Hastings is a town on the coast of East Sussex in England; it is also the administrative centre for the Borough of the same name. It includes originally separate settlements, as well as the inevitable growth of the town through the building of new estates.
In historical terms, Hastings can claim fame through its connection with the Norman conquest of England; and also because it became one of the medieval Cinque Ports. Hastings was, for centuries, an important fishing port; although much reduced, it has the largest beach-based fishing fleet in England. As with many other such places, the town became a watering place in the 1760s, and then, with the coming of the railway, a seaside resort. The Town is sometimes referred to as "the birthplace of television" since the pioneer of television, John Logie Baird, lived at 21 Linton Crescent from 1922 to 1924.
The attraction of Hastings as a tourist destination continues; although the numbers of hotels has decreased, it caters for wider tastes, being home to internationally-based cultural and sporting events, such as chess and running. It has set out to become "a modern European town" and seeks to attract commercial business in the many industrial sites round the borough.
With the departure of the Romans the town suffered setbacks. The Beauport site had been abandoned; and natural and man-made attacks began. The Sussex coast has always suffered from occasional violent storms; with the additional hazard of longshore drift (the eastward movement of shingle along the coast) the coastline has been frequently changing. The original Roman port could now well be under the sea.
Man-made attacks possibly included the Danish invaders who gave the town its name, with their harbour in the west of the borough. Bulverhythe, where its original site is conjectured, suggests that: -hythe or hithe means a port or small haven. A royal mint in Hastings was established in AD 928 during the reign of Athelstan.
William caused a castle to be built at Hastings probably using the earthworks of the existing Saxon castle.
Hastings was a shown as a borough by the time of the Domesday Book (1086); it had also given its name to the Rape of Hastings, one of the six administrative divisions of Sussex. As a borough, Hastings had a corporation consisting of a "bailiff, jurats, and commonalty". By a Charter of Elizabeth I in 1589 the bailiff was replaced by a mayor.
In the Middle Ages Hastings became one of the Cinque Ports; Sandwich, Dover, and New Romney being the first, Hastings, and Hythe followed, all finally being joined by Rye and Winchelsea, at one point 42 towns were directly or indirectly affiliated to the group.
In the 13th century much of the town was washed away by the sea. During a naval campaign of 1339, and again in 1377, the town was raided and burnt by the French, and seems then to have gone into a decline. As a port, Hastings' days were finished.
It had suffered over the years from the lack of a natural harbour, and there have been attempts to create a sheltered harbour. Attempts were made to build a stone harbour during the reign of Elizabeth I, but the foundations were destroyed by the sea in terrible storms. The last harbour project began in 1896, but this also failed when structural problems and rising costs exhausted all the available funds. Today a fractured seawall is all that remains of what might have become a magnificent harbour. In 1897 the foundation stone was laid of a large concrete structure, but there was insufficient money to complete the work and the "Harbour arm" remains uncompleted. It was partially blown up to discourage possible use by German invasion forces during World War II. The fishing boats are still stored on and launched from the beach.
Hastings was now a small fishing village, but it was soon discovered that the new taxes on luxury goods could be made profitable by smuggling, and the town was ideally located for that. Near the castle ruins, on the West Hill, are "St Clement's Caves", partly natural, but mainly excavated by hand by the smugglers from the soft sandstone. Their trade was to come to an end with the period following the Napoleonic Wars, for the town became one of the most fashionable resorts in Britain, brought about by the so-called properties of seawater. Once this came about the expansion of the town took place, to the west, since there was little space left in the valley.
It was at this time that the elegant Pelham Crescent and Wellington Square were built: other building followed. In the Crescent is the classical style church of St Mary in the Castle (its name recalling the old chapel in the castle above) now in use as an arts centre. The building of the crescent and the church necessitated further cutting away of the castle hill cliffs. Once that move away from the old town had begun, it led to the further expansion along the coast, eventually linking up with the new St Leonards.
Like many coastal towns, the population of Hastings grew significantly as a result of the construction of railway links and the fashionable growth of seaside holidays during the Victorian era. In 1801 its population was a mere 3,175; by 1831 it had reached over ten thousand; by 1891 it was almost sixty thousand, and the 2001 census reported over 85,000 inhabitants.
In the 1930s the town underwent some rejuvenation. Seaside resorts were starting to go out of fashion: Hastings perhaps more than most. The town council set about a huge rebuilding project, among which the promenade was rebuilt; and an Olympic-size bathing pool was erected. The latter, regarded in its day as one of the best open-air swimming and diving complexes in Europe, closed some years ago. The area is still known by locals as "The Bathing Pool".
Hastings, it is thought, was a Saxon town before the arrival of the Normans: the Domesday Book refers to a new Borough: as a borough, Hastings had a corporation consisting of a "bailiff, jurats, and commonalty". Its importance was such that it also gave its name to one of the six Rapes or administrative districts of Sussex.
By a Charter of Elizabeth I in 1589 the bailiff was replaced by a mayor, by which time the town's importance was dwindling. In the Georgian era, patronage of such seaside places (such as nearby Brighton) gave it a new lease of life so that, when the time came with the reform of English local government in 1888, Hastings became a County Borough, responsible for all its local services, independent of the surrounding county, then Sussex (East); less than one hundred years later, by the in 1974, that status was abolished.
Hastings Borough Council is now in the second tier of local government, below East Sussex County Council. The Borough is divided into sixteen electoral wards as shown on the map, they are in four areas, as below. Some explanation of the ward names is also given:
|Ward||Notes including name origin|
|Castle ward||Most central ward, including town centre and sea front|
|Braybrooke||Braybrooke Terrace is north of the town centre|
|Silverhill ward||Well-established area of Hastings|
|St Helens ward (part of Ore)||Area north of town: included St Helens Wood|
|Old Hastings Ward||includes Hastings Old Town|
|Ore ward||One-time separate village: largest ward in borough.|
|Tressell ward (part of Ore)||NNE of town centre; named after Robert Tressell|
|Baird ward||NE of town centre; John Logie Baird|
|Central St Leonards ward||Main part of St Leonards, including sea front|
|Gensing ward||N of Central St Leonards ward; includes Gensing Gardens|
|Maze Hill ward||Between Central and West wards; one-time maze in West St Leonards gardens|
|West St Leonards ward||Large ward extending to the Borough boundary|
|Ashdown ward||Northernmost ward: contains Ashdown House|
|Conquest ward||Contains Conquest hospital|
|Hollington ward||One time village|
|Wishing Tree ward||Area named after an ancient tree|
|Theft of a motor vehicle||4.0||2.9|
|Theft from a motor vehicle||9.8||7.6|
|Violence against a person||37.1||16.7|
The sandstone cliffs have been the subject of considerable erosion in relatively recent times: much of the Castle was lost to the sea before the present sea defences and promenade were built, and a number of cliff-top houses are in danger of disappearing around the nearby village of Fairlight.
The beach is mainly shingle, although wide areas of sand are uncovered at low tide. The town is generally built upon a series of low hills rising to above sea level at "The Ridge" before falling back in the river valley further to the north.
The town also has a large Victorian park, Alexandra Park.
There are three Sites of Special Scientific Interest within the borough; Marline Valley Woods, Combe Haven and Hastings Cliffs To Pett Beach. Marline Valley Woods lies within the Ashdown ward of Hastings. It is an ancient woodland of pedunculate oak-bornbeam which is uncommon nationally. Sussex Wildlife trust own part of the site. Combe Haven is another site of biological interest, with alluvial meadows, and the largest reed bed in the county, providing habitat for breeding birds. It is in the West St Leonards ward, stretching into the parish of Crowhurst. The final SSSI, Hastings Cliffs to Pett Beach, is within the Ore ward of Hastings, extending into the neighbouring Fairlight and Pett parishes. The site runs along the coast and is of both biological and geological interest. The cliffs hold many fossils and has many habitats, including ancient woodland and shingle beaches.
This situation has now become the subject of parliamentary consideration, and regeneration of the Borough is now being considered at that level. From being the third tourist resort in the country 50 years ago, Hastings has still not been able to shake off its over-reliance on tourism. Urban regeneration was deemed essential: too many of the buildings once used as hotels are still unfit for modern use; many of them are now refugee accommodation. There is a lack of highly-skilled job opportunities, and education standards are low, although the new college may help to ameliorate that. In addition Hastings has the highest proportion of elderly people in the UK.
Until the development of tourism, fishing was Hastings' major industry. The beach launched fishing fleet, based at the Stade remains Europe's largest and has recently won accreditation for its sustainable methods. The fleet has been based on the same beach, below the cliffs at Hastings, for at least 400, possibly 600, years. Its longevity attributed to the prolific fishing ground of Rye Bay nearby.
Hastings fishing vessels are registered at Rye, and thus bear the letters "RX" (Rye,SusseX).
Near the Royal Victoria Hotel there is the "Conquerors Stone" where William of Normandy was supposed to have eaten his first breakfast in England.
On the beach near the Old Town are the so-called "net shops", said to be unique to Hastings, but similar buildings can be found in Whitby – these are wooden constructions, weatherboarded and tarred, of various shapes and sizes, used for storage. The buildings were built tall and narrow to avoid payment of ground tax. They were never used for net drying; this is a popular misconception: nets were dried on the beach or on the piece of land known as the Minnis. The net huts are covered with traditional "clinker" weather-boarding and most of them measure about 25 feet in height by 8 feet square.
During the past 150 years, many net huts have been destroyed by stormy seas, and in the 1950s some of them were demolished by the Hastings Council as part of a clearance scheme for development of the beach. About forty-five of these unique structures still survive and are regularly maintained.
There have always been problems connected with the Tunbridge Wells-St Leonards section of the Charing Cross line. It was built in a hurry by the SER in an attempt to compete with the passenger traffic to Hastings of the LBSCR; and as a result corners were cut in its construction. Most of the section runs through the hilly Weald, necessitating seven tunnels. The contractors on the line, in an attempt to keep up with a strict timetable, saved time by putting in fewer layers of bricks than were required through the tunnels: in 1862 the Wadhurst tunnel collapsed, revealing the truth. Instead of reboring the tunnels, the extra layers were laid on the inner surfaces of all seven tunnels, narrowing the bore, and thereby ensuring that specially-constructed rolling stock was required from then on; electrification of the line was also delayed for many years.
Maidstone and District bought the Hastings Tramway Company in 1935, but the trolleybuses still carried the "Hastings Tramways" logo until shortly before they were replaced by diesel buses in 1959, following the failure of the "Save our trolleys" campaign.
In a similar vein, the old town of Hastings is certainly a landmark. Many of the buildings there today date from the time when the Georgians arrived here to "take the waters", although the two churches (see below) are very much older. An example of the houses is East Cliff House, designed and built between 1760 and 1762 by Edward Capell, the Shakespearean critic and official censor of plays, at a cost of £5,000. The house was constructed on the site of the old East Fort, with a gun platform that may have been adapted to form the front terrace of the building. The house was abandoned during the Second World War and, from then on, it deteriorated rapidly.
An important former landmark was "the Memorial", a clock tower commemorating Albert the Prince Consort which stood for many years at the traffic intersection at the town centre, but was demolished following an arson attack in the 1970s.
On the seafront at St Leonards is Marine Court a 1930s block of flats: it is said to represent an ocean liner.
The school founded by Rev William Parker in 1619 and that founded by James Saunders in 1709 were eventually amalgamated to form Hastings Grammar School, which later became the William Parker Sports College. It is now the only all-boys secondary school in East Sussex.
There are two places providing a theatrical venue: the White Rock Theatre the town's multipurpose venue; and the Stables Theatre, which shows mainly local productions and acts as an arts exhibition centre. Among other uses to which the main theatre is put is to host the annual Hastings Music Festival. There is a small Odeon cinema in Hastings, however there are plans to renovate an area known as the 'Priory Quarter' in the town centre; plans include large office spaces, retail units and a new large multi screen cinema. The town has its own independent cinema.
The Hastings International Chess Congress which started in 1882 attracts international players to Hastings. The Hastings Writers' Group claims to be one of the oldest in the country: it was established in 1947.
Hastings has long been known as a retreat for artists and painters. For example, the pre-Raphaelite painters including Dante Gabriel Rossetti (who married here in Hastings) and William Holman Hunt admired the town for its light and clear air .
There is also a yearly carnival, and Old Town Week during August, a beer festival in Alexandra Park, and a Seafood and Wine Festival in the Old Town. During Hastings week held each year around 14 October the Hastings Bonfire Society stages a torchlight procession through the streets, with a beach bonfire and spectacular firework display. In 2007 the World Crazy Golf Championship was held at the Adventure Crazy Golf Course.
The Hastings Half Marathon is becoming well-known around the country, being voted the best race of its kind three years running, and has become known as the unofficial "Great South Run". With numbers increasing every year, in 2007 the race had around 4,500 entries.
As for team sports, Hastings is home to one senior football club, Hastings United, who play in the Isthmian League Premier Division and use The Pilot Field as their home ground. There are also many other football clubs in Hastings that play in the East Sussex Football League, such as Hollington United and Hastings Rangers. The town's premier cricket venue is now Horntye Park Sports Complex, home of Hastings Priory. The previous venue, where Priory Meadow Shopping Centre now stands, saw the final game played in 1989.
Hastings is home to two major rugby clubs, Hastings & Bexhill R.F.C and Cinque Ports Rugby Club. Hastings & Bexhill play their home matches at William Parker Sports College and play in Division Four of the London Rugby Union League. Cinque Ports play in the Sussex Rugby Union League and play at The Grove School. Hastings' main hockey club is South Saxons, who play and train on the town's only AstroTurf surface at Horntye Park Sports Complex. The AstroTurf is also used for other sports such as football.
One of the athletics clubs in the Hastings & Rother Area is Hastings Athletics Club: it uses the running track at William Parker Sports College, the only running track in the area. A very popular sport in the town is bowls: there are plenty of greens in the town. The Hastings Open Bowls Tournament has been held annually in June since 1911 and attracts many entrants country-wide.