aisle, used till lately as a vestry. The windows of the aisles are deeply splayed inside, some of them are round-headed, others lancet-shaped . The tower is Norman ; the lower windows are like mere slits outside ; those in the upper story are divided by a shaft. The font is circular, and of plain construction.

Several changes are determined on in the interior arrangements of the church, and, eventually, its complete restoration is contemplated.

In the Ashburnham chantry was a monument with this inscription, in capital letters : "Here lyeth buried Adam Ashburnham, Esq., son and heir of Laurence Ashburnham, and Eve Adames , who had issue living at his death by his wife Elizabeth Twisden , Elizabeth Laurence, John Roger, Charles and Edward Ashburnham ; he dyed the 5th of June, 1597 , at the age of 50 years. Will God and I shall." This monument has lately fallen, and nothing remains of it, but a coat of arms.

On the north side of the communion rails, in the rector's chancel , is a monument to John Cheyney, with a man and woman praying at a desk, the man in armour, the woman in a ruff, the inscription bearing date 1603 . Some land in the parish was left to four poor widows to keep this monument clean.

There is a tradition that the families of Cheyney and Oxenbridge, of Brede-place, were at perpetual variance, and that once a party of Cheyneys surprised an Oxen[ 114 ]bridge in his bed and slew him. (Burrell MSS. , cited by Horsfield, i . 473.)

In the vestry of the church is an ancient carved oak chest, which is thus mentioned in the Glossary of Architecture (vol. i . pp. 99, 100. Oxf. , 1849) :- " Some of the old chests found in this country are evidently of foreign workmanship, and 'Flanders chests ' are frequently mentioned in ancient documents. There is a fine example of this kind in the church of Guestling, Sussex, which has the front and ends very richly panelled." There is an engraving of this chest in vol. ii. , Plate 31 .

The present Rector of Guestling is the Rev. John Mayow Lukin, M. A. , instituted in 1854.

Guestling gives name to the hundred in which it is situate.

At Maxfield, called also Macfield, and Macksfield, in the parish of Guestling, there is an old timber-built house, which was formerly surrounded by water, but the stream was diverted in part some years ago, on account of the dampness of the situation. Maxfield is the birth-place of Gregory Martin, the translator of the Rhemes version of the Bible, " for the work may be entirely ascribed to him ; the others being only revisions . ' (Dodd, Church History of England, vol. ii. , p. 121 ; Archdeacon Cotton, Rhemes and Douay, p. 13, 8vo . Oxf. , 1855. ) Archdeacon Cotton adds, that " it is believed that this laborious task threw him into a consumption, of which he died on October the 28th, 1582." He was buried in St. Stephen's Church, Rhemes. For other particulars of his life and a list of his works, see Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses, vol. i. col. 487 , 4to. Lond., 1813. The birth-place of Martin is sometimes erroneously stated to be Mayfield. He was one of the original scholars of St. John's College, Oxford, in 1557.

There are several pretty residences at Guestling, as, for instance, Guestling cottage, G. G. Monk, Esq.; and the cottage of R. B. Kaye, Esq., Friar's Hill.

A new rectory-house is now building.

[ 115 ]Coghurst, the seat of the late Musgrave Brisco, Esq ., M.P. for Hastings, is in this parish. The drive to it from Hastings is extremely pretty.

Ore is a small parish north of the town of Hastings. The village is situated two miles from Hastings, and borders the old London road a little to the east of the Hastings and Dovor line of railway. It is in the Registration District of Hastings, and gives name to a Subdistrict. It contains 2,149 acres , and had in 1851 , 302 inhabited houses, two uninhabited, one building, and a population of 1,745 persons, -917 males, 828 females. This return includes the inmates in the Hastings Union Workhouse (which is in the parish), who, in 1851 , numbered 170.

The church stands at a distance of about a mile from the village. It is rather more than two miles north of Hastings, from whence its elevated situation, in the background of the landscape, makes it an interesting object. There is a bridle-way to it by Ore-lane, in which the Rectory stands. The carriage-road goes round by the village and crosses the South-Eastern Railway.

The church is dedicated to St. Helen. It was originally very small, but was enlarged in 1821 by the addition of a new aisle, containing 200 free sittings. It now consists of a nave, chancel, a south aisle, two porches (one of them used as a vestry), and a low square tower. The windows in the north and south sides are partly in the narrow lancet, partly the low square-headed form. The east window is ornamented with a quatrefoiled head and two trefoiled divisions. The interior of the church is very plain, and contains nothing requiring notice but a trefoiled recess on the north side of the communion-table, nearly concealed by a pew, and a sepulchral brass, with the effigies of a civilian and his wife, under a small double canopy.

There is also a stone slab with an incised stone, and the name and date " Bentle, 1641." [ 116 ]In the south side of the church is a tomb inscribed :-

In Memory of
The Rev. DEVEY FEARON, M.D. ,
32 years Rector of the Parish Of Ore,
Who departed this life the 28th of July, 1847, Ætat 78.
" Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God : whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation : Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever."- Heb . xiii. 7, 8.
Also of HARRIET, his Wife, Who departed this life Dec. 18th, 1822, aged 38.

And on the reverse of the tomb, inscriptions to others of the family.

The following details of an incident in the long and useful ministry of Dr. Fearon occur in the Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Cornelius Neale:--

"During a long visit to Hastings, " says Mrs. Neale,
"I requested him ( Mr. Neale) to take me to Dr. Fearon's church. I was not attending for myself, and some things were strongly stated, and gave offence. On our return home, he said, 'I do not like to refuse you any request, but you must never ask me to go to that church again. Go, if you please, yourself--and yet I think you had much better not-at least, you must go without me. ' I obeyed the injunction, and we never mentioned the subject. . . . We removed from Hastings to Eastbourne. " This was in the spring of 1820 , at which time, there being no church in St. Mary's parish, there was a great resort of visitors to Ore Church.

Mrs. Neale then goes on to mention an attack of hæmorrhage of the lungs which her husband had at Eastbourne, and his state of mind under the seizure.

She adds," We were far from home. I knew not what to do. After some consideration, the thought crossed my [ 117 ]mind of sending immediately to Dr. Fearon. I saw all the difficulties, the greatness of the request, to travel forty miles for a stranger, and where the plea of danger of death could not be urged ; nevertheless , I determined to send, wrote an incoherent note, on Sunday evening, and requested Mr. Daniel Wilson " (son of the Bishop of Calcutta, and now Vicar of Islington), " then very young, and on a visit with us, to take it, hoping Dr. F. would receive it more favourably, as carried by the son of his friend. Remembering the injunction formerly received, I did not venture to consult my husband, lest I should be forbidden ; nor even to tell him, either that day or the day following, till evening, what I had done. . . As soon as I knew of Dr. Fearon's arrival, I then ventured to say I had sent for him. 'Thank you very much ! ' was the reply. 'I shall like to hear him ; but you know I dislike to see a stranger, and could only bear he should come into the further part of the room.' I went away to see Dr. Fearon, and hope always to remember with deep gratitude his kindness and judgment under circumstances so exquisitely trying. I told him my permission, and then went to state his arrival. My husband gladly welcomed it, and expressed a wish to see him at once. The difficulties of the visit were not a little increased, as my dear father (Dr. Mason Good) had arrived, and told me there was some danger from the present attack, though he anticipated recovery from this illness ; but perfect quiet was essential. After, however, some conversation with Dr. Fearon . . . . he went into the room, and desired to be left alone ; in which request my husband acquiesced, and I obeyed. On returning some time after, I found Dr. Fearon expounding the third chapter of St. John's Gospel, - but how deep the interest and fixed the attention, both of speaker and hearer, I cannot easily tell you."

Caroline Fry, afterwards Wilson, seems to have been [ 118 ]frequently at Hastings, and to have been an attendant at Ore Church. The following lines are from her pen:-

WRITTEN UNDER A SKETCH OF OARE CHURCH.

WHERE, amid tumultuous waters,
Sickening with a hope repress'd,
Far from all his soul desires,
Loves the sailor's eye to rest ?

Is it not on that far beacon
Faintly beaming through the gloom,
Which some friendly hand has lighted
To mark the path that leads him home?

Methinks a hand as kind has rear'd
On yonder hill the simple pile,
That ' mid the world's distasteful travel,
The aspect might our path beguile.

Hardly press'd by earthly sorrow,
Often have I turned my eye,
And caught the outline of its tower
Trac'd upon the azure sky.

Emblem of the peace it proffers,
It has check'd the anxious tear ;
Though the world should do its worst,
There is peace and comfort there.

Yes-and when the maddening draught
Of earthly pleasure ran too high
The distant form has seem'd to say,
" Remember," when it met my eye.

Memento of a Saviour's love,
Oft forgotten, oft denied,
However far my footsteps wander,
Be thou ever at my side.

Tell me, when the world allures me,
"Twas not such the bliss I knew,
When beneath thy hallow'd ceiling
Draughts of holy joy I drew :

Tell me, when that world betrays me,
Where its sorrows cease to harm,
Where I learn to brave its dangers,
Resting on a Saviour's arm.

[ 119 ]

Tell, O! tell me, when my folly
Treads the path of sin too near,
How many pangs of bitter anguish
Sense of sin has cost me there.

Bring to memory every feeling
Thou hast witness'd in my breast ;
Be the beacon that shall guide me
To realms of everlasting rest.

The present Rector of Ore is the Rev. W. T. Turner, M.A.

Ore Place, a mansion belonging to the Elphinstone Family, is situated on the north side of the churchyard. Part of the house is very old, and belongs to one, said to have been built by John of Gaunt. It was bought by the late Sir Howard Elphinstone in 1821.

A little on the Hastings side of Ore Rectory is a path which leads through fields to the Old Roar. This spot is thus described in an old Hastings' Guide, dated 1797 :-

" About two miles to the north-west of Hastings is a fall of water, known by the name of the Old Roar, ' in the middle of a thick wood. It is a small stream, which

rises a considerable distance off, and runs unnoticed till it arrives at a rocky precipice in the wood, over which it falls perpendicularly about forty feet into a basin below. The situation is beautifully romantic ; for after long heavy rains, a large body of water tumbles over with a tremendous roar, which is heard half a mile off. The road to it is by Barry's Library, under the Castle Cliffs ; past Mr. Foster's farm-house, Bohemia, from which it is distant about a mile, and forms a most delightful morning's walk."

Some features of this description remain unchanged. The situation of the Old Roar is still romantic, and [ 120 ]the ledge of rock is still to be seen, but there is no waterfall, only a gentle trickling of water after rain . Barry's Library is now Diplock's ; the Castle Cliffs have retired behind Pelham-crescent, Breeds-place, and Castle street ; Mr. Foster's farm-house is now the mansion of Wastel Brisco, Esq., -and though there is still a walk by it to the Old Roar, the prettier and more usual way is by Ore Rectory.

In the Lost Brooch, already quoted, there is the following humorous, but correct, description of Old Roar :-

"On they went through wood and copse, till at length they reached the long-expected, long-desired spot, the entrance to the haunts of Old Roar, - for by that expression this appearance can be best described. Never certainly did cascade present itself in a more untoward position, except, indeed, it may be deemed a mark of his especial wisdom to turn his back upon all spectators, in order to escape the full weight of indignant disappointment likely to befall him. One by one the anxious group were admitted, with careful faltering footsteps, and handed down a perilous descent of some half-a-dozen feet, by their two guardian gentlemen, to take a peep of their far-famed friend. By dint of bending over, with some little risk, they managed to get something like a glimpse of a little trickling stream of water, which appeared here and there in minute portions or drops down a rock, the depth of which it seemed almost impossible to guess in the uneasy position in which a sight of it is caught. . . . . Probably nobody ever visited Old Roar without being told that this was not the season for the water, ' and 'that it was never known to be so dry as at present. ' Whether the propitious season brings with it storms and torrents, which no traveller dare face, or whether it is a modest way of insinuating that Old Roar is no better than a fair deceiver, cannot be told. But the experience of all strangers on the subject is pretty nearly the same, and the farm-house, whither our down[ 121 ]cast party presently bent their steps, has been the witness of many such a scene of disappointment as on the present occasion. " - Vol . i . , p . 82.

It is but fair to add, that if the cascade disappoints, the walk by hop-grounds, woods, and upland fields, surrounded by a far-reaching landscape, is not often found to do so.

Hollington is a small parish north-west of Hastings, chiefly remarkable for the picturesque and secluded situation of its church, which is in the centre of a wood, a quarter of a mile from any habitation. The following lines, descriptive of this peculiarity, were found by Mr. Rush, the Vicar, written in pencil, on a slip of paper, and left on a tombstone near the church, September 16, 1824 :-

"Humble house of prayer,
Let my soul thy silence share.
With no thoughtless steps I tread
These sheltered precincts of the dead.
How beauteous is thy sylvan bound,
Where man's last home on earth is found !
So peaceful, that the robin's note
Alone can aught of life denote ;
His song a requiem seems to those
Who hear no more its liquid close.
The world so little intervenes
In these sublime umbrageous scenes ;
To fancy it may well appear
That she has found Elysium here."

The church, which is dedicated to St. Leonard, is very small, not containing more than 150 persons. It is in the Early English style. The font is curious, it appears to be a heptagon, and is said to be the only example of that form in England.

The present incumbent is the Rev. Rose Fuller Whistler.

Beauport, the seat of Sir Charles Montolieu Lamb, is in this parish. The house was built by General James Murray, who was Governor of Quebec (in 1759), after [ 122 ]that city was conquered by Wolfe. He was also entrusted with the defence of Minorca in 1784 , and sustained a siege from the Spaniards in Fort St. Philip, but was compelled to surrender prisoner of war. The name of 66 the Hon. General Murray, Beauport, " occurs in Barry's Library book, 1791 , the year the Library was opened. He died in 1793.

The parish of Hollington contains 2,470 acres, and had, in 1851 , 85 inhabited houses, with a population of 579 persons.

Crowhurst is a small parish, lying between Hollington and Catsfield . It contains 2,160 acres, and had, in 1851 , 89 inhabited houses, and a population of 591 persons.

The manor was one of those held by Harold before the Conquest. The terms in which it is mentioned in Domesday Book give a glimpse of what was probably the fate of many districts in Sussex in that disastrous time.

"Earl Harold held Crohest. It was then rated at six hides, it is now cleared for three. The arable is twenty-two plough lands. Walter Fitz-lambert holds it of the Earl, and has two ploughs in the demesne, and twelve villains and six cottagers having twelve ploughs. Here are fifteen acres of meadow and a wood of our hogs. One Walo holds half a hide and two rood-lands. Here are three villains, with one plough. In the reign of the Confessor it was valued at eight pounds, it is now estimated at one hundred shillings. It has been devastated . "

"In Croherst, held by Walter from the Earl of Eu, the Abbot (of Battle), has five rood-lands with one villain. The value is twelve pence." (p . 122.)

The Manor of Crowhurst seems to have passed with the Rape of Hastings. In the reign of Henry IV. , it came into the possession of Sir John Pelham. This Sir John Pelham was the son of him who took the King of France, John the Good, prisoner at Poictiers, in memory of which [ 123 ]achievement the family adopted the famous emblem of the Pelham Buckle. The second Sir John Pelham was Constable of Pevensey Castle, and Knight of the Shire for Sussex, in the reign of Henry IV. He refounded the Priory of Hastings, at Warbleton, and was buried at Robertsbridge Abbey, 1429.

Crowhurst church stands in a vale, surrounded by trees. The situation is most picturesque. The edifice consists of a chancel, nave, and embattled tower. The Pelham buckle is introduced into the door-case, and into the tracery of the window above.

"Whose walls the mystic buckles still adorn,
A royal spoil from Gallia's monarch borne."
Hay's Mount Caburn, p. 23.

The presence of this family ensign seems to denote that the church was founded by one of the Pelhams. Nailed to the front of the gallery is another buckle, of carved wood, probably transferred to this situation from the screen, which once stood beneath the rood-loft.

The church is dedicated to St. George. The present incumbent is the Rev. Sir Chas. Hardinge, Bart.; curate, Rev. R. Vigors. There is in the churchyard a very large yew, which has been described as the tree mentioned by Hunter, in his edition of Evelyn's Silva; but this honour belongs to a yew, which grows at Crowhurst, in Surrey.

On the south side of the church, and close to a farmhouse, stands a small but picturesque ruin. It consists of portions of a parallelogram, with a gable, and the remains of a beautiful window towards the east, also a porch at the south-east angle. Mr. Nesbitt, in his paper on the Remains of the Ancient Manor House of Crowhurst, supposes the building to have been a small manor house, of the 13th century, and to have con[ 124 ]sisted only of three rooms, the large upper one with the window, a vaulted room on the ground-floor, probably used only for the reception of stores, and a small room over the porch, which, he thinks, was an oratory, or chapel, entered only by a door-way in the south wall of the upper chamber. That a house, with so much architectural beauty, should have been of such small size, as , by the fall of the ground behind, and the near vicinity of the church, was most probably the case, is not, he says , though singular, entirely without example, and he instances Little Wenham Hall, in Suffolk, the best preserved house of the 13th century remaining in England, which contains but three rooms, and a vaulted ground floor, one of these three rooms being a chapel.

The window appears to have had two pointed lights, with a circle above ; the architectural decorations are of the early English character, and of much elegance.

As to the original owner of this house, Mr. Walford , in his remarks on the early history of the manor, suggests that it was built by Walter de Scotney, who held the manor of Crowhurst, in the reign of Henry III. , and that this Walter de Scotney was the same person with one of that name, who was chief steward and counsellor to De Clare, Earl of Glocester, and who was executed in 1259 , on the charge of having administered poison to the Earl and his brother. The trial and execution are related by Matthew of Westminster, and Matthew Paris. The house, Mr. Walford observes, would be much such a residence as an ambitious and thriving man, like Walter de Scotney, might be expected to build for himself, on a manor where he occasionally resided . Therefore it does not seem unreasonable to conclude that this house was erected by him, and that it was built about the year 1250. Sussex Arch. Coll. , vii. 55.

In this parish is Crowhurst Place, where Bishop Patrick was entertained by Sir Nicholas Pelham, as already related (p. 25). It is now the property and the residence of Mrs. Papillon. [ 125 ]

CHAPTER VII.

REMARKABLE PLACES NEAR HASTINGS.

BULVERHYTHE. - BEXHILL. - HOOE. - PEVENSEY. - HERSTMONCEUX. - NINFIELD. - ASHBURNHAM.

WESTWARD of St. Leonards is the parish of St. Mary Bulverhythe, which is included in the Sub-district of St. Mary-in-the- Castle. In 1851 it had 13 inhabited houses, and 77 inhabitants.

This is supposed to be the manor mentioned in Domesday as Bolintun.

It is a member of the port of Hastings. The chief buildings are the Martello towers and the Bull public-house. The Martello towers were erected about 1805, to defend the low coast from foreign invasion, and are continued (except where the high cliffs form a natural barrier), from between Folkstone and Dovor, in Kent, to Seaford. They were till lately, occupied by the Coast Blockade service ; but the westerly ones have been trans[ 126 ]ferred to the Ordnance, and some of the towers are occupied with artillery. In a field near the Bull public-house is a ruin, probably the remains of the church or chapel. The London Brighton and South-coast Railway passes through the parish, and when first opened its terminus was at Bopeep.

A large Dutch ship, the "Amsterdam," foundered here about 1754. It is supposed to have been run ashore by convicts, who had mutinied, and being very heavily laden , it defied all the efforts that were made to extricate it. Many of the crew were drowned, and were taken to Hastings to be buried. Part of the cargo has been since recovered.

Bexhill is the next station on the London Brighton and South Coast Railway beyond Bulverhythe. The village stands prettily on a hill about three-quarters of a mile above the station.

Bexhill gives its name to the Hundred in which it is situated.

The population in 1851 was 2,026 persons ; 1011 males, 1015 females ; the number of inhabited houses, 586 ; acres, 8814.

Bexhill is mentioned in Domesday as Bexelei, " and is said to have two churches. It was held by Osbern of the Earl of Eu. Bishop Alric held it of King Edward , because it was annexed to the bishopric ( Selsey), and he continued to hold it till King William gave the Castle of Hastings to the Earl. The value of the entire manor under the Confessor was twenty pounds. "It has since been devastated ; it is now estimated at 187. 10s."

Bishop Alric here mentioned was Bishop of Selsey in 1057. The Saxon Chronicle says, " Moreover, Bishop Heca died in Sussex, and Agelric was raised to his see. This is under the date 1057. Another MS. of the [ 127 ]Chronicle gives a little further information , viz. , "1058 And in this year died, Heca Bishop of Sussex, " [ Selsey ], " and Archbishop Stigand ordained Algeric, a monk of Christchurch, Bishop of Sussex." He continued in the see until his death, four years after the Norman Conquest.

The see of Selsey was afterwards transferred to Chichester. Richard de la Wych (St. Richard), thirteenth Bishop of Chichester, resided at Bexhill, and died there, but was buried in his Cathedral church.

" In 1148, John Earl of Eu made an acknowledgment that his grandfather and father did unjustly take away from the Church of the Holy Trinity of Chichester their mother, the village called Bixle, with the churches , and all other its appurtenances ; and notwithstanding the remonstrances of Godefrid, Ralph, and Seffrid, Bishops of the said church, and the claims by them laid thereto, did for a long time, against justice and the writings of the said church, with the peril of their soul, detain the same. Wherefore he, with the consent of King Stephen, for the health of those, his parents and himself, did wholly restore to the said church, and Hilcary, Bishop thereof, the said village, with the churches. . . . This restitution was made in the year of our Lord's Incarnation in the year 1148 " [ 1248, Dugd . , both editions, by mistake ], " at London, in the Church of St. Paul, on the 18th kalends of December . . . . and there were present as witnesses of this restitution , Robert, Bishop of London ; Ralph, Bishop of Bath ; S., Bishop of Worcester ; and R. , Bishop of Exeter ; Gervase, Abbot of Westminster ; Edward of Reading, and Galfrid of Waverleye, and other persons."

The church of St. Mary, Bexhill, consists of a nave, north and south aisles, a chancel, and two chantry chapels, north and south. The western portion of the church is the oldest, and apparently Norman. The two westernmost arches in the nave are semi-circular, the third is pointed. Probably the church was enlarged when [ 128 ]the third arch was built, and the chancel then added, or the eastern part of the church was pulled down and rebuilt. The chancel is early English, as also the south chapel . The north chapel is perpendicular. The north door, which is blocked up, is decorated. The font is early English. Parts of the chancel-screen remain, and the doors by which it communicated with the chancel. On a flat stone in the chancel is an inscription to Richard Alfray, and on a black marble tablet the following : -

"Near this place lyeth the body of Richard Allfray, of Bexhill, in the county of Sussex, Gent. , who dyed at Battell, 17 April, 1698 , in the 23d year of his age. Mors omnibus communis."

The frontispiece to vol. i . of Horace Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, represents a window consisting of two lights. In the dexter one is a queen, seated with her hands crossed on her lap ; in the sinister, a king, with his face and right hand lifted up, and with his left hand on a mound, or globe. Underneath them is engraven, in capitals, " Queen Eleanor and Henry III. ; " and at the bottom of the plate is added, Taken from an ancient window in the Church of Bexhill, in Sussex.' Walpole, writing Nov. 24, 1760, mentions this window as being in the church of Beckley, or Becksley, in Sussex, which he describes as a place between Bodiham and Rye, and he begs his friend to write to Sir Whistler Webster, and inquire about it. The window was procured for him by Lord Ashburnham, and transferred to Strawberry Hill.

The following is an extract from the Parish Register, 1769 - "September 18, half-past eleven, the first round on six bells is now ringing in the Church of Bexhill." [ 129 ]The weight of each bell

		Cwt.	Qr.	Lbs.
Treble	. . .	5	1	21
Second	. . .	6	0	5
Third	. . .	6	3	7
Fourth	. . .	7	2	17
Fifth	. . .	9	2	13
Tenor	. . .	12	1	0

Inscriptions on the four former bells :-

1. Edmund Giles, Bell-founder. Thomas Persue and John Smith, Churchwardens. Bexhil, 1595.
2. Maria.
3. Habeo nomen Michalis missi de coelis .
4. Post Te Clarior ætheræ (sic) trahe devotos Tibi . J. A.

The living is a vicarage in the patronage of the Bishop of Chichester. The Rev. H. W. Simpson, M.A. , Rural Dean, is the present Vicar.

In the levels belonging to this parish a submarine forest was discovered some years ago.

Sir John Herschell, states, that an attempt had been made, not many years before the date of his writing, to establish a colliery at Bexhill, the appearance of seams and sheets of fossil-wood and wood-coal, and other indications similar to those which occur in the great coal-beds of the north of England, leading to the sinking of a shaft and the erection of machinery at a vast expense. Not less than 80,000l. was expended in this project, which proved abortive ; " as, " adds Sir John Herschell, "every geologist would have at once declared that it must, the whole assemblage of geological facts being adverse to the existence of a regular coal-bed in the Hastings sand, while this on which Bexhill is situated is separated from the coal strata by a series of interposed beds of such enormous thickness as to render all idea of penetrating through them absurd." [ 130 ]

HOOE. - PEVENSEY.

Thomas Pye, Chaplain of Merton College, in Oxford, was Vicar and Schoolmaster of Bexhill, about 1690 . He is described by Wood as " an eminent linguist, excellent in sacred chronology, in ecclesiastical histories, and polemical divinity." By his will he desired that his body might be buried in the school-house at Bexhill, which he had lately repaired and new paved. He also left money to the poor of Brightling, near Battle. Two years before his death he spent a large sum in building the campanile, or tower, at Darlaston, in Staffordshire, where he was born, which before was of timber.

Hooe is a small secluded village, distant from Bexhill about four miles, in a north-west direction.

It has a church dedicated to St. James, consisting of a low and massive embattled tower, a nave and chancel, with a small chapel on the north side. The style is chiefly Perpendicular. In the east window are the figures of a king and queen, supposed to represent Edward III . and Queen Philippa. The font is supported on a shaft with octangular columns at the angles. The benefice formerly belonged to the College of St. Mary, Hastings. Tanner mentions that here was an Alien Priory of Benedictine monks.

PEVENSEY.

Once a fair port enriched the famed abode,
But herds now graze where royal navies rode.

HAY'S Mount Caburn.

PEVENSEY is the next station to Bexhill, and is distant from Hastings eleven miles, by the London Brighton and South-Coast Railway. The railroad passes immediately under the old castle, over ground which has once been covered by the sea. [ 131 ]Pevensey is supposed to have been a British settlement in times prior to the Roman invasion. Three small British coins have been discovered there, and were in the collection of the late Mr. Charles Brooker at Alfriston.

An opinion has lately been advanced by Professor Airy, and maintained by him with great force of argument, that Pevensey, and not Walmer or Deal, was the real scene of Julius Cæsar's first landing in Britain, that great event which brought our island into contact with civilization, and ultimately with Christianity.

In the statement of evidence by which this view is supported, Professor Airy, from a consideration of the nature of the country through which Cæsar passed, and of the capabilities of the French coast, decides that the "Portus Itius " from which Cæsar set out, and which has been usually taken to be Cape Grisnez, was really the estuary of the Somme.

From a careful estimate of the facilities offered by this part of the Sussex coast, of the distance, and of the state of the tide, he makes it appear that Cæsar first attempted the neighbourhood of St. Leonards at about three o'clock in the day ; but that, finding this a difficult landing-place in the face of a resolute enemy, he ran on to Pevensey, and landed there at low-water. [ 132 ]

PEVENSEY CASTLE

Respecting Cæsar's camp, and the fortress which he stormed in his advance, Professor Airy says, "If we suppose Cæsar's camp to have been at the eastern end of Pevensey Level, and his head-quarters at Herstmonceux or Hooe, and if we measure a distance of twelve miles along the old great road by Ninfield, Catsfield Green, Tillis Coppices, the north-west end of Battle, Whatlington, and John's Cross, it terminates exactly at Robertsbridge, one of the most remarkable military positions in the east of Sussex."

Here he supposes that the battle described by Cæsar was fought. This was after his second landing. Both his landings are supposed to have been made at the same place.

That the Castle of Pevensey is of Roman origin seems now universally admitted. Many Roman coins have been found in the precincts, chiefly coins of the Constantine family. The circumstance which recommended Pevensey to the notice of the Romans, as suitable for a military station, was doubtless the harbour which it at that time possessed, but which, owing to the accumulation of sand and shingle, no longer exists. This led to the erection of a fortress or castrum, which Mr. Hussey, after minute [ 133 ]investigation of the subject and of the claims advanced on behalf of other localities, decides to have been that well known by the name of Anderida. This place was destroyed, 491 , by Ella, the founder of the South Saxon or Sussex kingdom, who, taking it after a long siege, put all the inhabitants to the sword.

The first mention of Pevensey in historical records is in the year 792, when, as has been already noticed (p. 3), it was given by its proprietor, Berhtwald, with Hastings and Rotherfield, to the Abbey of St. Denis at Paris.

In 1049, Sweyn, the son of the famous Godwin, came to Pevensey to meet his father, and here it was that he entrapped his cousin Beorn to Bosham, where he was made a prisoner, and finally murdered.

The landing of William at Pevensey has already been described. No doubt, it had its full share in the miseries that followed . The Rape and fortress of Pevensey were bestowed on the half-brother of William , Robert, Earl of Moreton and Cornwall. It is supposed that he repaired the castle, and added the Norman buildings.

When William had established himself on the English throne, and could venture to revisit his Norman dominions , it was at Pevensey that he and his attendant nobles embarked. This was in the year 1067, six months after his landing.

In the reign of Henry I., and the year 1104, Pevensey came into the possession of Gilbert de Aquila, from whose name it received the designation of the " Honour of the Eagle."

The Saxon Chronicle relates (p. 465) that, in this same reign, A.D. 1088 , Bishop Odo, having taken refuge in the Castle of Pevensey, was besieged there by the King, with a very large army, for full six weeks.

In 1144, the castle was also besieged by King Stephen, who found the place too strong to be taken by storm. [ 134 ]In 1208, King John granted a charter to the barons of the town of Pevensey to build a new town. It is not clear whether this was taken advantage of. Horsfield supposes that Westham was the town ; but Mr. Lower thinks that Westham was already in existence as the western hamlet of the town of Pevensey.

In the reign of Edward III., the Castle of Pevensey having been settled by the King on John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, John Pelham was appointed Constable. In the next reign, Sir John Pelham following the interest of Henry of Bolingbroke, his courageous wife sustained a siege of the castle during her husband's absence with Henry in Yorkshire ( 1399) . A letter written by her to her husband whilst she was besieged is printed by Hallam, and also in Mr. Lower's Chronicles of Pevensey.

In 1419 , Joan of Navarre, the step-mother of Henry V., was confined in this castle until 1423, in the custody of Sir John Pelham, on whom Henry IV. had, for his services, conferred the Castle and Honour. Edward, Duke of York, had also been confined here fourteen years previous.

After the invention of artillery had rendered fortifications on the old model comparatively useless, the castle appears to have gone gradually to decay. In 1730 it came into the possession of Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, to whom it gave the title of Viscount Pevensey. From him it descended by marriage to the Cavendishes, Earls of Burlington, and to the present Earl of Burlington it now belongs.

" The congeries of walls and towers forming what is popularly, though inappropriately, called Pevensey Castle, occupies a slight elevation, caused by one of those geological undulations not uncommon in flat and marshy districts. Before the draining of the marsh of Pevensey, and when what is still known as Pevensey Bay, was a much deeper watery indent into the line of Sussex coast than at [ 135 ]present, several eminences must have appeared above the surrounding waste of waters, forming a cluster of low, rounded islands. These are still recognisable by their names, the termination being uniformly ey or eye, a softening of the Anglo-Saxon i or ig, island, morass. Here we find, among many others, Hidney, Chilley, Mankseye, Horseye, Northeye, Langney, Rickney, Mountney. Foremost in importance in this little archipelago, stood the insulated or peninsulated spot which was seized upon by the Romans as a site for the station which was afterwards known as the Civitas Anderida , and which, after its total destruction (excepting only the external walls) by the Saxons, assumed the name of Peofnesea- probably from some early proprietor, of the name of Peofn. A glance at the map will show that the builders of the wall which incloses the Roman station were influenced in their plan by the peculiar form of the ground chosen for a site, and that they followed the outline of the rising ground . In order to make the most of the site, they neglected the rectangular arrangement so usual in Roman castra, and hence the irregular, oval , and island-like form of the inclosure. At that time the southern and eastern sides doubtless occupied a sort of low cliff, washed at every tide by the waters of the ocean, or at least of a considerable arm of the sea. On the other sides, the ground, though not so precipitous, rises more or less from the general level of the surrounding marsh . "

The general thickness of the walls is twelve feet ; their height, from twenty-four to thirty feet. A portion of the ruins of Pevensey are of Roman, another portion of Norman, or medieval date. The larger enclosure is nearest the village of Westham, and is supposed to have been the city wall of Anderida, and that part, hitherto considered as the keep, to be the remains of an independent castle, of a date not earlier than that of the Edwards. The area of this castle is 1 acre, 1 rood, 35 perches. The Norman, or post- Norman work, [ 136 ]joins on to the Roman. Within this inclosure were discovered, during the excavations, undertaken in the summer of 1849 , under the direction of Mr. Lower and Mr. C. Roach Smith, the foundations of what is supposed to have been the Free Chapel, within the castle of Pevensey, named in the grant of the castle to John of Gaunt, by Edward III.

The following are the dimensions of the interior of the chapel, as given by Mr. Lower (p. 278) :

Length of the nave, 40 feet. Ditto of chancel, 12 feet 8 inches. Breadth of nave, 16 feet 8 inches ; breadth of chancel, 11 feet 6 inches .

Several skeletons were found below the level of the chancel floor. One of these was the skeleton of a man, with the fore-arms crossed over the breast.

The stone step, which was the ascent to the chancel, remains, and, on each side of it were two small irregular inclosures of stone, supposed, by Mr. Lower, to have supported the pulpit and reading-desk.

Opposite the south door, erect, though much fractured, was found the font, consisting of a plain basin, raised on a circular step, 4 feet 10 inches in diameter.

A piscina, adapted for a pillar, was also found. The " leaning tower " is situated on the outside of the medieval ruins ; it is itself supposed to be Roman work, and after it had sunk from its original position, to have formed a platform to a sally-port, obliquely cut through the Norman work.

The principal entrance to the ruins is in the Roman portion. It fronts the village of Westham, and is flanked by two towers. The view from this spot is very pleasing, looking on the venerable church of Westham, and away towards Beachy Head. One cannot forbear thinking, how many sad and anxious eyes have looked out on this scene during the successive stages of the Castle's history. The besieged Lady Pelham - the disgraced Queen Joanna - the heirs of the House of York - the captive Prince of Scotland for James Stuart, afterwards James I. , during his long and cruel detention in England by Henry IV. [ 137 ]and Henry V., was, about 1414, a prisoner at Pevensey, in custody of Sir John Pelham. The living actors have long since passed from earth, the Castle has survived to witness that pledge of freedom and civilization an English railroad ; and the stranger who now casts a glance at these massive towers as he waits for the train at Pevensey, may with Arnold (see Life, 6th ed., p. 678, note) rejoice in the hope that " feudality is gone for ever."

PEVENSEY CHURCH.

On the eastern side of the castle is the Church of St. Nicholas.

" This is a very interesting church, comprising nave, with north and south aisles, chancel, and tower. The east end, including the chancel, arch, and tower, is early English ; but the nave appears somewhat later. The chancel arch is very fine ; lofty, with rich foliated capitals, much resembling those of Stockbury Church, Kent (see Gloss. of Arch., plate 30, 4th ed. ) The chancel, which is long, is a good specimen of the style, having three sharp- pointed lancet windows at the east end, and others irregularly placed , at the sides. In two of the pillars, one on either side of the nave, very small ogee-headed niches have been, hollowed out, as if to contain images. The tower is in an unusual position, at the east end of the north aisle, and probably was once higher than at present. Beyond it, eastward, are vestiges of buildings, part of the original structure, and, perhaps, forming two separate chapels, communicating, as we now see, with the chancel, by two distinct aisles. The exterior remains indicate some peculiarity in the termination of those buildings towards the east. On the south aisle, at the western end of the chancel, are marks in the exterior wall, of a " transept, answering to the tower on the north."

Mr. Sharpe, speaking of the Geometrical period (A.D. 1245 to 1315), in his lecture, at the Meeting of the [ 138 ]Archæological Institute, says, " The nave and chancelarch of Pevensey Church are perfect examples of this period, on not a very large scale the foliage of the capitals is admirable."

The Rev. H. T. Browne, Prebendary of Chichester, is the present Vicar of Pevensey.

WESTHAM CHURCH

The church of St. Mary, Westham, is to the west of the castle, and stands in a village street.

Mr. Sharpe says of it, " West Ham has originally been a large, early Norman church ; but the south nave wall, south transept, and traces of south apse, only remain."

Mr. Hussey says of the south transept, " The Norman South transept remains, converted into a schoolroom, and, from the appearance of the foundations, it seems to have terminated in an apse." He also says, " There is some good carved screen work, and part of the rood loft occupies its original position ." Also, " Eastward of the north aisle are indications of a destroyed chapel, and a round arch is still visible, externally, in the east wall of the aisle. "

The prevailing style in the church at present is Perpendicular. The east window has five lights, and has remains of stained glass, the figures in which, are supposed to have portrayed our Lord and the apostles.

The living is a rectory, in the patronage of the Earl of Burlington. The Rev. H. T. Grace, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, Rector of Jevington, is the present Incumbent.

The celebrated Andrew Borde, the eccentric physician of Henry VIII., if not a native , was a resident, at Pevensey. He was educated at Oxford, but afterwards became a Carthusian friar, in the Chartreuse, London. He was a singular mixture of asceticism , and humour approaching to buffoonery. He lived in celibacy, drank water three days a week, wore a hair shirt, and hung his winding[ 139 ]-sheet at his bed's foot ; yet he frequented markets, fairs , &c., and, by the witty and ludicrous harangues, in which he advertised his drugs, he is supposed to have originated the term subsequently applied to a mountebank - a Merry Andrew. In one of his witty and satirical works, the Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham, he is supposed to have played upon the blunders and simplicity of his townsmen of Pevensey, especially in a tale in which he exhibits the Gothamites as executing an eel, by drowning, for the delinquency of eating up the salt fish, wherewith they had stocked a pond. It appears it was the practice at that time, at Pevensey, to put criminals to death by drowning, to which practice this is supposed to be a satirical allusion.

The parish of Pevensey is in the district of Eastbourne, sub-district Westham. It contained , at the last census, 17 inhabited houses, and 412 persons.

The parish of Westham, which, with Pevensey and part of Hailsham, forms the Liberty of Pevensey, governed by a bailiff, jurats, &c. - contains 150 inhabited houses, and 761 persons.

HERSTMONCEUX.

Herstmonceux is about six miles distant from the sea coast. It may be reached by rail as far as Hailsham, from which it is distant about three miles ; or by carriage road , from Hastings, in a drive of fourteen miles. The parish was returned , at the last census, as containing 213 inhabited houses, 5,039 acres, and 1,292 persons.

The name, Herst, or Hurst, which occurs in so many of the Sussex parishes, is a Saxon word, denoting a wood, and is the same word, a little modified, as Hartz, used in Germany for mountains covered with wood . The other half of the name, Monceux, is derived from one of its lords. Herstmonceux partook of the general devastation which followed the Conquest, its value sinking from six pounds 

References & Notes

Rhymes for the Times. By Mercury. p. 20

Hist. and Antiquities of the Town and Port of Hastings. Lond. 1824, p. 175, note.

The Hastings Guide, &c. By an Inhabitant

The writer has been informed that the late Dr. Matthew Baillie was the first London physician, who, towards the close of the last century, recommended patients to resort to Hastings.

" On the return of the expedition from Hanover, Major General Wellesley was appointed to command the troops stationed at Hastings, in Sussex." - Maxwell's Life of Wellington, p. 215.

The Duke of York came down, in 1805, to review the troops in Crowhurst, but the death of the Duke of Gloucester prevented the review from taking place.

The Brighton coach very narrowly escaped being crushed by the fall of a mass of rock. It had but just passed, and the fall overwhelmed it with dust.

Verulam-place was built before St. Leonards.

Eversfield Park, a site between the South Saxon road and London road, is laid out for fifty-six villa residences, to have from two to three acres each. The surveyor to the estates, Mr. W. Gant, 42, George-street, can give information on all particulars.

Hook's Jack Brag, p. 240, Bentley's Ed.

Spas of England, vol. iii., p. 594-5, Ed. 1841.

The statements of population in this chapter give the numbers in the two Sub-districts of All-Saints and St. Mary-in-the Castle.

The friend to whom I am indebted for much of the information in this chapter can find no church at Hastings mentioned in Domesday Book. See also Hussey's Notices of Churches in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, p . 177.

The Free Chapel of St. Leonard juxta Hastyngs is mentioned in the time of Richard II.- Dugdale's, Mon. Angl., vi., 1470.

Taxatio Ecclesiastica Angliǽ et Wallia Authoritate Papa Nichola IV., fol. , Lond. 1802, p. 136.

P. 352, col. 1, fol., Lond. 1807.

Vol. i., fol., Lond.

Moss gives a similar account , p. 122.

Vol. i., p. 453.

Moss, p. 86.

See plate in Moss's work.

P. 20, note.

Thierry says that Henry II. (who had already made Becket Chancellor) confided to him the education of his eldest son, and attached to these offices large revenues, which, by a singular chance, were derived from places of fatal memory to the English ; from the Prebend of Hastings, the custody of the Castle of Berkhampstead, and the governorship of the Tower of London . (Vol. ii., p. 55.)
This statement is slightly at variance, as regards the patron of Becket, with other authorities. In his Life, by Fitz-Stephen, (p. 14, fol., Lond., 1723, at the end of Sparke's Collection of Eng. Historians,) it is related that he held first a prebend given him by the Earl of Eu. And in Lord Lyttelton's History of Henry II. (vol. ii. , p. 309, 8vo., Lond., 1769,) it is stated that the Archbishop of Canterbury, on his return from Rome, made him Dean of Hastings, and subsequently (just before the death of King Stephen) Archdeacon of Canterbury.

" William of Wykeham.- The King gave him moreover a prebend in the Collegiate Church of Hastings, Chichester Diocese, Feb. 17, 1362." (Lowth's Life of Wykeham, p . 25, 8vo., Oxford, 1777.)

Chronicle, p. 104.

The Castle seems at this time to have been in the hands of the Crown. One of the Dukes of Brittany held the Honour and Rape.

Horsfield, i., 452

It is to be observed that in all cases the numbers are taken from the Census returns of 1851.

In an old deed, in the possession of John Phillips, Esq., of Hastings, being the probate of the will of Rd. Mechynge, dated 24th Nov., 1436, occur the following words :-
"Corpus quoque meum sepeliendum in nova ecclesia Omnium Sanctorum de Hastynges."

Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. iv., p. 266.

MS. belonging to the Earl of Chichester, cited in Cooper's Hist. of Winchelsea, p. 141, note.

Stow's Annals, p. 1203, cited by Horsfield, vol. i., p. 453.

Rymer, cited in Sussex Arch. Coll., xi., 167, note.

Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. ii., p. 166, note. Dowe must have been the Incumbent at the time when Mr. Hinson was expelled, as related in an earlier chapter.

The father of Titus Oates, who himself once officiated as minister, as appears by an entry in the church books.

See Cooper's Winchelsea, note, p. 12. Moss gives no date for St. Clement's. Horsfield gives the end of Edward I.'s reign as probable, and cites the record in which , in 1286, Alanus de Chesmongre, and Alicia, his wife, proposed to give a rood of land to the Abbot of Fểchamp, to construct the Church of St. Clement de novo, it having been overthrown by the inundations of the sea.

The improvements in the church are effected partly at the expense of the parish, and partly at that of the Rector, the Rev. J. G. Foyster.

" On the 4th of Oct. , 1638, Francis Viscount Montague and others, leased to William Carr, of Mountfield, clerk, the rectory, advowson, and church impropriate of St. Mary's of the Castle of Hastings, with the vicarage of the same," &c., &c., " so long as Carr should remain parson of St. Clement's, Hastings." Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. ii., p. 167, note. Mr. Carr is mentioned p. 24 of this work.

The parish of St. Mary extends beyond the liberties of the town and port, and is partly in the hundred of Baldslow.

Barry's Guide (p. 23) states that after the burning of the town, about the year 1379, and its subsequent rebuilding, it was divided into three parishes, St. Clement, All Saints, and St. Mary-in-the-Castle, but gives no authority for this.

There is a cemetery and mortuary chapel for St. Mary's parish, north of Wellington-square, but it is now closed.

The county portion contains 750 acres of land, and consists of Filsham Farm and parts of the farms of Yielding, Gensing, and the Grove, in the hundred of Baldslow.

The total cost of the building and fitting was 600l.

St. Vincent de Paul and the Sisters of Charity, with Some Particulars of the Establishment to be erected at St. Leonards, Hastings. London. 1836. p. 63.

The entire frontage of the Borough of Hastings is five miles.

It has been already mentioned that this name is of Celtic origin.

See Horsfield, vol. i., p. 452.

See infra.

See Moss, p. 166. In 1697, the going to sea on a Saturday night, or landing fish on a Sunday, was forbidden under heavy penalties.

Horsfield, p. 460.

June 23d, 1854.

Horsfield, vol. i., p. 456.

Horsfield, vol. i., p. 134, &c.

It would appear, from a note to Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii., p. 160, 8th edit., that Hastings, with the other Cinque Ports, took part in Parliament at a date prior to the general summoning of the Commons of England by Simon de Montfort, December 12, 1264, 49th of Henry III., which Hallam considers to be the commencement of popular representation. The note says : " The only apparent exception to this " (namely, that no public instrument, prior to the writs of Simon de Montfort, mentions citizens and burgesses as constituent parts of Parliament,) "is in the letter addressed to the Pope by the Parliament of 1246 ; the salutation of which runs thus : 'Barones, proceres, et magnates, ac nobiles portuum maris habitatores, necnon et clerus et populus universus salutem.' (Matt. Paris, p. 696.) It is plain, I think, from these words, that some of the chief inhabitants of the Cinque Ports, at that time very flourishing towns, were present in this Parliament : but whether they sat as representatives, or by a peculiar writ of summons, is not so evident ; and the latter may be the more probable hypothesis of the two." For a fuller account of the Parliamentary History of Hastings, see Horsfield, vol. ii., Appendix, p. 60.

P. cxcviii.

See List in Appendix.

An error : the subscription was 25s. per annum.

These remarks on the increase of population are taken from the articles on Local Statistics in the Hastings and St. Leonards News, in March and April, 1855.

Published by Tonson, London, 1767, 8vo., 10 vols.

Vol. i., p. 475-6. See Moss, p. 154.

Broomham Park.

See Professor Smyth's Lectures on the French Revolution, vol. ii., p. 223.

The Pagoda erected in Hyde Park, on the occasion of the entertainments there.

Moore's Life of Lord Byron, vol. iii., p. 105. 12mo. 1834.

Life, vol. v., p. 290.

From autograph letters in the possession of P. O'Callaghan, Esq.

This poem and the foregoing have been printed in a small collection of poems, the name of which the writer has been unable to recover. In that collection, the Last Morning at Hastings had affixed to it the name of Mrs. Farren.

Leland, Itinerary, vol. vi., fol. 56

Cooper's Hist. of Winchelsea, p. 93. Lond., 1850.

HEIGHTS IN SUSSEX
Eridge Park. . . 659 feet
Crowborough Beacon, Forest Ridge . . . 804 feet
Brightling Down . . . 846 feet
Ditchling Beacon, South Downs . . . 858 feet
From Smith's Geological Section, quoted in Fitton's Geology, 1833, p. 89.

This was one of General Roy's stations for determining the relative situations of the observatories of Greenwich and Paris.

See Cooper's Hist. of Winchelsea, p. 202.

Lovers' Seat.- By the kindness of a gentleman well acquainted with the history of the neighbourhood, the writer is enabled to give an authentic version of the facts and names connected with the Lovers' Seat. They are as follows:-
"THE STORY OF THE LOVERS' SEAT."
" Towards the close of the last century, there was residing at Hawkhurst, Mr. and Mrs. Boys, of Elfords, an interesting old mansion in that parish. They had an only child, Miss Boys, who was consequently a considerable heiress, as well as representative of the ancient family. She, being in delicate health, was ordered to the sea ; but her parents, fearing she would be picked up by some fortune-hunter, were afraid to take her to Hastings, and consequently hired Fairlight-place, as combining both retirement and sea-air. The revenue cutter cruising off the coast was at that time commanded by Lieutenant Lamb (a near relation of the Lamb family, of Mountfield, near Rye), who obtained his appointment through the influence of Mr. Lamb, who was patron of that borough. Lieutenant Lamb used frequently to attend Divine service on Sunday at Fairlight Church, where he contrived to make acquaintance with Miss Boys ; and when she went alone to the seat on the Cliff near Fairlight Glen, to enjoy the sea-breezes, Lieutenant Lamb used to put off from the cutter, and climb the cliff, to give her the meeting. The attachment being discovered, and parents disapproving, a runaway match was the consequence ; but it does not appear that the couple were married at Hollington Church (as frequently stated) . The conclusion of the story is tragical. After obtaining Mr. and Mrs. Boys' forgiveness, Lieutenant and Mrs. Lamb settled at Higham, in the parish of Salehurst. She died, either in confinement with her first child (a daughter), or shortly afterwards. Her husband never married again ; but, being fond of the sea, kept a private yacht, a cutter, of his own. Being in the Southampton Water on one occasion, the mainsail of the vessel swung round in a squall, and the boom , striking him on the head, knocked him overboard. Though an excellent swimmer, he sank at once, from which it is inferred that he was stunned by the blow ; and nothing more was ever heard of him. His only daughter married the Rev. Mr. Ferris, and being the representative, through her mother, of the ancient family of Boys, of Elfords, her descendants have very properly taken the name of Boys Ferris. The original Lovers' Seat has long since perished, but has been replaced by another, occupying the same site, which, appropriately enough, bears the name of the Lovers' Seat to this day."

Horsfield, i. 460.

Horsfield.

He observes (p. 58) , "The situation is good, and the grounds around it capable of great improvement."

Jowett's Memoir of Rev. Cornelius Neale, p. 56, 62, 64 ; 2d ed. Lond., 1835.

Serious Poetry, p. 21. 12mo . Lond., 1822. By Caroline Fry. In the same volume is another poem, " To a Friend on taking leave of Oare." p. 85.

Horsfield (i. 438) says, that it has been a religious house, but this is doubtful.

Horsfield, i. 440.

Horsfield, vol. i., p. 436.

Pennant's Tour, vol. ii., p. 36.

Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, translated by Rev. S. Henshall, M.A., and J. Wilkinson, M.D. p. 127. 4to. Lond., 1799.

'Sussex Arch. Coll., vol iii., p. 225.

Silva, p. 491. Ed. Hunter.

Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. vii., pp. 45, 49.

Henshall and Wilkinson's Translation, p. 126.

Martello Tower (from Mortella, or Myrtle Bay, Corsica) , a small circular-shaped fort, chiefly meant to defend the seabord. It is built in two stages ; the basement story containing storerooms ; the upper, serving as a casemate for the defenders. The roofs are vaulted, the highest being shell-proof ; entrance to all high up. The edifice is usually begirt with a ditch and glacis. Some have only one cannon, others more. (With a view of one from the coast of Kent.) - Dr. Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary, English, Technological, and Scientific, vol.ii. 8vo. Glasgow, 1850.

Horsfield, vol. i., p. 431.

Translation, p. 125.

"The Domesday title of this place, Bexelei, assists us in recognising it in the ' Beccaule ' of King Alfred's will.' Asser's Alfred, by Wise, p. 77 ; " Hussey's Churches, &c.

Saxon Chronicle, Bohn's Edition, pp. 435, 436.

Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. vi., p . 1171.

4to. Strawberry Hill, 1765.

Private Correspondence of Horace Walpole. 4 vols. Lond., 1820. Vol. ii., p. 211.

Bexhill is called Becksley, or Bexley, in old records.

Private Correspond., vol. iii., p . 393. This portrait of Eleanor of Provence is thought to be the only one remaining. See an engraving from it in Strickland's Queens of England, vol. i., p. 356, Lond., 1851. Also remarks, at p. 378-9.

Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, part i., c. iii., p. 45, 8vo., London, 1832. See also Fitton's Geological Sketch, &c ., p . 49, and Mantell's Geology of Sussex, p. 35. London. 1822.

For an account of his works see Wood's Athena Oxonienses, vol. ii., col. 59.

Notitia Monastica, Sussex, xviii.

" On the Place of Julius Caesar's Departure from Gaul for the Invasion of Britain, and the Place of his Landing in Britain." By George Biddell Airy, Esq., Astronomer-Royal. - Archæologia, vol. xxxiv., pp. 231-250. See also Athenæum, March 29th, 1851, for anonymous remarks on the same subject, communicated by Professor Airy.

" If we suppose Cæsar to have first attempted the neighbourhood of St. Leonards, the tide, which a few miles from shore, had turned to the west at eleven, was at three running in full stream to the west. Cæsar apparently waited for a favourable wind, (the word ' nactus ' implies that it was a change from an unfavourable wind or calm,) which was highly desirable for the steerage of his ships. The run of eight miles would then bring him to the beach of Pevensey, answering perfectly to his description, probably the most favourable place for landing on the whole coast of Britain, and famous in later times as the landing-place of William the Conqueror. At the time of Cæsar's landing it was low-water. As there is usually on these coasts a flat shoaly bottom extending some distance beyond the steep shingle beach, the difficulty found in bringing Cæsar's larger ships near the land is readily explained." Mr. Airy goes on to say: "The general conclusion from the reasonings of this section is, that it is impossible to admit Dover, Deal, or Walmer as Cæsar's landing-places ; that, although there is not the same impossibility of admitting Folkstone and Romney Marsh, there are strong improbabilities ; but that every possibility and probability are in favour of St. Leonards and Pevensey."-P. 242.

P. 214

Mr. Hussey has combated Professor Airy's opinions respecting the place of the Landing, &c. See Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. vii., p. 45.

Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. vi.. p. 90-106.

About 18 miles north of Pevensey.

Sax. Chron., Bohn, p. 423

Thierry, vol. i., p. 199.

Chronicles of Pevensey.

Introduction to the Literature of Europe, part i., chap. i., vol. i., p. 54. 8vo. London. 1854.

Lower's " Excavations at Pevensey," Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. vi., p. 266.

Rev. A. Hussey's Churches of Kent, &c., p. 265. Mr. Hussey also mentions the disfigurement of the church by various alterations.

See Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. vii., Proceedings of the Arch. Institute, p. 18.

Ibid, p. 14.

Hussey, p. 302

Ibid.

Ibid, p. 337.

For a fuller account of Andrew Borde, and a list of his works, see Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, vol. i., coll. 170-182, Lower's Chron. of Pevensey, p. 39.