Page:The Antiquities of Hastings and the Battlefield.pdf/24

But Mr. KNOCKER entirely overlooks the force of the term " present town," which decidedly implies not only that there was an older town , but also that it was not on exactly the samespot; and, while he gives quotations from Moss, on p . 5 and p. 8 , he omits the extract from JEAKE respecting the incorporation in the time of the CONFESSOR, expressly referring to an older town, given on p. 7, to the following effect:" Whether this or the old town of Hastings be that which was first enfranchised and incorporated with the other ports, I leave as yet uncertain." This ancient town is placed by some a great deal to the South of the present town, but, in the continuation of the same valley. The Priory Valley, as we term that to the west of the Castle, has a much larger basin than the other : of fanlike shape -- it receives the drainage of several thousand acres,and its surrounding hills, when crowned with the trees of the primeval forest -- were the sources of streams ample enough to form a capacious haven for the light barks of Briton and of Saxon . It is here, I venture to believe, we must seek for the original site of the ancient town and port of Hastings, and not in the Bourne Valley according to the generally received opinion . I am at once met with two objections, - 1stly, that no traces of the town are now discoverable, 2ndly -- that Hastings could never have had a harbour. It may be replied generally, that if we only considered the present state of things, these objections would apply -