Chapter 2: Matthew Fagg

As for his arrival in Hastings, Fagg is (as already noted) identified as a gentleman of Hackney in the lease of the land on which Exmouth House is built, dated 29 August 1817. This was the first house in what was to become Exmouth Place, and, prior to his purchase of the land, it just comprised empty hillside. The site was described on the lease as ‘a piece of land, part of Bakers Field, formerly called Court Croft’ in the parish of St Clement, Hastings, adjacent to a newly marked-out road up from Hill Street. Its dimensions (‘little more or less’) were 40 foot (12 metres) on the front or east side; 60 foot (18 metres) on the west side, adjoining the rest of the field; 60 foot (18 metres) on the south side, adjoining Edward Wenham’s other land and 62 foot (19 metres) on the north side, adjoining a footpath from the road from Hill Street over the hill. View image

This may be elucidated as follows. Edward Wenham, a member of a prominent Hastings family, had bought a plot of land on the West Hill from Edward Milward, another local grandee, on 25-6 November 1811, and part of this was sold on 29-30 August 1817 to Fagg. Wenham was a partner of the banking firm, Farncombe, Breeds and Wenham, who operated in the High Street, and he lived next door at West Hill House, which dates from about 1790 and must have been one of the first large and fashionable houses to be built in the area.10 The land that was now sold enjoyed the use of a road 30 foot (9 metres) wide at the front, which had formed part of the 1811 conveyance to Wenham, and of a way to it from Hill Street, which was 17' 6" (5.3 metres) at the entrance and 14' 6" (4.4 metres) at its narrowest point.

The surroundings of Exmouth House

10 See M.A.N. Marshall, Hastings Saga (London, 1953), p. 31.