NOTES. ON THE MAP OF HASTINGS. - Page 16.
The map reproduced on the opposite page, was used by the late Mr. Cole to illustrate his theory and contention that a Roman Settlement existed on or near the site of our town, and that the submerged town was some distance south of White Rock, and west of the Castle and Priory. By following the key, the reader will be able to locate the churches and other places known to have existed, but long since disappeared, through inundation of the sea and other causes. The Churches dedicated to St. Leonard, St. Margaret, and St. Michael, mentioned in Pope Nicholas' Register, together with the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen are shown west of the Priory and Haven ; the Church of St. Andrew and the Collegiate Chapel of St. Mary-in-the Castle, East of the Priory and Haven ; and St. George's on the East Hill, of which all traces, I believe, have disappeared, while the ruins of others have been brought to light in comparatively modern times. All Saints and St. Clement's Churches still remain in the Bourne Valley. The number of Churches would point to the former existence of a considerable community within what is now the western part of modern Hastings. The old Churches of St. Leonard, St. Margaret, and St. Michael, are mentioned by the Bishop of Chichester in his register 1440, as "having suffered from the depredations of the sea in the last hundred years and they had no longer any churches." a St. Leonards Church is said by Mr. Durrant Cooper to have stood upon the site of the Wesleyan Church, Norman Road, St. Leonards. The late Alderman Robert Deudney remembered that in removing some of the cliff at the rear of 50, Eversfield Place, the ruins of St. Margaret's Church were discovered. Some of the ruins of St. Michael's Church were found upon the site of the Coastguard Station above Claremont, when the cliffs were removed for building operations, about 1834.
{Horsfield's Sussex, Vol. /., p. 543.) St. Andrew's Church is called in Pope Nicholas' Register, "S. Andrew before the Castle." The word before may have some significance, as the site of this was in close proximity to the drawbridge of the castle, on the north-west side, or in front of the entrance, and near the site of the present Castle-Down Terrace. Horsfield, p. 452, says : "The ruins of St. Andrew's Church stood within 15 years (1819). The site was sold and desecrated to building purposes, in violation of the dead, and the patronage of the rectory, although vested in the Corporation by royal grant, and confirmed by Act of Parliament." St. George's Church. This Church marked on the map on the East Hill, is not reported in the register of Pope Nicholas, 1291, or the Chichester Register. The late Mr. Thomas Ross said :- -
