Seaford

Quiet informal Seaford, the largest town, is a favourite holiday place for those who wish to avoid the kiss-me-quick glitz of the bigger seaside towns. However, the modern town belies its turbulent past as a major port and "rotten borough". It has survived plague, French invasion, the loss of its harbour and the erosion of its shoreline.

Seaford Head, the great chalk cliff at the eastern end of the seafront, was settled by Iron-Age man. A U-shaped earth bank halfway up is the remains of ramparts built for shelter and defence.

When the Romans arrived they found a natural harbour at the foot of the cliff where the River Ouse met the sea. A Romano-British cemetery was discovered north of the cliff by Victorian archeologists. After the Romans left, Saxons settled in the area giving rise to place names such as Exceat and Alfriston.

The harbour was the key to Seaford's prosperity. The Normans used it as a cross channel port. They built a large church, parts of which survive in the parish church of St Leonard. The town thrived, exporting wool and importing wine and by 1229 was important enough to become a Cinque Port. In return for providing men and ships to defend the coast, the Cinque Ports were granted civic privileges including the operation of law courts, claiming goods washed up on the shoreline and the right to have two Members of Parliament.

According to legend, disaster struck in 1579 when a huge storm sealed the harbour with shingle and redirected the River Ouse breaking through the bar at Meeching to create a "new haven".

As a port, Seaford was dead. Yet in 1544, Henry VIII reaffirmed its status as a Cinque Port. The wily locals exploited their rights to flotsam and jetsam to the full, even to the extent of luring ships into the beach by lighting fires. Scores of vessels fell prey to the wreckers of Seaford shags. Grounded in the bay they were stripped of their cargos.

Powerful unscrupulous men in the 17th century reclaimed Seaford's right to two MPs to further their own interest. Tales of bribed electors and voters being shipped in to boost the town's depleted population abound. Two of this "rotten borough's" former representatives, William Pitt and George Canning, became Prime Ministers. Seaford's MPs were removed by the 1832 Reform Bill bringing to a close this chapter in its history.

The arrival of the railway in 1864 gave Seaford a new lease of life as a favourite Victorian and Edwardian seaside resort. It also attracted a number of large private schools. Today Seaford is a quiet residential town with a shopping centre, good sports facilities and easy access to the Downs. It has a museum housed in a Martello Tower on the seafront and the district council runs an art gallery which includes the medieval crypt of a merchant's house.