Should you ever decide to visit this ruin of a castle, be sure your GPS knows it’s at the top of the hill and not in a store two-hundred feet below. It took some maneuvering to get up that hill—the one-lane road is extremely steep and narrow and, there are actually townhouses lining it. Our knees hurt just thinking about how these people get home every night.
Before you reach the Hastings Castle, there are several panels that give you a history of what happened here. We’re including them here because there’s not a lot to this castle except its history—and it’s rather important!
When you reach the castle grounds, you quickly realize this was not a large castle. The grounds around it have shrunk over the years, the cliffside down to the water having eroded away over the years. The “moat” was actually a deep ditch, and getting to the structure was probably as challenging back then as it is now.
The church would have been just beyond the Gothic arch.
The main gate is barely recognizable (below left).
Despite all the ruins, one thing does remain intact—the dungeon! You can take the stairs down to it, but we elected to remain topside.
We intended to spend the rest of the afternoon at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, but an accident on A27 delayed our return by more than two hours. We’ll see about touring that before he head out to Dorset tomorrow. Ta-ta for now!
Regency Romance... with a Twist 