The fishermen’s fight against financial might.
The Stade is the name for the stretch of shingle beach in Hastings Old Town. ‘Stade’ is the old Anglo-Saxon term for landing place – this name alone tells us that the area is rich in history!
Shingle beaches may not necessarily seem like valuable property; growing up I was very frustrated that you can’t easily build castles out of shingle. However, ownership of this particular single beach has been a controversial topic for centuries.
This blog post accompanies my two podcast episodes on the history of the fishing community of Hastings. It focusses on one specific issue – the ownership of the Stade and the way that larger financial interests have threatened the survival of our fishing industry.
The Early Stade
As long as there has been a settlement here at Hastings, people would have fished. The industry has been central to the history of our town for over 1000 years. There is mention of fishing in the Doomsday Book and it is almost certain that the earlier Saxon communities would also have fished these waters. The beach has a Saxon name after all!
The initial settlement of Hastings was on the White Rock cliffs to the west of The Stade. After the great storms of 1287 destroyed much of the town, Hastings moved into the Bourne Valley – the site of the current Old Town. There is evidence of industry in this valley before the 13th century however, meaning that it is likely that The Stade was being used for fishing before even this date.
The 1287 storms ended Hastings’ prominence as a Cinque Port, and it remained a small fishing village for much of the next 500 years. The image below shows what this may have looked like.
The fishing village of Hastings in 1789
New Neighbours
The fishing community would have had almost exclusive use of The Stade until the mid-18th century. In the 1760’s Hastings started to become popular with the newly wealthy urban middle classes - they would visit Hastings for leisure and health reasons. By the early 19th century, the Old Town was full of guest houses and the homes of the wealthy families that had decided to move permanently.
The old Hastings collided with the new, and antagonism grew between the working-class fishing community based around All Saints Street and the middle-class business interests centred around the High Street. The 1834 Great Reform Act gave the vote to many middle-class men, and this put control of Hastings Council firmly in the hands of this section of society. Hastings grew westwards into the Priory Valley and the town centre moved there – bringing with it most of the wealthy middle classes.
We have here two competing visions of Hastings. The poorer old town was reliant on the fishing industry for prosperity and needed The Stade to remain in the hands of the fishermen. The richer new town wanted to maximise profits from tourism, and greedily eyed up The Stade as a possible site for new attractions.
The Stade in 1854
Ownership
We’ve established that both sides want The Stade. But who owns it? This is a complicated question, and I don’t have a definitive answer. Let’s explore the competing claims to it.
The fishing community has used the Stade, uninterrupted, since records began. This surely gives them some kind of rights or claims to the beach? They certainly think so!
There is a widespread belief that there existed a medieval charter giving ownership of the beach to the fishermen – or at least giving them some form of rights. This charter, if it existed, has since been lost. There is a strong oral tradition among fishermen that the council deliberately destroyed this charter in an attempt to deny them ownership of The Stade.
There was a charter granted to the town in 1588 by Queen Elizabeth – however, this charter does not give any rights to the fishermen despite popular belief that it does. The 1771 White Herring Fisheries Act offers more hope – it states (I have greatly simplified this) that anyone employed in herring fishing has rights to use and build upon undeveloped beaches.
Whether by charter, law, or custom, the Fishermen believe that they have the right to use the Stade for fishing purposes – and this includes building the necessary equipment and storage. The council do not agree.
Hastings Council base their claim on the 1588 Elizabethan charter. This charter was created in response to suspicions that the ‘great men of the town’ had been concealing church land that should have been handed over to the crown in the reformation. The charter sets out exactly what land belongs to the town and this included the ambiguously named ‘stone beach’.
The council claimed that this gives them full control of the beach. However, precedent suggests otherwise. When the ownership of the America Ground (see episode 2 of the podcast!) was called into question in the 1820’s it was the crown that stepped in and took control. Similarly, when ownership of the beach in front of St Leonards was in question in the 1870’s it was again the crown who came out on top. In 1893 the council paid the crown for the freehold of all the beach from Ecclesbourne to Bulverhythe (which includes The Stade) – again implying the crown owned it before this.
It seems, in all likelihood, that it was the crown that owned The Stade – pending the discovery of the fisherman’s medieval charter. However, this doesn’t settle the question of exactly what rights the fishermen have to fish there! This ambiguity has led to continue conflict over the uses of the Stade.
Photo of The Stade in the 1880's
Encroachment
During the 19th century the fishing community had almost exclusive use of the whole Stade. The image above gives you an idea of how this might have looked – as you can see, far more of the beach was used for fishing purposes than is the case today.
We’ve already seen that the council – acting on behalf of the middle-class business interests of the town – wanted to take over this land to use it for the tourism industry. Over the 19th and 20th centuries the council made numerous attempts to take over parts of The Stade and to push the fishing industry further east and ever closer to the sea. Some of these attempts were successful, some were not.
The first major clash came in 1824 when the council tried to widen the road at East Parade and force the fisherman’s gear and net shops closer to the sea. A riot broke out following the attempt by the council to move the net shop belonging to one Thomas Tassel. Thomas, backed by a crowd, threatened to chop the hands off the council’s representative if they touched his shop. Not a great start to relations.
A more significant conflict came in 1833. There had been a fish market of sorts at the bottom of High Street which the council saw as a nuisance to visitors. They built a new market next to the Anchor Inn in George Street and tried to force the fishermen in there – also trying to charge them for the privilege! Several fisherman refused to use the new market and were fined as a result – they refused to pay the fine and were locked in jail. The next day about 100 fishermen stormed the local jail and rescued the three men – they then also went and recaptured some confiscated carts and fishing equipment, broke a councillor’s window and knocked another over the head for good measure. The authorities duly restored the old fish market…
From the 1870’s the council built groynes to protect the beach in St Leonards and in the Priory Valley. They neglected, however, to build one to protect the old town beach. This led to The Stade shrinking and left the Old Town particularly vulnerable to storm damage. Anger built at this – particularly as the council gave the green light to building Alexandra Park (which was based in the middle-class area of town) which cost far more than the groyne would have done! It wasn’t until an 1884 storm nearly destroyed the Old Town entirely that the council finally agreed to build the groyne that would safeguard the fishing industry. The sceptic in me thinks they were hoping that the sea would get rid of the fishing industry for them…
This tension continued into the early 20th century. Under the guise of slum clearances, the council ripped out much of the centre of the old town in order to build the A259. Below you can see the Old Town before this took place. This displaced numerous fishing families and scattered them to ore, Hollington and beyond – further weakening the community. In the 1920’s and 30’s a councillor called Sidney Little – Mr Cement or the King Concrete as he was known – pushed through a number of plans to extend roads out towards the old town. He built amusements and other tourist attractions and slowly pushed back the fishing industry. The fishing community was in a weak position due to the economic depression, so unable to resist much of this.
Above: Photo of the Old Town (1920's) before the building of the A259 through the middle.
Below: The demands of the fishermen in 1937.
This issue of beach ownership was brought before the high court in 1937 – although due to the war it was still unresolved in 1946. The stakes were high! If the fisherman won, then they would regain full control of the state and could potentially charge the council rent for the parts already taken. If the council won, however, the fisherman would be under their control as tenants and could easily be removed. The image above is a copy of the demands of the fishermen.
Before a judgement could be reached, both sides signed a compromise. This deal split the Stade into three parts (green, pink and blue) – two of which (pink and green) went to the council to use as they pleased. The council remained the owner of the blue Stade but gave the fishermen irrevocable rights to use it for fishing purposes. Many fishermen were furious at this deal as it had been signed by their representatives under dubious circumstances (listen to the podcast for more on this!). However, the deal stood and remains to this day.
In the decades since the council has cleared and redeveloped much of the pink Stade – its northern section of the beach. There have been a number of flashpoints – such as ownership of the coach carpark, the need to repair the harbour arm, preservation of the net shops and the building of the Jerwood gallery.
Resilience, not defeat
Ultimately, the Hastings fishing industry has lost much of The Stade. However, I don’t think this is a story of defeat, far from it.
In most other coastal towns, the fishing industry has disappeared. Nearby Brighton, Bexhill and Eastbourne have all lost theirs – as has much of the previously thriving east coast. Hastings’s fishing has, against the odds, survived.
The conflict with the council over The Stade is just one example of how powerful financial interests have threatened the fishermen’s’ livelihoods. The 20th century has seen the rise of industrial factory farming using huge deep-sea trawlers. This has caused over-fishing and damaged the ocean’s ecosystem. It has also led to the concentration of power and profits into the hands of a small number of huge corporations. Government and EU policy has consistently favoured these profiteering giants rather than the sustainable local fisheries.
In the face of all of these challenges, our industry has survived. This has not happened by accident – as I have shown, the fishing community has fought for its survival both physically and legally. The story of Hastings fishing is not one of decline – it is one of remarkable resilience in the face of a hostile and ever-changing world.
Further Reading
Fishermen of Hastings - 200 years of the Hastings Fishing Community - Steve Peak - 1985. All photo's used are from this book, taken with consent.
150 years of the Fisherman's Church - Dennis Collins - 2004.
Voices from the Stade - Nona Jackson & others - 2012.
Biddy the Tubman - Geoff Hutchinson - 1997.
Hastings Fish - https://hastingsfish.co.uk/
Hastings Fishermen's Museum - https://www.ohps.org.uk/hastings-fishermans-museum/
Comments