Category: Hastings Town

100 Years of Hastings Postcards

There is every chance that the postcard you send home from your holiday in Abergavenny or York started life right here in Sussex. Because since 1902 Hastings has been the home of Judges, one of Britain’s leading publishers of quality picture postcards. Continue reading 100 Years of Hastings Postcards

Draper’s Mill

Draper’s Mill, also known as Tivoli Mill and Silverhill Mill took its name from the Draper family who ran it for several decades. Draper’s was a smock windmill standing on the site of a previous mill which burned down in 1867. (Some reports suggest 1865) This new larger mill was rebuilt by Agricultural Engineers from Catsfield for the Draper family around 1866 (possibly as late as 1868) and was in use until 1941. Continue reading Draper’s Mill

Happy Harold

A brief history of an unique vehicle by Ion Castro of the Hastings Trolleybus Restoration Group.

On the first of April 1928 Hastings was in the forefront of transport technology, the ageing fleet of tramcars on their worn out track was being replaced with trolleybuses; these electrically powered vehicles were freed from the constraint of rails and ran, quietly and efficiently on pneumatic tyres, just like ‘ordinary’ internal combustion engined buses but without the noise, vibration and fumes. Trolleybuses drew their power from wires suspended above the road carrying 500 volts DC. Continue reading Happy Harold

Hastings & St Leonards Cycling Club

Part One – The Early Years

It was in the Parlour Bar of the Old Swan Hotel in Hastings High Street on a cool September evening that the first discussions about forming a bicycle club in the town took place.

Under the soft, flickering glow of candle and oil lighting a small group of men, including F. Garrett (son of a well known doctor of Havelock Road, Hastings), E. C. Gilbert and T. Butchers decided the time had come for Hastings & St. Leonards to have an official title, the few bicycle riders that the town boasted should ride together in one group for safety and comradeship. Continue reading Hastings & St Leonards Cycling Club

German U-Boat on Hastings Beach

“There’s a U-Boat on the Beach”

Helen Davies looked out of her window at The Queens” on Hastings Seafront and saw a submarine washed up on the beach. It was the morning of 15 April 1919.

The Great War had been over for five months and the people of Hastings were beginning to come to terms with their losses and starting out on a new peacetime life. Helen looked down from her high vantage point at the terrible instument of war and her thoughts turned back over the two short years since her Tom had been lost at sea, his ship being a U-Boat victim. Was it possible that this same submarine being battered by the high tide, could have been the very one that killed her man? How had the U-118, for that was the number of the craft, arrived at Hastings?. Continue reading German U-Boat on Hastings Beach

Mods Invade Hastings

By Jim Hollands

It was the year of the fashion rebellion. Topless swimsuits and dresses were being displayed in public, Carnaby Street was the centre of Universe, and two youth movements – Mods and Rockers- made up principally of young, mainly working class Britons with cash to spend, were making the headlines. Continue reading Mods Invade Hastings

Futher Childhood Memories

By Vic Chalcraft

Thinking back to school I days has awaken many more memories of childhood. The earliest, must be taken up to Riverhill Sevenoaks on a warm summers evening, we lived at Chevening in those days, to watch the traffic returning from a day on the coast, the deep bark of motor bike, the flash of heat blued chrome from exhaust pipes but mainly the glorious smell of burning oil and fuel and then of course later the wonderful body odour of the steam roller, traction engine and steam train working with their great pistons thrashing and brass work all a gleam. Sadly now just museum items. Continue reading Futher Childhood Memories