Top 10 facts about Hastings

The Battle of Hastings was fought on October 14, 1066.

 

1. Actually the battle was fought some six to seven miles from Hastings, near the town now known as Battle, probably at Senlac Hill.

2. King Harold of England, who was slain at the Battle of Hastings, had a tattoo over his heart that read: “Edith and England”.

 

3. The Bayeux Tapestry, telling the history of the Battle, is 230 feet long and was commissioned by Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent who was the half-brother of William the Conqueror.

4. It isn’t actually a tapestry but an embroidered cloth. Tapestries are woven not embroidered.

 

5. Hastings won a Platinum Loo of the Year Award and an Individual Attendant of the Year Award in 2013 for its public toilets at the Stade beach.

6. In AD 928, King Athelstan established a royal mint at Hastings.

 

7. The history of Hastings may date back as far as the 5th century. The Haestingas were Anglo-Saxon followers of a Saxon warlord called Haesta.

8. Hastings now has the largest beach-based fishing fleet in Europe.

 

9. Hastings has a Shipwreck Museum, The True Crime Museum and a Flower Makers Museum.

10. William the Conquerer founded Battle Abbey as penance for the bloodshed at the battle

 

William the Conquerer founded Battle Abbey as penance for the bloodshed at the battle