A Norman landing in Combe Haven or at Cooden?

By tradition, the Normans temporarily landed at modern Pevensey, then moved to modern Hastings. Our 2016 book 'The Battle of Hastings at Sedlescombe' provides a long list of reasons to think this is implausible. We are not the first to reach this conclusion. Samuel Jeake states as apparent fact that the Normans landed at Bulverhythe in his 1678 analysis of Cinque Port charters. E S Creasy reiterated the possibility in his 1851 book 'Fifteen Decisive Battles'. Neither of them provides any supporting evidence. Nick Austin fleshed out the case in his 1994 book 'Secrets of the Norman Invasion' (SOTNI). Meanwhile, Sir James Ramsay proposed that the Normans landed at Cooden in his 1898 book 'Foundations of England'. David Dennis reiterated the possibility in his 2025 paper 'The Battle of Hastings and Cooden Moat'. Neither of them provides any supporting evidence either.

We believe that the Normans landed in the Brede estuary and camped nearby. We therefore challenge the orthodox initial Pevensey landing, the orthodox main landing in the Priory Valley, and both the alternative candidates. We explain our objection to a Priory Valley landing in our book. Unlike that place, at least the alternatives are plausible, long enough to hold the Norman fleet, not set into miles of deadly sea cliffs, not located in a gorge, and known to have been occupied in Anglo-Saxon times. We still think both of them are unlikely landing sites, for reasons we explain below.

The diagram above depicts Nick Austin's pre-battle narrative, superimposed on our regression of the 11th century coastline. It can be summarised as follows. The Normans landed at Redgeland Wood (R) and camped nearby in Monkham Wood (1). They soon moved 800m north onto the hill at Upper Wilting (2) where they camped for the next month. The English camped at Telham (T) on the night before battle. Austin reckons that the Normans could not adopt the obvious flanking strategy, to loop behind the English army by marching along the route of the modern A2690 to Beauport Park (B) then along the Hastings Ridge because the Ridge was covered in impenetrable woodland. Instead, he proposes that they returned to Redgeland Wood to dress for battle before marching through Green Street (G) to Crowhurst (C). The English moved onto the steepest part of the hill (E), where their flanks were supposedly protected by impenetrable woodland. The Normans were therefore forced to attack up the steep south slope of Telham Hill (white arrow between C and E).

The diagram above depicts our 11th century regression of Pevensey Lagoon. Note that the lagoon was retained by a shingle bar known as 'The Crumbles' that roughly corresponds with the current coastline. Streams drained through the shingle to divide the bar into a string of islands. West to east they were Langney (L), 'pefenes ea' (pe), Southeye (S) and Northeye (N). Modern Pevensey is labelled 'P'. It did not exist at the time. The Peninsula upon which it is located was then home only to the Roman fortress of Anderitum, and its access road. Ramsay and Dennis propose that the Normans landed on the contiguous strand at Cooden (C) and south Hooe Haven (H). Note that Cooden was on a narrow-necked peninsula with an 800m wide isthmus at 'The Thorn' (T) in Anglo-Saxon times. We refer to it below as the 'Bexhill peninsula'.

Nick Austin's supporting evidence for a Combe Haven Norman landing

By tradition, the Normans landed at modern Pevensey then moved to the port of Hastinges, aka Hæstingaport, and camped nearby. The contemporary accounts say or imply that an Alfredian burh named Hæstingaceastre was adjacent to Hæstingaport, or perhaps that they were cognates or that one encompassed the other. By tradition, they were all at modern Hastings, with the implication that the Normans landed in the Priory Valley and camped at modern Hastings. Austin argues this is implausible. We agree with most of his evidence, and extend it with twenty or so more reasons in our book.

Austin's method for locating the landing site, which we firmly endorse, was to search for Hæstingaport or Hæstingaceastre, knowing that the contemporary accounts say that the main landing was at one or the other, or at a cognate of one or the other. His clues 1 through 7 come from the first edition of SOTNI. Clues 8 through 14 come from his later research. His evidence is divided between the Anglo-Saxon port being at Bulverhythe (B) and Redgeland (R). While the groups of clues seem to contradict each other, Bulverhythe and Redgeland are only 2km apart. To make sense of the clues, it can be assumed that it might have been a composite entrepôt - like the one we propose at Old Winchelsea and Iham - with docks at Bulverhythe and a mercantile centre at Redgeland.

Austin: The Chronicles [i.e. Benoît de Sainte-Maure] state 'There right in front of the port' where William’s fleet 'landed stood a Castle handsome and strong'. The expression 'There right in front of the port' Hæstingaceastre can only make sense when applied to the Hastings port at Bulverhythe, since this is the only place where a castle could stand in a way that you would consider to be in front of the port.
Austin: The great Council in the time of William Rufus was held in 1094 at Hastings Castle ... The register of Battle Abbey records “The Castle then stood below the cliff, on ground since overflowed by the sea”. This can likewise only refer to Bulverhythe as the erosion of the coastline, referred to by many writers, is only recorded to have occurred two centuries later in the late 13th century.
Austin lists two early references to salt works at the port of Hastings: 1) Charter of Offa dated as early as AD.795 which says “..the ports of my possession which are in the same neighbourhood on the sea, Hastings and Pevensey, with their salt works”; 2) A complaint to King Aedelwulfus AD 857 in which it is stated: “that a monk of St.Denis had bitterly complained of the injuries which the kings men had miserably inflicted on the followers of the Saint in England, especially at Rotherfield, and in Hastings and Pevensey, at their salt works.” He notes that salt has never been worked on the coast near modern Hastings but it might have been worked on the banks of Combe Haven. For evidence, he quotes Dawson's statement: "That there were at Bulverhythe pertaining to the said barony at Hastings - 20 acres of salt pasture worth per annum 6s 8d".
Samuel Jeake specifically says that the Normans landed at Bulverhythe. Austin: "Jeakes, in his annotations on the Cinque Ports Charters, speaking of the neighbouring spot called Bulverhythe, sets forth that it was not only the original haven of Hastings, but as such the then supposed place where William the Conqueror landed".
Austin: Barry Funnell reporting for the Hastings Area Archaeological Research Group (HAARG) on the America Ground in 1989 states that 'the early chronicles describe Hastings as having the best natural seaport in South East England'. This is indeed only true of Bulverhythe, which was at that time a flooded inland harbour, second only to Poole as the largest natural harbour on the South Coast.
Austin: A further study of other writings on this subject produce many examples of cross referenced support for Bulverhythe, as the original port of Hastings, at the time of the Norman Invasion. E.M. Ward in his detailed study 'The Evolution of the Hastings Coastline' states that “Bulverhythe, as a 13th century port was of some importance”. Straker and Lewis make the point that “the haven of Bulverhythe was possibly used as an iron port” for the Romans. Millward and Robinson confirm that “Bulverhythe was probably an important Saxon port and was later a member of the Cinque ports”. Lastly the Patent Rolls still mention the importance of Bulverhythe as a port as late as AD 150 [the reference is actually 1250].
Austin: One final clue arises to confirm the fact that Hastings port pre 1066 was almost certainly situated on the Bulverhythe within the natural harbour area. This is that Hastings enjoyed a pre-eminent position in relation to the Cinque Ports. These five ports, Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich received special privileges most probably because they were the only source of ships in the absence of a navy. The first reference to the Cinque Ports is in a charter of Henry II according to the eminent historian, and ex curator of Hastings Museum, John Manwaring Baines. In his book 'Historic Hastings' Mr Manwaring Baines makes the point that whilst each of these ports enjoyed a special relationship with the crown Hastings appeared to enjoy special favours. He notes that “all freemen of the ports were called “Barons” and “although not en-nobled by that title, their representatives were recognised as being almost on the level with peerage barons”. They were exempt from taxation and trading dues and had the right to be tried by their own courts. These were extraordinary privileges. However Hastings appeared to enjoy a special privilege, which many attribute to it’s roll as head Cinque Port. This was the right to provide barons to carry the canopy of the King and Queen in procession at the coronation. Further at the banquet after the coronation they sat at the right hand side of the king, in the place of honour. It is my opinion that these honours were special and bestowed upon the people of Hastings because of their special relationship with the crown, dating back to the time of William. This explains why these privileges were granted, but also provides a logical explanation based upon the fact that the port of Hastings was the largest and most influential of all the ports in the South of England. The honours bestowed matched the status of the port and could only be located at Bulverhythe.
The Chronicle of Battle Abbey: “specifically names the port at a place named Hedgeland [Hechelande]”. Austin explains that Hechelande would have been pronounced similarly to Redgeland in the local dialect of the day, so Hæstingaport referred to modern Redgeland which was on the banks of Combe Haven at the time of the Norman invasion.
The first Norman Sheriffs, namely Reinbert and Ingelrann, were “installed at Wilting Manor”, the location he proposes for the second Norman camp. He says that this reflects Wilting’s “paramount importance”, implying it was the administrative centre for Hæstingaport.
Domesday's list of manors that were 'wasted' (i.e., destroyed) during the Conquest are concentrated around Combe Haven. Rameslie manor around the Brede estuary suffered no damage at all. Austin argues that the manors most plundered, and therefore those that lost most value during the Conquest, would have been those closest to the Norman camp. Therefore, he argues that the second Norman camp and Hæstingaceastre and Hæstingaport must have been in Combe Haven.
Field boundaries and a terrace near Upper Wilting indicate the route of a Roman road from Redgeland to Beauport Park which was used to transport iron blooms to a Roman port in Combe Haven. Every Roman trunk road ends at a castra, the survivors of which became Anglo-Saxon 'ceastres'. If there was a metalled Roman road that ended at Combe Haven, it is a good candidate to be Hæstingaceastre, and therefore a good candidate to have been the location of Hæstingaport and the Norman landing.
There are lumps in the ground at Redgeland that might be the remains of Roman piers from the Roman port. Roman ports were protected by legionaries that lived in a nearby castra. If the Roman piers are from a Roman port, it would have had a nearby castra and that castra would be a good candidate to have been Hæstingaceastre.
LiDAR shows the outline of a rectangular enclosure near Redgeland. That enclosure is the right size to have been the Alfredian burh of Hæstingaceastre based on its description in the Burghal Hidage.
Resistivity geophysics survey shows the outline of a Norman keep, perhaps surrounded by the faint outline of fortress walls, at Wilting. Austin notes that the Normans must have been based somewhere before the stone castle at modern Hastings was complete. Being Normans, they probably stayed in a motte and bailey wooden castle, which might have been the one in the geophysics.

If these clues were valid, they seem to make a coherent case for a Norman landing in Combe Haven. Crowhurst Park produced 40000 tonnes of iron ore in Roman times, all processed at nearby bloomeries. The Weald's iron was made into weapons and armour in France. Iron blooms were heavy and awkward to transport over land. It seems likely that Crowhurst Park's blooms were moved onto sea-going ships as directly as possible, which would have entailed dropping them 1.4km downhill to a port in Combe Haven. If there was a Roman port on the banks of Combe Haven - and Clue 12 might be physical evidence of it - the rest of Austin's evidence could form a coherrent narrative as follows.

Heavy freight like iron blooms was moved by ox-drawn cart on hardcore surfaces. This implies there was a metalled road or mining track between the Crowhurst Park bloomery and a Combe Haven port, and Clue 11 might be physical evidence of it. Roman ports, both commercial and military, were defended by Roman legionaries who lived in camps known as castras, and Clue 13 might be physical evidence of one. Former castras were referred to by Anglo-Saxons as 'ceastres'. Hæstingaceastre would have been at the site of one and Clue 13 might be physical evidence of it at Redgeland. This would be consistent with Clue 1 if the viewer was looking from the sea. If Hæstingaceastre was at Redgeland, Hæstingaport was there too. Clue 8 purports to be direct evidence that this was so. The Romans mined out all the ore in the entire region, so Hæstingaport did not ship iron blooms. Instead, it would have shipped the region's other main natural resources: salt, salted herrings, and timber. Clue 3 is an attempt to show that the Combe Haven basin was rich in these natural resources. Clues 6, 7, 9 and 10 try to show that Combe Haven had an important Anglo-Saxon port and a significant Anglo-Saxon settlement.

The only other landing site candidate that Austin considered was modern Hastings, the orthodox location of Hæstingaport, Hæstingaceastre and Hastinges. Clues 3, 6, 7 and 9 try to show that modern Hastings did not have an Anglo-Saxon port. Austin rejected the Brede estuary as a landing site candidate, as explained in Clue 10 below, so he also rejected Old Winchelsea as a Hæstingaport candidate. He therefore concludes that Combe Haven is the only Norman landing site candidate and that is consistent with the evidence.

Some flaws in Austin's evidence

Clue 1 is based on Dawson's quirky translation of a passage from Benoît's Chronique des ducs de Normandie, and it is taken out of context. A more accurate modern translation by Ian Short says that the Normans: "Arrived at Pevenesel, at a port [or harbour] beneath a fortress handsome and strong". This no longer suggests that the fortress was in front of the port. Contextually, Benoît was referring to the Norman fleet's arrival off the coast of England rather than to where they landed. Five other acccounts say that the Normans arrived at, or moored off, the English coast within sight of Anderitum at modern Pevensey. There was a harbour at the island of 'pefenes ea', exactly consistent with Short's translation.

Clue 2 is based on an unreliable note on the back of a JMW Turner painting. There is nothing to substantiate the note's claim and it looks spurious. As far as we know, the origin of the words has never been found. No books or manuscripts are known as the 'Register of Battle Abbey'. It is often assumed that it referred to the 'Chartulary of Battle Abbey' because that book has been hidden away in a private American library for over a century, but we have read it from cover to cover without finding the reference. The author was probably an art auctioneer rather than a historian. It seems likely that he invented the story to inflate the painting's value.

Clue 3 is mostly misleading. Austin was trying to say that salt has never been farmed at modern Hastings whereas it might has been farmed around Combe Haven. His evidence that salt was farmed around Combe Haven is an early 14th century reference to salt-marsh around Bulverhythe. Salt-marsh has nothing to do with salt farming, and the reference is two hundred and fifty years too late to be relevent to Anglo-Saxon salt production. His first two references are to salt being farmed in Ramleslie manor which spanned the Brede estuary. It is not evidence that salt was farmed around Combe Haven.

Clue 4 does accurately reflect Jeake's opinion that the Normans landed at Bulverhythe, but he provided no evidence and he was clearly mistaken. Bulverhythe was an island at the time. There is no possibility that the Normans landed on an island because they needed fresh water and forage for their horses, they needed to ride to mainland farms to rustle food, and they needed to return livestock to their camp, as depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. It seems likely to us that Jeake did not know that Bulverhythe was an island at the time of the Norman invasion, so spuriously reasoned that the closest place to modern Hastings with a strand long enough to accommodate the Norman fleet was the beach between Bulverhythe and Bexhill Pavilion.

Clue 5 is inaccurate. As Funnell implies, medieval sources do say that a port on the Hastings Peninsula was one of the two busiest in southeast England, the other being Dover, but there is no reason to equate that - as Austin does in Clue 5 - with it having the largest natural harbour. Port shipping volume is a function of hinterland natural resources, population and transport infrastructure, of which Combe Haven had close to zero in medieval times.

Clue 6 is not evidence that there was an Anglo-Saxon port at Bulverhythe at the time of the Norman invasion. It is evidence that there was a port at Bulverhythe in the mid-13th century. It was Norman, and probably developed to service the Norman castle and settlement at modern Hastings. There is no evidence of an Anglo-Saxon port in Combe Haven and no reason for it to have had one.

Clue 7 is a misunderstanding. The five 'Cinque Ports' are Hastings, Dover, Romney, Hythe and Sandwich. They were obliged to provide 57 ships to the king, allocated in proportion to the value of their tax breaks. The breakdown across the five Cinque Ports was 21, 21, 5, 5 and 5 ships respectively. The name implies that the Cinque Ports were ports, but Hastings and Dover were 'Head Ports'. It meant that the earls of Hastings and Dover each had to raise their 21 ships across the ports in their earldom, which did not necessarily include a port at their administrative centre. It clearly did not in the case of Hastings because the same charter defines its port breakdown and none of them was at modern Hastings. Rather, the allocation was 10 from Old Winchelsea, 5 from Rye, and 6 between Seaford, Old Pevensey, Hydney, Northeye, Bulverhythe, Iham (modern Winchelsea), Beaksborne, and Grench. Bulverhythe and Northeye were two of eight ports that had to raise a combined six ships, meaning that they raised less than one each. The Brede basin had to raise more than fifteen. This shows that Bulverhythe in Combe Haven were minuscule ports compared to those at the mouth of the Brede estuary.

Clue 8 is ambiguous, and probably duplicitous. The Chronicle of Battle Abbey says that Hecheland is 'a parte' the port. Latin 'a parte' means 'to the side of', and the many other uses of the term in CBA have this meaning. Searle translates this instance of it as 'in the direction of', Lower as 'towards'. They are just about viable translations but very rare. Austin interprets 'a parte' to mean that the port is immediately 'to the side of' Hecheland, implying that the port was at Hecheland. It is a far more viable interpretation, but not the only one. The term has no implication of closeness and Latin has other common words for that purpose (proximus and adiacens to name two). 'a parte' is typically used in a more general way, such as 'western side' or 'river side', which would be inconsistent with Austin's interpretation. Regardless, CBA has four other references to Hecheland all of which say it was inland, near modern Telham on the Hastings Ridge. If it is being consistent, it could not be referring to a port. In our opinion, it is not being consistent. Indeed, we believe that the CBA is deliberately trying to confuse their readers about the location of Hecheland at the time of the battle, for reasons we explain in our book. This clue is unhelpful as it stands.

Clue 9 is misleading. Sheriffs Reinbert and Ingelrann were only subtenants of Wilting Manor, a role they shared with three others. Reinbert was sole subtenant of 15 other Sussex manors, including valuable Udimore and Whatlington, plus joint subtenant of eight more. Ingelrann was subtenant of two big Sussex manors, Hooe and Filsham, and referred to himself as Ingelran of Hooe. It seems to us that their involvement with Wilting was incidental, and their bases were elsewhere.

Clue 10 is the most crucial aspect of Austin's evidence because it is his only argument that the Normans did not land in the Brede estuary. Nevertheless, even in isolation, it sounds compelling. However, Rameslie manor which spanned the Brede estuary was held by the Norman Abbey of Fécamp before and after the invasion. William was the abbey's patron. In effect, the Brede basin and the port of Old Winchelsea belonged to William and the Roman Church. William would not have plundered himself or his most important sponsor, the Pope, so Rameslie manor would have escaped unharmed wherever the Normans camped. Conversely, Harold's ancestral manors were adjacent to Combe Haven, and they had the richest farmland in the region. They would have been plundered and razed wherever the Normans camped. Therefore, we believe that Austin is wrong to discount a Brede estuary.

Clues 11, 12, 13 and 14 are unsubstantiated speculation. Extensive excavations were made around Wilting before work began on the Bexhill Bypass. They found evidence of 14 bloomeries, but no evidence of enclosures, metalled roads, piers or quays. This does not mean they were not there, but there is no evidence they were.

A comparison of Norman landing site evidence between Combe Haven, Cooden and the Brede estuary

✓ = Yes / Consistent; ✖ = No / Inconsistent	Brede	Combe Haven	Cooden (Hooe)
Roman infrastructure
1. Roman iron production ('000 of tonnes)	✓ (80)	✓ (10)	✖
2. Evidence of a Roman port	✓	✖	✖
3. Evidence of Roman road infrastructure	✓	✖	✖
4. Evidence of a Roman castra	✓	✖	✖
Anglo-Saxon infrastructure
5. Anglo-Saxon salt production (Domesday salt-pans)	✓ (100)	✖	✓ (34)
6. Evidence of medieval log flumes	✓	✖	✖
7. Evidence of pre-Conquest port	✓	✖	✖
8. Evidence of an Anglo-Saxon 'ceastre' burh	✓	✖	✖
Consistency with contemporary account clues
9. Length of contiguous strand (km)	9	5	4
10. Overlooked by sea cliff	✓	✖	✖
11. Familiar to Norman monks of Fécamps Abbey	✓	✖	✖
12. Firm level plain adjacent to the landing strand	✓	✖	✓
13. Consistent with a landing at Penevesellum	✓	✖	✖
14. Near the Hastings Peninsula but not on it	✓	✖	✖

Roman infrastructure is relevant to the Norman landing site and the battle location. In the case of the landing, the contemporary accounts say that the Normans camped near where they landed, and they camped at Hæstingaceastre, or a cognate of it. Places with 'ceastre' names were at pre-Anglo-Saxon fortifications, nearly always Roman. In the case of the battle, the English army would not have moved far from a Roman road, and the Normans must have advanced at least part of the way from their camp to the battlefield on a Roman road for the battle to have started at the third hour of the day.

Roman iron production. Abundant natural resources give a reason for the Romans to build roads, ports and castras. According to Henry Cleere, the four biggest mines in the Brede basin produced 80000 tonnes of iron blooms, whereas the entire Combe Haven basin produced only 10000 tonnes, and the Bexhill peninsula produced none. If there were major Roman infrastructure in the region, it is likely to have been in the Brede basin.
Roman port. The Hastings Ridge forms the Brede basin's southern watershed. The land south of the Hastings Ridge is divided into the Combe Haven basin, the Hooe haven basin and Ash Bourne basin. There is no credible reason that bulky goods like iron blooms would be hauled over the Hastings Ridge, so it is likely that the Brede basin's iron was exported from a port in the Brede, the Crowhurst Park's iron was exported from a port in Combe Haven. Therefore, there was probably a Roman port in both the Brede and Combe Haven, the one in the Brede being roughly eight times the size of the port in Combe Haven. There is no reason that Cooden would have had a Roman port.
Roman transport infrastructure. No physical evidence of Roman transport infrastructure has been found in Combe Haven, although we expect there was a metalled mining track between Crowhurst Park's mines and a minor port in Combe Haven. No physical evidence of Roman infrastructure has been found at Cooden, and there is no reason for it to have had any. Contrastingly, the south Brede basin was covered in a network of proven metalled Roman roads. The Rochester Roman trunk road went from Bodiam to Sedlescombe. It crossed the Brede on a bridge at Sedlescombe then forked with one branch going to Beauport Park, while the main trunk road terminated at modern Winchelsea.
Roman castra. Roman trunk roads were built by the Roman army for use by the Roman army. Each day that a road advanced, they would build a new castra at the new end. Consequently, there is a castra at the end of all Roman trunk roads. Modern Winchelsea was at the end of the Rochester Roman trunk road, whereas there are no Roman trunk roads south of the Hastings Ridge. Roman castra usually had a civilian vicus outside the main gate. A manor named Wickham, the Anglo-Saxon name for a former Roman vicus, is adjacent to modern Winchelsea in the Brede basin. There is no evidence of a vicus in Combe Haven or the Bexhill peninsula. Coastal castras were located for good visibility and fast troop deployment. Modern Winchelsea in the Brede estuary had an uninterrupted 160° view south and east, and Cooden had a 160° view south and west, whereas Redgeland in Combe Haven, the location Austin proposes for his Roman castra, had a narrow 15° view south. To summarise, no evidence of a Roman castra has been found on the Hastings Peninsula, but the only evidence of where it might have been points to the Brede basin.

Two Anglo-Saxon places are relevent to the Norman landing, namely Hæstingaceastre and Hæstingaport. Most of the contemporary accounts say that the Normans landed at Hæstingaport and camped nearby at Hæstingaceastre. The Anglo-Saxon population south of the Andredsweald was too low to draw significant imports or to manufacture enough stuff to need a dedicated export port. Hæstingaport therefore must have exported natural resurces. The Romans mined out the regions iron ore. Hæstingaport must have exported the region's other natural resources, salt, salted herrings and timber.

Domesday lists salt-pans by manor. Rameslie manor which spanned the Brede had 100 salt-pans. Hooe manor had 34, the manors around Combe Haven had none.
All three of the Hæstingaport candidates would have been below heavily wooded slopes. However, moving logs over land in medieval times was incredibly difficult. Anywhere that produced a significant quantity of timber would have flumed it down to the nearest water and floated it downstream. The only slopes in the region that are consistently steep enough to flume timber are those on the north bank of the Brede and medieval flumes are still there. No flumes have been found around Combe Haven or Cooden.
Hæstingaport. There are charter references to a port at Old Winchelsea in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries, whereas the first reference to a port in Combe Haven or near the Bexhill peninsula (Bulverhythe and Northeye respectively) are in the 13th century. Pre-Conquest coins issued at Hæstingaceastre's mint are stamped with an abbreviation of Hæstingaceastre, or an abbreviation of Hæstingaport or an abbreviation of Winchelse (meaning Old Winchelsea), as if they are all the same same. Domesday provides two more clues that Hæstingaport was in the Brede estuary. It says that Hastinges in Bredeside manor of Rameslie had four burgesses, nearly always an indication that the manor contained a port or trading centre, whereas the Combe Haven and Bexhill peninsula manors had none. Domesday lists Rameslie with a large non-farming population, whereas the populations of the Combe Haven and Bexhill peninsula are consistent with them being populated only by farmers.
Hæstingaceastre. Hæstingaceastre was an Alfredian burh. A manor adjacent to modern Winchelsea is named Wickham, nearly always an indication that it was formerly a Roman roadside civilian settlement, often outside the gates of a fortification. This would be consistent with a Roman castra at modern Winchelsea, and Hæstingaceastre's name implies it was at a former Roman castra. Alfred's burhs were positioned to control population centres or transport routes or both. There were no major Anglo-Saxon population centres in East Sussex, but there was the Rochester Roman road. A burh at modern Winchelsea would have controlled access to that road. A burh in Combe Haven or the Bexhill peninsula would not control any transport route. Moreover, their view of the Brede basin would be obscured by the Hastings Ridge, so a burh at either location would not be able to see invaders entering the Brede estuary to plunder the hinterland along the Rochester Roman road.

There are other reasons to believe that the Normans landed and camped in the Brede estuary, or that they did not land or camp in Combe Haven or Cooden.

Willian expected the landing site to be defended. He would have wanted to land on the longest contiguous stretch of firm strand, thereby stretching the defence as thin as possible, ideally so thin that it left gaps for some of his horses to land unopposed. The Brede's contiguous strand was over 9km, whereas Combe haven and Cooden's were less than 5km. Wace (Taylor) says: “They arrived near Hastingues each ship ranged by the other’s side.” If, as we calculate, the ships had an average beam of 5m and were separated by 2m, they would have needed at least 5km of strand. This was comfortably available on the north bank of the Brede where there was 7km of strand, and the streams running off the Udimore Ridge were barely 2m across. The streams running off the Hastings Ridge are far more substantial. Powdermill Stream was more than 250m wide in its lower reaches, Little Bog and Watermill Stream was 150m across. The longest contiguous strand was around 2km, nowhere near enough to accommodate the Norman fleet.
Carmen and Wace say that the Norman landing was watched by an observer who stood at the base of a cliff. The Brede estuary was overlooked by Cadborough cliffs. Combe Haven and Cooden were not overlooked by cliffs.
William was accompanied on the invasion by monks from the abbey of Fécamps who acted as translators and advisors. They had held the manor of Rameslie which spanned the Brede estuary since 1018. Jo Kirkham proposed back in the 1990s that William would have used their expert local knowledge to plan the invasion. If so, the Norman fleet landed in the Brede estuary.
Wace (Taylor) says: “They [the knights] formed together on the shore, each armed upon his warhorse. All had their swords girded on, and passed into the plain with their lances raised.” So, the Normans landed on a strand that was adjacent to a plain that was level enough to assemble a kit-fortress without first digging a motte, and firm enough underfoot to support mounted horses. This is consistent with the north bank of the Brede which, at that time of year, would have had a firm level plain of dried out salt pans. The banks of Combe Haven would have been a boggy quagmire at the end of September, and still are despite the effective 5m drop in sea level.
Poitiers, Jumièges and Orderic say that the Normans initially landed at Penevesellum. Note the 'n/v' switch, meaning this is not a Pevensey cognate. It is a Latin format name that was only used by Normans. The only likely reason that Normans might have had a Latin name for somewhere in Sussex is that it belonged to the Frankish Abbey of St Denys or the Norman Abbey of Fécamp. In this vicinity, this means that it was in Rameslie manor which lined the banks of the Brede estuary.
Bayeux Tapestry scene 40 is captioned: “here the knights hurry to Hestinga to forage for food”. There is a disagreement about the meaning of the Tapestry’s Hestinga. We think it referred to the Hastings Peninsula, Nick Austin thinks it referred to Hæstingaport or cognate. The Tapestry's caption is consistent with our proposed Brede north bank landing, because it is not on the Hastings Peninsula. The Norman knights would need to cross the Brede at Sedlescombe to forage on the Hastings Peninsula. The Tapestry's caption is inconsistent with a Combe Haven landing because the Normans landed at Nick Austin's idea of Hestinga, so they would not need to ride there to forage.

Two other points might be relevant.

William expected the landing site to be defended. His greatest advantage was his huge cavalry, but they would be impotent if defenders could prevent them landing. This militated towards two geographic features of the landing site. Firstly, it needed to be as long as possible, to stretch the defence as thin as possible, at least until it had weak points, ideally until it had holes where horses could be landed unopposed. Once some horses were landed and mounted, they could clear a path for the others. Secondly, the landing site should ideally have two banks. If the defenders were on one bank, they could land on the other. If the defenders were on both banks, the would land on the weaker of the two. At the very least, this would half the number of defenders, buying time to establish a beachhead before the defenders on the other bank could make their way around. Both these criteria favour the Brede. Its strand was 10km on both banks compared to 4km at Combe Haven and 5km at Cooden. The Brede north bank would have been easier for a landing because of its salt pans, but the Normans could have landed on the south bank. They could not have landed on the Combe Haven south bank because Bexhill was a narrow necked peninsula where the Normans would have been trapped if the English defended the isthmus in numbers. They could not have landed at Cooden on the Bexhill peninsula's west bank for the same reason.
Combe Haven's name implies it was a haven. The Anglo-Saxons differentiated 'havens' from 'harbours' and 'ports'. They are all Old English words, albeit that 'port' was inherited from Latin. So, a haven is a sheltered coastal inlet, a harbour is a haven with mooring facilities, a port is a harbour with quays and warehouses for handling freight. If Combe Haven's name derives from Anglo-Saxon times, and there is no reason to believe it does not, it was not a port.

Against this, there is one clue that might imply the Norman landing was not in the Brede estuary:

According to the 1987 HAARG Domesday project, a 1963 sales catalogue for Wilting Farm claimed: "In the heyday of Sussex iron workings, when the transport of iron to water borne transport was of the utmost importance, a road existed from the great blooomery at Beauport to a loading bay in the vicinity of the Coach Bridge [near the on the banks of Combe Haven]. The course of the highway can still be traced across the farm." If this were true, it might imply that Beauport Park's iron blooms were hauled over the Hastings Ridge to be exported from a port in Combe Haven. This would turn on their head some of the first six clues, meaning that the port in Combe Haven was by far the biggest in the region, that it was likely to have had the nearby castra, and so on.

In our opinion, clue 17 is a misunderstanding. We guess that its root was the Turner painting note we mention above. That note seems to be corroborated by a vestigial road from Crowhurst Park to the coast. However, the Turner note is baseless and Colonel Thomas Pelham, Crowhurst Park's owner in the 18th century, built a metalled road from his house in Crowhurst Park to Glyne Gap on the coast. This is the road that is still visible on the landscape, and it does look superficially like a Roman road, with raised carriageway, graded layers, and straight sections. It was only revealed to have been Georgian when it was excavated by HAARG in 1987.

Summary

In summary, the first six clues are consistent with both a Combe Haven landing and a Brede estuary landing, but all favour the Brede. The next eight clues are consistent with a Brede estuary landing, uniquely so for the first five, but inconsistent with a Combe Haven or Cooden landing. The last clue might be inconsistent with a Brede estuary landing, but we think it is faulty.