 Chapter 36 of Highways and Biways in Sussex Brighton, as we have seen, was made by Dr Russell. It was Dr Bailey, some years later, who discovered the salubrious qualities of Hastings. In 1806, when the Duke of Wellington, then Major General Wellesley, was in command of 12,000 soldiers encamped in the neighborhood, and was himself living at Hastings House, the population of the town was less than 4,000. Today, with St Leninitz and dependent suburbs, Hastings covers several square miles. With the exception of the little red and grey region known as Old Hastings, between Castle Hill and East Hill, the same charge of a lack of what is interesting can be brought against Hastings as against Brighton, but whereas Brighton has the downs to offer, Hastings is backed by a country of far less charm. Perhaps her greatest merit is her proximity to Winchelsea and Rye. Hastings, once one of the proudest of the sink-ports, has no longer even a harbour. Its pleasure yachts, which carry excursionists on brief channel voyages, having to be beached just like rowing boats. The ravages of the sea, which have so transformed the coastline of Sussex, have completely changed this town, and from a stately seaport she has become a democratic watering-place. Beneath the waves lie the remains of an old priory, and possibly of not a few churches. Hastings has been very nigh to history more than once, but she has escaped the actual making of it. Even the great battle that takes its name from the town was fought seven miles away, while the Duke of Normandy, as we have seen, landed as far distant as Pevensey, ten miles in the west, but he used Hastings as a whittling centre. Again and again in its time Hastings has been threatened with invasion by the French, who did actually land in 1138 and burned the town, and one Sunday morning in 1643, Colonel Morley of Glind, the parliamentarian, marched in with his men and confiscated all arms. But considering its warlike mean, Hastings has done little. Nor can the seaport claim any very illustrious son. Titus Oates, it is true, was curate of all saints' church in 1644, his father being vicar, and among the inhabitants of the old town was the mother of Sir Cloudsley Shovel, the admiral. A charming account of a visit paid to her by her son is given in De La Prin's diary. I heard a gentleman say, who was in the ship with him about six years ago, that as they were sailing over against the town of Hastings in Sussex, Sir Cloudsley called out, pilot, put near, I have a little business on shore. So he put near, and Sir Cloudsley and this gentleman went to shore in a small boat, and having walked about half a mile, Sir Cloudsley came to a little house in All Saints Street. Come, says he, my business is here. I came on purpose to see the good woman of this house. Upon this they knocked at the door, and out came a poor old woman, upon which Sir Cloudsley kissed her, and then, falling down on his knees, begged her blessing, and calling her mother, who had removed out of Yorkshire Hither. He was mightily kind to her, and she to him, and after that he had made his visit he left her ten guineas, and took his leave with tears in his eyes, and departed to his ship. Hastings had a famous rector at the beginning of the last century in the person of the Reverend Webster Whistler, who combined with the eastern benefits that of New Timber, near Hearst Peerpoint, and managed to serve both to a great age. He lived to be eighty-four, and died full of vigor in eighteen thirty-one. In eighteen seventeen, following upon a quarrel with the squire, the New Timber living was put up for auction in London. Mr Whistler decided to be present, but anonymous. The auctioneer mentioned in his introduction the various charms of the benefits, ending with the superlative advantage that it was held by an aged and infirm clergyman with one foot in the grave. At this point the proceedings were interrupted by a large and powerful figure in clerical costume, springing on the table and crying out to the company, Now, gentlemen, do I look like a man tottering on the brink of the grave? My left leg gives me no sign of weakness, and as for the other, Mr Auctioneer, if you repeat your remarks, you will find it very much at your service. The living found no purchaser. Mr Whistler had a Chinese indifference to the necessary end of all things, which prompted him to use an aged yew-tree in his garden that had long given him shade, but must now be felled as material for his coffin. This coffin he placed at the foot of his bed as a chest for clothes, until its proper purpose was fulfilled. Hastings was also the home of Edward Cappell, a Shakespeare editor of the eighteenth century. Cappell, who is said to have copied out in his own hand the entire works of the poet, no fewer than ten times, was the designer of his own house, which seems to have been a miracle of discomfort. He was an eccentric of the most determined character, so much so that he gradually lost all friends. According to Horsfield, the spirit of nicety and refinement prevailed in it, his house, so much during his lifetime that when a friend, a baronet, called upon him on a tour, he was desired to leave his cane in the vestibule, lest he should either dirt the floor with it or soil the carpet. One does not think naturally of old Sussex customs in connection with this town, so thoroughly urban as it now is and so largely populated by visitors, but I find in the Sussex archaeological collections the following interesting account by Hastings Alderman of an old harvest ceremony in the neighbourhood. At the head of the table one of the men occupied the position of chairman. In front of him stood a pail, clean as wooden staves and iron hoops could be made by human labour. At his right sat four or five men who led the singing, grave as judges were they. Indeed the appearance of the whole assembly was one of the greatest solemnity, except for a moment or two when some unlucky white failed to turn the cup over and was compelled to undergo the penalty in that case made and provided. This done all went on as solemnly as before. The ceremony, if I may call it so, was this. The leader or chairman, standing behind the pail with a tall horn cup in his hand, filled it with beer from the pail. The man next to him on the left stood up and holding a hat with both hands by the rim, crown upwards, received the cup from the chairman on the crown of the hat, not touching it with either hand. He then lifted the cup to his lips by raising the hat and slowly drank off the contents. As soon as he began to drink the chorus struck up this chant, I've been to Plymouth and I've been to Dover, I have been rambling boys all the world over, over and over and over and over, drink up your liquor and turn your cup over, over and over and over and over and over, the liquors drink up and the cup is turned over. The man drinking was expected to time his draught so as to empty his cup at the end of the fourth line of the chant. He was then to return the cup to the perpendicular, still holding the hat by the brim, then to throw the cup into the air and reversing the hat to catch the cup in it as it fell. If he failed to perform this operation, the fellow workmen who were closely watching him made an important alteration in the last line of their chant, which in that case ran thus, the liquors drink up and the cup ain't turned over. The cup was then refilled and the unfortunate drinker was compelled to go through the same ceremony again. Every one at the table took the cup and turned it over in succession, the chief shepherd keeping the pail constantly supplied with beer. The parlor guests were of course invited to turn the cup over with the guests of the kitchen and went through the ordeal with more or less of success. For my own part, I confess that I failed to catch the cup in the hat at the first trial, and hats to try again. The chairman, however, mercifully gave me only a small quantity of beer the second time. The civic life of Hastings would seem to encourage literature, for I find also in one of the archaeological society's volumes the following pretty lines by John Collier, Mayor of Hastings in 1719, 22, 30, 37 and 41, on his little boy's death. Oh my poor son, oh my tender child, my unblown flower and now appearing sweet, if yet your gentle soul flies in the air and is not fixed in doom perpetual, hover about me with your airy wings and hear your father's lamentation. Hastings has two advantages over both Brighton and Eastbourne. It can produce a genuine piece of antiquity, and, seen from the sea, it has a picturesque quality that neither of those towns possesses. Indeed, under certain conditions of light Hastings is magnificent, with the craggy castle hill in its midst surmounted by its imposing ruin. The smoke of the town rising and spreading shrouds the modernity of the sea-front, and the castle on its commanding height seems to be brooding over the shores of old romance. Brighton has no such effect as this. Of the castle, little is known, it was probably built on the site of Roman fortifications by the comte du, who came over with the conqueror. The first tournament in Britain is said to have been held there with Adela, daughter of the conqueror, as queen of beauty. After the castle had ceased to be of any use as a stronghold, it was still maintained as a religious house. It is now a pleasure resort. The ordinary visitor to Hastings is, however, more interested by the caves in the hill below, originally made by diggers of sand, and afterwards used by smugglers. Before branching out from Hastings into the country proper, I might mention two neighbouring points of pilgrimage. One is Hollington Rural Church, on the hill behind the town. Wither, sooner or later, everyone walks. It is a small church in the midst of a crowded burial-ground, and it is difficult to understand its attraction, unless by the poverty of other objectives. I should not mention it, but that it is probably the church to which Charles Lamb, bored by Hastings itself, wended his way one day in 1825. He describes it in terms more fitting to, say, Lullington Church near Alfriston, or St. Olaf's at Chichester, in no fewer than three of his letters. This is the best passage, reveling in a kind of inverted exaggeration, as written to John Bates Dibbden at Hastings in 1826. Let me hear that you have clambered up to Lover's Seat. It is as fine in that neighbourhood as Juan Fernandez, as lonely, too, when the fishing boats are not out. I have sat for hours staring upon the shipless sea. The salt sea is never so grand as when it is left to itself. One cock-boat spoils it. A sea-mew or two improves it, and go to the little church, which is a very protestant loretto, and seems dropped by some angel for the use of a hermit, who was at once parishner and a whole parish. It is not too big. Go in the night, bring it away in your portmanteau, and I will plant it in my garden. It must have been erected in the very infancy of British Christianity, for the two or three first converts. Yet hath it all the appurtenance of a church of the first magnitude, its pulpit, its pews, its baptismal font, a cathedral in a nutshell. Seven people could crowd it like a Caledonian chapel. The minister that divides the word there must give lumping penny-worths. It is built to the text of two or three assembled in my name. It reminds me of the grain of mustard seed. If the glee-blend is proportionate, it may yield two potatoes. Tithes out of it could be no more split than a hair. Its first fruits must be its last, for it would never produce a couple. It is truly the straight and narrow way and few there be of London visitants that find it. The still small voice is surely to be found there, if anywhere. A sounding-board is merely there for ceremony. It is secure from earthquakes, not more from sanctity than size, for it would feel a mountain thrown upon it no more than a taper-worm would. Go and see, but not without your spectacles. The lover's seat mentioned in the first sentence of the above passage is at Fairlight, about two miles east of Hastings. The seat is very prettily situated high in a ledge in Fairlight Glen. Horsefield shall tell the story that gave the spot its fascinating name. A beautiful girl at Rye gained the affections of Captain Blank, then in command of a cutter in that station. Her parents disapproved the connection and removed her to a farmhouse near the lover's seat, called the Warren House. Hence she contrived to absent herself night after night, when she sought this spot, and by means of a light made known her presence to her lover, who was cruising off in expectation of her arrival. The difficulties thus thrown in their way increased the ardour of their attachment, and a marriage was determined upon at all hazards. Hollington Church was, and is the place most sought for on these occasions in this part of the country. It has a romantic air about it, which is doubtless peculiarly impressive. There are, too, some other reasons why so many matches are solemnised here, and all combined to make this the place selected by this pair. It was expected that the lady's flight would be discovered and her objects suspected, but in order to prevent a rescue, the cutter's crew positively volunteered and acted as guards on the narrow paths leading through the woods to the church. However, the marriage ceremony was completed before any unwelcome visitors arrived, and reconciliation soon followed. Bexhill has now become so exceedingly accessible by conveyance from Hastings that it might perhaps be mentioned here as a contiguous place of interest, but of Bexhill till lately a village, or Bexhill on Sea, watering-place, with everything handsome about it, there is little to say. Both the tide of the channel and of popularity seem to be receding. In land there is some pretty country. End of Chapter 36 Chapter 37 of Highways and Biways in Sussex The principal excursion from Hastings is, of course, to battle, with a company of discreetly satisfied Normans, Le Souvenir Normande, recently travelled to view with tactfully chastened enthusiasm the scene of the triumph of 1066, to erect a memorial, and to perplex the old ladies of battle who provide tea. Except on one day of the week visitors to battle must content themselves with tea, of which there is no stint, and a view of the gateway, for the rule of showing the abbey only on Tuesdays is strictly enforced by the American gentleman who now resides on this historic site, but the gateway could hardly be finer. The battlefield was half a mile south of the abbey on Tellham Hill, where, in Harold's Day, was a hoary apple-tree. We have seen William landing at Pevensey on September the 28th, 1066, thence he marched to Hastings to steal food, and thence after a delay of a fortnight, to some extent spent in fortifying Hastings and also in burning his boats, he marched to Tellham Hill, that was on October the 13th. On the same day Harold reached the neighbourhood with his horde of soldiers and armed rustics, and both armies encamped that night only a mile apart, waiting for the light to begin the fray. The Saxons were confident and riotous, the Normans hopeful and grave. According to Wase, all night the Saxons might be seen carousing, gambling, and dancing and singing. Bubbly they cried, and wassail, and latikum, and drink heil, and drink to me. At daybreak in the Norman camp, Bishop Odo celebrated high mass, and immediately after was hurried into his armour to join the fight. As the Duke was arming, an incident occurred but for which Battle Abbey might never have been built. His suit of mail was offered him wrong side out. The superstitious Normans standing by looked sideways at each other with sinking misgiving. They deemed it a bad omen. But William's face betrayed no fear. If we win, he said, and God send we may, I will found an Abbey here for the salvation of the souls of all who fall in the engagement. Before quitting his tent he was careful that those relics on which Harold had sworn never to oppose his efforts against England's throne should be hung around his neck. So the two armies were ready, the mounted Normans with their conical helmets gleaming in the hazy sunlight, with kite-shaped shields, huge spears and swords, and the English all on foot with heavy axes and clubs. But theirs was a defensive part, the Normans hatched to begin. It fell to the lot of a wild troubadour named Tyre Fair to open the fight. He galloped from the Norman lines at full speed singing a song of heroes, then checked his steed and tossed his lance thrice in the air, thrice catching it by the point. The opposing lines silently wondered. Then he flung it at a luckless Saxon with all the energy of a madman, spitting him as a skewer spits a lark. Tyre Fair had now only his sword left. This also he threw thrice into the air, and then seizing it with the grip of death he rode straight at the Saxon troops, dealing blows from left to right, and so was lost to view. Thus the battle of Hastings began. On them in God's name! cried William, and chastised these English for their misdeeds. Dear Ed! his men screamed, spurring to the attack. Out! out! barked the English. Holy Cross! God Almighty! The carnage was terrific. It seemed for long that the English were prevailing, and they would in all likelihood have prevailed in the end, had they kept their position. But William feigned a retreat, and the English crossed their vallum in pursuit. The Normans at once turned their horses and pursued and butchered the unprepared enemy singly in the open country. A complete route followed. The false step was decisive. This till night, however, did Harold fall. He upheld his standard to the last, hedged about by a valiant bodyguard who resisted the Normans till every sign of life was battered out of them. The story of the vertically discharged arrow is a myth. An eyewitness thus described Harold's death. An armed man, said he, came in the throng of the battle, and struck him on the ventai of the helmet, and beat him to the ground, and as he sought to recover himself a night beat him down again, striking him on the thick of the thigh down to the bone. So died Harold on the exact sight of the high altar of the Abbey, and so passed away the Saxon kingdom. That night William, who was unharmed, though three horses were killed under him, had his tent set up in the midst of the dead, and there he ate and drank. In the morning the Norman corpses were picked out and buried with due rights. The Saxons were left to rot. According to the Carmen, William I had Harold's body wrapped in purple linen, and carried to Hastings, where it was buried on the cliff, beneath a stone inscribed with the words, By the order of the Duke you rest here, King Harold, as the guardian of the shore and the sea. Mr. Lauer was convinced of the truth of that story, but William of Malmsbury said that William sent Harold's body to his mother, the Countess Geitha, who buried it at Waltham, while a third account shows us Editha of the swan neck, Harold's wife, wandering through the blood-stained grass, among the fallen English, until she found the body of her husband, which she craved leave to carry away. William, this version adds, could not deny her. Fuller writes in the Worthies, concerning the wonders of Sussex, Expect not here I should insert what William of Newbury writeeth, to be recounted rather amongst the untruths than wonders. That is, that in this county not far from Bataille Abbey, in the place where so great a slaughter of the Englishman was made, after any shower presently sweateth forth very fresh blood out of the earth, as if the evidence thereof did plainly declare the voice of blood there shed, and cryeth still from the earth unto the Lord. This is as true as that in white, chalky countries about Baldock in Hertfordshire, after rain run rivulets of milk, neither being anything less than the water discoloured according to the complexion of the earth thereabouts. The conqueror was true to his vow, and the Abbey of St. Martin was quickly begun. At first there was difficulty about the stone, which was brought all the way from Cain quarries, until, according to an old writer, a pious matron, dreamed that stone in large quantities was to be found near at hand. Her vision leading to the discovery of a neighbouring quarry, the work proceeded henceforward with exceeding rapidity. Although the first abbot was appointed in 1076, William the Conqueror did not live to see the Abbey finished. Sixty monks of the Order of St. Benedict came to battle from the Abbey of Marmontier in Normandy, to form its nucleus. It was left to William Rufus to preside over the consecration of battle, which was not until February 1095, when the ceremony was performed amid much pomp. William presented to the Abbey his father's coronation robe, and the sword he had wielded in the battle. Several wealthy manners were attached, and the country round was exempted from tax, while the abbots were made superior to episcopal control, and were endowed with the right to sit in Parliament and a London house to live in during the session. Indeed nothing was left undone that could minister to the pride and power of the new house of God. The Abbey of St. Martin was quadrangular, standing in the midst of a circle nine miles round. Within this were vineyards, stupons, and rich land. Just without was a small street of artisan's dwellings, where were manufactured all things requisite for the monk's material well-being. The church was the largest in the country, larger even than Canterbury. It was also a sanctuary, any sentenced criminal who succeeded in sheltering therein receiving absolution from the abbot. The high altar, as I have said, was erected precisely on the spot where Harold fell, a spot on which one may now stand and think of the past. Battle Abbey was more than once visited by kings. In 1200 John was there, shaking like a quicksand. He brought a piece of our Lord's sepulchre, which had been rested from Palestine by Richard the Lionheart, and laid it with tremulous hands on the altar, hoping that the magnificence of the gift might close heaven's eyes towards sins of his own. In 1212 he was at Battle Abbey again, and for the last time in 1213, seeking, maybe, to find in these silent cloisters some forgetfulness of the mutterings of hate and scorn that everywhere followed him. Just before the Battle of Lewis Henry III galloped up, attended by a bodyguard of an overbearing horseman, and levied large sums of money to assist him in the struggle. After the battle he returned, a weary refugee, but still rapacious. These visits were not welcome. It was different when Edward II slept there on the night of August the 28th, 1324. Alan Decchetbury, the abbot, was bent on showing loyalty at all cost, while the neighbouring Lords and Squires were hardly less eager. Abbott's contribution to the kitchen included twenty score and four loaves of bread, two swans, two rabbits, three pheasants, and a dozen capons. William de Ettingham sent three peacocks, twelve brim, six muttons, and other delicacies, and Robert Eakland, four rabbits, six swans, and three herons. In 1331 Abbott Hamo and his monks kept at bay a body of French marauders who had landed at Rye until the country gentlemen could assemble and repulse them utterly. Then followed two peaceful centuries, but afterwards came disaster, for in 1558 Thomas Cromwell sent down two commissioners to examine into the State of the Abbey and report thereon to the zealous defender of the faith. The commissioners found nineteen books in the library and rumours of monkish debauchery without the walls. So beggary a house, wrote one of the officers, I never see. Battle Abbey was therefore suppressed and presented to Sir Anthony Brown upon whom, as we saw in the first chapter, the Curse of Cowdery was pronounced by the last departing monk. To catalogue the present features of Battle Abbey is to vulgarise it. One comes away with confused memories of grey walls embraced by white clematis and red rose, gloomy underground caverns with double rows of arches where the brothers might not speak, benignant cedars blessing the turf with extended hands, fragrant limes waving their delicate leaves, an old rose garden with fantastic beds, a long U-walk where the brothers might meditatively pace, turning perhaps an epigram, regretting perhaps the world. Nothing now remains of the refectory where of old forty monks fed like one, except the walls. It once had a noble roof of Irish oak, but that was taken to Cowdery and perished in the fire there, together with the Abbey roll. One of the Abbey's first charms is the appropriateness of its gardens, they too are old. In the cloisters, for instance, there are wonderful box borders. Turner painted Battle Abbey the spot where Harold fell, with a greyhound pressing hard upon a hair in the foreground, and a scotch fur Italianated into a golden bow. The town of battle has little interest, in the church is a brass to Thomas Alfred and his wife Elizabeth. Thomas Alfred, whose soul, according to his epitaph, in active strength did pass as Nair was found his peer. One would like to know more of this, Samson. The tomb of Sir Anthony Brown is also here, but it is not so imposing as that of his son, the first Viscount Montague, which we saw at Eastbourne. In the churchyard is the grave of Isaac Engel, the oldest butler on record, who died at the age of one hundred and twenty, after acting as butler at the Abbey for ninety-five years. From battle one may easily reach Normanhurst, the seat of the brassies, and Ashburnham Park just to the north of it, a superb, undulating domain, with lakes, an imposing mansion, an old church, brake fern, magnificent trees, and a herd of deer, all within its confines. Of the church, however, I can say nothing, for I was there on a very hot day, the door was locked, and the key was at the vicarage, ten minutes distant at the top of a hill. Churches that are thus controlled must be neglected. Ashburnham Place once contained some of the finest books in England, and is still famous for its relics of Charles I, but strangers may not see them. The best Sussex iron was smelted at Ashburnham Furnace, north of the park, near Penhurst. Ashburnham Forge was the last to remain at work in the county. Its last surviving labourer of the neighbourhood died in 1883. He remembered the extinguishing of the fire in 1813 or 1811, the casting of fire-backs, being the final task. Penhurst, by the way, is one of the most curiously remote villages in East Sussex, with the oddest little church. I walked to Ashburnham from Ninfield, a clean, breezy village on the hill overlooking Pevensey Bay, with a locked church, and iron stocks by the side of the road. It is stated somewhere that at that corner of Crouch Lane that leads to Lundford Cross, and so to Bexhill and Hastings, was buried a suicide in 1675. At how many crossroads in Sussex and elsewhere does one stand over such graves? One may return to Hastings by way of Catsfield, which has little interest, and Crowhurst, famous for the remains of a beautiful manor house, and a yew-tree, supposed to be the oldest in Sussex. It is curious that Crowhurst in Surrey is also known for a great yew. End of Chapter 37 Chapter 38 of Highways and Biways in Sussex This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Peter Yersley. Highways and Biways in Sussex by E. V. Lucas Chapter 38. Winchelsea and Rye In the opinion of many good judges, Sussex has nothing to offer so fascinating as Winchelsea and Rye. And in certain reposeful moods, when the past seems to be more than the present or future, I can agree with them. We have seen many ancient towns in our progress through the county, Chichester, around her cathedral spire, Arundel, beneath her grey castle, Lewis, among her hills, but all have modern blood in their veins. Winchelsea and Rye seem wholly of the past. Nothing can modernize them. Rye, approached from the east, is the suddenest thing in the world. The traveller leaves Ashford in a south-eastern train. Amid all the circumstances of ordinary travel, he passes through the ordinary scenery of Kent. The porters call Rye, and in a moment he is in the Middle Ages. Rye is only a few yards from its station. Winchelsea, on the other hand, is a mile from the line, and one has time on the road to understand one's surroundings. It is important that the traveller who wishes to experience the right medieval thrill should come to Winchelsea either at dusk or at night. To make acquaintance with any new town by night is to double one's pleasure, for there is a first joy in the curious half-seen strangeness of the streets and houses, and a further joy in correcting by the morrow's light the distorted impressions gathered in the dark. To come for the first time upon Winchelsea at dusk, whether from the station or from Rye, is to receive an impression almost, if not quite, unique in England, since there is no other town throned like this upon a green hill to be gained only through massive gateways. From the station one would enter at the pipewell gate, from Rye by the strand gate. The strand approaches, perhaps a shade finer and more romantically unreal. Winchelsea and Rye are remarkable in being not only perched each upon a solitary hillock in a vast level or marsh, but in being hillocks in themselves. In the case of Winchelsea there are trees and green spaces to boot, but Rye and its hillock are one. Every inch is given over to red brick and grey stone. They are true cities of the plain. Between them are three miles of flat meadow, where, among thousands of sheep, stands the grey retundity of Cambercastle. All this land is polder, as the Dutch call it, yet not reclaimed from the sea by any feat of engineering as about the helder, but presented by Neptune as a free and not too welcome gift to these ancient burrows, possibly to equalize his theft of acres of good park at Selsea. Once a sink-port of the first magnitude, Winchelsea is now an inland resort of the antiquary and the artiste. Where fishermen once dropped their nets, shepherds now watch their sheep. Where the marauding French were wont to rush in with sword and torch, tourists now toil with camera and guide-book. The light above the sheep-levels changes continually. At one hour Rye seems but a stone's throw from Winchelsea. At another she is miles distant. At a third she looms twice her size through the haze, and Camber is seen as a fortress of old romance. Rye stands where it has always stood, but the original Winchelsea is no more. It was built two miles south-southeast of Rye, on a spot since covered by the sea but now again dry land. At old Winchelsea William the Conqueror landed in 1067 after a visit to Normandy. In 1138 Henry II landed there, while the French landed often, sometimes disastrously, and sometimes not. In those days Winchelsea had seven hundred householders and fifty inns. In 1250 however began her downfall. Hollinshead writes, On the first day of October 1250, the moon upon her change, appearing exceeding red and swelled, began to show tokens of the great tempest of wind that followed, which was so huge and mighty, both by land and sea, that the like had not been lightly known, and seldom or rather never heard of by men then alive. The sea, forced contrary to his natural course, flowed twice without ebbing, yielding such a roaring that the same was heard not without great wonder, a far distance from the shore. Moreover the same sea appeared in the dark of the night to burn, as if it had been on fire, and the waves to strive and fight together after a marvellous sort, so that the mariners could not devise how to save their ships, where they lay at anchor, by no cunning or shift which they could devise. At Hartburn three tall ships perished without recovery, besides other smaller vessels. At Winchelsea, besides other hurt that was done, in bridges, mills, breaks and banks, there were three hundred houses and some churches drowned with the high rising of the water-course. The Winchelsea people however did not abandon their town. In 1264 Henry III was there on his way to the Battle of Lewis, and later Eleanor, wife of Henry's conqueror, Demontfort, was there too, and encouraged by her kindness to them, the Winchelsea men took to active sea piracy, which Demontfort encouraged. In 1266 however Prince Edward, who disliked piracy, descended upon the town and chastised it bloodily, while on February 4th 1287 a greater punishment came, for during another storm the town was practically drowned, all the flat land between pet and hithe being inundated. New Winchelsea, the Winchelsea of today, was forthwith begun under royal patronage on a rock near Ikelsham, the north and east sides of which were washed by the sea. A castle was set there, and gates of which three still stand, pipewell, strand and new, rose from the earth. The Greyfriars Monastery and other religious houses were reproduced, as at old Winchelsea, and a prosperous town quickly existed. New Winchelsea was soon busy. In 1350 a battle between the English and Spanish fleets was waged off the town, an exciting spectacle for the court, who watched from the high ground. Edward III the English king, when victory was his, rode to Ettingham for the night. In 1359 3,000 Frenchmen entered Winchelsea and set fire to it, while in 1360 the sinkport's navy sailed from Winchelsea and burned loose. Such were the reprisals of those days. In 1376 the French came again, and were repulsed by the Abbot of battle, but in 1378 the Abbot had to run. In 1448 the French came for the last time, the sea having become very shallow, and a little later the sea receded altogether. Henry VIII suppressed the religious houses, and Winchelsea's heyday was over. She is now a quiet aloof settlement of pleasant houses and gardens, prosperous and idle. Rye might be called a city of trade, Winchelsea, of repose. She spreads her hands to the sun, and is content. Winchelsea's church stands, as a church should, in the midst of its green acre, fully visible from every side, the very antipodes of Rye. Large as it now is it was once far larger, for only the chancel and side aisles remain. The glory of the church is the canopied tomb of Gervais Allard, admiral of the sinkport's, and that of his grandson Stephen Allard, also admiral, both curiously carved with grotesque heads. The roof beams of the church, timber from wrecked or broken ships, are of an integrity so thorough that a village carpenter who recently climbed up to test them blunted all his tools in the enterprise. All that remains of the Grey Friars Monastery may now be seen, on Mondays only, in the estate called the Friars, the shell of the chapel's choir, prettily covered with ivy. Here once lived in the odour of perfect respectability the brothers Western, who, country-gentlemen of quiet habit at home, for several years ravaged the coach-roads elsewhere as highwaymen, and were eventually hanged at Tyburn. Their place in literature is, of course, Dennis Duval, which Thackeray wrote in a house on the north of the churchyard, and which is all of Winchelsey and Rye compact, as the author's letter to Mr. Greenwood, editor of Corn Hill, detailing the plot in The Person of Dennis himself, go to show. Thus I was born in the year 1764, at Winchelsey, where my father was a grocer and clerk of the church. Everybody in the place was a good deal connected with smuggling. They used to come to our house a very noble French gentleman, called the Count de la Motte, and with him a German, the Baron de Leutelo, my father used to take packages to Ostend and Calais for these two gentlemen, and perhaps I went to Paris once, and saw the French queen. The squire of our town was squire-western of the priory, who, with his brother, kept one of the gentelist houses in the country. He was churchwarden of our church, and much respected. Yes, but if you read the annual register of 1781, you'll find that on the thirteenth of July the sheriffs attended at the Tower of London, to receive custody of a de la Motte, a prisoner charged with high treason. The fact is, this Alsatian nobleman, being in difficulties in his own country, where he had commanded the regiment's subes, came to London, and under pretence of sending prints to France and Ostend, supplied the French ministers with accounts of the movements of the English fleets and troops. His go-between was Leutelo, a Brunswicker, who had been a crimping agent, then a servant, who was a spy of France and Mr Franklin, and who turned King's evidence on Le Motte and hanged him. This Leutelo, who had been a crimping agent for German troops during the American War, then a servant in London during the Gordon riots, then an agent for a spy, then a spy over a spy, I suspect to have been a consummate scoundrel and doubly odious from speaking English with a German accent. What if he wanted to marry that charming girl, who lived with Mr Weston at Winchelsea? Ha! I see a mystery here. What if this scoundrel, going to receive his pay from the English admiral, with whom he was in communication at Portsmouth, happened to go on board the Royal George the day she went down? As for George and Joseph Weston of the Priory, I'm sorry to say they were rascals too. They were tried for robbing the Bristol Mail in 1780, and being acquitted for want of evidence were tried immediately after, on another indictment for forgery. Joseph was acquitted, but George was capitalally convicted, but this did not help poor Joseph. Before their trials they and some others broke out of Newgate, and Joseph fired at and wounded a porter who tried to stop him on Snow Hill. For this he was tried and found guilty on the Black Act, and hung along with his brother. Now, if I was an innocent participator in de la Motte's treasons, and the Weston's forgeries and robberies, what pretty scrapes I must have been in. I married the young woman, whom the brutal Leutelo would have had for himself, and lived happy ever after. And again, my grandfather's name was Duval. He was a barber and peruquier by trade, and elder of the French Protestant church at Winchelsea. I was sent to board with his correspondent, a Methodist grocer at Rye. These two kept a fishing boat, but the fish they caught was many and many a barrel of Nantes brandy, which we landed, never mind where, at a place to us well known. In the innocence of my heart I, a child, got leave to go out fishing. We used to go out at night, and meet ships from the French coast. I learned to scuttle a marlin spike, reef, a lee scupper, keel-haul a bowsprit, as well as the best of them. How well I remember the jabbering of the Frenchman the first night as they handed the kegs over to us. One night we were fired into by his majesty's revenue-cutter, Lynx. I asked what those balls were, fizzing in the water, etc. I wouldn't go on with the smuggling, being converted by Mr. Wesley, who came to preach to us at Rye. But that is neither here nor there. It was under the large tree of the west wall of the churchyard, that in 1790 John Wesley preached his last outdoor sermon, afterwards walking through that poor skeleton of ancient winchelsie, as he called it. Rye, like winchelsie, has had a richer history than I can cope with. She was an important seaport from the earliest times, and among other of our enemies who knew her value were the Danes, 250 of whose vessels entered the harbour in the year 893. Later the French continually menaced her, hardly less than her sister's sink-port. But Rye bore so little malice that during the persecutions in France in the 16th century she received hundreds of Hugineau refugees, whose descendants still live in the town. Many monarchs have come hither, among them Queen Elizabeth in 1573, dubbing Rye, Rye, Royal, and winchelsie, Little London. Rye has had at least one notable son, John Fletcher, the dramatist, associate of Francis Beaumont, and perhaps of Shakespeare, and author of The Faithful Shepardess. Fletcher's father was vicar of Rye. The town also gave birth to a curious father, son, and grandson, all named Samuel Jake. The first, born in 1623, the author of the Charters of the Sink-Ports, 1728, was a lawyer, a bold nonconformist, a preacher, an astrologer, and an alchemist, whose library contained works in fifteen languages, but no copy of Shakespeare or Milton. He left a treatise on the elixir of life. The second, at the age of nineteen, was somewhat acquainted with the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, rhetoric, logic, poetry, natural philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, cosmography, astronomy, astrology, geography, theology, physics, dialing, navigation, calligraphy, stenography, drawing, heraldry, and history. He also drew horoscopes, wrote treatises on astrology and other sciences, suffered, like his father, for his religion, and when he was twenty-nine, married Elizabeth Hartzhorn, aged thirteen and a half. They had six children. The third Samuel Jake was famous for constructing a flying machine, which refused to fly, and nearly killed him. Rye also possessed an unknown poet. On a blank leaf in an old book in the town's archives is written this poem in the hand of Henry VIII's time. What greater grief may have true lovers to annoy than absent for to separate them from their desired joy. What comfort rest them then to ease them of their smart, but for to think and mindful be of them they love in heart, and eek that they assured be each to another in heart, that nothing shall them separate until death do them part, and though the distance of the place do sever us in twain, yet shall my heart thy heart embrace till we do meet again. The church, the largest in Sussex, dominates Rye from every point, and so tightly are the houses compressed that from the plain the spire seems to be the completion not only of the church, but of the town, too. The building stands in what is perhaps the quietest and quaintest church square in England, possessing, beyond all question, the discretest of Pawnbrookers' shops, marked by three brass balls that positively have charm. The church is cool and spacious with noble plain windows, and one very pretty little one by Byrne Jones, and some very interesting architectural features. Two little care seems, however, to have been spent upon it at some previous time. The verger shows, with a pride little short of proprietary, a mahogany altar, said to have been taken from one of the vessels of the Armada, and therefore oddly inappropriate for a church of England service, and the tomb of one Alan Grebel, who, happening one night in 1742, to be wearing the cloak of his brother-in-law, the mayor, was killed in mistake for him by a sanguinary butcher named Breeds. Breeds, who was hanged in chains for his crime, remains perhaps the most famous figure in the history of Rye. Externally Rye Church is magnificent, but the pity of it is that its encroaching square deprives one of the power to study it as a whole. Among the details, however, are two admirable flying buttresses. The clock over the beautiful north window, which is said to have been given to the town by Queen Elizabeth, is remarkable for the two golden cherubs that strike the hours, and the pendulum that swings in the central tower of the church, very nigh the preacher's head. Rise eight bells, bear the following inscription. Music's given, it elevates soul to heaven. If you have a judicious ear, you'll own my voice is sweet and clear. Our voices shall with joyful sound make hills and valleys echo round. In wedlock bands all you who join with hands your hearts unite, so shall our tuneful tongues combine to lord the nuptial right. You ringers, all who prize your health and happiness, be sober, merry, wise, and you'll the same possess. Hardly less interesting than the church are the by-streets of Rye so old and simple and quiet and right, particularly perhaps Mermaid Street, with its beautiful hospital. In the high street, which is busier, is the George Inn, the rare possessor of a large assembly room with a musician's gallery. One only of Rye's gates is standing, the Landgate, but on the south rampart of the town is the Ypres Tower, called Wipers by the Prazeic inhabitants, a relic of the 12th century, guarding Rye once from perils by sea, and now from perils by land. Standing by the tower, one may hear below shipbuilders busy at work, and observe all the low-pulsed life of the river. A mile or so away is Rye Harbour, and beyond it the sea. Across the intervening space runs a little train with its freight of golf players. In the east stretches Romney Marsh to the hills of Folkestone. Extremes meet in Rye. When I was last there, the passage of the Landgate was made perilous by an approaching panhard. The monastery of the Augustine Friars on Conduit Hill had become a Salvation Army barracks, and in the doorway of the little 14th century chapel of the Carmelites, now a private house, in the church square, a perambulator waited. Moreover, in the stately red house at the head of Mermaid Street, the author of The Awkward Age prosecutes his fascinating analyses of 20th century temperaments. Among the industries of Rye is the production of an ingenious variety of pottery, achieved by affixing to ordinary vessels of earthenware, a veneer of broken pieces of china, usually fragments of cups and sauces, indefinite patterns that sometimes reach a magnificence, almost persian. For the most part the result is not, perhaps, beautiful, but it is always gay, and the Rye potter who practices the art deserves encouragement. I saw last summer a piece of similar wear in a cottage on the banks of the Etrick, but whether it had travelled thither from Rye or whether scotch artists work in the same medium, I do not know. Mr. Gasson, the Artificer, the dominating name of Gasson, is to Rye what that of Sila is to Zermatt, charges a penny for the inspection of the four rooms of his house, in which his pottery, his stuffed birds and other curiosities are collected. The visit must be epoch-making in any life. Never again will a broken teacup be to any of Mr. Gasson's patrons merely a broken teacup. Previously it may have been that and nothing more. Henceforward it is valuable material, which having completed one stage of existence is, like the good Buddhist, entering upon another of increased radiance. More broken china may even become the symbol of Rye. Between Hastings and Wintulsee are the villages of Guestling, Pet and Ikelsham, the last two on the edge of the level. Of these Ikelsham is the most interesting. Ikelsham is the most interesting, Guestling having recently lost its church by fire, and Pet's church being new. Pet stands in a pleasant position at the end of the high ground, with nothing in the east but Pet level, and the sea only a mile away. At very low tide the remains of a submerged forest were once discernible, and may still be. Ikelsham also stands on the ridge, further north, overlooking the level and the sea, with Wintulsee not two miles distant in the east. The church is a very fine one, with a most interesting Norman tower in its midst. The church warden's accounts contain some quaint entries. 1732. Paid for the Stokes. Stocks. Four pounds, ten shillings, eight pence, three farthings. 1735. January the 13th. Paid for a pint of wine and for eight pound of mutton for Goodman Row and Goodman Winch, and Goody suitors, for their being with Goody in her fits. Three shillings. 1744. February the 29th. Paid Goody Taylor for going to Wintulsee, for to give her Arthur Davy. Affidavit. One shilling and six pence. 1746. April the 26th. Gave the ringers for rejoicing when the rebels was beat. 15 shillings. This refers to Culloden. There are two sides in every battle. How do burns his lines run? Dramocymor. Dramocidae. A wayful day it was to me. For there I lost my father dear, my father dear, and brethren three. One of the Ikelsham gravestones, standing over the grave of James King, who died aged 17, has this complacent couplet. God takes the good, too good on earth to stay, and leaves the bad, too bad to take away. Two miles to the west of Ikelsham at Snailam, close to the present railway, once stood the home of the Cheneys, a family that maintained for many years a fierce feud with the oxenbridges of Breed, wither we soon shall come. A party of Cheneys once succeeded in catching an oxenbridge asleep in his bed, and killed him. Old Place Farm, a little north of Ikelsham, between the village and the line, marks the site of Old Place, the mansion of the Finches, Earls of Winchelsea. The mainland proper begins hard by Rye, on the other side of the railway, where Rye Hill carries the London Road out of sight. This way lie Pladen, Eiden, and Pismarsh. Pladen, with a slender spire, of a grace not excelled in a county notable as we have seen, for graceful spires, but a little over-weighted perhaps by its cross, within whose church is the tomb of a Flemish brewer, named Zachtmans, calling for prayers for his soul. Eiden, with a square tower, and a stair turret, a village taking its name from that family of which Alexander Eiden, slayer of Jack Cade, was a member, its home being at Moat, now non-existent. And Pismarsh, whose long modest church, crowned by a squat spire, may be again seen, like the swan upon St. Mary's Lake, in the water at the foot of the churchyard. At Pismarsh was born a poor artificial poet, named William Pattison, in whose works I have failed to find anything of interest. The two most interesting spots in the hilly country, immediately north of the Breed Valley, north of Winchelsie, are Udymore and Breed. Concerning Udymore Church, which externally has a family resemblance to that of staining, it is told that it was originally planned to rise on the other side of the Little River Re. The builders began their work, but every night saw the supernatural removal of the stones to the present site, while a mysterious voice uttered the words, O'er the Mere, O'er the Mere. Hence, says the legend, the present position of the Fane, and the beautiful name Udymore, or O'er the Mere, which, of course, becomes Adima among the villagers. From Udymore one reaches Breed by turning off the high road, about two miles to the east, but it is worthwhile to keep to the road a little longer, and entering Gilly Wood on the right, explore as wild and beautiful a ravine, as any in the county, and on the Breed by road it is worthwhile also to turn aside again, in order to see Breed Place. This house, like all the old mansions, it is of the 15th and 16th centuries, is set in a hollow, and is sufficiently gloomy in appearance and surroundings to lend colour to the rumour that would have it haunted. A rumour originally spread by the smugglers, who for some years made the house their headquarters. An underground passage is said to lead from Breed Place to the church, a good part of a mile distant. But, as is usual with underground passages, the legend has been held so dear that no one seems to have ventured upon the risk of disproving it. Amid these medieval surroundings, the late Stephen Crane, the American writer, conceived some of his curiously modern stories. One of the original owners, the oxenbridges, like Colonel Lunsford of East Hosley, was credited by the country people with an appetite for children. Nothing could compass his death, but a wooden saw, with which, after a drunken bout, the villagers severed him in Stubbs Lane by groaning bridge. Not all the family, however, were bloodthirsty, for at least two John oxenbridges of the 16th century were divines, one a cannon of Windsor, the other a grave and reverent preacher. The present vicar of Breed, the village on the hill above Breed Place, has added to the natural antiquities of his church several alien curiosities, chief among them being the cradle in which Dean Swift was rocked. It is worth a visit to Breed's church to be persuaded that that matured Irishman ever was a baby. End of Chapter 38 Chapter 39 of Highways and Biways in Sussex This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Peter Yersley. Highways and Biways in Sussex by E. V. Lucas. Chapter 39. Roberts Bridge Roberts Bridge is not in itself a particularly attractive place, but it has a good inn, and many interesting villages may be reached from it. The little light railway that runs from the town to Tentadon along the Rother Valley, making the exploration of this part of Sussex very simple. Horace Walpole came to difficulties hereabout during his Sussex journey, and his sprightly and heightened account is in one of the letters. The roads grew bad beyond all badness, the night dark beyond all darkness, our guide frightened beyond all frightfulness. However, without being at all killed, we got up, or down, I forget which, it was so dark, a famous precipice called Silver Hill, and about ten at night arrived at a wretched village called Rother Bridge. We had still six miles hither, but determined to stop as it would be a pity to break our necks before we had seen all we had intended. But, alas, there was only one bed to be had, all the rest were inhabited by smugglers, whom the people of the house called Mountiebanks, and with one of whom the lady of the den told Mr. Shoot he might lie. We did not at all take to this society, but armed with links and lanterns, set out again upon this impracticable journey. At two o'clock in the morning we got hither to a still worse inn, and that, crowned with excise-officers, one of whom had just shot a smuggler. However, as we were neutral powers, we have passed safely through both armies hither too, and can give you a little farther history of our wandering through these mountains, where the young gentlemen are forced to drive their caracals with a pair of oxen. The only morsel of good road we have found was what even the natives had assured us were totally impracticable. These were eight miles to Hearst Monceau. A pretty memento of the Cistercian Abbey here, of which small traces remain on the bank of the river, has wandered to the Bodleian, in the shape of an old volume containing the inscription, This book belongs to St. Mary of Robertsbridge. Whoever shall steal or sell it, let him be anathema maranatha. Since no book was ever successfully protected by anything less tangible than a chain, it came into other hands, underneath being written, I, John Bishop of Exeter, know not where the aforesaid house is, nor did I steal this book, but acquired it in a lawful way. On the suppression of the Abbey of Robertsbridge by Henry VIII, the lands passed to Sir William Sidney, grandfather of Sir Philip. Sail Hearst, just across the river from Robertsbridge, has a noble church standing among trees on the hillside, the hill which Walpole found so precipitous. Within the church is not, perhaps, quite so impressive as without, but it has monuments appertaining probably to the Culpepers, once a far-reaching aristocratic Sussex family, which we met first at Ardingley, and which is now extinct, or existent only among the peasantry. The first station on the Rother Valley Light Railway is Bodiam, only a few steps from Bodiam Castle, sitting serenely like a bird on the waters of Hermote. This building, in appearance and form, fulfills most of the conditions of the castle, and by retaining water in its moat, perhaps, wins more respect than if it had stood a siege. Local tradition, indeed, credits it with that mark of active merit, but history is silent. It was built in the fourteenth century by Sir Edward Dalingrouges, a hero of Cressy and Poitiers. It is now a ruin within, but, as Mr Griggs's drawing shows, externally in fair preservation and a very interesting and romantic spectacle. Below Bodiam is Uhurst, and a little further east, close to the Kentish border, Northiam. Uhurst has no particular interest, but Northiam is a village apart. Knowing what we do of Sussex's speech, we may be certain that Northiam is not pronounced by the native as it is spelt. Norghum is its local style, just as Udiam is Ajum and Bodiam Bodjum. But, though he will not give Northiam its pleasant syllables, the Northiam man is proud of his village. He has a couplet. O rare Norghum! Thou dost far exceed, Beckley, Pesmarsh, Udymore, and Breed. Northiam's superiority to these pleasant spots is not absolute, but there are certain points in which the couplet is sound. For example, although Breed Place has no counterpart in Northiam, and although beside Udymore's lovely name Northiam has an uninspired prosaic ring, yet Northiam is alone in the possession of Queen Elizabeth's Oak, the tree beneath which that monarch whom we have seen on a progress in West Sussex. Partook in 1573 of a banquet on her way to Rye. The fair came from the kitchen of the timbered house hard by, then the residence of Master Bishop. During the visit her majesty changed her shoes, and the discarded pair is still treasured at Brickwall, the neighbouring seat of the Fruins, the great family of Northiam for many generations. The shoes are of green, damask silk, with heels two and a half inches high and pointed toes. The Queen was apparently so well satisfied with her repast that on her return journey three days later she dined beneath the oak once more, but she changed no more shoes. Brickwall, which is occasionally shown, is a noble old country mansion, partly Elizabethan and partly Stuart. In the church are many Fruin memorials, the principal of which are in the Fruin morcelium, a comparatively new erection. Accepted Fruin, Archbishop of York, was from Northiam. In a field near the Rother at Northiam was discovered in the year 1822 a Danish vessel which had probably sunk in the ninth century in some wide waterway, now transformed to land or shrunk to the dimensions of the present stream. Her preservation was perfect. Horsefield thus describes the ship. Her dimensions were from head to stern 65 feet and her width 14 feet, with cabin and foxtel and she appears to have originally had a whole deck. She was remarkably strongly built. Her bill pieces and keels measured two feet over. Her crossbeams five in number, 18 inches by eight with her other timbers in proportion and in her caulking was a species of moth peculiar to the country in which she was built. In the cabin and other parts of the vessel were found a human skull, a pair of goat's horns attached to a part of the cranium, a dirk or poignard, about half an inch of the blade of which had wholly resisted corrosion, several glazed and ornamental tiles of a square form, some bricks which had formed the fire-hearth, several parts of shoes or rather sandals fitting low on the foot, one of which was apparently in an unfinished state having a last remaining in it, all of them very broad at the toes, two earthen jars and a stone mug, all of very ancient shape, a piece of board exhibiting about 30 perforations probably designed for keeping the lunar months or some game or amusement with many other antique relics. Four miles west of Robertsbridge, uphill and down, is Breitling whose needle standing on Breitling down, 646 feet high, is visible from most of the eminences in this part of Sussex. The obelisk, together with the neighbouring observatory, was built on the side of an old beacon by the famous Jack Fuller, famous no longer, but in his day he died in 1834, aged 77, a character both in London and in Sussex. He was big and bluff and wealthy and the squire of Rose Hill. He sat for Sussex from 1801 to 1812 and was once carried from the house by the sergeant at arms and his minions for refusing to give way in a debate and calling the speaker the insignificant little fellow in a wig. His election cost him £20,000 plus £30,000 subscribed by the county. When Pitt offered him a peerage he said, No, I was born Jack Fuller and Jack Fuller I'll die. When he travelled from Rose Hill to London Mr Fuller's progresses were almost regal. The coach was provisioned as if for arctic exploration and coachmen and footmen alike were armed with swords and pistols. Honest Jack, as Mr Lauer remarks, put a small value upon the honesty of others. Mr Fuller had two hobbies, music and science. He founded the Fullerian Professorships, which he called his two children and contributed liberally to the Royal Institution and his musical parties in London were famous. But whether it is true that when the Breitling Choir dissatisfied him he presented the church with nine bassoons I cannot say. John Fuller has a better claim to be remembered in Sussex by his purchase of Bodiam Castle when its demolition was threatened and by his commission to Turner to make pictures in the Rape of Hastings five of which were engraved and published in folio form in 1819 under the title Views in Sussex. One of these represents the Breitling Observatory as seen from Rose Hill Park. As a matter of fact, the observatory being of no interest is almost invisible, although Mr Reinigel, A. R. A., who supplies the words to the pictures calls it the most important point in the scene. Furthermore, he says that the artist has expressed the power proceeding from the left corner. Another picture is the Vale of Ashburnham with the house in the middle distance, beachy head beyond, and in the foreground woodcutters carrying wood in an ox wagon. The whole, says Mr Reinigel, A. R. A., is happily composed if I may use the term. He then adds, the eye of the spectator on looking at this beautifully painted scene roves with an eager delight from one hill to another, and seems to play on the dappled woods till arrested by the seat of Lord Ashburnham. Other pictures in the folio are Pevensey Bay from Crowhurst Park, a very beautiful scene, Battle Abbey, and the Vale of Heathfield, painted from a point above the road, with Heathfield House on the left, the Tower on the right, the Church in the centre in the middle distance, and the Sea on the horizon. An impressive, but not strictly veracious landscape. In Breitling Church is a bust to John Fuller with the motto, Utile nihil quod non onestum. A rector in Fuller's early days was William Haley, who died in 1789, a zealous antiquary. His papers relating to the history of Sussex are now like those of Sir William Burrell in the British Museum. Our next village is Burlwash, three miles in the north, built, like all the villages in this switchback district, on a hill. We are now indeed well in the heart of the fatiguing country which we touched at Mayfield, where one eminence is painfully one, only to reveal another. One may be as parched on a road in the Sussex hop country, as in the Arabian desert. The eye, however, that is tired of hop poles and hills, can find sweet gratification in the cottages. Sussex has charming cottages from end to end of her territory, but I think the hop district on the Kentish side has some of the prettiest. Blackberry's, too, may be set down among the riches of the Sandhill villages. In Richard Jeffery's essay, The Countryside, Sussex, in Field and Hedrow, describing this district of the country, is an amusing passage touching superstitions of these parts, picked up during hopping. In and around the kiln I learned that if you smash a frog with a stone, no matter how hard you hit him, he cannot die till sunset. You must be careful not to put on any new article of clothing for the first time on a Saturday, or some severe punishment will ensue. One person put on his new boots on a Saturday and on Monday broke his arm. Some still believe in herbs and gather wood betony for herb tea, or eat dandelion leaves between slices of dry toast. There is an old man living in one of the villages who has reached the age of 160 years and still goes hop-picking. Ever so many people had seen him and knew all about him, an undoubted fact, a public fact, I could not trace him to his lair. His exact whereabouts could not be fixed. I live in hopes of finding him in some obscure hole yet. Many little hamlets are holes, as frog-hole, fox-hole. What an exhibit for London! Did he realise his own value? He would soon come forth. I joke, but the existence of this antique person is firmly believed in. Burwash is one of the few Sussex villages that has been made the subject of a book. The reverence John Coker Egerton's Sussex Folk and Sussex Ways, from which I have already occasionally quoted, was written here, around materials collected during the author's period as rector of Burwash. Mr. Egerton was curate of Burwash from 1857 to 1862 and from 1865 to 1867 when he became rector and remained in the living until his death in 1888. His book is a kindly collection of shrewd and humorous sayings of his Sussex parishioners, anecdotes of characteristic incidents, records of old customs now passing or passed away, the whole fused by the rector's genial personality. It is to Burwash and Mr. Egerton that we owe some characteristics craps of Sussex philosophy. Thus Mr. Egerton tells us of an old conservative whose advice to young men was this, mind you don't never have nothing in no way to do with none of their newfangled schemes. Another Sussex cynic defined party government with grim impartiality, politics are about like this, I've got a sow in my yard with twelve Litlands they Litlands can't all feed at once because there isn't room enough so I shut six on them out of the yard while the other six be sucking and the six as we shut out they just do make a hem of a noise till they be let in and then they be just as quiet as the rest. The capacity of the Sussex man to put his foot down and keep it there is shown in the refusal of Burwash to ring the bells George IV then Prince of Wales passed through the village on his return to Brighton from a visit to Sir John Laid at Etchingham the reason given being that the first gentleman in Europe when rung in on his way to Sir John's had said nothing about beer this must have been during one of the Prince's peculiarly needy periods for the withholding of strong drink from his friends was never one of his failings another Burwash radical used to send up to the rectory with a message that he was about to gather fruit and the rector must send down for the tithe the rector's man would go down and receive one gooseberry from a basket of ten all that was to be gathered that day another Burwash man posed his vicar more agreeably and humorously in another manner finding him a little in liquor the pastor would have warned him against the habit but the man was too quick how was it? he asked the vicar with well affected or real concern that whenever he had had too much to drink he felt more religious than at any other time the Burwash records indeed go far to redeem Sussex men from the epithet silly which is traditionally theirs concerning this old taunt I like the rector's remarks in Idolhurst the phrase he says is better after all than canny old Cumberland or calling ourselves free and enlightened citizens or heirs to all the ages but suppose Sussex are silly as you like the country wants a large preserve of fallow brains you can't manure the intellect for close cropping isn't it renan who attributes so much to solid Breton's stupidity in his ancestors I notice that Mr. H. G. Wells in his very interesting book Mankind in the Making is in support of this suggestion the Idolhurst rector in contrasting Londoners with Sussex folk continues some old satirist of the county had it that the crest of the true Sussex peasant is a pig cuchon with the motto I won't be drove I give this for what it is worth it is to be doubted if any county has a monopoly of silliness the fault of Sussex people rather is to lack reserves not of wisdom but of effort although the Sussex men have done some of the most brilliant things in the history of the game even before the days of their oriental ally they have probably made a greater number of tame attempts to cope with difficulties than any other eleven for the staying of a rot Sussex has had but few qualifications the cricket test is not everything but character tells there another employment Burr-wash however must be exempted from this particular charge for whatever its form may be now its eleven had once a terrible reputation I find in the county paper for 1771 an advertisement to the effect that Burr-wash having challenged all its neighbours without effect invites a match with any parish whatsoever in all Sussex Mr Egerton was not the first parson to record the manners of the Burr-wash parishioner the reverence James Hurdis curate there towards the end of the preceding century and afterwards professor of poetry at Oxford we saw his grave at Bishopstone had written a blank verse poem in the manner of Cooper with some of the observations of Crabb entitled The Village Curate which is a record of his thoughts and impressions in his Burr-wash days one could hardly say that The Village Curate would bear reprinting at the present time we have moved too far from its pensiveness and an age that does not read the task and only talks about Crabb is hardly likely to reach out for Hurdis but within its limits The Village Curate is good a like in its description of scenery, its reflections and its satire the Burr-wash donkey race is capital then comes the ass-race let not wisdom frown if the grave-clark look on and now and then bestow a smile for we may see Alcainor in this untoward race the ways of life are we not asses all we start and run and eagerly we press to pass the goal and all to win a bobble a laced hat was not great Woolsey such he ran the race and won the hat what ranting politician what preting lawyer what ambitious clark but is an ass that gallops for a hat for what do princes strive but golden hats for diadems whose bear and scanty brims will hardly keep the sunbeam from their eyes for what do poets strive a leafy hat without crown or brim which hardly screens the empty noddle from the fist of scorn much less repels the critic's thundering arm and here and there intoxication too concludes the race who wins the hat gets drunk who wins a laurel, mitre, cap or crown is drunk as he so Alexander fell so Hammann, Caesar, Spencer Woolsey, James I find in the Sussex paper for 1792 the following contribution to the history of Burr-Wash a hint to great and little men last Thursday morning a butcher and a shopkeeper of Burr-Wash in this county went into a field near that town with pistols to decide a quarrel of longstanding between them the lusty night of the cleaver having made it a practice to insult his antagonist who is a very little man the great disparity between them in size rendered this the only eligible alternative for the latter the butcher took care to inform his wife of the intended meeting in hopes that she would give the constables timely notice thereof but the good woman not having felt so deeply interested in his fate as he expected to make sure he sent her to the constable himself and then marched reluctantly to the field where the little spirited shopkeeper was parading with a considerable reserve of ammunition lest his first fire should not take place now the affrighted butcher proceeded slowly to charge his pistols alternately looking towards the town and his impatient adversary this man of blood all pale and trembling at last began to despair of any friendly interference when the constable very seasonably appeared and forbade the duel to his great joy and the disappointment of the spectators Burwash had another great man of whom it is not very proud Fuller shall describe him Henry Burwash so named Seth my author which is enough for my discharge from Burwash a town in this county he was one of noble alliance and when this is said all is said to his commendation otherwise neither good for church nor state sovereign nor subjects covetous, ambitious rebellious, injurious say not what makes he here then among the worthy's for though neither ethically nor theologically yet historically he was remarkable affording something for our information though not imitation he was recommended by his kinsmen Bartholomew de Badalisma note baron of Leeds in Kent to King Edward II who preferred him bishop of Lincoln it was not long before falling into the king's displeasure his temporalities were seized on and afterwards on his submission restored here instead of new gratitude retaining his old grudge he was most forward to assist the queen in the deposing of her husband he was twice lord treasurer once chancellor and once sent over ambassador to the Duke of Bavaria he died anodomini 1340 such as mined to be merry may read the pleasant story of his apparition being condemned after death to be veridis veridarius a green forester because in his lifetime he had violently enclosed other men's grounds into his park surely such fictions keep up the best park of potpourri purgatory whereby their fairest game and greatest gain is preserved etchingham the station next Roberts bridge is famous for its church windows and its brasses to the etchinghams of the past and illustrious race of Sussex barons among the brasses is that of William de Etchingham builder of the church who died in 1345 the inscription in French runs I was made and formed of a earth and now I have returned to earth William de Etchingham was my name God have pity on my soul and all you who pass by pray to him for me certainly no church in Sussex has so many interesting brasses as these a moat once surrounded the god's acre and legend had it that at the bottom was a great bell which might never be drawn forth until six yoke of white oxen were harnessed to it pity that the moat was allowed to run dry and the harmless fiction exposed Sir John Laid diminutive associate of George IV in his young days and afterwards coming upon disaster coachman to the Earl of Anglesey once lived at Hermia Hall nearby as we have seen the first gentleman in Europe visited him there and it was there one day that in default of other quarry Sir John's gamekeeper only being able to produce a solitary pheasant the prince and his host shot ten geese as they swam across a pond and laid them at the feet of Lady Laid Sir John was the hero of the following exploit recorded in the press in October 1795 a curious circumstance occurred at Brighton on Monday, seven night Sir John Laid for a trifling wager undertook to carry Lord Chumley on his back from opposite the pavilion twice round the stain several ladies attended to be spectators of this extraordinary feat of the dwarf carrying the giant when his lordship declared himself ready Sir John desired him to strip strip exclaimed the other why surely you promised to carry me in my clothes by no means replied the baronet I engaged to carry you but not an inch of clothes so therefore my lord make ready and let us not disappoint the ladies after much laughable altercation it was at length declared that Sir John had won his wager the peer declining to exhibit in poorest Naturalibus Ticehurst and Wodhurst which may be reached either by road or rail from Robertsbridge or Etchingham both stand high very near the Kentish border to the east of Hurst Green on the road thither a hamlet disproportionate and imposing possessing in the George Inn a relic of the days when the coaches came this way is Seacox Heath now the residence of Lord Goshen but once the home of George Gray a member of the terrible Hawkerst gang of smugglers Ticehurst has a noble church very ingeniously restored with a square tower some fine windows old glass a vestry curiously situated over the porch and an interesting brass the bell inn in the village is said to date from the 15th century at Wodhurst are many iron grave slabs and a graceful slender spire the massive door bears the date 1682 a high village in good accessible country discovery seems to be upon it London is not so near as at Krobera but one may almost hear the jingling of the cabs end of chapter 39