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Hastings
Hastings maps
Historic maps of Hastings and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Hastings maps
Hastings Jigsaws
We have just a few copies left of a 1,000 piece Jigsaw of Hastings. The featured photograph is White Rock Gardens Bandstand 1925, Hastings.
Why not create your own Jigsaw for Hastings from 4 favourite Frith photos of the area? Available as 520 piece or 1,000 piece Jigsaws, you can choose any four Hastings photos, or choose photos from other places too.
Hastings area books
Displaying 1 of 24 books about Hastings and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Hastings
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Hastings.
There are 12 shared memories to read.
Add your memory of Hastings
or of a photo of Hastings.
Pett School Days 1939 to 1946
I am working on this. Many things to record.
Summer Holidays
The sun always seemed to shine on our annual summer holiday to my grandmother's at Emmanuel Road. What excitement running down West hill to the town and the beach. There was always a ride on the boating lake, you could smell the petrol fumes from the little boats and a trip on the train! Money begged for continual "goes" on the laughing policeman machine and, of course, icecreams from Demarco (do not know how it was spelt). There were endless tales about The Caves where my grandmother and her sisters would shelter overnight from the bombing raids during the war. They were happy days!
Bottle Alley
I can also remember Bottle Alley which was the St Leonards side of the pier during the 1950's. My Mum sometimes used to take me to the Sun Lounge near Bottle Alley when I was a very small child where she would have a coffee and I would drink orange squash and there was often a pianist playing, even in the middle of the morning! We too lived in Ore (I went to Red Lake Infants and Sandown Primary schools) and we spent a lot of the summer weeks down on the beach and my Dad would join us during his lunch hour for a picnic. I can vaguely remember the tub man but not the details.
Boating Lake
I remember the boating lake very well and I loved being taken on it by visiting relatives. The boats were dark red and had rope 'bumpers'round them and at the end of the day they all used to be collected up together in the middle of the lake which used to fascinate me as a small child. They were small motor boats with tiny steering wheels but did not go very fast at all. I also used to love going on the miniature train that started at the boating lake and went to Rock-a-Nore, which I think may still be there.
Bottle Alley
Does anyone else have any memories of 'Bottle Alley'? I think it was on the Promenade and it was a covered walk (built in Victorian times, I believe) of concrete encrusted with bottles, mainly the bottoms, in all sorts of patterns. Some of my family lived in Ore and I used to visit as a child. My other lasting memory is of the beach with the old fishmarket and 'the old man in the tub'. He was something of an eccentric (must have been!) who used to paddle along the front of the Esplanade in a tub or barrel.
Chapmans Dairy.
This building was Chapmans Dairy and belonged to my family. It was originally two houses, numbers 22 and 23, with a stable at the rear for the ponies. The door now remaining led into the shop and the downstairs windows were bay windows. The whole building was painted white! How it has changed!
Bathing Pool!
I think that this id the boating lake in Old Town. Wonderful memories - trained at RESH 61 - 66.
No Luxuries!
Hello again, Referring back to my childhood growing up in Rye, can you picture it today, eleven children, no fridge, only a larder, no washing machine, only a copper boiler, no tumble dryer, only a mangle for squeezing out the water from the clothes, and not even a T.V. and without a phone in the house, only a radio, and that is if you could afford one how would people manage today. Another item we had delivered which we had to do was sort out peas in the front room, milk was delivered by horse and cart, and you took out your jug for the milk, a chap came round now and again with a push cart to sell shrimps, bread was delivered by the baker from a van, also the butcher came around in his van to sell his meat and other odd items he carried in the van, boyhood memories, not all good I hasten to add. Stan Wilson.
