must have had an elegant and beautiful appearance.
Each of the three approaches is fortified by a gate, called Newgate, Strandgate, and Landgate, whose masonry is at this time in tolerable preservation ; and as long as the surrounding level was overflowed by the sea, this was a sufficient defence : nor is there the smallest vestige of any other. The former of these gates is distant from the two latter about three quarters of a mile, and these respectively from each other, about a quarter of a mile. It must here be observed, that the present road to Icclesham led only to a Wharf or Dock, at the bottom of the hill, and therefore wanted no gate for the security of the town.
In the reign of Edward III. Anno. 1358, the French attacked and destroyed the town in part ; and in the reign of Richard II. Anno 1379, they landed again, and, as it appears from the first-mentioned book, " slew all such as did oppose them, sparing no order, age, or sex."
