History
The area was settled by the Romans, who probably used it as a port to transfer goods to mainland Europe. The area was taken over by the Saxons after the Romans had left it. The village originally ran from the church to the duck pond.
Like Seaford and Newhaven, its western neighbour, East Blatchington was a front line coastal defence during the Napoleonic war, and had a military barracks built in 1794 and demolished after the Great War. In its early years, it was badly supplied, which resulted in 500 men mutinying and occupying Seaford. The townspeople gave them provisions and alcohol. The following day, the regular army, based at Newhaven overpowered them and arrested twenty mutineers. The leaders were executed and the others punished.
The barracks were lightly manned, until the First World War and became a staging post for soldiers fighting in France, who were shipped from Newhaven. After the war, the barracks were demolished.
St Peter's Parish Church dates back to about 1100 and the church registers date from 1563. The church has a memorial to pioneer balloonist Henry Tracey Coxwell.
Blatchington Pond was restored in 1980 and remains largely the same to this present day.
Read more about this topic: East Blatchington
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)