s usual on
the south coast. Here, as an old guide book puts it, "every reasonable
wish may be gratified, whether the object of the visitant be health or
pleasure". And certainly the place does offer a fine selection of
attractions. For your more strenuous visitor there are ample
facilities for golf, tennis, swimming, &c.; for your ardent angler
there is the unique combination of good deep-sea and river fishing; for
your artist or photographer there are countless objects of beauty and
historical interest. For those who are content merely to idle away the
time amid beautiful surroundings there are the magnificent public
gardens,--Alexandra Park, Gensing Gardens, and St. Leonards Gardens.
Few towns in England can boast so rich a possession as the park, with
its lake, its woodland glades, its fine stretches of greenest turf, its
indescribably beautiful flowers; and few municipalities realize so
adequately the value of such a possession, if one may judge by the care
bestowed upon it.

======================================================================

[Illustration: ST. LEONARDS GARDENS]

Few towns in England can boast so rich a possession as the park, with
its lake, woodland glades, and beautiful flowers.

(_See page 17_)

======================================================================

However, the surroundings of Hastings must still be its greatest asset.
To quote once more the grandiloquent old guide book,--"The vicinity of
the town abounds with delightful rides and walks; the pleasantness and
diversified character of which it is impossible not to admire; and
these are not only of a description superior, perhaps, to what are to
be found in almost any other part of the coast, but so numerous as to
afford that change which prevents the satiety arising from repetition".

Still farther west lies Bexhill, a typically modern seaside resort.
Then follows a considerable stretch of meadow land, and at the other
side the first of the romantic centres in this cradle of English
history.

PEVENSEY AND HURSTMONCEUX

In all this storied region there is no spot so rich in memories as
Pevensey (or Pemsey, as it is called locally). Before such ancient
settlements as Rye and Winchelsea were dreamed of, while yet Hastings
was the merest collection of barbarian huts, Pevensey, or rather its
Roman predecessor, Anderida, was a fortified place with all the ebb and
flow of a flourishing life.

Like Winchelsea,