HASTINGS

Artist: William Henry Bartlett ____________ Engraver: H. Griffiths

Note: the title in the table above is printed below the engraving

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AN ANTIQUE STEEL ENGRAVING PRINTED IN THE EARLY 1840s!! VERY OLD WORLD! INCREDIBLE DETAIL!

The town of Hastings is situated on the coast of Sussex, about sixty-four miles S. S. E. of London. It has been supposed that the place was so called from Hastings, a Danish pirate, "who, where he landed for booty, built sometimes little fortresses; as we read, in Asserius Menevensis, of Beamflote Ca,stle built by him in Essex, and of others at Appledore and Middleton in Kent". This conjecture, however, does not appear to be well founded; for there can be little doubt of the place having been called Hastings about the year 780; in the reign of King Offa, whereas Hastings, the pirate, did not invade England till about 880, in the reign of Alfred the Great. "Some there are," says Camden, "who ridiculously derive the name from the English word. haste; because, as Matthew Paris writes, 'apud Hastings ligneumo ilitercastrumsttuit Gulielmus Conquestor'-at Hastings William the Conqueror hastily set up a fortress of timber." Truly, as old Fuller might have said, there has been more haste than speed in the endeavour to provide this place wlih a godfather.

It is said that the old Saxon town of Hastings stood considerably to the southward of the present one, and that it was destroyed by the incursions of the sea previous to the Conquest. The town, however, would appear to have been in a short time robuilt; for William the Conqueror, soon after landing at Pevensey, marched to llastmos, from whence he advanced about eight miles into the country, where he encountered the English army under Harold, at the place since called Battle, in commemotationof the event. Hastings, though not the oldest, is considered to hold the first rank among the ancient maritime boroughs called the Cinque Ports, which were originally instituted for the defence of the coast, and endowed with special privileges on condition of supplying a certain number of ships and mariners for that purpose. Dover, Sandwich, and Romney are considered the oldest of the Cinque Ports, as they are the only ones which are mentioned in Domesday as privileged ports. Hastings and Hythe are supposed to have been added by William the Conqueror; and the number being thus increased to Jive, occasioned the community to be called the Cinque Ports.

Although Winchelsea and Bye, which had previously been members of Hastings, were constituted principal ports at some period between the Conquest and the reign of King John, the name of Cinque Ports still continued to be given to the community. The Cinque Ports are governed by a lord warden, who Is also governor of Dover Castle. A certain number of persons (called Barons) deputed from the Cinque Ports, have the privilege of supporting the canopies above the king and queen at coronations.

There was formerly a pier at Hastings, at which vessels could unload; but it was destroyed in a violent storm, about the commencement of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and never rebuilt. From the remains of this pier, which are still to be seen at low water, it appears to have run out in a south-eastern direction from the centre of the Marine Parade, below where the fort now stands. The fort, in a great measure, answers the purpose of a breakwater in resisting the waves, which in high tides, accompanied with a strong wind from the seaward, would otherwise be likely to do serious damage to the lower part of the town.

The trade of Hastings is very mconsiderable; its imports being chiefly coals for the consumption of the town, and its exports principally oak timber and plank, for the purposes of ship-building. The great supports of the town are the numerous visitors who take lodgings there during the bathing season, and the fishery, which gives employment to about 500 persons. What may now be considered the old town of Hastings is situated in a hollow between two hills, the East and the Castle-hill, and consists chiefly of two streets, which run nearly parallel to each other, and are called High-street and All-Saints-Street. The new town of Hastings, which has been almost wholly erected within the last thirty years, lies to the south and westward of the Castle-bill, so called from the ruins of the old castle on its top. There are two old churches at Hastings, St. Clement's and All-Saints', and a modern chapel, St. Mary's, in Pelham-crescent, immediately under the Castle-hill. From the accommodation which it affords to visitors, and the beauty and interest of the walks and rides in its vicinity, Hastings is one of the most agreeable watering-places on the southern coast of England.

PRINT DATE: This lithograph was printed in 1840; it is not a modern reproduction in any way.

PRINT SIZE: Overall print dimensions are 7 inches by 10 inches including a white border of approximately one inch on each side (not shown).

PRINT CONDITION: Condition is fine. Bright and clean. Blank on reverse.

BIOGRAPHY OF ARTIST: William Henry Bartlett, (born in London, 26 March 1809; died at sea off Malta, 13 Sept 1854) was an English artist most popularly known for his paintings of the Near East, Continental Europe and North America. He was a prolific artist and an intrepid traveller, with most of his work widely known through the numerous engravings made after his drawings and published in his own and other writers' topographical books. His primary concern was to extract the picturesque aspects of a place and by means of established pictorial conventions to render 'lively impressions of actual sights', as he wrote in the preface to The Nile Boat (London, 1849). His views of the major towns and coastal scenery of great britain were completed in 1840 & 1841 and show many of the resort towns, ports & harbours of the time. The interest in these engravings today is as much for the quality of the rendering and presentation of the architecture of the period as it is for the representation of the landscape & view.

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Please note: the terms used in our auctions for engraving, heliogravure, lithograph, print, plate, photogravure etc. are ALL prints on paper, NOT blocks of steel or wood. "ENGRAVINGS", the term commonly used for these paper prints, were the most common method in the 1700s and 1800s for illustrating old books, and these paper prints or "engravings" were inserted into the book with a tissue guard frontis, usually on much thicker quality rag stock paper, although many were also printed and issued as loose stand alone prints. So this auction is for an antique paper print(s), probably from an old book, of very high quality and usually on very thick rag stock paper.

EXTREMELY RARE IN THIS EXCELLENT CONDITION!