eastward, and Newhaven to the west, is there really such an amount of traffic with our friends over the water as to require another point of contact? Or, if viewed as a matter of competition I am told by those who know the place, that St. Valery, the only French port offering geographical advantages to Hastings, is utterly unworthy of being thought of, on account of the wretched condition as a harbour. I have said before that Hastings, whether with reference to the house-owners or the inhabitants of the owners’ houses, are enjoying a prosperity so far as I am aware unexampled in its history . What more can be had? Or if it can, let those who propose a change show how that will accomplish it. Other towns on the coast have their vocation as places of business and commerce; Hastings has its advantage as a place of pleasure and salubrity. It’s air, its hills, its sands and beach, and its esplanades. Let not visionaries seek to mar what is now both beautiful and profitable. I am, sir, yours obediently, C. J. Womersley.”
Remarks on the above letter. In the foregoing communication to the Hastings News, Mr. Womersley referred to St. Valery as the only French town offering geographical advantages to Hastings, but which with its wretched harbour and other circumstances could not be thought of. Perhaps he remembered the correspondence between the Mayor of St. Valery and the Mayor of Hastings in 1855 (See Local History Vol 5, page 163) in which the latter, assisted by the Town Clerk, made it clear that it was almost impossible to establish a maritime traffic and continental communication between the two places. Mr. Womersley also alluded to Newhaven harbour (as well as to those of Folkestone and Dover) against which a harbour at Hastings would not be able to successfully compete; and in this opinion he would have been well fortified if he could have read the up-to-date history of that extensive harbour and gigantic appliances at an immense cost as described in Vol. IV., pages 79 to 84 of the present work. Not only would the Newhaven harbour in 1860 have afforded facilities which Capt. Sleigh’s proposed harbour at Hastings could never have attained to , but at the present time (1899), being the property of two powerful railway companies – one in England and one in France – it is more than ever in a position to hold its own against the possibly-to-be-finished one at Hastings still undergoing delay in its construction. But to return to the argument against Capt. Sleigh’s design in 1860.
Another Letter – bearing the signature of “Civis” – appeared in the same number of the Hastings News as follows:- “Sir, - The harbour meeting appears to have been a one-sided one, so far as oratory and voting -
