The Shipwreck & Coastal Heritage Centre in Hastings, East Sussex, tells the unique story of the maritime Hastings area – encouraging people to explore the ‘maritime park’ shore at low tide. At the Centre they will discover how to find the two major historic shipwrecks on the beach nearby that are protected by English Heritage; they will see how to walk through a prehistoric forest 4000 years old; how to collect rocks and fossils from the age of the dinosaurs 135 million years ago; and how to experience the rising sea level and changing coastline and massive sea defences; and where to wander through the quaint streets of the medieval Cinque Port of Hastings. There is also the story of several other important shipwrecks lying on the seabed of the English Channel. The Centre lies in the heart of the tourist area of Hastings, on the fishing Stade beside the medieval Old Town, from which fishermen are still sailing their ships after a thousand years. In 1985, the building occupied by the Centre was a semi-derelict Victorian stables used to house the horses that turned the timber winches that pulled the fishing boats out of the sea. Hastings Borough Council offered it to the Nautical Museums Trust to renovate and turn into a museum, now the Shipwreck & Coastal Heritage Centre. The Trust had to find most of the money, and it was officially opened as The Shipwreck Heritage Centre on July 29 by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, in the presence of the Mayor and other town dignitaries. The museum trust is a registered charity and the museum is government accredited. The trust also owns three local historic shipwrecks: the British warships Anne (1690) and Resolution (1703), and the Danish merchant sailing ship Thomas Lawrence (1862). Entrance to the museum