Lee’s call to preserve Hastings’ statues and monuments

As a critical eye is turned on statues and monuments across the land, Cllr Rob Lee has called on the council to defend the town’s heritage and take action to preserve our statues and memorials. In West St Leonards the Friends of Edith are busy preserving the statue of Edith and Harold. Nick Terdre reports.

“Hastings and St Leonards has a collection of public art, statues, monuments and buildings of which we can be rightly proud,” writes Cllr Rob Lee, leader of the Conservative group, in an open letter to council leader Kim Forward.

“From the ruins of St Mary’s Chapel on Bexleigh Avenue to the Net Shops of Rock-a-Nore, our borough is blessed with many interesting and beautiful artifacts that tell the story of Hastings and St Leonards and the people that have lived here.”

Cllr Lee says he sees “little that would provoke controversy even by modern standards. However, I would like to ask you to reassure the public and to speak out defending our town’s heritage and to promise that there will be no removal of statues, plaques, monuments or renaming of buildings or roads locally.”

But he also wants to see options explored “to restore and preserve our physical heritage locally,” and mentions specifically that the statue of Harold and Edith in Grosvenor Gardens is in a poor state, as is the statue of Queen Anne at Holmhurst St Mary.

“It has now been ten years since the last review of statues, monuments and memorials in the borough. Please could a new review be undertaken as the first step in ensuring our heritage is safe for future generations.”

Hastings Borough Council told HOT: “We will listen to and work with the local community to review the appropriateness of local monuments and statues on public land and council property.”

Much needed TLC for Edith and Harold

The statue of Harold and Edith mentioned by Cllr Lee is actually in West Marina Gardens, Ian Jarman, founder and secretary of the Friends of Edith, told HOT – Grosvenor Gardens is the name of the old bathing pool site. It appears to be a common mistake, shared also by signage on the West St Leonards sea front and Trip Advisor.

Exasperated by the long-standing neglect of the statue, Ian formed the Friends of Edith some 18 months ago, with a view to preserving both the work of art and the memory of Edith Swan-Neck, Harold’s faithful consort who bore six children to him, but whose part in the epoch-making events of that time has been largely overlooked.

It is a fiction, Ian says, that Edith comforted Harold in his dying moments, as depicted by the statue. The English king was hacked to pieces by a group of French knights and his body-parts distributed over the battlefield. It was Edith’s mournful duty, when the battle was won and lost, to search for and identify them.

Made by the sculptor Charles Wilke in 1875 for Lord Brassey, the town’s MP, the statue spent its first decades indoors, first in the Brassey Institute and then the museum, but was moved onto the museum lawn in the 1930s and to its current location in the 1950s.

It has since suffered considerably from its long exposure to the salty elements, which have eroded many of its detailed features, as well as the inscription on one side.

One of the Friends’ first initiatives was Care – the Campaign for a Roof for Edith – which raised enough money to pay for a plaque containing the original inscription and details of the statue’s provenance which is now affixed to the side.

Lichen and algae

In recent days, Ian and fellow Friend Jennifer Crisp, whose residence across the road overlooks the statue, have been busy cleaning off the lichen and algae which have grown on it. The whiteness of the Italian carrera marble is beginning to shine through again.

They plan to return in the autumn and apply a modern sealant which will allow the stone to breathe.

Longer-term plans include mounting a canopy or roof to provide protection against the worst of the elements, and installing signage and information on the site telling the story of the statue and Edith’s life. Ian would like to create beds with wild flowers typical of Edith and Harold’s time around the statue, and possibly a visitor centre on the now redundant bowling green at the far end of the gardens.

But whatever happens in the future will have to be agreed with the council, to whose forerunner, Hastings Corporation, Lord Brassey donated the statue in the year it was made, and which also owns West Marina Gardens, Ian says.

It seems both the council and Cllr Lee may rest assured that both the statue and the story it depicts are in good hands in the stewardship of the Friends of Edith.

 

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