Hastings is one of the south coast’s premier seaside resorts, although latterly it has suffered from a downturn in tourism it is now re-emerging from the doldrums. Back in the 1890s when the Victorian craze for seaside bathing was at its height, and with the coming of the railway boosting tourism for the working classes, the town was expanding fast and with it the need for a sustainable source of safe drinking water which then already stood at a demand level of 900,000 gallons of water a day.
The borough surveyor, a Mr P H Palmer, investigated various sources and reported that a well in Greensand strata at Glynde near Lewes could supply the necessary extra supply for future expansion of the town, then estimated at one million gallons a day. A further report by another consultant favoured wells in the chalk strata at West Dean, also east of Lewes, but it was realised that a considerable amount of
