Hastings Fat Tuesday 2024 Already? Yes, indeed!

Sadly no St Mary in the Castle this year

Yes, indeed! Hastings Fat Tuesday 9-13 February 2024 (website) already has pre-music festival events occurring, starting, as I write, with today's Frock Up Friday Market Place, from 10.30 am to 3.30 pm, at the Observer Building, 53 Cambridge Road TN34 1DT (website - sorry I'm so late that I very nearly missed this!). I'm presuming this is where to go to get Mardi Gras style accessories, maybe clothes, as they state "Grab your glitter, feathers, and dancing shoes and create yourselves an outfit ready for the rest of the festival!"

Tomorrow (Sunday 4th), from 11.00 am to 3.00 pm at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, John's Place, Bohemia Road TN34 1ET will be a free Family Umbrella Workshop with Radiator Arts (website), where decorative materials and glue guns will be available so that you may decorate an old umbrella to make it fit for Mardi Gras.

Well done to the organisers, and Hastings folk, for raising the money!

Start preparing for the fun to come... 🎆

Hastings Museum & Art Gallery and The Stade & Fishing

Today (until 5pm) and this week (opening times: closed Monday, 10am to 5pm Tuesday to Saturday, 12 noon to 5pm Sunday 27th), there are 2 exhibitions at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery due to end next Sunday that concern The Stade, and Hastings Fishing Quarter and Fleet, so hurry if you don't want to miss them. They are Fishing for Generations (website), a photographic exhibition of John Cole's that portrays the men and women of Hastings fishing community from the 1990s to today, and:

The Art of Life on the Stade (website), with artworks that "explore fishing activity, complemented by several historic fishing objects." This exhibition has also featured Hastings very own Turner painting, one of 10 he is known to have painted in Hastings, the early 19th century Fishmarket on the Sands.

Hastings Museum & Art Gallery is uphill on the right of Bohemia Road in John's Place TN34 1ET; more details for visiting can be found at the website. Enjoy!

Hastings Pier: Austin Powers Sequel?

OK, there's a wee bit of humour here, a wee bit of vitriol, and some serious information to finish up with in the final paragraph. Please look away if of a nervous disposition!

Nothing to do with a follow up to the Austin Powers film Goldmember really... but I was told about this, quite frankly, rather strange adornment to the Pier, allegedly a collaboration between the fake lord and the fake sheikh, that is, the painting in gold of the testicles of an elk/moose/gnu/whatever. Well, I can't say who actually held the paintbrush, but here's the evidence that I wasn't being wound up!

And, for serious information, I believe the Hastings Pier Archive is now settled at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, however it is available at this website.

19th Century Watercolourists, to be re-written...

Hastings Museum & Art Gallery

OK, I'm not re-writing history, but I have recently received some new (to me) very interesting information about 19th century watercolour artists in Hastings which, together with the results of the closure of the Old Town Hall Museum, has encouraged me to do a wee bit more research and re-write my 3 year-old blog, where did those 3 years go?!? Anyway, I still have to visit once again, and always a pleasure, Hastings Museum & Art Gallery in John's Place, up Bohemia Road TN34 1ET, however...

Fish Market on the Sands, Early Morning (1824)

I noticed on their website that the museum's Turner painting is back on display, so please do visit the Museum & Art Gallery to enjoy; opening hours until April are 10am to 5pm Tuesday to Saturday, and 12 noon to 4pm on Sundays, closed on Mondays.

More to come!

Hastings Museum & Art Gallery Update

With the forecast rain, a visit to Hastings Museum & Art Gallery looks like a decent proposal today (website); admission to the museum is free and it is situated up Bohemia Road, on the right-hand side of the road, at Johns Place TN34 1ET, open 10am to 4pm, Tuesday to Saturday and 12 noon to 4pm on Sunday, closed Mondays.

There is so much to see in this wonderful building, as I discovered on my return there yesterday, the first exhibitions you reach on entry are about Hastings itself, in three parts. The first, Before Hastings, takes you from the end of the Ice Age, via the Bronze Age and the Romans, up to the Saxons, the Haestingas Tribe, guess where the town's name comes from! Second, is the Story of Hastings in 66 Objects, the bell in my photograph comes from the early 19th century Old Town Hall in the old town High Street, and written about in my earlier blog. The third is Wish You Were Here, which looks at Hastings history as a seaside resort and includes Mods v Rockers in the 1960s!

And so much more, eg you have just this weekend to see the sculpture and ceramics exhibition Cash, Clash and Climate, and into January next year to see Beyond the Western Front, local stories of the First World War, and, just started until the 11th of March, A Sense of Place: Topographical Views from the Museum Collection, a selection of oil paintings covering 300 years, including many of Hastings (website).

The Museum & Art Gallery does so much more too, have a visit soon!