HASTINGS CASTLE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 213, 23 August 1927, Page 3

HASTINGS CASTLE

RUINS PLACED ON MARKET NOT MUCH LEFT. The ruins of Hasitngs Castle are for sale. Not much is left of that cliff above the sea—crumbling walls and fragments of towers and a chancel arch. The antiquaries can find no trace of a hall or any lodgings, and though the sea or vandal hands may have diminished the site, it is likely that Hastings never had a keep (says the London “Daily Telegraph”). Though it ranks among the minor caitlei, it is assuredly one of the oldest, and of singular interest in the history of England. In the pictures of the Bayeux tapestry it is shown how the Norman ships came on the beach of Pevensey Bay, and as soon as the horses were got ashore, mounted men hurried off to Hastings. Then we behold William of Normandy sitting between his half-brothers at Hastings is in a pavilion with a shingled roof, and the result of their deliberations is the order that a “castellum” should be constructed. Some hearty varlets proceed to dig, and there rises a mound with a palisade and a wooden tower. Hastings “ceastra.” This was William’s headquarters while the horsemen ravaged the district, until Harold brought his army to the hoar appel tree on the ridge, where Battle Abbey stands now.

The castle which we know as Hastings was built about or across an older mound, and this, as the learned say, is most likely that very earth which William’s men dug up for his “casteUum.” So we may think of Hastings as the first of the castles with which the Normans brought order into England. It is in the fitness of things, for from the Hastings cliffs you may see on a clear day the very harbour of St. Valery from which William of Normandy sailed with his armada. When he had made sure of England, Hastings, like all that southern coast, was his peculiar care. Pevensey, the great primeval stronghold, was given to his halfbrother, the Count of Mortain. The manor, the castelry, the whole “rape” of Hastings went to his kinsmen, Robert, Count pf Eu. The town had already a harbour and market, it may have had earlier fortifications, for it was a place of note when Danes and Saxons were fighting. Within 20 years the Normans had a stone castle on the cliff, a castle fit for a king to muster an army in. It was from Hastings that the Conqueror’s son set out to conquer Normandy. So swiftly time brings its revenges. But the expedition of William Rufus was not glorious. He called for more ef his loyal English to help him, and a second army mustered at Hastings. Then his Minister, Ranulf Flambard, took from each man the ten shillings which his shire had given him for his expenses, and sent them all home again. The manoeuvre is not less characteristically Norman thau the Conqueror’s expedition.