Newhaven--Shoreham--Littlehampton
The coast to Newhaven from Rye, if not exactly pretty, becomes once
more attractive, and after Fairlight Point the Downs come seaward
again, and the coast-line for a considerable distance is once more
formed by bold chalk cliffs.
Though Hastings has no longer a harbour and is not, as formerly in the
long ago, a port, one must devote to this historic town and ancient
Cinque Port at least a passing notice.
Of all the chief towns of the Cinque Ports there are fewer records
relating to Hastings than of any other, and this is, perhaps, not to
be greatly wondered at when one remembers that at the commencement of
the nineteenth century it had sunk from its old-time greatness to the
position of a small fishing village. The town will, however, whatever
the variation of its fortunes, always remain a “great name in history”
because of its association with one of the crises of the world’s
evolutionary progress, the Battle of Hastings. Even in early British
times there seems no reason for doubt that Hastings was a strongly
fortified place, the “forts” being placed on the East Hill as well as
on the Castle Hill. The castle was either Roman in its origin or was
erected on foundations already existing and belonging to a much earlier
period.
Hastings has also historic interest from figuring in the famous Bayeux
tapestry under the name of Hastingaceastra. If further evidence were
required of the very ancient existence of the place it is afforded by
the very considerable discoveries of Roman pottery, coins, and other
relics which have from time to time been made. The original name of
the district was Rameslie, and at one time it evidently formed part
of the property attached to the Abbey of Fécamp. At the time of the
great Survey, the results of which are recorded in the Domesday Book,
the place possessed no less than five churches and five score of salt
pits or salterns. Under Saxon rule it undoubtedly rose to a position
of great importance, and this notwithstanding the fact that it was
repeatedly attacked and ravaged by hordes of Danish and other pirates,
who did not, however, succeed in gaining any permanent footing. In the
time of Athelstan it was of sufficient note to share with Gloucester
and Lewes the distinction of being a “mint” town. The more modern name
of Hastings is reputed to have been derived from the famous Danish
pirate Haestinga, who for a time established a fort or stronghold near
the spot.
But as one writes of Hastings, the scene which the white cliffs
witnessed on that October morning, 1066, comes insensibly before one’s
eyes, when from across the Channel came a fleet of low, long galleys,
some under sail and with curious high stems and sterns, most of them
with two or three short straight masts like those of luggers, whilst
others had strange devices upon their prows, or shields ornamented with
crests and coats of arms hung out along their bulwarks.
Fortunately for the voyaging host the sea was calm and the wind blew
from a favourable quarter, for the transports of those times were not
easy to manage in a gale or contrary wind. At length they drew in close
with the land, the prows of the smaller vessels grated upon the sand
and shingle of the beach, and then the busy scene of landing both men
and horses ensued. William the Norman had come to claim the throne of
England, and, with Harold and the English fleet away in the north, had
landed without opposition.
He pitched his tents, built himself a wooden castle, and then set about
the ravaging of the country round about, till Harold should appear with
the English to give him battle.
In hot haste, Harold, Godwin’s son, marched back to London, calling
upon his nobles and relatives, Edwin and Morcar amongst the number, to
join him; but the two latter held back. Then Harold, having gathered
the men of London and Kent and many of the country folk to his
standard, marched to meet William, and, reaching Senlac, “lay there
on the hillside by a hoar-apple tree.” Gurt, his brother, prayed him
to retire again on London, after wasting the country between William
and that place, so that the latter could get neither fodder for his
horses nor food for his men. Good advice, doubtless, as Harold himself
admitted, adding, however, “I was made King to cherish this folk. How
shall I lay waste this land of theirs? Nor does it befit an English
King to turn from his foes.”
Every one knows the story of the “feasting” English and the “praying”
Normans, though whether it be true or not, who shall say? Just as
every one knows how went the day on the “bloody heights of Senlac,
where, after the attack had been made by a Norman minstrel, who rode up
against the English singing a war song of Charlemagne, the last Saxon
King, his two brothers, the flower of English fighting men and nobles
to a great multitude fell.”
William refused the body of slain Harold to his mother, who pleaded for
it, even if she paid its weight in gold; but when Edith Swan’s-neck,
whom Harold had loved, found it beneath a heap of slain, the Norman
conqueror, his chivalry and perhaps even his sentiment touched, gave
it to her, telling them to bury it on the face of the cliff with the
words, “He kept the shore well while he lived, let him keep it now he
is dead.”
Though this is the supreme historical event connected with Hastings,
many times during the reigns of our Norman Kings was the place to
witness the assemblage of huge bodies of fighting men. Here in 1094
were gathered at the command of William Rufus no less than 20,000 men
for the avowed purpose of transhipment to Normandy. They were, however,
disbanded, and the men were deprived by agents of the King of the pay
of ten shillings given them, “which great sum in all was duly forwarded
to the King, at whose behest it had been filched!” A truly Royal piece
of chicanery.
In the fourteenth century the town, which had sprung up to some
considerable importance, was raided by the French, sacked, and burned.
But by the fifteenth it had grown up again to be a large place with a
considerable military force attached to it. By the sixteenth it had
received a charter and had a mayor and twelve jurats, a harbour of
some size, and a considerable trade in shipbuilding. No traces of the
inlet once existing now break the coast-line, and the closest search
meets with no reward in discoveries of antiquity. The first Hastings
lies fathoms deep under the sea, the second has passed away, and in the
third one has the modern town with its long lines of boarding-houses
and hotels lining the sea-front. Not very picturesque save when seen
at night brilliantly lit, with the numberless fishing boats carrying
riding or other lights twinkling like huge glow worms in the foreground.
Hastings during the latter part of the eighteenth and early years of
the nineteenth centuries was one of the most notorious places along
the whole Sussex coast for smuggling, on account of its convenient
landing-places. The lawless Hawkhurst gang, to which reference will
later be made, had several of its members hailing from the town, and
the bands of smugglers in the immediate district were bold to a degree,
often (as we are told) daring to land their cargoes of contraband under
the very noses of the preventive men whose duty it was to frustrate
such attempts. Wrecking, too, was an occasional variation of occupation
for the smugglers, and several vessels are known in the first decade
of the last century to have been lured to destruction by false lights
shown on the cliffs.
The smugglers extended their operations far inland, daring to take
their cargoes as far as Brede and other places for storage. Brede
Place, which was one of their resorts, once the home of the Attefords,
but afterwards that of the Oxenbridges, has several weird legends
connected with it. Not the least uncanny is the story of one Sir
Goddard Oxenbridge, who died in 1557, we should imagine little lamented
by his neighbours. This owner of the manor, besides being a reputed
dealer in the “black arts,” had so strong a liking for human flesh
that children of the neighbourhood were constantly disappearing, to
the grief of their parents and the “engorgement of this terrible
ogre-like being.” For babies this Sir Goddard, who, we are informed,
was of great stature and “flourished amazingly on his diet of human
flesh,” had an especial partiality. Further, “neither bow, nor arrow,
nor axe, nor sword, nor spear could slay this redoubtable giant, but
some of the country people about here succeeded at length in making him
drunk and in sawing him in half with a wooden saw!” A truly marvellous
performance in good keeping with the rest of the tale!
But whether the legend of Sir Goddard Oxenbridge has any real
foundation on fact or not, there is little doubt that soon after his
death the place acquired so evil a reputation (owing to the appearance
of his ghost, “with dripping jaws” and “an uncanny light from his
eyes”) that people of a nervous and even those usually of a bold
disposition avoided it. The ingenious smugglers of Hastings and the
neighbourhood in the eighteenth century were not slow to appreciate
the advantages afforded by this gloomy and ruinous old manor house,
and they not only sedulously cultivated the idea that Brede was
haunted but “put up some other very pretty tales amongst the country
folk to dissuade them from approaching the house,” and in addition
showed ghostly and mysterious lights. These tactics were so eminently
successful that for some years the smugglers retained undisturbed
possession of the place, using it as a storehouse for their goods.
There is reputed to be an underground passage leading from the house
to the church--a distance of about a mile--but this has not of recent
years, nor for all we know ever, been entered nor the existence of
it proved. The disappearance of two revenue men was attributed to
the Brede Place gang, and in the eighties of the eighteenth century
the house was attacked and raided in the smugglers’ absence by the
“preventives” in search of their missing comrades. Nothing, not even a
tub or bale, was, however, then discovered, only an old man, who was
as deaf as the proverbial adder and, it is very likely, as wise as the
serpent.
Close to the house is a bridge which bears the name of “Groaning
Bridge.” Tradition asserts that it was near here that Sir Goddard was
sawn in half, and that the noises which are sometimes heard after dusk
are his lamentable cries. Another tale is that it was in the hollow
beneath the bridge that some of the smugglers used to hide at nights,
and by making “most horrible and terrifying noises and groans so
successfully prevented the further advance of any intending intruder
towards the house.”
Onward from Hastings to our next port, Newhaven, one passes several
of the ancient “limbs” of the Cinque Ports, Pevensey, one of the
eight corporate members, the most important. No longer a port, the
little town lies nearly a mile inland from the sea, which once almost
washed the walls of its fine and impressive castle, set on a mound and
surrounded by a rush-grown moat, and visible from afar.
Pevensey is nowadays, too, divided by stretches of flat marshy fields
from the Channel, and has little of interest remaining save the
traditions of its historic past as a Cinque Port “limb,” the jokes
which are recorded against its municipal rulers, and the fact that it
undoubtedly occupies the site of Anderida of the Romans. The remains
of the Roman walls, which surround the Norman castle of Robert de
Moreton, half-brother of the Conqueror, give to the place an interest
not exceeded even by that of Lewes or Richborough. Here was once a
city or at least a great settlement bordering upon that great, widely
extending forest of Anderida, once covering the Weald of Sussex, which
was probably as large, though perhaps not so famous, as the New Forest
of Hampshire. The departure of the Roman legions was the signal for
piratical descents upon our coasts, and the Saxons under Ella landed on
the shore near Pevensey, and slew every Briton they came across.
Pevensey Castle has had a stirring and chequered history. Its stalwart
walls, now ivy-clad and crumbling, have survived many an attack in
those ages when the strongholds of nobles were called upon to resist
not alone the assaults of foreign invaders, but also those of English
nobles making private war; and within its walls have languished many
whose names are written on the page of history for better or for worse.
Brave Queen Maude held the place against the forces of Stephen, and
only yielded when brought face to face with famine; and it has had yet
another brave woman defender (ranking with Lady Bankes, of Corfe, in
Dorsetshire) for the Lancastrians in the last year of the fourteenth
century, Lady Joan Pelham.
As one writer has put it, “she wielded her pen not less readily than
she commanded and directed the sword.” In a letter to her husband--a
model of tenderness and felicitous expression--she says, “My dear
Lord,--I recommend me to your high Lordship, with heart and body and
all my poor might, and with all this I think (of) you, as my dear Lord,
dearest and best beloved of all earthly Lords.... I heard by your
letter that ye were strong enough with the grace of God for to keep
you from the malice of your enemies. And, dear Lord, if it like you to
your high Lordship that as soon as ye might that I might hear of your
gracious speed, which God Almighty continue and increase. And my dear
Lord, if it like you to know my fare, I am here laid by in manner of
a siege with the county of Sussex, Surrey, and a great parcel of Kent,
so that I may not go out nor no victuals get me, but with much hard.”
Then, in the concluding paragraph, we get a sight of the tender heart
of a devoted and loving woman, the same in all time and stress, and not
variable at all. “Farewell, my dear Lord,” writes the beleaguered Joan
Pelham, “the Holy Trinity keep you from your enemies, and soon send
me good tidings of you.... By your own poor J. Pelham.” And then the
superscription, “To my true Lord.” July 25, 1399.[B]
[B] Rendered into modern English from Brydge’s Peerage,
vol. v, C.H.
A few years later and Edmund, Duke of York, was imprisoned here; and
Queen Joan of Navarre, widow of the Duke of Bretagne, and second wife
of Henry IV, was also confined here for a period of more than eight
long years. The former appears to have been “an uncommon grateful
prisoner,” for he is said to have left his gaoler a legacy of £20!
In Pevensey town in the sixteenth century lived a jester (professional
or otherwise we have not succeeded in discovering), Andrew Borde, a
monk, said to be the original “Merry Andrew,” and the author of two
ancient works, still known to the few, called the _Boke of Knowledge_
and _The Wise Men of Gotham_. His witticisms were apparently not seldom
directed against the municipal authorities of Pevensey. On one occasion
he makes the Mayor assert, with much access of dignity, “Though Mayor
of Pevensey I am yet but a man,” and accuses a Pevensey jury of having
brought in a verdict of manslaughter against a yeoman charged with
stealing a pair of leather breeches!
Another detailed account of this latter event says that when the man
had been brought in guilty of stealing the breeches by the jury,
and they were informed that the theft was a capital offence, they
were astounded and unwilling to hang the man and so adjourned the
Court, dispatching a messenger hot haste to Thomas Willard, Esq., of
Eastbourne, the town clerk, to beg his opinion whether it would be
possible to reverse the present verdict and bring in a fresh one. It
happened that Lord Wilmington, with the Chief Baron of the Exchequer,
was at dinner with Mr Willard when the messenger arrived, and upon
Mr Willard telling these two gentlemen the nature of the message he
had received, the Chief Baron (as a joke, one must suppose) said,
“Instruct them to reverse the present verdict and bring in another of
manslaughter.” To this advice Lord Wilmington also assented, and Mr
Willard advised accordingly, with the humorous result we have already
mentioned.
Whilst yet another Mayor, who received an important letter by special
messenger whilst engaged in the occupation of mending the thatch on
his pig’s stye, on attempting to read the communication upside down,
“was so long a-doing it” that the messenger at last ventured to hint
respectfully that if he would attempt to read his letter as did
ordinary folk he would make speedier progress towards mastering the
contents. The reply must have been crushing, “Hold your tongue, sir!”
exclaimed his worship with asperity, “understand that while I’m Mayor
of Pevensey I hold a letter which end up I choose.”
Andrew Borde’s fame as a mirth provoker was so widespread that we
find King Edward VI himself came to visit him. The room which by
tradition is pointed out as that in which the youthful Sovereign had
the interview with his father’s old physician is nowadays somewhat of a
show place, and the house itself is a quaint one.
It is but five miles from Pevensey to Eastbourne, clean and
smart-looking even from a distance at sea, and made yet more attractive
to the vision by the charming wooded slopes of Paradise which form
its setting or background; but there is no harbour or haven, and, in
addition, Eastbourne is too new to have much history.
Two miles south-west of the town rises Beachy Head, the last of the
Downs headlands--rugged, impressive, magnificent, almost sheer in
places, and green-capped with close-cropped turf. In former times there
have been many wrecks on its wave-washed base, till the Belle Tout
lighthouse came in 1831 to fling across the dark waters its saving
light, and the more powerful and more modern one at the base of the
cliff, near what is known as Parson Darby’s hole, was erected in 1902
to take its place.
Possibly Beachy Head, which towers above us as we sweep round it, but
at a respectful distance from the race off the south ledges, with
perhaps a flock of tourists on its summit, having the semblance and
proportions of flies so far above the water are they, has inspired more
poetry than any other headland of the south coast. Most are cognizant
of Mr Swinburne’s beautiful ode “To a Seamew,” which is, alas! too long
for quotation, and would be spoiled by omission of a single stanza. But
from Richard Jefferies’s “The Breeze on Beachy Head” one can cull some
vivid lines, and by them bring the headland to the mind’s eye though
so far from it. “But,” he says, “the glory of these glorious Downs is
the breeze.... It is air without admixture. If it comes from the south,
the waves refine it; if inland, the wheat and the flowers and grass
distil it. The great headland and the whole rib of the promontory is
wind swept and washed with air; the billows of atmosphere roll over
it.... Discover some excuse to be up there always, to search for stray
mushrooms ... or to make a list of flowers and grasses; to do anything,
and, if not, go always without any pretext. Lands of gold have been
found, and lands of spices and precious merchandize; but this is the
land of health.”
One remembers, too, the description of the headland in _King Lear_.
The truth of which, down to the smallest detail, seems to prove beyond
question that Shakespeare himself must have visited the spot and have
drunk in the salt sea breeze and felt the glorious sun as have other
poets and writers.
And thus, as we leave the gleaming headland astern, we make for
Newhaven by way of Seaford. The latter has by far the more attractive
history, as should naturally follow the distinction of being a “limb”
of the Cinque Ports. The cliffs are very fine all along to Seaford,
and once a haven of refuge came very near being made at Cuckmere close
by, but the advantages or claims, or both, of Portland further west
prevailed.
It was on the water between Beachy Head and Newhaven that on June 30,
1690, De Tourville, Admiral of the French fleet, having gained valuable
information from a Lydd publican of the division of the English and
Dutch sea forces, bore down upon the latter and gave them battle.
Outnumbered though they were--the French had eighty-five ships to the
Hollanders’ thirty--the Dutch fought gallantly, but suffered a heavy
defeat; whilst the English ships to leeward were unable to come to
their allies’ assistance until the victory had been virtually won.
The English admiral, Lord Torrington, afterwards nearly shared the
fate meted out to Admiral Byng sixty-seven years later, but, although
committed to the Tower and tried, to William of Orange’s keen disgust
he was acquitted.
[Illustration: BEACHY HEAD]
Seaford has indeed a chequered history. Like its other stranded
neighbours amongst the Cinque and other Ports of the Confederacy, it
once possessed its harbour, formed by the Ouse, known even in Roman
times. And it sent two representatives to Parliament in the year 1300.
Two years later it was commanded to furnish King Edward with a ship
for his French expedition, two ships for the King in 1336, and five
but eleven years later, so that its growth at that period must have
been rapid; but in the reign of the Third Edward the decline of the
place was equally marked. It ceased to send members to Parliament,
and, with its haven rapidly silting up and the town suffering constant
attacks by the French, the place and its inhabitants were soon in evil
case. In the reigns of the last-named King and those of Richard II and
Henry IV it was repeatedly sacked and burned, and so discontented did
the people become with the want of assistance and protection afforded
them, more especially in the reign of weak Henry VI, that they were
ripe for rebellion, and when Jack Cade appeared they joined him almost
to a man.
From this period onwards the Ouse now rapidly filled up, so that there
was soon but the mere semblance of a port, and finally the river
changed its course, found an outlet near the village of Meeching, and
ultimately, in the sixteenth century, formed a harbour at Newhaven,
in the mere name of which the downfall of neighbouring Seaford is
succinctly told.
The French were not, however, content to leave the poor sea-deserted
place alone. They made one of their periodical descents upon it in
1545. But on this occasion, with the assistance of gallant Sir Nicholas
Pelham, the invaders were beaten off with heavy loss, the event being
commemorated upon the worthy knight’s tomb in the following somewhat
halting lines:
What time the French sought to have sack’t Seaford
This Pelham did repel ’em back aboord.
In 1640 Seaford was once more empowered to send representatives
to Parliament, and later on amongst those who from time to time
represented what had become a Treasury Borough we find William Pitt the
elder and George Canning.
The wreckers and smugglers of Seaford during the latter half of the
eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth century were scarcely less
notorious than those of Hastings, Rye, and other places on the Sussex
coast. Many a vessel was lured to destruction, and many a cargo run
almost in sight of the authorities who existed to put down these
malpractices. From a letter of a gentleman of Stafford, Sussex, to
one of the newspapers on September 18, 1783, we extract the following
account of smuggling as it then existed. “There is,” he writes, “a most
convenient port, about a mile from Seaford, for smugglers to land their
goods, and so daring are they become, that a dozen or more cutters may
frequently be seen laying-to in open day.” On Tuesday evening, between
two and three hundred smugglers on horseback came to Cookmere, and
received various kinds of goods from the boats, “till at last the whole
number were laden, when, in defiance of the King’s officers, they went
their way in great triumph. About a week before this upwards of three
hundred attended at the same place, and though the sea ran mountains
high, the daring men in the cutters made good the landing, to the
surprise of everybody, and the men on horseback took all away.”
It is chiefly from such extracts as that which we have just made that
any clear idea can be obtained regarding the prevalence of smuggling
and the daring tactics of the smugglers of those times.
The prospect of a French invasion in 1803 and 1804 made Seaford and
the immediate neighbourhood a scene of unwonted activity. We are told
that the Commander-in-Chief, His Royal Highness the Duke of York, and
Major-General Lennox issued orders, which were received by the colonel
commanding in the district, to the effect “that the French, should they
succeed in crossing the British Channel (not English Channel, mark
you), would certainly attempt a landing in Seaford Bay,” and the orders
went on to say that a strict and vigilant watch was to be kept up in
consequence.
The conduct of the farmers in the neighbourhood in putting up and
“finding for” large numbers of troops for a lengthy period was greatly
commended by one Lieutenant-Colonel Frith in the following year
(1804), and the officers of His Majesty’s First or North Battalion of
Hampshire Militia, which had been concentrated in Sussex, on leaving
Alfriston. The letter from the lieutenant-colonel in question expresses
that “They feel that they have been received as brethren engaged in one
common cause, the defence of their country, and all that it contains
most near and dear.”
Although the French never succeeded in crossing the Channel in force
and effecting a landing in Seaford Bay or anywhere else, it is somewhat
startling to read such an extract as the following, also taken from a
newspaper of the period: “Dec. 28, 1807. On Saturday morning last a
daring attempt was made by a French privateer to capture two loaded
colliers, lying off Seaford.... The enemy succeeded in capturing and
sending away one, and was proceeding to take possession of the other.
The latter, however, fortunately mounted two or three swivels, a
well-directed discharge from which, it is supposed, gave an unexpected
quietus to several of the assailants.”
Little wonder need there be if folk along the coast went uneasily to
their beds in those days, “fearing” (as one picturesque if somewhat
reckless writer says) “lest they should wake from their peaceful
slumbers to find their throats cut by the French.”
The doings of bold John Whitfield, the notorious smuggler, who for
his crimes and constant evasions of the Revenue laws was ultimately
outlawed, and made his peace by presenting King George II with a
parcel of his choicest wines, “than which the King is said to have
declared he never drank better,” would fill a book; but, robbed of his
picturesqueness and romance, the said Whitfield was, we believe, a
sorry villain, and not above murdering a stray “preventive” were he to
come athwart his schemes.
However, Seaford of to-day is very different from Seaford of the early
years of the last century. Now it is just a pleasant little town
nestling at the foot of the Downs, well-sheltered from northerly,
north-easterly and north-westerly gales, and yet, from its exposure to
the south and west, enjoying warm and invigorating breezes by turn.
It has few objects of interest in the usually accepted sense of
the term, but in Church Street under one of the houses is a most
interesting and ancient crypt, which is by some supposed to have
had some connection with the Hospital of St Leonard, whilst other
authorities think that the crypt once formed a part of the ancient
Courthouse or Town Hall. The vaulting ribs are of plain design, and the
bosses of the Early English type. This is one of the most important
relics of ancient Seaford. Unhappily the church was allowed, during the
later part of the eighteenth century, to fall into a terrible state of
disrepair. Much has from time to time been done to restore it, but the
restorations and additions have not invariably been done judiciously or
with knowledge.
Newhaven, though a good harbour--in fact, the only real haven of
refuge of any consequence or ease of entrance between Folkestone and
the Wight--is not a place in which to waste much time. The town is
picturesque in parts (as, indeed, are most ports), but it is not much
frequented by any save those brought hither by business or stress of
weather. Although, even as Meeching, its old name, it finds no mention
in the Domesday Book, there is little doubt that it is a place of
some antiquity, for there are early Norman traces in the architecture
of its church, and also the remains of an encampment with high
earthworks on the land side near the shore on the west bank of the
river. The modern town which has sprung up on the banks of the Ouse
as one of the cross Channel ports dates its origin to the great storm
in the year 1570, during which the course of the river was changed
from its Seaford outlet to a more direct confluence with the sea at
Meeching. In the year 1881 the town was made a port, and since then
has gained considerable standing as one of the most frequented places
of embarkation for France and as a depôt for a considerable amount of
Continental trade.
It was here that in 1848 Louis Philippe and his Queen, Marie Amelie,
landed after escaping from Tréport in a fishing lugger under the
unromantic and not easily distinguished names of Mr and Mrs Smith.
The Royal fugitives were welcomed by a well-known Sussex character,
William Catt by name, who was not only a prosperous miller but a noted
fruit-grower. They afterwards took rooms at the Bridge Hotel, kept, as
it happened, by a Mr Smith, which circumstance, we are told, “caused
his ex-Majesty some considerable amusement and laughter.”
The town has the distinction (like Kingsbridge in fair Devon) of
manufacturing “a local tipple of some potency.” The original brewer,
Thomas Tipper by name, after whom the concoction, “Newhaven tipper,”
is known, died in the merry month of May, 1785, at, as it was reckoned
in those times, the early age of fifty-four. The epitaph on his tomb,
after reciting various virtues, declares:
The best old stingo, he both brewed and sold,
Nor did one knavish act to get his gold;
He played thro’ life a very comic part,
And knew immortal _Hudibras_ by heart.
Reader, in real truth, such was the man,
Be better, wiser, laugh more if you can.
Local tradition asserts that the said Thomas Tipper was a good friend,
too, of the local smugglers; but this in the times in which he lived
would not invalidate his claim to have never done “one knavish act to
get his gold.” His brew, we are told, was prepared with, and owed its
“peculiar charm of flavour” to, brackish water, and it is more, we
believe, than a mere tale that George IV, whilst at Brighton, imbibed
it freely and with no particular harm. One authority goes so far as to
assert “with great satisfaction.”
The church of Newhaven is not only interesting, but has a very
beautiful situation on the hillside above the town. The one peculiarity
in its architecture which strikes one at first sight is the position of
its tower placed at the eastern end, while to the east of the tower is
placed a fine semicircular apse--which has its counterpart, with other
features as well, in the church of Vainville in Normandy--in which one
of the small Norman windows can be seen. The pointed windows are of
considerably later date.
The interior stone work, where it has not been carelessly and
inappropriately restored, is good. The tower chancel is a very fine
piece of work, and has been less disfigured than other portions of the
building.
This ancient church might well have been a “sailors’ chapel,” such as
one finds in places on the North Devon coast and so frequently along
the opposite coast of Normandy; but, so far as one can tell, it had no
special significance in this respect, though in the churchyard is an
obelisk to the memory of Captain James Hanson, a companion of Vancouver
on his voyage round the world, who was drowned with over one hundred
officers and men by the casting away of his ship, the sloop of war
_Brazen_, off the Ave Rocks in the year 1800.
The coast-line, when one has got out of Newhaven and has laid a course
for Shoreham eleven miles distant, is first a series of lofty chalk
cliffs, with breezy uplands stretching inland, and then three or
four miles of Brighton and Hove shore and sea-front. A long line of
houses, hotels and mansions of so distinct a character that, so far
as we know, Brighton is never, at least by seamen, mistaken for any
other south-coast town. Of “London by the Sea,” as it has been called,
there is neither occasion nor space to speak in detail, but that it is
of very ancient origin, though at the present day so ultra-modern,
there can be little reasonable doubt. The Burrell MSS tell us that
“there are three Roman castra, lying in a line over-thwart the Downs
from Brighthelmstone to Ditchelling, from south to north. The first,
a large one, called the Castle, about a mile from Brighton eastward,
and a mile from the sea.” The name is by some supposed to have been
derived from Brighthelm, Bishop of Wells, who was afterwards translated
to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and in a volume called _The Family
Topographer_ occurs the following statement, “Brighthelm was slain on
the down immediately above Brighthelmstone, to which place he gave
his name.” Upon what authority this statement is made, or whether it
was Brighthelm the Archbishop or some other of the fairly numerous
Brighthelms who figure in history in Saxon times, we have been unable
clearly to discover.
The one important, authentic and romantic incident in connexion with
Brighthelmstone is the escape of Charles II from the fishing village,
which it then was, to the French coast after many wanderings subsequent
to the Battle of Worcester.
The town suffered, as did so many others, from the attacks of the
French, and in the year 1545 they made a descent upon it in force.
Holinshed gives a very full and detailed account of their proceedings
as follows: “In 37 Henry VIII, 1545, July 8, the Admiral of France,
Mons. Donnebatte, hoisted up sailles, and with his whole navy (which
consisted of two hundred ships and twenty-six gallies) came forth into
the seas, and arrived on the coast of Sussex, before Bright Hampstead,
and set certain of his soldiers on land to burn and spoil the country;
but the beacons were fired, and the inhabitants thereabouts came down
so thick that the Frenchmen were driven to their ships with loss of
diverse of their numbers, so they did little hurt there. Immediately
hereupon they made to the Isle of Wight, when about two thousand of
their men landed, and one of their chief Captains, named Chevalier
Daux, a Provençois, being slain with many other, the residue, with
loss and shame, were driven back again to their gallies.... They
disanctioned (disanchored), and drew along the coast of Sussex, and
a small number landed again in Sussex, of whom few returned to their
ships, for divers gentlemen of the country, as Sir Nicholas Pelham and
others, with such power as was raised upon the sudden, took them by
the way and quickly distressed them ... they turned stern, and so got
them home again without any act achieved worthy to be mentioned.” As
this same account goes on to say, “The number of Frenchmen was great,
so that diverse of them who were taken prisoners in the Isle of Wight
and in Sussex did report they were three score thousand.” Unless this
estimate was purposely and grossly exaggerated, the force was one of
the largest ever launched against these shores.
A most interesting and curious map, dated “1545 Julye 37 Hen. VIII,”
is in the Cottonian Library, and was apparently drawn for the chief
purpose of exhibiting the attack to which we have just referred, and
to afford a plan of the coast, with the possible end in view of the
establishment of fortifications and defensive works. It is quaintly
illustrated, and upon the sea are more than twenty ships, the largest
with four masts, several three, some two, and the remainder one, upon
which is hoisted a huge lateen sail. The decks of the larger ships
are raised in two or more tiers at both bow and stern like those of
the Roman galleys, and each ship is flaunting half a score of flags
and pennons. Some have huge _fleurs de lis_ in gold on blue, others a
red cross on white. On the sea, towards the west side of the map, is
inscribed the following curious and, we fear, inaccurate information:
“Shypes may ride all somer tem in a myle the towne in V fathome water.”
On the eastern side of the map is the following inscription regarding
the doings of the French: “Thesse grete shyppes rydeng hard abode
shore by shoting into the hill and wallies on the towne, so sore
oppressed the towne that the countrey dare not adventure to resscue it.”
Then, as regards the land portion of this curious map, at the bottom
of the sea near “Hoove” is written, “Upon this west pte may lond C.M.
p’sones (100,000 persons) unletted by any p’vision there.” On the hills
are several “wynde mylles,” and above them “the becon of the town”
blazing away in a dish-like cresset on a high pole. Many of the houses
shown are on fire, and a spot is marked by the following announcement,
“Here landed the galeys.”
There is on the producer’s part of this map a delightful and utterly
reckless disregard for what is commonly known as perspective. The
roads are in most cases drawn as though absolutely perpendicular,
necessitating the most acrobatic feats of the inhabitants who
pass along them. As for the “galeys,” some of them have performed
somersaults on landing on the beach, whilst others are tumbling
backwards. The houses are drawn rather smaller than the people who live
in them, and there are other equally entertaining anachronisms; but
this curious production probably served its main purpose, for defensive
towers were built and other steps taken to frustrate any further
depredations which might be attempted by the French.
Brighthelmstone had its “quiver” at the thought of the Armada, a little
less than half a century later. During a false alarm in 1586, when a
fleet of fifty sail appeared in the offing, great activity was shown
by the inhabitants, who immediately dispatched a messenger to Lord
Buckhurst, lord lieutenant of Sussex, telling him of the suspicious
vessels, and he promptly assembled all the men he could muster, “with
their armes,” and took up a position between Brighthelmstone and
Rottingdean. By nightfall we are told his force numbered 1,600 men, and
was later on reinforced by the addition of a body of Kentish men. As
the fleet made no movement to attack nor any demonstration of hostile
intent, at last a fishing boat or two, “with bold men who feared
neither death nor capture,” put off from the beach to reconnoitre.
They then discovered that the supposed Armada was but the Dutch wine
fleet from Spain, held back by the unfavourable direction of the wind
from proceeding to their destination up Channel, and thus, so far as
Brighthelmstone is concerned, ended its doings with the Armada.
In the terrific storms of December 27, 1703, and in 1705,
Brighthelmstone suffered so severely that it is scarcely too much to
say that it was ruined. So greatly also did it decline in the next few
years that in 1725 the author of _A Tour Through Great Britain_ speaks
of the place as “a poor fishing town, old-built on the very edge of
the sea,” and goes on to say that it has a likelihood of being soon
entirely swallowed up owing to the rapid encroachment of the sea.
With Brighton, as it came to be called later on, in the days when it
was emerging from decline and obscurity to flourish under the Georgian
patronage it received, and with the Brighton of to-day, which is one
of the great seaside resorts of the world, there is neither necessity
nor space to deal. We must on to Shoreham, the quaint little fishing
village of smuggling days, now threatened in the near future with
development as a seaside resort. Here there is a haven into which one
can run in stress of weather, although few, we imagine, would choose to
remain in it longer than necessary.
In the old smuggling times it was notorious, and even in the present
day there are “tub holes” in not a few of the older houses, and not
many years ago, in a house near by the church, one such was brought
to light when the back part of the building was pulled down. It was
connected with the shore by a passage, long ago filled up at its
seaward end, and in the latter were found more than a score of “tubs,”
and several packages of tea and lace. Of the spirit one who was there
states “it was by no means bad, over-woody, perhaps, but still by no
means entirely spoiled and certainly not undrinkable.” Of the tea none
was of use, and the lace was much rotted, notwithstanding the thick
oilskin covers to the bales, and in most instances the rats had made
use of it for nesting purposes. In the centre of two bales, however,
some yards were found undamaged, which, as the lace was well on for a
century old, more than paid for the alterations which the owner of the
house was making.
But even Shoreham, straggling and uninteresting as it mostly is
nowadays, has figured in what has been called “rustling and purple
romance” in the past, for was it not from Shoreham, or, at all
events, hard by, between it and Hove, that Charles II escaped? The
story of Charles’s wanderings is so well known that there is no need
to recapitulate them here, but there is a most interesting document
entitled, “The last act, in the miraculous Storie of his Mties escape;
being a true and perfect relation of his conveyance, through many
dangers, to a safe harbour; and out of the reach of his tyranicall
enemies, by Colonell Gounter; of Rackton in Sussex; who had the
happiness to bee instrumentall in the business (as it was taken down
from his mouth by a person of worth a little before his death),” which
in the part referring to the King’s movements at Shoreham is, we think,
worth quotation.
We are told that on the evening before his escape, “At supper, the King
was cheerful, not showing the least signe of feare or apprehension of
any daunger....” The boatman and also Charles’s host were present at
supper, the latter waiting upon the King, and then afterwards “the
Coll. (Colonel Gounter) began to treat with the boateman (Tettersfield
by name, afterwards referred to as Tattersall), asking him in what
readiness he was. He answered he could not of (get off) that night,
because for more securitie he had brought his vessel into a breake,
and the tyde had forsaken it, soe that it was on ground.... The King,
then opening the wenddowe, tooke notice, that the wind was turned and
told the master of the Shipp. Whereupon because of the wind and a
cleere night, the Coll. offered 10ll (ten pounds) more to the man to
gett off that night. But that could not bee. However they agreed, he
should take in his company that night. But it was a great business that
they had in hand, and God would have them to knowe soe, both by the
difficulties that offered themselves, and by his help, he afforded to
remoove them.”
When, however, all was thought to be settled, the boatman demanded the
insurance of his vessel, and, after some demur, Colonel Gounter agreed
to this, he placed the figure at £200. Obtaining a promise of this, he
yet appears to have raised difficulties in the way of a start, much
to the Colonel’s fear and annoyance. The Colonel then appears to have
taken a stand by telling the man that there were other boats to be
had, more especially after the man had declined to move unless he had
Colonel Gounter’s bond for payment of the money.
Then we are told, “In this contest the King happily interposed. Hee
saith right (said his Matie) a Gentleman’s word, especially before
witnesses, is as good as his bond. At last [delightful phrase!] the
man’s stomach came downe, and carrie them he would, whatever became
of it, and before he would be taken, hee would run his boat under
the water. Soe it was agreed that about tooe in the morning they
should be aboard. The boateman in the meane tyme, went to provide for
necessaries, so he (the Colonel) persuaded the King to take some rest.
He did in his cloaths, and my Ld. Willmot with him, till towards twoo
of the morning. Then the Coll. called them up, showing them how the
tyme went by his watch. Horses being ledd by the back way towards the
beach. They came to the boate, and found all readie. So the Coll. tooke
his leave, craving his Maties pardon if anything had happened through
error, nor want of will or loyaltie.... The Coll. abided there,
keeping the horses in a readiness in case any thing unexpected had
happened.
“At 8 of the clock I (the Colonel) saw them on sayle and it was
afternoone before they were out of sight. The wind (O Providence) held
very good till the next morning, to ten of the clock brought them to
a place in Normandie called Fackham (Fécamp), some three miles from
Havre de Grace. 15 Oct. Wenseday. They were no sooner landed, but the
wind turned and a violent storm did arise soe much that the boateman
was forced to cutt his cable, lost his anchor to save his boate, for
which he required of me 8ll, and had it. The boate was back againe at
Chichester by Friday to take his fraught.”
Then follows a significant note, “I was not gone out of the towne of
Brighthelmstone twoe houres but soldiers came thither to search for a
tall black man 6 foot and 4 inches high.”
Accounts vary as to whether the King actually came to Shoreham at all.
By some it is thought that the day or two previous to his coming to an
inn at Brighton were spent at Ovingdean at the house of a Mr Mansell
about three miles from Brighton, or what is now Kemp Town.
That the King did not always, after his Restoration, remember those who
had been of service to him during the period of his adversity is proved
by the story that even Tattersall was forgotten. The old seaman took a
curious way of reminding his Sovereign of his neglect. He sailed the
boat in which he had carried Charles to Fécamp up the Thames and moored
it off Whitehall. The hint was taken. Charles directed that the brig
should be taken into the Royal Navy as a fifth-rate ship of war, and
renamed her the _Royal Escape_. Tattersall himself was duly appointed
captain with a substantial salary, and a pension in addition of £100
per annum, an amount equal in value to about £380 of present-day
money. This was also for several generations paid to Tattersall’s
descendants.
An ivy-clad cottage on Southwick Green is still pointed out as that in
which Charles slept on the night before his escape to France. It is
known as King Charles’s Cottage, but how far tradition is to be relied
upon in this instance we are unable positively to assert.
Shoreham harbour formerly was of much greater area than nowadays, when,
as one writer puts it, “Nature has been too kind to Shoreham folk by
giving them too much land, by taking from them most all the water save
that which lies in the channel of the Adur.” In former times, indeed,
Shoreham had some reputation for the building of fast-sailing luggers
and other craft, many of which, in the last half of the eighteenth and
early years of the nineteenth centuries, were engaged in smuggling
ventures and privateering.
And who could blame the descendants of the men who suffered so much
in early times from the attacks of their neighbours across Channel if
they profited by the purchase of their goods in the shape of cognac and
lace, or, at a pinch, helped themselves without purchase when the two
countries found themselves at war?
[Illustration: LOW TIDE AT LITTLEHAMPTON]
Shoreham privateers were not a whit less skilfully handled and bravely
fought than those sailing out of larger and more famous ports of the
west country. The town, in Armada times, had furnished a fair share
of ships and men with which to fight the Spanish Dons, and the spirit
which animated the local seamen of the Elizabethan age was not “dead
bones” in those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as is
shown by the extraordinary exploits of a certain Captain Gyffard. He
was an enterprising man this Captain Gyffard, who when he was ashore
(which was not, we are told, very often) had his anchorage at West
Blatchington, while he did his seafaring and fitting out at Shoreham.
That he was a man of great ambitions we gather from the fact that he
had a scheme by which the then Duke of Buckingham was to finance him,
and share the spoil. There appeared something dangerously like piracy
in the detailed scheme of the worthy captain, and the Duke failed his
man. But Captain Gyffard found money and men, and after all many a
goodly prize was towed by him into Shoreham.
Another worthy of the town, a certain Captain Scrass, had less nicety
of judgement regarding the right of others than we could have liked.
One day, whilst cruising in search of plunder aboard his ship, the
_Dolphin_, he espied a Dutch man-o’-war standing up Channel with a
prize in tow, which proved to be a Swansea barque. Scrass gallantly
went to the rescue, recaptured the Welsh ship and promptly set sail,
and towed her in triumph to Shoreham; but, mark you, as his own prize!
Poor Powell, her master, was in dire distress, but, notwithstanding
his arguments and appeals, Scrass “froze on to his prize,” and refused
to give her up, and even her dispossessed captain’s appeals to the
Admiralty, made over and over again, had no effect, and he never
appears to have received either justice or satisfaction.
Shoreham has had the dubious honour in the past (to be accurate, in
1770) of having its returning officer for Parliamentary elections
summoned to the Bar of the House to give an account of his misdeeds.
It happened in this way. The Borough in those days sent two
representatives to Parliament, and it occurred to a body of ingenious
souls that these elections might be made the source of much profit
to themselves, so they formed themselves into an organization called
the Christian Club! It met at the inn for the reputed purpose of
transacting charitable and other highly commendable business. The
members were not summoned by the usual means of letters or verbal
notice, but by the hoisting of a certain flag on the inn. The funds
by which the members used to grant assistance to each other were the
proceeds of “rigged” elections. In those days there were comparatively
few electors, so that most were members of the Christian Society;
but at last their real object was discovered. One of the defeated
candidates lodged a petition, and it was then found that the Returning
Officer had calmly secured the election of the gentleman who enjoyed
(on the payment of an agreed and substantial sum) the good will of
the Christian Society members, by the simple expedient of disallowing
the votes recorded for his opponent. It is said that this revelation
of corruption helped materially the passing of the great Reform Bill.
However that may be, the Returning Officer was severely censured, the
right of voting was extended to every forty-shilling holder in the Rape
of Bramber; and as a punishment no less than eighty-five (or about
three-fifths) of the Shoreham “free and independent” electors were
disfranchised.
It is New Shoreham that most people see, and that usually passes under
the name of Shoreham. The old Shoreham, with its interesting and fine
Norman church, is but a tiny place nowadays, famous chiefly for its
wooden bridge over the Adur leading to the old smuggling inn known as
the Old Sussex Pad, which was burned to the ground a few years ago, and
was once the haunt and hiding place of the most notorious smugglers
of the district, and literally honeycombed with secret chambers, “tub
holes,” and recesses for the stowing away “of humans when there was a
hue and cry, and smuggled goods.”
New Shoreham Church, dating from about 1100, is one of the finest
in Sussex. It was once attached to the Abbey of Saumur, to which
foundation it was presented by William de Braoze, Lord of Bramber....
It is around this church of St Mary that by far the oldest and
most picturesque portion of the little town is found. Here the
eighteenth-century houses, grey and time worn, and perhaps a little
sedate in appearance, are grouped so that they form a little colony
of ancient things by themselves, and have a charm which few fail to
appreciate. In one of them once lived a certain Captain Henry Roberts,
a Shoreham man, who accompanied Captain Cook on several of his voyages,
and ultimately died of fever at sea. In others dwelt several merchants
of distinction at the end of the eighteenth century, whose wealth
rumour asserted was not unconnected with smuggling, privateering, and
the slave trade.
Two poets of great distinction have found inspiration at Shoreham (and
how many artists with brush and colours we wonder?), and have written
of the old church, and the shallow, yellow, and almost currentless
stream, which when the tide has rushed Channel-ward is little more
than a large ditch, and leaves a great expanse of sand, mud flats,
and oyster beds uncovered. The fine poem _On the South Coast_ in
_Astrophel, and other Poems_, by Mr Swinburne is too long for complete
quotation. Here, however, is a portion which calls up Shoreham to the
memory:
Rose-red eve on the seas that heave sinks fair as dawn when the
first ray peers;
Winds are glancing from sunbright Lancing to Shoreham, crowned with
the grace of years;
Shoreham, clad with the sunset, glad and grave with glory that
death reveres.
* * * * *
Skies fulfilled with the sundown, stilled and splendid, spread as a
flower that spreads,
Pave with rarer device and fairer than heaven’s the luminous
oyster-beds,
Grass-embanked, and in square plots ranked, inlaid with gems that
the sundown sheds.
Squares more bright and with lovelier light than heaven that
kindled it shines with shine
Warm and soft as the dome aloft, but heavenlier yet than the sun’s
own shrine:
Heaven is high, but the water-sky lit here seems deeper and
more divine.
But one must not linger by the way, for the harbour itself, as we have
already said, is not one to remain over long in.
And so up anchor and away with the ebb down the coast; flat and
uninteresting now, though in the background at first rise pleasant
heights, with Lancing College buildings and Chapel amid some trees on
the slope of a ridge above the Adur. That strange conglomeration of
derelictions from duties manifold converted into the semblance of quite
imposing and sometimes artistic habitations known as “Bungalow Town”
is soon passed; and then the serried rows of houses marking Worthing
sea-front soon lie stretched out along the low, shingly shore. But
there is nothing here to detain us, for Worthing has not much history
that concerns us, and is not a port (though a pleasant spot enough
and picturesque) with the conspicuous clump of trees marking ancient
Chanctonbury Rings to the north, and we are bound for the last haven
we shall enter before dropping anchor in the busy waters of Portsmouth
Harbour.
Littlehampton is a quaint port on the River Arun, which is so
delightful from just beyond Ford Junction onwards. All the way to
Pulborough one has flower-decked fields, old and ruined castles,
picturesque villages, and historic manor-houses to cause one to stray
from the river’s bank on exploration bent. Of course, there is no great
depth of water much above Arundel for even small craft; though fairly
large vessels can get up as far as Arundel town bridge.
Formerly Littlehampton, which has a narrow but picturesque entry past
the jetty with its lighthouse, and the windmill in the background, was
a place with trade of some considerable importance, which the rise of
Newhaven much injured.
The place, like Shoreham, has attracted many artists, amongst them
that charming painter of truly English rural landscapes Mr B. W.
Leader, R.A. The town should be celebrated if for nothing else for its
sunsets. “Out of Italy,” exclaims one enthusiastic artist, “I have seen
no sunsets with such a range and splendour of tints as at Littlehampton
in Sussex.”
The town can, however, also lay claim to some antiquity, for an
allusion to it appears in the Domesday Book, proving that it was then a
place within the usual meaning of the word. But even before then it was
known as “Hanton,” was held in Anglo-Saxon times by one “Countess Goda,
and furnished land for one plough, with two cottars and one acre of
meadow.” For long from its position near the mouth of the Arun it was
known as the Port of Arundel, the estuary being in ancient times much
wider than one would now imagine. In former times the town seems to
have attained to considerable size and importance, owing chiefly to the
trade between it and the Conqueror’s Duchy and the passage to and fro
“of many notable knights and commoner folk.”
It was here that William Rufus landed in 1097 after one of his
periodical visits to his Duchy. And to Littlehampton came some of the
prisoners from Crecy, brought hither across seas by Richard FitzAlan,
the 13th Earl of Arundel, in 1347. He was wise to bring them if the
story is true that their “ransoms were of so great a summe that they
served to paye for the building of the Great Hall at Arundell,” and
other additions.
Another Richard FitzAlan (his grandson), in the reign of Henry IV,
brought no less than eighty French ships captured in the Channel, and
laden with 20,000 tuns of wine, into the port; which Froissart averred
made it possible to purchase in London the best wine for fourpence a
gallon! And at Littlehampton? Well, small wonder that “men and wenches
were merry, and had full stomachs and light hearts for many a day
thereafter.”
Many other strange things and important personages throughout the
centuries were landed at this little Sussex port, amongst them “a
great wale,” and Philip Howard, who, after having been taken on the
high seas, was brought to Littlehampton, and conveyed thence to London,
the Tower, and the scaffold.
Its trade in the Middle Ages would appear from contemporary accounts of
its houses, buildings and population, and maps to have been much larger
than the size of the place would lead one to presume. In 1672, however,
it had only its church, manor house, and fourteen other dwelling
houses, and a few warehouses. But during the succeeding hundred years
several attempts were made to improve the harbour, and the depth of
water over the bar, and from the _Grub Street Journal_ of January 1,
1736, a copy of which, framed and glazed, is now in the possession of
one of the inhabitants, we learn “The new Harbour at Littlehampton
in Sussex was opened on Monday, and there was 7 feet of water at
half spring tide, and 9 feet when the tide was highest, and in all
likelihood it will prove the best harbour on that coast.”
But these high hopes were destined to be unrealized, and Littlehampton
has made practically no progress as a port during the last hundred
years, though its popularity as a pleasant and pretty holiday resort
is ever increasing. It was to the Earl of Surrey in 1790 that the town
owed its start as a health resort, and after Surrey House was built
other fashionable folk resorted hither.
There is still a certain amount of shipbuilding done; but we have
never of late years seen any vessel on the stocks approaching in size
the craft of 900 tons which were formerly launched. And we fancy the
industry--perhaps because of the greater use of steam--is a declining
if not a dying one.
With the demolition of the old parish Church of St Mary in 1826 to
provide a larger building Littlehampton’s sole really ancient building
disappeared. The modern (old style) building does not commend itself
to the fastidious in architecture; although it scarcely, perhaps,
entirely merits the uncomplimentary epithets which have been applied to
it from time to time by architects and others. In it there are a few
interesting relics, and fragments of the fine earlier building which
was Transitional Norman in character. They include the Norman (some say
pre-Norman) font, of bowl-shaped design which fitted it for immersion.
But if the town itself nowadays has to rely rather upon its modern than
its old-time attractions, it can boast of a neighbourhood wonderfully
rich in beautiful scenery, and historic memories and buildings. A
week or even more at Littlehampton can be well spent in visiting such
places as Arundel; lovely North Stoke, where the Arun winds at the foot
of wooded hills most delightfully; South Stoke; Amberley, with its
beautiful church, churchyard, and fine castle; Felpham; and Clymping,
with its fortress church, to name but a few.
Most leave the picturesque little port with regret and carry away
memories of its sands, edged most delightfully with grass lawns, and
backed by pleasant residences.
From Littlehampton onward to Selsey Bill the coast is flat and utterly
without scenic interest, though its story is rich with romance.
Millions of sea birds feed in the marshes of the Bill, and its
immediate neighbourhood, but the seals which are said to have given it
its name are those of long ago. Once round the Bill, and Portsmouth is
right ahead, with the Wight winking at one in the shimmering haze of a
bright summer day.