The Lost Island
acquainted is that made by Saxton, probably drawn up a few years before 1588. There is a manuscript map on vellum (reproduced in a publication by Mr. M. A. Lower in 1870), the original of which was drawn up by Sir Thomas Palmere (Knight) and Mr. Walter Coverte, Deputy-Lieutenants of Sussex, in accordance with Queen Elizabeth's command to the High Sheriffs in 1587, drafted with the object of showing all places likely to be chosen by the enemy for a descent along the sea-coast of Sussex. It has a report annexed, containing recommendations as to the armament of sundry such places. Besides these maps, another was drawn by Johannes Norden, and engraved by W. Kip, which was subsequently published in Camden's Britannia in the year 1610. In none of these three maps is the Island shown, and the coast in the vicinity of Hastings does not seem to differ very greatly in outline from the coast-line of the present day. The map in which the Island first appears is the augmentation of Johannes Norden's map by John Speed, published in the latter's atlas of 1610. This map appears to have been slavishly copied by numerous map-makers, both English and Dutch, during the next hundred years. The more recent maps of Bugden, Bowen, and Kitchen do not include the Island, and it is never again seen or heard of in any map or contemporary writing. It should be remarked, moreover, that neither Speed nor any other author refers to the Island in his notes on the county geography, and on no map cited was there any description or mention of it. One might be inclined to doubt that the Island ever existed at all, if it were not for the fact that so large and striking an addition to a map could hardly have been inserted without some amount of deliberation[1]. Assuming, however, that the Island really existed, and was not merely some large sandbank visible at low tide, noted hurriedly by the surveyor, and subsequently added to Norden's map, then the only explanation that the author can offer is that this Island may have been a large mass of shingle displaced, from the neighbouring western shores. Careful examination and comparison of the earliest maps above mentioned with Speed's map seem to give some support to this theory.
If the map of Christopher Saxton is first examined, it will be noticed that a huge mass of beach is shown encircling Beachy Head, and the words " The Beach " are written on the western side of the promontory. The probability is that, for ages past, Beachy Head had been accumulating shingle on its western side. Thus protected, the cliff would not suffer much denudation by the sea on that side ; on the eastern side, on the other hand, the cliff would suffer enormous damage. We know that constant denudation by sea and weather wore back the face of the cliff on the south-eastern side, until outliers stood boldly apart from it, forming huge pinnacles. These pinnacles or needles were nicknamed " The Churles" in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early part of the nineteenth centuries. These Churles were repeatedly carved from the cliff, and washed away,
- ↑ It will be noticed by comparison of the maps that the word " Bulverhithe " has been slightly shifted westwards to make room for the Island. In connexion with this matter, it should, however, be pointed out that considerable inaccuracy, carelessness, and indifference existed as to some details in the " augmentation " of Speed's map. For instance, the locality of Pepplesham (or Pebsham), which should have been marked against the vacant roundel on the mainland, north-west of the Island, has been somehow inserted where Fairlight or Ore might be marked in John Norden's original map. This roundel is still unnamed in Speed's "augmented" copy of the map (1610), and Pepplesham is still erroneously marked to the east of Hastings. These errors, and many others were stereotyped in all the maps of the succeeding hundred years.
