Something daunted by this mischance, but not beaten, the Hastings people built the pier anew, and of a different construction, with “tymbor braces and barres, crosse dogges, and suchlike up to the top: bowtyfull to behold,” and much else in that quaint way. Woe, woe! This much-admired work had not stood a year when, like the earlier, it was washed completely away. It happened on “All saints’ daie, 1597,” when “appeared the mighty force of God, who, with the finger of his hand, at one greate and exceeding high spring tyde, with a south-east wynd, overthrew this huge worke in lesse than an hower, to the greate terrour and abashment of all beholders.”
The inhabitants this time acknowledged defeat, and, recognising the futility of further endeavour, folded their hands and did—that easiest of things to accomplish—nothing. So, finally, ended the active existence of Hastings as a Cinque Port.
It is true that projects were from time to time raised, but they were never translated from words to deeds. At the beginning of the reign of Charles the First a very promising scheme was reported, by which a Dutch engineer, one Cranhalls, proposed to excavate and reopen the ancient haven at a cost of £220,000; but the beginning of that reign was also the beginning of trouble, and, as the condition of the country at the time was unfavourable for the prosecution of public works, nothing, again, was done.
Had it been possible to undertake those proposed works, Hastings at this time would be a vastly different place from what it is. You are to picture the scene—the bygone haven restored, and all that space now occupied by the very centre of the modern town—the Queen’s Hotel, the Albert Memorial, and Queen’s Road—a basin, with quays, wharves, and warehouses. The thing could be accomplished to-day, were it thinkable that the valuable house-property covering the site could be removed; but what might have been done with vacant land has long become impossible in a crowded town.
Yet, as the merest glance will show the casual visitor, the port and harbour idea is not dead. In these days of questing after the seemingly impossible—of eating your cake and having it too, of having things all ways and every way to your own advantage, an aim which worries individuals and corporations alike—it is not to be supposed that Hastings should be content with its present condition. If it were, it would be exceptional. But it is not. In the eyes of many who know Hastings well and love it much, it is well enough; but the town will never be content until it has acquired a harbour. It calls aloud for a harbour, just as the proverbial baby cries for the moon, but with this very important difference, that if it calls loud enough and long enough it will eventually get that harbour.
Time was, as we have seen, when it had such a haven, duly provided by Nature, and it now has, or had, a prospect of a newer, provided by private enterprise; not on or near the old site, but to be formed by building concrete piers out to sea from the East Hill and the fishermen’s quarters. One such arm has for some years been completed, but the works now appear to be finally abandoned, and all there is to show for the expenditure of the matter of a hundred thousand pounds is that long, unrelieved wall where the melancholy surges still sweep toward an unprotected shore.
LIV
Modern Hastings, like Brighton, dates its rise from the ultimate quarter of the eighteenth century, and its emergence from the status of a fisher town is due to the same prime cause: the discovery by the medical profession of fresh air and sea-bathing as specifics for that mysterious eighteenth-century malaise, “the vapours,” and all manner of other ailments. No royal favour, however, helped Hastings; only the recommendations of Dr. Baillie in the first instance, and secondly the fine brisk air of the place itself. Indeed, the climate of Hastings is a matter of as great concern to the town as her looks to a woman: it is her chief asset. You may read strange things of the Hastings climate, and indeed of that of any seaside town whose business is to attract visitors; and you will find, as a matter of curiosity, that Hastings claims not one climate, but several, according to height and position. Like the artful sinner who tried to get the best of both this world and the next, Hastings wants it both ways, and would have you believe it has actually got it, too. Thus, with a reminiscent shiver at the thought of the winds we have faced elsewhere, we read appreciatively of how the town is “screened from the biting blasts of the north and east winds,” and open to the “healthful and uncontaminated vapours” from the south and west, is saved from “the unwelcome calms which envelop some holiday resorts.” This, I take it, is one in the eye for Bath, for example, where in summer the visitor is stewed as effectively as any prune, or for Torquay, whose “gridiron” even St. Lawrence might on occasion find uncomfortably warm; while I think, on the other count, the withers of Brighton and of Weymouth—among other places where the east wind is capable of freezing your very marrow—are severely wrung.
In short, Hastings, by her own showing, is one of those favoured (not to say miraculous) places each of which has the better climate than any other, where the sun shines just so long and so brilliantly as you please, where the winds are never rude and the air never stagnant, and there are four hundred fine days (at the very least of it) to the three hundred and sixty-five of every year.
When Hastings really did begin to rise it grew quickly, and speedily overspread, not merely the old-time site, but brought into existence the twin town of St. Leonards as well. Theodore Hook was as it seems to us—strangely enthusiastic on the subject of those never-ending terraces, squares, and streets of stucco, new in his day. Says he: “Under the superintendence of Mr. Burton, a desert has become a thickly peopled town. Buildings of an extensive nature and elegant character rear their heads”—he meant, in plainer English, that they had been built, only perhaps a phrase without those eloquent frills would not have been “literature” as then understood—“where but a few years since the barren cliffs presented their chalky fronts to the storm and wave; and rippling streams and hanging groves adorn the valley which twenty years since was a sterile and shrubless ravine.”