The “Magna Britannia,” of 1737, says:—“About 90 years ago, this Town was a very considerable Place for Fishing, and in a flourishing Condition, being then one of the principal Towns of the County, containing near five hundred Families; but since the beginning of the Civil Wars it hath decayed much for want of a Free Fishery, and by very great Losses by Sea, their shipping being often taken from them by the Enemy: Nay, it is the Opinion of the most judicious Inhabitants, that had not Divine Providence in a great Measure protected them by their Town being built low, and standing on a flat ground, the French would several times have quite demolished it, as they had attempted to do, but the low Situation of it prevented their doing it any considerable Damage, the Cannon Balls usually flying over the Town; But the greatest Damage to the Buildings has been done by the breaking in of the Sea, which within these forty years hath laid Waste about 130 Tenements; which Loss, by a modest Computation, amounts to near 40,000l. and if some speedy Care be not taken to stop the Encroachments of the Ocean, it is probable the Town will in a few years be utterly depopulated; the Inhabitants being already diminished one-third less than they were, and those that remain are many of them Widows, Orphans, decrepid Persons, and all very poor; insomuch that the Rates for their Relief are at the Rack-Rent of 8d. in the Pound, for there are but few Charities given for their Support, viz. one by Mr. Barnard Hilton [76] of 16l. per Annum, with some other small Benefactions, which make it about 20l. a year.”
In 1706 there had been considerable wrecks of wines on the Manor of Brighthelmston-Lewes; and the then Lord High Admiral claimed them as his right. But Richard Onslow, Esq., and Colonel Tufton, as proprietors of the manor, kept the wines; and on a full investigation of the business at the assizes for the county, in 1708, their conduct, in that particular, was justified, and their manorial right fully established.
On the 4th of March, 1818, as Mr. Izard was having excavations made for the foundations of two houses on the West Cliff—now the King’s Road,—between Ship Street and Middle Street, the workmen discovered the walls of one of the streets under the Cliff, which had been overwhelmed by one of the terrible inundations of the sea. They appeared buried more than fifteen feet with beach.
In 1713, the sea having destroyed everything below the Cliff, encroached with alarming rapidity on the Cliff itself, fragments of which daily crumbled into the sapping tide. It was therefore found absolutely necessary, for the preservation of the rest of the town, to erect groynes before it. These groynes are contrived by means of strong wooden barriers projecting from the Cliff towards the sea, as far as low-water mark, which intercept and confine the beach or sea shingle, that chiefly rolls from west to east in this part of the English Channel. By these contrivances, a large body of beach, rising gradually towards the Cliff, is accumulated on the western side of every barrier, which resists and breaks the impetuosity of the roughest sea. But the reduced state into which a coincidence of unfavourable circumstances had sunk Brighthelmston, about the beginning of the last century, it was impossible for the inhabitants to raise amongst themselves a sum nearly adequate to so expensive an undertaking. A brief was therefore granted them, under which they collected about £1,700. By means of this public aid, and the internal contributions of the town itself, the Cliff was pretty well secured from the west part, as far as the Old Steine. The groynes eastward of the Steine are comparatively of modern construction, the most important of them being,—in its original state,—that constructed on the suggestion and plan of Mr. Edward Thunder, at Black Rock, about the year 1819, when the sea was rapidly encroaching at that spot and threatening to make inroads upon the whole of the Marine Parade. The barrier was effectual, although on its projection and erection it was called by the shortsighted of the time, “Teddy Thunder’s Folly.” Thunder, who was one of the Town Commissioners at the time, was an eccentric but shrewd man. He was the inventor of the pedal for shifting the keys of the piano-forte.
Groyne is quite a provincial term of very doubtful origin. It is generally supposed to be a corruption from royne. An Act of Parliament was passed in the House of Commons, in 1698, for opening of the ancient roynes and water courses in Sedgmore. And it is probable that these roynes are the same as groynes at Brighton, with this difference, that the latter are artificially constructed for a certain purpose, and the former might have been only a slow acervation of time and nature. The following is an extract from a letter, dated Lewes, September 12th, 1785:—“The violence of the wind on Tuesday last, occasioned the highest tide that has been known on this coast for a great number of years. At Brighthelmston, the fishermen were put to the greatest difficulty in saving their boats; to effect which, many were under the necessity of hauling them up into the town, and others of lashing them to the railing on the bank. Some few, however, that could not be secured, were dashed to pieces; had the storm happened in the night-time, the whole must have shared the same fate.”
By the Town Act of Brighton, 1772, a duty of 6d a chaldron was levied on all coal landed on the beach; and by the Act of 1810, a duty of 2s 6d a chaldron—now a ton,—was levied on all coals brought into the town, for the purpose of constructing and supporting the sea-defences of the town. By the construction of these groynes, the sea from time to time was driven back to allow of the building of the sea-wall that protects the whole of the southern road in front of the town, from the bottom of Cannon Place to the extreme east of the parish. The first portion formed was that between West Street and Middle Street, and was opened by George IV. in the year 1821; prior to which time the houses there were only approached at their south front by a temporary wooden platform on poles, for foot-passengers only; and then only during fair weather; as so close to the houses were the rage and flow of the sea during a storm, that the planks which formed the pathway, had to be removed to prevent their being either washed or blown away. At such times a barrier was erected at each end, at Bradley’s Library, now Booty’s, and the Ship-in-Distress Inn, [78a] now Child’s Fancy Repository, bearing the notice, “No thoroughfare.” The only way for equestrians and vehicles was the present South Street, where was the following quaint sign over the shop of an eccentric shoemaker:—
Here lives a man that don’t refuse
To make and mend your boots and shoes.
His leather’s good, his work is just,
His profits small, and cannot trust:
And when grim death doth him call,
Farewell to his old cobbler’s stall.To his blood royal highness P.G.,
And new laid eggs every day. [78b]
The last two lines were in red letters, and the initials P.G., were intended for Prince George.
The encroachments of the sea, till the complete groyne system was carried out and the sea-wall completed, extended from Russell Street to the extreme east end of the parish; and after every storm of any magnitude, the road to the east of the Old Sterne,—now known as the Marine Parade,—presented a different aspect, as the inroads of the sea frequently carried away some hundreds of tons of the Cliff; and it was no uncommon thing after a tempest, to find that so much of the roadway had been carried off, from the Cliff becoming undermined by the wash of the waves, as to leave only sufficient space for a single vehicle to pass. On the 15th of December, 1806, during a terrific storm, the roadway between the Royal Crescent and Rock Buildings was completely cut asunder, making the owners of property there uneasy for the safety of their premises. This storm gave occasion to the following trial at the Sussex Assizes, held at Lewes, August 4th, 1807:—
THE KING v. GREGORY, PHILCOX, THUNDER, AND THREE OTHERS.
RIOT AT BRIGHTON.This was an indictment against the defendants, for riotously assembling and pulling down the railing on the road east of Brighton, leading from thence to Rottingdean, and obstructing the Surveyors of the road in the execution of their duty. This case arose out of the falling of the cliff last autumn. The Surveyor of the Road thought it necessary to carry in the railing, and trenched upon the ground of the three first named defendants: they considered he had done more than necessary, and resisted his altering the railing. In consequence of this, on the 11th of February last, they employed men to cut down the polls and rails, which had been erected by the Surveyor of the Road. The next day the Surveyor employed men to re-erect them, and the defendants another party to pull them down. A riot ensued, the one set pulling down as fast as the other erected, until at last the Surveyor’s party were the victors.
Mr Gurney, for the defendants, rested his defence on the ground that the Surveyor was not under the necessity of coming upon their freehold, but that he had acted wantonly and with a view to harass the defendants. He proposed calling evidence to shew that the road at that part of it was perfectly safe.
The Learned Judge held that the Surveyor of the road was clearly right. He was to judge of the necessity if he acted wrong. They ought to have brought an action of trespass, and not to have the law into their own hands.
The jury found them all guilty. The three principals were fined £20 each, and the three workmen £5 each. In the Civil Court an action was tried, arising out of the same transaction, in which the plaintiff had a verdict against the Surveyor. Damages, seven guineas.