Being a history enthusiast and someone who is passionate
about the whole 1066 story, when I moved to East Sussex a few years ago I
immediately set out to delve into local history and see with my own eyes the
places that are said to make up the backdrop of the Norman invasion and the
battle of Hastings. Little did I know
this would expose me to the dark side and underhand political scheming of the
most powerful historical organisations in Britain!
I was already pretty well-read concerning the Norman
Conquest but knew little about how the Pevensey Bay coastline had actually so
dramatically changed since the Norman invasion and I had never even heard of
Pevensey Lagoon, a long-gone massive tidal inlet the Norman ships were said to
have sailed into the day before marching on to Hastings. So having previously stood on the beach of
Pevensey Bay gazing out to sea, trying to picture the Norman ships appearing on
the horizon all those years ago, I already began to feel a little bit cheated,
no Norman feet – it turned out - had actually crunched down onto that shingle
beach after all, the beach had been underwater in the mouth of the legendary
haven in 1066. Hmm, ok!
So I felt my first point of learning to understanding the
logistics of the invasion that changed the history of England and set her on
the path to subjugation and wholesale massacre was to find out what this lagoon
actually looked like and how large it was, where the Normans landed and camped
and what they did after that. Pretty straight forward I thought! Yeah right!
So here’s your basic curriculum-taught version of the Norman
Invasion...
The Normans sailed into Pevensey (Lagoon) and landed on the
northern side of the peninsular that jutted out from the western side of the
lagoon on which the Romans had build a great fort they’d named Anderida. Then the invaders set up camp within the
mighty walls of the fort and wacked up a castle before trotting along the beach
to Hastings the very next day! Really?
Problems is, none of that makes any sense at all when you
actually see Pevensey Lagoon and how Anderida was situated within it! But I’ll come to all that later.
I managed to find much in the way of descriptive accounts of
the lagoon and its role in the invasion, but very little in the way of actual
images and for me it’s images that really impress on the mind and graphically
explain how things work. I suppose what
I actually craved was a detailed map which I could then use to explore the
places on the ground and begin to understand, but alas none exists! Strange!
Isn’t that a little weird? Hmmm!
I found a few pictures online which all seemed to be really
vague and poorly defined which both disappointed and surprised me in equal
measure, I still can’t believe there is not an abundance of images both online
and in books portraying this massively important incredibly evocative subject. Even the picture portrayed on the board at
Pevensey Castle (the castle the Normans built within Anderida’s walls) is
totally misrepresentative!
So I began to consider ways I could possibly generate an
accurate image for myself. Not an easy
thing to achieve when you really think about it, even harder before the arrival
of computers and the internet into all of our homes, so how could I do it? How could I get the exact correct data so
that if I do manage to create this thing, it’ll be accurate.
Well after a lot of deliberation I concluded the only way to
do such a thing would be on a computer, scientifically and using state of the
art technology, ie GPS, so I needed software with built-in GPS data and
mapping. Good old Google Earth was the
obvious answer. HURRAH!
My starting point and most important detail was to ascertain
what the average sea level had been back then, which I found on the PCDL site http://www.pevensey-bay.co.uk/pevensey-levels.html
that stated in Roman times everything below 4m OD (Ordnance Datum, which is an invisible imaginary unchanging
level encompassing the Earth that surveyors use) in the area of the lagoon
would have been underwater, it also
stated “Pevensey Levels used to be an embayment open estuary when sea levels
reached about the present day level
5,000 years ago following the sea level rise during the Holocene. “
So armed with that knowledge in Google Earth I dropped a
Polygon onto the whole area and began to drag its many multi-points about
whilst the GPS indicator at the bottom showed me the Ordnance Datum at any
given point as I went. As I dragged the
first one away from the middle of Pevensey Levels (where I knew the lagoon had
once been) I noted the OD on the GPS indicator climbing as the lie of the land
gradually climbed out of the low-lying land until the 3m mark ticked over to
the 4m mark and that’s where I dropped my first multi-point, that was it, the
water’s edge at an average high tide back in 1066ad. EXCELLENT!
I soon found I could add as many points as I needed, so I
added more and more to give me total accuracy and detail. The ‘Eyes’ or Islands (Anglo-Saxon) began to
form and the spit of land which the Roman fort sat upon guarding the wide
estuary took shape perfectly and what I was seeing began to take my breath
away, the long lost mysterious lagoon formed in front of my eyes and what was
even better: I could fly around it at
will taking snapshots and viewing it from any angle or height, I was amazed and
immensely happy with the results as they formed.
I made the decision
to set the polygon (water) colour to 80% opaque so that in doing so the lagoon
is viewed in modern day terms with the modern day places clearly visible
beneath the dark blue polygon (water). I
felt in this format viewing the snapshot images or flying around in Google
Earth would be far more informative and fun.
There is an image of the old lagoon from a vantage point of
directly above it, drawn by Stuart Murrell dated 1950, which I stumbled upon in
Anne Botha’s book “The Crumbles Story”, which is an almost exact replication of
the lagoon I created in Google Earth without the detail and clarity but It
really is amazing how close the two images relate, which was for me, validation
of my painstaking efforts over a few weeks of constant data input, sore eyes,
an aching back and an increasingly annoyed wife!
And so it lived! The
lagoon was resurrected and was beautiful to behold! Breathtaking!
I studied it and saw how the towns of Eastbourne, Hailsham,
Polegate, Stone Cross, Westham and Pevensey had been built around the contour
of the water-line, for instance there is a road that divides Eastbourne old
town with the newer larger area of Eastbourne and that road follows the exact
contour of the water. Looking at the
land beneath my polygon lagoon you can see how these places actually took
shape.
But then when I’d got over the initial excitement of my creation I settled down to use the thing as it was intended, i.e. a tool to understanding the logistics of the Norman Invasion and that’s when the problems began!
You see once you can see what the east Sussex coast looked
like back in 1066ad you can see that there are many holes in the theory that
the Normans landed in Pevensey and marched their entire army to Hastings the
very next day. For one thing, why would
they land right outside the most heavily defended spot on the south coast
between Dover and Portsmouth? These
places all had functional Roman forts that the Saxon’s utilised in their
defence of the realm against invasion from Normandy. Pevensey fort (Anderida) had a garrison that
Harold had left to defend it and even a small garrison could cause major
problems from within such a powerful stronghold, so why not land somewhere
without a Roman fort, somewhere safer away from the range of arrows and
spears? And come to that looking at the
lagoon and the place the Normans are said to have camped, the simple march to
Hastings along the coast (which is taught in schools to this day) would have
been impossible not to mention impractical!
I didn’t get it. Surely an army
of around seven thousand heavily armed Normans with supply train in tow could
not have marched out of Anderida four miles in the wrong direction heading west
away from Hastings (just to get off that peninsular) then turn north, treck for
three miles to Hailsham before finally turning east, miles trekked around tat
vast expanse of water just to get to a tiny insignificant place called
Hastings? Why would they do that? In any case there was a port there somewhere
(gone now) that they could quite happily have sailed into direct from Normandy
saving themselves the fight for Anderida (which isn’t mentioned in any
historical accounts anywhere) and the long march east! Strange!
And they say William the Bastard was a great tactician and as cunning as
the Devil, Hmm, no sign of that so far!
We are taught the battle happened in the place now known now
as the town of ‘Battle’ a few miles north of Hastings simply because that’s the
random place the two opposing forces met and did battle there, but if that was
the case, why did William set out from Hastings and not Pevensey? If he’d set out of Pevensey the battle would
have taken place somewhere like Heathfield, but when you start to think about
it, why not just stay in Anderida, why not fight with a Roman fort and it’s
massive stone walls towering behind you forcing the Saxons through a bottleneck
in front of you formed by the lagoon on both sides of the thin strip of land? It don’t make bloody sense! And thinking about it I recalled my overall
feelings on my first visit to Battle Abbey and the said site of the Battle of
Hastings had been one of disappointment!
Disappointment that hardly any of the original Abbey exists today and
the battle site looked totally unfeasible.
No steep incline as stated in all the books, no bottleneck or ditches,
no nothing and no finds on the site, never, ever, not a button, not an arrow
head, nor bone nor fabric of any kind.
Hmmm! What’s going on there then?
What if....
Nah! Couldn’t be,
English Heritage charge a bloody fortune to get into Battle Abbey and to see
the most famous battle-site in the world!
They wouldn’t do that if..... Would they? Nah! I
thought!
Now realising my Google Earth Lagoon may be of some use to
fellow history enthusiasts I began to punt it about a bit and the community
magazine for the Pevensey area called the ‘Pevensey Pump’ ran an article about
it with pictures and everything, which was nice, many local historians
contacted me through that to praise my work and request pictures, which I was
happy to email, then I made a video of the lagoon and stuck it on YouTube so
people could get a better idea of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma_SUlymkoY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma_SUlymkoY
It was while I was doing this I stumbled across some YouTube
videos about the Norman Conquest and the website they were linked to which
changed everything!
Nick Austin is an amateur historian in East Sussex, not some
bod with a metal detector, this man (who founded Beggars Banquet Records
incidentally and now runs his own TV channel) has been studying the battle of
Hastings for nearly thirty years, gaining access to every historical document
relating to and written within 150 years of the conquest. You could easily call him a heavyweight
historian on the subject of the battle of Hastings and his website (Secrets Of
The Norman Invasion) and book of the same name are all about what he has
discovered in this research and details his theory that the Normans did not
land in Pevensey Lagoon at all but landed a few miles east in Combe Haven
instead, which back in 1066ad seems to have been the site of what has become
known as the old port of Hastings. Its
other main point of contention is that the battle was not fought where history
says it was fought but a few miles south-west of Battle (closer to Hastings) in
a sleepy little picturesque village called Crowhurst, which back in 1066ad was
owned by one King Harold the last Anglo Saxon king of England. What better way to draw Harold rushing do do
battle than laying waste his own manor and slaughtering his own folk in the
place closest to the kings heart? Now
that does make sense. Sail direct from
Normandy straight into Combe Haven, throw up an earthen and timber fort (or
castle) or two and you’ve got yourself a fine little bridgehead on the Hastings
peninsular which only has one way in, through a narrow passage just north of
your camp at a place called Crowhurst, the place your enemy loves most! William you cunning bastard! Finally something that makes sense in all this
1066 caper!
I read everything there was to read on Nick Austin’s
(Secrets of the Norman Invasion) website and then ordered his book which I duly
finished in a day or two of obsessive reading and I believe he’s got it
right. I think he’s spot on. I think the establishment historians have got
it badly wrong and I believe English Heritage know this and have been lying to
us for years and making fraudulent money hand-over-fist from a gullible public
who believe everything they’re told!
I’m not going to go into graphic detail on why I believe Mr
Austin has got it so right, you can find that stuff out yourself if you’re
interested enough, but if you read his book, trust me, you will be amazed. History has got it wrong...AGAIN, as it has
many times before, as it did with King Richard III. It took a bunch of amateur historical
enthusiasts to find the long-dead King’s remains whilst the historical
establishment looked on in arrogant amusement.
Well they aint bloody laughing now are they!
So that was that, my research into the logistics of the
Norman Invasion was done, complete with an entirely new (to me) theory,
nice! But that’s not the end of this
story, oh no, it’s just the beginning.
You see for the last twenty years East Sussex County Council have been
battling to force through the building of a new road that proposes to link the
town of Bexhill with Hastings and now they have the funding from our lovely
government and the green light to go.
Blokes in high-vis jackets are as we speak merrily hacking down trees
and hedgerows in preparation for the road but the fact is, the road will plough
straight through the place the Normans camped the night before the battle of
Hastings in beautiful Combe Haven and no one seems to give a shit, other than a
few environmental protestors and a growing bunch of historical enthusiasts.
Now let me explain the politics behind all this...
The government want this road to be built, so they have
given East Sussex County Council millions of tax-payers money to fund it. The council want it because they are stupid
and short-sighted as all councils are and they actually believe it’s the right
thing to build a duel carriageway through a beautiful historic valley, five
industrial estates and a huge ‘Traveller’ site just to make it pretty. Incidentally this proposed traveller site
will be built right on the spot where William’s earth and timber castle once
stood (on Wilting Farm) in Combe Haven.
Nice!
The site needs to be
properly surveyed and major Norman finds need to be presented before the County
Archaeologist will sanction exploratory excavations, so what they’re saying is
they want amateurs to dig trenches and explore and find the right stuff before
they will take them seriously and go down and dig their own trenches! Seriously?
Ludicrous!
The Battlefields Trust absolutely refuse to take a proper
look because the County Archaeologist wont and in any case, in their own words
‘even if the battle was actually fought in Crowhurst and not Battle, the road
isn’t actually cutting through the battle site anyway’. No it’s just desecrating the site of the Norman
camp and defences, so that’s alright then!
The Battlefields
Trust’s biggest financer just happens to be English Heritage, (GOOD ONE), who
also categorically refuse to explore the area.
English Heritage is financed by our wonderful government and
they own the cash-cow known as Battle Abbey.
Lucky old them!
So there it is in a nutshell, a political
merry-go-round! This place where William
the Conqueror invaded England and his army camped the night before the battle
of Hastings, this place he buried many of his ships to make the point to his
army that the only way out of that place would be through that ferocious
looking Saxon shield-wall at the top of that very steep boggy hill! This place that must be absolutely littered
with finds of all kinds and every description!
This place that leads to little Crowhurst just a mile or two along the
old Roman road that will be ripped apart and destroyed and when they find what
they surely will find there in the ground and the road building has to be
stopped immediately by English Heritage because when that stuff comes out of
the ground their game will be well and truly up, they will have no option but
to admit the truth and with that heads had better fall in great abundance right
from the very top because none of these people have done the job we the British
tax-payers pay them to do and I personally will become a one-man crusade to
hound the political suits behind these terrible arrogant decisions, both The
Battlefields Trust and English Heritage will be top of my list, not to mention
the County Archaeologist and the Historical Establishment per se because these
bastards are failing to do their duty and are pissing away our nation’s most
valuable asset, it’s history and it’s heritage and to me that is nothing less
than high treason!
To sum up, Nick
Austin could be wrong and so could I, but even if we are wrong, there is enough
evidence to warrant official investigation instead of belligerently bullying
these plans through and ignoring all the written evidence. Most historians now believe that William and
his army did camp in Combe Haven the night before the battle of Hastings, the
actual battle site is another argument entirely, the Combe Haven IS a site of
major historical importance (not to mention environmental) and the powers that
be just do not give a flying shit and that is a terrible state of affairs and a
fine example of what this country has come to!
My dream is that in the long awaited spring of this year
2013 (if it ever bloody gets here), a JCB is going to hit something hard and
unyielding in the ground in the Combe Haven valley at the bottom of Wilting
Farm where the edge of water of the old haven once licked the shore at the site
of the old port of Hastings and when the driver jumps out of his cab to
investigate, the dragon-headed prow of a Norman ship will be rearing up out of
the soil like a majestic ancient sleeping dragon of oak woken in a rage with an
old tale of conquest, battle and injustice to bellow at the modern world!
I for one will be watching events closely... with fingers
crossed and with bated breath! Please
God, just this once, let justice be done, give our English (Anglo-Saxon) hearts
something to rejoice over and let Nick Austin be right!
