Hastings Forum

I will concentrate first on one particular area, that of the sea-facing portion of the former America Ground.
After the days of the clearance and the development of Robertson street the seaward part of what amounted to a large triangle of land was made available by around 1850 and ripe for hotel development.
Patrick Robertson, real estate developer and MP for Hastings, leased the crown lands for 99 years at a rate of £500 per year and soon work started on building Robertson Street.

On the south-eastern corner of the sea-front area, the Queens Hotel had opened by 1862 and to the west, Robertson Terrace, also overlooking the sea, was being constructed, featuring the Albany Hotel, now Albany Court.
The Albany Hotel, incorporating former private housing, Albany Mansions, was opened on Tuesday, the 24th March, 1885, boasting elevators to 120 rooms, all fitted up with electric lighting. Opulent and splendid by all accounts.
The Albany continued as one of the town’s premier hotels, up to the last war, when it became a billet for Canadian troops until lunchtime on Sunday, May 23 1943, when the Borough had its second heaviest aerial attack of the hostilities, with many fatalities and serious injuries. The raid was carried out by 10 fighter-bombers which came in from the east of the town in the early afternoon and swept low along the Front Line, machine-gunning and bombing as they went, killing 25 and injuring 85 others. The Swan Hotel in the Old Town and four other public houses were destroyed.
One bomb caught the top of the Queen’s Hotel where the restaurant and bars were full of people, and then scored a major hit exploding on the Albany, killing a number of Canadians stationed there.
The (Albany) site remained empty for nearly 30 years until it was redeveloped in the 1960’s as the Albany Court, (which included the demolition of Gidersleeves Hotel next door) and also provided a seafront entrance to Debenhams Department Store.
The Albany Court private apartments are still with us today, tenants having been granted 95 year leases in 1964.

Acknowledgments to Ion Castro and Hastings Observer.

I mentioned Gildersleeve's a hotel, or boarding establishment, next door to the Albany Hotel.
Not to be confused with the Gildersleeve's boarding establishment, along Breeds Place, to the east.

See images below:

Also Beatrix Potter had a holiday home for a short while in Hastings.
It was 16 Robertson Terrace and there is a historic plaque at the back of Debenhams.
2 books are believed to have been written here according to the blue plaque.
( The Tale of Two Bad Mice & The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan )

'The tale of two bad mice' - seahernit and me!

I have been following this thread with interest. It's a great pity about the bombing, because the modern buildings which were later erected (Debenham's and block of flats) are pretty ugly and spoil an elegant Victorian terrace.

Up the other end of Robertson Terrace, where it starts to curve back to join the main road, someone once told me that one of the small (i.e. tall and narrow) buildings used to be a police station. Richard might know about that? Rather elegant police station and hardly big enough for all the crime that goes on these days!

On November 23rd 1951 the mayor opened the new main Police station, occupying most of the Robertson Hotel, (numbers 4-5) Robertson Terrace. Until then it had been at the back of the town hall.
The Robertson Hotel proper was numbers 3 -5
The current 'Lansdowne' Hotel occupies no's 1 and 2.


The photo below is dated 1935.

The police station was bigger than I thought. Still in a slightly odd, non-central location, I would have thought, also (by modern standards) little space nearby for a decent fleet of meat-wagons!

A panorama of Albany Court today.
I note that Debenhams are now up for sale at £2.75 millions, conversion to apartments is almost guaranteed.

https://www.allsop.co.uk/resources/2019 ... pdf?x75638