[Illustration: ST. LEONARDS GARDENS] Few towns in England can boast so rich a possession as the park, with its lake, woodland glades, and beautiful flowers. (_See page 17_) ====================================================================== However, the surroundings of Hastings must still be its greatest asset. To quote once more the grandiloquent old guide book,--"The vicinity of the town abounds with delightful rides and walks; the pleasantness and diversified character of which it is impossible not to admire; and these are not only of a description superior, perhaps, to what are to be found in almost any other part of the coast, but so numerous as to afford that change which prevents the satiety arising from repetition". Still farther west lies Bexhill, a typically modern seaside resort. Then follows a considerable stretch of meadow land, and at the other side the first of the romantic centres in this cradle of English history. PEVENSEY AND HURSTMONCEUX In all this storied region there is no spot so rich in memories as Pevensey (or Pemsey, as it is called locally). Before such ancient settlements as Rye and Winchelsea were dreamed of, while yet Hastings was the merest collection of barbarian huts, Pevensey, or rather its Roman predecessor, Anderida, was a fortified place with all the ebb and flow of a flourishing life. Like Winchelsea, it has seen great changes--not quite so tragic perhaps, but no less momentous--and like Winchelsea, too, in its tide of fortune or disaster, it has been at the idle mercy of the fickle sea. Where now--from the Channel inland for three or four miles--stretches a wide plain, centuries ago the sea went on its way, reaching inland as far as Hailsham, and leaving Pevensey and other "eys"--Horseye, Chilleye, Rickney--islanded in its midst. In those days Pevensey served a double purpose: it was an island stronghold and a port--a gate to shut out and a gateway to welcome the alien mariner, according to his intentions and its own will. Then the waters of the Channel receded, and the puissant fortress, robbed of its vital strength, sprawled helplessly at the mercy of any Philistine invader. It has had just this much of compensation: through its centuries of serviceable isolation it has seen real life as a castle--withstood sieges, beaten off marauding foes, taken sides in internal strife--and in that it has had the cry over the most of our Sussex fortresses.