West Fort
This fort is believed to be the later of the two forts adjoining each end of the Town Wall. As with the East Fort, there was an area of open ground to the seaward side of both forts known as the Gun Garden.
Baines writing in a column about ship-building of the Hastings & St. Leonards Observer of 28th February 1948 claims that a town order dating back to 1676 "permitting ship building to occur only to the west of the West Fort, under the Castle cliff and the waste beach towards the Priory", thus fixing the position of the fort as being east of the Deluxe Cinema[1]. As an aside, the area described previously is recorded as having been let to a Thomas Hurt for one year in 1674 for the purpose of rope-making[2].
Defensive weapons[edit]
Due to many of the old records having disappeared, little is known about the early defensive preparations of the town, but a return to a 1496 muster ordered by the Lord Warden (Cinque Ports) shows that Hastings had "30 archers well and sufficiently armed for war and 30 men with bills and other defences sufficiently harnessed, with 100 men not sufficiently armed."[3]
Elizabethan Defences[edit]
"The Defence of Sussex and the South Coast of England from Invasion, considered by Queen Elizabeth's Privy Councillors, AD 1596", by W. H. Blaauw, M.A., F.S.A., published 1859 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 11, article, pp.147-170) gives the following detail of the town's fortifications in the late 16th century[4] :-
”At Bulver Hyde Point[5], being a place fit for landing, there should be “a rampier[a], to bere one demiculverin[b] and one sacre[c].”
“Hastings town is furnished with three Portugall bases of brasse, with four chambers of bras to each, one culverin of iron unmounted, two sacres, two minions[d], and one robinet[e] mounted, three quartre slinges stocked, and powdre and shott sufficient; the town is strongly seated, and easily to be fortified.”
17th Century rebuild[edit]
Both the East and West forts were rebuilt in the early 1690s following a minor bombardment by the French in 1690[6].
18th/Early 19th Century[edit]
F. W. L. Stockdale notes in 1817 that the West Fort mounted six twenty-four pounders, having been (re?)constructed around 1780[7].
Images[edit]
- Images
1605 Map of Hastings landmarks from J. Manwaring Baines' book
Marine Parade - Library - West Fort - 1817 - Hastings of Bygone Days and the Present
References & Notes
- ↑ British Newspaper Archive Hastings & St. Leonards Observer 28 February 1948 Pg. 0006
- ↑ British Newspaper Archive Hastings and St. Leonards News 18 December 1857 Pg. 0003
- ↑ Historic Hastings (J. Manwaring Baines) 2nd ed. pg 191 ISBN: 0948869003 ISBN: 9780948869006
- ↑ Internet Archive: Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 11)
- ↑ Obviously referring to Bulverhythe
- ↑ Salzman, L.F. (ed), 1937, VCH Sussex Vol. 9 p. 4-5
- ↑ A Concise Historical & Topographical Sketch of Hastings, Winchelsea & Rye Pg. 8
