was then bounded on either side by forests and morasses ; it stretches through Battle and Heathfield to Hadley Down, where the Hills forming the watershed of the Rother and the Ouse, by a large arc, connect it with Crowborough Beacon , the highest point in the County,[1] and with Ashdown Forest.[2]
Two Valleys situated at the extremity of this ridge have been held for more than a thousand years by the mariners of Hastings. Of these the most easterly is little more than two miles long, and so narrow that the Bourne by which it is watered , and by which we shall sometimes find it convenient to distinguish it, must have always been an insignificant stream , and KNOCKER relies on this circumstance, as his chief argument against Hastings having been the principal of the Ports : he says, " I have not found any record of its having ever possessed a port or harbour, except what Mr. JEAKE, who wrote his treatise on the ports in 1678,says : " That the present town of Hastings is built between two hills, between which runs a fresh water called the Bourne." The inhabitants appear to have an impression that a port existed in former time, and , I believe, point out the course in which ran a small river, which may be probably the Bourne referred to by JEAKE." [3]
- ↑ The line of road following the chord of the arc crosses the Ouse at a place, which though 25 miles up the country, bears the very suggestive name of Hasting ford .
- ↑ A remnant of the Forest of Anderida, which in the time of the Venerable Bede, when the modern name" Hastings " is first met with , was 120 miles in length by 30 broad.
- ↑ Court of Shepway p . 22.
