Terrific Storm and Tide - The White Rock
As noticed in the preceding chapter, under the heading of St. Leonards, the year of 1834 commenced and continued throughout the winter with a temperature unusually mild, but the weather for a considerable time was exceedingly rough. The fishermen were unable to follow their usual calling with any degree of regularity, and for the purpose of relieving their distress, the Rev. J. G. Foyster and his curate collected £200. On the 10th of Feb., however - two days before the catching of mackerel by hand at St. Leonards - a fishing-boat landed 9,000 such fish which sold for £113. This was quite an unexpected haul, the usual mackerel season at Hastings being between April and July.
The prolonged rough weather not only prevented the fishermen putting regularly to sea, but also damaged their property on shore. The high tides swept the beach away from under their rope-shops, and caused them trouble and expense in having to haul their boats to places of safety, and in some cases to remove their stores from danger. The White-rock road had been so broken into as to become quite impassable, and another, used as a substitute was in a condition not much better. The gales were mostly accompanied with heavy rains, one effect of which was on the 10th of January was the falling in of the reservoir above Mr. North's house, the noise of which was like that of thunder, and the vibration of which shook the houses at High Wickham, as though it had been the accompaniment of an earthquake. This last word reminds one that in the following April there was felt an earthquake shock at Chichester, Littlehampton and other parts of Sussex and which caused much alarm. The meteorological conditions of the year may be briefly described as effecting a mild, but stormy winter, a hot and thundery summer (productive of much corn and wheat) and a turbulent autumn.
The havoc caused by the several storms at St. Leonards has been described in its proper place but the St. Leonards people were sorely troubled in the matter, some of the inhabitants of Hastings had cause to be even more so. It had been noticed that the building of the South Colonnade on the “full” of the beach, and the raising of roads, parades and sea-walls along the whole frontage of St. Leonards, had had the effect of forcing the sea more than ever upon the lower and less-protected roads towards the old town, and even to the extent of undermining the White-rock promontory. This was especially the case on Saturday and Sunday, the 18th and 19th of October, when the property but recently erected at Stratford place (first known as Precursor place) and including Deudney and Fagg’s Brewery and Rock’s Coach Factory) were partially undermined, and great fears were entertained for their safety. Men, horses and carts were in pressing requisition, and by the prompt application of faggots, piles, stone and other materials during the intervals of ebb and flow, further danger was fortunately, but narrowly, averted. The houses in the Rope-walk were also greatly damaged and some of them wholly destroyed. Among the latter was a house belonging to Mr. Murdoch at the south-west corner of the so-called "America" - a house which had formed a prominent object as seen from the top of the White-rock.
The annexed view, as sketched from nearly midway of the road leading over the White-rock to Bexhill, shows Murdock's two-dwelling cottage at the foot of the hill near to where is now No. 1 Carlisle parade, together with some of the Priory and Rope-walk property in its rear; also the Castle ruins and a portion of the East Hill in the distance. This house and others, as before stated, were washed down by the great tide of October, 1834, soon after which, the road was levelled, the picturesque cliff was cut back, a parade was formed, and houses were erected.
From one of the other houses which shared a similar fate to that of Murdock in 1834, a Mrs. Morris and her infant had to be taken out of a bedroom window and carried to a place of greater safety. The woman thus rescued lived many years after in St. Leonards to tell of her adventure.[a]
Driven out of house and home by a merciless sea, and further threatened to be driven away in the following year by Mr. Driver, of the Woods and Forests Board of Commissioners, some of the inhabitants made a virtue of necessity, and took up their abode at St. Leonards; thus prematurely removing the few sticks and stakes which they were enabled to save from the inundation. The dwelling-houses, work-shops, rope-walk, piggeries, etc., were not the only property which suffered by this storm, the wind having also done violence to Batty’s Royal Circus by splitting up a great portion of its canvas and tearing up poles. This circus was a parallelogram of large dimensions and situated on the Rock-fair ground (now Cambridge road) and it was here that Barry, the celebrated talking clown, revelled in his comicalities, for the delectation of -
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