The Fishermen's Museum

With 800 years of fishing history, it’s fitting that Hastings has its own museum dedicated to the legacy of its fishing fleet and the fishermen who worked it. The Fishermen’s Museum is situated in the old Fishermen’s Church, down on the seafront at Rock-a-Nore.  

The Fishermen’s Church was opened in 1854 as a place of worship for the fishing families of Hastings. Although there were already three churches in the town, a divide in the community between the fishing and non-fishing locals meant that fishermen and their families felt unable, or unwilling, to use these other churches. It was one of 17 churches built in Hastings over 65 years between 1828 and 1891 – the result of a moralistic Victorian society which considered religion and education to be its founding principles.

The new church was never consecrated, but opened as a Chapel of Ease. It was dedicated to St Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors and fishermen and was seen very much as a mission church, its mission being to “promote the spiritual good of the fishemen” (Deacon Tom Tanner, 1853). Overall, the mission was a success, by 1880 attracting Sunday congregations of 250 worshipers and a Sunday school of 84 children. New, enduring rituals were established with various Deacons who came and went, including services on the beach and the Blessing of the Sea, something that still happens today.

St Nicholas’ continued to serve the fishing community right up until the outbreak of war in 1939. At this time, the whole of Rock-a-Nore was declared a no-go area, and the chapel was used to store ammunition. During the Second World War, the church suffered bomb damage but was offered funds for repair by the war damage scheme. For various reasons of opposition by the Council (the freeholders), the repairs didn’t happen. But in 1955, Old Hastings Preservation Society (OHPS) managed to acquire the lease and save the building to set up a Fishermen’s Museum, with the help of Rear-Admiral Hubert Dannreuther (1880-1977), who lived in Windy Croft at High Wickham. Its first use under its new role was to house the oldest surviving sailing lugger, the Enterprise – RX 278, which remains the centre-piece of the museum today, and most popular exhibit with children. It was built in 1912, and in its working day required a crew of six for drift nets, three for trawling, and its best catch was a haul of 180,000 herring!

The museum contains all sorts of fishing-related memorabilia and curiosities, including the costume of The Winkle King, Biddy the Tubman’s famous floating tub and a stuffed albatross with an impressive wing-span of 12 feet! The walls display a long series of photos, lithographs and etchings of fishermen and local scenes related to the fishing industry – well worth a look around.

Until the early 1990s, the museum was open only on request, but today it’s open every day of the year except Christmas Day, and more than 140,000 visitors pass through its doors each year. It’s still used as a church, mainly for weddings and christenings and a Christmas Carol Concert each year. It received a Big Lottery grant in 2001, when an extension was built to display the more recent background to the fishing industry, including an exhibition about fishing today by local photographer George Greaves and a video of a rescue by RNLI of a fishing boat in trouble during rough seas.

Many thanks to Phil Ornsby from The Fishermen’s Museum for all his help with this feature

With information from 150 Years of the Fishermen’s Church (1854-2004) by Dennis Collins