the Commissioners for their increased energy during what has been popularly called the Exhibition Year. Aided by the advice of Mr. W. J. Gant, their new surveyor, the West-Marina wall, already begun, was completed, and the system of drainage improved. The height of the extended parade was 11½ feet on a two-feet bed of concrete. It was on an incline of 8 feet from the perpendicular and considerably curved. It was contemplated, among other improvements, to form the road more seaward between the end of the Marina and the Fountain Inn, so as to widen the building ground under the cliff. The Commissioners had been asked to allow the West-Marina houses to be drained into the Haven, but the said Commissioners intended to remove the sluice to half a mile further westward. Improvements of a character were also projected, including the laying-out of gardens on the West Hill, and the forming the road to the top of an easier gradient. Some new villas or other residences were also contemplated in that district. In all these undertakings it may be that the Commissioners were stimulated by the assurance at a meeting of the Town Council, at which the Hastings members endeavoured to force St. Leonards under the Health of Towns Act, that “the St. Leonards Commissioners were quite capable of managing their own affairs”.
With regard to the new wall I occasionally watched its progress, and dared to express an opinion that howsoever effective for its purpose the slight concavity of its surface might prove to be, a projecting gradient from bottom to top would have been a better plan. Some of my acquaintances said such a wall would be top-heavy — that it would be much more costly to build, and that it would not so well withstand the force of a heavy sea. It was hardly likely that my plan would have received any attention even if I had been in a position to suggest it to the ruling authorities; but I had not only watched the action of the sea at that time for more than 20 years, by I had also made sundry miniature experiments with water rushed against kitchen utensils (baking tins, etc.) and made a note thereof. Also in the year under consideration (1851) I had acquired a sufficient architectural knowledge to be able to draw the elevation and working plans of my own house in Norman Road, which Mr. Voysey, an architect said he could not improve, and Mr. C. T. Howell, a builder, declared that in economising space and in some other features for which the building was designed, I had shown myself the best amateur architect he had met with. This personal allusion is my only diploma for the assumption that a parade wall should be so built as to throw back the sea upon itself; instead of having rearward incline with which to reach the top and flow over. Subsequent observations never removed me from this theory. At a later period I made repeated observations on the -
