Old Winchelsea was a coastal town repeatedly threatened by the sea. Plans for its replacement were already under way before the destructive storm of 1287, which further devastated the old settlement.
In 1288 the new site was handed over to the town’s burgesses. By 1292 the inhabitants had moved to New Winchelsea on Iham Hill. The story is one of both destruction and deliberate rebuilding.
That historical setting provides one of the threads in The Gospel in the Storm. The lost gospel and the novel’s supernatural mystery belong to fiction; the struggle of the town against the sea belongs to the history of Sussex.
Historical source: Winchelsea: New Winchelsea ↗