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8 Old Memories of East-Bourne. [Chap. II.
chalk pita was filled with drifted snow up to, and above the level of the footpath. The depth in places was not less than 10 or 12 feet. There was a complete block on the railway, and for 30 hours, January 18-19, no trains passed into or out of East-Bourne from London. This storm had something of a counterpart on March 9, 1891 ; so much snow fell on the previous night that for some hours on the morning of the 9th no trains could get through to Lewes from East-Bourne.
The brow of the hill nearer East-Bourne seems to have been once the site of a battle in prehistoric times.
In January 1876, I had working in my garden a labouring man who had lived at the Old Town for upwards of half-a-century. This fact, when I became acquainted with it," induced me to enter into conversation with him, and quoting as near as possible his own words, what he told me was that, " in 1822 he was one of a gang of about 10 men employed on the Willingdon Road in cutting away the crown of the hill between Baker's Mill and the Cemetery, for the purpose of improving the road. In executing this work they found, a few feet below the surface of the ground, a very large number of skeletons lying closely packed. The largest number got out in one day was 14; they frequently got half-a-dozen a day. This went on for several weeks, and he had no doubt that upwards of 100 skeletons were found. The ground all round was, he strongly believed, full of bones, but of course they only excavated just so far as was necessary for the width of the road. The bones were all carefully collected and buried in a pit in the Churchyard, under the superintendence of the then Vicar (Dr. Brodie). Nothing was found with the bones except a large number of iron carving knives (sic), from which the handles had disappeared. There was nobody to take any interest in the matter, and no further search was made. One gentleman did, however, tell him that the Romans once had a great big town at Bourne which was called Anderida."**
(a) Behind this chalk pit, to the N., there is a narrow sylvan footpath which used always to be called "Jack o' Dandy's Lane."
(b) Of course this identification of East-Bourne with Anderida must be considered as baseless. Pevensey is too surely recognised as the site of Anderida. |
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