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what, in 1836, the front line of the borough was like between the Archway at St. Leonards and York ​building​s at Hastings, Firstly, there was Adelaide place, consisting of thirteen houses, inclusive of the Saxon Hotel; secondly, Saxon house, now known as "Hempsted & Co.s"' thirdly the cliff, on whose site are now the houses 15 to 22 Grand parade; fourthly, the seven houses then constituting Seymour place; fifthly, the enclosed gardens of Warrior square where was exhibited a handsome lithographic view of intended square, terraces, crescent and church; sixthly, Cliff cottages, which are now 5 and 6 Eversfield place; seventhly, a long and lonesome space, with a rugged cliff, now occupied by 7 to 67 Eversfield place; eighthly, the ten houses at Verulam place; ninthly, a range of cliff, a portion of which had been cut down in levelling the White-rock; tenthly, six ​building​s in White-rock place, commencing with what is now No. 20, and finishing with what was then Deudney and Fagg's Brewery; and lastly, a new parade, a new ​road​, plenty of lamp-posts, but no lamps nor lights. This was the eastern limit of St. Mary Magdalen parish, and still farther eastward of the property just enumerated were, Albert place, Stratford or Precursor place, and the "Desert," now covered by Robertson street, Robertson terrace and Carlisle parade. Before me is a view (published, I believe, by Mr. George ooll, of High street), showing the East Lodge, Harold Hotel, 20 to 15 Marina, Adelaide place, Saxon Hotel, and cliff cottages. From this as compared with my description, it will be easy to fix the date of its publication to two or three years before 1836.

In describing the frontage of the borough as it existed in 1836 between the Archway and York ​building​s, I included the Government Ground which was familiarly spoken of as the Desert; and although in a topographical sense, what I have further say about the last-mentioned spot, may take me again from a restrictive history of St. Leonards, its association therewith is almost unavoidable. It was in the last week of March, 1835, that Messrs. Walker and Driver, from the office of Woods and Forests, with the assistance of Mr. George Thwaites, of Hastings, surveyed the said ground, and decided to recommend the erection of a stone wall and wooden groynes, as necessary barriers against the tidal action of the sea. This wall - which has not immediately begun, but at a later period built by Messrs. Hughes and Hunter, of St. Leonards - was regarded as the best work of its kind along the cost; and the fact that it withstood the buffetings of the sea for some forty years without the displacement of a single stone, may be taken as proof of its excellence. I am referring, of course, to the wall at Carlisle parade, of which it was further said at the time of its erection, that next to a harbour or a pier, it would be a very noteworthy improvement. But it was urged that a harbour and pier were greatly wanted, and that a very favourable opportunity for getting one at the Priory then presented itself.

I have already described the great and gay meeting of the Society of St. Leonards Archers on the 24th of May, and I have now to report a similar gathering on the 17th of August - the respective birthday anniversaries of the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria. It was a splendid affair; and, as St. Leonards and Hastings were overflowing with visitors, the meeting was very numerously attended. It was said, indeed, that the borough was never so full of aristocratic and other influential people, the season being earlier and more brilliant than even that of the previous year. This and a considerable period of beautiful weather made the condition of the place doubly cheering. A public writer at that time in expatiating on the advantages afforded to visitors, remarked - "If they want to enjoy the ocean's breeze, the country air, an Italian sky, and good society, they will hasten to St. Leonards or to Hastings." But it is St. Leonards (continued the writer) that is again taking the lead with an unsparing hand. Will the old town follow so bright an example? This strain of writing by a Hastings man might seem to evince just a touch of that native jealousy which on many occasions was unfortunately exhibited; but, for myself, I would rather believe it was the outcome of a generous impulse towards the younger town. It is not unlikely that the Archery meeting received an accession of competitors and visitors in consequence of it having become known that the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria, had presented two additional challenge prizes to be shot for - a jewelled tortoise-shell comb for ladies, and a silver winding-horn for gentlemen. These being of greater value than their Royal Highnesses' first prizes, they were decreed to take priority. The winners of these prizes were Miss Ellen Wood and Mr. C. G. Eversfield. The event was celebrated with a grand ball in the evening.

On the following day, (Aug.18) the inhabitants, with Mr. Burton at their head, arranged a very good (almost impromptu) regatta. The weather was favourable for the sports, and equally so for the races of another sort in the following month. A finer period could not well have been than the greater part of september, and especially that of the 21st and 22nd of the month, when the populations of Hastings and St. Leonards poured forth in dense masses to the Race-course near Bopeep. There on the grand-stand were assembled the Mayor and other officials of the borough; there was the town-crier, and there was the town-band. There, also in the lower circle of the course which formed a figure eight, were the nobility, gentry, and other well-to-do people of the towns and neighbourhood, in double and treble lines of carriages, some of the equipages being drawn by four comparisoned steeds, preceded by outriders. This was the scene in Filsham Valley, whilst on the slopes of the hill between such valley and the site now covered by the West-Marina railway station, were rows of humbler vehicles, and above them the thousands of pedestrians who there did congregate to see the horses run. A prettier course or better racing could hardly have been found in any part of England. The principal prizes for 1836 were the Town-place, Ladies' plate, Mr. Green's plate, and the Hunter's stakes, each of £50 value. The running was good each day, and the dinner at the Swan hotel at the conclusion of the first day's sports, as well as the ball at the St. Leonards Assembly-rooms on the evening of the second day, was numerously and fashionably attended.

The attempt which was made in 1836 to get the meetings of the St. Leonards Commissioners and the Hastings Commissioners thrown open to the representatives of the Press was not attended with the same success as that which in the same year accompanied the efforts to admit the public to the monthly meetings of the Town Council. The failure of these efforts evoked a remonstrance, the question being asked "How long will it be before the ratepayers are permitted to know how their funds are expended by these private juntas? Why are not their meetings thrown open as at Brighton, Worthing, Tunbridge Wells, and other places?" A similar failure attended the application for admission of the Press to the meetings of the Board of Guardians. I have reason to believe that the non-compliance with the requisition was in each case cause of considerable ill-feeling against the personality of those public bodies, and of no benefit whatever to the ratepayers. It helped to enlarge the outcry against the new system of poor-relief as administered by the Unions, whilst in the case of the St. Leonards Commissioners it not only perpetuated the general discontent, but it probably gave that body more trouble in providing the requisite funds than would have been the case if the ratepayers had been taken into their confidence. This supposition is supported by the fact that on two or three occasions - the failure of the Hastings Bank being one of them - the inhabitants contributed a voluntary rate in addition to the shilling rate to which the powers of the Commissioners were limited.

The large extent of ​road​s to be kept in repair, the frequent breaches and the partial demolition of the walls and parades by a boisterous sea, the constant repairs of badly constructed drains, the watering of ​road​s, the laying down of new pavements, and the many other requirements for money by a new town which poets and press-writers had described as having no equal on the south-coast, all contributed to burthen the Commissioners with liabilities beyond their means; yet, this fact was but little known to the majority of the ratepayers, who not unnaturally suspected the Commissioners of mismanagement.

The front of the town on Friday, the 15th of January, was so furiously assailed by a turbulent sea as to cause a yawning brach in the parade wall opposite to the seven houses westward of the St. Leonards church. Then on the 11th of April, the brig "Collingwood", of Sunderland, foundered westward of St. Leonards, but her crew fortunately reached Hastings in safety. On the 5th of May the melancholy news arrived that a schooner has passed the new fishing-boat "Hastings" bottom upwards, which was supposed to have been blown over during a gale. This was a boat mainly owned by Mr. Winter and the crew of which consisted of Stephen Bumstead, John Bumstead, Hy. White, sen., Hy. White, jun, and Thos. Coppard, jun. On the 23rd of August, the weather was again very turbulent, and another large portion of the St. Leonards parade was swept away by the sea. During the years that St. Leonards had been a town it had not experienced so terrific a wind as that which occurred on Tuesday, 29th of November, 1836; nor am I aware that there is any person living who remembers so violent a hurricane on the south coast during the present century. I have no means of ascertaining the measure of its turbulence, but by adopting a mental process of comparison with two or three later gales by which it had been approximated, but not equaled, I am led to believe that its velocity exceeded 100 miles per hour, and that its force was 70 or 80 pounds upon the square foot. It commenced at about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, reached its maximum force about 1 p.m., and continued with but slight abatement until two or three. It then ceased, after having proved itself the climax to a week's boisterous weather which had preceded it During the height of the hurricane, the damage which resulted was unparalleled. Chimneys were toppled over, roofs blown off, corn-stacks and hay-stacks carried completely away, trees uprooted, horses and carts upset, and coaches blown over. By one of the last-named casualties, the father of the late Mr. John Peerless, of St. Leonards, sustained a fractured leg. Nearly all the windows of Mr. Waghorne's new mansion at Seymour place were destroyed, and a similar fate befell the Albion Hotel at Hastings. The scene of my daily occupation at that period was near to the latter place, and I well remember the destruction which was taking place all around. Imagining that the Marine parade, on the windward side of the houses, would be the safest place, I cautiously wended my way thither, and felt that I had almost miraculously escaped the danger with which I was menaced by the falling tiles and chimney pots. Whilst holding on to the painted posts and chains (afterwards replaced by iron railing) I witnessed the havoc before me, and felt that unless the danger were soon averted everybody would be made homeless. This was one feeling, and another was that of bravado - mistaken at the time for courage. Thrusting my head as far as possible into a cloth cap, and securing the two with my handkerchief, I afterwards pulled myself westward by means of the chains and posts already referred to, but in doing which I was frequently obliged to turn my face to leeward to gasp for breath or to avoid getting it cut with the sharp gravel which was blown up from the beach on to the parade. The tides were at their neap, and not much danger was therefore apprehended from that source; but the sea itself was quite phenomenal in its appearance. It seemed to boil with rate; and as far as could be compassed by the range of vision it was one vast mass of seething and foaming fluid. Six of the large elm-trees were up-rooted at the entrance to Hastings, a barn at Bohemia was blown down, a Government galley was carried off the beach into the sea and never recovered, and at a hop-sweepstakes dinner, in the Royal Oak hotel, the party were seriously alarmed at the intrusion through the window of a number of slates in their descent from the roof. These are but a few instances of the wreckage caused by the November tempest of 1836, for my memory serves me not to recount a tithe of the widespread havoc even in St. Leonards and Hastings. A similar effect was experienced all along the south coast and over an area of many miles inland. Chimneys, roofs, barns, out-houses, stacks and trees were destroyed in all directions, and the total loss was perhaps beyond the means of calculation. Rye sustained several thousand pounds' worth of damage, and Lewes a still larger amount, whilst at Brighton the destruction was immense, including the loss of the Chain Pier, with several human lives.

The Great Snow Storm of 1836

If what I have already narrated respecting the hurricane of Nov 29th, the deep snows of Good Friday and Oct. 29th, the cold and wet period from January to May the remarkably fine but brief summer, and the unusually wet and turbulent autumn, be not enough to prove the phenomenal character of the weather during 1836, then the description which follows of the deepest snow within memory will I opine, be sufficiently convincing. On the 24th of Dec. the weather was extremely mild until the approach of evening when it became suddenly cold, and during the night the temperature fell as much as 25 degrees. This was accompanied by the commencement of a snowstorm of a magnitude and intensity the equal of which if not on record. It continued throughout the night until the breakfast hour of Christmas Day, when it abated until about two o'clock in the afternoon, just as the majority of people would be sitting down to their Christmas dinner. It happened that I was one of those sorry wights whose parents, a year previously, were evicted by the Woods and Forests Commissioners from squatter-land at the Priory; and on the day of days now under consideration, I rejoined the family circle in the "old house at home" at St. Andrew's terrace (now Queen's ​road​), which had been reconstructed with the materials from the original site. Scarcely, however, had my appetite been whetted by the luscious odours of roast-beef and plum-pudding when a Job's messenger in the person of Mr. Ives, came to acquaint me of a disaster which required my attention in another part of Hastings. The habitation of my employer at that time was in the neighbourhood of George street, and my own dormitory facing the east, and overlooking other houses, was exposed to the merciless blast, which carried away the window casement, and filled the room with snow, so as to block up the door on the inside against all comers. Incompetent to devise a remedy, and not particularly refreshed with the loss of my dinner or with the wading through a mile of deep snow, it became my duty to seek my master's whereabouts and to hurry him also away from friends whome he and his lady had joined away from home on that snowy, frosty, festive occasion. He was not very well pleased- and I should like to know what "manner of man" is he who would have been in any way delighted under the like trying circumstances. Albeit, away we went together, and having provided ourselves with a hammer to knock out a panel of the bed-room door, a spade to cut a passage across the floor, and some canvas to take the pace of the absent window, we soon effected a temporary remedy, and I was desired to secure my next night's lodgings at the Cutter Inn. This art of my personal experience will prepare the younger portion of my readers for what is to follow. I slept - or rather tried to sleep - at the Cutter, as desired, and in conformity with my habit of early-rising, I dressed myself next morning long before daylight, and whilst pacing the cold room, longed for an opportunity of getting out of the house. But how was the desire to be gratified? At peep o' day I beheld the snow which had fallen unceasingly during the night nearly up to the first floor windows; thus making prisoners of all the inmates until, a few hours later, when some fishermen had cut a passage up from the beach to the front door of the inn in question. Once disincarcerated (sic), I strove to get into George street, but the thing was totally impossible of accomplishment. Every avenue was blocked - some to the height of ten or twelve feet, and my only chance was to walk along the beach near the edge of the water until I could find a place that had been partially bared of the fleecy mass by the action of the wind. This was at the western end of Marine parade, near to the ship-​building​ yard of Messrs. Thwaites and Winter (now the site of the Russian gun and ornamental enclosure). By that time, however the morning was pretty well advanced, and although the ​road​ways were totally impassible for either horse or vehicle, men and boys were ab​road​; and, by compressing the snow, had begun to track out a path, varying from two to six feet above the pavement, yet at some places as many feet below the untrodden mass in the centre of the streets. Following this track, I managed to get to my employer's house about noon, where I obtained a spade and commenced cutting a way up to Burdett place, where was imprisoned the business partner of the gentleman referred to, together with his family. With the latter, according to arrangement, I was a boarder, and when I say that it was nearly three o'clock when I completed the passage whither a breakfast was to be obtained, my readers will imagine how welcome was the refreshment to my weary and hungry corporeality.

The Christmas Day of 1836 fell on a Sunday, so that the day in question was a day of abstention from work in a two-fold sense; but it was the unprecedented snowstorm more than anything else which fixed it upon peoples# memories. I have already stated that it commenced on Christmas Eve; that it ceased for a few hours, and that it re-commenced at about 2 p m., to continue uninterruptedly throughout the following night. My own personal encounters with the hoary giant have also been narrated, the interest of which might probably pale before the more luminous experience of that memorable storm by many a living townsman. Mr. Golding, Mr. Burton's toll-gate keeper, just above North Lodge, could have told that as his cottage was buried, he had to let in daylight by knocking out some portion of the roof. Mr. Samuel Steers, shepherd to Mr. E. Milward, could also have described his difficulties in getting out of his buried cottage on the West Hill, at Hastings, whilst many another person could each have told a tale of rare adventure.

The Hastings police force had been at that time only six months in existence, and it is possible that Inspector Campbell could have told of hair-breadth escapes or of some ludicrous predicaments occasioned by the rigorous atmospheric phenomenon. He could also have told the name of the policemen who was found on Monday morning in an almost lifeless condition on the snow-buried steps at East Ascent, and who was restored to consciousness at the Coach-and-Horses, in Mews ​road​, which was then kept by one William Kirby. If I mistake not, the said William Kirby was one of the employees of riding-master Stevens, in whose mews the mail-coaches were housed, but from which the up-coach could not be sent out for several days, and to which the down-coach could not return until it had been dug out of the Ore-hollow portion of the London-​road​. It was there that the horses, coachman, guard and passengers were all abruptly precipitated into the already deep snow, and were only extricated with the assistance of about forty men. Among these deliverers were Messrs. Foord, Hyland and others, and it was only after very severe exertions that they accomplished their purpose. As the up-coach could not proceed even on the Sunday night, an attempt was made to carry the mail-bags on horseback, but so blinding was the storm and so utterly traceless was the ​road​, that ere the site of Warrior square was reached, both the horse and the guard, together with Mr. Thos. Ranger - who had volunteered his assistance - found themselves on the steps and railings of the houses. After an arduous, not to say perilous, journey, which occupied one hour and three-quarters, the mail-bags were got from St. Leonards to Hastings. It was then judged to be impracticable to proceed further; but as the Post-master was chary of his own authority to veto the attempt, the guard was sent back to Breeds place, where an Inspector from the General Post-office happened to be staying. This gentleman had just retired to rest, but after consultation with the guard, he left it to the latter's option whether the journey should be undertaken. The red-coated courier declined the hazardous journey; and, as it turned out, his decision was a wise one. From that time until December 30th - a period of five days and nights - there was no post to or from London; but on Tuesday, the 27th, five men undertook to convey to the metropolis some important despatches from gentlemen who had come to St. Leonards to consult Mr. Burton on business matters and had got snow-bound. The names of the intrepid messengers were William and Thomas Ranger (brothers), Robert Brazier, "Fox" Prior, and - Gasson. They had also to deliver some letters from Mr. Elphinstone to a banker and to some other persons, en route. They started from the Horse-and-Groom at about three, p.m., and by dint of pluck, caution, topographical knowledge, and physical endurance, they managed to get to Battle before the refreshment houses were closed. There the wants of the inner man were supplied, but not till the outer man had received some attention, for, what with their saturated garments, their lacerated hands, their bleeding cases, and their generally rough appearance, these wayfarers might have been mistaken for a band of footpads just emerged from some murderous conflict. After they had partaken of their much needed refreshment, they resumed their weary way, not over a partly trodden course, hardened by frost; now through the drifted snow, with the crystal fields towering over their heads; and now over hidden hedges into rivers, ponds or swamps. The foremost man had a rope tied round his body, and whenever he came to grief, he was hauled back by his comrades, and the course was diverted.

In the way thus described they traveled throughout the night, passing Robertsbridge, Lamberhurst, and other towns or villages, and arriving, after many hair breadth es-