Hastings, August 1999

John Burke's Hastings, August 1999
Pevensey Castle

Wednesday 4 August 1999

We are on our way to Brighton, to have a look around the Brighton Pavilion of the Prince Regent.

However it would be remiss of us to drive through Pevensey and not stop to have a look at the place where William the Conqueror landed before finding there was a place conveniently called "Battle" near at hand...

William landed unopposed at Pevensey, though he was determined not to allow the same opportunity to any would-be enemies once his battle had been won.

Pevensey has one of the earliest Norman castles, along with Hastings Castle that we have already (almost) seen! It is built on the site of an even earlier Roman castle, that was already 1000 years old when William arrived.

This is part of the castle's curtain wall.

The moat. We could see fish darting about in it.

Below: the castle.

It is still fairly early - we have to wait for the castle to open.

Fran and Mum make their way onto the bridge - once a drawbridge - over the moat.

Left and right: the Roman gateway in the curtain walls.

In 1066 the sea came a lot closer to the castle itself. It was right on the coast, whereas today the sea has receded as land has been reclaimed.

However, here we are! And there is yet another English Heritage event taking place - small scale one this time. Emerging from their tent come a bleary-eyed scribe and his wife who is spinning yarn and talking about the different fabrics people wore when clothes were more itchy!

The cannon is a genuine 16th century piece, mounted onto a replica gun carriage, faithful to the design of the period.

Unfortunately we weren't able to try it out...

Right: catapult stones. We found a Y-shaped stick and a bit of elastic from somewhere or other (we won't go into that right now) but sadly the stones were cemented together...

The remains of a spiral staircase from a ruinous tower.

The spiral staircase was an efficient way of using space to allow access to upper storeys. It was, however, useless for moving escalators...

Either the flooring has vanished here or that dot is an ancient plug hole and we have here the way to ye olde swimming pool with this being the foot bath to stop the spread of any medieval verrucas...