This area was well known for it’s smuggling, with the goods being transferred across the quiet waterways. Although revenue officers were based at Pevensey, they were not very successful at preventing the smuggling.

Smuggling was actually thought of as a respectable way of earning a living, and was carried out by people from all walks of life.

Smuggling became widespread between 1500 and 1800 but it actually began much earlier in the 1200’s.

In the early days it didn’t involve the importation of goods into England, but actually taking them out. And the main load on the smugglers boats was not spirits but sheep’s wool!

Over the years the products smuggled changed in response to changes in the level of taxes on different goods and it became much more associated with the import of contraband.

In 1831 the Coastguard took over the coastal policing, and from 1832-33 a number of violent events occurred, culminating with a fight at Pevensey in 1833. This seemed to signal the end of smuggling in this area.

Local smuggling landmarks

East Dean, near Birling Gap, was the home of Dipperays, a famous smuggler. He lived in the old manor house that contained mysterious cellars beneath the house, cut deep in the sheer chalk. These were used to store his goods, including a particular brand of gin that was very popular in London taverns.

The Smugglers Inn in Alfiston was once owned by a smuggler called Stanton Collins. He was head of the notorious Alfiston gang.

In those days it was called Market Cross House and contained many features designed to confuse the excise men. It has 21 rooms, 47 doors, 6 staircases and secret hiding places in the cellars and the roof. There were even said to be tunnels leading to other houses in Alfriston, and one going as far as the Long Man of Wilmington.

The room in which the Alfriston Gang planned their smuggling operations has five doors, with two leading directly to the stables at the rear.

Collins was eventually arrested in 1831, but ironically this was not for smuggling but for stealing sheep. The last member of the Alfiston gang died in the workhouse at Eastbourne in 1890, aged 94.

Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about the smugglers:

If You wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie,
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine;
Don't you shout to come and look, nor take 'em for your play;
Put the brushwood back again, - and they'll be gone next day!