The primitive state of Brighthelmston, both as respects the condition and habits of the inhabitants and the position and style of the habitations, must to a considerable extent be left to conjecture, as there is no doubt the great changes which have taken place in and about the town to give it the importance which it at present possesses as England’s “Queen of Watering Places,” have all been effected within the last 150 years. An engraving in “The Antiquities of England and Wales,” published in 1775, {218} showing the ruins of the Blockhouse at that period, gives a representation of the houses on the Cliff at the spot whereon now stand the Old Ship Hotel and the premises adjacent. The south end of Black-lion Street is very conspicuous, the corner houses consisting only of dwellings one story in height, of a cottage or hovel-like appearance, very singular in architectural design when compared with the present noble block of buildings of Messrs. Hedges and Butler, the wine merchants, on the east side. The author of a “Tour through Great Britain,” date, 1724, says:—“Bright Helmston, commonly called Bredhemston, is a poor fishing town, old built, and on the very edge of the sea. The fishermen have large barks, in which they go away to Yarmouth, on the coast of Norfolk, to the fishing fair there, and hire themselves for the season to catch herrings for the merchants; and they tell us that these make a very good business of it. The sea is very unkind to this town, and has, by its continued encroachments, so gained upon it that in a little time more they might reasonably expect it would eat up the whole town, above one hundred houses having been devoured by the water in a few years past; and they are now obliged to get a brief granted them to beg money all over England, to raise banks against the water; the expense of which, the brief expressly says, will be eight thousand pounds; which, if one were to look on the town, would seem to be more than all the houses in it are worth.” The Rev. William Clarke, Rector of Buxted, and grandfather of the celebrated traveller, thus writes to his friend:— Brighthelmston, July 22, 1736. Dear Bowyer,