Other Points of Interest

Mad Jack Fuller - Fuller's Follies

Mad Jack was one of the great English Eccentrics, a famous politician and patron of science and the arts, who enjoyed building follies, mainly around the area of Brightling, these being Brightling Needle, The Sugar Loaf, The Temple, The Observatory, The Watch Tower, The Pyramid.

In 1829 Fuller purchased Bodiam Castle and effectively rescued it from being dismantled by its owners who sought to use the stone for building.

During Mad Jack's era, the famous artist, JMW Turner, painted a number of country scenes of Sussex. These were painted on and around Jack Fuller's Estate.

Burton's St Leonards

An unusual connection to Mad Jack are James and Decimus Burton, the architects of the town of St. Leonards, East Sussex, as a seaside resort for the wealthy, between 1827 and 1837. Father, son and other family members are buried beneath the Burton pyramid located on West Hill Road, St Leonards overlooking the sea.

John Logie Baird

Baird arrived in Hastings early in 1923 to convalesce from a bad bout of ill health. Over the following 18 months he carried out experiments that led in 1925 to the transmission of the first true television image, the painted wooden head of Stooky Bill at Baird's workshop in Frith Street, Soho. However it was in Hastings that he produced the first shadowy outline of an object, the shape of a Maltese Cross in his lodgings at Linton Crescent. The Hastings Museum has a number of exhibits and archives relating to this important period, as well as other pieces relating to early television history.

Birth of British Motor Racing

It was the 8th Earl De La Warr of Bexhill who secured the town's place in history by hosting Britain's first automobile races on the 19th May 1902. The event was organised by the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland and attracted international attention.