The contemporary newspapers can be very revealing in discussing storm damage on the seafront. In this post I give two long and vivid accounts of damage and risk of life.
The storm lasted for several hours on Sunday morning, 14 November 1875, on a (high) spring tide with strong winds from the southwest. It was described as the worst storm in the area since those of 1824 and 1833.
The first account is taken from the Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 20 November 1875. After a detailed description of the damage at Hastings we have:
…proceeding along the front, we found that the parade wall at Eversfield-place and Grand-parade had been damaged in several places. The flights of steps leading to the beach had also disappeared. Tons and tons of shingle were washed on to the parade and even into the roadway, and it was evidently the breadth of the parade and road alone which had saved the houses from being injured… The covered seats opposite the Pier, and in Eversfield-place and Grand parade, were all more or less injured. The former ones had their roofs partially broken, whilst the panes of glass were shattered, and the foundations laid bare. The seat in Grand-parade, however, did not sustain so large an amount of damage, owing to the different plan on which it was constructed, and probably also because it was not so much exposed to the fury of the waves. The inmates of the houses at THE SOUTH COLONNADE had a rough time of it. The sea flowed over the parade wall in torrents, and the basements of most of the houses were flooded from the front as well as the back. This block of buildings was in fact surrounded on all sides by a surging mass of water. Mr Thomas, the chemist, however, suffered far more than his neighbours from the effects of the storm, owing to the exposed position of his house. The brick wall protecting the area at the back was knocked down, and the basement flooded to the extent of several feet. It is said that in one of the houses in the Colonnade a leg of mutton was seen roasting before a fire, only an inch or two above the water which covered the floor of the room. For quite two hours the houses, which are close to the edge of the parade wall, were deluged with showers of water and stones, and the inmates were placed in anything but a comfortable predicament. Fortunately, no great amount of damage was done to the contents of the shops. Beyond the Colonnade the garden fences were much disfigured and torn, and the parade was deeply covered with shingle. At DORMAN’S LIBRARY The sea had given another proof of its destructive power. The water forced its way through the small openings in the wall facing to the south, and did great damage to the printing office of the Hastings and St Leonards Advertiser. The type was mingled with the shingle, and everything, indeed, was in the greatest confusion. The stone coping of a wall adjoining the Library was torn away, the steps were destroyed, and the drainage works suffered considerably, one of the sewers which passes near the parade wall being burst open, and a number of bricks scattered about. The glass sat opposite 57, Marina, had its position reversed, whilst the covering was bent by the force of the water. The one opposite St Leonard’s Church did not seem, however, to have sustained any damage. And now we come to the WEST MARINA, where the damage done to property by the storm was simply appalling. Owing to the low and unprotected nature of the ground, the sea rushed in with overwhelming impetuosity, and the whole of the extreme western end of the borough was soon under water… The parade was literally torn to pieces, lamp-posts had disappeared, and the iron rails, which separated the promenade from the road for the distance of quite 100 yards, had been washed away. Weighty kerbstones and enormous pieces of masonry had been whirled by the advancing waters in all directions, and in some cases even found their way into the basements of the houses opposite. The road was thickly covered with debris and shingle, and the basements of the houses, from No. 111 to No. 140, were complete wrecks. So destructive had the waves which rolled inland been, that the facades of the buildings were carried away, together with the stone steps leading to the basements. The areas were almost filled up with masses of masonry and beach, and in more than one house we noticed that the facades had been bodily carried into the rooms. Massive doors were washed away like mere children’s toys, window frames were swept in, and the furniture of the rooms, as at Beach-cottages, completely destroyed. The walls facing the areas fell in with loud crashes one after another, about half-past eleven. Some of the rooms were almost filled up to the ceiling with beach, whilst in the basements, even late in the afternoon, there still remained several feet of water… The haggard faces of the inmates of the houses showed what a fearful time they had had of it, and their deep distress excited the compassion of the hundreds, nay thousands, who in the afternoon proceeded to West Marina to view the scene. Cave’s-street, at the back of the Marina, was flooded with water to a considerable depth, and so great was the weight of water in 121, Marina, that it burst a nine-inch wall, and rushed in upon the people resident in Market-square… In the morning a domestic servant in one of the houses went into the parlour facing the sea to get something out of the cupboard, when a sea broke into the room and swept her through the passages out into the scullery…
Barricades were hastily erected by residents to protect houses against the following high tide at midnight. Hundreds assembled at that time on the parades to watch the breakers, but fortunately ‘although they occasionally swept over the parade walls, yet no additional damage to property was done.’
On Thursday, after a long discussion at a public meeting about relief, it was announced that £972 had already been subscribed.
In the above account, Mr Thomas’ shop was in South Colonnade, a terrace which, on the sea side of the road, was opposite Undercliff. Dorman’s Library was also on that side, opposite the Royal Victoria Hotel.
There is another account which has a longer description of the damage at the west end of Marina in the Hastings and Bexhill Independent, 23 November 1875. It is even more harrowing due to the described acts of heroism. Mr Moon is mentioned first: he was at 127 Marina, and ‘Gilbey’s articles’ is a delicate reference to bottles of gin.
Mr Moon, the grocer, who has occupied premises on the Marina many years, was a heavy loser. His shop door was forced in, and the waves poured down into his stores under the shop, damaging the stock there and whirling packages and boxes about in indescribable confusion. His son, his daughter, and his shop assistant were all engaged in trying to stop the damage to the shop goods, but with very little effect. In the basement, however, the greatest damage was done, Mr Moon having only recently excavated a new cellar to contain Gilbey’s articles. The water was over six feet in depth here. A slight accident occurred to Mr Moon’s son as his door came thundering down, and some of the glass cut his foot.
In the Caves-road the little cottages on the north side escaped, as they stood on the higher side of the street, but the water rushed through Philcox’s yard and committed sad havoc in the yards behind 141, 140, and 139, Marina, more especially. The brick walls which divided those yards from each other, and were about ten feet high, were assailed in front and rear by the sea rushing in by Caves-road and the front water pouring through the kitchen passages, and the walls went by the board, as a mast snaps in a gale. They were levelled, and the angry floor went tearing onwards, sucking, seething, undermining, until it found a lodgment in the basements of the unhappy laundry folks at the Old Market. The water rushed into the rooms used as sitting and drying rooms by many of the inmates, and compelled them to beat a retreat upstairs, only to look into the quadrangle of the Market-place and behold the boiling flood, sweeping down the passage to the square. Hemmed in on every side, the poor women and children could only wait in terror. Fortunately the ground floors were not much damaged, but the force of the water was such that it forced its way through the massive wall of Mr Winter’s workshop (in rear of 128), and made a breach of two feet in diameter, alarming the woman of the adjacent Market-house tenement by descending into her yard like a deluge.
There were many brave and dauntless deeds done that morning, it is needless to say, and many a gallant act will never be known beyond the little circle that witnessed it. One such deed, however, and that by a woman, deserves passing notice, not only for the gallantry of the action, but for the true womanly charity and gentleness that followed, when the excitement was over, and colder feelings might have prevailed. The woman’s name is Townsend, the wife of a railway man, living in Caves-road. Her son (a boy of 12) was in the service of Mrs Poultney, No. 139, Marina, and was with the domestic servants of that lady in the basement when the flood swept down the area in front, and into the yard behind. A ten-feet wall, with no outlet, enclosed the yards of Mrs Poultney and Mrs Wilkinson’s house adjoining, No. 140, and as the water poured in the little lad seized a pair of steps, fortunately standing near, rushed up them, cleared the 10ft. wall, descended into Philcox’s yard, and rushed for aid to his mother’s house. A fine fellow named Herbert Beecham (a bricklayer in the employ of Messrs. C. and H. Hughes, builders), happened to be near at [the] time, and he rendered valuable aid. He dashed over the wall into the flood, got Mrs Poultney’s servants out of the house, and carried them up the steps, over the wall (which, unlike its neighbours, stood whilst side walls gave way), and into the arms of Mrs Townsend, who waded with her burdens, with the water over her waist, to her house. A more terrible scene was that enacted in No. 140, where Mrs Wilkinson, with her three daughters, barely escaped with their lives, and only escaped through the courage and presence of mind of Beecham and Mrs Townsend. Mrs Wilkinson was living in the lower rooms with her daughters, the rest of the house having been done up ready for expected lodgers, and she was walking about in her dressing gown, and just thinking of dressing for church, when the first wave broke over the area rails and into the basement. Busy with trying to save many valuable articles of apparel, books, accounts, &c., kept in the sitting-room downstairs, she hardly noticed the flow of the water till it gradually rose higher and higher in the room. Calling for her daughters she was eager to save many of her things, when Beecham rushed into the kitchen. He carried out one of the young ladies and got her safely over the wall and came back for another. The door of the kitchen (at the bottom of the staircase) was violently closed by the water, and one of the daughters had the presence of mind to call out to Beecham to hold open the back door, which was likely to be closed by the force of the water in the rear. This act saved the lives of all in the kitchen. Had it been closed by the water no powers of theirs might have been able to force it open again. They all got out somehow, Mrs. Townsend leaning on the other side of the wall and dragging them up the little steps. The tenacity of her grasp is seen by the round blue mark on one of the young ladies’ arms, and the danger they had all escaped is denoted by the high-water mark on the kitchen wall when the flood abated. The mark was eight feet up! But not only did Mrs. Townsend rescue them—she gave her guests, out of her own wardrobe, dry clothes, and for the past few days has indeed maintained the unfortunate Wilkinson family, who have thus suddenly been bereft not only the comforts of a home but of actual means of earning a livelihood. Mrs. Wilkinson is a widow, with three unmarried daughters dependent upon her, and amid the many cruel and saddening effects of the late disaster, hers is as great as any. Let us hope that, amid the many calls for aid, her case will not be overlooked, nor should the truly great deed of Mrs. Townsend be forgotten. Beecham behaved like a gallant English man, and his reward is sufficient in knowing that he helped poor women in their hour of need and danger. Of such stuff is the genuine British workman made.
The account continued by describing the gallant actions of railwaymen further west, in the Bopeep area, in rescuing people and animals.
Althorpe House is 110 Marina, with Sussex Road between it and no. 109. The other houses discussed are further west, with 146 Marina the present end of the numeration, opposite the Marina Fountain pub (then called the Fountain). An 1876 directory by Pike and Ivimy however ends the street with no. 145. The mentioned Market Square is presumably the Old Market on the first map given above, which no longer exists.
The 1876 directory lists the householders for addresses on Marina. L.H. is the abbreviation for lodging houses. From the above account Mrs Poultney and Mrs Wilkinson were apparently renting apartments at 139 and 140 Marina respectively. Mrs Wilkinson is spoken of as if she might have been a landlady, however. Here are the listed householders for 127-28 and 139-41 Marina:
127 Moon, James, grocer
128 Winter, Mrs, L.H.
139 Hewett, Mrs, L.H.
140 Wilson, Mrs, L.H.
141 Bragge, Mrs
Winter’s workshop was damaged. His trade is identified in the 1871 census, where no. 128 was occupied by James Winter, age 42, carpenter and lodging house keeper, and his wife Mary Ann, age 43. I could not identify the worthy bricklayer Herbert Beecham, nor the heroic Townsend family.
To prevent further flooding of this kind, steps were taken to raise the promenade and to broaden the road. In the Hastings Observer, 21 October 1922, ‘A.P.” remembered what happened fifty years before:
Passing along to the Sussex Hotel [110 Marina], I called to mind how in November, 1875, and New Year’s Day, 1877, the houses from there to No. 130 were flooded by those two extraordinary high tides and gales, the waves breaking in the roadway and washing through the rooms on the ground floors, the parade at the time being low and very narrow. These storms caused the re-building and widening of the parade in its present form, and thus saving that portion of the Front from further devastation.
The upper and lower promenades as we know them were built by Sidney Little as the Borough Engineer in the late 1920s and the 1930s. He was known as the ‘King of Concrete.’