BEING A POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION 417
INDEX 439
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE BARBICAN, LEWES CASTLE _Frontispiece_
COWDRAY 4
BLACKDOWN 10
COWDRAY 22
CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL 31
CHICHESTER CROSS 35
THE RUINED NAVE OF BOXGROVE 39
BOXGROVE PRIORY CHURCH 41
BOXGROVE FROM THE SOUTH 43
EAST LAVANT 49
BOSHAM 54
ARUNDEL 68
THE ARUN AT NORTH STOKE 71
GATEWAY, AMBERLEY CASTLE 84
AMBERLEY CASTLE 87
AMBERLEY CASTLE, ENTRANCE TO CHURCHYARD 89
AMBERLEY CHURCH 91
PULBOROUGH CHURCH 93
AT PULBOROUGH 95
STOPHAM BRIDGE 97
THE ROTHER AT FITTLEWORTH 99
ALMSHOUSE AT PETWORTH 101
PETWORTH CHURCHYARD 104
THE CAUSEWAY, HORSHAM 112
COTTAGES AT SLINFOLD 118
RUDGWICK 121
CHURCH STREET, STEYNING 135
STEYNING CHURCH 138
BRAMBER 140
COOMBES CHURCH 142
CHANCTONBURY RING 145
SOMPTING 153
LANCING 157
NEW SHOREHAM CHURCH 185
OLD SHOREHAM BRIDGE 188
OLD SHOREHAM CHURCH 189
POYNINGS, FROM THE DEVIL'S DYKE 193
HANGLETON HOUSE 196
MALTHOUSE FARM, HURSTPIERPOINT 200
DITCHLING 207
OLD HOUSE AT DITCHLING 208
CUCKFIELD CHURCH 212
EAST MASCALLS--BEFORE RENOVATION 219
THE JUDGE'S HOUSES, EAST GRINSTEAD 228
ON THE OUSE, ABOVE LEWES 239
HIGH STREET, SOUTHOVER 241
ANN OF CLEVES' HOUSE, SOUTHOVER 246
ST. ANN'S CHURCH, SOUTHOVER 251
THE OUSE AT SOUTH STREET, LEWES 253
THE OUSE AT PIDDINGHOE 255
RODMELL 256
PIDDINGHOE 258
SOUTHOVER GRANGE 261
NEAR TARRING NEVILLE 263
GLYNDE 282
FRAMFIELD 293
IN BUXTED PARK 298
BEACHY HEAD 318
BEACHY HEAD FROM THE SHORE 325
PEVENSEY CASTLE 329
WESTHAM 333
HURSTMONCEUX CASTLE 335
BATTLE ABBEY--THE GATEWAY 349
MOUNT STREET, BATTLE 352
BATTLE ABBEY, THE REFECTORY 355
THE LANDGATE, RYE 359
SEDILIA AND TOMBS OF GERVASE AND
STEPHEN ALARD, WINCHELSEA 363
THE YPRES TOWER, RYE 365
COURT LODGE, UDIMORE 370
UDIMORE CHURCH 372
BREDE PLACE 373
BREDE PLACE, FROM THE SOUTH 375
BODIAM CASTLE 377
SHOYSWELL, NEAR TICEHURST 388
THE PANTILES, TUNBRIDGE WELLS 391
BAYHAM ABBEY 396
ASHDOWN FOREST, FROM EAST GRINSTEAD 403
MAP OF THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX _End paper_
[Illustration]
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN SUSSEX
CHAPTER I
MIDHURST
The fitting order of a traveller's progress--The Downs the true
Sussex--Fashion at bay--Mr. Kipling's topographical
creed--Midhurst's advantages--Single railway lines--Queen Elizabeth
at Cowdray--Montagus domestic and homicidal--The curse of
Cowdray--Dr. Johnson at Midhurst--Cowdray Park.
If it is better, in exploring a county, to begin with its least
interesting districts and to end with the best, I have made a mistake in
the order of this book: I should rather have begun with the
comparatively dull hot inland hilly region of the north-east, and have
left it at the cool chalk Downs of the Hampshire border. But if one's
first impression of new country cannot be too favourable we have done
rightly in starting at Midhurst, even at the risk of a loss of
enthusiasm in the concluding chapters. For although historically,
socially, and architecturally north Sussex is as interesting as south
Sussex, the crown of the county's scenery is the Downs, and its most
fascinating districts are those which the Downs dominate. The farther we
travel from the Downs and the sea the less unique are our surroundings.
Many of the villages in the northern Weald, beautiful as they are, might
equally well be in Kent or Surrey: a visitor suddenly alighting in their
midst, say from a balloon, would be puzzled to name the county he was
in; but the Downs and their dependencies are essential Sussex. Hence a
Sussex man in love with the Downs becomes less happy at every step
northward.
[Sidenote: THE INVIOLATE HILLS]
One cause of the unique character of the Sussex Downs is their virginal
security, their unassailable independence. They stand, a silent
undiscovered country, between the seething pleasure towns of the
seaboard plain and the trim estates of the Weald. Londoners, for whom
Sussex has a special attraction by reason of its proximity (Brighton's
beach is the nearest to the capital in point of time), either pause
north of the Downs, or rush through them in trains, on bicycles, or in
carriages, to the sea. Houses there are among the Downs, it is true, but
they are old-established, the homes of families that can remember no
other homes. There is as yet no fashion for residences in these
altitudes. Until that fashion sets in (and may it be far distant) the
Downs will remain essential Sussex, and those that love them will
exclaim with Mr. Kipling,
God gave all men all earth to love,
But since man's heart is small,
Ordains for each one spot shall prove
Beloved over all.
* * * * *
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground--in a fair ground--
Yea, Sussex by the sea!
[Sidenote: MIDHURST]
If we are to begin our travels in Sussex with the best, then Midhurst is
the starting point, for no other spot has so much to offer: a quiet
country town, gabled and venerable, unmodernised and unambitious, with a
river, a Tudor ruin, a park of deer, heather commons, immense woods, and
the Downs only three miles distant. Moreover, Midhurst is also the
centre of a very useful little railway system, which, having only a
single line in each direction, while serving the traveller, never annoys
him by disfiguring the country or letting loose upon it crowds of
vandals. Single lines always mean thinly populated country. As a
pedestrian poet has sung:--
My heart leaps up when I behold
A single railway line;
For then I know the wood and wold
Are almost wholly mine.
And Midhurst being on no great high road is nearly always quiet. Nothing
ever hurries there. The people live their own lives, passing along their
few narrow streets and the one broad one, under the projecting eaves of
timbered houses, unrecking of London and the world. Sussex has no more
contented town.
The church, which belongs really to St. Mary Magdalen, but is popularly
credited to St. Denis, was never very interesting, but is less so now
that the Montagu tomb has been moved to Easebourne. Twenty years ago, I
remember, an old house opposite the church was rumoured to harbour a
pig-faced lady. I never had sight of her, but as to her existence and
her cast of feature no one was in the least doubt. Pig-faced ladies
(once so common) seem to have gone out, just as the day of Spring-heeled
Jack is over. Sussex once had her Spring-heeled Jacks, too, in some
profusion.
[Illustration: _Cowdray._]
[Sidenote: ELIZABETH AT COWDRAY]
Cowdray Park is gained from the High Street, just below the Angel Inn,
by a causeway through water meadows of the Rother. The house is now but
a shell, never having been rebuilt since the fire which ate out its
heart in 1793: yet a beautiful shell, heavily draped in rich green ivy
that before very long must here and there forget its earlier duty of
supporting the walls and thrust them too far from the perpendicular to
stand. Cowdray, built in the reign of Henry VIII., did not come to its
full glory until Sir Anthony Browne, afterwards first Viscount Montagu,
took possession. The seal was put upon its fame by the visit of Queen
Elizabeth in 1591 (Edward VI. had been banqueted there by Sir Anthony in
1552, "marvellously, nay, rather excessively," as he wrote), as some
return for the loyalty of her host, who, although an old man, in 1588,
on the approach of the Armada, had ridden straightway to Tilbury, with
his sons and his grandson, the first to lay the service of his house at
her Majesty's feet. A rare pamphlet is still preserved describing the
festivities during Queen Elizabeth's sojourn. On Saturday, about eight
o'clock, her Majesty reached the house, travelling from Farnham, where
she had dined. Upon sight of her loud music sounded. It stopped when she
set foot upon the bridge, and a real man, standing between two wooden
dummies whom he exactly resembled, began to flatter her exceedingly.
Until she came, he said, the walls shook and the roof tottered, but one
glance from her eyes had steadied the turret for ever. He went on to
call her virtue immortal and herself the Miracle of Time, Nature's
Glory, Fortune's Empress, and the World's Wonder. Elizabeth, when he had
made an end, took the key from him and embraced Lady Montagu and her
daughter, the Lady Dormir; whereupon "the mistress of the house (as it
were weeping in the bosome) said, 'O happie time! O joyfull daie!'"
[Sidenote: A QUEEN'S DIVERSIONS]
These preliminaries over, the fun began. At breakfast next morning three
oxen and a hundred and forty geese were devoured. On Monday, August
17th, Elizabeth rode to her bower in the park, took a crossbow from a
nymph who sang a sweet song, and with it shot "three or four" deer,
carefully brought within range. After dinner, standing on one of the
turrets she watched sixteen bucks "pulled down with greyhounds" in a
lawn. On Tuesday, the Queen was approached by a pilgrim, who first
called her "Fairest of all creatures," and expressed the wish that the
world might end with her life and then led her to an oak whereon were
hanging escutcheons of her Majesty and all the neighbouring noblemen and
gentlemen. As she looked, a "wilde man" clad all in ivy appeared and
delivered an address on the importance of loyalty. On Wednesday, the
Queen was taken to a goodlie fish-pond (now a meadow) where was an
angler. After some words from him a band of fishermen approached,
drawing their nets after them; whereupon the angler, turning to her
Majesty, remarked that her virtue made envy blush and stand amazed.
Having thus spoken, the net was drawn and found to be full of fish,
which were laid at Elizabeth's feet. The entry for this day ends with
the sentence, "That evening she hunted." On Thursday the lords and
ladies dined at a table forty-eight yards long, and there was a country
dance with tabor and pipe, which drew from her Majesty "gentle
applause." On Friday, the Queen knighted six gentlemen and passed on to
Chichester.
[Sidenote: A DESPERADO POET]
A year later the first Lord Montagu died. He was succeeded by another
Anthony, the author of the "Book of Orders and Rules" for the use of the
family at Cowdray, and the dedicatee of Anthony Copley's _Fig for
Fortune_, 1596. Copley has a certain Sussex interest of his own, having
astonished not a little the good people of Horsham. A contemporary
letter describes him as "the most desperate youth that liveth. He did
shoot at a gentleman last summer, and did kill an ox with a musket, and
in Horsham church he threw his dagger at the parish clerk, and it stuck
in a seat of the church. There liveth not his like in England for sudden
attempts." Subsequently the conspirator-poet must have calmed down, for
he states in the dedication to my lord that he is "now winnowed by the
fan of grace and Zionry." To-day he would say "saved." Copley, after
narrowly escaping capital punishment for his share in a Jesuit plot,
disappeared.
The instructions given in Lord Montagu's "Booke of Orders and Rules"
illustrate very vividly the generous amplitude of the old Cowdray
establishment. Thus:--
MY CARVER AND HIS OFFICE.
I will that my carver, when he cometh to the ewerye boorde, doe
there washe together with the Sewer, and that done be armed
(videlt.) with an armeinge towell cast about his necke, and putt
under his girdle on both sides, and one napkyn on his lefte
shoulder, and an other on the same arme; and thence beinge broughte
by my Gentleman Usher to my table, with two curteseyes thereto, the
one about the middest of the chamber, the other when he cometh to
ytt, that he doe stande seemely and decently with due reverence and
sylence, untill my dyett and fare be brought uppe, and then doe his
office; and when any meate is to be broken uppe that he doe carrye
itt to a syde table, which shalbe prepared for that purpose and
there doe ytt; when he hath taken upp the table, and delivered the
voyder to the yeoman Usher, he shall doe reverence and returne to
the ewrye boorde there to be unarmed. My will is that for that day
he have the precedence and place next to my Gentleman Usher at the
wayter's table.
MY GENTLEMEN WAYTERS.
I will that some of my Gentlemen Wayters harken when I or my wiffe
att any tyme doe walke abroade, that they may be readye to give
their attendance uppon us, some att one tyme and some att another
as they shall agree amongst themselves; but when strangeres are in
place, then I will that in any sorte they be readye to doe such
service for them as the Gentleman Usher shall directe. I will
further that they be dayly presente in the greate chamber or other
place of my dyett about tenn of the clocke in the forenoone and
five in the afternoone without fayle for performance of my service,
unles they have license from my Stewarde or Gentleman Usher to the
contrarye, which if they exceede, I will that they make knowne the
cause thereof to my Stewarde, who shall acquaynte me therewithall.
I will that they dyne and suppe att a table appoynted for them, and
there take place nexte after the Gentlemen of my Horse and chamber,
accordinge to their seniorityes in my service.
[Sidenote: THE HOUSE OF MONTAGU]
The third Viscount Montagu was not remarkable, but his account books are
quaint reading. From July, 1657, to July, 1658, his steward spent
_L_1,945 10_s._ solely in little personal matters for his master. Among
the disbursements were, on September 11th, fourteen pence "for washing
Will Stapler"; on November 22nd, 1_s._ 4_d._ to the Lewes carrier "for
bringing a box of puddings for my mistress and my master"; on January
17th, _L_4 to "Mr. Fiske the dancing-master for teaching my master to
dance, being two months"; and on April 21st, seven shillings "for a
Tooth for my Lord."
The fifth Viscount was a man of violent temper. On reaching Mass one day
and finding it half done, he drew his pistol and shot the chaplain. The
outcry all over the country was loud and vengeful, and my lord lay
concealed for fifteen years in a hiding-hole contrived in the masonry of
Cowdray for the shelter of persecuted priests. The peer emerged only at
night, when he roamed the close walks, repentant and sad. Lady Montagu
would then steal out to him, dressing all in white to such good purpose
that the desired rumours of a ghost soon flew about the neighbourhood.
The curse of Cowdray, which, if genuinely pronounced, has certainly been
wonderfully fulfilled, dates from the gift of Battle Abbey by Henry
VIII. to Sir Anthony Browne, the father of Queen Elizabeth's host and
friend. Sir Anthony seized his new property, and turned the monks out
of the gates, in 1538. Legend says that as the last monk departed, he
warned his despoiler that by fire and water his line should perish. By
fire and water it perished indeed. A week after Cowdray House was
burned, in 1793, the last Viscount Montagu was drowned in the Rhine. His
only sister (the wife of Mr. Stephen Poyntz) who inherited, was the
mother of two sons both of whom were drowned while bathing at Bognor.
When Mr. Poyntz sold the estate to the Earl of Egmont, we may suppose
the curse to have been withdrawn.
[Sidenote: DR. JOHNSON AT COWDRAY]
Among the treasures that were destroyed in the fire were the Roll of
Battle Abbey and many paintings. Dr. Johnson visited Cowdray a few years
before its demolition; "Sir," he said to Boswell, "I should like to stay
here four-and-twenty hours. We see here how our ancestors lived."
According to the _Tour of Great Britain_, attributed to Daniel Defoe,
but probably by another hand, Cowdray's hall was of Irish oak. In the
large parlour were the triumphs of Henry VIII. by Holbein. In the long
gallery were the Twelve Apostles "as large as life"; while the marriage
of Cupid and Psyche, a tableau that never failed to please our
ancestors, was not wanting.
The glory of the Montagus has utterly passed. The present Earl of Egmont
is either an absentee or he lives in a cottage near the gates; and the
new house, which is hidden in trees, is of no interest. The park,
however, is still ranged by its beautiful deer, and still possesses an
avenue of chestnut trees and rolling wastes of turf. It is everywhere as
free as a heath.
CHAPTER II
MIDHURST'S VILLAGES
Hanging in chains--A wooded paradise--Fernhurst--Shulbrede
Priory--Blackdown--Tennyson's Sussex home--Thomas Otway--Kate
Hotspur's Grave--A Sussex ornithologist--The friend of
owls--William Cobbett looks at the Squire--The charms of South
Harting--Lady Mary Caryll's little difficulties--Gilbert White in
Sussex--The old field routine--Witchcraft at South Harting--The
Rother--Easebourne--West Lavington and Cardinal Manning.
The road from Midhurst to Blackdown ascends steadily to Henley,
threading vast woods and preserves. On the left is a great common, on
the right North Heath, where the two Drewitts were hanged in chains
after being executed at Horsham, in 1799, for the robbery of the
Portsmouth mail--probably the last instance of hanging in chains in this
country. For those that like wild forest country there was once no
better ramble than might be enjoyed here; but now (1903) that the King's
new sanatorium is being built in the midst of Great Common, some of the
wildness must necessarily be lost. A finer site could not have been
found. Above Great Common is a superb open space nearly six hundred feet
high, with gorse bushes advantageously placed to give shelter while one
studies the Fernhurst valley, the Haslemere heights and, blue in the
distance, the North Downs. Sussex has nothing wilder or richer than the
country we are now in.
A few minutes' walk to the east from this lofty common, and we are
immediately above Henley, clinging to the hill side, an almost Alpine
hamlet. Henley, however, no longer sees the travellers that once it did,
for the coach road, which of old climbed perilously through it, has been
diverted in a curve through the hanger, and now sweeps into Fernhurst by
way of Henley Common.
[Illustration: _Blackdown._]
[Sidenote: FERNHURST]
Fernhurst, beautifully named, is in an exquisite situation among the
minor eminences of the Haslemere range, but the builder has been busy
here, and the village is not what it was.
[Sidenote: SHULBREDE PRIORY]
Two miles to the north-west, on the way to Linchmere, immediately under
the green heights of Marley, is the old house which once was Shulbrede
Priory. As it is now in private occupation and is not shown to
strangers, I have not seen it; but of old many persons journeyed
thither, attracted by the quaint mural paintings, in the Prior's room,
of domestic animals uttering speech. "Christus natus est," crows the
cock. "Quando? Quando?" the duck inquires. "In hac nocte," says the
raven. "Ubi? Ubi?" asks the cow, and the lamb satisfies her: "Bethlehem,
Bethlehem."
One may return deviously from Shulbrede to Midhurst (passing in the
heart of an unpopulated country a hamlet called Milland, where is an old
curiosity shop of varied resources) by way of one of the pleasantest and
narrowest lanes that I know, rising and falling for miles through silent
woods, coming at last to Chithurst church, one of the smallest and
simplest and least accessible in the county, and reaching Midhurst again
by the hard, dry and irreproachable road that runs between the heather
of Trotton Common.
On the eastern side of Fernhurst, to which we may now return, a mile on
the way to Lurgashall, was once Verdley Castle; but it is now a castle
no more, merely a ruined heap. Utilitarianism was too much for it, and
its stones fell to Macadam. After all, if an old castle has to go, there
are few better forms of reincarnation for it than a good hard road.
While at Fernhurst it is well to walk on to Blackdown, the best way,
perhaps, being to take the lane to the right about half a mile beyond
the village, and make for the hill across country. Blackdown, whose
blackness is from its heather and its firs, frowns before one all the
while. The climb to the summit is toilsome, over nine hundred feet, but
well worth the effort, for the hill overlooks hundreds of square miles
of Sussex and Surrey, between Leith Hill in the north and Chanctonbury
in the south.
[Sidenote: TENNYSON'S SUSSEX HOME]
Aldworth, Tennyson's house, is on the north-east slope, facing Surrey.
The poet laid the foundation stone on April 23 (Shakespeare's birthday),
1868: the inscription on the stone running "Prosper thou the work of our
hands, O prosper thou our handiwork." Of the site Aubrey de Vere
wrote:--"It lifted England's great poet to a height from which he could
gaze on a large portion of that English land which he loved so well, see
it basking in its most affluent summer beauty, and only bounded by 'the
inviolate sea.' Year after year he trod its two stately terraces with
men the most noted of their time." Pilgrims from all parts journeyed
thither--not too welcome; among them that devout American who had worked
his way across the Atlantic in order to recite _Maud_ to its author: a
recitation from which, says the present Lord Tennyson, his father
"suffered." Tennyson has, I think, no poems upon his Sussex home, but I
always imagine that the dedication of _The Death of Oenone and other
Poems_, in 1894, must belong to Blackdown:--
There on the top of the down,
The wild heather round me and over me June's high blue,
When I look'd at the bracken so bright and the heather so brown,
I thought to myself I would offer this book to you,
This, and my love together,
To you that are seventy-seven,
With a faith as clear as the heights of the June-blue heaven,
And a fancy as summer-new
As the green of the bracken amid the gloom of the heather.
The most interesting village between Midhurst and the western boundary,
due west, is Trotton, three miles distant on the superb road to
Petersfield, of which I have spoken above. There is no better road in
England. Trotton is quiet and modest, but it has two great claims on
lovers of the English drama. In the "Ode to Pity" of one of our Sussex
poets we read thus of another:--
But wherefore need I wander wide
To old Ilissus' distant side,
Deserted streams and mute?
Wild Arun, too, has heard thy strains,
And echo, 'midst my native plains,
Been soothed by pity's lute.
There first the wren thy myrtles shed
On gentlest Otway's infant head,
To him thy cell was shown;
And while he sung the female heart,
With youth's soft notes unspoiled by art,
Thy turtles mixed their own.
[Sidenote: THOMAS OTWAY]
So wrote William Collins, adding in a note that the Arun (more properly
the Rother, a tributary of the Arun) runs by the village of Trotton, in
Sussex, where Thomas Otway had his birth. The unhappy author of _Venice
Preserv'd_ and _The Orphan_ was born at Trotton in 1652, the son of
Humphrey Otway, the curate, who afterwards became rector of Woolbeding
close by. Otway died miserably when only thirty-three, partly of
starvation, partly of a broken heart at the unresponsiveness of Mrs.
Barry, the actress, whom he loved, but who preferred the Earl of
Rochester. His two best plays, although they are no longer acted, lived
for many years, providing in Belvidera, in _Venice Preserv'd_ and
Monimia, in _The Orphan_ (in which he "sung the female heart") congenial
_roles_ for tragic actresses--Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Cibber,
Mrs. Siddons and Miss O'Neill. Otway was buried in the churchyard of St.
Clement Danes, but a tablet to his fame is in Trotton church, which is
of unusual plainness, not unlike an ecclesiastical barn. Here also is
the earliest known brass to a woman--Margaret de Camoys, who lived about
1300.
[Sidenote: HOTSPUR'S LADY]
The transition is easy (at Trotton) from Otway to Shakespeare, from
_Venice Preserv'd_ to _Henry IV._
HOTSPUR (to LADY PERCY). Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying
down: come quick, quick; that I may lay my head in thy lap.
_Lady P._ Go, ye giddy goose. [_The music plays._
_Hot._ Now I perceive, the devil understands Welsh;
And 't is no marvel' he's so humorous,
By'r lady, he's a good musician.
_Lady P._ Then should you be nothing but musical; for you are
altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the
lady sing in Welsh.
_Hot._ I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish.
_Lady P._ Wouldst have thy head broken?
_Hot._ No.
_Lady P._ Then be still.
_Hot._ Neither: 'tis a woman's fault.
_Lady P._ Now God help thee!
_Hot._ To the Welsh lady's bed.
_Lady P._ What's that?
_Hot._ Peace! she sings.
[_A Welsh song sung by_ LADY MORTIMER.
_Hot._ Come, Kate, I'll have your song too.
_Lady P._ Not mine, in good sooth.
_Hot._ Not yours, in good sooth! 'Heart, you swear like a
comfit-maker's wife. 'Not you, in good sooth'; and, 'As true as I
live'; and,
'As God shall mend me'; and, 'As sure as day':
And giv'st such sarcenet surety for thy oaths,
As if thou never walk'dst further than Finsbury.
Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,
A good mouth-filling oath; and leave 'in sooth,'
And such protest of pepper-gingerbread,
To velvet-guards and Sunday-citizens.
Come, sing.
_Lady P._ I will not sing.
_Hot._ 'Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbreast teacher.
An the indentures be drawn, I'll away within these two hours; and
so come in when ye will. [_Exit._
My excuse for introducing this little scene is that Kate, whose real
name was Elizabeth, lies here. Her tomb is in the chancel, where she
reposes beside her second husband Thomas, Lord Camoys, beneath a slab on
which are presentments in brass of herself and her lord. It was this
Lord Camoys who rebuilt Trotton's church, about 1400, and who also gave
the village its beautiful bridge over the Rother at a cost, it used to
be said, of only a few pence less than that of the church.
Trotton has still other literary claims. At Trotton Place lived Arthur
Edward Knox, whose _Ornithological Rambles in Sussex_, published in
1849, is one of the few books worthy to stand beside White's _Natural
History of Selborne_. In Sussex, as elsewhere, the fowler has prevailed,
and although rare birds are still occasionally to be seen, they now
visit the country only by accident, and leave it as soon as may be,
thankful to have a whole skin. Guns were active enough in Knox's time,
but to read his book to-day is to be translated to a new land. From time
to time I shall borrow from Mr. Knox's pages: here I may quote a short
passage which refers at once to his home and to his attitude to those
creatures whom he loved to study and studied to love:--"I have the
satisfaction of exercising the rites of hospitality towards a pair of
barn owls, which have for some time taken up their quarters in one of
the attic roofs of the ancient, ivy-covered house in which I reside. I
delight in listening to the prolonged snoring of the young when I ascend
the old oak stairs to the neighbourhood of their nursery, and in hearing
the shriek of the parent birds on the calm summer nights as they pass to
and fro near my window; for it assures me that they are still safe; and
as I know that at least a qualified protection is afforded them
elsewhere, and that even their arch-enemy the gamekeeper is beginning
reluctantly, but gradually, to acquiesce in the general belief of their
innocence and utility, I cannot help indulging the hope that this bird
will eventually meet with that general encouragement and protection to
which its eminent services so richly entitle it."
[Sidenote: COBBETT LOOKS AT THE SQUIRE]
One more literary association: it was at Trotton that William Cobbett
looked at the squire. "From Rogate we came on to Trotton, where a Mr.
Twyford is the squire, and where there is a very fine and ancient church
close by the squire's house. I saw the squire looking at some poor
devils who were making 'wauste improvements, ma'am,' on the road which
passes by the squire's door. He looked uncommonly hard at me. It was a
scrutinising sort of look, mixed, as I thought, with a little surprise,
if not of jealousy, as much as to say, 'I wonder who the devil you can
be?' My look at the squire was with the head a little on one side, and
with the cheek drawn up from the left corner of the mouth, expressive of
anything rather than a sense of inferiority to the squire, of whom,
however, I had never heard speak before."
[Sidenote: HARTING'S RICHES]
By passing on to Rogate, whose fine church not long since was restored
too freely, and turning due south, we come to what is perhaps the most
satisfying village in all Sussex--South Harting. Cool and spacious and
retired, it lies under the Downs, with a little subsidiary range of its
own to shelter it also from the west. Three inns are ready to refresh
the traveller--the Ship, the White Hart (a favourite Sussex sign), and
the Coach and Horses (with a new signboard of dazzling freshness); the
surrounding country is good; Petersfield and Midhurst are less than an
hour's drive distant; while the village has one of the most charming
churches in Sussex, both without and within. Unlike most of the county's
spires, South Harting's is slate and red shingle, but the slate is of an
agreeable green hue, resembling old copper. (Perhaps it is copper.) The
roof is of red tiles mellowed by weather, and the south side of the
tower is tiled too, imparting an unusual suggestion of warmth--more, of
comfort--to the structure; while on the east wall of the chancel is a
Virginian creeper, which, as autumn advances, emphasises this effect.
Within, the church is winning, too, with its ample arches, perfect
proportions, and that aesthetic satisfaction that often attends the
cruciform shape. An interesting monument of the Cowper and Coles
families is preserved in the south transept--three full-size coloured
figures. In the north transept is a spiral staircase leading to the
tower, and elsewhere are memorials of the Fords and Featherstonhaughs of
Up-Park, a superb domain over the brow of Harting's Down, and of the
Carylls of Lady Holt, of whom we shall see more directly. The east
window is a peculiarly cheerful one, and the door of South Harting
church is kept open, as every church door should be, but as too many in
Sussex are not.
In the churchyard, beneath a shed, are the remains of two tombs, with
recumbent stone figures, now in a fragmentary state. At the church gates
are the old village stocks.
[Sidenote: MRS. JONES' MULYGRUBES]
Harting has a place in literature, for one of the Carylls was Pope's
friend, John (1666-1736), a nephew of the diplomatist and dramatist.
Pope's Caryll, who suggested _The Rape of the Lock_, lived at Lady Holt
at West Harting (long destroyed) and also at West Grinstead, where, as
we shall see, the poem was largely written. Mr. H. D. Gordon, rector of
Harting for many years, wrote a history of his parish in 1877: a very
interesting, gossipy book; where we may read much of the Caryll family,
including passages from their letters--how Lady Mary Caryll had the kind
impulse to take one of the parson's nine daughters to France to educate
and befriend, but was so thoughtless as to transform into a pretty
Papist; how Lady Mary disliked Mrs. Jones, the steward's wife; and many
other matters. I quote a passage from a letter of Lady Mary's about Mrs.
Jones, showing that human nature was not then greatly different from
what it is to-day:--"Mr. Joans and his fine Madam came down two days
before your birthday and expected to lye in the house, but as I
apprehended the consequence of letting them begin so, I made an excuse
for want of roome by expecting company, and sent them to Gould's [Arthur
Gould married Kate Caryll, and lived at Harting Place], where they
stayed two nights. I invited them the next day to dinner and they came,
but the day following Madam huff'd (I believe), for she went away to
Barnard's, and wou'd not so much as see the desert [dessert]; however, I
don't repent it, he has been here at all the merryment, and I believe
you'll find it better to keep them at a civil distance than other ways,
for she seems a high dame and not very good humoured, for she has been
sick ever since of the mulygrubes." Mrs. Jones soon afterwards succumbed
either to the mulygrubes or a worse visitation. Lady Mary thus broke the
news:--"Mr. Jones's wife dyed on Sunday, just as she lived, an
Independent, and wou'd have no parson with her, because she sayd she
cou'd pray as well as they. He is making a great funerall, but I believe
not in much affection, for he was all night at a merry bout two days
before she died."
On the arrival of the young Squire Caryll at Lady Holt with his bride,
in 1739, Paul Kelly, the bailiff, informed Lady Mary that the villagers
conducted their lord and lady home "with the upermost satisfaction"--a
good phrase.
Mr. Gordon writes elsewhere in his book of a famous writer whom
Hampshire claims: "For at least forty years (1754-1792) Gilbert White
was an East Harting squire. The bulk of his property was at Woodhouse
and Nye woods, on the northern slope of East Harting, and bounded on the
west by the road to Harting station. The passenger from Harting to the
railway has on his right, immediately opposite the 'Severals' wood,
Gilbert White's Farm, extending nearly to the station. White had also
other Harting lands. These were upon the Downs, viz.:--a portion of the
Park of Uppark on the south side, and a portion of Kildevil Lane, on the
North Marden side of Harting Hill. Gilbert White was on his mother's
side a Ford, and these lands had been transmitted to him through his
great uncle, Oliver Whitby, nephew to Sir Edward Ford."
[Sidenote: THE OLD FIELD ROUTINE]
A glimpse of the old Sussex field routine, not greatly changed in the
remote districts to-day, was given to Mr. Gordon thirty years ago by an
aged labourer. This was the day:--"Out in morning at four o'clock.
Mouthful of bread and cheese and pint of ale. Then off to the harvest
field. Rippin and moen [reaping and mowing] till eight. Then morning
brakfast and small beer. Brakfast--a piece of fat pork as thick as your
hat [a broad-brimmed wideawake] is wide. Then work till ten o'clock:
then a mouthful of bread and cheese and a pint of strong beer
['farnooner,' _i.e._, forenooner; 'farnooner's-lunch,' we called it].
Work till twelve. Then at dinner in the farm-house; sometimes a leg of
mutton, sometimes a piece of ham and plum pudding. Then work till five,
then a _nunch_ and a quart of ale. Nunch was cheese, 'twas skimmed
cheese though. Then work till sunset, then home and have supper and a
pint of ale. I never knew a man drunk in the harvest field in my life.
Could drink six quarts, and believe that a man might drink two gallons
in a day. All of us were in the house [_i.e._, the usual hired servants,
and those specially engaged for the harvest]: the yearly servants used
to go with the monthly ones.
"There were two thrashers, and the head thrasher used always to go
before the reapers. A man could cut according to the goodness of the
job, half-an-acre a day. The terms of wages were _L_3 10_s._ to 50_s._
for the month.
"When the hay was in cock or the wheat in shock, then the Titheman come;
you didn't dare take up a field without you let him know. If the
Titheman didn't come at the time, you tithed yourself. He marked his
sheaves with a bough or bush. You couldn't get over the Titheman. If you
began at a hedge and made the tenth cock smaller than the rest, the
Titheman might begin in the middle just where he liked. The Titheman at
Harting, old John Blackmore, lived at Mundy's [South Harting Street].
His grandson is blacksmith at Harting now. All the tithing was quiet.
You didn't dare even set your eggs till the Titheman had been and ta'en
his tithe. The usual day's work was from 7 to 5."
[Sidenote: A SUSSEX WITCH]
Like all Sussex villages, Harting has had its witches and possessors of
the evil eye. Most curious of these was old Mother Digby (_nee_ Mollen),
who, in Mr. Gordon's words, lived at a house in Hog's Lane, East
Harting, and had the power of witching herself into a hare, and was
continually, like Hecate, attended by dogs. Squire Russell, of Tye Oak,
always lost his hare at the sink-hole of a drain near by the old lady's
house. One day the dogs caught hold of the hare by its hind quarters,
but it escaped down the drain, and Squire Russell, instantly opening the
old beldame's door, found her rubbing the part of her body corresponding
to that by which the hound had seized the hare. Squire Caryll, however,
declined to be hard on the broomstick and its riders, as the following
entry in the records of the Court Leet, held for the Hundred of Dumford
in 1747, shows:--"Also we present the Honble. John Caryll, Esq., Lord of
this Mannor, for not having and keeping a Ducking Stool within the said
Hundred of Dumford according to law, for the ducking of scolds and other
disorderly persons."
[Sidenote: THE BEACON FIRES]
The road from South Harting to Elsted runs under the hills, which here
rise abruptly from the fields, to great heights, notably Beacon Hill,
like a huge green mammoth, 800 feet high, on which, before the days of
telegraphy, lived the signaller, who passed on the tidings of danger on
the coast to the next beacon hill, above Henley, and so on to London. In
the days of Napoleon, when any moment might reveal the French fleet, the
Sussex hill tops must often have smouldered under false alarms. The next
hill in the east is Treyford Hill, above Treyford village, whose church
tower, standing on a little hill of its own nearly three hundred feet
high, might take a lesson in beauty from South Harting's, although its
spire has a slenderness not to be improved. Next to Treyford Hill is
Didling Hill, above Didling, and then Linch Down, highest of all in
these parts, being 818 feet.
Elsted, which has no particular interest, possesses an inn, the Three
Horse Shoes, on a site superior to that of many a nobleman's house. It
stands high above a rocky lane, commanding a superb sidelong view of the
Downs and the Weald.
Midhurst's river is the Rother (not to be confounded with the Rother in
the east of Sussex), which flows into the Arun near Hardham. It is wide
enough at Midhurst for small boats, and is a very graceful stream on
which to idle and watch the few kingfishers that man has spared. One may
walk by its side for miles and hear no sound save the music of
repose--the soft munching of the cows in the meadows, the chuckle of the
water as a rat slips in, the sudden yet soothing plash caused by a
jumping fish. Around one's head in the evening the stag-beetle buzzes
with its multiplicity of wings and fierce lobster-like claws
out-stretched.
Following the Rother to the west one comes first to Easebourne, a shady
cool village only a few steps from Midhurst, once notable for its
Benedictine Priory of nuns. Henry VIII. put an end to its religious
life, which, however, if we may believe the rather disgraceful
revelations divulged at an episcopal examination, for some years had not
been of too sincere a character. In Easebourne church is the handsome
tomb of the first Viscount Montagu (the host of Queen Elizabeth), which
was brought hither from Midhurst church some forty years ago. Beyond
Easebourne, on the banks of the Rother, is Woolbeding, amid lush grass
and foliage, as green a spot as any in green England.
[Sidenote: MR. LA THANGUE'S HOME]
On the eastern side of the town (with a diversion into Queen Elizabeth's
sombre wood-walk) one may come by the side of the river part of the way
to West Lavington, which stands high on a slope facing the Downs, with
pine woods immediately beneath it, perhaps as fair a site as any church
can claim. The grave of Richard Cobden, the Free Trader, a native of
Heyshott, near by, is in the churchyard. Here, in 1850, Henry Edward
Manning, afterwards Cardinal, preached his last sermon for the Church of
England. It is, indeed, Manning country, for besides being curate and
rector of Woollavington with Graffham (four or five miles to the
south-east) from 1833 until his secession, he was for nine years
Archdeacon of Chichester; he married Miss Sargent, daughter of the late
rector and sister of Mrs. Samuel Wilberforce of Woollavington; and while
rector, he rebuilt both churches. Graffham is interesting also as being
the present home of one of the most truthful of living painters, Mr.
Henry La Thangue, whose scenes of peasants at work (in the manner of
Barbizon) and studies of sunlight spattering through the trees are among
the triumphs of modern English art.
[Sidenote: CIDER'S DISAPPEARANCE]
One more village and we will make for the hills. A mile beyond the
eastern gate of Cowdray Park is Lodsworth, still a paradise of apple
orchards, but no longer famous for its cider as once it was. Arthur
Young had the pleasure of tasting some Lodsworth cider of a superior
quality at Lord Egremont's table at the beginning of the last century,
but I doubt if Petworth House honours the beverage to-day. Cider, except
in the cider country, becomes less and less common.
[Illustration: _Cowdray._]
CHAPTER III
FIRST SIGHT OF THE DOWNS
The Sussex hills--Gilbert White's praise--Britons, Romans,
Saxons--Charles the Second's ride through Sussex.
Between Midhurst and Chichester, our next centre, rise the Downs, to a
height of between seven hundred and eight hundred feet. Although we
shall often be crossing them again before we leave the county, I should
like to speak of them a little in this place.
The Downs are the symbol of Sussex. The sea, the Weald, the heather
hills of her great forest district, she shares with other counties, but
the Downs are her own. Wiltshire, Berkshire, Kent and Hampshire, it is
true, have also their turf-covered chalk hills, but the Sussex Downs are
vaster, more remarkable, and more beautiful than these, with more
individuality and charm. At first they have been known to disappoint the
traveller, but one has only to live among them or near them, within the
influence of their varying moods, and they surely conquer. They are the
smoothest things in England, gigantic, rotund, easy; the eye rests upon
their gentle contours and is at peace. They have no sublimity, no
grandeur, only the most spacious repose. Perhaps it is due to this
quality that the Wealden folk, accustomed to be overshadowed by this
unruffled range, are so deliberate in their mental processes and so
averse from speculation or experiment. There is a hypnotism of form: a
rugged peak will alarm the mind where a billowy green undulation will
lull it. The Downs change their complexion, but are never other than
soothing and still: no stress of weather produces in them any of that
sense of fatality that one is conscious of in Westmoreland.
Thunder-clouds empurple the turf and blacken the hangers, but they
cannot break the imperturbable equanimity of the line; rain throws over
the range a gauze veil of added softness; a mist makes them more
wonderful, unreal, romantic; snow brings them to one's doors. At sunrise
they are magical, a background for Malory; at sunset they are the lovely
home of the serenest thoughts, a spectacle for Marcus Aurelius. Their
combes, or hollows, are then filled with purple shadow cast by the
sinking sun, while the summits and shoulders are gold.
[Sidenote: GILBERT WHITE IN SUSSEX]
Gilbert White has an often-quoted passage on these hills:--"Though I
have now travelled the Sussex downs upwards of thirty years, yet I still
investigate that chain of majestic mountains with fresh admiration year
by year, and I think I see new beauties every time I traverse it. This
range, which runs from Chichester eastward as far as East Bourn, is
about sixty miles in length, and is called the South Downs, properly
speaking, only round Lewes. As you pass along you command a noble view
of the wild, or weald, on one hand, and the broad downs and sea on the
other. Mr. Ray used to visit a family [Mr. Courthope, of Danny] just at
the foot of these hills, and was so ravished with the prospect from
Plumpton Plain, near Lewes, that he mentions those scapes in his _Wisdom
of God in the Works of the Creation_ with the utmost satisfaction, and
thinks them equal to anything he had seen in the finest parts of Europe.
For my own part, I think there is somewhat peculiarly sweet and amusing
in the shapely-figured aspect of the chalk hills in preference to those
of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. Perhaps I may
be singular in my opinion, and not so happy as to convey to you the same
idea; but I never contemplate these mountains without thinking I
perceive somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings and
smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, and regular
hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air of vegetative dilatation
and expansion:--Or, was there even a time when these immense masses of
calcareous matter were thrown into fermentation by some adventitious
moisture, were raised and leavened into such shapes by some plastic
power; and so made to swell and heave their broad backs into the sky, so
much above the less animated clay of the wild below?"
The Downs have a human and historic as well as scenic interest. On many
of their highest points are the barrows or graves of our British
ancestors, who, could they revisit the glimpses of the moon, would find
little change, for these hills have been less interfered with than any
district within twice the distance from London. The English dislike of
climbing has saved them. They will probably be the last stronghold of
the horse when petrol has ousted him from every other region.
[Sidenote: ROMAN AND SAXON]
After the Briton came the Roman, to whose orderly military mind such a
chain of hills seemed a series of heaven-sent earthworks. Every point in
a favourable position was at once fortified by the legionaries. Standing
upon these ramparts to-day, identical in general configuration in spite
of the intervening centuries, one may imagine one's self a Caesarian
soldier and see in fancy the hinds below running for safety.
After the Romans came the Saxons, who did not, however, use the heights
as their predecessors had. Yet they left even more intimate traces, for,
as I shall show in a later chapter on Sussex dialect, the language of
the Sussex labourer is still largely theirs, the farms themselves often
follow their original Saxon disposition, the field names are unaltered,
and the character of the people is of the yellow-haired parent stock.
Sussex, in many respects, is still Saxon. In a poem by Mr. W. G. Hole is
a stanza which no one that knows Sussex can read without visualising
instantly a Sussex hill-side farm:--
The Saxon lies, too, in his grave where the plough-lands swell;
And he feels with the joy that is Earth's
The Spring with its myriad births;
And he scents as the evening falls
The rich deep breath of the stalls;
And he says, "Still the seasons bring increase and joy to the
world--It is well!"
[Sidenote: THE ESCAPE OF CHARLES II.]
Standing on one of these hills above the Hartings one may remember an
event in English history of more recent date than any of the periods
that we have been recalling--the escape of Charles II in 1651. It was
over these Downs that he passed; and it has been suggested that a
traveller wishing for a picturesque route across the Downs might do well
to follow his course.
According to the best accounts Charles was met, on the evening of
October 13, near Hambledon, in Hampshire (afterwards to be famous as the
cradle of first-class cricket), by Thomas and George Gunter of Racton,
with a leash of greyhounds as if for coursing. The King slept at the
house of Thomas Symonds, Gunter's brother-in-law, in the character of a
Roundhead. The next morning at daybreak, the King, Lord Wilmot and the
two Gunters crossed Broad Halfpenny Down (celebrated by Nyren), and
proceeding by way of Catherington Down, Charlton Down, and Ibsworth
Down, reached Compting Down in Sussex. At Stanstead House Thomas Gunter
left the King, and hurried on to Brighton to arrange for the crossing to
France. The others rode on by way of the hills, with a descent from
Duncton Beacon, until they reached what promised to be the security of
Houghton Forest. There they were panic-stricken nearly to meet Captain
Morley, governor of Arundel Castle, and therefore by no means a King's
man. The King, on being told who it was, replied merrily, "I did not
much like his starched mouchates." This peril avoided, they descended to
Houghton village, where the Arun was crossed, and so to Amberley, where
in Sir John Briscoe's castle the King slept.[1]
[Sidenote: ROUNDHEADS OUTWITTED]
On Amberley Mount the King's horse cast a shoe, necessitating a drop to
one of the Burphams, at Lee Farm, to have the mishap put right.
Ascending the hills again the fugitives held the high track as far as
Steyning. At Bramber they survived a second meeting with Cromwellians,
three or four soldiers of Col. Herbert Morley of Glynde suddenly
appearing, but being satisfied merely to insult them. At Beeding, George
Gunter rode on by way of the lower road to Brighton, while the King and
Lord Wilmot climbed the hill at Horton, crossing by way of White Lot to
Southwick, where, according to one story, in a cottage at the west of
the Green was a hiding-hole in which the King lay until Captain Nicholas
Tattersall of Brighton was ready to embark him for Fecamp. George
Gunter's own story is, however, that the King rode direct to Brighton.
He reached Fecamp on October 16. Two hours after Gunter left Brighton,
"soldiers came thither to search for a tall black man, six feet four
inches high"--to wit, the Merry Monarch.
Such is the bare narrative of Charles' Sussex ride. If the reader would
have it garnished and spiced he should turn to the pages of Ainsworth's
_Ovingdean Grange_, where much that never happened is set forth as
entertainingly (or so I thought when I read it as a boy) as if it were
truth.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] That is the story as the Amberley people like to have it, but
another version makes him ride from Hambledon to Brighton in one day; in
which case he may have avoided Amberley altogether.
CHAPTER IV
CHICHESTER
William Collins--The Smiths of Chichester--Hardham's snuff--C. R.
Leslie's reminiscence--The headless Ravenswood--Chichester
Cathedral--Roman Chichester--Mr. Spershott's recollections--A
warning to swearers--The prettiest alms-house in England.
I have already quoted some lines by Collins on Otway; it is time to come
to Collins himself.
When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell--
The perfect ode which opens with these unforgettable lines belongs to
Chichester, for William Collins was born there on Christmas Day, 1721,
and educated there, at the Prebendal school, until he went to
Winchester. William Collins was the son of the Mayor of Chichester, a
hatter, from whom Pope's friend Caryll bought his hats. I have no wish
to tell here the sad story of Collins' life; it is better to remember
that few as are his odes they are all of gold. He died at Chichester in
1759, and was buried in St. Andrew's Church.
With eyes up-raised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sat retired;
And, from her wild sequester'd seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
And, dashing soft from rocks around
Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;
Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,
Round an holy calm diffusing,
Love of peace, and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away.
[Sidenote: GEORGE SMITH'S ECLOGUE]
Collins is Chichester's great poet. She had a very agreeable minor poet,
too, in George Smith, one of the Three Smiths--all artists: William,
born in 1707, painter of portraits and of fruit and flower pieces, and
George and John, born in 1713 and 1717, who painted landscapes,--known
collectively as the Smiths of Chichester. I mention them rather on
account of George Smith's poetical experiments than for the brothers'
fame as artists; but there is such a pleasant flavour in one at least of
his _Pastorals_ that I have copied a portion of it. It is called "The
Country Lovers; or, Isaac and Marget going to Town on a Summer's
Morning." The town is probably Chichester--certainly one in Sussex and
near the Downs. Isaac speaks first:--
Come! Marget, come!--the team is at the gate!
Not ready yet!--you always make me wait!
I omit a certain amount of the dialogue which follows, but at last
Marget exclaims:--
Well, now I'm ready, long I have not staid.
ISAAC.
One kiss before we go, my pretty maid.
MARGET.
Go! don't be foolish, Isaac--get away!
Who loiters now?--I thought I could not stay!
There!--that's enough! why, Isaac, sure you're mad!
ISAAC.
One more, my dearest girl--
MARGET.
Be quiet, lad.
See both my cap and hair are rumpled o'er!
The tying of my beads is got before!
ISAAC.
There let it stay, thy brighter blush to show,
Which shames the cherry-colour'd silken bow.
Thy lips, which seem the scarlet's hue to steal,
Are sweeter than the candy'd lemon peel.
MARGET.
Pray take these chickens for me to the cart;
Dear little creatures, how it grieves my heart
To see them ty'd, that never knew a crime,
And formed so fine a flock at feeding time!
The pretty poem ends with fervid protestations of devotion from Isaac:--
For thee the press with apple-juice shall foam!
For thee the bees shall quit their honey-comb!
For thee the elder's purple fruit shall grow!
For thee the pails with cream shall overflow!
But see yon teams returning from the town,
Wind in the chalky wheel-ruts o'er the down:
We now must haste; for if we longer stay,
They'll meet us ere we leave the narrow way.
Another of Chichester's illustrious sons is Archbishop Juxon, who stood
by the side of Charles I. on the scaffold and bade farewell to him in
the words "You are exchanging from a temporal to an eternal crown--a
good exchange."
[Sidenote: HARDHAM'S SNUFF]
Yet another, of a very different type, is John Hardham. "When they
talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff," wrote Goldsmith of Sir
Joshua Reynolds,
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.
Had it not been for Chichester the great painter might never have had
the second of these consolations, for the only snuff he liked was
Hardham's No. 37, and Hardham was a native of Chichester. Before he
became famous as a tobacconist, Hardham was, by night, a numberer of the
pit for Garrick at Drury Lane. One day he happened to blend Dutch and
rappee and poured the mixture into a drawer labelled 37. Garrick so
liked the pinch of it which he chanced upon, that he introduced a
reference to its merits in some of his comic parts, with the result that
Hardham's little shop in Fleet Street soon became a resort, and no nose
was properly furnished without No. 37. As Colton wrote, in his
_Hypocrisy_:--
A name is all. From Garrick's breath a puff
Of praise gave immortality to snuff;
Since which each connoisseur a transient heaven
Finds in each pinch of Hardham's 37.
The wealth that came to the tobacconist he left to the city of
Chichester to relieve it of certain of its poor rates; and the citizens
still magnify Hardham's name. He died in 1772 and had the good sense to
restrict the expense of his funeral to ten pounds.
[Sidenote: WILKIE'S BUMPS]
Chichester was the scene of a pleasant incident recorded by Leslie in
his _Autobiographical Recollections_. He was staying with Wilkie at
Petworth, the guest of their patron, and the patron of so many other
painters, Lord Egremont, of whom we shall learn more when Petworth is
reached. They all drove over to Chichester after a visit to Goodwood.
Lord Egremont, says Leslie, "had some business to transact at
Chichester; but one of his objects was to show us a young girl, the
daughter of an upholsterer, who was devoted to painting, and considered
to be a genius by her friends. She was not at home; but her mother said
she could soon be found, 'if his lordship would have the goodness to
wait a short time.' The young lady soon appeared, breathless and
exhausted with running. Lord Egremont mentioned our names, and she said,
looking up to Wilkie with an expression of great respect, 'Oh, sir! it
was but yesterday I had your head in my hands.' This puzzled him, as he
did not know she was a phrenologist.
"'And what bumps did you find?' said Lord Egremont.
"'The organ of veneration, very large,' was her answer; and Wilkie,
making her a profound bow, said:
"'Madam, I have a great veneration for genius.'
"She showed us an unfinished picture from _The Bride of Lammermoor_. The
figure of Lucy Ashton was completed, and, she told us, was the portrait
of a young friend of hers; but Ravenswood was without a head, and this
she explained by saying, 'there are no handsome men in Chichester. But,'
she continued, her countenance brightening, 'the Tenth are expected here
soon.'" (The Tenth was noted for its handsome officers.)
Leslie does not carry the story farther. Whether poor Ravenswood ever
gained his head; whether if he did so it was a military one, or, as a
last resource, a Chichester one; and where the picture, if completed,
now is, I do not know, nor have I succeeded in discovering any more of
the young lady. But passing through the streets of the town I was
conscious of the absence of the Tenth.
Chichester is a perfect example of an English rural capital, thronged on
market days with tilt carts, each bringing a farmer or farmer's wife,
and rich in those well-stored ironmongers' shops that one never sees
elsewhere. But it is more than this: it is also a cathedral town, with
the ever present sense of domination by the cloth even when the cloth is
not visible. Chichester has its roughs and its public houses (Mr. Hudson
in his _Nature in Downland_ gives them a caustic chapter); it also has
its race-week every July, and barracks within hail; yet it is always a
cathedral town. Whatever noise may be in the air you know in your heart
that quietude is its true characteristic. One might say that above the
loudest street cries you are continually conscious of the silence of the
close.
[Illustration: _Chichester Cathedral._]
[Sidenote: CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL]
Chichester's cathedral is not among the most beautiful or the most
interesting, but there is none cooler. It dates from the eleventh
century and contains specimens of almost every kind of church
architecture; but the spire is comparatively new, having been built in
1866 to take the place of its predecessor, which suddenly dropped like
an extinguisher five years before. Seen from the Channel it rises, a
friendly landmark (white or gray, according to the clouds), and while
walking on the Downs above or on the plain around, one is frequently
pleased to catch an unexpected glimpse of its tapering beauty. I have
heard it said that Chichester is the only English cathedral that is
visible at sea.
Within, the cathedral is disappointing, offering one neither richness on
the one hand nor the charm of pure severity on the other. A cathedral
must either be plain or coloured, and Chichester comes short of both
ideals; it has no colour and no purity. Its proportions are, however,
exquisite, and it is impossible to remain here long without passing
under the spell of the stone. Yet had it, one feels, only radiance, how
much finer it would be.
For the completest contrast to the vastness of the cathedral one may
cross into North Street and enter the portal of the toy church of St.
Olave, which dates from the 14th century, and is remarkable, not only
for its minuteness, but as being one of the churches of Chichester
which, in my experience, is not normally locked and barred.
[Sidenote: ROMAN CHICHESTER]
That Chichester was built by the Romans in the geometrical Roman way you
may see as you look down from the Bell Tower upon its four main
streets--north, south, east and west--east becoming Stane-street and
running direct to London. Chichester then was Regnum. On the departure
of the Romans, Cissa, son of Ella, took possession, and the name was
changed to Cissa's Ceastre, hence Chichester. Remnants of the old walls
still stand; and a path has been made on the portion running from North
Street down to West Gate.
[Sidenote: A CLERICAL STRONGHOLD]
More attractive, because more human, than the cathedral itself are its
precincts: the long resounding cloisters, the still, discreet lanes
populous with clerics, and most of all that little terrace of
ecclesiastical residences parallel with South Street, in the shadow of
the mighty fane, covered with creeping greenness, from wistaria to
ampelopsis, with minute windows, inviolable front doors and trim front
gardens, which (like all similar settlements) remind one of alms-houses
carried out to the highest power. Surely the best of places in which to
edit Horace afresh or find new meanings in St. Augustine.
[Illustration: _Chichester Cross._]
There is a tendency for the cathedral to absorb all the attention of the
traveller, but Chichester has other beauties, including the Market
Cross, which is a mere child of stone, dating only from the reign of
Henry VIII.; St. Mary's Hospital in North Street; and the remains of the
monastery of the Grey Friars in the Priory Park. Young Chichester now
plays cricket where of old the monks caught fish and performed their
duties. It was probably on the mound that their Calvary stood; the last
time I climbed it was to watch Bonnor, the Australian giant, practising
in the nets below, too many years ago.
Like all cathedral towns Chichester has beautiful gardens, as one may
see from the campanile. There are no lawns like the lawns of Bishops,
Deans, and Colleges; and few flower beds more luxuriantly stocked.
Chichester also has a number of grave, solid houses, such as Miss
Austen's characters might have lived in; at least one superb specimen of
the art of Sir Christopher Wren, a masterpiece of substantial red brick;
and a noble inn, the Dolphin, where one dines in the Assembly room, a
relic of the good times before inns became hotels.
[Sidenote: SPERSHOTT'S RECOLLECTIONS]
We have some glimpses of old Chichester in the reminiscences (about
1720-1730) of James Spershott, a Chichester Baptist Elder, who died in
1789, aged eighty. I quote a passage here and there from his paper of
recollections printed in the Sussex Archaeological Collections:--
"Spinning of Household Linnen was in use in most Families, also making
their own Bread, and likewise their own Household Physick. No Tea, but
much Industrey and good Cheer. The Bacon racks were loaded with Bacon,
for little Porke was made in these times. The farmers' Wifes and
Daughters were plain in Dress, and made no such gay figures in our
Market as nowadays. At Christmas, the whole Constellation of Pattypans
which adorn'd their Chimney fronts were taken down. The Spit, the Pot,
the Oven, were all in use together; the Evenings spent in Jollity, and
their Glass Guns smoking Top'd the Tumbler with the froth of Good
October, till most of them were slain or wounded, and the Prince of
Orange, and Queen Ann's Marlborough, could no longer be resounded...."
[Sidenote: THE DEATH OF A SWEARER]
Here is Mr. Spershott's account of a Chichester calamity:--"Jno. Page,
Esq., native of this city, coming from London to Stand Candidate Here, a
great number of voters went on Horseback to meet him. Among the rest Mr.
Joshua Lover, a noted School Master, a sober man in the general but of
flighty Passions. As he was setting out, one of his Scollers, Patty
Smith (afterwards my Spouse) asked him for a Coppy, and in haste he
wrote the following:--
Extreames beget Extreames, Extreames avoid
Extreames without Extreames are not Enjoyed.
"He set off in High Carrier, and turning down Rooks's Hill before the
Sqr., rideing like a madman To and fro, forward and backward Hallooing
among the Company, the Horse at full speed fell with him and kill'd him.
A Caution to the flighty and unsteady; and a verification of his Coppy."
Again: "Robt. Madlock, a most Prophane Swarer, being Employ'd in
Cleaning the outside of the Steeple," fell, owing to a breaking rope,
and soon after died. Mr. Spershott adds: "A warning to Swarers." Another
entry states: "In my younger years there were many very large corpulent
Persons in the City, both of Men and Women. I could now recite by name
between twenty and thirty, the great part of that number so Prodigious
that like other animals Thoroughly fatted, they could hardly move
about."
One of Chichester's epitaphs runs thus:--
Here lies a true soldier, whom all must applaud;
Much hardship he suffer'd at home and abroad;
But the hardest engagement he ever was in,
Was the battle of Self in the conquest of Sin.
[Sidenote: THE PERFECT ALMSHOUSE]
I have left until the last the prettiest thing in this city of comely
streets and houses--St. Mary's Hospital, at the end of Lion Street (out
of North Street): the quaintest almshouse in the world. The building
stands back, behind the ordinary houses, and is gained by a passage and
a courtyard. You then enter what seems to be a church, for at the far
end is an altar beneath an unmistakably ecclesiastical window. But when
the first feeling of surprise has passed, you discover that there is
only a small chancel at the east end of the building, on either side of
which are little dwellings. Each of these is occupied by a nice little
old woman, who has two rooms, very minute and cosy, with a little supply
of faggots close at hand, and all the dignity of a householder, although
the occupant only of an infinitesimal toy house within a house. How do
they agree, one wonders, these little old ladies of a touchy age under
their great roof?
Different accounts are given of the origin of St. Mary's Hospital. Mr.
Lower says that it was founded in 1229 for a chaplain and thirteen
bedesmen. In 1562 a warden and five inmates were the prescribed
occupants. Now there are eight sets of rooms, each with its demure
tenant, all of whom troop into the little chapel at fixed hours. Mrs.
Evans, sacristan, who does the honours, would tell me nothing as to the
process of selection by which she and the seven other occupants came to
be living there; all that she could say was that she was very happy to
be a Hospitaller, and that by no possibility could one of the little
domiciles ever fall to me.
[Illustration: _The Ruined Nave of Boxgrove._]
CHAPTER V
CHICHESTER AND THE HILLS.
Goodwood--The art of being a park--The Cenotaph of Lord
Darnley--Boxgrove--Cowper at Eastham--The Charlton Hunt--A famous
run--Huntsman and Saint--Present day hunting in Sussex--Mr. Knox's
delectable day with his gun--Kingly Bottom--The best white
violets--A demon bowler--Two epitaphs.
Chichester may have a cathedral and a history, but nine out of ten
strangers know of it only as a station for Goodwood race-course; towards
which, in that hot week at the end of July, hundreds of carriages toil
by the steep road that skirts the Duke of Richmond and Gordon's park.
Goodwood Park gives me little pleasure. I miss the deer; and when the
first park that one ever knew was Buxted, with its moving antlers above
the brake fern, one almost is compelled to withhold the word park from
any enclosure without them. It is impossible to lose the feeling that
the right place for cattle--even for Alderneys--is the meadow. Cows in a
park are a poor makeshift; parks are for deer. To my eyes Goodwood
House has a chilling exterior; the road to the hill-top is steep and
lengthy; and when one has climbed it and crossed the summit wood, it is
to come upon the last thing that one wishes to find in the heart of the
country, among rolling Downs, sacred to hawks and solitude--a Grand
Stand and the railings of a race-course! Race-courses are for the
outskirts of towns, as at Brighton and Lewes; or for hills that have no
mystery and no magic, like the heights of Epsom; or for such mockeries
of parks as Sandown and Kempton. The good park has many deer and no
race-course.
And yet Goodwood is superb, for it has some of the finest trees in
Sussex within its walls, including the survivors of a thousand cedars of
Lebanon planted a hundred and fifty years ago; and with every step
higher one unfolds a wider view of the Channel and the plain. Best of
these prospects is, perhaps, that gained from Carne's seat, as the
Belvedere to the left of the road to the racecourse is called; its name
deriving from an old servant of the family, whose wooden hut was
situated here when Carne died, and whose name and fame were thus
perpetuated. The stones of the building were in part those of old Hove
church, near Brighton, then lately demolished.
[Sidenote: THE CENOTAPH OF DARNLEY]
In Goodwood House, which is shown on regular days, are fine Vandycks and
Lelys, relics of the two Charles', and above all the fascinatingly
absorbing "Cenotaph of Lord Darnley," a series of scenes in the life of
that ill-fated husband. It may be said that among all the treasures of
Sussex there is nothing quite so interesting as this.
[Illustration: _Boxgrove Priory Church._]
[Sidenote: BOXGROVE]
Leaving Chichester by East Street (or Stane Street, the old Roman road
to London) one comes first to West Hampnett, famous as the birthplace,
in 1792, of Frederick William Lillywhite, the "Nonpareil" bowler, whom
we shall meet again at Brighton. A mile and a half beyond is Halnaker,
midway between two ruins, those of Halnaker House to the north and
Boxgrove Priory to the south. Of the remains of Halnaker House, a Tudor
mansion, once the home of the De la Warrs, little may now be seen; but
Boxgrove is still very beautiful, as Mr. Griggs' drawings prove. The
Priory dates from the reign of Henry I., when it was founded very
modestly for three Benedictine monks, a number which steadily grew.
Seven Henries later came its downfall, and now nothing remains but some
exquisite Norman arches and a few less perfect fragments. Boxgrove
church is an object of pilgrimage for antiquaries and architects, the
vaulting being peculiarly interesting. At the Halnaker Arms in 1902 was
a landlady whom few cooks could teach anything in the matter of pastry.
[Sidenote: THE EARTHAM DILLETANTE]
The next village on Stane Street, or rather a little south of it, about
two miles beyond Halnaker, is Eartham; which brings to mind William
Hayley, the friend and biographer of Cowper and the author of _The
Triumphs of Temper_, perhaps the least read of any book that once was
popular. Hayley succeeded his father as squire of Eartham; here he
entertained Cowper and other friends; here Romney painted. When need
came for retrenchment, Hayley let Eartham to Huskisson, the statesman,
and moved to Felpham, on the coast, where we shall meet with him again.
Cowper's occupations upon this charming Sussex hillside are recorded in
Hayley's account of the visit: "_Homer_ was not the immediate object of
our attention while Cowper resided at Eartham. The morning hours that we
could bestow on books were chiefly devoted to a complete revisal and
correction of all the translations, which my friend had finished, from
the Latin and Italian poetry of Milton; and we generally amused
ourselves after dinner in forming together a rapid metrical version of
Andreini's _Adamo_. But the constant care which the delicate health of
Mrs. Unwin required rendered it impossible for us to be very assiduous
in study, and perhaps the best of all studies was to promote and share
that most singular and most exemplary tenderness of attention with which
Cowper incessantly laboured to counteract every infirmity, bodily and
mental, with which sickness and age had conspired to load this
interesting guardian of his afflicted life.... The air of the south
infused a little portion of fresh strength into her shattered frame, and
to give it all possible efficacy, the boy, whom I have mentioned, and a
young associate and fellow student of his, employed themselves regularly
twice a day in drawing this venerable cripple in a commodious
garden-chair round the airy hill of Eartham. To Cowper and to me it was
a very pleasing spectacle to see the benevolent vivacity of blooming
youth thus continually labouring for the ease, health, and amusement of
disabled age."
[Sidenote: COWPER IN SUSSEX]
The poet and Mrs. Unwin, after much trepidation and doubt, had left
Weston Underwood on August 1, 1792; they slept at Barnet the first
night, Ripley the next, and were at Eartham by ten o'clock on the third.
They stayed till September. Cowper describes Hayley's estate as one of
the most delightful pleasure grounds in the world. "I had no conception
that a poet could be the owner of such a paradise, and his house is as
elegant as his scenes are charming." The poet, apart from his rapid
treatment of _Adamo_, did not succeed independently in attaining to
Hayley's fluency among these surroundings. "I am in truth so
unaccountably local in the use of my pen," he wrote to Lady Hesketh,
"that, like the man in the fable, who could leap well nowhere but at
Rhodes, I seem incapable of writing at all except at Weston." Hence the
only piece that he composed in our county was the epitaph on Fop, a dog
belonging to Lady Throckmorton. But while he was at Eartham Romney drew
his portrait in crayons.
[Illustration: _Boxgrove from the South._]
Cowper always looked back upon his visit with pleasure, but, as he
remarked, the genius of Weston Underwood suited him better--"It has an
air of snug concealment in which a disposition like mine feels itself
peculiarly gratified; whereas now I see from every window woods like
forests and hills like mountains--a wilderness, in short, that rather
increases my natural melancholy.... Accordingly, I have not looked out
for a house in Sussex, nor shall."
The simplest road from Chichester to the Downs is the railway. The
little train climbs laboriously to Singleton, and then descends to
Cocking and Midhurst. By leaving it at Singleton one is quickly in the
heart of this vast district of wooded hills, sometimes wholly forested,
sometimes, as in West Dean park, curiously studded with circular clumps
of trees.
[Sidenote: THE CHARLTON HUNT]
The most interesting spot to the east of the line is Charlton, once so
famous among sporting men, but now, alas, unknown. For Charlton was of
old a southern Melton Mowbray, the very centre of the aristocratic
hunting county. The Charlton Hunt had two palmy periods: before the Duke
of Monmouth's rebellion, and after the accession of William III.
Monmouth and Lord Grey kept two packs, the Master being Squire Roper.
With the fall of Monmouth Roper fled to France, to hunt at Chantilly,
but on the accession of William III. he returned to Sussex, the hounds
resumed their old condition, and the Charlton pack became the most
famous in the world. On the death of Mr. Roper--in the hunting field, in
1715, at the age of eighty-four--the Duke of Bolton took the Mastership,
which he held until the charms of Miss Fenton the actress (the Polly
Peachum of _The Beggars' Opera_) lured him to the tents of the women.
Then came the glorious reign of the second Duke of Richmond, when sport
with the Charlton was at its height. The Charlton Hunt declined upon his
death, in 1750, became known as the Goodwood Hunt, and wholly ceased to
be at the beginning of the last century.
The crowning glory of the Charlton Hunt was the run of Friday, January
26, 1738, which is thus described in an old manuscript:--
[Sidenote: A FAMOUS RUN]
A FULL AND IMPARTIAL ACCOUNT OF THE REMARKABLE CHASE AT CHARLTON,
ON FRIDAY, 26TH JANUARY, 1738.
It has long been a matter of controversy in the hunting world to
what particular country or set of men the superiority belonged.
Prejudices and partiality have the greatest share in their
disputes, and every society their proper champion to assert the
pre-eminence and bring home the trophy to their own country. Even
Richmond Park has the Dymoke. But on Friday, the 26th of January,
1738, there was a decisive engagement on the plains of Sussex,
which, after ten hours' struggle, has settled all further debate
and given the brush to the gentlemen of Charlton.
PRESENT IN THE MORNING:--
The Duke of Richmond, Duchess of Richmond, Duke of St Alban's, the
Lord Viscount Harcourt, the Lord Henry Beauclerk, the Lord
Ossulstone, Sir Harry Liddell, Brigadier Henry Hawley, Ralph
Jennison, master of His Majesty's Buck Hounds, Edward Pauncefort,
Esq., William Farquhar, Esq., Cornet Philip Honywood, Richard
Biddulph, Esq., Charles Biddulph, Esq., Mr. St. Paul, Mr. Johnson,
Mr. Peerman, of Chichester; Mr. Thomson, Tom Johnson, Billy Ives,
Yeoman Pricker to His Majesty's Hounds; David Briggs and Nim Ives,
Whippers-in.
At a quarter before eight in the morning the fox was found in
Eastdean Wood, and ran an hour in that cover; then into the Forest,
up to Puntice Coppice through Heringdean to the Marlows, up to
Coney Coppice, back to the Marlows, to the Forest West Gate, over
the fields to Nightingale Bottom, to Cobden's at Draught, up his
Pine Pit Hanger, where His Grace of St. Alban's got a fall; through
My Lady Lewknor's Puttocks, and missed the earth; through Westdean
Forest to the corner of Collar Down (where Lord Harcourt blew his
first horse), crossed the Hackney-place down the length of Coney
Coppice, through the Marlows to Heringdean, into the Forest and
Puntice Coppice, Eastdean Wood, through the Lower Teglease across
by Cocking Course down between Graffham and Woolavington, through
Mr. Orme's Park and Paddock over the Heath to Fielder's Furzes, to
the Harlands, Selham, Ambersham, through Todham Furzes, over Todham
Heath, almost to Cowdray Park, there turned to the limekiln at the
end of Cocking Causeway, through Cocking Park and Furzes; there
crossed the road and up the hills between Bepton and Cocking. Here
the unfortunate Lord Harcourt's second horse felt the effects of
long legs and a sudden steep; the best thing that belonged to him
was his saddle, which My Lord had secured; but, by bleeding and
Geneva (contrary to Act of Parliament) he recovered, and with some
difficulty was got home. Here Mr. Farquhar's humanity claims your
regard, who kindly sympathised with My Lord in his misfortunes, and
had not power to go beyond him. At the bottom of Cocking Warren
the hounds turned to the left across the road by the barn near
Heringdean, then took the side near to the north-gate of the Forest
(Here General Hawley thought it prudent to change his horse for a
true-blue that staid up the hills). Billy Ives likewise took a
horse of Sir Harry Liddell's, went quite through the Forest and run
the foil through Nightingale Bottom to Cobden at Draught, up his
Pine Pit Hanger to My Lady Lewknor's Puttocks, through every mews
she went in the morning; went through the Warren above Westdean
(where we dropt Sir Harry Liddell) down to Benderton Farm (here
Lord Harry sank), through Goodwood Park (here the Duke of Richmond
chose to send three lame horses back to Charlton, and took Saucy
Face and Sir William, that were luckily at Goodwood; from thence,
at a distance, Lord Harry was seen driving his horse before him to
Charlton). The hounds went out at the upper end of the Park over
Strettington-road by Sealy Coppice (where His Grace of Richmond got
a summerset), through Halnaker Park over Halnaker Hill to Seabeach
Farm (here the Master of the Stag Hounds, Cornet Honywood, Tom
Johnson, and Nim Ives were thoroughly satisfied), up Long Down,
through Eartham Common fields and Kemp's High Wood (here Billy Ives
tried his second horse and took Sir William, by which the Duke of
St. Alban's had no great coat, so returned to Charlton). From
Kemp's High Wood the hounds took away through Gunworth Warren,
Kemp's Rough Piece, over Slindon Down to Madehurst Parsonage (where
Billy came in with them), over Poor Down up to Madehurst, then down
to Houghton Forest, where His Grace of Richmond, General Hawley,
and Mr. Pauncefort came in (the latter to little purpose, for,
beyond the Ruel Hill, neither Mr. Pauncefort nor his horse Tinker
cared to go, so wisely returned to his impatient friends), up the
Ruel Hill, left Sherwood on the right hand, crossed Ofham Hill to
Southwood, from thence to South Stoke to the wall of Arundel River,
where the glorious 23 hounds put an end to the campaign, and killed
an old bitch fox, ten minutes before six. Billy Ives, His Grace of
Richmond, and General Hawley were the only persons in at the death,
to the immortal honour of 17 stone, and at least as many campaigns.
[Sidenote: JOHNSON THE EXEMPLAR]
In Singleton church is a record of the Charlton Hunt in the shape of a
memorial to one of the huntsmen, the moral of which seems to be that we
must all be huntsmen too:--
"Near this place lies interred
THOMAS JOHNSON,
who departed this life at Charlton,
December 20th, 1774.
"From his early inclination to fox-hounds, he soon became an experienced
huntsman. His knowledge in the profession, wherein he had no superior,
and hardly an equal, joined to his honesty in every other particular,
recommended him to the service, and gained him the approbation, of
several of the nobility and gentry. Among these were the Lord CONWAY,
Earl of CARDIGAN, the Lord GOWER, the Duke of MARLBOROUGH, the Hon. M.
SPENCER. The last master whom he served, and in whose service he died,
was CHARLES, Duke of RICHMOND, LENNOX, and AUBIGNY, who erected this
monument in memory of a good and faithful servant, as a reward to the
deceased, and an incitement to the living.
'Go, and do thou likewise.' (St. Luke, x. 37).
'Here Johnson lies; what human can deny
Old Honest Tom the tribute of a sigh?
Deaf is that ear which caught the opening sound;
Dumb that tongue which cheer'd the hills around.
Unpleasing truth: Death hunts us from our birth
In view, and men, like foxes, take to earth.'"
[Sidenote: THE SUSSEX PACKS]
A few words on the packs of Sussex at the present time may be
interesting in this connection. Chief is the Southdown Fox Hounds, a
very fine, fast pack brought to a high state of perfection by the late
master, the Hon. Charles Brand. They hunt the open and hill country
between the Adur and Cuckmere, between Haywards Heath and the sea. In
the north are the Crawley and Horsham Fox Hounds, which have large
woodlands, high hedges, and some stiff ploughed soil to their less easy
lot. The hounds are bigger and heavier than the South Downers. Smaller
packs are Lord Leconfield's Fox Hounds, which have the Charlton country;
the Eastbourne Fox Hounds, to which the East Sussex Fox Hounds allotted
a share of the western part of their country east of the Cuckmere; and
the Burstow and Eridge packs. Of Harriers, the best are the Brighton
Harriers, so long hunted by Mr. Hugh Gorringe of Kingston-by-Sea, a very
smart pack lately covering the ground between the Adur and Falmer, and
now adding the Brookside Harriers' country to their own domain, the two
packs having been amalgamated. In the east are the Bexhill Harriers and
the Hailsham Harriers; and in the west the South Coast Harriers, for the
Chichester country. Sussex, in addition to possessing the Warnham
Staghounds, is much raided by the Surrey Staghounds. The Crowhurst Otter
Hounds also visit the Sussex streams now and then. Foot Beagles may be
numerous but I know only of the Brighton pack.
[Sidenote: MR. KNOX'S SETTER]
And here let me give Mr. Knox's description of a day's shooting, in the
gentlemanly way, on the Sussex Downs, following, in his _Ornithological
Rambles_, upon some remarks on the battue. "How different is the pursuit
of the pheasant with the aid of spaniels in the thick covers of the
weald, or tracking him with a single setter among some of the wilder
portions of the forest range!--intently observing your dog and
anticipating the wily artifices of some old cock, with spurs as long as
a dragon's, who will sometimes lead you for a mile through bog, brake,
fern, and heather, before the sudden drop of your staunch companion, and
a rigidity in all his limbs, satisfy you that you have at last compelled
the bird to squat under that wide holly-bush, from whence you kick him
up, and feel some little exultation as you bring him down with a
snap-shot, having only caught a glimpse of him through the evergreen
boughs, as he endeavoured to escape by a rapid flight at the opposite
side of the tree.
[Sidenote: A SUSSEX BAG]
"And then the woodcock-shooting in November--I must take you back once
more to my favourite Downs. With the first full moon during that month,
especially if the wind be easterly or the weather calm, arrive flights
of woodcocks, which drop in the covers, and are dispersed among the
bushy valleys, and even over the heathery summits of the hills. If it
should happen to be a propitious year for beech-mast--the great
attraction to pheasants on the Downs, as is the acorn in the weald--you
may procure partridges, pheasants, hares, and rabbits in perhaps equal
proportions, with half a dozen woodcocks to crown the bag.
[Illustration: _East Lavant._]
"The extensive, undulating commons and heaths dotted with broken patches
of Scotch firs and hollies on the ferruginous sand north of the Downs,
afford--where the manorial rights are enforced--still greater variety of
sport. On this wild ground, accompanied by my spaniels and an old
retriever, and attended only by one man, to carry the game, I have
enjoyed as good sport as mortal need desire on this side of the Tweed.
Here is a rough sketch of a morning's work.
[Sidenote: PARTRIDGE AND WOODCOCK]
"Commencing operations by walking across a turnip-field, two or three
coveys spring wildly from the farther end, and fly, as I expect, to the
adjoining common, where they are marked down on a brow thickly clothed
with furze. Marching towards them with spaniels at heel, up jumps a hare
under my nose, then another, then a rabbit. I reload rapidly, and on
reaching the gorse 'put in' the dogs. Whirr! there goes a partridge! The
spaniels drop to the report of my gun, but the fluttering wings of the
dying bird rouse two of his neighbours before I am ready, and away they
fly, screaming loudly. The remainder are flushed in detail and I succeed
in securing the greater part of them. Now for the next covey. They were
marked down in that little hollow where the heather is longer than
usual--a beautiful spot! But before I reach it, up they all spring in an
unexpected quarter; that cunning old patriarch at their head had
cleverly called them together to a naked part of the hill from whence he
could observe my manoeuvres, and a random shot sent after him with
hearty good will proved totally ineffective.
"Now the spaniels are worming through the thick sedges on either side of
the brook which intersects the moor, and by their bustling anxiety it is
easy to see that game is afoot. Keeping well in front of them, I am just
in time for a satisfactory right and left at two cock pheasants, which
they had hunted down to the very edge of the water before they could
persuade them to take wing. Now for that little alder coppice at the
further end of the marshy swamp. Hark to that whipping sound so
different from the rush of the rising pheasant or the drumming flight of
the partridge! I cannot see the bird, but I know it is a woodcock. This
must be one of his favourite haunts, for I perceive the tracks of his
feet and the perforations of his bill in every direction on the black
mud around. Mark! again. A second is sprung, and as he flits between the
naked alders a snap-shot stops his career. I now emerge at the farther
end, just where the trees are thinner than elsewhere. A wisp of snipes
utter their well-known cry and scud over the heath; one of these is
secured. The rest fly towards a little pool of dark water lying at a
considerable distance from the common, a well-known rendezvous for
those birds. Cautiously approaching, down wind, I reach the margin. Up
springs a snipe; but just as my finger is on the trigger, and when too
late to alter my intention, a duck and mallard rise from among the
rushes and wheel round my head. One barrel is fortunately left, and the
drake comes tumbling to the ground. Three or four pheasants, another
couple of woodcocks, a few more snipes, a teal or two, and half a dozen
rabbits picked up at various intervals, complete the day's sport, and I
return home, better pleased with myself and my dogs than if we had
compassed the destruction of all the hares in the county, or assisted at
the immolation of a perfect hecatomb of pheasants."
[Sidenote: KINGLY BOTTOM]
Kingly Bottom is the most interesting spot to the west of Singleton. One
may reach it either through Chilgrove, or by walking back towards
Chichester as far as Binderton House, turning then to the right and
walking due west for a couple of miles. Report says that the yews in
Kingly Bottom, or Kingly Vale, mark a victory of Chichester men over a
party of marauding Danes in 900, and that the dead were buried beneath
the barrows on the hill. The story ought to be true. The vale is
remarkable for its grove of yews, some of enormous girth, which extends
along the bottom to the foot of the escarpment. The charge that might be
brought against Sussex, that it lacks sombre scenery and the elements of
dark romance, that its character is too open and transparent, would be
urged to no purpose in Kingly Vale, which, always grave and silent, is
transformed at dusk into a sinister and fantastic forest, a home for
witchcraft and unquiet spirits.
So it seems to me; but among the verses of Bernard Barton, the Quaker
poet and the friend of Charles Lamb, I lately chanced upon a sonnet
"written on hearing it remarked that the scenery [of Kingly Bottom] was
too gloomy to be termed beautiful; and that it was also associated with
dolorous recollections of Druidical sacrifices." In this poem Barton
takes a surprisingly novel line. "Nay, nay, it is not gloomy" he begins,
and the end is thus:--
Nor fancy Druid rites have left a stain
Upon its gentle beauties:--loiter there
In a calm summer night, confess how fair
Its moonlight charms, and thou wilt learn how vain
And transitory Superstition's reign
Over a spot which gladsome thoughts may share.
The ordinary person, not a poet, would, I fear, prefer to think of
Kingly Bottom's Druidical past.
[Sidenote: THE MARDEN VIOLETS]
The last time I was in Kingly Bottom--it was in April--after leaving the
barrows on the summit of the Bow Hill, above the Vale, I walked by
devious ways to East Marden, between banks thick with the whitest and
sweetest of sweet white violets. East Marden, however, has no inn and is
therefore not the best friend of the traveller; but it has the most
modest and least ecclesiastical-looking church in the world, and by
seeking it out I learned two secrets: the finest place for white violets
and the finest place to keep a horse. There is no riding country to
excel this hill district between Singleton and the Hampshire border.
At the neighbouring village of Stoughton, whither I meant to walk (since
an inn is there) was born, in 1783, the terrible George Brown--Brown of
Brighton--the fast bowler, whose arm was as thick as an ordinary man's
thigh. He had two long stops, one of whom padded his chest with straw. A
long stop once held his coat before one of Brown's balls, but the ball
went through it and killed a dog on the other side. Brown could throw a
4-1/2 oz. ball 137 yards, and he was the father of seventeen children.
He died at Sompting in 1857.
[Sidenote: CHURCHYARD POETRY]
Of Racton, on the Hampshire border, and its association with Charles
II., I have already spoken. Below, it is Westbourne, a small border
village in whose churchyard are two pleasing epitaphs. Of Jane, wife of
Thomas Curtis, who died in 1719, it is written:--
She was like a lily fresh and green,
Soon cast down and no more seen.
and of John Cook:
Pope said an honest man
Is the noblest work of God.
If Pope's assertion be from error clear,
One of God's noblest works lies buried here.
[Illustration: _Bosham._]
CHAPTER VI
CHICHESTER AND THE PLAIN
Bosham and history--An expensive pun--The Bosham bells--Chidham
wheat--The Manhood peninsula--Selsey's adders--Selsey Bill--St.
Wilfrid and the Sussex heathen--Pagham Harbour in its palmy
days--Bognor--Felpham's great rider--Mr. Hayley and Mrs. Opie--An
epitaph and a poem--A fairy's funeral--William Blake in Sussex--The
trial of a traitor.
On leaving Chichester West Street becomes the Portsmouth Road and passes
through Fishbourne, a pleasant but dusty village. A mile or so beyond,
and a little to the south, is Bosham, on one of the several arms of
Chichester Harbour, once of some importance but now chiefly mud. Bosham
is the most interesting village in what may be called the Selsey
peninsula. Yet how has its glory diminished! What is now a quiet abode
of fishermen and the tarrying-place of yachtsmen and artists (there are
few Royal Academy exhibitions without the spire of Bosham church) has
been in its time a very factory of history. Vespasian's camp was hard
by, and it is possible that certain Roman remains that have been found
here were once part of his palace. Bosham claims to be the scene of
Canute's encounter with the encroaching tide; which may be the case,
although one has always thought of the king rebuking his flatterers
rather by the margin of the ocean itself than inland at an estuary's
edge. But beyond question Canute had a palace here, and his daughter was
buried in the church.
[Sidenote: A COSTLY PUN]
Earl Godwin, father of Harold, last of the Saxons, dwelt here also. "Da
mihi basium"--give me a kiss--he is fabled to have said to Archbishop
Aethelnoth, and on receiving it to have taken the salute as acquiescence
in the request--"Da mihi Bosham": probably the earliest and also the
most expensive recorded example in England of this particular form of
humour.
It was from Bosham that Harold sailed on that visit to the Duke of
Normandy which resulted in the battle of Hastings. In the Bayeux
tapestry he may be seen riding to Bosham with his company, and also
putting up prayers for the success of his mission. Of this success we
shall see more when we come to Battle. Bosham furthermore claims Hubert
of Bosham, the author of the _Book of Becket's Martyrdom_, who was with
Saint Thomas of Canterbury when the assassins stabbed him to the death.
The church is of great age; it is even claimed that the tower is the
original Saxon. The circumstance that in the representation of the
edifice in the Bayeux tapestry there is no tower has been urged against
this theory, although architectural realism in embroidery has never been
very noticeable. The bells (it is told) were once carried off in a
Danish raid; but they brought their captors no luck--rather the reverse,
since they so weighed upon the ship that she sank. When the present
bells ring, the ancient submerged peal is said to ring also in sympathy
at the bottom of the Channel--a pretty habit, which would suggest that
bell metal is happily and wisely superior to changes of religion, were
it not explained by the unromantic principles of acoustics.
A heavy pole, known as the staff of Bevis of Southampton (and Arundel),
was of old kept in Bosham church.
At high water Bosham is the fair abode of peace. When every straggling
arm of the harbour is brimming full, when their still surfaces reflect
the sky with a brighter light, and the fishing boats ride erect, Bosham
is serenely beautiful and restful. But at low tide she is a slut: the
withdrawing floods lay bare vast tracts of mud; the ships heel over into
attitudes disreputably oblique; stagnation reigns.
[Sidenote: CHIDHAM WHEAT]
Chidham, by Bosham, is widely famous for its wheat. Chidham White, or
Hedge, wheat was first produced a little more than a century ago by Mr.
Woods, a farmer. He noticed one afternoon (probably on a Sunday, when
farmers are most noticing) an unfamiliar patch of wheat growing in a
hedge. It contained thirty ears, in which were fourteen hundred corns.
Mr. Woods carefully saved it and sowed it. The crop was eight pounds and
a half. These he sowed, and the crop was forty eight gallons. Thus it
multiplied, until the time came to distribute it to other farmers at a
high price. The cultivation of Chidham wheat by Mr. Woods at one side of
the county, synchronised with the breeding of the best Southdown sheep
by John Ellman at the other, as we shall see later.
South of Chichester stretches the Manhood peninsula, of which Selsey is
the principal town: the part of Sussex most neglected by the traveller.
In a county of hills the stranger is not attracted by a district that
might almost have been hewn out of Holland. But the ornithologist knows
its value, and in a world increasingly bustling and progressive there is
a curious fascination in so remote and deliberate a region, over which,
even in the finest weather and during the busiest harvest, a suggestion
of desolation broods. Nothing, one feels, can ever introduce Success
into this plain, and so thinking, one is at peace.
[Sidenote: THE MONOTONY OF MANHOOD]
A tramway between Chichester and Selsey has to some extent opened up the
east side of the peninsula, but the west is still remote and will
probably remain so. The country is, however, not interesting: a dead
level of dusty road and grass or arable land, broken only by hedges,
dykes, white cottages, and the many homesteads within their ramparts of
wind-swept elms. Wheat and oats are the prevailing crops, still for the
most part cut and bound by hand. Of the villages in the centre of the
peninsula Sidlesham is the most considerable, with its handsome square
church tower and its huge red tide-mill, now silent and weather-worn,
standing mournfully at the head of the dry harbour of Pagham, whose
waters once turned its wheels. On the west, on the shores of the Bosham
estuary, or Chichester Harbour, are the sleepy amphibious villages of
Appledram, famous once for its salt and its smugglers, Birdham, and
Earnley. Let no one be tempted to take a direct line across the fields
from Selsey to Earnley, for dykes and canals must effectually stop him.
Indeed, cross country walking in this part of the country is practically
an impossibility, except by continuous deviations and doublings. In
attempting one day to reach Earnley from Selsey in this way (after
giving up the beach in despair), I came upon several adders, and I once
found one crossing a road absolutely in Selsey.
Selsey is a straggling white village, or town, over populous with
visitors in summer, empty, save for its regular inhabitants, in winter.
The oldest and truest part of Selsey is a fishing village on the east
shore of the Bill, a little settlement of tarred tenements and lobster
pots. Selsey church, now on the confines of the town, once stood a mile
or more away; whither it was removed (the stones being numbered) and,
like Temple Bar, again set up. The chancel was, however, not removed,
but left desolate in the fields.
Selsey Bill is a tongue of land projecting into a shallow sea. A
lighthouse being useless to warn strange mariners of the sandbanks of
this district, a lightship known as the Owers flashes its rays far out
in the channel. The sea has played curious pranks on the Selsey coast.
Beneath the beach and a large tract of the sea now lies what was once,
four hundred years ago, a park of deer, which in its most prosperous day
extended for miles. The shallow water covering it is still called the
park by the fishermen, who drop their nets where the bucks and does of
Selsey were wont to graze.
[Sidenote: SUSSEX REPELS ST. WILFRID]
But the sea has obliterated more than the pasturage of the deer; a mile
distant from the present shore stood the first monastery erected in
Sussex after Wilfrid's conversion of the South Saxons to Christianity.
Although Saint Wilfrid eventually found a home in Sussex and worked hard
among its people, his first attempt to bring Christianity to the county
was, according to his friend Edda's _Vita Wilfridi_, ill-starred. I
quote the story:--
"A great gale blowing from the South-east, the swelling waves threw them
on the unknown coast of the South Saxons. The sea too left the ship and
men, and retreating from the land and leaving the shore uncovered,
retired into the depths of the abyss.
"And the heathen, coming with a great army, intended to seize the ship,
to divide the spoil of money, to take them captives forthwith, and to
put to the sword those who resisted. To whom our great bishop spoke
gently and peaceably, offering much money, wishing to redeem their
souls.
"But they with stern and cruel hearts like Pharaoh would not let the
people of the Lord go, saying proudly that, 'All that the sea threw on
the land became as much theirs as their own property.'
"And the idolatrous chief priest of the heathen, standing on a lofty
mound, strove like Balaam to curse the people of God, and to bind their
hands by his magic arts.
"Then one of the bishop's companions hurled, like David, a stone,
blessed by all the people of God, which struck the cursing magician in
the forehead and pierced his brain, when an unexpected death surprised,
as it did Goliath, falling back a corpse in sandy places.
"The heathen therefore preparing to fight, vainly attacked the people of
God. But the Lord fought for the few, even as Gideon by the command of
the Lord, with 300 warriors slew at one attack 12,000 of the Midianites.
"And so the comrades of our holy bishop, well-armed and brave, though
few in number (they were 120 men, the number of the years of Moses),
determined and agreed that none should turn his back in flight from the
other, but would either win death with glory, or life with victory (for
both alike are easy to the Lord). So S. Wilfrith with his clerk fell on
his knees, and lifting his hands to Heaven again sought help from the
Lord. For, as Moses triumphed when Hur and Aaron supported his hands, by
frequently imploring the protection of the Lord, when Joshua the son of
Nun was fighting with the people of God against Amalek, thus these few
Christians after thrice repulsing the fierce and untamed heathen, routed
them with great slaughter, with a loss strange to say of only five on
their side.
"And their great priest (Wilfrith) prayed to the Lord his God, who
immediately ordered the sea to return a full hour before its wont. So
that when the heathen, on the arrival of their king, were preparing for
a fourth attack with all their forces, the rising sea covered with its
waves the whole of the shore, and floated the ship, which sailed into
the deep. But, greatly glorified by God, and returning Him thanks, with
a South wind they reached Sandwich, a harbour of safety."
[Sidenote: JOHN WESLEY'S TESTIMONY]
The Sussex people, it would seem, do not take kindly to missionaries,
for John Wesley records that he had less success in this county than in
all England.
Between Selsey and Bognor lies Pagham, famous in the pages of Knox's
_Ornithological Rambles_, but otherwise unknown. Of the lost glories of
Pagham, which was once a harbour, but is now dry, let Mr. Knox
speak:--"Here in the dead long summer days, when not a breath of air
has been stirring, have I frequently remained for hours, stretched on
the hot shingle, and gazed at the osprey as he soared aloft, or watched
the little islands of mud at the turn of the tide, as each gradually
rose from the receding waters, and was successively taken possession of
by flocks of sandpipers and ring-dotterels, after various
circumvolutions on the part of each detachment, now simultaneously
presenting their snowy breasts to the sunshine, now suddenly turning
their dusky backs, so that the dazzled eye lost sight of them from the
contrast; while the prolonged cry of the titterel,[2] and the melancholy
note of the peewit from the distant swamp, have mingled with the scream
of the tern and the taunting laugh of the gull.
[Sidenote: PAGHAM'S LOST GLORIES]
"Here have I watched the oyster-catcher, as he flew from point to point,
and cautiously waded into the shallow water; and the patient heron, that
pattern of a fisherman, as with retracted neck, and eyes fixed on
vacancy, he has stood for hours without a single snap, motionless as a
statue. Here, too, have I pursued the guillemot, or craftily endeavoured
to cut off the retreat of the diver, by mooring my boat across the
narrow passage through which alone he could return to the open sea
without having recourse to his reluctant wings. Nor can I forget how
often, during the Siberian winter of 1838, when 'a whole gale,' as the
sailors have it, has been blowing from the north-east, I used to take up
my position on the long and narrow ridge of shingle which separated this
paradise from the raging waves without, and sheltered behind a hillock
of seaweed, with my long duck-gun and a trusty double, or half buried in
a hole in the sand, I used to watch the legions of water-birds as they
neared the shore, and dropped distrustfully among the breakers, at a
distance from the desired haven, until, gaining confidence from
accession of numbers, some of the bolder spirits--the pioneers of the
army--would flap their wings, rise from the white waves, and make for
the calm water. Here they come! I can see the pied golden-eye
pre-eminent among the advancing party; now the pochard, with his
copper-coloured head and neck, may be distinguished from the darker
scaup-duck; already the finger is on the trigger, when, perhaps, they
suddenly veer to the right and left, far beyond the reach of my longest
barrel or, it may be, come swishing overhead, and leave a companion or
two struggling on the shingle or floating on the shallow waters of the
harbour."
Pagham Harbour is now reclaimed, and where once was mud, or, at high
tide, shallow water, is rank grass and thistles. One ship that seems to
have waited a little too long before making for the open sea again, now
lies high and dry, a forlorn hulk. Pagham church is among the airiest
that I know, with a shingle spire, the counterpart of Bosham's on the
other side of the peninsula.
The walk from Pagham to Bognor, along the sand, is uninspiring and not
too easy, for the sand can be very soft. About a mile west of Bognor one
is driven inland, just after passing as perfect an example of the simple
yet luxurious seaside home as I remember to have seen: all on one floor,
thatched, shaded by trees, surrounded by its garden and facing the
Channel.
[Sidenote: EARLY BOGNOR]
Among the unattractive types of town few are more dismal than the
watering-place _manque_. Bognor must, I fear, come under this heading.
Its reputation, such as it is, was originally made by Princess
Charlotte, daughter of George III., who found the air recuperative, and
who was probably not unwilling to lend her prestige to a resort, as her
brother George was doing at Brighton, and her sister Amelia had done at
Worthing. But before the Princess Charlotte Sir Richard Hotham, the
hatter, had come, determined at any cost to make the town popular. One
of his methods was to rename it Hothampton. His efforts were, however,
only moderately successful, and he died in 1799, leaving to what
Horsfield calls "his astonished heirs" only _L_8,000 out of a great
fortune. The name Hothampton soon vanished.
The local authorities of Bognor seem to be keenly alive to the value of
enterprise, for their walls are covered with instructions as to what may
or may not be done in the interests of cleanliness and popularity; a new
sea-wall has been built; receptacles for waste paper continually
confront one, and deck chairs at twopence for three hours are
practically unavoidable. And yet Bognor remains a dull place, once the
visitor has left his beach abode--tent or bathing box, whichever it may
be. It seems to be a town without resources. But it has the interest,
denied one in more fashionable watering-places, of presenting old and
new Bognor at the same moment; not that old Bognor is really old, but it
is instructive to see the kind of crescent which was considered the last
word in architectural enterprise when our great-grandmothers were young
and would take the sea air.
[Sidenote: A POET ON HORSEBACK]