Note 10 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES (continued 2)

One cannot, of course, speak positively without seeing that 'identification' on which Professor Burrows relies. But, unless there is evidence to the contrary, it seems difficult to resist the conclusion that this estate of the Abbey 'in Hastings' was identical with that which it actually possessed in the Bourne Valley. For this by no means included the whole 'town in the Bourne Valley', but only that portion of it at the foot of the West Hill, which is bordered by Courthouse Street, Bourne Street, John Street, and High Street, together with St Clement's Church and its block of buildings (Sussex Arch. Coll., xiv. 67). And this conclusion is strengthened by the fact that in Domesday its rents are 63s 'in Hastings', and 158s in the 'novus burgus', while at the Dissolution they were only 35s 4d in Hastings. In that case we must after all look for the 'novus burgus' of Domesday at Winchelsea or Rye.

Nor is the history of Hastings harbour at all as clear as could be wished. 'The ancient Harbour once occupied', no doubt, 'Priory Valley' (Cinque Ports, p. 9); but I can find no trace of a haven 'formed by the Bourne between the East and West Hills', which replaced it on its silting-up. On the contrary, the old map of Hastings in 1746 (Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. xii) shows us the 'haven' (with ships) in the Priory Valley to the west of the Castle Hill. Was not this a later harbour (1637), and the real original one out to the south?]