south-west, and the waves at high tide broke over the wall and into the road with terrific grandeur. The wall was greatly damaged, and as it had but recently been taken over by the Commissioners from the contractors, the former had become responsible for the repairs. At the next meeting, therefore, a resolution was passed to obtain estimates for facing the wall with hard stone and for further protecting it from future aggressions of the sea with faggots or other materials.
The extent to which the "Jubilee History of St. Leonards" has already reached and the still greater distance to which I have now purposed to carry it has grown out of the demand that portion of the public designated as my readers. I have before explained that the original intention was to occupy only a few columns of space in describing, as I scampered over the ground, a few of the more prominent features of the town’s half-century history. But as the interest appeared to deepen, and suggestions came thickly upon me to extend and amplify what I had already commenced I yielded to the solicitation. I then found it necessary to collect and collate numerous loose memoranda and records, some of which were the originals of a much more perfect set that, through some strange accident, found its way, several years ago, to Lloyd’s paper mills. It will readily be conceived, therefore, that as my story had to be formed from un-arranged materials and from associative reminiscences drawn from memory alone, an occasional slight error in matters of secondary importance might accidentally creep in. Hitherto, however, only two or three trivialities of that nature have occurred, and these I have lost no time in correcting as soon as I discovered them.
The parade wall from the Church, westward, having been handed over as finished by the contractors in the month of September, and again damaged by the sea during the October gales, the responsibility of repairing the same fell upon the Commissioners, whose misfortune as a corporate body it was to be almost continually without means to meet the increasing requirements. It may be imagined that Messrs, Homan and Scott had done much to tide them over some of their difficulties by undertaking work which other firms did not care to compete for; and it is not improbable that the losses of the latter were sometimes greater than their gains. I had an opportunity of hearing the opinion expressed of more than one of Homan and Scott’s workmen upon the too often un-remunerative price of their tenders; and, as regards their sea-wall contract, it was generally considered that they had not allowed enough margin for contingencies.
Certainly when one recollects that their work was greatly impeded by even the ordinary spring tides, and still more so by the extra-ordinary ones; and when one reflects, more-over, that their price for building 300 feet of stone wall was only a little more than what, nowadays, is paid for a timber groyne, one can hardly charge the workmen referred to with being guilty of a malignant criticism.
Then, again, when one finds that they were sometimes inconvenienced by being unable to obtain instalments of cash from the Commissioners to which they felt themselves entitled, one ceases to wonder that pecuniary difficulties beset them only a short time after the wall was completed, and that the balance of their contract had to be paid to a gentleman named Hopkinson, who was the ground-landlord of their houses in East Ascent. It was chiefly with the erection of these houses, or more particularly with the existence of the stone-yard and counting-house behind them, that the writer’s own interest in St. Leonards first became identified. The period of this identification was coeval with the commencement of the town; for
His step-sire was a Tubal-Cain,
And a Tubal-Cain was he,
Who worked with all his might and main,
A youthful smith to be.
From twelve to fourteen years of age
Young Tubal did his best,
And of the red sparks fiery rage
Bears marks upon his breast.
While other striplings were at school,
He, with acknowledged skill,
Re-sharpened many a mason’s tool,
and wrote the weekly bill.
And with this weekly bill he went
To Scott and Homan’s place,
Whose site, behind the East Ascent,
He even now can trace.
The entrance to the stone-yard and clerk’s office in question was by a doorway in a passage leading up between Nos. 5 and 6 East Ascent to the Anchor Inn (St. Leonards) and to the coachmen's dwellings in the St. Leonards Mews. The avenue was called Mews Passage, the entrance to the works being on the right-hand side, where a similar door still marks the spot, where still exists the somewhat rugged wall which was then hastily "run up," and which at the present time is a curiosity in its way. The Anchor Inn, to which the passage also serves as an approach and which—as its name indicates—bears alike the arms of the town and its founder, was at first a beer-house only, Mr. Burton having previously stipulated with Mr. Milstead[a], of the Horse-and-Groom Inn, that there should be no full-licensed house between the last-named and the St. Leonards Tap, beneath the Hotel. The Anchor has been successively tenanted by Mr. Ballard, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Skinner, Mr. Vidow and Mr. Wells. It is here-about that the buildings exhibit the greatest traces of decay.
The stables, coach-houses, walls, etc., being among the first erections of the town, and composed almost solely of friable sandstone, have yielded to the influence of time and the weather, and at the present moment present quite a contrast to the other erections which have been preserved by their external coatings of cement and paint.
But I have promised to say something more of the destructive gales and high tides which occurred in the month of October. The weather had been of an unsettled and threatening character for several days, and on Saturday the 18th, whilst the wind was blowing almost a hurricane, the sea at high water dashed over the new wall and effected a considerable amount of damage thereupon.
It also washed away much of the bank and road in front of the houses at West Marina then known as "The Hundreds," and rushed through the arched passages into the coal-yards, workshops and the quadrangle constituting the Market. This was not the first time that the property in that district had been inundated, and certainly it was not by a good number of times, the last. The situation, indeed, was deemed to be so insecure that during three or four subsequent years there were occasionally 18 or 20 habitations in and about the Market tenantless at one time. A serious breach was made in the wall opposite to the "Seven houses" (65 to 71 Marina), and the Commissioners were sadly perplexed as to how best to repair damages and guard against future irruptions of unruly Neptune.
If the information which I derive from the late William Kirby is correct - and I have no reason to doubt it - it was during the progress of the storm that Mrs. Birch, the wife of an Indian officer, with her family was residing at 106 Marina, and a black boy who was in her service being visited by the sea in the middle of the night, ran out upon the road with no other clothing than his shirt, shouting "Murder!" This was repeated two or three times, first to the consternation and afterwards to the amusement of the neighbours. On that occasion the sea rushed through to the archway leading to the Market and up the Sussex road into the Mews, drowning several pigs and damaging the property. Mrs. Birch afterwards left for India; and it had been said that she and her family were among the victims of the Sepoys during the Indian mutiny. I am indebted to the same source for the information that during the same storm or its after effect, a soldier named Hitchcock, one of two who used to ride out at night with the Government riding officers, Edwards and Gill, met a simila fate to that of the private of the 10th Hussars in 1810, in his attempt to cross the Sheepwash bridge on the Bulverhythe Salts, he and his horse being carried away and drowned by the flood.
Arrival of the Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria
A few days after the storm it was known that the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria had signified their intention of coming to St. Leonards, and on the 24th of October, Mr. Burton and the leading inhabitants of St. Leonards met the Mayor and other influential denizens of Hastings to consider the best way of testifying their respect to the royal visitors. The result of this meeting will be seen from what follows :—
The Duchess of Kent, aged 48, and the Princess Victoria, aged, 15, came to St. Leonards on the 4th of November, 1834. It was on a Tuesday, and the day was very fine in its meteorological conditions, Exactly at half-past two o'clock the royal ladies and suite in three carriages, each drawn by four horses, made their appearance at the triumphal arch which Mr. Musgrave Brisco had caused to be erected at the borough boundary, near the Hare-and-Hounds Inn, They were escorted by Mr. Brisco and a party of horsemen, who joined the royal visitors at the Harrow, and were welcomed at the improvised arch at the borough limits by the Mayor (W. Scrivens, Esq.) and Jurats. His Worship, with Mace-bearers, and other persons, in a carriage-and-four, preceded the royal carriages in their further journey to St. Leonards.
The town band, also, together with "Friendly" and other societies and an immense mounted party from the towns and neighbourhood, swelled the procession. Flags, garlands and evergreens were suspended from buildings along the route; but, on arriving at White-rock street (now the centre of Robertson street) the huge cavalcade had to make a detour between the "Black Pond" and Belvedere House to a steep and narrow road over Cuckoo Hill. This part of the route was along a road now occupied by the houses in Trinity street passing to the west of the picturesque Priory -
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