Hastings: the back story

About Hastings: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Brighton Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Hastings is one of Britain’s oldest fishing ports: boats have worked from the beach in front of the town for over a thousand years. Its Old Town grew in the valley between the East and West Hills, below the ruins of the castle; the resort and St Leonards spread west along three miles of seafront.

Look up from the Old Town and you see why Hastings feels like nowhere else on the coast: sandstone cliffs on either side, the castle ruins on one hill, a cliff railway climbing the other, and below them a fleet of fishing boats hauled up on the shingle.

A town between two hills

Until 1800 Hastings was confined to the valley of the Bourne stream between the East and West Hills. The Old Town had just two main streets, the High Street and All Saints’ Street, divided by the stream, and its narrow alleys, the “twittens”, still run between them.

Check opening times and trains on the official sites before you travel.

Walls, raids and the castle

The ruins of Hastings Castle, Britain’s first Norman castle, have watched over the town in one guise or another for nearly a thousand years; the Battle of Hastings itself was fought a few miles inland on 14 October 1066. In the late 1300s a defensive wall was built across the southern part of the town, with gates at the High Street, All Saints’ Street and the Bourne, against enemies and against the sea. During the Hundred Years’ War the French attacked the town twice; in the second raid, in 1377, much of it was destroyed.

Georgian Hastings

In the eighteenth century the town began to spread west along George Street, the first street outside the wall; many of its buildings keep their Georgian upper windows. When Napoleon threatened invasion, Hastings held a garrison of 12,000 soldiers, commanded by the Duke of Wellington from his headquarters in the High Street.

Fishing from the beach

The fishermen of Hastings have a medieval right to use the beach, the Stade, for ever and free of charge, and the Hastings Fishermen’s Protection Society still guards it. More than 25 boats work from the Stade: the largest beach-launched fishing fleet in Britain. The tall black net huts beside them are among the most photographed buildings on the south coast.

The seafront today

The three-mile seafront runs from the fishing fleet past the arcades and the pier to the double-decker promenade of Bottle Alley and on to St Leonards. Hastings Contemporary, the Shipwreck Museum and the Fishermen’s Museum stand by the Stade; the White Rock Theatre faces the pier.

Our advice: arrive by train, walk the seafront east to the Stade, buy fish straight from the huts, then ride the East Hill lift for the view and walk back through the twittens of the Old Town.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Hastings: the back story before you go.