Nick Austin's Combe Haven Landing Theory and Haestingaport

Austin’s battle scenario depends upon the Normans landing in Combe Haven. It contradicts our Brede estuary landing theory, and he proposes different locations for Hæstingaport and Hæstinga ceastre from those we suggest in our place name meaning blog, here. We need to explain why we think it unlikely that the Normans landed in Combe Haven, and why we think his proposed locations of Hæstingaport and Hæstinga ceastre are not right.

Austin’s theory about the landing place names is ingenious. He thinks that Hastingas and cognates referred to Hæstingaport, which he places at Bulverhythe (B on diagram above). He thinks that Pevensey and cognates referred to the region defended by the fortress at Pevensey, which would include the entire Hastings Peninsula. Thus, all the landing accounts could be right because they all say that the Normans landed and/or camped somewhere that sounds like one or the other or both.

The landing and Norman camp are crucial to Austin’s battle narrative because there are only a couple of places that the Normans could have camped that might lead to a battle on the southern slope of Telham Hill. If they had camped anywhere north of Crowhurst, the English would have had to pass through them to get to Telham Hill. If they had camped anywhere on the Bexhill Peninsula or on the west bank of Combe Haven, they would have looped around ridgeways to attack from the north. The Hastings Ridge spurs east of Crowhurst were not navigable from Combe Haven. So, if the Normans landed in Combe Haven, they can only have landed and temporarily camped at Redgeland and Monkham Woods.

Austin therefore predicted in Secrets of the Norman Invasion that there must have been a port at Redgeland Wood. He was vindicated during survey work for the Bexhill Link Road in 2015 when the remains of Romano-British era jetties were found at Redgeland Wood.

On the other hand, there are some discrepancies about a Redgeland Wood landing. Austin says that the Normans would need at least 2 miles of strand upon which to land (we calculate over 3), but the northwest end of his landing area is bounded by Little Bog, which leaves less than 2 miles of strand to the sea. Yeakell and Gardner (Figure 65) shows that Monkham Wood and Redgeland Wood were more extensive in the 18th century than now, lining most of the proposed landing site to a depth of 500m. If the woodland was like this in 1066 - and it is difficult to believe that anyone would plant new woodland between 1066 and 1770 - it is quite unlike the level treeless plain next to the landing area described by Wace and depicted on the Tapestry.

There are some discrepancies about Austin’s Hastingas and Pevensey theory too. Several primary sources say that William did not stay in ‘Pevensey’ but quickly moved to ‘Hastingas’. This would not make sense using Austin’s definitions, because they did not leave the region controlled by the fortress at Pevensey until a week after the battle. Orderic says that the Normans occupied ‘Pevensey’ and ‘Hastingas’, which would make no sense if, as Austin suggests, the latter was inside the former. Several primary sources say that the Normans built their first camp at ‘Pevensey’, then their second at ‘Hastingas’. But both camps would be in Austin’s Pevensey. CBA says that William leads his men from where they landed to a “port not far away”, but Austin thinks that they landed at the port.

Hæstingaport’s location is crucial to all Battle of Hastings theories because several contemporary accounts specifically say it is where the Normans landed, most of the others say it is where they camped. It is especially crucial to Austin’s theory because the only plausible way that the battle could have been fought on the southern slope of Telham Hill is if the Normans landed at Redgeland Wood. Therefore, Austin’s battlefield theory depends upon Hæstingaport having encompassed Redgeland Wood. He lists four main arguments in SOTNI that Hæstingaport encompassed Redgeland Wood, and he contacted us about another after the publication of the first edition of our book.

Austin’s first argument is that CBA “specifically names the port at a place named Hedgeland”. It does no such thing, at least not ‘specifically’. It mentions Hechelande (the Old English for Hedgeland) five times, four of which say it was near Telham, 4½ miles from the nearest coast and therefore not a port. The other says that Hechelande was ‘a parte Hastingarum’, which he interprets to mean ‘beside Hæstingaport’’. Lower translates as ‘in the direction of Hastings’, Searle as ‘which lies towards Hastings’, both of which would accurately describe Hechelande if it were adjacent to the Hastings Ridge near Telham. Austin provides no reason to prefer his unorthodox interpretation. These are all valid translations of Latin ‘a parte’  but unnatural and rare. We think this phrase uses the natural and most common translation of ‘a parte’ meaning ‘to the side’.

Austin’s second argument is that Hechelande referred to modern Redgeland, explaining that they would have been pronounced similarly in the local dialect of the day. It seems unlikely. CBA says that the Normans dress for battle at Hechelande. Austin reckons that their camp was at Upper Wilting. Redgeland Wood is 1km to its southeast, in the opposite direction to his battlefield. Needlessly returning to Redgeland Wood to dress for battle would waste an hour which might have been crucial with daylight limited and English reinforcements arriving all the time.

Austin’s third argument is that the first Norman Sheriffs, namely Reinbert and Ingelrann, were “installed at Wilting Manor”, the location he proposes for the second Norman camp. He says that this reflects Wilting’s “paramount importance”, implying it was the administrative centre for Hæstingaport. But Reinbert and Ingelrann were only subtenants of Wilting Manor, a role they shared with three others. Reinbert was sole subtenant of 15 other Sussex manors, including valuable Udimore and Whatlington, plus joint subtenant of 8 more. Ingelrann was subtenant of two big Sussex manors, Hooe and Filsham, and referred to himself as Ingelran of Hooe. It seems to us that their involvement with Wilting was incidental, and their bases were elsewhere.

Austin’s fourth argument is an analysis of Domesday manor valuations that tries to calculate the location of the second Norman camp, and therefore of Hæstingaport. His principle is that the manors most plundered, and therefore those that lost most value during the Conquest, would have been those closest to the Norman camp. He disqualifies what he believes to be unlikely camp/port candidates, including small manors and those with only minor impairment in 1066. His analysis shows that the manors most plundered were on the north bank of Combe Haven, centred on Wilting manor. Austin concludes that the second Norman camp was therefore at Upper Wilting. It sounds scientific but, in our opinion, makes some faulty assumptions.

The manors lining the north bank of Combe Haven, especially Crowhurst, Hooe and Filsham, had the biggest and best agricultural land on the Hastings Peninsula. They alone had enough livestock and grain stores to feed the Norman army. Moreover, they were in Harold’s ancestral homeland. Some say his wife and children lived in Crowhurst manor. These manors were bound to be most plundered, no matter where the Normans landed or camped.

In addition, we think the qualification process is flawed because Rameslie manor around the Brede estuary, where we think the Normans landed and camped, belonged to the Norman Abbey of Fécamp. It lost no value in 1066, so Austin qualifies out its port of Winchelse (aka Old Winchelsea) as a Hæstingaport candidate. But William was the abbey’s patron. In effect, Rameslie belonged to William and it paid taxes to the Roman Church. He would not have plundered himself or his most important sponsor, the Pope, so it would not have lost value in 1066 even if the Normans landed and camped there.

Austin’s fifth argument concerns Hæstinga ceastre. As we note in our place names blog - here - Hæstinga ceastre was probably encompassed by, or adjacent to, Hæstingaport. ‘Ceastre’ is the Old English term for a Roman fortification. Austin has found the impression of a probable Roman fortification on a LIDAR scan of Upper Wilting. One of King Alfred’s burhs was at Hæstinga ceastre. Its dimensions are recorded in a document known as the Burghal Hidage. Those dimensions match the LIDAR impression at Upper Wilting. Austin is confident it is Hæstinga ceastre. If he is right, whatever our misgivings, part of Hæstingaport probably was at Redgeland Wood, but there is no evidence he is right.

Alfredian burhs were typically built on promontories. Upper Wilting was not a promontory. Their main purpose was to watch for Viking sea raiders. The sea view from a burh at Upper Wilting would have been blocked to the east and southeast and interrupted to the southwest. The Bexhill Link Road excavations unearthed no evidence of Saxon or Norman occupation. It did uncover 14 Roman era bloomeries at Wilting and a Roman road from Wilting to Crowhurst Park where there were more Roman era bloomeries. Almost certainly then, iron products were exported from a major port at Redgeland Wood in Romano-British times. It would have had a nearby enclosure, from where the port was administered. We think it just happens to be roughly the right size to have been Hæstinga ceastre but is otherwise unrelated.

We checked Monkham, Redgeland and Upper Wilting against some of the other primary source landing and camp clues. Carmen says an English spy was standing at the bottom of a sea cliff watching them land. There are no sea cliffs beside Combe Haven. Warenne Chronicle says that the Normans entered England between two fortresses. Fortresses are usually built on high ground, which was absent beside Combe Haven. Austin counters that a building associated with the port might have looked like a fortress. One was a mint, so it is possible. Carmen says that a monk emissary leaves the Norman camp on a road, Latin ‘iter’. ‘Iter’ usually means a metalled agger road, of which there was only one on the Hastings Peninsula, on the far side of the Hastings Ridge. Austin thinks it referred to a trackway on the route of his old London road, along which he thinks the English army approached, which is not impossible.

In our opinion, Austin’s argument that Hæstingaport was in Combe Haven gets the cart before the horse. On the day before the invasion the Brede basin produced 70% of the region’s salt, and probably 90% of its timber and iron. It is implausible that bulk goods like these were hauled up, over and down the Hastings Ridge to be exported from Redgeland Wood when they could be exported by water via Winchelse. If they were exported from Winchelse on the day before the invasion, Winchelse was the major port in the region and the most likely place to have been Hæstingaport. This cannot be made wrong just because the Normans plundered elsewhere. Indeed, it is unlikely to change over the next decade or the next century. And the only unambiguous clues about the region’s major port – mid-12th century De Viis Maris, the 1204 Pipe Rolls and the 1227 Ship Service records – all list Winchelse as the major port in the region. They have one minor entry for Bulverhythe and nothing for Redgeland.

There are flaws in all five of Austin’s arguments that Hæstingaport was at Bulverhythe and Redgeland Wood. It has only superficial matches against the contemporary account landing site and camp descriptions. De Viis Maris lists no major ports between Winchelse and Pevensey Levels and we think that there were none at the time of the invasion.