About Our Project: Rediscovering West Street


When resident Lorna Crabbe first moved here a decade ago, she searched local books/ archives and found very little written on West Street. Over the years she has gradually dug things up from various sources, mostly online. Her curiosity is what started this project and she formed the West Street Community Group. The group is made up of residents, business owners and artists based on the street who are working together with volunteers and enthusiasts to recapture the street’s forgotten history through research, oral histories and running events with local people. 

In October, 2017 The Heritage Lottery Fund awarded the project a grant of £10,000 to support a year-long project researching, sharing and celebrating the history of West Street.

Research will be made publicly accessible and a free publication ‘The West Street Chronicle’ will be launched at a street party in the summer. 

Our first event 'Illuminating West Street: A Winter Salon' will be held over the first weekend in December, in partnership with Home Live Art


Our research so far:

We have been scouring the local studies room at Hastings Museum of Art Gallery, the Hastings History House, local libraries and speaking to local historians and history groups. We have been researching online records and British newspaper archives. 

We will now be reaching out to the local community in Hastings Old Town and beyond to speak to people with a connection to the street - maybe they had family here, or worked in a small business. Maybe they have a story about West Street or an old photograph to share. Our volunteers will be interviewing local people and gathering as much information as they can. We are especially keen to find photographs as there are so few old images of the street in existence. 


 
















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Following the launch event to the project - A Winter Salon, taking place over the weekend of 1st-3rd December 2017, we are moving on to the ...