A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



sea-bathing,' 292 and in 1787 there were many houses in Seaford'let in the 

 bathing season to visitors.' S9S Bognor was first brought into notice in 1785 

 by Sir Richard Hotham, who spent 60,000 on the attempt to improve and 

 advertise it as a watering place. He was not altogether successful in his 

 efforts, but the task was taken up by others, and in the early years of the 

 following century Princess Victoria and the duchess of Kent spent several 

 seasons at Bognor Lodge. 294 Other seaside resorts which owed their early 

 fame to royalty were Eastbourne, which was visited by Prince Edward and 

 the Princesses Elizabeth and Sophia in i78o, 296 and Worthing, where Princess 

 Amelia stayed for some time in the last years of the century. St. Leonards 

 was the creation of a certain Mr. Burton, who built an entirely new town 

 there about the year 1828. The new fashion was, however, regarded with 

 unfavourable eyes in many quarters. Eastbourne was described in the 

 European Magazine of the end of the eighteenth century as ' one of the 

 favourite summer retreats for sickness, indolence, and dissipation,' 896 and 

 the New Brighton Guide, published in 1796, is a scathing, if not malicious, 

 satire on the fashionable society of the town. 



Amongst the many social changes which the rise of the south coast 

 watering places occasioned, not the least important was the improvement of 

 means of communication. The Sussex roads had long been notorious for 

 their execrable condition, the complaints of Horace Walpole in 1749 were 

 echoed by Dr. Burton in lyji. 1 The Brighton, Hastings, and Portsmouth 

 mail coaches are said to have been the slowest in the kingdom, and until 

 about the year 1757 there was no competition in stage coaches on the 

 Brighton road. In 1762, however, ' New Flying Machines hung on steel 

 springs, very neat and commodious, to carry four passengers,' were advertised 

 by a new proprietor to run from London to Lewes and Brighton on Mondays, 

 Wednesdays, and Fridays, and to return thence on the alternate days. The 

 fare to Lewes was 131. (inside), and to Brighton i6j. From this moment a 

 war of advertisement and competition began, which was only ended by the 

 death of the original proprietor in 1766. 



The closing years of the century saw a further increase in the speed and 

 number of the coaches between Brighton and the metropolis, and in 1795 a 

 coach left Sea Houses, Eastbourne, for London every morning except 

 Saturday, 898 and in 1804 the London coach left Chichester every Monday, 

 Wednesday, and Friday morning, returning on Tuesday, Thursday, and 

 Saturday, while wagons also plied between that city and the ' Talbot ' in the 

 Borough three times a week, carrying large quantities of wool. 299 The 

 Brighton road was, however, always the most popular. The beginning of 

 the nineteenth century saw the first amateur coaches driven between London 

 and the Sussex coast. In 1821 it was estimated that over forty traversed the 



*" Harper, The Hastings Road, 1 8 1 . Dr. Matthew Bailie sent pulmonary cases here from London. 

 (Lower, Hist, of Sussex, 220.) 



891 Anon. Hiit. of Eastbourne, published 1787, p. 31. >94 Lower, Hist, of Sussex, 60. 



*** Hist, of Eastbourne Dedication. The writer stated that there were on the beach some ' tolerable good 

 modern buildings ' . . . ' chiefly inhabited by visitors who come in the spring, summer, and autumn months 

 for the ad vantages of sea air and bathing,' 18. 



"* J C. Wright, Bygone Eastbourne, 29. 



"' C. G. Harper, The Brighton Road, 19 et seq. ; Suss. Arch. Coll. viii, 250. 



" C. G. Harper, The Brighton Road ; J. C. Wright, Bygone Eastbourne. 



" Hay, Hist, of Chichester, 393. 



204 



