Highways and Byways in Sussex Part 29

There was a hermitage on the cliff at Seaford some centuries ago. In 1372 the hermit's name was Peter, and we find him receiving letters of protection for the unusual term of five years. In the vestry of the church is an old monument bearing the riddling inscription: "... Also, near this place lie two mothers, three grandmothers, four aunts, four sisters, four daughters, four grand-daughters, three cousins--but VI persons." A record in the Seaford archives runs thus: "Dec. 24, 1652.

Then were all accounts taken and all made even, from the beginning of ye world, of the former Bayliffes unto the present time, and there remained ... ye sum of twelve pounds, sixteen s.h.i.+llings, seven pence."

[Sidenote: THE PRICE OF TWO VOTES]

Millburgh House, Seaford, was of old called Corsica Hall, having been built (originally at Wellingham, near Lewes, and then moved) by a smuggler named Whitfield, who was outlawed for illicit traffic in Corsican wine. He obtained the removal of his outlawry by presenting George II. with a selection of his choicest vintages. Another agreeable story of local corruption is told concerning Seaford's old electioneering days. It was in 1798, during the candidature of Sir G.o.dfrey Webster of Battle Abbey. Sir G.o.dfrey was one day addressed by Mrs. S---- (nothing but Horsfield's delicacy keeps her name from fame) in the following terms: "Mr. S----, sir, will vote, of course, as he pleases--I have nothing to do or to say about him; but there is my gardener and my coachman, both of whom will, I am sure, be entirely guided by me. Now, they are both family men, Sir G.o.dfrey, and I wish to do the best I can to serve them. Now, I know you are in great doubt, and that two sure votes are of great value: I'll tell you what you shall do.

You shall give me __200; n.o.body will know any thing about it; there will be no danger--no bribery, Sir G.o.dfrey, at all. I will desire the men to go and vote for you and Colonel Tarleton, and it will all be right, and no harm done. The bargain," adds Horsfield, "was struck--the money paid--the votes given as promised; and the election over, the old lady gave the two men __30 a piece, and pocketed the rest for the good of her country."

[Sidenote: SEAFORD TO LEWES]

Seaford's neighbouring village, Bishopstone, in addition to its tide mills--the only tide mills in Suss.e.x excepting that at Sidlesham, now disused--possessed once the oldest windmill in the county. In the very charming little church is buried James Hurdis, author of _The Village Curate_, whom we shall meet again at Burwash. From Bishopstone we may return to Lewes either by the road through South Heighton, Tarring Neville, Itford Farm, and Beddingham, or cross the river again at Southease, and retrace our earlier steps through Rodmell and Iford. That is the quicker way. The road through Beddingham is longer, and interesting rather for the hills above it than for anything upon it. To these hills we come in the next chapter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Near Tarring Neville._]

CHAPTER XXVIII

ALFRISTON

Three routes to Alfriston--West Firle--The Gages--A "n.o.ble Dame"--Suss.e.x p.r.o.nunciation and doggedness--The Selmeston smugglers--Alfriston's ancient inn--The middle ages and P....

P....--Alfriston church--A miracle and a sign--An Alfriston scholar--Dr. Benbrigg--The smallest church in Suss.e.x--Alfriston as a centre--A digression on walking--"A Song against Speed"--Alciston--A Berwick genius--The Long Man of Wilmington.

Alfriston may be reached from Lewes by rail, taking train to Berwick; by road, under the hills; or on foot or horse-back, over the hills. By road, you pa.s.s first through Beddingham, a small village, where, it is said, was once a monastery; then, by a southern _detour_, to West Firle, a charming little village with a great park, which bears the same relation to Firle Beacon that Wiston Park does to Chanctonbury Ring. The tower in the east serves to provide a good view of the Weald for those who do not care to climb the beacon's seven hundred feet and get a better. The little church is rich in interesting memorials of the Gages, who have been the lords of Firle for many a long year.

In the house is a portrait of Sir John Gage, the trusted friend of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary, and, as Constable of the Tower, the gaoler (but a very kind one) of both Lady Jane Grey and the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Good Queen Bess. In Harrison Ainsworth's romance _The Constable of the Tower_ Sir John Gage is much seen. Sir John was succeeded at Firle by his son Sir Edward, who, as High Sheriff of Suss.e.x, was one of the judges of the Suss.e.x martyrs, but who, even Foxe admits, exercised courtesy to them. Sir Edward's son, Sir John Gage, was the second husband of the Lady Penelope D'Arcy, Mr. Hardy's heroine, whose portrait we saw at Parham: who, being courted as a girl by Sir George Trenchard, Sir John Gage, and Sir William Hervey, promised she would marry all in turn, and did so. Sir George left her a widow at seventeen; to Sir John Gage she bore nine children.

Returning from Firle to the high road, we come next, by following for a little a left turn, to Selmeston, the village where Mr. W. D. Parish, the rector for very many years, collected most of the entertaining examples of the Suss.e.x dialect with which I have made so free in a later chapter. The church is very simple and well-cared for, with some pretty south windows. The small memorial tablets of bra.s.s which have been let into the floor symmetrically among the tiles seem to me a happier means of commemoration than mural tablets,--at least for a modest building such as this.

[Sidenote: VAGARIES OF p.r.o.nUNCIATION]

In losing your way in this neighbourhood do not ask the pa.s.ser-by for Selmeston, but for Simson; for Selmeston, p.r.o.nounced as spelt, does not exist. Suss.e.x men are curiously intolerant of the phonetics of orthography. Brighthelmstone was called Brighton from the first, although only in the last century was the spelling modified to agree with the sound. Chalvington (the name of a village north of Selmeston) is a pretty word, but Suss.e.x declines to call it other than Chawton.

Firle becomes Furrel; Lewes is almost Lose, but not quite; Heathfield is Hefful. It is characteristic of a Suss.e.x man that he always knows best; though all the masters of all the colleges should a.s.semble about him and speak reasoningly of Selmeston he would leave the congress as incorrigible and self-satisfied a Simsonian as ever.

Many years ago Selmeston churchyard possessed an empty tomb, in which the smugglers were wont to store their goods until a favourable time came to set them on the road. Any objections that those in authority might have had were silenced by an occasional tub. But of this more in the next chapter.

[Sidenote: ALFRISTON]

And so we come to Alfriston; but, as I said, the right way was over the hills, ascending them either at Itford (crossing the Ouse at Southease) or by that remarkable combe, one of the finest in Suss.e.x, with an avenue leading to it, which is gained from a lane south of Beddingham. Firle Beacon's lofty summit is half-way between Beddingham and Alfriston, and from this height, with its magnificent view of the Weald, we descend steadily to the Cuckmere valley, of which Alfriston is the capital.

Alfriston, which is now only a village street, shares with Chichester the distinction of possessing a market cross. Alfriston's specimen is, however, sadly mutilated, a mere relic, whereas Chichester's is being made more splendid as I write. Alfriston also has one of the oldest inns in the county--the "Star"--(finer far in its way than any of Chichester's seventy and more); but Ainsworth was wrong in sending Charles II. thither, in _Ovingdean Grange_. It is one of the inns that the Merry Monarch never saw. The "Star" was once a sanctuary, within the jurisdiction of the Abbot of Battle, for persons flying from justice; and it is pleasant to sit in the large room upstairs, over the street, and think of fugitives pattering up the valley, with fearful backward glances, and hammering at the old door. One Birrel, in the reign of Henry VIII., having stolen a horse at Lydd, in Kent, took refuge here.

The inn in those days was intended chiefly for the refreshment of mendicant friars.

In 1767 the landlord was, according to a private letter, "as great a curiosity as the house." I wish we had some information about him, for the house is quaint and curious indeed, with its red lion sentinel at the side (figure-head from a Dutch wreck in Cuckmere Haven), and its carvings inside and out. The old and the new mingled very oddly when I was lately at Alfriston. Hearing a familiar sound, as of a battledore and a ball, in one of the rooms, I opened the door and discovered the landlord and a groom from the racing stables near by in the throes of the most modern of games, amid surroundings absolutely mediaeval.

[Sidenote: THE CATHEDRAL OF THE DOWNS]

The size of the grave and commanding church, which has been called the cathedral of the South Downs, alone proves that Alfriston was once a vastly more important place than it now is. Legend says that the foundations were first cut in the meadow known as Savyne Croft. There day after day the builders laid their stones, arriving each morning to find them removed to the Tye, the field where the church now stands. At last the meaning of the miracle entered their heads, and the church was erected on the new site. Its shape was determined by the slumbers of four oxen, who were observed by the architect to be sleeping in the form of a cross. Poynings church, under the d.y.k.e Hill, near Brighton, was built, it has been conjectured, by the same architect. Within the cathedral of the South Downs, which is a fourteenth century building, is a superb east window, but it has no coloured gla.s.s. The register, beginning with 1504, is perhaps the oldest in England. Hard by the church is the simple little clergy house--unique in England, I believe--dating from pre-Reformation times. It has lately been very carefully restored.

Alfriston once had a scholar in the person of Thomas Chowne, of Frog Firle, the old house on the road to Seaford, about a mile beyond the village. Chowne, who died in 1639, and was buried at Alfriston, is thus touched off by Fuller:--"Thomas Chune, Esquire, living at Alfriston in this County, set forth a small Manuall, int.i.tuled _Collectiones Theologicarum Conclusionum_. Indeed, many have much opposed it (as what book meeteth not with opposition?); though such as dislike must commend the brevity and clearness of his Positions. For mine own part, I am glad to see a Lay-Gentleman so able and industrious." Chowne's great great grandson, an antiquary, one night left some books too near his library fire; they ignited, and Frog Firle Place was in large part destroyed. It is now only a fragment of what it was, and is known as Burnt House.

[Sidenote: AN ALFRISTON DOCTOR]

An intermediate dweller at Frog Firle was one Robert Andrews, who, when unwell, seems to have been attended by William Benbrigg. Miss Florence A. Pagden, in her agreeable little history of Alfriston, from which I have been glad to borrow, prints two of Mr. Benbrigg's letters of kindly but vague advice to his patient. Here is one:--

"MR. ANDREWS,

"I have sent you some things which you may take in the manner following, viz.:--of that in the bottle marked with a + you may take of the quant.i.ty of a spoonfull or so, now and then, and at night take some of those pills, drinking a little warm beer after it, and in the morning take 2 spoonfulls of that in ------ bottle fasting an hour after it, and then you may eat something, you may take also of the first, and every night a pill, and in the morning. I hope this will do you good, which is the desire of him who is your loving friend,

"WM. BENBRIGG."

Alfriston once had a race meeting of its own--the course is still to be seen on the southern slope of Firle Beacon--and it also fostered cricket in the early days. A famous single-wicket match was contested here in 1787, between four men whose united ages amounted to 297 years. History records that the game was played with "great spirit and activity." Mr.

Lower records, in 1870, that the largest pear and the largest apple ever known in England were both grown at Alfriston, but possibly the record has since been broken.

The smallest church in Suss.e.x is however still to Alfriston's credit, for Lullington church, on the hill side, just across the river and the fields to the east of Alfriston church, may be considered to belong to Alfriston without any violence to its independence. As a matter of fact, the church was once bigger, the chancel alone now standing. What Charles Lamb says of Hollington church in Chapter x.x.xVI. of this book, would be more fitting of Lullington.

[Sidenote: HILL WALKS]

We have come to Alfriston from Lewes, proposing to return there; but it might well be made a centre, so much fine hill country does it command.

Alfriston to Seaford direct, over the hills and back of the cliffs and the Cuckmere valley; Alfriston to Eastbourne, crossing the Cuckmere at Litlington, and beginning the ascent of the hills at West Dean; Alfriston to Lewes over Firle Beacon; Alfriston to Newhaven direct; Alfriston to Jevington and Willingdon;--all these routes cover good Down country, making the best of primitive rambles by day and bringing one at evening back to the "Star," this mediaeval inn in the best of primitive villages. Few persons, however, are left who will climb hills--even gra.s.s hills--if they can help it; hence this counsel is likely to lead to no overcrowding of Fore Down, The Camp, Five Lords Burgh, South Hill, or Firle Beacon.

I might here, perhaps, be allowed to insert some verses upon the new locomotion, since they bear upon this question of walking in remote places, and were composed to some extent in Suss.e.x byways in the spring of 1903:--

[Sidenote: A SONG AGAINST SPEED]

A SONG AGAINST SPEED.

Of speed the savour and the sting, None but the weak deride; But ah, the joy of lingering About the country side!

The swiftest wheel, the conquering run, We count no privilege Beside acquiring, in the sun, The secret of the hedge.

Where is the poet fired to sing The snail's discreet degrees, A rhapsody of sauntering, A gloria of ease; Proclaiming their's the baser part Who consciously forswear The delicate and gentle art Of never getting there?

_To get there first!_--'tis time to ring The knell of such an aim; _To be the swiftest!_--riches bring So easily that fame.

_To s.h.i.+ne, a highway meteor, Devourer of the map!_-- A vulgar bliss to choose before Repose in Nature's lap!

Consider too how small a thing The highest speed you gain: A bee can frolic on the wing Around the fastest train.

Think of the swallow in the air, The salmon in the stream, And cease to boast the records rare Of paraffin and steam.

Most, most of all when comes the Spring, Again to lay (as now) Her hand benign and quickening On meadow, hill and bough, Should speed's enchantment lose its power, For "None who would exceed [The Mother speaks] a mile an hour, My heart aright can read."

The turnpike from the car to fling, As from a yacht the sea, Is doubtless as inspiriting As aught on land can be; I grant the glory, the romance, But look behind the veil-- Suppose that while the motor pants You miss the nightingale!

[Sidenote: ALCISTON]