New boards tell of Bexhill's violent past

MORE than a year of preparation has gone into a project which will give visitors and residents alike an insight into a colourful if violent aspect of Bexhill's past.

The Society of Bexhill Museums in conjunction with Rother District Council has erected six permanent information boards giving a history of smuggling locally.

Each board is different, concentrating on evidence in the vicinity and life in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and include illustrations.

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Together they form an interest trail from Normans Bay to Galley Hill and Sidley with information given in English, German, French and Dutch.

The project, funded with Interreg grant aid, is the first of a planned series of history information boards.

Rother museums curator Julian Porter is already working on boards for De La Warr Parade giving the town's motor racing heritage.

Boards in Old Town explaining how Hanoverian troops of the King's German Legion came to be stationed in Bexhill in Napoleonic times could follow if funding is available.

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Julian explained: "It came out of a conversation with comedian Eddie Izzard at about the time that he became our patron.

"He said why didn't we do something about smuggling?

"It was one of his good ideas.

"We had been thinking what we could do about doing something about smuggling with the museum closed. We have to get people when they are out and about the town.

"There has been so much about the Victorian and Edwardian era but comparatively little about earlier times.

"It is something we are thinking about extending to the wider area. We are talking with Rye museum about sites in Rye."

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Each panel tells its own story and may be enjoyed singly or as part of a trail.

The Sidley panel tells of the Battle of Sidley Green in 1828, the last major fight in Sussex between smugglers and excisemen.

The Little Common panel tells of the village's infamous Gillham Gang while a panel at the Star Inn at Normans Bay tells how the gang hid their vessels, the Charlotte and the Long Boat, nearby.