to throw it in with greater force at another. This has been pointed out in a local publication entitled My Father's Portfolio; and it was also stated in the Gazette ere the work was commenced, that, great as may be the protection to the Houses, and as much as the esplanade in the district might be improved by the erection of the proposed wall it would be at the expense of the property eastward.
This has proved to be the case; for, ever since the junction of the new wall with the old, the latter has had to withstand the assaults of the sea to a greater extent than before, whilst the beach in front of it has gradually decreased until several parts of the said wall has been laid bare to the very foundation, and are at present undermined. Firstly, the sea made a breach opposite to the St Leonards Church, then it tore away about fifty feet of the main drain at the base of the wall further eastward; next it attacked the substratum at the Archway, and now at the time of writing, a subsidence in the wall still further eastward has taken place. That portion of the wall between 23 and 29 Grand Parade exhibits a rent of an arched foundation in the solid concrete extending about fifty feet from end to end.
All these breaches have been temporarily repaired with faggots, timber and other material, and the energetic Borough Surveyor, who is generally equal to any emergency, will I have no doubt, find means of ultimately resisting the new advances of the sea. But to my story!
Let me first say that in this review of the "rise and progress" of St Leonards, it is my intention less to follow or imitate the descriptive accounts in the local guides than to give a chatty, historic and anecdotal sketch from personal recollections, occasionally assisted by the experiences of other persons.
Commencement of the Town - 1828
On Saturday, the first of March was laid the first stone of the St Leonards Hotel, which later, after the Princess Victoria visit to St. Leonards was re-named the Victoria Hotel. The stone was formally laid by Mr John Ward, a son of John Ward Esq. of Holwood in Kent and Calverley Park, Tunbridge Wells. The amateur mason was also a first cousin to James Ward Esq. who afterwards for several years, resided at Baston Lodge, Upper Maze Hill. The beginning of the hotel was also the commencement of St. Leonards, although, as explained further on, the said structure was not the first that was completed. It was built at the foot of the Vale, which divides the parish of St. Leonards from that of St. Mary Magdalen, and on the site of a pool into which used to flow a stream of fresh water from the higher ground, and occasionally at rough spring tides, the water from the sea.
The latter was particularly also the case on the 24th of November, 1824, when there occurred the highest tide of the present century. I have often thought that if Mr Burton had seen, as I had, the destruction at the Priory, and the inundations between the White Rock and , he would have hesitated to erect the Hotel, and afterwards the Baths and Library, in such close proximity to the sea.
To this allusion of the storm-driven tide of 1824 - three and a half years before the town was begun - may be added that in the same year on the 14th of July, the locality was visited by the most appalling thunder and hail storm ever remembered by anyone then living. I was then residing with my parents in Church Street, Hastings and me-thinks I can still see the incessant flashes of lightning, still hear the deafening rolls to thunder, still view with tearful eyes, the torrents of water rushing through the house from off the hill, still hear the crash of hail through the windows and still witness the writhing of my mother in strong convulsions, exhibiting such abnormal strength as to require three men to hold her while up to their knees in water. It was indeed a terrible tempest; and so was that, although of a different kind, which filled to overflowing the pond which at a later date was the site of the St Leonards Hotel.
By some of the Hastings people it was called the Bulrush(sic) Pond, but it was much more generally known as the "Old Woman's Tap". That bulrushes(sic) grew there, however, is attested by the fact that I have stood on the high ridge of beach, separated only by a very narrow road, while my father plucked them for me.
Projecting over the north side of the pond was a huge stone called the "Conquerors Table", on which, according to one tradition, Duke William dinedon his arrival from Pevensey, where he landed and according to another, where he breakfasted before he set out to attack the army of Harold.
Duke William came in one thousand sixty six
and played the Saxons somewhat naughty tricks.
At least, they said so,
but to me it seems as though
it were as one of Wisdom's schemes to make old Hastings more of worthy note.
With pre-St Leonards in the same good boat
that, as today, the new and ancient towns
might be as one beneath some future crowns.
E'en now at Hastings, on the castle hill,
are certain traces of Duke William's will,
Whilst at St Leonards is the stone
whereon Duke William feasted ere his valor shone.
A not very genial writer says "The only drawback of this romantic association is that it is not true". Perhaps, however the positive proof is as good as the negative; and as, before its removal, I once or twice took lunch on the said improvised dining table under the proud satisfaction of having done as Duke William did, it would be a pity to spoil one's complacency. Besides this, there are other accounts, which, being even more contradictory, are as incapable of actual demonstration, as the legendary story here repeated. One statement is to the effect that the stone in question is that which William caused to be placed over the dead body of Harold after the battle, whilst a contrary statement is that, after some hesitation, the body was given up to Harold's mother and buried by her at Waltham Abbey. But whilst the question is still a debatable one, the local possibility receives the ancient authority of the Carmen de Bello Hastingensi, which says that the Duke had the corpse wrapped in purple linen and buried on the cliff at Hastings beneath a stone inscribed with the words "Per mandata Ducis, rex hie Heralde quiescis ut custos maneas litoris et pelagi".
It is also asserted in Knightley's Elementary History of England that "When Harold's mother applied to William the Conqueror for the body of her son, offering for the same, its weight in gold, he refused it, and caused it to be buried on the sea-shore saying "He guarded the coast while he lived, let him do so now". Thus much for the claims for and against "Duke William's Dining Table". Be it said, however, that the stone was removed from its long abiding place by 14 horses, mainly supplied by Mr Deudney of the Gensing Farm and with the appliance of strong chains lent by Messrs Ransom and Ridley, the noted shipbuilders of Hastings. The "Old Woman's Tap" was then drained and excavated by a number of men, chief among whom were Edward Gould, George Kent and a man named Jones. Gould used to say that huge balks of timber were put in with beds of concrete for the better security of the foundation. I have already said that the first stone of the hotel was laid by Mr John Ward of Tunbridge Wells, to which it may be added that the master builders were Mr Goyne (sic), Scott & Houdam and Mr Benjamin Homan. Several coins were placed beneath the foundation stone; and as is usual in similar cases, the workmen were served with refreshments. Sixty mechanics and labourers were at once set upon the work, and the number afterwards increased to over 100. At that time there was no public road leading northward from that locality, and only one - and that of a rugged, sea-washed character - eastward and westward thereof.
The Eversfield Estate - Erection of St. Leonards Hotel - A Sumptuous Dinner
Although the formal ceremony of commencing the new town was, with the laying [of]-
