bouchure of the river was at a point southward of Meeching
i n f ac t at the very point where Newhaven harbour at this
moment exists. And that the outlet was there in Roman times seems pretty evident from the great earthworks of that era overhanging the western side of the port, and called " Castle Hill." The prevalence of south-west winds, however, is well known to have, on this coast, the effect of causing a great accumulation of shingle, and of driving river currents to seek a more easterly outlet, as exemplified in the Adur, the Cuckmere, and other Sussex rivers. At what precise epoch the ancient mouth of the Ouse became choked up it is impos- sible to conjecture, though it is evident from the legend of St. Lewinna, detailed in Sussex Arch. Coll. Vol.1, p. 46, et sea. that the port of the Ouse was at Seaford in the middle of the eleventh century; and it was in consequence of this position that Seaford at no great interval of time became one of the Cinque- Ports. In the time of Queen Elizabeth the port of Seaford fell in its turn to decay, and the outfall being retransferred to Meeching, that place gradually lost its ancient designation in that of Newhaven. In a survey of the Sussex coast made in May 1537, in anticipation of the Spanish Invasion, by Sir Thos. Palmer and Walter Covert, Esq., the village is called Michin, and the port Newhaven. The latter had been defended with ordnance, which is described as " vnmounted and of lit- tell worthe." It is recommended by the surveyors to con- struct a " Bullwarke of earth .... for the plan tinge of one dimy culveringe and two sacres." Throughout the seventeenth century the harbour seems to have been greatly neglected, and it was not until the beginning of the eighteenth that it began to receive any considerable share of attention.
The above remarks are merely prefatory to a very curious notice of the port of Newhaven and its capabilities, published in 1677 by a projector of many ingenious schemes, Andrew Yarranton, Gent., in a work entitled, "England's Improvement by Sea and Land." As the work is very scarce, and the matter consequently new to most readers, I make no apology for quoting the passage in extenso, and adding a facsimile of the rude map which accompanies it.
" But I find it is not my own single opinion, that safe and
