Houses in 1780, but unlike nearby Brighton this royal patronage failed to encourage tourism and residential growth—most likely because all the surrounding land was owned by two rich families (the Davies-Gilberts and the Dukes of Devonshire), who sought to control development. Sea Houses grew in importance in the late 18th century nevertheless. A row of houses was built facing the sea in about 1790, and the area soon assumed strategic importance in the defence of the south coast against Napoleonic invaders. By the end of the 18th century, troops were sent to Hastings, Bexhill and Southbourne, and a chain of Martello towers was built. Soldiers from the 11th Hussars (known by that time as the 11th Regiment of Light Dragoons) reached Eastbourne in July 1803, and a newspaper report of 5 October 1803 noted that "everything here is on the alert to receive the enemy: the whole of the 11th Light Dragoons have been ordered from their different outposts, and are stationed at Hastings, Bexhill and Southbourne [... and] the Sussex and Gloucester Militias [... made] entrenchments at Sea Houses". These soldiers were almost certainly the founders of Methodist worship in the Eastbourne area. Local Methodist historian Carlos Crisford, who later designed Central Methodist Church, first made this claim, and subsequent research has found that there was no Methodist presence before 1803. The first Nonconformist chapel in the Eastbourne area was the "Marsh Chapel", registered in the late 18th century to a group described simply as Calvinists: at the time this could refer either to Calvinistic Baptists or to Methodists following Calvinist theology, such as those who were aligned to the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion. The Marsh Chapel's later history proves that it had no Methodist connection, though: after a period of tension between different factions in the congregation, the church split into two: Independents stayed in the building, and Strict Baptists moved elsewhere and founded a new church. The Marsh Chapel was therefore of Calvinistic Baptist character. A group of these soldiers registered themselves as Dissenters, as was required by the laws of the time; this allowed them to establish a place of worship in one of the houses built in 1790 at Sea Houses, where they were stationed. In 1803, they founded the "Society of the People Called Methodists" to encourage the spread of their beliefs in the Eastbourne area. The house does not survive: the mid 19th-century