Janus-like,
comprehend the town in its entirety--eastwards the old town and the
Past; westwards the modern watering-place and the Future. Then it is a
place for soliloquy and moralizing.

Of the very early history of Hastings we know practically nothing, save
that it seems to have been for many years a place apart. Shut off from
the west by the invious flats of Pevensey, then one vast network of
lagoons: from the east by the greater marsh of Romney; secluded on the
north by the grey mystery of Andredesweald, which in those days came as
far south as the top of Fairlight Hill, the people experienced a
certain splendid isolation. So much so, in fact, that in the early
records it was quite customary to refer to them as a race apart, as
distinct as either of their nearest neighbours, the Jutes of Kent or
the Saxons of Sussex. "And all Kent and Sussex and Hastings" was a
phrase running easily from the pens of ancient chroniclers.

No one knows their origin. There was a tribe of Hastengi dwelling on
the seaboard between the Elbe and what is now Denmark, having as a
chieftain one Haesten, a piratical Dane, with whose name that of the
town is often linked (erroneously, say some). In all probability,
following on some raid rather more extensive and successful than usual,
a party of these Hastengi came by this district as an allotment, and
chose to settle here, bringing over their families and herds. Maybe
thus the town was originated.

One of their earliest tasks, doubtless, was the construction of a
stronghold, either the strengthening of an existing British earthwork
or the formation of an entirely new one. The conditions of life
demanded that they should possess such a fortification, a place which
should be at once the residence of the chief and a refuge for the
people in time of danger. And thus it happened that ere long there
came into existence the Hastinga-ceastre, mention of which is made in
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1050: "A little before that [the murder of
Beorn by Sweyn] the men of Hastinga-ceastre and thereabouts won two of
his ships with two of their ships and slew all the men and brought the
ships to Sandwich to the King". But prior to 1050 the town must have
attained to a considerable maritime strength and commercial eminence,
for in 924 Athelstan founded a mint here. The site of this successful
Saxon town and harbour is a matter of conjecture; only the hurrying sea
knows where it lies.

History