. The earth and its inhabitants .. . e its rivals, Brighton and Hastings. But whilst the old villageof Eastbourne has grown into a populous town, its neighbour Pevemey, on the siteof the Eoman Portus Anderida, and affiliated to Hastings as one of the CinquePorts, has been deserted by the sea, and has dwindled into a poor village, whosehouses nestle at the base of a Norman castle reared upon Roman foundations. Asone of the Cinque Ports, Pevensey was exempted from customs dues, and enjoyedspecial fishery rights, on condition of its providing a certain number of men-of-war 144 THE BRITISH ISLES.
. The earth and its inhabitants .. . e its rivals, Brighton and Hastings. But whilst the old villageof Eastbourne has grown into a populous town, its neighbour Pevemey, on the siteof the Eoman Portus Anderida, and affiliated to Hastings as one of the CinquePorts, has been deserted by the sea, and has dwindled into a poor village, whosehouses nestle at the base of a Norman castle reared upon Roman foundations. Asone of the Cinque Ports, Pevensey was exempted from customs dues, and enjoyedspecial fishery rights, on condition of its providing a certain number of men-of-war 144 THE BRITISH ISLES. for the Kings service. We may fairly doubt whether Julius Csesar landed in Peven-sey Bay, but there can be no question of its having sheltered, in 1066, the ninehundred vessels which brought William the Conquerors host to England. It wasfrom here he marched upon the village of Epiton, now known as Battle, where heoverthrew the Saxons under King Harold. On the spot where the Saxon standard Fig. 79.— an Admiralty 3 Miles was captured and King Harold fell, the victorious Norman caused an abbey to beerected, which he endowed with the prettily wooded land for a league around, andwith numerous manors in other parts of the kingdom. At the village of Brightling,near here, a great boring for coal took place in 1876 ; the bore extended to a depthof 2,000 feet without reaching coal, but it passed through a bed of gypsum whichis now being worked. SUSSEX. 145 Hastings, whose Scandinavian name sufficiently indicates its origin, is, next toBrighton, the principal watering-place on the south coast of England, and farsurpasses it in the picturesqueness of its surroundings. The old town is built atthe mouth of a valley shut in between cliffs, one of which (the west) is surmountedby the remains of a castle. The modem watering-place coalesces with the westernsuburb of St. Leonards; but clusters of buildings have also sprung up on thesurrounding hills, and these enjoy a clima
Size: 1540px × 1623px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectgeography, bookyear18
