The Castle Ruins before the Excavation
Between the Castle and the mills is a portion of the West Hill across which are now to be seen the paths leading from Wallinger's Walk to Plynlimmon Terrace and St. Mary's Terrace. Sloping down from the same is the descent formerly known as the "Steeps", but which now is the site of Milward Crescent and the gardens up from behind. Near to the right-hand mill in the engraving is the shepherd's cottage, (now non-existent) in close proximity thereto is the pathway to which reference has been made.The path in question remained closed until the 13th of June, when the Hastings Commissioners at one of their ordinary meetings received a letter from Mrs. Milward, in which she acknowledged the right of the public to the use of the path leading from the mills to Halton. The admission was not received as a very graceful concession, Mr. Langham contending that the way could not be legally stopped, and that it could not even be diverted without the consent of the magistrates, and after a formal notice.
It curiously happened that just a week later, Mr. Wastel Brisco notified his intention to ask permission to close or divert the very footpath which has led me to this digression, namely, the one through the Step-meadow at the back of the Priory Farm. Mr. Brisco being himself a magistrate, succeeded in his application, but not without a protest from Dr. MacCabe, who was also a magistrate, and one to whom residents and visitors were much indebted for his exertions to keep open the rural walks and pathways to the use of which by a prescriptive right the public felt themselves entitled. But this particular path was generally regarded as the prettiest out of Hastings, and the townspeople strongly objected to its being diverted. They contended that if that delightful walk was a nuisance to Bohemia House, the house had come to the nuisance, and not the nuisance to the house. As a trifling set-off, however, to Mr. Brisco's acquisition it may be mentioned that, some years later, when the railway tunnel had been formed in close proximity to the diverted path, and instructions had been given to a railway official not to allow anyone to use the Company's enclosed ground as a thoroughfare, Mr. Brisco attempted to do the very thing that was forbidden. The wealthy trespasser was immediately accosted by the official, when something like the following dialogue took place -
Hulloa, sir! you musn't (sic) come this way."
"But I'm Mr. Brisco,"
"Perhaps you are, sir, but this is the Company's private ground."
"But I'm a gentleman, and I live here at Bohemia."
"I don't doubt what you say, sir, but my order is not to let anyone get over here."
"But I'm a magistrate, and you can't prevent me."
"Very sorry, sir, to turn you back, but I must do my duty.
Finding himself thus baffled by the unswerving fidelity of the official to his instructions, the Squire of Bohemia had to retrace his steps for an outlet in another direction' and so for once, he discovered his own path diverted by a public company with even less formality than he had been obliged to observe when he diverted a path to the inconvenience of the public.
And now that I have again been discursively led as a sort of "pathfinder," I may as well disburden myself of a few other events of the place and period of which I have cognisance. On the 2nd of May the death was announced of one Daniel Wimble, at the age of 56, and by the cause of apoplexy. Poor "Old Dan!", I knew him well; and what native or resident of Hastings and the country round did not know him either by features or by name? It is now over 70 years ago - bless me, how the time has flown! - that, with my grand-dad, I first entered a comparatively small, old-fashioned corner house in Great Bourne street, when the new jail opposite to the angle of such house had only just been completed, and when the "Great Bourne" itself was only covered in to a small extent of its course. At a small table, almost in the chimney-corner of that old-fashioned house, screened from public gaze by a curtain of green tammy, I sat for a while sipping my coffee and munching my cake, little thinking that from thirteen to fifteen years later, when the said house had undergone sundry enlargements and improvements, it would be one of my own selection wherein to take my daily meals, read the Dispatch and the Sussex Advertiser, and laugh over the Caricaturist. So famous had this establishment become at the time as "Wimble's Eating-House" that on all ordinary days it was almost a rarity to find half-a-dozen empty seats between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m., whilst on market-days and high holidays large crowds would sometimes be seen collected at the doorway, waiting for a chance to get in. At this later period, however, the proprietor had apparently withdrawn himself from any part in the management of that busy hive of industry, to betake himself to too frequent libations of greater potency than the fluids which were dispensed at his own house. The business was thus left to the more regular conduct of his family, prominent among whom was his son John. Of John Wimble, in this capacity, a gentleman visitor, who figures as Euphymus in the Cinque Ports’ Chronicle, wrote thus:-
“Adieu to John Wimble, who keeps a cook-shop,
And cuts up a joint from the bottom to top;
The man ought to thrive, for he sells the best meat,
And his hams almost say - Come and eat, come and eat."
Mr. John Wimble carried on the house with continued success after his father's death, in conjunction with his mother, and after his mother's death, on his own account, relinquishing it, at length, as I understood, to take a less profitable business near the Crystal Palace. And now, without any further wandering from the particular date and object, I will close my notice of Mr. Wimble, senior, with another quotation from the -
