HASTINGS IN THE 16th AND 17TH CENTURIES.
There are little or no records of the social or commercial life of Hastings during this long period. What few glimpses we have are gathered from old Charters, from the Corporation Records, and from the earlier writers, of which Horsfield, Durrant Cooper, and Ross are the exponents. The Castle had fallen into decay from the encroachments of the sea. The site of the town being very low, for it had a haven running up the Priory Valley, which had been inundated and laid waste, while the Castle Cliff was to a very large extent gradually destroyed, until a portion projecting out, probably as far as Caroline Place, called the Gun Garden, disappeared. Horsfield's History of Sussex relates that in 1544, in a charter of Henry VIII., its state is described as -- "by the flux and reflux of the sea, and by the conflagrations of our enemies, not only of lands and tenements, but also of inhabitants, reduced to waste, destruction and poverty".
We obtain a further glimpse of its decay in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. She issued her letters patent authorising a collection for a new harbour at Hastings, when the town was described as "much decayed, the traffic of Merchants thither forsaken, the fishing, by reason of the dangerous landing, but little used, the rich and wealthy men gone thence, and the poor men would gladly do the like if without offence to our laws they might be elsewhere received, whereby our people are likely to perish, and our said port likely to be subverted and become desolate."
About 1578, a harbour was built near the end of the old parade, but was destroyed by the sea. One, William Relf, of Ore, was the projector of a new harbour in the same reign, but the money collected was, it seems, fraudulently spent, and nothing was done. The remains of the Elizabethan pier are now covered by the beach. In 1586, the country being threatened with the invasion of the Spanish Armada, a return was ordered to be made of the ships and mariners belonging to the town. The number of Hastings ships was 20, of a burden from 12 to 42 tons, having 32 masters and 326 mariners. The names of the manners and ships of Hastings which were engaged in the destruction of the Armada are on record, and many of these ate still familiar at the present day. The records give the names of 106, amongst them are those of Wood, Bossom, Butler, Taught, Tanner, Daniels, Hide, Ball, Wingfield, and others.
A further survey of the defences of the coast of Sussex was made in 1587 by Sir Thomas Palmer and Sir Walter Covert, the two deputy lieutenants of the county, a copy of which is now in the British Museum (King's Library). Of Hastings it is reported 'that the town is strongly seated and easily to be fortified.'
