means of the chronological arrangement of the present work these historical details are dissected, and fall into their proper order along with the other records exhibited.
From the time when the Pelham family obtained possession of the Castle and Rape, in the year 1424, the documents respecting their title and proceedings had been preserved in extraordinary volume and completeness. It was not until subsequent to the year 1887 that a beginning was made with the dispersal of this series of records by Walter John Pelham, fourth Earl of Chichester. The earlier title-deeds among this series were presented by him to the then newly founded Hastings Museum, where they have been since preserved under the author's nominal keepership, as head of the section dealing with local records. Most of the later deeds and documents of the series were presented by his Lordship to the Sussex Archaeological Society, and a huge miscellaneous mass of documents relating to the manorial history of the Rape, since its possession by the family, was presented by him to the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, where they are indexed under the name of "The Newcastle documents."
As to the chapter relating to this latter mass of documents the author wishes to acknowledge the skilled assistance of Mr. D. T. Baird Wood, M.A., who catalogued this series for the Manuscript Department of the British Museum. For any record of the excavations conducted among the ruins of Hastings Castle, which took place in 1824, the author for a long time sought in vain ; but at last he discovered some drafts in manuscript of such a description in the Guildhall Library, where Mr. Herbert, above mentioned, was formerly the librarian.
Mr. Herbert, it seems, had been employed by Mr. Thomas Thorpe (the compiler of the catalogue of the Battle Abbey Documents in 1835) to examine the deeds and documents (then known as "the Pelham Evidences") in the possession of Thomas, second Earl of Chichester, with a view to the identification of the boundaries of the lands adjoining the Castle. This he had done in a full and conscientious manner. Upon the introduction of Mr. Moss he had conducted, for Lord Chichester, the excavation at Hastings Castle initiated by the discovery of certain remains by Mr. Joseph Kay (the Architect of Greenwich Hospital), who was engaged in excavating the Castle cliff for the building of Pelham Crescent and St. Mary's Church, now situate below the Castle. Mr. Herbert was indefatigable; he noted and planned almost every detail that was discovered, and subsequently prepared in handsome form a fair copy of his work, which he delivered to Lord Chichester.
Upon hearing of the present author's researches Lord Chichester (the fourth Earl) in 1897 most generously presented him with this invaluable record. Mr. Herbert's work is executed in a fine neat hand, and the text is illustrated by maps and drawings plotted out by an artist named B. Hewlett. Some of these drawings, executed in black and white wash, are originals, and others are copied from certain eighteenth-century drawings by James Lambert of Lewes and S. H. Grimm, now in the British Museum and in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford. The author in the compilation of the present work has made free use of this magnificent record.
Thus splendidly equipped, the author, by leave of Lord Chichester, commenced a further series of excavations at Hastings Castle, with the view of verifying Mr. Herbert's previous discoveries, which had subsequently been covered -
