An acquaintance of mine bought a year ago six property deeds on eBay which were for 75 and 76 Marina, covering the years 1850 to 1895. These terrace houses are located on the seafront between St Leonards Church and Sussex Road, and are mirror images of each other, with adjoining tunnelbacks (rear extensions). They continue […]
In my monthly list of newspaper extracts I normally simply give them in date order. In 1850-51 there were numerous lengthy accounts of railway building, the AI sensation of its time. So I’m giving, first, summaries of a few railway mentions. The Sussex Advertiser, 29 October 1850, had a lengthy account of the railway being […]
On the 1 February 1853 the London Gazette published the following notice: Norman Buchanan, insolvent debtor, by his petition at Hastings. Formerly of 28 George Street, Hastings, hair dresser and general dealer, afterwards of the same, in partnership with Horace Sparks Prior, same business, and now of 32 Norman Road West, St Leonards, hair dresser […]
The Prince of Wales public house reopened in brightly painted and refurbished style on the 5 March with the declared aim of being a not-for-profit enterprise as part of the Hastings Project, a community brewery. The style is simple with no music, and the décor is the same inside and out: dark green and a […]
9 February 1849, Hastings & St Leonards News: FIRE. – At noon, on Wednesday, a fire broke out in the workshop of Mr J. Smith, cabinet-maker, Norman Road West, which was happily extinguished by the exertions of the neighbours, assisted by P.C. Jones, without the aid of the fire-engine, which arrived just as the danger […]
On the 3 April 1881 the census recorded the following household at 33 Warrior Square: Archibald R. Shaw, head, M[arried], 58, physician, born Middlesex Laura E.S. Shaw, wife, M, 47, born Kent Charles K. Shaw, son, U[nmarried], 26, Surgeon M.R.C.S., [then in pencil] Medical Office[r] of Health Hastings, born Middlesex Frank H. Shaw, son, U, […]
In 1903 Mrs Meiklejon opened a school for blind children at 48 Kenilworth Road. She was born Mary Jane Noonan in Ireland in about 1858, and was elder sister to Robert Noonan (1870-1911), who as Robert Tressell lived in the area from late 1901 on his return from South Africa, and wrote the famous The […]
Henry Edward Lewis was an entertainer who continuously toured the British Isles from 1850 until his death in 1857, lecturing and practising before paying audiences ‘mesmerism’ or ‘magnetism’ (both terms used for what we would call hypnotism) on local subjects. He also lectured on the subject of phrenology, the then popular art of deriving information […]
The talk will begin at 3pm sharp on Sunday 29th March, 2026, at Crown House, Marina, Hastings, Saint Leonards-on-sea TN38. Members free, non-members £5 entry. Doors open 2.30pm. No reservations. Clocks spring forward by 1 hour, early on Sunday 29th at 1am. ‘The history of West Hill Road in St Leonards’, an illustrated talk by Ian Crick. […]
[Guest post by Helena Wojtczak, a local historian and researcher dedicated to uncovering the hidden histories of women, http://www.hastingspress.co.uk] In a terraced house in St Leonards, a letter was once found that changed art history. But the women who lived in that house were busy changing much more than that. The MacMunn sisters were a […]