IWctorfa Ibfstor^ of the Counties of Englanb EDITED BY WILLIAM PAGE, F.S.A. A HISTORY OF S U S SEX VOLUME II THE VICTORIA HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND SUSSEX LONDON ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED This History is issued to Subscribers only By Archibald Constable & Company Limited and printed by Eyre & Spottiswoode H.M. Printers of London INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF HER LATE MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA WHO GRACIOUSLY GAVE THE TITLE TO AND ACCEPTED THE DEDICATION OF THIS HISTORY THE VICTORIA HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX EDITED BY WILLIAM PAGE, F.S.A VOLUME TWO LONDON ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED b DA 670 V. CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO PAGE Dedication ............... v Contents ............... ix List of Illustration? and Maps ......... ... xiii Editorial Note ........... . . . xv Ecclesiastical History . . . By L. F. SALZMANN, B.A. ..... i Religious Houses : — ... „ „ „ Introduction .............. 45 Cathedral of Chichester ......... . . 47 Abbey of Battle ..52 Priory of Boxgrove .......... ..56 Priory of Sele ........... ... 60 Nunnery of ' Ramestede ' . . . . . . . . . . . .63 Priory of Rusper ............. 6} Priory of Lewes ............. 64. Abbey of Robertsbridge ............71 Priory of Hardham ............. 74 Priory of Hastings ............. 75 Priory of Michelham ............ 77 Priory of Pynharn ............. 80 Priory of Shulbred ............. 8 i Priory of Tortington . ............ 82 Priory of Easebourne ............ 84 Abbey of Otham ............. 85 Abbey of Bayham 8 6 Abbey of Dureford ............. 89 Preceptory of Saddlescombe . . . . . . . . . . .92 Preceptory of Shipley ........ . . ... 92 Preceptory of Poling . ............ 93 House of Dominican Friars, Arundel .......... 93 House of Dominican Friars, Chichcster ......... 94 House of Dominican Friars, Winchelsea ......... 94 House of Franciscan Friars, Chichester . . . . . . . . .95 House of Franciscan Friars, Lewes . . . . . . . . . .95 House of Franciscan Friars, Winchelsca ......... 96 House of Austin Friars, Rye ...... . . 96 House of Carmelite Friars, Shoreham .......... 97 Hospital of St. James, Arundel ......... -97 Hospital of the Holy Trinity, Arundel ......... 97 Hospital of Battle ~Y . . . . .98 '* !> 2 CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO PAGE Religious Houses (continual) — Hospital of Bidlington 9 Hospital of Buxted . • 99 Hospital of St James and St. Mary Magdalen, Chichester . 99 Hospital of St. Mary, ChicheKer Io° Hospital of • Loddesdown,' Chichester IO2 Hospital of Rumboldswyke, Chichester .... .... 103 Hospital of Stockbridge, Chichester ... .... . 103 Hospital of Harting . . IO3 Hospital of Hastings IO3 Hospital of St. James, Lewes IO3 Hospital of St Nicholas, Lewes ... . . . 104 Hospital of Playden ... .104 Hospital of St. James, Seaford .105 Hospital of St. Leonard, Seaford . . . . . . .105 Hospital of St. James, Shoreham • • • • .106 Hospital of St. Katherine, Shoreham . ..... . . 106 Hospital of Sompting, or Cokeham ...... . . . 106 Hospital of Westham ........ . 106 Hospital of West Tarring . . ......... 107 HospitalofSt Bartholomew, Winchelsea ....... . 107 Hospital of the Holy Cross, Winchelsea ... . . 107 Hospital of St. John, Winchebea . . . . . . . . . .107 Hospital of Windham . . . . .108 College of Arundel . .108 College of Rosham ............. 109 College of Hastings . . . . . . . . . . . . .112 College of South Mailing . . . . . . . . . . . .117 Priory of Arundel . . . . . . . . . . . . .110 Rallivate of Atherington .......... . .120 Priory of Lyminster . . . . . . . . . . . . .121 Priory of Runcton . . . . . . . . . . . . .121 Collegiate Church ofSteyning . . . . . . . . . . .121 Priory of Wilmington ............ 122 Priory of Withy ham 123 Rallivate of Warminghurst . . . . . . . . . . . .124 Maritime History . . . By M. OPPENHEIM 125 Social and Economic History . . By Miss PHYLLIS WRAGGE, Oxford Honours School of Modern History . . . . . .169 Table of Population, 1801-1901 By GEORGE S. MINCHIN 215 Industries . . By L. F. SALZMANN, B.A. Introduction . 229 Iron 241 Bell-Founding . P°««y • . . 251 Brickmalcing • • • • • • . . . 2 s < Gh» , . . !" Textile Industries CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO PACE Industries (continued) — Tanning 259 Brewing 260 Cider 263 Fisheries 264 Agriculture By WALTER F. INGRAM, F.S 1 273 Forestry ..... By W. HENEAGE LEGGE . . . . .291 Architecture By PHILIP M. JOHNSTON, F.R I.B A. Ecclesiastical . 327 Civil and Domestic ............. 380 Military 394 Schools By A. F. LEACH, M.A., F.S.A. Introduction 397 Chichester Prebendal School . . . . . . . . . . -399 Hastings Grammar School ............ 409 Lewes Grammar School . . . . . . . . . . . .411 Cuckfield Grammar School . . . . . . . . . . .416 Horsham Grammar School .421 Steyning Grammar School . . . . . . . . . . . .424 Rye Grammar School . . . . . . . . . . . .425 Hartfield School . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427 Midhurst Grammar School . . . . . . . . . . .427 East Grinstead School ............ 430 Brighton College ............. 430 Brighton Grammar School . . . . . . . . . . -431 The Woodard Schools . . . . . . . . . . . .431 Lancing College . . . . . . . . . . . . .432 Hurstpierpoint College . . . . . . . . . . . .433 St. Saviour's School, Ardingly . . . . . . . . . .434 Eastbourne College ............. 434 Christ's Hospital, West Horsham . . . . . . . . . .435 Elementary Schools founded before 1800 ......... 437 Sport Ancient and Modern . . Edited by E. D. CUMING Hunting . . . . . By H. A. BRYDEN ...... 441 Fox-Hunting 441 The Charlton Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . .441 The Goodwood Hounds ........... 443 The Petworth Hounds ........... 444 The First East Sussex Hunt .......... 446 The South Down Foxhounds .......... 446 The Present East Sussex Hunt .......... 447 The Crawley and Horsham Hunt ......... 447 The Bridge Hunt ............ 448 The Burstow Hunt 448 The Eastbourne Hunt ........... 448 Stag-Hunting 448 The South Coast Staghounds .......... 449 The Warnham Staghounds 449 Harriers .............. 449 xi CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO Sport Ancient and Modern (continued)- Point-to-Point Races Beagles . Otter-Hunting Coursing ..... Racing . Polo Shooting ..... Angling Cricket ..... Golf Athletics . ... By J. W. BOURNE By H. A. BRYDEN and E. D. CUMING . . By E. D. CUMING By PHILIP CHASMORE ...... By G F. SALTER By Sir HOME GORDON, BART , assisted by A. S. HURST, A. J. GASTON, O. R. BORRADAILE, and others By A J. ROBERTSON ...... By W. BIRKETT ...... 45* 452 453 453 454 461 46, 463 467 477 480 XII LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS PAGE Lewes ...... By WILLIAM HYDE ..... Frontispiece Map showing the Churches in the county of Sussex, which ) . were at some period in the Patronage of a Religious House J Sussex Episcopal and Dean and Chapter Seals ..... Jutt-page plate, facing 16 Ecclesiastical Map of Sussex facing 4! Sussex Monastic Seals : — Plate I ...» ...... full-page plate, facing 54 Plate II . „ „ 74 Plate III . „ „ „ 92 Sussex Fire-Backs .......... >.,,;, 242 Examples of Sussex Pottery „ „ ,,252 Plan of the Chapel at Atherington . . . . . . . . . . -339 Plan of Hardham Church ............ 339 Ground Plan at St. Peter's Church, Preston . . . . . . . . -339 Ground Plan of Climping Church . . . . . . . . . . .341 Yapton Church . . . . . ...... 343 Examples of Corbels . . ........ 345 Bishopstone Church, Vaulting Shafts . . . . . . . . . . -347 Coombes Church, Low Side Window in South Wall . . . . . . . .350 Hinge on North Door, Trotton Church . . . . . . . . . -357 Early Screens ........... full-p.ige plate, facing 358 Details of Sussex Pre-Conquest Architecture ......... 363 Chancel Arch, Clayton ......... -364 Twelfth-Century Capitals . ........ full-page plate, facing 366 Details of Mid-Twelfth Century Architecture in West Sussex ...... 369 Guestling Church, Arch between North Aisle and North Chapel . . . . . • 37° Late Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Century Capitals and) , „ , . , . Corbels . ...... ' JM-pa& plate, facing 370 Climping Church, the Chancel Arch 373 Corbel, Pevensey Church . . 374 Rustington, Chancel Arch, &c. . . . . -374 Capitals in Atherington Chapel . . . 375 St. Mary, Eastbourne, East Window of Gilbert Chancel 377 Sixteenth-Century Timber Houses at Ditchling .... full-page plate, facing 384 Details of Mediaeval Domestic Work . . . . . . . . . . -3^5 Chimney at ToJdington ............. 388 Chimney and Gable, Old House, Toddington . . 388 Arundel Castle, Doorway of Keep 394 XIII EDITORIAL NOTE THE Editor wishes to express his thanks to Mr. J. H. Round, M.A., LL.D., for kind assistance in the revision of proofs ; to the Proprietors of the Sussex Weekly Advertiser for access to the files of their newspaper, and to the Society of Antiquaries, Mr. W. Heneage Legge, and Messrs. Bemrose & Son for illustrations. XV A HISTORY OF SUSSEX ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY THAT the district which subsequently formed the county of Sussex was, in common with all other parts of the Roman Empire, brought more or less under christianizing influence can hardly be doubted, but such hold as Christianity may have obtained here was com- pletely lost when Elle's Saxon hordes poured into the country and established the South Saxon kingdom. Cut off by dense forest from the neighbouring kingdoms, the South Saxons were long untouched by the religious revolution proceeding all round them, and it was not till 68 I that their conversion was begun. It is true that for some years previously their king, Ethelwold, had been nominally a Christian, having been baptized by the persuasion of the Mercian King Wulfhere1 about 66 1 ; his wife Ebba, also, was a daughter of the Christian king of the Hwiccas, Eanfrid. There was also a Scottish or Irish monk of the name of Dicul seated at Bosham with five or six brethren, but they seem to have been unenterprising, or at least unsuccessful, missionaries, and had made but little impression upon the natives.2 At last, in 68 1, St. Wilfrid, bishop of Northumbria, exiled from his own diocese, found his way into the land of the South Saxons.3 It was the first time he had set foot there, though some fifteen years earlier he had had an unpleasant experience when his ship was stranded for a while on the shore and defended with difficulty from the hostile attacks of the natives. His reception was now far different, Ethelwold receiving him with all honour, and encouraging him to preach to the people. His success was rapid and complete, and seems to have been assisted by his ability to show the natives improved methods of fishing, whereby he mitigated the severities of a famine that was at this time driving the people to despair. The chief officers and several of the priests of the country were baptized, and the king presented Wilfrid with 87 hides of land in the neighbourhood of Selsey, on which were 250 slaves, all of whom were given their freedom by the bishop. While St. Wilfrid was in Sussex he received a visit from Cadwalla, then exiled from Wessex and apparently wandering in the Forest of Andred, who in 685 as king of Wessex conquered the still heathen Isle of Wight and made over a quarter of the island to Wilfrid. Cadwalla also, during the short time that he had power over the South Saxon kingdom, gave the bishop a large estate at Pagham, which Wilfrid, on his reconciliation to Archbishop Theodore in 686, presented to the see of Canterbury, of which it long formed a peculiar. 1 Hen. of Hunt. (Rolls Ser.), 61. ' Bede, Hist. Eccl. lib. iv, c. 13. 1 See article on 'The Introduction of Christianity into Sussex' in Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxiii, 105-28. 2 I I A HISTORY OF SUSSEX When Wilfrid returned to his northern diocese in 686, the South Saxon see was united with that of the West Saxons, of which the seat was at Win- chester ; but in 7 1 1 the see was revived, and Eadberht, abbot of Selsey, was appointed bishop.4 He was succeeded by Eolla, after whose death the see of Selsey was vacant till 733, when Sigga was consecrated. Then followed a succession of bishops,6 of whom nothing more than their names is known, with the exception of Ethelgar, who had been abbot of Winchester, and was the first of the many occupants of the Sussex see who passed thence to the primacy of Canterbury. Possibly the poverty and insignificance of the cathedral abbey of Selsey saved its inmates from martyrdom during the period of the Danish ravages. The only Saxon martyr of whom Sussex can boast is St. Lewinna, said to have been one of St. Wilfrid's first converts, and to have suffered during the primacy of Theodore, who died in 690. Of her life nothing is known, but of the ' translation ' of her relics in 1058 we have a singularly interesting contemporary account.' Balger, a monk of Bergue in Flanders — who had several times visited England — on Easter Eve, 1058, was driven by stress of weather into the harbour of Seaford ; next day he desired to hear mass, and was directed to the monastery or church of St. Andrew, some three leagues from the port. After service the priest of the church expatiated to him on the great merits of St. Lewinna, whose body lay there, and translated various parchments fastened on the walls containing an account of the miraculous cures that she had wrought. Balger became so excited that he endeavoured to bribe the priest to give him a bone of the saint, but his offer being indignantly rejected, he had to pretend that it was made in jest. He remained praying before the shrine, and took the opportunity of tampering with the chest containing the body, and at last managed to open it. The sacristan, being obliged to go away next day, left the church to the care of Balger, who seized the golden opportunity to steal the whole of the saint's relics, with the exception of a few small bones which fell out of the sheet in which he had wrapped the body, and were evidently intended by the saint to be left in ' the place where she had finished her life with the palm of martyrdom.' The relics were safely conveyed to Bergue, where they were received with delight and placed in a worthy shrine securely fastened, ' lest any fraud might possibly be practised and any portion of the relics taken away.' The only other South Saxon saint of whom we have any record is St. Cuthman, who appears to have flourished in the ninth century.7 He was the child of Christian parents, and when left destitute by his father's death, set out on his travels, taking with him his aged and infirm mother, in a sort of wheelbarrow. This primitive vehicle breaking down at Steyning, he deter- mined to stay there, and set about the building of a church, which was ' accompanied by a number of miracles amply sufficient to justify his inclusion in the calendar of saints. Another church-building saint connected with Sussex was the holy Archbishop Dunstan, who erected a wooden church at Mayfield, and finding that the orientation was incorrect, placed his shoulder against the wall and adjusted it.8 It was at Mayfield also that St. Dunstan 4 Bede, op. cit. lib. v, c. 18. • See list in Sun. Arch. Coll. xxviii. • Saw. Arch. Coll. \, 46-54. ' Bolland, Acta Sanctorum, Feb. ii, 197. « Mem. of St. Dunstan (Rolls Ser.), 204, 342. 2 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY had his famous encounter with the Devil, and seized him by the nose with his tongs, which tongs are still shown for the convincing of the sceptic. The building of churches was not, however, confined to saints. A number of charters of the eighth century refer to the foundation of ' minsters ' at Ferring,9 Bexhill,10 and Wittering,11 and mention the church of St. Peter at Henfield12 and the 'minster' of ' Bedinghommes,' to which land in 'Deanton' was said to belong ;ls these two places may be Beddingham and Denton in the Ouse valley, or Beeding and the ' Dentun ' of Domesday, which lay between Coombes and Sompting. These charters are almost, if not quite, all forgeries, but may well be founded on facts. Another certainly forged charter records the gift of Bertuald, duke of the South Saxons, to the abbey of St. Denis of the vill of Rotherfield, and the use of the ports of Hastings and Pevensey. This appears to record an actual transaction, and the church of Rotherfield, which is still dedicated to St. Denis, was probably founded about the time of this grant, which is dated jgo.1* As far as the ecclesiastical history of Sussex is concerned, the most important grants made during this period were those to the see of Canterbury. St. Wilfrid's gift of Pagham has already been mentioned ; at the council of Kingston in 838 the archbishop made good his claim to the great manor of South Mailing,16 where, apparently, there was already a monastery dedicated to St. Michael which Aldwulf, duke of the South Saxons, had founded, or at least endowed with lands in Stanmer, Lindfield, and Burleigh, about 760. 16 Further grants were made of land at West Tarring by King Ethelstan in 94O,17 and of land at Patching by Wulfric, a thegn, in 947." As a result of these gifts the church of Canterbury possessed extensive peculiars in Sussex, forming in later times the three deaneries of South Mailing, Tarring, and Pagham. When Edward the Confessor came to the throne the bishopric of Selsey was held by Grimketel, who had formerly obtained the East Anglian see by simony, but being ejected therefrom had bought his appointment to the southern see.1' On his death in 1048 the king's chaplain Hecca succeeded, dying about the end of 1057 ; Ethelric the next bishop appears to have been irregularly appointed, as he was deposed in 1070, at the same time as Archbishop Stigand and Ethelmaer, bishop of Elmham, and imprisoned at Marlborough. He was, however, recognized as one of the leading experts in English law, and was accordingly brought to the council on Penenden Heath in 1076 to give the assembly the benefit of his learning.20 The Confessor was liberal of Sussex lands to his ecclesiastical friends ; the richly endowed collegiate church which had sprung up where Dicul had first lit the lamp of Christianity at Bosham was granted to the Norman chaplain Osbern, and the valuable manors and ports of Steyning and Hastings with Rye and Winchelsea fell to the share of the Norman abbey of Fecamp, while on his own foundation of Westminster he bestowed the manor of Parham. To the church of ' St. John,' possibly in Lewes, Queen Edith gave lands in Frog-Firle and elsewhere, some of which Harold took away and kept in his own hand. Harold also seized the manor of Steyning towards the end • Birch, Cart. Sax. 198. 10 Ibid. 207. " Ibid. 211. " Ibid. 206. " Ibid. 302, 387. " Arch. Journal, Hi, 355-70 ; Suss. Arch. Coll. xli, 49. 15 Birch, Cart. Sax. 421. " Ibid. 197. " Ibid. 766. Ibid. 821. '" Will. Malmes. Gesta Pontif. (Rolls Ser.), 205. *° Suss. Arch. Coll. xxix, 37-8. IS l.\JL\JL. \J f, ^. *T 111. .»l»*liil^J. VJfr.'»t* 1 VI... 3 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX of Edward's reign, and Godwin appears to have obtained partial, if not complete, possession of the lands of Bosham which lay near Lewes. Whether these confiscations were due to rapacity, contempt of the church, or patriotic dislike of the foreign clergy cannot now be decided. The Norman conquest wrought great changes in the religious life of Sussex, the most noticeable in some ways, though by no means the most important, being the removal of the bishop's see from Selsey to Chichester in accordance with the recommendation of the Council of 1075 that episcopal seats should be transferred from villages to towns. This removal took place during the episcopate of Stigand, who had been consecrated bishop in 1070, and probably in or very shortly after 1075." At the time of the Domesday Survey the bishopric was endowed with lands valued at £150 5J-» a total quite insignificant compared with that of the archbishop's peculiars, referred to above, which totalled £274 ioj. The abbey of Fecamp, to which William had restored Steyning and added the manor of Bury, held lands worth £176 4-r.; and Bosham, still in the hands of Osbern, now bishop of Exeter, reached the total of ,£55 5^., though this was a tremendous downfall from its original value of £329. It was as builders and founders of religious houses that the Normans wrought the greatest change. At the time of the conquest there seem to have been few monastic establishments in Sussex ; besides the houses of Selsey and Bosham and St. Michael of South Mailing we hear of a nunnery of St. Peter at Chichester which was dissolved and its church converted into the cathedral upon the removal of the see hither," a church of St. John, already mentioned, and the clerks, or secular canons, of St. Nicholas, Arundel. The clerks of Boxgrove, Singleton, and St. Pancras, Lewes, were probably introduced between the dates of the Conquest and the Domesday Survey in which they appear. The foundation by William of the great abbey of St. Martin of the Place of Battle as a votive offering for his victory, and of the priory of Lewes by William de Warenne and his wife, as well as of such lesser houses as Boxgrove, Sele, Wilmington, and the nunnery of Lyminster, rapidly resulted in the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of the monastic clergy of the diocese ; while the intimate connexion of most of these monasteries with French houses must have assisted the Normanization of the county, though it probably also led to the isolation of the clerical population from the laity. The Norman period, including not only the years of the conquest and tlement of England, but also the period of the Norman influence in the reign of the Confessor, was noteworthy for multiplication of parish churches ; and this process is particularly evident in Sussex. Domesday, whose mention omission of churches is notoriously arbitrary, mentions ninety-eight churches, nine chapels and four priests (implying the existence of churches) this county. Nor is this a complete list by any means ; several that are own to have existed are passed over,28 and no fewer than nineteen churches which still contain features of pre-conquest, or very early Norman, archi- are also omitted, so that at a moderate computation there must have Gesla See r.C.H. Su,«x, i, 369. « taTSS3;^J 4 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY been one hundred and fifty churches standing before the death of William I. As the total number in the diocese in 1291 was only about two hundred and sixty-seven it follows that more than half had been built at this early date. Not content with erecting new churches where required the Normans also enlarged and improved those that existed ; thus William de Warenne replaced the wooden church of St. Pancras at Lewes with one of stone," destined itself in later years to give place to the magnificent priory church whose measure- ments alone now remain to testify to its former glories. It is probable that every church possessed a certain portion of glebe land, but its amount is not usually stated in the Domesday Survey. At Filsham one virgate of land went with the church, at Playden three virgates, and at Walberton two ; the churches of Compton and Mundham had half a hide each, those of Aldingbourne and Elsted one hide, Stoughton a hide and a half, and Amberley as much as three hides. Probably from thirty to a hundred acres would constitute the average endowment. Two cases of the foundation of a church at a somewhat later date may be introduced here as bearing upon this point. In the first of these William de Warenne (II ?) confirms the gift of one acre of land in Kingston-by-Lewes made by Peter the sheriff for the erection of a church there and orders Hugh the sheriff (of Lewes) to cause the church to be built.26 The other instance concerns the church of Hellingly, and is as follows : — I Nicholas de Brade, when Bishop Seffrid (1180-1204) consecrated the church of Helling, endowed it with twelve denariates of land . . . because there was not anyone else who would endow it, and the bishop earnestly sought for an endowment for the church lest so excellent a work should in any way be hindered. Richard de Helling further gave a croft near the church and six perches of moorland to enlarge the churchyard." Stigand, the first bishop of Chichester, died in 1087, and the identity of his immediate successor is involved in considerable mystery. According to Bishop William Reade's list Willelmus Primus followed Stigand,28 and William of Malmesbury also says of Stigand, huic successit Willelmus. A charter already printed in the article on the Sussex Domesday S9 would prove the existence of Bishop William if it could be relied upon, and another charter of Bishop Ralph refers to his predecessors, Bishops Stigand and William.80 On the other hand, Godfrey is said by several good authorities to have been consecrated by Lanfranc in 1087, and to have died in 1088, and his body was found and identified in iSag.31 It would seem, therefore, that William was Stigand's successor, but that he died the same year that he was appointed, and that his place was at once filled by Godfrey. A further element of confusion is introduced by the latter being called in Bishop Reade's list Lelaugbt, and in the series of bishops painted in Chichester Cathedral in the sixteenth century Leluaught. This appears to admit of no explanation, though it was probably a nickname.8* William Rufus, caring less for the spiritual welfare of the Church than for its temporal wealth, kept the see of Chichester vacant for three years * Dugdale, Mm. v, i. * Lewes Chartul.; Cott. MSS. Vesp. F. xv, fol. 20. " Salzmann, Hist. ofHatlskam, 103, from chartul. of Bayham Abbey. » Sun. Arch. Coll. xrviii, 15. " r.C.H.Sust. i, 372. M Cott. MS. Vitel. E, x. " Suss. Arch. Cell, xxviii, 15. Ibid. 5 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX after the death of Bishop Godfrey. Ralph Luffa, the next bishop, was consecrated in 1091 by Thomas, archbishop of York, the see of Canterbury being still vacant. He was a man of commanding presence and courageous spirit, and supported the cause of his primate, Anselm, against Rufus with intrepidity. When Henry I put forward his claim to be allowed to exact fines from married priests Bishop Ralph boldly resisted his demands, and even went so far as to close all the churches in the diocese until the king yielded. His courage was appreciated by Henry, who not only released the diocese from the tax, but assisted in the rebuilding of the cathedral, which had been damaged by fire in 1114. Ralph displayed equal energy in the performance of his pastoral duties, making a circuit of his diocese thrice in the year, preaching and reforming abuses, and died like a good Christian in 1123, causing all his goods to be distributed to the poor. His successor Seffrid I, nicknamed Pelochin, was abbot of Glastonbury at the time of his election to Chichester, over which see he ruled till 1145, when he was deposed and retired to his former home at Glastonbury. Henry of Blois, brother of King Stephen and bishop of Winchester, had made an endeavour while at Rome in 1143 to have his see of Winchester raised to the rank of an archbishopric, and to have Chichester subjected thereto.83 This had come to nothing, but it was probably through Henry's influence that the bishopric was bestowed in 1147 upon Hilary, a man of considerable learning and a fiery eloquence, and devoted to the crown. During his episcopate the struggle between the abbey of Battle and the cathedral of Chichester, which had begun under Stigand, but had been adjusted by Ralph Luffa's good sense and tact only to revive under Seffrid, reached its crisis. A prolonged and undignified wrangle ended in the complete victory of the abbot, who established the exemption of his church from episcopal control beyond challenge.34 A more important contest in which Hilary played a leading part was that between Henry II and Becket. At the Council of Westminster in 1163 Hilary alone of the bishops urged the acceptance of the king's proposal for dealing with criminal clergy by the secular power ; he was also one of the leading men by whose influence Becket was induced to agree to the Constitutions of the Council at Clarendon in i 164. In October of this latter year the archbishop was cited before the council at Northampton for the secular offence of not paying certain dues to John the Marshall, arising from his Sussex manor of Pagham. Becket, in violation of the Constitutions which he had signed at Clarendon, inhibited the bishops from proceeding against him, whereupon Hilary as spokesman for all declared him perjured, and refused to yield him obedience. The outcome of this suit in connexion with the manor of Pagham was the murder of Becket before the altar of his cathedral church in 1170, followed by his beatification and promotion to the position of practically the patron saint of England ; nor was this the limit of his promotion, if we may believe the story of a monk of Lewes Priory, to whom a brother who had recently died appeared in a vision, and declared that the archbishop had been exalted above all other martyrs to the ranks of the Apostles, because the others had died for their own cause, and at the hands of pagans, but he for a Ann. Man. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 53. " See Chrm. of Battle Abbey, trans, by M. A. Lower, passim. 6 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY the cause of the whole Church, and at the hands of his own sons.36 Becket's secretary and friend, Herbert of Bosham, himself a native of Sussex, and other writers have left on record long lists of miracles done by Saint Thomas, some of which relate to persons and places in Sussex, such as Sir Amfrey de Ferring, Richard canon of Chichester, and dwellers at Aldrington, Ifield, Pevensey, Rye, Shoreham, Warbleton, and Winchelsea ; but the tales for the most part are of little interest and no historical value : the best known relates how the murderers rested at the archbishop's manor of South Mailing, where the table thrice threw down their armour which they had put upon it.56 Bishop Hilary had died in July, 1 169, but his successor, John I, dean of Chichester, was not elected till 1173, being consecrated the following year. Upon his death in 1180, Seffrid II, who had been archdeacon and dean, became bishop of Chichester, which see he held for twenty-four years. His episcopate was a period of great importance in the history of the diocese, not only because he restored and added to the cathedral church after the disas- trous fire of 1187, but still more because from this time we may date the beginning of the ordination of vicarages, which is in some ways the most important feature of English church life during the first half of the thirteenth century. The rapid accumulation of the patronage and endowments of parish churches in the hands of the monasteries led to many abuses ; the churches were treated as sources of revenue, and only served perfunctorily by one of the monks, or by a chaplain chosen rather for his willingness to accept a low salary than for his fitness to minister, and liable to be removed at any time. To remedy this state of affairs the Lateran Council of 1 179 and the Westminster Council of 1200 ordered the appointment of perpetual vicarages. That the need of such had already made itself evident may be seen from the fact that when Bishop John I, about 1 177, allowed the priory of Boxgrove to appro- priate the churches of Boxgrove, Hampnett, Walberton, Barnham, and Hunston to their own uses he did so conditionally on their appointing perpetual vicars with a sufficient portion for their support.37 A similar stipulation was made by Seffrid II, probably about 1190, when appropri- ating the church of Hellingly to the Premonstratensian abbey of Otham.38 The first vicarages of whose regular ordination we have any notice are those of the churches of Kingston-by-Lewes, Iford, and Rottingdean, appro- priated to Lewes Priory by Seffrid II in 1 200." In the case of Rottingdean the vicar was to have a specified virgate of land with all its tithes, the obventions of the altar and of the chapel of Balsdean, and all small tithes except those from the demesne of Earl Warenne. At Iford he had the obventions of the altar and of the chapel of Swanborough, the small tithes, and the fourth sheaf of the monks' tithe corn. At Kingston, besides the obventions, specified lands, and measures of corn, mention is made of a manse or dwelling- house. The vicarage appointed at Henfield in 120915 of a nature similar to the above, but is given in greater detail ; *° by it the vicar was to receive all oblations made in the church and all legacies, all the tithes of certain lands and of any land newly brought under cultivation in the future, and the tithes. 55 Mat. for Hist, of Abp. Thos. Becket (Rolls Ser.), ii, 31. M Ibid. 285. 37 Suss. Arch. Coll. xv, 92, from chartul. of Boxgrove Priory. K Add. MSS. 6037. "Chich. Epis. Reg. Sherborn, fol. 80. 40 Dallaway, Hist, of West Suss, ii (2), 270 ; from copy in Chich. Epis. Reg. ' B ' fol. ult. 7 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX of calves, lambs, wool, pigs, chickens, geese, ducks, eggs, honey and wax, mills, fisheries, venison, hemp and flax, gardens, garlick, onions, leeks, and all pot-herbs (defined in 1409 as ' cabbages and leeks and other herbs of which broth is made by the custom of the county '41), apples, pears, corn in the sheaf or blade, and produce of orchards or gardens, and tithes of merchants' wares, fish, profits of brewers, and all artificers. In return the vicar should perform divine service on Sundays and holidays, and find bread, wine, and candles for mass, and pay 1 8 Ibid. fbl. 76. " Ibid. fol. 70. 67 Ibid. Reade, fol. 61. " Ibid. Praty, fol. 86. 69 Ibid. fol. 88. 70 Ibid. fol. 99. " Ibid. Story, fol. 78. " Ibid. Sherborn, fol. 83. 75 Ibid. fol. 92. " Ibid. " Ibid. pt. ii, fol. 86. 76 Suss. Arch. Coll. iv, 58. " Chich. Epis. Reg. Praty, fol. 97^. " Ibid. fol. 93. 79 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxvi, 24. " Stephens, Mem. ofSte of Chich. 72. 81 Ann. Man. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 31 ; iv, 54. * Cat. Pap. Let. i, 32. 88 Muniments of Magd. Coll. Oxf. box ' Thakeham,' No. 2. 2 9 2 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX outstanding capacity, he held the office of chancellor for sixteen years from 1226, and steadfastly upheld the rights of the English Church alike against the king, who endeavoured to remove him from office, and the pope, who in 1231 quashed Jiis election to the primacy, and in 1238 similarly annulled his election to the see of Winchester. Beyond caring for his cathedral church and increasing its endowment and privileges it is probable that his public duties left him little time for the management of his diocese. Bishop Ralph dying in February, 1244, in his London house which has given its name to Chancery Lane, the subservient chapter, wishing to secure the king's favour, elected the archdeacon of Lewes,84 Robert de Passelewe. He was a member of an East Sussex family and a courtier of the worst type, possessing all the worldliness of Ralph de Neville with little of his ability, and less of his honesty. The archbishop of Canterbury, in council with his suffragans, refused to accept Robert de Passelewe, and appointed in his stead the saintly Richard de Wych. Bishop Richard 86 was a native of Droitwich, whose learning and devotion had early attracted the attention of St. Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, by whom he was made chancellor of Canterbury. When the archbishop sought rest in the seclusion of the monastery of Pontigny, Richard accompanied him and remained with him, on terms of loving intimacy, till his death. Being thus elected to the see of Chichester, Richard vainly endeavoured to appease the anger of the king, who refused to give up the temporalities. Pope Innocent IV supported the bishop's cause and consecrated him, but Henry still remained unappeased, and for two years Richard went up and down throughout his diocese discharging the spiritual duties of his office though deprived of its temporal advantages. During this period he made his home principally with Simon, rector of West Tarring, in whose garden he is recorded to have spent much of his leisure, planting, grafting, and caring for the fig-trees and other plants there growing. When at last the king, menaced by the pope with excommunication, released the temporalities of the see, Richard, unspoilt by prosperity as by poverty, made use of this accession of wealth only to increase his alms to the poor. Ascetic and unflinchingly severe to himself, he was lenient to others, and if when he rose with the earliest dawn for prayer he found his clerks still sleeping he would not rouse them, but perform the office by himself. Yet where the honour of the Church was concerned he could be terribly severe ; thus at Lewes a certain knight who had arrested and put into the stocks one of the parochial clergy was made to go to the church in the garb of a penitent and wearing the same stocks about his neck ; while the burgesses of that town, who had broken sanctuary by dragging a thief out of a church and hanging him, were compelled to exhume his body and carry it on their shoulders to the church. The married clergy were the object of his sternest decrees, they being deprived of their benefices, and their ' concubines ' denied the privileges of the Church. Plurality and non-residence were forbidden by Bishop Richard, and directions issued to ensure the decent performance of divine service, special injunctions being issued against the clipping and slurring of words, and the use of improper dress. 84 He obtained the archdeaconry in this year by the king's gift during the vacancy of the see : Pat. 28 Hen. Ill, m. 7. "See a paper by Canon Cooper in Sius. jirch. Coll. xliv, 184-202. 10 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY At last, in 1253, the pope, anxious to make a final effort for the support of the tottering kingdom of Jerusalem, commissioned Richard to preach a crusade. This task he willingly undertook and passed through his own diocese along the south coast as far as Dover, preaching as he . went. At Dover, where he was to consecrate a church to the honour of his beloved and now canonized master St. Edmund, he lodged in the hospital, and was there taken ill, and rapidly becoming worse, passed quietly away the next day, in the presence of his old friend Simon of Tarring, to whom almost his last words were addressed. The purity of his life and the cheerful benevolence and sympathy of his nature justifiably caused the populace to regard Richard as a true saint, and the miracles the report of which resulted from or accompanied this belief were at last considered by the papal court to afford undeniable grounds for his canonization, which was formally enacted at Viterbo on 26 January, 1262. The next scene in the saint's history took place on 16 June, 1276, when in the presence of King Edward I and a vast multitude, the primate with many assistant bishops translated the body of St. Richard to his new shrine.86 The archbishop at this time took the opportunity of securing a relic for his church by appropriating an arm of the saint 87 : it was possibly the memory of this action that encouraged the bishop of Chichester in 1444 to write to the chapter of Canterbury and ask for a limb of St. Wilfrid, the founder of his see, to be enshrined with the relics of St. Richard ; a request with which the chapter obligingly complied.83 The shrine of St. Richard rapidly attained a more than local fame and became a great pilgrimage centre, drawing the stream of pilgrims westward through the county as that of St. Thomas at Canterbury drew them eastward. His name retains its place even yet in the Anglican calendar, and his fame travelled so far that for some mysterious reason he was chosen by the Coachmen's Guild of Milan as their patron saint.89 The only other Sussex church that appears to have been a regular centre of pilgrimage was that of St. Mary in the castle of Hastings,90 where a certain holy rood was the object of adoration. Temporary local pilgrimages, how- ever, were often encouraged for the assistance of a church needing repairs or otherwise impoverished; thus in 1399 indulgence was granted to all who should visit and give alms to the parish church of Chiddingly 91 on certain feast days, and a similar privilege was offered in 1405 to those who would bestow alms upon the hermit of St. Cyriac's chapel at Chichester,98 while in 1413 relaxation of penance was promised to all who visited the altar of St. Catherine in the parish church of St. Swithun of East Grinstead at certain times.93 The great Taxation of Pope Nicholas IV in 1 29 1 is important as giving us a valuation of the benefices and a statement of the spiritualities and temporalities in the hands of the clergy at this time.9* The total value of the spiritu- alities in the county was returned as £4,708 l6j. 8» This should be Darell of Scotney. " Compare the similar list of Justices in 1587, Suss. Arch. Coll. 58-60. '" S.P. Dom. Eliz. he, 71. 24 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Few churches have their quarter sermons according to the Queen's Majesty's injunctions. There are very few preachers in the diocese, but only seventeen as might be learned in the synodals.192 There are some beneficed men there which did preach in Queen Mary's reign, and now do not nor will not, and yet keep their livings, as Mr. Graye, B.D., parson of Wythyham ; Mr. Robert Parkhurst, B.D., vicar of Washington ; William Foster, vicar of Billinghurst ; Sir Davie Spencer, parson of Clapham ; Nicholas Hicket, parson of Pulborough ; Mr. Story, vicar of Findon. These three are fostered in gentlemen's houses, and run between Sussex and Hants, and are hinderers of true religion, and do not minister : Mr. Stephen Hopkins, B.D., who resorteth unto my Lady Pooles, Mr. Cooperes, Sir Thomas Palmers, Mr. Gunteres and Mr. Temse ; Mr. Davy Michell, and Mr. Thomas Cotesmore — these frequent Mr. James Gayges about Lewes. These come not to their parish churches, nor receive the Holy Communion at Easter, but at that time get them out of the country until that feast be past,193 and return not again until then : Lady Poole, Thomas Poole, &c., Arthur Gunter, &c., all of Racton. Mr. Leedes of Steyning and his brother-in-law. Mr. Lewkenor of Selsey, and Mrs. Busshoppe of Henfield. In the parish of Racton they have no churchwardens, clerk, or collector for the poor, because of Mr. Arthur Gunter, who rules the whole parish. They have many books that were made beyond the seas, and have them there with the first, for exhibition goeth out of that shire and diocese unto them beyond the seas, as to Mr. Stapleton,194 who being excommunicated by the archbishop did avoid the realm, and these have his goods and send him money — William Ryman of Oving, Mr. Dolman, William Daves of Patching, Sir Davy Spencer ; and to these doth this Stapleton send his letters. In the church of Arundel certain altars do stand yet still to the offence of the godly, which murmur and speak much against the same, and preachers have also spoken against the standing thereof in their sermons of late. They have yet in the diocese in many places images hidden up and other popish ornaments, ready to set up the mass again within 24 hours' warning ; as in the town of Battell and in the parish of Lindfield, where they be yet very blind and superstitious. There be schoolmasters who teach without licence and be not of a sound and good religion, as the schoolmaster in the town of Battell, the vicar of Findon, and the school- master that teacheth in the Lodge at Stansted who teacheth Mr. Stoughton's children, being comptroller of my lord of Arundel's house. In the town of Battell, when a preacher doth come and speak anything against the pope's doctrine they will not abide but get them out of the church. They say that they are of no jurisdiction, but free from any bishop's authority ; the schoolmaster is the cause of their going out, who afterwards in corners among the people doth gainsay the preachers. It is the most popish town in all Sussex. In some places because the Rood was taken away they painted there in that place a cross with chalk, and because that was washed away with painting and the number of crosses standing at graves in the churchyard taken also away,196 they have since made crosses upon the church walls within and without, and upon the pulpit and Communion Table in despite of the preacher. This was done of very late in Patching since I preached there. And in the churches they have put crosses upon their stalls whom they favour, and upon my farmer's stall they have chalked a gibbet. In many places they keep yet their chalices, looking for to have mass again, when as they were commanded to turn them into Communion cups after one fashion, keeping still weight for weight that the parish might not be charged with buying of one altogether new ; and yet they have so charged their parishes, to keep their chalices, hoping for a day for the 191 Their names are given. '" In order to avoid the penalties for not receiving the sacrament at their parish church at that time. 191 Not the ' wickedly obstinate ' William Stapleton of Barlow's list, but Thomas Stapleton, prebendary of Chichester, denounced by the bishop in 1560 as 'trained up from childhood in papistry' (S.P. Dom. Ehz. xi, 25), and subsequently deprived of his prebend (Gee, Elizabethan Clergy, 274). He was a very able controversialist and had the reputation of being the most learned Roman Catholic of his time ; see Diet. Nat. Biog. 195 Many market and boundary crosses seem to have been destroyed as early as the period of the dissolu- tion, and in 1538 some labourers got into trouble for digging up the cross at Willingdon. They had met in Henry Michelgrove's alehouse, when one of them said, ' There be many crosses digged up here- abouts, and men say there is much money under Willington cross, which if thou wilt be ruled by me we will have.' Their quest, however, was fruitless : L. and P. Hen. fill, xiii (i), 786. 2 25 4 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX use of the same ; and some parishes say that their chalices were stolen away, and therefore they ministered in glasses and prophane goblets. In many places the people cannot yet say the Commandments, and some not the articles of their belief, when they be examined before they come to the Communion, and yet they be of the age of forty and fifty years. The ministers there for the most part arc very simple. In the cathedral church very few preachers are resident ; only four out of thirty-one prebendaries — the dean, schoolmaster, lecturer, and one other — of the others some are laymen, some no preachers, and others far distant. In the city of Chichester few of the aldermen are of good religion. Many gentlemen at Easter receive Communion at home in their chapels, and choose priests from a distance, as Sir Thomas Palmer, Sir Edward Gage, and James Gage. They use in many places ringing between morning prayer and the litany, and all the night following All Saints' Day, as before in time of blind ignorance and superstition taught by the pope's clergy. The collection for the poor is not made in many places according to the statute. The chancel of the church of Steyning,198 which is like a collegiate church, is in great decay, and the parish and the farmer there, Mr. Pellett, be at great contention for the same, but nothing is done, and the church is like to fall to ruin, which is in a great market town, and there is no more but that same there. Certain parishes keep Dr. Sander's book called ' The Rock of the Church,' wherein he doth not account the bishops now to be any bishops — as Sir David Spencer, parson of Clapham, and Mr. Kinge, parson of Stanmer. Except it be about Lewes and a little in Chichester, the whole diocese is very blind and superstitious for want of teaching ; except Mr. Coxe and one more, few go out of their own churches to preach. There is one Father Moses, sometime a friar in Chichester, and he runneth about from one gentleman's house to another with news and letters, being much suspected in religion, and bearing a popish Latin primer about with him ' with Dirge and the Letanye praying to Saints,' and in certain houses he maintained the popish doctrine of purgatory and the praying to dead saints. Many bring to church the old popish Latin primers, and use to pray upon them all the time when the lessons are being read and in the time of the litany. In some places the rood lofts still stand, and those taken down still lie in the churches ready to be put up again. Some old folks and women used to have beads in the churches, but those I took away from them, but they have some yet at home in their houses. It is clear from this report that the unsatisfactory state of affairs in the diocese was largely owing to the disaffection of a few and the inefficiency of most of the clergy. The archbishop, therefore, displayed great judgement in nominating to the vacant see Richard Curteis, who was appointed in 1570, and proved himself a zealous and capable pastor. A notice of this bishop,197 written in December 1576 and signed by five 'Preachers of the Diocese of Chichester ' in the name of above thirty more, lauds his energy in going thrice throughout the whole county preaching at the larger towns, and making himself more acceptable to the people than any previous holder of the office : — And whereas it was a rare thing before his time to heare a learned sermon in Sussex, now the pulpittes in most places sound continually with the voyce of learned and godly preachers. . . . We are assured that the rooting out of bad and unlearned curates and the planting of zealous and learned preachers hath been occasion to him of great expenses and charge. And so, within these six yeares, he hath brought into this diocese and preferred or been the meanes of prefferring of twenty preachers which be well able to preache in any learned audience in this realme. And by the diligent preaching and other exercising of himself and these in the scriptures hath trayned up a xl more in such sort that they be sufficient enough to preach to any ordinary audience. '" An inquiry made eight years later shows that the church had fallen still more into decay, and the recommendation was made to pull down part in order to rebuild the rest : Exch. Spec. Com. 2200 "' Su,s. Arch. Coll. x, 54-6. 26 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY His zeal against the 'Machevils, Papists, Libertines, Atheists, and such other erroneous persons ' caused him to incur the enmity of Sir Thomas Palmer and other disaffected gentry, who brought numerous accusations of unworthy conduct against him ; 198 while the deprivation of his brother, vicar of Cuckfield, in 1581, on charges, probably much exaggerated, of insufficiency and ill-conduct,1" must have been an additional trouble to the worthy bishop, who died in August, 1582, leaving his widow in great poverty.800 The year of Bishop Curteis's election, 1570, was also the year in which the pope hurled his decree of excommunication at Elizabeth and absolved her subjects from their allegiance, thereby justifying the queen and her council in considering adherence to the Roman Church as equivalent to treason. This told hard upon the many loyal Catholics, whose unpopularity was further increased by the news of the religious persecution in France which culminated in 1572 in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. One result of these persecutions was an influx of Huguenot families into this county, the chief port of entry being Rye, where some seven hundred foreigners, mostly from Dieppe and Rouen, landed during the month following St. Bartholomew.201 Rye had for some time been associated with the French Protestants ; it had been the port from which most of these religious refugees who had settled in London during Edward VI's reign had left the country upon Mary's accession,202 and in i 569 there were resident there five French ministers, six persons from Rouen, sixty-three from Dieppe, and ten Walloons and Flem- ings. All the alien residents were not of the reformed faith, for in 1569 two foreigners were fined for bringing into the town certain ' idolatorius idoleteres,' and two others ordered to depart ' for theyr mysbelevyes con- trarie to Christian relegian.' 20S In 1571 there were in Rye twelve families of the French Church, and seven ' of no church that is known ' ; all being of honest conversation.20* Of those that landed in 1572 many passed on to London and elsewhere, but about fifty families remained at Rye,205 and this number continued to increase, so that in 1586 the heads of the French Church in London were called in to consult with their compatriots and the town authorities at Rye as to the removal of the strangers, of whom there were then fifteen hundred,206 and next year the conference of the French churches was held there.207 In the history of the Sussex recusants, or adherents of the Roman Church, the names of Gage and Shelley stand out pre-eminent, followed by those of Copley, Darrell, Leedes, Thatcher, Lewknor, and Caryll, to name a few of the more prominent families. John Gage, with many of his co- religionists, retired to Antwerp in I573,208 but three years later returned to England, leaving behind his brother-in-law Thomas Copley, who, being a priest, could not return without abandoning his faith. In August, 1 580, John Gage was committed to the Fleet prison with William Shelley of Mitchel- grove, for ' obstinacy in Popery,' Edward Gage of Bentley and Richard Shelley of Warminghurst being at the same time sent to the Marshalsea.209 199 S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxii, Nos. 9, 13, 29-44, 49, 50. 1M Suss. Arch. Coll. xliv, 15-20. 100 Ibid, x, 58. .*" Ibid, xiii, 194. m Acts of P.O. (New Ser.), iv, 349. *" Hut. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii (4), i. *» Ibid. 6. >06 Suss. Arch. Call, xiii, 200. 106 Cal. S.P. Dom. Eliz. clxxxvii, No. i. *" Suss. Arch. Coll. xiii, 200. 108 Cal. S.P. Dom. EKz. Add. xxiii, No. n. *" Acts ofP.C. (New Ser.), xii, 152. 27 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX John Gage was released in the following June,210 and Edward Gage was given temporary freedom during the end of 1581 and beginning of the next year that he might act as executor of the earl of Southampton's will,211 but was apparently soon afterwards re-imprisoned, as there is a petition by his wife begging for his release in I583.S1S The rumours of the approaching attempt to bring back England under the papal power by means of the Spanish fleet caused still stricter measures to be taken against suspected papists, and especially against seminary priests. John Paine was appointed in 1586 to search for and arrest seminaries and other suspected persons on the coasts of Sussex and Hampshire,213 Arundel and Portsmouth being the ports which they most favoured ; 2U possibly as a result of his energy one Phippes, a seminary priest, who may have been the Nicholas Smith alias Phelps noted as frequenting Lady Copley's and Edward Gage's,215 was sent to Horsham Gaol and thence to Southwark.216 Three other suspected priests, Vaughan, Standishe, and Meryman, are noted about the same time as haunting the old papists' houses in Sussex. So far the recusants, though harassed with fine and levies for the supply of light horsemen, con- tinually spied upon, and often imprisoned, had not paid for their faith with their lives ; but in August, i 588, Mr. Edward Shelley, of Sussex, was executed at Tyburn with five others,217 and one month later four priests were brought up for trial at Chichester ;218 Ralph Crockett and Edward James had been arrested at Littlehampton, John Oven at Battle, and Francis Edwards at Chichester. They were brought before Sir Thomas Palmer, Richard Lewk- nor, Walter Covert, Henry and George Goring, and John Shirley, and accused by Thomas Bowyer of being seminary priests, which they admitted, and guilty of treason, which they denied, saying that they came only to do their duty in preaching and converting to the Roman faith. Upon their being found guilty and condemned to suffer the usual penalty Oven's courage failed him, and he agreed to take the oath of supremacy and to renounce the pope and his doctrine. The other three were drawn on one hurdle to the Broyle Heath, where Crockett and James gave each other absolution. Crockett then ascended the ladder, and turning to the assembled crowd gave them his bless- ing, at which they cried out against him, as they did also when he recited certain Latin prayers. When James followed him to the scaffold he com- mended his soul to God in English, whereat the people applauded him, but when he also began to pray in Latin they again called out angry protests. Meanwhile the terrors of the scene had so worked upon Edwards that he showed himself amenable to the arguments of the Protestant ministers present, and was respited in charge of Mr. Henry Blackston, one of the residentiaries, under whose care he apparently became at least a temporary convert. Although this was the only Roman Catholic blood shed in Sussex the priests continued to be hunted down and arrested till the end of Elizabeth's reign. Information was given in 1592 that there were three priests always residing at Edward Gage's house at Bentley, and another at Mr. Shelley's at Mitchel- "° Act, ofP.C. (New Ser ), xiii, 94. »' Ibid, xiii, 296, 377. 111 Col. S.P. Dam. Eliz. clxix, No. 59. »' Act, ofP.C. (New Ser.) xiv, 220. 114 Cal. S.P. Dem. ERz. ccxlvi, No. 18. ™ Ibid, cxciii, No. 24. " Acts of P.O. (New Ser.) xiv, 225. '" Rec. ofEngl. Prov. of See. of Jesus, xii, 788. 18 S.P. Dom. Eliz. ccxvii, No. I. 28 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY grove,819 and Nicholas Beard in 1594 stated sso that Thomas Leedes kept one Norton, a priest, in his house at Wappingthorne, near to which lies Washington house, where Nicholas Woolfe,221 a gentleman and great com- panion of Leedes, lives ; these houses are receptacles for priests, and have great convenience for hiding them ; in Wolfe's house in a little gallery there is a place for an altar, and the massing stuff, and a cover of boards over a great cupboard which can be taken off. John Bamford has a son a priest ; the father is a recusant and lives with Mr. Bishop, a justice of the peace, at Henfield. These hiding-places were not uncommon in the houses of the Roman Catholic gentry ; there was one in Slindon House,222 and the three houses owned by the Caryll family in West Sussex were similarly provided,223 and there were at least two in Scotney Castle, the seat of the Darrells in Lamberhurst. Scotney was twice searched by priest hunters ; on the first occasion, in 1597, Father Richard Blount and his man Bray lay for some days in a secret place under the stairs, until they could remain no longer, when Bray went out and gave himself up, showing his captors another hiding-place where he said he had been lying ; the priest was thus enabled to escape. A year later a sudden raid was made on the house and Blount and Bray had barely time to escape half clad into a cell concealed by a stone, which formed part of the walls of a courtyard. Part of Blount's girdle caught in the stone as it shut, but Mrs. Darrell passing by observed it and cut it off, calling to them to drag in the rest of the cord ; this they did, but her move- ments had excited suspicion, and a careful search was made in the courtyard, but just as the searchers had come to the movable stone, and were even battering at it, the rain became so heavy that they abandoned their labour for the night and went indoors. Issuing from their shelter Blount and Bray went round the house to a ruined tower, when the father plunged into the moat, on which ice was beginning to form, and swam across, but was too numb with cold to assist his servant ; the latter, who could not swim, escaped by raising an alarm of thieves in the stable and taking advantage of the com- motion to ford the moat in a shallow part. The two fugitives thus got safely away to the house of a friendly neighbour and saved their lives and liberty, though at the expense of their health.22* While the Church of England was thus successfully waging war upon that of Rome there was rising within her own borders an enemy, perhaps less obvious, but not less dangerous to that autocratic control of the national religion at which she aimed. Definite evidence of the early growth of Puritan nonconformity in Sussex is hard to find, one of the earliest references being in 1576 when the bishop suspended David Thickpeny, curate of Brighton, on suspicion of being a member of the sect known as the Family of Love. The curate, appealing to Archbishop Grindal and protesting his innocence of the charge, was restored by him to his cure, but at once showed his contempt for the Church's authority by ministering without the surplice, neglecting the order of prayer set forth in the Prayer Book, and in other "* Cat. S.P. Dam. Eftz. ccxli, No. 35. "° Ibid, ccxlviii, No. 1 16. BI Woolfe had been involved in Somerville's plot, and Leedes was expected to favour the Spaniards in the event of their landing in 1588 : see V.C.H. Sussex, \, 519. "* Described in Suss. Arch. Call, xlv, 213. m Described in Rec. ofEngl. Prw. ofSoc. of Jesus, iii, 538. " Ibid. 482-8. 29 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX ways."' In 1583 eight of the Sussex clergy refused to sign the articles in favour of the Book of Common Prayer, and were accordingly temporarily suspended, but subsequently they all subscribed.888 The increase of noncon- formity was assisted not only by the actual disaffection of the clergy, but even more by the slackness and bad example of those that professed to be loyal representatives of the Church. Some returns made from the various parishes throughout the county in 1588-9 show a most undesirable state of affairs.887 The parish churches themselves were in many cases in bad order ; at Alfris- ton the windows were unglazed, at Pevensey the church was ' very much in decay for lack of timber and glass and other reparations,' at Palmer the chancel and rectory had both fallen down, and at Northiam the slighter fault is presented that ' the walls of our church be not beautified with sentences of scripture.' The parishioners of Brightling complain, 'we have no service on the week days, nor homily read on Sundays ; we have no catechising of children.' At Arlington, ' we have none that doth read service and ad- minister sacraments, save that there was a child baptised by Mr. Turner, by reason whereof divers have not received the Communion ' ; at Clayton, ' we have had no sermons in our parish church since Christmas two years by default of the parson.' From Ticehurst comes a long complaint : — We have a great parish and our minister doth not minister the Communion not in six weeks sometimes. Our children are grown out of all good order by means of the negligence of our minister for that he doth not catechise them. Some of our children have been like to die without baptism our minister hath been so long from us, which maketh the simple men to murmur much at it. Our minister doth not minister the Communion at marryings, he readeth not the commination against sinners, he instructeth no youth, he doth not stir up his parishioners by reading the exhortation used at the administration of the Lord's Supper. The parishioners of Hooe were more concise in their charges : ' We pre- sent our vicar to be a liar and a quarreller and a brawler amongst his neighbours.' In such circumstances it is hardly surprising that some earnest persons should begin to look askance upon the Church and all that belonged thereto, and should form religious communities of their own, with possibly some ostentation of righteousness. The first instance of the use of the term Puritan in any Sussex document appears to be in 1591, when the mayor of Rye states that ' now of late a smale secte of purytanes, more holy in shewe than in dede, is sprong up amongst us,' and further refers to ' certeine muty- nous fellowes of this towne who professe to be more pure than others, and be indede much worse than in show.'228 Some particulars of these Rye Puritans are given in another letter : — Francis Godfrey said that my Lord of Canterbury is but the Pope of Inglande, and that the Booke of Comon Prayer ... is but masse translated and dumdogs to reade it, for those ministers that do not preache they call dumdogs ; . . . and when they have bin to sermon and be com horn will they say on to another ' Have you bin at chourche ? ' 4 Yea,' sayth the other, 4 Then you have harde mingle mangle, compair ; as Latemor sayd in his sermon — as they call hogs to trof in his cuntry.' 4 Yea,' cothe the other, 4 1 harde what a good peace of worke he made like a proude felo.' Also they say that it is unpossible for an innosent to be saved from damnation because he hathe not the gift of - S90 O prayer, 23! "* Suss. Arch. Coll. xxix, 190-95. «• Ibid, xii, 260. " MS. of the Archdeaconry Court of Lewes. m Hut. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii (4), 99. •» Ibid. 30 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY The accession of James I in 1603 was made the occasion for the presen- tation of addresses by the gentry and commons of Sussex ; 33° that of the gentry, which is signed by Lord La Warre, Sir Walter Covert, Sir Nicholas Parker, and representatives of most of the leading county families, desired — That ye preachinge of subscription, otherwise than to your Matye's supremace and those articles which concerne ye true fayth, doctrine and sacraments commanded in ye xiiith yeare of her late Matye's raygne, and ye hott urgeinge of ceremonyes not approved of in ye iudgemt. (as we are persuaded) of many godly and learned ministers . . . maye nowe quite cease or bee accounted indifferent, for ye ministers to retayne or omitt without trouble or beinge reputed obstinat for not submittinge themselves unto them. Lastly : that an uniforme government of ye church in all poynts accordinge to ye prescript of God's word maye bee established. The petition of the commonalty was mainly directed against the two evils of insufficient ministers and the ecclesiastical courts. Some information concern- ing the origin of the latter petition is afforded by a letter of Bishop Watson to the lord treasurer, relating that one Pearson, ' a lay puritan,' and others of that sort had passed with great diligence throughout the shire, and in some places by means of schismatical ministers have called together multitudes of the meaner sort of people, and moved them by false reports to subscribe a petition against insufficient ministers and the ecclesiastical courts.231 Shortly after the presentation of these petitions was held the Hampton Court Con- ference, at which Bishop Watson was one of the nine bishops, while the county was represented by four ministers, Messrs. Erburie, Norden, Frawell, and Goldsmith.833 The result of the conference was the king's emphatic decision in favour of the episcopacy. Besides the conference another product of the first year of ' the British Solomon' was the statute by which the death penalty was decreed for witchcraft. Under this Act, in 1608, Ann Taylor of Rye was condemned to die, but, being with child, was respited, and apparently eventually escaped the extreme penalty.233 Her offence was the aiding one Susan Snapper, who was condemned under the same statute, in her converse with spirits, and very full depositions made by these two women of their many dealings with certain remarkably unspiritual spirits exist in the British Museum.23* Three other instances of witchcraft are recorded in the Rye muniments, each illustrating a popular superstition on the subject. In the first case,336 about 1560, an old woman occupying a room in the alms- houses was driven from the town for certain offences ' such as any Christian harte wold abhore to here spoken of much less to be used,' her crime being the hiding up of raw beef to the intent that as it decayed so should the bodies of her enemies waste away. In the second case236 the mother of the bewitched child, by advice of ' a connynge man,' drew blood from the suspected witch, with beneficial results to the child ; and the third instance 237 gives an example of the use of red cloth, needles, and pins for a charm. At a considerably later date, about 1660, a curious case of what would now be called 'poltergeist' haunting occurred at Brightling;238 knives, horse-shoes, 130 Stas. Arch. Coll. ix, 45-8. >31 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. Hi, 52. ™ Ibid. 1900, p. 23. '" Ibid, xiii (4), 136-40. 134 Harl. MSS. 358, fol. 188 ; printed in full in Suss. Arch. Coll. xiv, 25-34. 835 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii (4), 5. >36 Ibid. 1 08. 137 Ibid. 145. **3 Suit. Arch. Coll. xviii, 1 1 1-13. 3i A HISTORY OF SUSSEX pewter dishes, and other objects flying about mysteriously, and fire being raised to such effect that the house was burnt down. As usual in such cases there was a young girl in the house, but suspicion fell not on her but on an old woman reputed to be a witch, though at the same time there was a suspicion that the powers of evil were not given a free hand without cause, and upon strict examination the man whose house had suffered confessed that he had been a thief, and that under the colour of religion upon the Sabbath day. Whatever the cause of the haunting, success appears to have attended the efforts of four ministers who 'kept a Fast.' It was as much a feature of the early Puritans under James I as it was of the next generation under Cromwell to be always on the look-out for 'judgements,' especially upon Sabbath-breakers, and the parish registers not infrequently contain such entries as that at Hastings in 1620 of the burial of a man 'slain by the hauling up of his father's ship upon Sunday,' or that at Hailsham of one who ' fell down dead as he was playing a match at football upon the Sabbath day." It is also worth noting that the Cromwellian Puritans did not assume their characteristic Christian names, as the French revolutionists assumed classical names, but had been duly baptized therewith ; for the registers of many Sussex churches during the first half of the seventeenth century yield a plentiful supply of such baptismal names as Desire, Zealous, Repent, Be-thankful, Free-gift, More-fruit, Much-mercy, Perform-thy-vows, and Standfast-on-high.239 While ignorant superstition still flourished and Calvinistic non- conformity continued to gain ground there were signs of a revival within the Church. The learned and saintly Lancelot Andrewes, who had held the see of Chichester from 1605 to 1609, had been succeeded by Samuel Harsnett and George Carleton, both of whom were able and pious men, and in 1628 Richard Montagu was raised to the see. This appointment was a deliberate rebuff to the Calvinistic party, who had been calling upon King Charles to censure Montagu for his famous tract Apello Caesarem ;. but the king subsequently yielded to the pressure brought upon him and allowed the book to be suppressed. Montagu held views of the ' high church ' type, which are particularly associated with the name of Laud, and we find him in 1632 writing to the latter240 to complain of Mr. Hickes, a canon of Chichester, who absents himself from duty and sends as substitutes ' whom he can get, sometimes good, sometimes bad, any riff-raff whom he can light upon, shifters, unconformists, curates, young boys, puritans, as the whole city hath often spoken against it.' After Laud had become archbishop he reported to the king in 1634 in his annual account of the clergy : — The bishop of Chichester certifies all well in his diocese save only in the east part which is far from him he finds some Puritan Justices of the Peace have awed some of the clergy into like opinion with themselves, which yet of late have not broken out into any public nonconformity.241 For the next four years the bishop reports all well, but in 1639 there was ' some little disorder in the east parts of the diocese about Lewes,' and it is "For examples, see Chiddingly registers, Suii. Arch. Coll. xiv, 146 ; and Salzmann, Hist. ofHailsbam, 49, The earliest example seems to be Feregod Edwardes who was married in 1589 ; and can therefore hardly have been baptized later than 1570, Suts. Rec. Sac. i, I. "" Cat. ofS.P. Dm. Cha,. I, ccx, 36. •« Laud, Autobiog. 534. 32 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY noted that the diocese is ' not so much troubled with Puritan ministers as with Puritan Justices of the Peace.' 248 The metropolitical visitation held in the summer of 1635 by Dr. Nathaniel Brent, as vicar-general of the archbishop,243 is interesting, and contains two delightful little bits of humour well worth recording. It began on zj June at Chichester Cathedral, where orders were given that all should remove their hats during divine service, and that there should be no walking about or talking at that time : it then proceeds : — Mr. Speed of St. Pancras confessed his error in being too popular in the pulpit, and is very willing the gallery in his parish church should be pulled down which was built to receive strangers, and at their charges, and to remove the seats which stand even with the altar. The mayor and his brethren .... are puritanically addicted, which caused me to admonish one of the aldermen for putting his hat on during the service. Arundel, July I : Mr. Nye, rector of Clapham, Mr. Salisbury, curate of Warningcamp, Mr. Hill, vicar of Felpham, are so vehemently suspected to be nonconformitants that although nothing was proved against them I thought fit to inhibit them to preach until I could be better satisfied of them Mr. Hill in the pulpit spake unto four of his neighbours who sat before him in one seat that he was certain three of them should be damned. The fourth was his friend and therefore he saved him. John Alberry churchwarden of Arundel having heard my charge in the morning, at night before he went to bed made a violent extemporary prayer and pronounced it so loud that divers in the street did hear him ; — the effect was, to be delivered from the persecution that was now coming upon them. The parish church of Arundel, the choir and Lady chapel are always kept locked up, so the altar has to be in an aisle.244 Lewes, 3 July : — Mr. Bunyard, Maynard, Russell and Gyles refused to bow at the blessed name of Jesus. After long conference, and late at night, they all submitted, con- fessing that they were convinced in their opinions and would hereafter observe the law of the church I inhibited one Mr. Jennings to preach any more for particularising in the pulpit. He called one of his parishioners ' arch-knave ' and being questioned by me answered that it was but a lively application. The man abused did think he had been called ' notched knave ' and fell out with his barber who had lately trimmed him. The visitation at Lewes was held in the church of St. Thomas in the Cliffe, a peculiar of the archbishop, and at it injunctions were given that246 :— Henceforth the Communion Table in every parish church shall be decently placed at the upper end of the chancel and shall stand north and south, and it shall be railed in with a decent rail to keep off dogs and to free it from other pollutions. ' And he willed all churchwardens to looke upon the rayle which incompassed the Communion table in the sayd church of St. Thomas in the Cliffe where they were and to take that for their pattern telling them that it was very comely and decent.' It was also ordered that all clergy should ' When they go from their houses abroad alwaies weare canonicall habits commonly called priests coats viz. Coats made with sleeves like unto a Gowne ' ; and further that all after- noon sermons were to be turned into Catechizing, and that the Communion was not to be administered except to those who kneel. The Act Books of the Archdeaconry Court of Lewes 2" contain a number of cases pointing to the disregard and even dislike of any form of ritual prevalent among a growing section of the clergy at this time. The rector of Westmeston was presented in 1605 'for that he doth not say the letany, nor ten commandments ; neither doth hee in baptisme signe with the signe of the Crosse, but with the signe of the Covenant ; neither doth hee 141 Laud, Autobiog. 534. ** Cal. S.P. Dam. Chas. I, 1635, pref. xliii. 144 The choir, as belonging to the college of Arundel, became the private chapel of the lords of Arundel and still is so ; see 'The Arundel Chancel Case' in Suss. Arch. Cell, xxx, 31—31. 145 For this quotation from the ' Visitation Book of the Archdeaconry of Lewes, 1628-37,' fol. 73, I am indebted to W. C. Renshaw, esq. K.C. M Sun. Arch. Coll. xlix, 47-65. 2 33 5 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX weare the surplice.' In the same year the vicar of Cuckfield was accused of not wearing the surplice and not using the sign of the cross in baptism, while in 1 6 1 o Herbert Pelham alleged, but apparently untruly, that the minister at Catsfield had said ' that hee had as leefe see a sowe weare a saddell as see a minister weare a surplice.' At Rye the curate was presented in 1629 'for that he doth in his collations impugn the ceremonies of the Church ; and doth not constantly weare the vestments as injoyned by the book of common prayer.' The laity also naturally took their part in the movement ; Elizabeth Godman at Wivelsfield in 1634 pulled down 'the May boughes, in a rude scornfull manner, which were brought into the church to adorn it ' ; Joseph Benbricke of Rye refused to bow at the name of Jesus ; and one of the churchwardens of St. Michael's, Lewes, in 1637 altered the communion table from standing north and south to east and west. The view of the ecclesiastical courts was wide, and they presented with equal impartiality Elizabeth Collins of Chalvington for washing clothes upon Easter Day or Lambert Combert of Slaugham 'for beating his wife on the 29 June last, being sabbath day, in tyme of divine service ' ; Thomas Brett of Cuckfield because he ' usethe commonly to slepe in the sermon tyme,' or William Barker of Bexhill for being ' vehemently supposed to deale in sorcerye in helpinge the people to thinges lost ' ; Bridget Barrett of Wivelsfield ' for thrusting of pinnes in the wife of John Dumbrell in the church in tyme of divine service,' or Ann Clarke of Sedlescombe ' for calling Gathole's daughter Beggar's Bratt in the church, and for living contentiously and maliciously with her neighbours.' Some idea of the slovenly disregard for ceremonial decency at this time existing in the churches of the diocese, which had its origin in reaction from the semi-superstitious abuses of the ritualism of Rome, and which it was the mission of the Laudian revival to combat, may be gathered from the question in Bishop Montagu's visitation of his diocese : 3t1 — ' whether the Communion Table is profaned at any time by sitting on it, casting hats or cloaks upon it, writing or casting up accounts or any other indecent usage.' This is borne out by the questions addressed by his successor, the learned and pious Brian Duppa, to the churchwardens in 1638 ; S48 one of these being — 'Have there been kept in the church, chapel or churchyard, any plays, feasts, suppers, church ales, temporal courts, or Leet day juries, musters or meetings for rates and taxations, especially at the Communion table ? ' Other questions con- cerned the conduct of the ministers, their use of comely and decent apparel — long hair and deep ruffles being singled out for reprobation — their zeal for reclaiming recusants, either of the Church of Rome or those ' who having perversely relinquished our Communion find nothing to adhere to but their own private fancies,' their preaching in gown and cassock, not in riding or ambulatory cloaks, and their use of the prescribed form of prayer before the sermon ' to prevent the indiscreet flying out of some in their extemporary prayers.' The Laudian revival, however, came too late, and was carried out with too little tact to stem the tide of nonconformity, and by 1 640 Dr. Edward Burton writing from Westham s" laments that the Puritan faction had grown so strong among the justices of the peace upon the bench for the eastern part "' Stephens, See of Chlchester, 275. >« Ibid. 278-80. 149 Cal. S.P. Dom. Ckas. I, ccccxlii, 137. 34 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY of the county that the moderate party were not able to withstand it. Stapely, Rivers, Baker, and Hayes were the ringleaders, and Stapely at the Michaelmas session declared that the altering of the Communion table other- wise was an innovation detracting from God's glory, and that some prelates in the kingdom did not approve of it. Early in 1 642 a petition was sent up from this county desiring the reformation of the Church in accordance with the views of the Puritan section ; but before the end of the year the country was in the throes of civil war. As already shown the eastern portion of the county was strongly Puritan, while the west, being the seat of the cathedral and of several families of loyal members of the English and Roman Churches, took the other side. An account of the siege of Chichester in December, 1642, has already been given,260 and the havoc wrought in the cathedral by Waller's victorious soldiers, who defaced the monuments, broke down the organs, and despoiled the treasury, was described by the dean of that unhappy church in a well-known passage which has often been reprinted.251 When the Parliament, in accordance with their promise to the Scotch Covenanters, set up the Westminster Assembly of Divines in 1 642 for the reformation of the English Church in accordance with Presbyterian ideas, Sussex was represented thereat by Dr. Francis Cheynell, rector of Petworth and practically bishop of the diocese, Benjamin Pickering of East Hoathly, and Henry Nye of Clapham, who apparently died shortly after his appoint- ment, his place being taken by John Maynard of Mayfield.252 Amongst their duties was the consideration of the fitness or otherwise of the clergy holding benefices, and as a result of their decisions a very large proportion of the old incumbents were ejected from their livings.253 That some of these ejected ministers fully deserved their fate and were a scandal to their profession is clear, and this seems to be the case, allowing for considerable exaggeration, as regards the incumbents of Little Horsted, Dallington, Ardingly, Arundel, Cliffe, Storrington, East Grinstead, and Arlington, who were included by Col. John White in his Century of Malignant Priests.™ But in a considerable number of instances there is no doubt that the action of the examiners was harsh and prejudiced. Thus Randall Apsley, in spite of acquitting himself well when questioned by Dr. Cheynell and his associates, was ejected from his living of Pulborough on the accusation, which he was not allowed to answer, of having been seen in a tavern. The particulars, also, relative to the ejection of John Large, rector of Rotherfield, make it seem very probable that he was turned out ' not on account of his bad living but because of his good living' (Rotherfield being worth £300), and as the result of a conspiracy between Dr. Cheynell and a certain Mr. Winter of Cowfold, who might have served as a model for the vicar of Bray, being ' once a zealous ordaining Presbyter, next warmly Congregational, then as vehemently Epis- copal, and in Charles IPs time found there was much to be said in favour of Popery.' 26S John Large's defence, which he was not suffered to deliver, shows that he was not neglectful of his duty, as he always preached twice on 140 V.C.H. Suss, i, 522. "' The fullest reprint is in Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxi, 205-8. '5I Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxi, 1 70. 145 The documents relative to the ' Plundered Ministers ' in Sussex were treated with great fulness by Mr. F. E. Sawyer in Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxi, xxxii, from which articles the following details are drawn, unless otherwise noted. 144 Sun. Arch. Coll. xxxiii, 269 ; xxxvi, 156. '" Calamy, Life of Baxter, ii, 686. 35 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Sundays except during the winter, when to suit his parishioners' convenience he preached only in the morning, but then he combined both sermons and never preached less than two hours. One of the accusations brought against him was superstition for keeping up the custom, which he defended as inoffensive, of breaking a cake over the bride's head at weddings. Occasionally the charge of ' insufficiency ' could not be upheld by even the most prejudiced, and once at least it recoiled upon the accusers, for when three ' triers ' called upon the aged Aquila Cruso, rector of Button, to give an account of his faith he at once wrote it in Greek and Hebrew to the confusion of his less learned adversaries ; he was therefore — or rather in consideration of his age — allowed to retain his living, though he lost his prebend, as did all the cathedral dignitaries, who were, naturally, the special objects of the Puritans' enmity and suffered greatly at their hands. That care for the parishioners that moved the authorities to sequestrate the living of Bexhill for its vicar's non-residence and employment of ' scandalous and unworthy ' curates seems to be contradicted by the fate of Wivelsfield, where the pulpit was filled during the Commonwealth by ' a Presbyterian jack-maker, a drummer, and a maltman ' in turn ; but such an example was exceptional, and as a whole the control exercised over the religious life of the county was honest and efficient though far from broad-minded. Preaching, which had been discouraged under Elizabeth and neglected under her successors, had now become of paramount importance. For some time before the Civil War it had been customary to appoint ' lecturers ' to the larger towns, a course which sometimes led to ill-feeling on the part of the local minister, as for instance at Rye in 1623 when the curate refused to allow the lecturer to have the use of the church in spite of the corporation's express desire for the lecture to be continued.256 Under the Puritan govern- ment many of these lecturers appear to have been appointed to livings, and in December, 1642, the inhabitants of Horsham petitioned that their vacant vicarage might be bestowed not upon the archbishop's nominee, but upon Mr. John Chatfield, who had been lecturer there for six months.267 The Parliament, moreover, took good care that the ministers they sup- plied should have a sufficient stipend to live upon, the funds for the payment or augmentation of these stipends being usually drawn from the forfeited estates of royalists. In 1645 the citizens of Chichester sent up a petition stating that they then had a learned and godly ministry to their great comfort, but were like to lose the same for want of maintenance, and begging that three houses and £600 yearly might be set apart out of the revenues of the cathedral for the support of three ministers.268 Similarly the inhabitants of East and West Dean, Singleton, Binderton, and Didling petitioned in 1 647 that £80 might be allowed them out of the estate of John Lewkenor, who held the great tithes of those parishes, for the sup- port of a preacher, as they had been impoverished by the plundering of the king's forces;"9 and in 1654 a similar request was made for the payment of ' the young man Nehemiah Beaton, eminently qualified for the work of the gospel,' minister of Wiston, whose stipend was withheld by the earl of Thanet.360 ** Cal. S.P. Dm. Jas. I, cliii, 91 ; clxxiii, 67. ™ House of Lords MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v), 61. 18 Ibid, vi, 45. * Cal. S. P. Dom. Chat. I, dxv, 146. *° Ibid. Interregnum, Ixvi, 59. 36 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY A very large number of small livings were augmented at this period ; thus between 1656 and 1658, to take a few instances, £16 was granted to the minister of Pagham S81 (subsequently increased by an additional £24.), 26a £20 each to those of Fishbourne,263 East Grinstead (with another £50 for his assis- tant minister),264 Brighton,265 Madehurst,266 Wisborough Green,267 West Hamp- nett,268 and Selsey ;269 £23 to Beddingham,270 £30 to Framfield and New Shore- ham,271 £40 to Patcham,272 £50 to Singleton273, £70 to Rye,274 and £80 (in addi- tion to a former sum of £9°) granted to William Speed, who had succeeded John Corbett as minister at Chichester.275 Another method of increasing the value of a benefice was by the union of two adjacent livings. Thus on the death of Mr. Whetstone, minister of Patching, and in accordance with his dying re- quest, the cure of Patching was united with that of Clapham, the parishioners of the latter certifying that their minister, Samuel Wilmer, had been 'zealous in gathering the scattered saints into one body to enjoy gospel ordinances,' but was overwhelmed with expenses.276 In the same way the parishes of St. Peter- the-Less, St. Pancras, and St. Martin were united with St. Andrew's, Chichester, that of Earnley with East Wittering, and that of Climping with Ford277; St. Peter-the-Great, All Saints, St. Bartholomew's, and St. Olave's in Chichester were formed into one parish,278 Ovingdean joined to Brighton,279 Goring and Ferring to Kingston (the chapelry of East Preston being detached from Ferring and included in Rustington),280 Tortington to Arundel,281 and Tangmere to Boxgrove.282 Under the Commonwealth religious toleration existed nominally, but practically the toleration was confined within narrow limits, quite outside which lay the ' papists.' The unfortunate adherents of the Church of Rome, after the persecutions of Elizabeth's reign, had during the rule of her two successors been subject to a less rigorous, but scarcely less harassing, course of fines, surveillance, domiciliary visits, and occasional imprisonment ; a new and irritating feature being introduced by James I, who caused the penalties exacted for nonconformity to be paid, not to the crown, but to private persons to whom he assigned the ' benefit of the recusancy ' of individual Catholics. When the Parliament emerged victorious from the Civil War they became the special objects of oppression on account alike of their religious and political opinions, for they were naturally royalists almost to a man ; heavy fines crippled their estates and imprisonment did the same for the bodies of some, though on the whole their injuries were pecuniary rather than personal in Sussex. The most remarkable instance of intolerance, however, is seen in the conduct of the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, towards the sect of the 'Friends,' or Quakers. A full account of their coming into Sussex and of their sufferings there has been preserved,283 and no reader can refuse them the tribute of admiration for their courage and constancy, even if he regret their *' Cat. S. P. Dam. Interregnum, cxxvi, 66. ** Ibid, clviii, 4. 161 Ibid, cxxix, 47. *' Ibid, cxxx, 122. " Ibid, cxxxi, 15. ** Ibid, clvi, 89. "' Ibid. IM Ibid, clviii, 100. 169 Ibid, clxxx, 163. •"> Ibid, clviii, 100. "' Ibid, cliv, 114. "' Ibid, cxxvi, 66. •" Ibid, clviii, 100. '" Ibid, clvii, 85. m Ibid, cxxxi, 52. m Ibid. Ixv, 44. n Ibid, cxxx, 5. 178 Ibid. 16. "" Ibid, cliv, 12. 13° Ibid, clvi, 54. 181 Ibid. 105. "'Ibid, clxxx, 163. 183 Partly printed in Suss. Arch. Coll. xvi, 65-125. 37 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX occasional tactlessness and provocation of insults. The peculiar tenets pro- fessed by the followers of George Fox were ' first preached in the north side of this county of Sussex about the third month in the yeare 1655, at the Towne of Horsham, by John Slee, Thomas Lawson, and Thomas Lawcock,' who spoke in the market place and met with much mocking and some little violence. These missionaries passed on the same day to the house of Bryan Wilkason at Sedgewick Lodge, who was possibly already known to them, having only recently come from the north, and was the first person in the county to receive them. Meetings were then held at Ifield, where Richard Bonwick, a weaver, received them, and at Twineham ; and about the same time Thomas Robinson addressed a meeting in Southover, a suburb of Lewes, at which Ambrose Galloway, a Lewes tradesman of good position, and subsequently the most prominent of the sufferers in that town, was con- vinced. Shortly after this George Fox himself came to Bryan Wilkason's house, where he held a meeting at which he was opposed by Matthew Caffyn, a Baptist preacher ; 284 he also spoke with such success at Ifield that a weekly meeting was established there, ' which was the first meeting that was Gathered in this County to Sitt Downe together in Silence to wait upon the Lord.' Fox and his companion, Alexander Parker, afterwards visited Steyning, Lewes, and Warbleton, and their missionary work was continued by Ambrose Rigge and Joseph Fuce, with the result that Quakerism obtained a firm hold in many parts of Sussex, which was increased rather than weakened by the persecution its professors had to endure. Part of the unpopularity of the Quakers was due to their habit of entering churches and interrupting the service by questioning, contradicting, or admonishing the preacher. Occasionally they were silenced by the tact of the minister, as in the case of the Quaker who came into Burwash church and said to the vicar, Thomas Goldham, ' I am sent with a message from God to thee,' to whom the vicar, seeing that he was a stranger, said, ' Dost thou know my name ? ' Upon his answering, ' I know it not,' Goldham said, ' If God sent thee to me He could surely have told thee my name,' and pointed out that he might be mistaken as to the recipient of his message, with such effect that he withdrew in confusion.285 Far more often, however, the intruder was seized, dragged before the nearest magistrate, and committed to gaol, as happened to Thomas Lawcock at Horsham in i655,S86 to John Pellatt at Westmeston in i657,287 and in several other cases. The refusal to swear or to remove their hats in court brought them into frequent collision with the magistracy, as their refusal to pay tithes did with the clergy. For this latter offence they suffered severely, especially at the hands of such ministers as William Snatt of Lewes, and Leonard Letchford of Hurstpier- point, the churchwardens usually seizing goods to the value of two or three times the amounts due.288 This religious intolerance, into the details of which there is no space here to go, was due to the action of the local authorities and was discouraged by the Protector himself and his associates. Consequently, when in the autumn of 1656 a petition was sent up to Oliver 14 This Caffyn was a great opponent of the Quakers, and published in 1656 an address which he had delivered in Horsham church, called The deceived and deceiving Quakers discovered, a denunciation which at least does not lack vigour. 184 S«//. Arch. Coll. a, 34. ™ Ibid, xvi, 76. " Ibid- 77- >88 Ibid. 68, 69. 38 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Cromwell from the Quakers lying in Horsham gaol — namely, Thomas Patching, Bryan Wilkason, and John Fursby. committed for having certain books written by Quakers ; Ninian Brockett, imprisoned for not swearing at the county sessions ; Nicholas Rickman, committed by the mayor of Arundel for writing a copy of a certain paper, and Rickman's wife — the commissioners, Methuselah Turner, Richard Eccleston, and John Fenton, appointed to inquire into the matter declared the commitments to be contrary to law, especially ' because the whole process seemeth to be a prejudice received for matter of opinion in worship.' 289 The Restoration of Charles II in 1660, though it brought no relief to the Quakers,290 caused many of their late oppressors to suffer in their turn. The number of Sussex ministers who were ejected or resigned their livings on or before St. Bartholomew's Day, 1662, rather than accept the Act of Uniformity was very large, being over sixty, or something like a quarter of the beneficed clergy in the county.291 Noteworthy amongst them was Dr. Cheynell, who has been already mentioned as head of the Sussex Puritan ministry, and who obtained an unpleasant notoriety by his un- charitable and insulting words at the funeral of his great opponent William Chillingworth, when the latter died at Chichester as the result of privations suffered during the siege of Arundel ; Cheynell's behaviour on this occasion may probably be attributed to one of the fits of mental aberration to which he was subject.292 John Stonestreet, ejected from Lindfield, was one of the Congregational ministers who met at the Savoy in 1658 to draw up their ' confession of Faith ' ; another Congregational was Walter Postlethwayt, of St. Michael's, Lewes, who ' was in the fifth Monarchy notion,' but conformed in i66o.293 Many of the ministers on losing their livings started schools, as William Wilson of Billingshurst, Edmund Thorp of Sedlescombe, who had the education of the sons of three conforming clergy — one of his pupils subsequently attaining notoriety as the infamous Titus Gates — and Joseph Bennet of Brightling, who so gained the goodwill of the people by standing by them in 1665 during the outbreak of the Plague, when the incumbent fled from the parish, that no one would execute upon him the Act requiring ejected ministers to live not less than five miles from their old cures. The above-mentioned Thorp and Bennet appear to have been the first persons29* in Sussex to avail themselves of the Act of 1672 by which penalties for nonconformity were suspended, and meetings for divine service permitted in houses for which licences had been obtained. A considerable number of these licences were applied for in this county, nineteen being for Presbyterians, eleven for Congregationalists and Independents, and four for Baptists.296 The Quakers, not considering it lawful to apply to the State for permission to worship, did not profit by this Act, which was repealed in 1673 under pressure from the orthodox clergy. *" S. P. Dam. Interregnum, cliii, 11-16. 190 One of the best known, the celebrated William Penn, who married a Sussex woman and lived for some time at Warminghurst, had to invoke the earl of Dorset's protection against two justices, Henry Goring and Col. Alford, who were trying to make his living in Sussex une.isy, in 1671 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, 298. 91 For list and particulars see Calamy, Lift of Baxter, ii, 673 et seq. W1 See Suss.drch. Coll. xxxi, 184. >M Calamy, op. cit. 675. 194 They applied for licences in April, 1672 : Cal. S.P. Dam. 1672, p. 319. 195 Cal. S.P. Dam. 1672-3, pref. xliii, xliv. 39 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX The attempt of James II to secure the repeal of the Penal and Test Acts, nominally in the interest of all nonconformitants but actually for the benefit of the Roman Catholics,*" has already been referred to,297 mention being made of the unfavourable attitude towards this question taken up by the justices of the county. The diocese of Chichester has good reason to be proud that her bishop, John Lake, was one of the seven bishops whose firm stand for their Church against the king's arbitrary authority has been immortalized by Macaulay in one of the finest passages of his history.298 Though Bishop Lake had thus resisted King James, yet he was thoroughly loyal to that monarch, and having once taken the oath of allegiance to him could not reconcile it with his conscience to transfer his allegiance to William of Orange, and was con- sequently suspended and would have been deprived of his see had he not died on 30 August, i689-299 The other Sussex clergy who lost their benefices at this time were the precentor of Chichester, and the incumbents of Cuckfield, Folkington, Jevington, Icklesham, Rustington, Seaford, Ferring, Firle, Sompting, Blatchington, and Chiddingly,800 the last-named proudly causing it to be written in his epitaph that he was ' suspended in the Dutchman's days.' The history of the Church in Sussex during the eighteenth century differs little from that in any other county. It was a period of neglect and religious deadness, churches fell into disrepair and services were slackly con- ducted. A visitation301 made in 1724 shows that there were some bright exceptions ; at East Grinstead and Hurstpierpoint there was service twice every Sunday and in the morning on Wednesdays, Fridays, and holy days, and the communion was administered on the first Sunday of the month ; at Burwash there were prayers every holy day and twice a week in Lent ; the church of Shermanbury was ' more than commonly decent,' and all its appointments in the best order, that of Withyham had a very handsome black cloth surrounded with silver lace for the communion table, and that of Hurstpierpoint a clock with chimes. On the other hand, at Crawley the church was much out of repair, there was divine service held only occasionally by the neighbouring clergy, the rector having been disabled for two years by palsy, and the com- munion was administered only three times a year ; there was no chancel at Southover, St. John-sub-Castro in Lewes, or Falmer, and in the last-named church the windows were so filthy as to darken the church, and the table and the place where it stood were in bad condition, with no rails or carpet. At Hangleton also the table was without rails and stood under the north wall, and here there was service only once a fortnight by the rector of Southwick and no communion within the memory of man ; at Ovingdean also there was no communion and service only once a month, while at Telscombe there was no communion table at all. Most of the churches lay between these two groups, but approached rather to the second, the usual state of affairs being consider- able defects in the fabric, especially of the chancel, service weekly and communion some eight times a year. 194 A long list of nearly a hundred recusants against whom proceedings under the Penal Acts were suspended in Sussex is given in Hist. AfSS. Com. Ref.xiv (9), 275 ; they were for the most part resident in West Sussex, many near Harting, the seat of John Caryll, who accompanied James II in his exile and was created Baron Dureford by him. " r. C.H. Sttst. i, 530. «" Hist. ofEngl. ii, ch. 8. | Stephens, See of Chichester, 306. *» Suss. Arch. Coll. xlvi, in, note. 81 At the Registry of the Archdeaconry of Lewes, for access to the records of which the writer is indebted to the kindness of Mr. W. Nicholson. 40 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY The influence of Wesley was comparatively little felt in Sussex ; he him- self never entered the county except for several short visits to Rye303 and Winchelsea, between 1773 and 1790; and Heath's description of Sussex dissent303 in 1874 holds good for the century preceding that date, and is still to a certain extent true : — Throughout Sussex the hyper-Calvinists are the most numerous body. Their churches were no doubt founded to maintain the same creed as that once held by the greater number of Baptist churches, a creed of which particular salvation was a distinctive point ; but while the greater part of the denomination have become so affected by the modern evangelical revival as to sink or almost lose sight of this doctrine, the Baptists of East Sussex, coming under the influence of Huntingtonism, have continued more and more to magnify its im- portance until, like Aaron's rod, it seems to have swallowed up everything else. Although William Huntington,30* 'the converted coal-heaver,' was a native of the neighbouring county of Kent and obtained his most startling and almost unparalleled success in London, his influence, as just noted, was very great in Sussex, in which county he seems first to have preached at Petworth and Horsham in 1776, some three years after his conversion at Sunbury ; and when he died in July, 1813, his body was brought from Tunbridge Wells to Lewes on a hearse drawn by six horses, followed by a procession of mourners a mile in length, the most remarkable funeral this county can ever have witnessed. While on the subject of dissent in Sussex it is worth noticing that John Darby, founder of the sect of Plymouth Brethren, who since their start in 1845 have obtained a moderate footing in Sussex, was a member of a family long settled at Markly in Warbleton, though he himself had practically no connexion with the county. Nor should mention be omitted of the curious local sect of ' Cokelers,' recently described by Viscount Tumour.308 They were founded in 1850 by John Sirgood, a London shoemaker, who settled at Loxwood in Wisborough, and rapidly attracted a congregation by his remark- able preaching. In spite of considerable opposition the Society of Independents, or ' Cokelers ' as for some unknown reason they are usually called, increased, branches being established at North Chapel, Warnham, Kirdford, Upper Norwood, and Chichester before the death of their founder in 1885. Their creed is pronouncedly Antinomian, and they are remarkable for not using the Lord's Prayer and for rejecting (in theory rather than in practice) the use of marriage, and also for their great business abilities, which have resulted in an intelligent system of co-operative stores and the almost complete capture of the local trade in the neighbourhood of Wisborough and Kirdford. The revival of the Church of England in our county during the nine- teenth century, helped on by the influence of such men as Bishop Otter and Archdeacon Hare (to name but two) and by the Oxford Movement, with the passing of Henry Manning, rector of Woollavington, into the Roman Church, and the anti-ritualistic reaction, are matters of too recent a date and too nearly approaching the realm of controversy to be touched upon. Here we are concerned only with the history of religious life within the county, and whatever may be our personal views on dogmatic questions we must all, when we trace this history through the past centuries, feel thankful that we have at last reached an age when there is at least religious toleration for all. I0> Holloway, Hut. of Rye, 544-5. *" The Engfish Peasant, 199, 200. 504 See ibid. 320-58. ' ** Nat. Rev. Sept. 1904. A HISTORY OF SUSSEX APPENDIX ECCLESIASTICAL DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTY The diocese of Chichester, coterminous with the county of Sussex, was divided from a very early period into the two archdeaconries of Chichester and Lewes, which included the whole of the county with the exception of certain peculiar jurisdictions. Of these the most important were the archbishop of Canterbury's peculiars of South Mailing deanery (stretching from Wadhurst to Stanmcr), West Tarring, Pagham, and the Pallant at Chichester. The independence of these districts was emphasized shortly after the Conquest, when Lanfranc forbade bishop Stigand to summon the clergy of the archiepiscopal peculiars to his synods, they being completely exempt from his authority, except that they might receive the chrism from him and pay the usual fees therefor.306 The bishop of London's lands at Lodsworth formed another exempt jurisdiction, as did the royal chapelry of Bosham of which the bishop of Exeter was dean. The lowey, or liberty, of Battle Abbey was also a peculiar under its own dean, a title still borne by the incumbent of Battle. Finally there was the decanal church of Steyning ; this belonged to the Norman abbey of Fecamp, who gave up to the bishop of Chichester their claims in the churches of Bury, Slinfold, and Nut- hurst to secure that the church of Steyning with its appurtenances should be entirely free of episcopal control.307 Accordingly we find, in 1423 and 1426, presentations to Steyning vicarage directed to the guardian of the spirituality of the peculiar and exempt jurisdiction of Steyning.308 When the further division of the diocese into rural deaneries took place is not known, but it must have been as early as the middle of the twelfth century, as in 1157 tne abbot of Battle refers to the bishop of Chichester's deans of Lewes and Hastings.309 By 1291 the archdeaconry of Chichester was divided into the deaneries of Chichester, Arundel, Boxgrove, Midhurst, and Storring- ton, and that of Lewes into Lewes, Dallington, Hastings, and Pevensey ; the archbishop's peculiars were also grouped under the deaneries of South Mailing, Tarring, and Pagham, the two latter being, apparently, usually held together. The occasional references to deans with other titles than these, as a dean of Folkington 31° (in 1236), of Selmeston 311 (c. 1225), and of Ewhurst312 (c. 1190), probably only imply that although the boundaries of the deaneries were already settled, the title of the rural dean himself was taken sometimes from the parish in which he was beneficed instead of from that parish which usually gave its name to the deanery. That the titles of the deaneries were the same from the time of their formation is probable, as a dean of Dallington occurs about I2OO,313 and again in I220,314 and reference is made in 1236 to certain proceedings in the (rural) chapter of Midhurst.315 After the Reformation rural deans for some reason ceased to be appointed in most dioceses, but as late as 1568 there was still a rural dean of Hastings,316 though it would seem that by 1636 these ecclesiastical officials were no longer in existence in the diocese.317 There is a remarkable instance of an appointment to the post of dean of the peculiars of South Mailing, Pagham, and Tarring in l695,318 but it is questionable if this can be counted as an instance of a genuine rural dean. The office was revived in the diocese of Chichester at an unusually early date, apparently by Bishop Buckner in i8i2,319 the revival of the rural chapter being due to Bishop Otter about i84O.3"° The following table will show the distribution of the (ecclesiastical) parishes amongst the several deaneries as given in the Taxatio of 1291 and at present : — ARCHDEACONRY OF CHICHESTER DEANERY OF ARUNDEL, 1291 : Amberley, Arundel, Bargham, Barnham, Binsted, Burpham, Bury, Clapham, Climping, Cudlow, East Angmering, Eastergate, Felpham, Ford, Houghton, Little- hampton, Lyminster, Madehurst, Middleton, North Stoke, Poling, Rustington, South Stoke, Tortington, Walberton, West Angmering, Yapton. 306 Eadmer, Hut. (Rolls Ser.), 21. 307 P.R.O. Transcripts, vol. 140*, fol. 350. 08 Pat. I Hen. VI, pt. i, m. 27 ; 4 Hen. VI, pt. ii, mm. 22, 9. 09 'Duo decani vestri, Lewensis scilicet et Hastingensis.' Mat. for Hist. ofAbp. Thos. Becket (Rolls Ser.), iv, 253. In 1368 the rural dean of Hastings distinguished himself from the dean of the college of Hastings by attesting as ' Stephen, dean of the deanery of Hastings.' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 497. 110 Feet of F. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), No. 310. 11 Witness, with Joscelin dean of Lewes, to a charter ; Cott. MSS. Vesp. F. xv, fol. 48. "' Cal. Robertsbridge Chart. No. 18. sls Suss. Arch. Co!/, xiii, 168. »" Cal. Pap. Let. i, 74. 114 Cott. MSS. Vesp. F. xv, fol. 154. "6 Dansey, Horae Decanicae Rurales, ii, 388. " Ibid. •" Ibid. 389, 390. •'• Ibid. 391. » Ibid. 392-403. 42 CATHEDRAL CHURCH. 1. Chichester. BENEDICTINE MONKS. 2. Battle Abbey. 3. Boxgrove Priory. 4. Sele Priory. BENEDICTINE NUNS. 5. "Ramestede." 6. Rusper Priory. CLUNIAC MONKS. 7. Lewes Priory. CISTERCIAN MONKS. 8. Robertsbridge Abbey. AUSTIN CANONS. 9. Hardham Priory. 10. Hastings Priory. 11. Michelham Priory. 12. Pynham Priory.- 13. Shut bred Priory. 14. Tortington Priory. AUSTIN NUNS. 15. Easebourne Priory. PREMONSTRATENSIAN CANONS. 16. Otham Abbey. 17. Bayham Abbey. 1 8. Dureford Abbey. KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 19. Saddlescombe, 20. Shipley. ^- KNIGHTS r 21. Poling. FRIARIES. 22. Dominicans, 23- .. 24- 25. Franciscans, 26. „ 2l- . ." 28. Austins, 29. Carmelites, Shulbred Easebourne LEWE /Dureford is Harting 40 e Hardham 9 A RNDEL Saddlescomb ' 19 Shoreham „ , { TARRING 0. .: AtheringtoiV 21 * ' «J. :.*"«: ' 61 *' ^ — •" ECCLESIASTICAL MAP SUSSEX SHOWING ANCIENT RURAL DEANERIES ANC 'ITALLERS. ridel, ihester. ) ;helsea. Hester. 2S. Chelsea, •eham. HOSPITALS. 30. Arundel, St. James 31. „ Holy Trini 32. Battle. 33. Bidlington. 34. Buxted. 35. Chichcster, St. James. 36. „ St. Mary. 37- •» 38- >, 39- » 40. Hatting. 41. Hastings. 42. Lewes, 43- .» 44. Playden. 45. Seaford, ' Loddesdowne . " Rumboldswyke. Stockbridge. St. James. St. Nicholas. t \ -WftVij/ham 66' St. James. St. Leonard. 47. Sborebam, St. James. 48. „ St. Katharine. 49. Sompting. 50. Westham. B&\/ham <_ 17 7- HOSPITALa 51. West Tarring. 52. Winchelsea, St. Bartholomew. 53- •» Holy Cross. 54- » St. John. 55. Windham. COLLEGES. 56. Arundel. 57. Bosham. 58. Hastings. 59. South Mailing. ALIEN HOUSES. 60. Arundel Priory. 61. Atherington Ballivate. 62. Lyminster Priory. 63. Runcton Priory. 64. Steyning College. 65. Wilmington Priory, 66. Withyham Priory. 67. Worminghurst Ballivate. SCALE OF MILES OF RELIGIOUS HOUSES ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY DEANERY OF ARUNDEL, 1906 (2 Divisions) : The same, omitting Amberley, Bargham, Bury, Clapham, Cudlow, East Angmering, Houghton, West Angmering, and adding Bognor, Merston, North Mundham with Hunston, Pagham, South Bersted. DEANERY OF BOXGROVE, 1291 : Aldingbourne, Almodington, Appledram, Birdham, Bosham, Boxgrove, Bracklesham, Chidham, Compton, Donnington, Earnley, Eartham, East Dean, East Itchenor, East Marden, East Wittering, Funtington, Hunston, Lordington, Meriton, Mundham, North Marden, Oving, Racton, Selsey, Sidlesham, Singleton, Stoughton, Up Marden, Waltham, Westbourne, West Dean, West Hampnett, West Itchenor, West Stoke, West Thorney, West Wittering. DEANERY OF BOXGROVE, 1906 (3 Divisions) : The same, omitting Bracklesham, East Itchenor, Hunston, Merston, Mundham, and adding Lavant, Portfield, Rumboldswyke, Slindon, Tang- mere, Southbourne, Stanstead and Fishbourne. DEANERY OF CHICHESTER, 1291 : The cathedral and its prebends; St. Peter the Great and St. Pancras, Chichester,321 Fishbourne, and Rumboldswyke. DEANERY OF CHICHESTER, 1906 : The same, omitting Fishbourne and Rumboldswyke, and including St. Andrew, St. Bartholomew, St. John, St. Martin with St. Olave, St. Paul, and St. Peter the Less, Chichester. DEANERY OF MIDHURST, 1291 : Barlavington, Bepton, Bignor, Burton, Coates, Cocking, Ease- bourne, Egdean, Elsted, Graffham, Hardham, Harting, Iping, Kirdford, Linch, Linchmere, Lurgashall, Petworth, Rogate, Selham, Stedham,322 Stopham, Sutton, Tillington, Treyford, Trotton, Waltham, Woolbeding, Woollavington. DEANERY OF MIDHURST, 1906 (3 Divisions) : The same, with addition of Fernhurst, Midhurst, Milland, Terwick, Bury, Duncton, Lodsworth, Ebernoe, and North Chapel. DEANERY OF STORRINGTON, 1291 : Ashington, Billingshurst, Bramber, Broadwater, Chiltington (West), Coombes, Findon, Goring, Horsham, Itchingfield, Lancing, Nuthurst, Parham, Pul- borough, Rusper, Rudgwick, Slinfold, Sompting, Steyning, Storrington, Sullington, Thake- ham, Warnham, Washington, West Grinstead, Wisborough Green, Wiston. DEANERY OF STORRINGTON, 1906 (4 Divisions): The same, with addition of Greatham, Loxwood, North Stoke, Roffey, Shipley, Southwater, Ashurst, Warminghurst, Angmering, Clapham with Patching, Ferring with East Preston and Kingston, Worthing with Heene and West Tarring. ARCHDEACONRY OF LEWES DEANERY OF BRIGHTON, 1906 : Brighton (21 churches), Hove (6 churches), Preston (3 churches), Prestonville, West Blatchington. DEANERY OF DALLINGTON, 1291 : Ashburnham, Battle, Beckley, Bodiam, Brede, Burwash, Cats- field, Crowhurst, Dallington, Etchingham, Ewhurst, Heathfield, Herstmonceux, Hooe, Iden, Mountfield, Ninfield, Northiam, Peasmarsh, Penhurst, Playden, Salehurst, Sedlescombe, Tice- hurst, Udimore, Warbleton, Warding, Westfield, Whatlington. DEANERY OF DALLINGTON, 1906 : The same, omitting Battle, Beckley, Brede, Catsfield, Crow- hurst, Ewhurst, Ninfield, Northiam, Peasmarsh, Playden, Sedlescombe, Udimore, Wartling and Westfield, and adding Bodlestreet Green, Flimwell, Mayfield, Stonegate, and Waldron. DEANERY OF HASTINGS, 1291 : Bexhill, Fairlight, Guestling, Hastings (St. Margaret, St. Michael, and St. Peter, St. Andrew below the Castle, St. Clement, and All Saints), Hollington, Iham, Icklesham, Ore, Pett, Rye, St. Leonard's, Winchelsea (St. Thomas and St. Giles). DEANERY OF HASTINGS, 1906 (2 Divisions) : The same, omitting Iham and including Battle, Catsfield, Crowhurst, Hove, Netherfield, Ninfield, Westfield, Beckley, Brede, Broomhill, Ewhurst, Iden, Northiam, Peasmarsh, Sedlescombe, and Udimore. DEANERY OF LEWES, 1291: Albourne, Aldrington, Ardingly, Balcombe, Barcombe, Blatchington, Bolney, Brighton, Chailey, Clayton, Cowfold, Cuckfield, Ditchling, East Grinstead, Falmer, Hamsey, Hangleton, Henfield, Hove, Hurstpierpoint, Ifield, Iford, Kingston-by-Lewes, King- ston-by-Sea, Lewes, Meeching or Newhaven, Newick, Newtimber, Ovingdean, Patcham, Piddinghoe, Pyecombe, Plumpton, Poynings, Portslade, Preston, Rodmell, Rottingdean, Sele or Beeding, Shelley, Shermanbury, Shoreham, Slaugham, Southease, Southover, Southwick, Street, Telscombe, Twineham, West Hoathly, Westmeston, Westout, Woodmancote, Worth. 811 St. Andrew, St. Mary in the Market, St. Martin, St. Olave, and St. Peter by the Gildhall occur in the Valor of i 535, and were included in the deanery at the time of the Taxatio though not entered. m With Heyshott. 43 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX DEANERY OF LEWES, 1906 (4 Divisions): The same, omitting Barcombe, Blatchington, Brighton, Chailey, East Grinstead, Hove, Newick, Preston, Shelley, and including Ringmer, South Mailing, Stanmer, Burgess Hill, Edburton, Copthorne, Crawley, Crawley Down, Highbrook, Lindfield, Staplefield, Wivelsfield, Colgate, and Lower Beeding. DEANERY OF PEVENSEY, 1291 : Alciston, Alfriston, Arlington, Beddingham, Berwick, Bishopstone, Blatchington, (Chalvington), Chiddingly, Denton, Eastbourne, Eastdean, East Hoathly, Eckington or Ripe, Exceit, Fletching, Folkington, Friston, Hailsham, Hartfield, Hellingly, (Horsted Keynes), Horsted Parva, Jevington, Laughton, Litlington, Lullington, Maresfield, Pevensey, Rotherfield with Frant, (Seaford), Selmeston, South Heighten, Sutton, Tarring Neville, Waldron, Westdean, West Firle, Westham, Willingdon, Wilmington, Withyham. DEANERY OF PEVENSEY, 1906 (4 Divisions): The same, omitting Exceit (absorbed into West- dean), and Sutton (joined to Seaford), and adding Wartling, Dicker, Fairwarp, Glynde, Bar- combe, Buxted, Chailey, Danehill, Framfield, Hadlow Down, High Hurst, Isfield, Newick, Nutley, Uckfield, Broadwater Down, East Grinstead, Eridge, Forest Row, Groombridge, Hammerwood, Mark Cross, Tidebrook, Wadhurst. DEANERY OF SOUTH MALLING, 1291 323 : Buxted with Uckfield, Cliffe, Edburton, Framfield, Glynde, Isfield, Mayfield, Ringmer, South Mailing, Stanmer, and Wadhurst. ai Peculiar of Canterbury, united with Chichester diocese in 1845. 44 THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES OF SUSSEX INTRODUCTION Sussex, for its size, was well supplied with religious foundations, though for the most part these were small and not of more than local importance, the two chief exceptions being the abbey of Battle and the priory of Lewes, whose heads were constantly summoned to Parliament. Besides the great abbey of Battle, the Benedictines had houses for monks at Boxgrove and Sele, both originally cells of alien monasteries. The nuns of the order had a settlement at Chichester previous to 1075, but were ejected when the cathedral was removed thither. They had also a short-lived convent at ' Ramestede,' and another at Rusper. The Cluniacs had only one priory, but that was the greatest house of the order in England — the priory of St. Pancras at Lewes, whose possessions extended almost all over the kingdom. The monks of Lewes held at one time or another no fewer than fifty-six churches in Sussex. The only Cistercian abbey was that of Robertsbridge. The Augustinian canons had six houses, all small ; and there was a nunnery of the order at Easebourne. An abbey of Premonstratensian canons was founded, about 1180, at Otham in Hailsham, but subsequently removed to Bayham on the borders of Kent and Sussex. The canons had also an abbey at Dureford on the borders of Sussex and Hampshire. The Knights Hospitallers possessed a preceptory at Poling, and succeeded to the greater part of the possessions of the Knights Templars, who had preceptories at Shipley and Saddlescombe. Chichester and Winchelsea had convents of both Dominican and Franciscan friars, and the former also settled at Arundel, and the Franciscans at Lewes. The Austin Friars had a house at Rye, and the Carmelites at Shoreham, the latter being subsequently removed to Sele in Beeding parish. Of the many hospitals in this county the most important was that of St. Mary at Chichester, which still flourishes. In each of the Cinque Ports members, Hastings, Rye, Winchelsea, and Pevensey, there were hospitals under control of the town officers, serving the purpose of almshouses, and this was possibly also the case at Seaford and Shoreham. The two hospitals at Lewes were intimately connected with the Cluniac priory, as was that at Battle with the abbey, and the ' Maison Dieu ' at Arundel with the neigh- bouring college. 45 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX In some ways the collegiate churches may claim to be the most inter- esting class of religious establishments in Sussex. The canons of the cathedral of Chichester were the direct successors of those of Selsey, dating back almost to the foundation of Christianity in this district ; the college of South Mailing traced its pedigree back to the seventh or eighth century, and that of Bosham, though remodelled in the twelfth century, was the successor of one that flourished before the Conquest. At Hastings secular canons were introduced shortly after the Norman Conquest, and even at Arundel, where the college was only founded in 1392, there had been a similar establishment in Saxon times. The alien houses present several remarkable features. The abbey of Fecamp acquired lands in Rye and Winchelsea and Steyning from Edward the Confessor. At the latter place they had control of a small college of, apparently, three canons under a dean or ' provost ' ; their principal agent, however, was the ' bailiff' of Warminghurst. A similar 'bailiff,' of Atherington, managed the estates of the Abbey of Seez, who had also a cell in the priory of St. Nicholas, Arundel. The abbey of Troarn had a small priory at Runcton, but soon made it over to its daughter priory of Bruton in Somerset. At Wilmington there was a priory whose head was in charge of all the English estates of the abbey of Grestein. Marmoutier, or rather its daughter, St. Mary of Mortain, had land at Withyham where there was a ' prior ' resident. Finally, there was at Lyminster a small house of nuns under the abbey of Almenesches. The lands in Beddingham and Hooe belonging to the abbey of Bec-Hellouin do not seem ever to have constituted a priory, although so spoken of after the suppression of the alien houses ; l and the claims of Treport to the free chapel of Hastings are shadowy and appear never to have been acknowledged.2 A mysterious ' prioress of Nonyngton ' appears amongst the alien religious on the Pipe Rolls of 15-25 Edward III as paying for her temporalities in ' Nonyngton ' ; she may be the 'prioress of Novynton,' ' Noveton,' or ' Neweton,' who held i 3-r. 8 Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 26. "° Ibid. fol. 10 1. m Ibid. Sherborn, fol. 71. 64 lately rebuilt in stone, with the land surrounding it called 'the island,' and land at Falmer and Balmer and his Norfolk manor of Walton, and other gifts sufficient to support twelve monks. Prior Lanzo, however, was recalled to Cluny and remained there so long that William had serious thoughts of transferring his Lewes foundation to 38 Ibid. pt. 2, fol. 93. !33 Ibid. fol. 102^. 834 L. and P. Hen. nil, xii (2), 1311 (17). 235 Suss. Arch. Coll. xliv, 63. 83C Magd. Coll. D. ' Crokehurst,' 4. 837 Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 24.9. 3S Feet of F. Suss, file 19, No. 5. 239 Assize R. 938, m. 20. 840 Ibid. 631, m. 71. 841 See above. 848 Court R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 206, No. 30. 8)3 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Chicheley, fol. ^\\b. 844 Court R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 206, No. 30. 845 De Bane. R. 36 Hen. VI. M Court R. (P.R.O ), bdle. 206, No. 30. 847 Chich. Epis. Reg. Sherborn, fol. 101. 1 Dugdale, Mon.v,l-2 1 ; Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, iii, xxxv ; Duckett, Chart, and Rec. ofCluni, and Visitations of Order ofCluni; Cott. MSS. Vesp. F. xv, is a fine chartulary of great interest and importance. A large collection of original charters relating to the priory once formed Chapter House Book j$ 5, but has now been broken up, and scattered amongst the Anct. D., Ser. A, in the P.R.O. ; fortunately a large part of this collection was abstracted in Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxv, before its dispersal. RELIGIOUS HOUSES Marmoutier ; but at last he obtained from the abbot both the return of Lanzo and the promise that in future the abbey would elect one of their best monks to the post of prior of Lewes. The endowments of the priory grew apace, the founder giving the tithes of all his lands with special rights in his fisheries and market of Lewes, and adding the church and manor of Castle Acre in Norfolk where he proposed to found a monas- tery, as was afterwards done, to be under that of Lewes. After his death in 1089 his succes- sors, earls of Surrey and Warenne, continued to enrich the house of St. Pancras. To attempt to deal fully with all the grants is impossible. The second earl of Warenne gave or confirmed to the monks all the nine churches of Lewes, and nine or ten other Sussex churches, eleven in Yorkshire, including those of Halifax and Wake- field, seven in Norfolk, St. Olave's in South- wark, and others elsewhere. In addition to these Ralph de Chesney, at the time of the dedication of the priory church (c. 1095), gave five more churches in Sussex, and Walter de Grancurt four in Norfolk. An idea of the ecclesiastical patronage exercised by this priory in Sussex may be gathered from the map facing p. 8, and their temporalities were on a corresponding scale, so that in 1291 the Sussex property of the house was valued at £22 J us. 2d.y and that in other counties at ^560 13*. 8 th6 priory of St. Pancras was surrendered 67 by the prior, Robert Crowham, who received a prebend of Lincoln Cathedral and a promise of a share in the goods of the priory.68 The twenty- three monks and eighty servants received small pensions and gratuities, and the priory and all its lands were granted to Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex.69 PRIORS OF LEWES Lanzo, 1077-1107 70 Hugh, 1107-23 71 Anker72 or Aucher, n 23-30 7* ? Arnald, died 1139™ William, c. 1 150 to c. H 64 75 Osbert, c. n8o76 64 Ibid. 632. " Ibid, xi, 214, 373, 448. M Ibid. 580. 67 Ibid, xii (2), 1 10 1. 68 Suit. Arch. Coll. iii, 205. 69 L. and P. Hen. nil, xiii (i), 384. 70 See above. 7I Rec. ofCluni, {,58. 71 Bracton, Note Book (ed. Maitland), 248. 71 Rec. ofClunt,\, 58. 74 The Annales record the death of ' Prior Arnald ' this year, but it is not certain that he was prior of Lewes; Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 24 ; iii, 195. 74 Witnessed Reg. of Warenne's charter granting merchant guild to Lewes (Cott. MS. Nero, C. iii, fol. 190) ; occurs in charter of 1 1 54 and other deeds ; Suss. Arch. Coll. iii, 195. 76 Was prior while Richard was archbishop of Can- terbury (1174—84), and Alexander III pope (died 1 181) ; Cott. MS. Vesp. F. xv, fol. 71. Prior Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 351. 31 Suss. Arch. Coll. viii, 1 64. 3> Cal. Chart. No. 7. 83 Suss. Arch. Coll. viii, 170. * Feet off. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), Nos. 93, 162. 35 Cal. Chart. 285*. 36 Feet of F. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), Nos. 183, 218. 37 Ibid. No. 299. 38 Cal. Chart. No. 206. M Ibid. No. 21 1. 40 Feet of F. Suss, file 29, No. 23. 41 Ibid, file 30, No. 20. 41 Assize R. 929, m. 44 Ibid. fol. 80. RELIGIOUS HOUSES in the fabric of the church, and it was noted that one of the canons, Thomas Grene, vicar of Dallington, had possession of two cups, which he said were security for 40*. lent by him to the prior.63 The visitation in 1521 showed nothing wrong except that the prior did not render account," and that of 1527 returned 'all well.' 65 The whole tour of visitation of 1527, however, which was held not by the bishop but by his commissary, shows marks of having been per- formed with less than the usual amount of care, and it seems possible that some offences may have escaped notice, as the certificate of the county commissioners in 1536, which bears every evidence of being reliable, enters under the New Priory of Hastings, ' Religious parsons iiij, where- of preests iij, Novises j ; incontinent] iiij.' This certificate further mentions that the house was ' holy in ruyne.' 66 The clear value of the house was only £51 gs. ^d. in 1535, and had decreased the following year by £4 owing to in- cursions of the sea.67 The movables fetched only £88 5*. io|^., including ^33 6s. 8d. for the bells, £24 4.$. io\d. for 128 oz. of silver.68 Thomas Harmer, the last prior, surrendered on a pension of j£6.69 PRIORS OF HASTINGS Jonas 70 Nicholas, c. 1233 71 Alexander, occurs 1280 "-go73 John, resigned I30O74 John Longe n Philip, before 1344™ William de Dene, occurs I35277 John Hassok, resigned I4O278 Richard Weston, elected I4O2,79 resigned Stephen Lewes, occurs 1441 81 John Smyth, occurs I478,81 died c. 1492 82 Thomas Harmer, occurs I527,83 last prior " Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 27. 84 Ibid. Sherborn, fol. 116, 64 Ibid. pt. 2, fol, 103 b. " Suss. Arch. Coll. xliv, 65. "Ibid. "Ibid. 55. 69 Mins. Accts. 28-29, Hen- VIII, No. 183. 10 Cat. Robertsbridge Chart. No. 3. 71 Assize R. 912, m. 16. 71 Feet of F. Suss, file 30, No. 9. 73 Cal. Robertsbridge Chart. No. 280. 74 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Winchelsey, fol. 137. " Tear Ek. 1 8 Edw. Ill (Rolls Ser.), 317. " Ibid. 77 Assize R. 941, m. 31 ; he had been prior about three years. 78 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 81. 79 Ibid. fol. 24. "Ibid. Praty, fol. 71. " Ibid. Story, fol. 27. "Add. MSS. 33173, fol. 10. " Chich. Epis. Reg. Sherborn, fol. 103. The circular twelfth-century seal shows the priory church, with cruciform ground-plan, cen- tral tower, thatched roof, and round-headed win- dows.84 ^ SI ASTINGS . . . ii. THE PRIORY OF MICHELHAM 8S The priory of the Holy Trinity at Michelham was founded in 1229 by Gilbert of Laigle, lord of the honour of Pevensey, who in that year gave to the prior and convent of the Holy Trinity at Hastings 80 acres of land at Michel- ham, with other lands, that they might establish a religious house there. Although Michelham was thus founded under the auspices of Hastings, it was apparently from the first an independent house ; indeed, it is only from the royal licence for its foundation that we learn of its connexion with Hastings. The founder endowed it with the rectories of Laughton and Hailsham, with lands and rights of pasture in the same parishes and in Willingdon, and his park of ' Peverse ' — afterwards Michelham Park. He subsequently added the manor of Chinting in Seaford, and his brother-in-law, the Earl Warenne, gave the manor of Northease. Lands in Arlington were obtained from John de la Haye and William de Bracklesham, dean of Chichester ; William Montague gave a chapel at Jevington with its appurtenances, and Hugh Baudefar eight virgates in Brighton. There were other grants of lands in the neighbourhood of the priory and a few in Hartfield and Cowden in Kent. In 1280 Richard de Pagham, chancellor of Chichester, gave 50 acres of land at Horsey, but no further additions to the endowment were made before the Taxation of 1291, when the priory's estate was valued at £8 1. The fourteenth century brought considerable accessions in the form of numerous small grants, mostly in the neighbour- hood of Pevensey Level. Two extensive grants in 1377 and 1395 by Roger Gosselyn and others completed the temporalities of the priory, except for a grant by the prior of Lewes of Highlands in Hailsham in 1376, and a lease from the same of the manor of Sutton by Seaford in 1392. At the time of its dissolution the estate of Michel- ham Priory was valued at ^191 19*. \d. gross, or j£i6o I2x. 6d. clear. In spiritualities this house was never rich. We have seen that the founder gave the recto- ries of Laughton and Hailsham. The former of these remained in the priory's hands till the dissolution, but that of Hailsham was the cause of a long and fierce struggle with the Premon- stratensian abbey of Bayham, to which it was 84 Add. Chart. 974. M For a detailed account of this house see Salzmann, Hist, of Hailsham, 198-250. 77 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX finally ceded in 1288. An account of this dis- pute will be found in the notice of Bayham. In 1365 negotiations were apparently opened with Lewes for the church of Ripe, as the prior of Lewes that year obtained the royal licence to grant the advowson of that church to Michel- ham.86 This, however, evidently came to nothing, as the church continued in the hands of Lewes Priory till its suppression ; but in 1398 Prior John Leem, pleading the poverty of his house, brought about by decay of buildings, inundations of the sea, and expenses of hospitality, obtained from the bishop of Chichester87 and Richard II88 — with further confirmation from Henry IV 89 — licence to appropriate the churches of Alfriston and Fletching. With the exception of the dispute with Bay- ham concerning the church of Hailsham, the early history of Michelham was quite uneventful, and the first incident that calls for notice is the visit of Archbishop Peckham in June, 1283. The state of the house seems to have been not altogether satisfactory, as the archbishop subse- quently empowered the archdeacon of Lewes to levy fines imposed on the convents of Michelham and Hastings for non-residence and other causes. While he was here John de Kyrkeby, bishop- elect of Rochester, appeared before him and renounced his claims to the bishopric, Peckham having refused him consecration as a notorious pluralist. Twenty years later, on 14 Septem- ber, 1302, Edward I spent a night at the priory on his way from Lewes to Battle. About this time other visitors, less honourable but more permanent, began to appear ; thus, in 1317 Robert Henry, 'who served the late king,' was sent to the priory, to be maintained,90 but was refused by the prior, who, when summoned for this contempt of the royal mandate, pleaded that he held in frankalmoign.91 The failure of this plea is evident, as in 1327 William Alvered, usher of the king's kitchen, was quartered on the convent.92 The fearful ravages of the Black Death in 1350 seem to have been felt here as elsewhere, and three years later the priory was still suffering from its effects, as we read that — the prior of Michelham holds of the Queen (as lady of the honour of Pevensey) by service of finding thirteen canons to celebrate divine rites for the souls of Gilbert de Aquila, his ancestors and his heirs for ever ; and of these canons eight are now lacking." The monks would seem also to have suffered from the lawlessness which was one of the 86 Pat. 39 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 28. 87 Chich. Epis. Reg. Sherborn, fol. 68. 88 Pat. 21 Ric. II, m. 32. "Pat. I Hen. IV, m. u. •"Close, 10 Edw. II, m. 5 d. " Coram Reg. 1 1 Edw. II, Pasch. 91 Close, i Edw. Ill, m. 1 1 d. 91 Assize Roll, 941. results of the plague, as in 1351 the bailiff of Pevensey by threats and violence extorted an annuity of 30*. from the prior.94 A later instance of outside interference occurred in 1437 when Sir Roger Fiennes, the builder of Herstmonceux Castle, ejected the prior and seized the common seal and all the goods of the house.96 The commissioners appointed to inquire into the matter replaced the prior and restored the seal and property to him,96 though before the end of the next year he had been deposed and a successor elected.97 As important landowners in the Saltmarsh district of Pevensey Level the priors of Michel- ham were frequently appointed on commissions of sewers for the coast of Eastern Sussex, the earliest instance being in I29O98 and the latest in 1534." Thus in 1402 the prior of Michelham with John Pelham and William Makenade drew up the statutes of Pevensey Marsh.100 The prior at this date was John Leem, who held the office of receiver of the honour of Aquila in the duchy of Lancaster from 1377 to I382,101 and again in 1408 ; he was also on a commission of array in 141 5, 103 and acted as collector of the clerical sub- sidies in 1380, 1402, and I4io.103 An earlier prior, in 1335, is found in a commission for the examination of Queen Philippa's manors and parks in the honour of Aquila;104 in 1340 the prior of Michelham was one of the four assessors first appointed for Sussex to draw up the returns of the ninth of lambs, sheaves, and fleeces.105 The priors also appear as contributing towards all the usual aids, loans, and grants squeezed from the clergy by the different kings. Of the inner life of this house previous to the fifteenth century we have no details, and the first appearance of what we may call the per- sonal note is in 1423, when, at a provincial chapter of the Augustinian Order at North- ampton 106 — there was read a long letter rhetorically written by the prior of Michelham . . . directed against the new abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury ; but because it appeared most certain that it had not sprung from the root of charity, but on the contrary had been designed with no small degree of malice to the disparagement of the said venerable father; there- fore the lords-president ordered that it should be ' buried with those that sleep.' A visitation was held in September, 1441, when Laurence Wynchelse was prior ; a sub- 94 Ibid. KJctso/P.C.v,6o. 96 Duchy of Lane. Inq. i, 48. 97 Ct. R. (P.R.O.), 206, No. 5. "Pat. 1 8 Edw. I, m. 16 d. mL. and P. Hen. Vlll, vii, 1498 (22). 100 Printed in Saw. Arch. CoU. xviii. 101 Mins. Accts. 441, No. 7081. 101 Rymer, Feod. '<" Cler. Subs. *£-, ft, &• 104 Pat. 9, Edw. Ill, pt. ii. m. 27 d. 106 Pat. 14 Edw. Ill, m. 42. "* Reyner, Hist. Ord. Bened. 175. RELIGIOUS HOUSES prior, precentor, cellarer, and four canons are mentioned, and the first of the bishop's injunc- tions ordered the immediate addition of three more canons. They were further commanded that the canons should keep silence and not fre- quent the tavern outside the priory gate ; that the prior should go over the accounts regularly, should repair the buildings, and provide a literate man to teach the younger canons ; also that he should sell no corrodies, and should limit his personal household to one chaplain, one squire, one chamberer, one cook, one valet, and one page of the kitchen, and be content with four horses in his stables. The disorders implied in these injunctions are set forth in detail in a further visitation in January, 1442 — by which date two more canons had been admitted. It was then found that the prior was acting in all things without consulting the canons, whom he kept ill-supplied with money and food ; he had run the house into debt to the amount of nearly jTyo, and had permitted dilapidations which could not be repaired under £100. Also he had sold, without consulting the chapter, timber, millstones, building material, cattle, and other things ; had granted corrodies and gifts to many persons — including Sir Roger Fiennes, Sir Thomas Echingham, and John Devenish ; and had alienated many books, amongst which are mentioned ' a book called Apocalipsis ' and ' the Chronicles of England.' In spite, however, of his ' standing condemned of perjury and disobedience ' Laurence does not seem to have been deprived of his office, as he was still prior in 1447. On the occasion of the next visitation, in 1478, Edward Marley was prior and there were six canons, including a cellarer, but no subprior or sacrist, for lack of whom the vestments and ornaments of the church had fallen into great decay. The whole moral tone of the convent was very low ; silence was not kept, and even the services were disturbed by talking, they did not eat together in the refectory, but frequented the tavern, and two at least of the canons were incontinent. Three of them had at different times left the convent without leave, one was still wandering apostate and another was absent for fifteen years, 'and afterwards returning poisoned the whole convent with his strange and evil arguments.' One of the canons petitioned the bishop to send a certain worthy canon of Tortington — Ellis by name — to be their sub- prior, which he accordingly did. As the result of another visitation in 1481, Edward Marley resigned his office on the plea of old age and infirmity. On 13 September, 1482, Ellis Parker the sub-prior, with seven other canons and one novice met to elect a successor to Edward Marley and chose, almost unanimously, John West, who after many protestations accepted the office. Three visitations were made during the prior- ship of Thomas Holbeme ; at each the only thing that was wrong was the ruinous condition of the house ; in 1521 the officers were prior, sub-prior, sacrist, precentor, and master of the novices, four of these latter completing the convent. In 1524 the numbers were eight altogether, as one of the canons was acting as vicar of Alfriston, but in 1527 there were besides the five officers three brethren and two novices, and at the time of its dissolution eight priests and one novice.107 The gross value of the priory being only £191 19*. ifd. it was dissolved with the other lesser houses in 1536; the prior, Thomas Holbeme, receiving a pension of ^2O.108 A preliminary survey 109 mentions twenty-nine servants — eleven being labourers and eighteen domestic ; values the movables at ^55 13*. 4^., the bells and lead at ^30, debts owing to the house .£9 15*. 2d., against £26 us. id. owed by them. A more detailed return no shows 203 ounces of silver and silver-gilt valued at ^27 OJ. 4^., church ornaments including the paving stones sold for £15 131. zd., five bells weighing 40 cwt. worth £26 13*. 4^., and other items yielding a total of ^162 Os. o^d. Out of this the canons received for a quarter's salary £13 13*. 4<£, and of the king's great charity — their beds. The site and property of the priory was granted to Cromwell.111 PRIORS OF MlCHELHAM11 Roger, first prior, occurs 1236"' Peter, c. 1239, occurs I25&114 Roger, occurs I26o,115 1262 116 William, occurs 1273 Roger, occurs 1277 lu— 90 118 William de Shelvestrode, occurs c. 1322-34 John de Worth, died c. 1350 119 John Leem, occurs 1376-1415 William London, occurs 1434, resigned 1438 Laurence Wynchelse, elected 1438, occurs 1447 Edward Marley, before 1458, resigned 1482 John West, elected 1482, occurs 1509 Thomas Holbeme, occurs 1518, last prior 107 Exch. K.R. Misc. Sf?-. 108 Aug. Off. Misc. Book, 232. 109 Exch. K.R. Misc. 110 Suit. Arch. Coll. xliv, 56. 111 Pat. 29 Hen. VIII, pt. i, m. 23. m Hist. ofHailskam, ch. xv. w Feet of F. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), No. 313. 114 Feet of F. Suss, file 20, No. 40. 115 Ibid, file 22, No. 13. "•Ibid, file 23, No. i. "'Ibid, file 29, No. 3. 118 Cal. Robertsbrittge Chart. No. 280. 119 Assize R. 941, m. 5 J. 79 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX The only known seal is attached to a deed by Prior John Leem in 1376, and is imperfect. It shows Christ seated, right hand raised in blessing, in the left hand a book, in the field A and O ; legend destroyed. Counterseal, an angel facing towards the left. Legend : — -f- M'SI'VIS'AMARI'AMA. 12. THE PRIORY OF PYNHAM120 Adeliza, queen of Henry I and subsequently wife of William d'Albigny and countess of Arundel, sometime before 1151 gave a small parcel of land on the east bank of the River Arun for the support of two or three chaplains who were to live under monastic rules, to celebrate daily in the chapel of St. Bartholomew — which was to be built there ; and were further to keep in repair the causeway and wooden bridge across the river, for which purpose the earl of Arundel granted them leave to take wood in his forest — the stone for the causeway being obtained close at hand ; and to maintain a hospital or hostelry for poor travellers.121 A number of small grants of land were made by various persons, William Hareng giving the tithe of bread and drink in his household, but afterwards changing this incon- venient grant for a piece of meadow land. The land on which the hospital, or Augustinian priory, was built, was called Pynham, but the priory was more usually known as ' the Cause- way ' (de Caketo, la Cbaude}. It was originally under the patronage of St. Bartholomew, but an attempt was apparently made to add St. Thomas of Canterbury's title, though this latter did not long continue patron.122 Although it held land in about ten parishes it was never anything but a small house and a poor one. The priory would seem to have got deeply into debt in 1309 if one accepts the evidence of the Close Roll for that year, which records the prior's acknowledge- ment of a debt of £400 to Thomas de Burne ;123 the very magnitude of the sum, however, makes it probable that this was a formal bond of some kind. In 1340 orders were given not to levy the ninth of sheaves, fleeces, and lambs from the canons of this house, as they were so slenderly endowed that their lands did not suffice for their maintenance without the alms of the faithful l24 • and five years later they were exempted from taxation for the same reason.126 In each of these 120 Dugdale, Man. v\, 259 ; Suss. 4rcb. Coll. xi, 89-108. | Dugdale, Man. vi, 259 ; Anct. D., A 11537. "The double invocation is only found apparently in Bp. Seffrid's Confirmation Chart. ; Anct D A H537. 113 Close 2 Edw. II, m. I d. "4 Close 14 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 24. "Pat. 19 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 2. 80 grants the canons are called « keepers of the bridge of Arundel.' For reasons not stated Robert Coitere was deposed from the office of prior in, or before, I5>55> ar»d sent to do penance at Shulbred, the prior of which house reported that he was behaving well and obediently ; the earl of Arundel, however, informed the archbishop that the deposed prior was wandering about the neighbourhood bringing scandal upon the order, whereupon the archbishop commanded that he should be kept within the precincts of Shulbred, and imprisoned if disobedient."6 In 1380 there was only one canon besides the prior,127 and the same was the case in 1439 "* and I44I,129 at which latter date the property of the house was in the hands of trustees until it could be cleared of debt. At a visitation held in 1478 13° the prior said that there used sometimes to be three canons, but usually only a prior and his chaplain ; there were at this time two canons besides the prior, but they had both been non- resident for the last six years, by licence of the late prior. The priory was burdened with a number of small corrodies, and the rents had fallen from £40 1040 marks. The buildings were in bad repair, vestments few and books still fewer, but there were two chalices (one gilt), a silver salt cellar, and a silver cup and two spoons, as well as twenty-four cattle, and the debts were not more than 4 marks. When the priory was visited in 1521 the prior and his two canons reported that all was well,131 but when this prior, William Aylyng, died in December, 1524, only one canon remained, and the place became ' desolate and prophane.' 132 Three months before Prior Aylyng's death the fate of Pynham was decided, Cardinal Wolsey having obtained licence from the pope m and from the king 134 to suppress it and grant its revenues to the great college that he was founding at Oxford. Accordingly, in 1525, the priory was suppressed,136 and in the following year the bishop, dean, and chapter of Chichester quitclaimed the site of the monastery to the authorities of Cardinal's College, Oxford.188 PRIORS OF PYNHAM Ivo, occurs 1230 1B7 Stephen, occurs I252138 '"Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Islip, fol. 102. 127 Cler. Subs. JgL. '* Chich. Epis. Reg. Praty, fol. 62^. 119 Ibid. fol. 82. IM Ibid. Story, fol. 20 '"Ibid. Sherborn, fol. 1 06. '" Card, bdles. 76, No. 49. 185 L. and P. Hen. rill, iv, 650. '"Ibid. 697. '*> Ibid. 1137. » ibid. 2340. 117 feet o/F. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), No. 232. '"Feet of F. Suss, file 18, No. 19. RELIGIOUS HOUSES Thomas, occurs <:. I265,139 1285"° William, occurs I32O141 Robert Coitere, deposed 143 Henry, occurs 1346-56 143 John, occurs 13 76,144 1380 145 John Charney, or Chernell, occurs I399,146 I402147 John Hormer, elected 1402 148 John Baker, resigned 1438 149 John Baker, re-appointed I438,150 occurs I442151 John Gifford, appointed I468,153 occurs I4y8183 John Buryman, resigned I488154 Ellis Parker, appointed I488,155 died (?) 156 William Fromond, appointed (?),156 died I5O4157 Richard Abell, appointed I5O4,157 resigned 1507 158 Thomas Bacheler, appointed I5O7,158 died 1509 159 William Aylyng, appointed I509,159 died I524160 Robert, surrendered I525161 The fifteenth-century seal is circular (2^ in.) and shows St. Bartholomew, standing in a niche with trefoiled canopy, crocketed and pinnacled, and with elaborate tabernacle work at the sides ; in the right hand a knife, in the left hand a book. In base, a human head between two oak-leaves.162 + SIGILLV -f COMVNE + DOMVS -|- SANCTI -f- BARTHOLOMEI -(- DE -J- CALCETO -+- 13. THE PRIORY OF SHULBRED163 The priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Eustace, and the Holy Cross of Shulbred, or Woolynchmere, was probably founded by Ralph de Arden, who in I2OO bought 2 hides of land in ' Wlenchemere,' and in 1207 had the priory of ' Wlenchemere ' with all its possessions during the king's pleasure. His descendant, another 139 Cal. Bodl. Chart. Suss. Nos. 42, 49. ""Ibid. No. 60. '"Assize R. 938, m. 19. 141 See above. 145 Cal. Bodl. Chart. Suss. Nos. 64, 67, 68. 144 Ibid. 69. '" Cler. Subs. #. MCa/. Bodl. Chart. Suss. No. 71. 147 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 82. "" Ibid. 149 Ibid. Praty, fol. 626. 160 Ibid. '"Ibid. fol. 82. 1M Ibid. fol. 114. "* Ibid. Story, fol. 29. 144 Ibid. fol. 793. 146 Ibid. '" Ibid, date omitted. '"Ibid. Story, pt. ii, fol. 38. 158 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Warham, fol. 250. "'Ibid. fol. 251. 160 Card. Bdles. 76, No. 49. 181 L. and P. Hen. fill, iv, 1137. 1 Pat. 5 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 37 d. 82 RELIGIOUS HOUSES when Pope Gregory XI issued a bull stating that ' on account of the evil rule of our beloved son John Palmere — if indeed he ought to be called " beloved," ' the priory had fallen into a bad state and its goods had been wasted ; the prior, ' careless not only of property, but also of his own good fame,' was living dissolutely outside the monastery, and orders were given for his trial and deposition if guilty.183 It has already been noticed in the account of Hardham that Tortington was selected as a place of banishment for disobedient canons ; it was also chosen in 1376 as the retreat of more worthy residents, for the earl of Arundel left commands in his will that lands to the value of 200 marks should be given to the priory to the intent that any chaplain of the college or chantry which he desired to found in the castle of Arundel who should be disabled by illness should have his sustenance at Tortington.184 The scheme for the foundation of the college being changed this was never carried out. The prior of Tortington complained in 1402 that one of his canons had withdrawn himself and carried off various muniments and jewels of the house.186 The visitation of 1478 186 revealed little seriously wrong, though it was noted that the brethren were disobedient, a bad example being set by the sacrist, Ellis Parker, who on Relic Sunday told the prior that he committed idolatry in honouring and worshipping relics of saints and putting them on the high altar, and so caused unseemly dispute, for which he was duly penitent. It may be noted that this Ellis Parker had a reputation outside his own monastery as a good and religious man, the canons of Michelham especially requesting that he might come to them as sub-prior, which office he duly filled, afterwards becoming prior of Pynham. It was also mentioned that ' Faith Lucas has the office called Day, and makes cheese and butter and comes to the house sometimes ; she is, however, believed to be of good conversation.' The priory appears to have been vacant in 1521, as the visitation only names the sub-prior and two canons 187 ; from the other visitations it seems that there were usually five canons besides the prior, and in 1380 there were seven.188 The last visi- tation in 1527 shows the house in bad repair, books lacking, and servants incompetent and unskilled.189 Shortly before the dissolution in June, 1536, Sir William Goryng wrote to Cromwell 19° that he had been to Tortington Priory as ordered, and had examined a canon, and afterwards ' all 183 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Sudbury, fol. 26. 184 Ibid. fol. 92*. 184 Ibid. Arundel, fol. no. 186 Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 32. 187 Ibid. Sherborn, fol. 107. I89 Cler. Subs. J£- 189 Chich. Epis. Reg. Sherborn, fol. 100. 190 L. and P. Hen. Vlll, x, 207. four of them,' the result of which examination he was sending with ' a copy of the book which the prior did read as a prophecy.' He adds : — I have sent you a bill in the prior's hand, sent to Sir William Bury of Tortington, late prior of Shulbrede, on 2 1st June, one day before I received your letter. It was copied out of a book of one Mayys of South- wark, grocer, the prior's brother. Harry Rynghede, one of the canons, told me that when the prior was in the court, by means of my cousin Palmer, he wrote to the said Harry to burn all such letters as his brother May had written to him, which he did. This reads like a case of treasonable correspond- ence, but no more particulars appear. The brother referred to was probably Robert May of South wark, who by his will of 1536 left ' 2 ryalles of golde' to his brother Thomas, prior of St. Mary Magdalene of Tortington.191 The property of the priory reaching only the clear annual value of ^75 12*. 3^. in 1535, and £82 9*. 3^. in a later valuation,192 it fell with the smaller houses, but the exact date of its surrender is unknown. The goods of the house, including five bells and 171 ounces of silver, fetched £144 125. io|(/.,193 from which £10 was allowed to the five canons.194 A pension of £10 was granted to the prior, and a similar amount to a former prior, who had been living in the priory since his resignation some years earlier.196 PRIORS OF TORTINGTON Reyner, occurs 1230— 49 186 Matthew, before I263187 William de Launcel (?), occurs 1278 198 Walter, occurs I32O,199 1331 20° William, occurs 1361 201 John Palmere, occurs I376203 John, occurs 1380 203 Robert atte Lee, occurs 1402 204 Thomas, occurs 1417 206 Robert atte Lee, died 1440 206 John Losecroft, elected I44O207 John Page, occurs 1478 208 John Gregory, occurs I524,209 1529 Thomas Maye, occurs I534,211 last prior 191 P.C.C. Dyngeley, 2. mSuss. Arch. Coll. xliv, 65. I9S Ibid. 59. ">4 Ibid. 63. 195 Mins. Accts. 28 & 29 Hen. VIII, No. 183. 198 feet off. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), Nos. 219, 464. 197 Assize R. 912, m. 4. 198 Coram Rege R. 39, m. 16. 199 Assize R. 938, m. 36. 100 Pat. 5 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 35 d, 101 Cal. Papal Pet. i, 367. *" Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Sudbury, fol. 26. *» Cler. Subs. Jgl- 104 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Arnndel, fol. no. 205 Ibid. Chicheley, fol. 206; Assize R. 1528, m. 24. ** Ibid. Praty, fol 6\b. m Ibid. 108 Ibid. Story, fol. 32. 109 Ibid. Sherborn, pt. ii, fol. 96. 110 L. and P. Hen. Vlll, iv, 2701. "• Ibid, vii, 1498 (22). A HISTORY OF SUSSEX HOUSE OF AUGUSTINIAN NUNS 15. THE PRIORY OF EASEBOURNE l The priory of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary * was founded in the thirteenth century by one of the family of Bohun of Mid- hurst, probably Sir John,3 for a prioress and ten nuns4 of the Augustinian order.6 The original endowment included the church of Easebourne, of which Midhurst was a chapel, which was valued in 1291 at £26 131. 4d., the temporalities of the priory at the same date being worth £4 1 .8 Property had been acquired in the Isle of Thorney before 1313,' and in 1332 John de Bohun made a considerable grant of land in Sturminster Mar- shall (Dorset).8 Five years later the priory had licence to acquire lands to the value of 10 marks,9 but only a few small grants appear to have been made after this ; and the Black Death in 1350, with the subsequent economic revolution, re- duced the nuns to great poverty, to relieve which the prior and convent of Lewes granted them the churches of Compton and Up Marden, re- serving a pension of 40 shillings and stipulating for the provision of sufficient vicarages.10 Though but poorly endowed Easebourne ap- pears to have always been an aristocratic com- munity. In 1283 Archbishop Peckham, who as primate had the right of appointing one nun, desired the prioress to receive Lucy, daughter of the late Sir William Basset, as an inmate,11 and in 1295 the prioress of Easebourne, one of the ladies by whose oath Margaret de Camoys purged herself on a charge of adultery, was Isabel de Montfort.12 Amongst later prioresses and sisters of this house we find members of such well-known families as Sackville, Covert, Hussey, Tawke, and Farnfold. Unfortunately high birth is not the most necessary qualification for the religious life, and what we know of the inmates of this priory is but little to their credit. A visitation 13 held in January, 1442, revealed the fact that the house 1 Dugdale, Man. iv, 423; Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 1-32, where the episcopal visitations are given in full. ' L. and P. Hen. VIII, xi, 202 (37). ' Leland. 4 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 47. 5 Ibid. Sherborn, fol. 1 04 ; Obituary Rolls (Surtees Soc.), 28. ' Toxatio Eccl. (Rec. Com.), 139. ' Hingeston-Randolph, Epis. Reg. of Exeter, Staple- dm, 387. 8 Pat. 6 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 30. • Pat. 10 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 3. 10 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 47; Pat. 10 Hen. IV, m. 5. 11 Reg. Epist. Peckbam (Rolls Ser.), ii, 577. " Rot. Part. (Rec. Com.), i, 147. 11 Chich. Epis. Reg. Praty, fol. 79. was in debt to the extent of £40 through the extravagance of the prioress, who was continually riding about with a large train of attendants, fared sumptuously, and dressed so finely that the fur trimmings of her mantle alone were worth 100 shillings (well over^ioo of modern money); but though luxurious herself she apparently be- lieved in vicarious mortification of the flesh, as she made her sisters work like hired workwomen, and kept them true to their vow of poverty by appropriating all the profits of their labour. The bishop removed the prioress from office, putting the house under the control of a clerk and a lay- man until it should be free from its debts, for the reduction of which he ordered the prioress to sell her costly furs ; at the same time she was ordered to diminish her household and reduce expenses in other ways, and to cease from com- pelling the sisters to work ; if any of them wished to work they might do so and might receive half the profits, the other half being con- verted to the advantage of the house. The suc- cess of the commissioners in dealing with the finances of the priory seems to have been small, as in 1451 the debts and expenses of the house were £66 6s. 8d., to meet which there was only a sum of ^22 31." The inventory of the furniture of the priory drawn up at this time u seems to speak of a state between poverty and riches. The community at this date probably numbered eight, as there is mention of eight psalters and eight beds ; there is also mention of two other beds with hangings of red worsted, in one of which we may no doubt see the ' bed of red worsted with a half-canopy embroidered ' which John de Bishopeston, chancellor of Chichester, bequeathed to his niece, a nun of Easebourne, in I374-16 When Edward Story was appointed bishop of Chichester in 1478 he apparently heard that things were not well at Easebourne, and in May of that year took the unusual step of summoning the prioress to Chichester, where she took an oath to resign at once if the bishop should re- quire it. At the same time the bishop enjoined her immediately to remove the sub-prioress from office ; to hold at least one chapter every week and correct the faults of the nuns ; to see that neither she herself nor any of the sisters should leave the precincts for the purpose of drinking or other improprieties ; and finally, to select every week one of the nuns to be her personal chap- lainess in order of seniority, but omitting the 14 Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 13. 16 Ibid. 1 1 ; Macray, Mun. ofMagd. Coll. Oxon. 86. 16 Will in P.C.C. Rous, fol. 5/5. 84 RELIGIOUS HOUSES sub-prioress.17 In the following month the bishop visited Easebourne and found matter enough for reformation.18 Silence was ill-kept, and the prioress was lax in enforcing the statutes; moreover her kinsmen constantly stayed for weeks in the house enjoying the best of every- thing, while the nuns had to put up with the worst. A certain ' brother William Cotnall,' who appears to have had control of the priory's affairs and the common seal, had used the latter for the advantage of his friends and had also dis- posed of certain jewels for his own benefit ; he further admitted having had improper relations with Philippa King, one of the nuns, who had since absconded with another sister, Joan Portesmouth, in company with a chaplain and one of the earl of Arundel's retainers. One of the sisters attri- buted the apostasy of these two nuns to the ill- discipline of their superior, coupled with the fact that they had each had one or more children long before their withdrawal. Another sister said that she had heard that the prioress herself had had one or two children many years before. It would almost seem that this remote priory served as a kind of reformatory for young women of good family who had strayed from the path of virtue.19 Xhe bishop's injunctions following on this visitation are not preserved. A visitation held in August, 1521, shows a better state of affairs ; the cloisters required re- pair, but the prioress had already bought the necessary materials, and the only other complaint was that the prioress, Margaret Sackville, did not pay her sisters their annual allowance of 13*. 4^. for clothing. As no accounts were produced for examination the visitor adjourned the visitation to 1 7 October.20 The community at this time consisted of the prioress, four pro- fessed nuns, and one novice, Joan Sackville, but in 1524 there were seven sisters besides the prioress ; of these, however, one is noted as twelve years old and another as ideota. On this occasion 21 the chief complaint made by the nuns was that the sub-prioress was too strict ; she, however, retorted by complaining of their disobedience, and the visitor contented himself with ordering her to behave well to her sisters. No very serious matter was brought forward, 17 Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, .14, from Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 42. 18 Ibid. fol. 23. 19 For an example of a married woman guilty of adultery who retired to the small Norfolk nunnery of Crabhouse, see Norf. Arch. Sac. xiii (3), 352. 10 Chich. Epis. Reg. Sherborn, fol. 104. 81 Ibid. pt. ii, fol. 95. though the sub-prioress mentioned that Ralph Pratt, farmer of the church of Easebourne and apparently receiver of the priory, some twelve years before had led astray Joan Covert, then a sister of the house. Orders were given for the prioress to render account yearly, and for the door leading into the church from the cloister to be kept locked. The privacy of the nuns in their portion of the church of Easebourne was further provided for by Sir David Owen, who had succeeded to the patronage, when he made his will in 1529, giving instructions for the building of a covered wooden passage from the nuns' dorter to the choir.22 Sir David also left to the priory many ornaments and rich vest- ments, but his pious care was in vain, for he out- lived the nunnery, dying only in 1542, whereas the priory being only of the clear value of £29 i6s. "]d.n was suppressed in 1536, and granted to Lord Treasurer FitzWilliam.2* PRIORESSES OF EASEBOURNE Alice, before 1279 25 Isabel de Montfort, occurs I3O226 Edith, occurs 1313 27 Beatrice, occurs 1327 23 Mary, occurs 1339 29 Margaret Wyvile, occurs 1^62^ Margery, occurs 141 1 31 Elizabeth, occurs 1440 32 Agnes Tawke, occurs 1478 33 Margaret Sackville, occurs 1 52 1,34 surrendered i53635 The seal 36 is not now known, but was oval, with the Virgin and Child under a carved canopy ; in base a man handing a book to a seated nun (?). Legend : — SIGILLUM DOMUS SANCTE MARIE DE ESEBORNA. " Suss. Arch. Coll. vii, 29. " Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 323. 14 L. and P. Hen. nil, xi, 202 (37). K Pat. 12 Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. 2. 18 Rot Par/. (Rec. Com.), i, 147. 27 Epis. Reg. Dioc. Exeter, Bp. Stapeldon, 387. 88 Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 4. 19 Pat. 12 Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. 2. 30 Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 6. 51 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 47. 38 Ibid. Praty, fol. 94. 3S Ibid. Story, fol. 23. 14 Ibid. Sherborn, fol. 103. » L. and P. Hen. nil, xi, 202 (37). * Dallaway, Hist, of Rape of Chich. i, 238. A HISTORY OF SUSSEX HOUSES OF PREMONSTRATENSIAN CANONS 16. THE ABBEY OF OTHAM1 The abbey of St. Mary and St. Laurence was founded about 1180 by Ralph de Dene, who granted his land and chapel of Otham in Hail- sham parish with other lands and rents in the neighbourhood to establish a house of Premon- stratensian canons. The endowment was aug- mented by his son Robert de Dene, who gave his manor of Tilton in Selmeston ; and by Ela, the founder's daughter, who married first Jordan de Sackville and afterwards William de Marci ; amongst other things she granted a yearly rent of 6d. for the bettering of the meals of the convent on St. Laurence's Day. The most con- siderable benefactors however were the family of Brade or Helling, who lived at 'the Broad' in Hellingly ; various members of this family gave lands in the neighbourhood of Hellingly, and Rikeward Brade gave the advowson of the church, which had been founded and endowed by his father and uncle ; in return for their liberality they had the privilege of presenting to one of the canonries, Wybert Brade being thus received as a canon on the presentation of Ralph Brade his nephew. The only other grant which need be mentioned here is that of Robert Falconer of Wooton, who gave 6 acres of land called Yeldelond on the Lewes road to provide lights on the day of St. Laurence for the souls of his father and mother and of Maud, his wife, who was buried at Otham. The bleak and unhealthy situation of Otham, out in the marshes and even now hardly acces- sible in winter, and the poorness of their endow- ments soon rendered life so unbearable that the canons began to consider the desirability of removing ; the first site offered was the church of Hellingly, suggested by Rikeward de Brade, whose brother Randolph put forward the alter- native of ' Melgrave ' in Hellingly. About 1207, however, Sir Robert de Turnham began to build an abbey at Bayham on the borders of Kent and Sussex, and Ela de Sackville, as patroness, gave leave for the transference of the canons from Otham thither. This cannot have taken place before 1208, as Jordan, the only known abbot of Otham and first abbot of Bayham, was still abbot of Otham in December, I2O7.2 After the removal Otham sank to the position of a grange, a canon no doubt being frequently resi- dent there to act as bailiff of the farm and to serve the chapel, which was evidently kept up, 1 This account is condensed from the detailed his- tory of the house in Salzmann, Hist. ofHailsham, 173— '93- 1 Cat. of Chart, of Abbey ofRobtrtsbridge, No. 63. as in 1404, when the abbot of Bayham let the manor of Otham to Henry Baker and John Drew, special reservation was made of all the offerings at the altar there, and of the image of St. Laurence in gold, silver, and wax, as well as of a room and stable with free access when required. A cast of a seal is ascribed to this house in the British Museum Catalogue* but the evidence for this ascription is unsatisfactory. 17. THE ABBEY OF BAYHAM4 It has just been related in the history of the abbey of Otham that about 1208 the canons of that abbey were transferred to Bayham, on the borders of Kent and Sussex, where Sir Robert de Turnham was establishing a monastery. Hither, too, Sir Robert brought the canons of the small Premonstratensian house of Brockley in Dept- ford, of which he was patron. The two con- vents were united under Jordan, previously abbot of Otham, and their respective endowments combined, Bayham thus holding the church of West Greenwich and various lands and rents in Kent as well as the Sussex property originally given to Otham. Further grants were made by the founder of lands in Yorkshire and elsewhere, and these were increased from time to time by other benefactors, so that in 1291 the abbey's possessions in Sussex were valued at £37 2s. 4^., with an additional £35 from other counties. While many of the gifts received were un- hampered by conditions, many others carried with them obligations of a religious nature — such as the maintenance of a canon to pray for the donor's soul, as in the case of a grant by Sybil de Icklesham 6 — or secular. Of the latter a good instance is the corrody granted to Simon Payn, who had given the convent 150 acres of land in Friston, in 1290. By this the canons covenanted not only to support Simon and his wife for the rest of their life, making the usual detailed allowance of food, beer, clothing, &c., but also to support his son Henry, a crippled clerk, who was to minister to them so far as his health allowed, to teach his two younger sons some trade within the precincts until they could support themselves, to give certain moneys to his four daughters, and to pay off various debts.6 In 86 ' Vol. i, 588. 4 Dugdale, Men. vi, 910-15 ; Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 145-80; Add. MSS. 6037, a transcript of the chartulary which was amongst the burnt Cottonian MSS. 4 Chartul. No. 45. • Ibid. fol. 9. RELIGIOUS HOUSES the same way Master Eustace de Wrotham, ap- parently their legal adviser, was given an annual pension, or retaining fee, of 4 marks with free accommodation whenever he wished to visit their house for relaxation 7 ; and a similar grant was made to Master William de Tonebrig in 1275." The position of law officer to the canons was no sinecure, as they were often involved in suits, of which the most noteworthy was that concern- ing the church of Hailsham. The advowson of this church had been granted to Michelham priory in 1229 by Gilbert de Laigle, and Master Robert de Blachington had been presented as rector apparently about 1260, but some years later the abbot of Bayham claimed the church as a chapel of his church of Hellingly. Having failed in the royal law courts he appealed to the ecclesiastical courts in 1279, but was ordered by the king to desist. The bishop of Chichester, siding with the priory, excommunicated the abbey, upon which the abbot appealed to the king, maintaining that this was an infringement of the liberties of their order 9 ; the bishop, how- ever, in January, 1280, successfully invoked the secular arm to remove these ' sons of perdition ' from Hailsham church,10 and accordingly the prior and Master Robert with some thirty others drove out by armed force the four canons and four lay brethren of Bayham who were in possession.11 An appeal to an ecclesiastical court in 1282 resulted in a decision by the archdeacon of South- wark in favour of the abbot, but this was set aside by the archbishop, and Master Robert had peaceful possession for a short time, but in the spring of 1287 the canons again seized the church and held it in spite of the archbishop's excommunication ; the secular arm was again invoked and the church forcibly recovered. The abbot now came to terms with the prior of Michelham, who surrendered his claim to the advowson in exchange for an annual payment of j£i6 13*. ifd, charged on the manor of Otham.12 The secular rectors, however, continued to dis- pute the abbot's title until 1296, when Arch- bishop Winchelsey decided in the latter's favour. Even this was not the end, for about 1458 there was another long suit between the abbey and priory over the payment of the jCi6 13*. \d. from Otham ; in the end victory lay with the priory, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, for the canons of Michelham were so impoverished by it that they had to sell their jewels,13 and even when the sheriff had put them into possession of the abbey's manor of Exceit the abbot by a legal trick endeavoured to force them to undertake a ' Chartul. No. 396 *. ' Ibid. No. 397. 9 Parly. Proc. file 2, No. 24. 10 Anct. Pet. 11741. 11 Coram Rege R. 60, m. 140. "Feet of F. 1 6 Edw. I, No. 31. " Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 28. new trial, which he as a wealthy and influential prelate could better afford than they.14 The abbot of Bayham in 1225-6 was em- ployed by the king on business in France,15 and in 1232 was selected by the pope as one of the three visitors of the exempt monasteries in the province of Canterbury,16 but the monasteries successfully refused to submit to this visitation,17 and the bishop of Chichester was equally unsuc- cessful in his attempt to cause the abbot to visit Battle Abbey.18 The abbot, again, was chosen by the archbishop in 1240 to publish his excommuni- cation of the monks of Christ Church, Canter- bury.19 This abbot appears to have been a friend of St. Richard, bishop of Chichester, who stayed here in September, 1242, when he granted an in- dulgence to those who gave alms to the church, similar to one granted by his beloved master St. Edmund. When the latter's body was exhumed for translation Bishop Richard wrote to the abbot of Bayham giving an account of the state in which it was found.20 After his death the bed in which the sainted bishop had slept at the abbey was declared to possess miraculous qualities. Bayham and St. Radegund's were the only two English houses that were actually daughters of the abbey of Prdmonstr6, that is to say, colonized direct from the mother-house of the order ; and it was possibly for this reason that we find these two houses alone taking no part in the refusal of the English abbots to attend the general chapter at Preinonstr£ in I3IO.21 In December of the same year, however, all the abbots seem to have been united in their chapter at Lincoln in withstanding the demand for a subsidy made by the abbot of Premonstrd,22 and it was the abbot of Bayham's proctor who sub- sequently appealed to Rome on behalf of the order,23 with the result that in May, 1312, the abbot of Bayham recovered 80 florins against the father abbot,24 who appears to have endeavoured to stop his action by excommunicating and even deposing him.25 Edward II paid a visit to the abbey in August, I324,26 and in the previous year the canons were asked to receive one of the canons of the abbey of Egglestone in Yorkshire which had been so ravaged by the Scots that it was no longer fit for habitation.37 The hardships of war had also " Early Chanc. Proc. bdle. 1 6, No. 642. 15 Close 10 Hen. Ill, m. 19, 21, 28. " Matt. Paris, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), Hi, 238. 17 Cal. Papal Let. i, 138. 18 Ibid. 19 Gervase of Canterbury (Rolls Ser.), ii, 175. " Matt. Paris, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), vi, 128. " Gasquet, Coll. Angk-Premons. (Camd. Soc.), i, Nos. 2, 3. " Ibid. No. 9. " Ibid. No. 10. " Ibid. No. 27. * Ibid. No. 1 6. K Suss. Arch. Coll. vi, 44. 97 Close 17 Edw. II, m. A HISTORY OF SUSSEX befallen the mother-house, and in 1354 the abbot of Bayham, as commissioner of the order in England, summoned a chapter at Grantham to consider the question of making a gift to the abbot of Pre'monstr6.28 An abbot of this house was again commissioner of the order in 1421 when he asked leave to go to Flanders to meet the abbot of Premonstre's agents to arrange various matters.29 Another abbot contested the same post with the celebrated Richard Redman, abbot of Shap, in the spring of 1459. This abbot, Thomas, had been appointed commissioner about I44430 and again sometime before 1454, when he summoned a general chapter of the order at Northampton, at which certain orders were made concerning the dress of the canons.31 In March, 1458-9, how- ever, the father abbot cancelled his commission and appointed the abbot of Shap instead;32 Abbot Thomas, however, appears to have con- cocted charges of extortion and oppression against Redman 33 and temporarily recovered his position ; 34 but upon further inquiry the father abbot reinstated Redman, who in April, 1459, appointed certain abbots to inquire into the abbot of Bayham's conduct and if necessary depose and excommunicate him.35 Either this abbot or a successor subsequently held office, but was again deprived, on a charge of negligence, in favour of the abbot of Shap in I466.36 Of the inner history of this house we have few early details, but in 1305 orders were issued by the abbot of Pr£monstr£ for the arrest of three canons of Bayham for rebellion and disobedience,37 and in 1315 Abbot Laurence was compelled to resign as the result of a visitation.38 Of the visita- tions made by Richard Redman, abbot of Shap and bishop of St. Asaph, accounts are preserved in the Bodleian Library.39 In the case of that of 1472 we learn that there were seven canons, besides the abbot and one novice ; several of these were serving cures and were ordered to return at once into residence ; the house was deeply in- volved in debt by the mismanagement of recent abbots. In September, 1478, the visitor found the buildings in utter ruin, the number of canons insufficient and three of them apostate, whom he forthwith excommunicated ; the abbot, however, was praised for his success in reducing the debts and increasing the stock of the community. Similar praise was earned by the abbot in 1488, 28 Gasquet, op. cit. No. 35. " Acts ofP.C. ii, 283. 30 Early Chanc. Proc. bdle. 15, No. 169. " Gasquet, op. cit. 75-7. "Ibid. 38. "Ibid. 144. 34 Ibid. 78. "Ibid. 144. " Ibid. 39. 37 Coram Rege R. 1 80, m. I d. 38 MS. 59 ; C.C.Coll. Cam. 39 Abstracted in SMS. Arch. Coll. vs., 1 64-9 ; printed in full in Gasquet, op. cit. ii, Nos. 241-60. 88 but again the number of canons in residence was too small and orders were given to recall those who were serving cures other than churches be- longing to the abbey. Strictures were also passed upon the canons for wearing fashionable boots and shoes like those of laymen, and the cellarer was absolved for having struck one of his brethren. In 1491 the same good providence in temporal matters was found joined with the same slackness in things spiritual, orders being given to restrict the wandering habits of the canons and to cele- brate mattins and the other canonical hours more regularly ; one brother was on this occasion banished to Newhouse, in Lincolnshire, for in- continence. In 1494 also one canon had to be banished for incontinency and another excom- municated as apostate, and the number of canons was ordered to be increased, but in 1497 the visitor had nothing but praise for the excellent management of the abbot. Finally, in 1500 nothing is found amiss and the visitor is able to ' render thanks to God for the laudable providence of the abbot ' ; he, however, renewed his injunc- tion for increasing the number of canons, the community at this date consisting of the abbot and ten brethren, of whom two were apostate, one a novice and another serving the cure of Pembury. In 1524 when Wolsey, at the height of his power, obtained the papal licence to suppress a number of small monasteries and bestow their endowments upon his colleges at Oxford and Ips- wich, Bayham was one of the houses appointed to be thus suppressed,40 but the fall of this house,which was dissolved in May 1 525,41 was greatly resented by the neighbourhood, and a large force assembled under the leadership of Thomas Towers, a late canon, whom they reinstated as abbot, holding the abbey with armed force for some little time ;4S but in the end the resistance seems to have flickered out and died a natural death, the ring- leaders being captured and imprisoned. ABBOTS OF BAYHAM Jordan43 Reginald, occurs I22I-35,44 and 1243" Benedict, occurs 1 245 46 Reginald, occurs 1 246-9 a John, occurs I25&48 Thomas, occurs I26349 John, occurs I27260 40 L. and P. Hen. rill, iv, 650. 41 Ibid, iv, 1137. 43 Suss. Arch. Coll. vii, 221-3. "Cartul, No. 122. 44 Feet of F. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), Nos. 175-333. 44 Chartul, No. 373. 46 Feet ofF. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), No. 424. 47 Ibid. Nos. 429-92. 48 Feet of F. Suss, file 19, No. 20. "Ibid, file 2 3, No. 19. 60 According to Cooper, Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 179. RELIGIOUS HOUSES Reginald, occurs 1277" Richard, occurs i2j8M-g6M Laurence, occurs 1305," resigned 131 5 M Luke de Coldone, elected 13 IS,66 occurs 1344" Simon, occurs 1345 68 Solomon, occurs 1352 69 William, occurs I353,60 1355 61 Robert Frendesbury, occurs 1405 62 John Chetham, elected 1409," occurs 1429 84 William Maydeston, occurs I437,66 died I43968 Thomas Shorham, elected 1 439,67 occurs I44767 Thomas, occurs 1 454-9 68 Thomas Cottingham, occurs 1475 69 Robert Hertley, occurs 1478™ Robert Nasch, occurs 1488-91" Richard Bexley, occurs 1 49472- 1 500 and 1 5 2 273 William Galys, elected I52274 The seals of two abbots are known : — REGINALD. — Pointed oval : the abbot on a corbel ; in the right hand a pastoral staff, in the left hand a book.76 Legend : — -f- SIGNV : REGIN' : AB DE BEGEHAM. JOHN CHETEHAM. — Pointed oval : the abbot, standing in a canopied niche ; in the left hand a pastoral staff, curved outwards. In a smaller canopied niche on each side, an angel. In base, a shield of arms : — in chief a lion passant, in base a pastoral staff, on the sinister side two lozenges in pale.76 Legend : — 0 IOHIS M : 18. THE ABBEY OF DUREFORD77 About the year 1 1 60 Henry Hussey granted to Berengar, abbot of Welbeck, land at Dure- 51 Pat. 5 Edw. I, m. 16. 61 Assize R. 914, m. 42. 43 Anct. D., A 10238. 44 Pat. 33 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 5. " C.C.C. Camb. MS. 59. " Ibid. " Cal. Papal Let. \\\, 179. 48 Gasquet, Coll. Angl. Premons. ii, 71. 49 Chartul. fol. 10. 60 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 509. 61 Assize R. 941, m. 23 d. " Dugdale, Man. vi, 9 1 o. 63 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 1233. 64 Gasquet, op. cit. 71, from Harl. Chart. 44A, 15; 766,49. 64 Add. Chart. 30078. M Chich. Epis. Reg. Praty, fol. 64. 67 Add. Chart. 30080. 48 Gasquet, op. cit. i, 75, 144. 69 Ibid, ii, 72. 70 Ibid. 74. 71 Ibid. 75, 77. " Ibid. 79, 80. 71 Dugdale, Man. vi, 910. 74 Chich. Epis. Reg. Sherborn, fol. 40. 74 Egerton Chart. 375. 78 Harl. Chart. 76 G, 44 ; 75 F, 37. 77 Dugdale, Man. vi, 936-9 ; Sow. Arch. Coll. viii, 41-96 ; Chartul. Cott. MS. Vesp. E. xxiii. ford, part of his demesne of Harting, for the establishment of a house of Premonstratensian canons. The abbey of St. Mary and St. John the Baptist of Dureford was therefore founded as a daughter of Welbeck, with the consent of Henry II and Hilary, bishop of Chichester.78 The founder and his son Henry made consider- able grants of lands in the immediate neighbour- hood, which were further added to by many local landowners, including William de Braose, who gave them certain salt-pans near Bramber and a tun of red wine yearly for use at mass. Gifts of provisions were also made by the younger Henry Hussey, who granted them the tithe of all the victuals used in his house at Harting — later converting this into a money rent of 15*. as- signed to the refectory ; he also gave them the tithe of cheese from his demesnes.79 The same benefactor gave them leave to use any quarry on his lands for the building of their abbey, and William le Vesselir added a quarry at ' Wyhus.' ** Henry Hussey further bestowed upon the canons his chapel of Standen, and the church of Rogate, reserving a pension of 251. to the abbey of S6ez.81 He further endowed the church of Dureford on the day of its dedication with a grove adjoining the London road.82 Other lands were obtained by gift and pur- chase, and in 1248 the abbey acquired the site and property of the lazar-house of Harting from the master of the order of St. Lazarus for^So.83 The Hampshire manor of Sonworth was given in 1267 by Gilbert, earl of Gloucester,84 possibly in memory of his brother William de Clare, who had been buried here after his death from poison treacherously administered in I258.86 Conse- quently by 1291 the abbey's property in Sussex and elsewhere reached the value of ,£55. Gifts continued to be made, some being assigned for special purpose, as for masses or lights at the altars of the Blessed Virgin, Holy Cross, or St. Catherine. The younger Henry Hussey gave certain lands for the support of two canons to celebrate early masses at the altar of the Holy Trinity and of St. Eutropius.86 The donors were sometimes re- warded by grants of corrodies, several instances of which occur apart from those compulsorily granted to royal nominees.87 The only benefaction which need be noticed, however, is the advowson of the church of Compton in Surrey given by John de Bridford in I33O,88 and appropriated by royal licence in I346.89 The life of the abbey, though situated in a 78 Cott. MS. Vesp. E. xxiii, fol. 30. 79 Ibid. fols. 10, 19. "° Ibid. fol. 65. 81 Ibid. fol. 17. 8l Ibid. fol. 14. » Ibid. fol. 1 06. 84 Ibid. fol. 1 66. 86 Ann. Mm. (Rolls Ser.), i, 165. 88 Cott. MS. Vesp. E. xxiii, fol. 24. 87 Close, ii Edw. II, m. io ABBKY (FoURFEENTH CENTL'Rv) DUREFORD ABBEY (THIRTEENTH CENTURY) ST. KATHERINE'S HOSPITAL, SHOREMAM SUSSEX MONASTIC SEALS : PLATE III RELIGIOUS HOUSES These all stood up staunchly for their order, but another Sussex templar, Richard de Kocfeld, said that John de Borne, confessor to Earl Warenne, said that he had ruined his soul by joining the order, while he further related that Walter, rector of Hoathly, had told him that he had heard that a certain Templar had said there was one article of the oath of admission which he could never reveal to any living creature. PRECEPTORS OF SHIPLEY John de Hamedon, occurs 1247 Thomas de la Fenne, occurs 1288 * 1292* William de Egendon, 1304-8. HOUSE OF KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS 21. THE PRECEPTORY OF POLING The origin of the preceptory of Poling does not appear to be known, but in 1338 the lands of the Hospitallers in Sussex * consisted of the estate of Poling with lands in Combe and Off- ham, bringing in £13 ijs. 3^. yearly, with other property in Ocklynge at Eastbourne, Mid- hurst, Up Marden, Islesham, and Rumboldswyke bringing the total up to £78 in. 3^., inclusive of 40 marks for ' confraria,' that is to say alms collected in the neighbourhood. Against this had to be set £34 for the expenses of the estab- lishment, which consisted of Peter atte Nasshe, knight preceptor, and his confrater Clement de Donewico, knight, a chaplain, a ' claviger ' or steward, a cook, two attendants of the preceptor, and two clerks employed to collect the ' con- fraria,' of whom one had his board at the pre- ceptory and was therefore probably collector in the immediate neighbourhood, while the other who did not board presumably worked the more distant districts. Besides these estates, the lands formerly held by the Templars at Shipley (worth 10 marks clear), and Compton (leased for 4 marks), had passed to the hospital,5 but the manor of Saddlescombe, worth 100 marks, had not so passed, having been seized by the earl of Surrey.6 In 1341 the Ocklynge estate was seized into the king's hand on the ground that the prior of the hospital was bound to find a chaplain to celebrate there, and to give alms to the poor twice in the week, but upon inquiry it was found that no such service was due, though brother Robert de Criel, who had held it for fifty years, had distributed such alms of his own free will.7 After the suppression of the priory of St. John of Jerusalem, the estates at Poling were given, in 1541, to the college of Arundel.8 FRIARIES 22. HOUSE OF DOMINICAN FRIARS, ARUNDEL The date and circumstances in which the Dominicans settled at Arundel are not known, but it is possible that they were brought there by Isabel, countess of Arundel.1 The first men- tion of their convent is in 1253, when St. Richard, bishop of Chichester, left to them in his will 201. and a book of Sentences.2 It is not unlikely that the saint's confessor and bio- grapher, Ralf Bocking, who was a Dominican, may have been an inmate of this house, the only one of the order in Sussex at that date.3 When Edward I came to Arundel in May, 1297, he gave 221. for three days' food for the friars,4 which at the recognized rate of 4^. for a day's food, would -»i. 1 Assize R. 924, m. 59. 1 Magd. Coll. Oxon. D., < Shoreham,' 1 8. 4 Larking, The Knights Hoifit. in Engl. (Camd. Soc.), 24, 25. 'Ibid. 175. 'Ibid. 213. 7 Close, 1 5 Edw. Ill; pt. iii, m. 20. point to a community of twenty-two brethren at this time, and a similar royal gift in 1324 of 6s. 8d. for one day's food corresponds to twenty brethren.5 Edmund, earl of Arundel, in 1324 obtained licence to grant to the friars 2 acres of land adjoining their precincts,6 but no other grant of land is recorded. In 1381 Michael Northburgh, canon of Chichester, mentioned in his will that he had bound himself to bestow a sum of £40 upon the Friars Preachers of Arundel, in return for which they were to celebrate two masses for him, the first at the high altar and the second at the lower ; and they were further to construct two glazed windows with the money, as set forth in an indenture made between them.7 But in spite of numerous legacies, the house was a poor L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xvi, 1056 (69). Suss. Arch. Coll. xxviii, 87. Ibid, i, 167. s Ibid, xxviii, 87. Ibid. 5 Ibid. 88. Pat. 17 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 19. 7 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Courtenay, fol. 208. 93 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX one, and in 1402, when one of the brethren, John Bourne, in the fervour of his religious zeal had himself enclosed as an anchorite in a cell of the convent he found the inconvenience of the place and the penury of the house so trying that he obtained papal licence to move to some more suitable place, taking with him his clothes, books, and other belongings.8 Of the inner history of this priory we can say but little. Its prior in 1314 was one of the eight English priors removed from office and de- clared incapable of immediate re-election by the general chapter of that year.9 When the bishop of Dover visited Arundel in July, I538,10 he found the friars too poor to pay even a part of his expenses, but he recorded that the three brethren were ' in good name and favour.' Al- though there were only three friars here in July, 1538, when the house was surrendered in October of the same year, there were four besides the prior.11 PRIORS OF ARUNDEL. John de Grensted, occurs I33O12 John Bailly, occurs 1414" John Colwyll, surrendered I538.14 23. HOUSE OF DOMINICAN FRIARS, CHICHESTER 16 The Black Friars settled at Chichester some time after 1253, f°r tne}' are not mentioned with the other Sussex friaries in St. Richard's will, and before 1283. In this latter year their prior, William, was accused of having celebrated mass at Steyning, although Archbishop Peckham had laid the church under an interdict.16 Apparently at this time they had only temporary buildings, as, in 1284, Edmund earl of Cornwall remitted them the rent due for their place in the city and licensed them to obtain further plots of land ad- joining, to enclose the whole and to erect an oratory with other offices.17 Next year, in July, 1285, the court was at Chichester, and Queen Eleanor bought a strip of land 104 ft. long by 44 ft. broad adjoining the friars' grounds and gave it to them.18 The same queen in 1286 made a further grant of land in East Street.19 In 1289 they obtained leave to enclose their * Cat. Papal Let. iv, 352 ; v, 470. * Suts. Arch. Coll. xxviii, 87. 10 L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xiii (i), 1456. » Ibid, xiii(z), 579. " Suss. Arch. Coll. xii, 28. 13 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Chicheley, 275. 14 L. and P. Hen. nil, xiii (2), 579. 14 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxix, 39-45. 16 Reg. Efiit. Peckham (Rolls Ser.), ii, 620. 17 Pat. 4 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 24. 19 Pat. 1 3 Edw. I, m. 8. "Pat. 1 8 Edw. I, m. 1 6 enlarged lands with a wall, blocking up two streets but making another on their own ground from St. Andrew's church in the Pallant southwards to the city wall.20 As their premises were still too cramped Edward II in 1310 licensed them to acquire further land,21 and the property thus obtained was released from suit at the king's courts by Richard II in I38o.22 When Edward I was at Chichester in 1297, he sent the friars 345. for three days' food, which, as 4^. was the recognized allowance for one day, shows that there were then thirty-four friars resident; but a similar gift in 1324 of js. for one day's food shows that the number had fallen to twenty-one.23 Bequests to this friary, which was under the patronage of St. Vincent,24 are numerous in the wills of local testators. John Wode, who died in 1479, left to the Friars Preachers a noble — under the condition that the prior shall not disgrace my brother for that trespass which he with many others did in dragging a thief out of the said prior's church against his will, as the prior says.84 The bishop of Dover reported favourably of the friars of Chichester in July, I538,26 and in October returned here and received the surrender, which is signed by the prior and six brethren.27 The house was poor, and when their debts had been paid and their 80 oz. of plate redeemed from pledge, there was not enough to pay the visitor's costs.28 PRIORS OF CHICHESTER William, occurs I28329 Richard Win, occurs I36430 John Brown, occurs I38331 John Anteny, surrendered I538.32 24. HOUSE OF DOMINICAN FRIARS, WINCHELSEA33 Although when the new town of Winchelsea was founded it had been stipulated that no other religious house than that of the Grey Friars should be erected within it, Edward II in 1318 granted a vacant plot of 1 2 acres on the southern 10 Pat. 17 Edw. I, m. 1 1. " Pat. 4 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 24. m Pat. 4 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 43. * Suss. Arch. Coll. xxix, 41. 14 Obit. R. (Surtees Soc.), 38. 14 P.C.C. Logge, fol. 1 1 ib. " L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xiii (i), 1456. " Ibid, xiii (2), 563. " Ibid. ; Suss. Arch. Coll. xxix, 44. " Reg. Epist. Peckham (Rolls Ser.), ii, 620. ^ Cat. Papal Let. iv, 46. " Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Courtenay, fol. 203. " L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xiii (2), 563. 38 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxviii, 91-6. 94 RELIGIOUS HOUSES edge of the cliff at Winchelsea, not far from the New Gate, for the erection of a house of Black Friars.34 The site thus granted, however, was so far removed from the business quarters of the town that but few persons came to worship in the church, and the alms bestowed were small. Accordingly in 1339 licence was given for William Batan of South Iham to grant the friars 6 acres of land ' near the town ' whereon to build their house and oratory.36 It is not cer- tain that they availed themselves of the per- mission to move, but if they did it would seem that the new site was down by the harbour, and even less satisfactory than the first, for in 1342 they obtained from the pope a faculty to move to another part of the town, as their convent was in danger of being swept away by the sea.36 For the next fifteen years the history of these friars is unknown, but in 1358 the king granted them an acre of land in the centre of the town near the church of St. Giles and allowed them to take over five messuages adjoining this land,37 and here they found a permanent abiding-place. In 1372 the king released them from payment of the rent of 5*. 8f<£ due for the said five messuages,38 and these concessions were confirmed by Henry VI in I429-39 Of the history of this house, which was under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin,40 very little is known. In 1398 Henry Sucton was ap- pointed for a term of three years as ' lector ' or teacher of philosophy and theology, and had permission to make a pilgrimage to Rome.41 The prior a few years later appears to have been a partisan of Richard II, as in 1402 Henry IV issued orders to arrest him and the rector of Horsmonden, in Kent, for high treason.42 The result of his trial is not known, and beyond numerous legacies, and the occurrence of Hugh Stonard as prior in I439,42a no further reference is found to this Dominican friary of Winchelsea until its dissolution in July, 1538, when the bishop of Dover reported that the house was ruinous, its furniture had fetched £10, there was a close let for 2OJ., and the rest of the property would not bring in ids. a year.43 25. HOUSE OF FRANCISCAN FRIARS, CHICHESTER The date at which the Franciscans first came to Chichester is not known, but it may well have 84 Pat. 1 1 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 29. " Pat. 13 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 22. 36 Cal. Papal Pet. 2. 37 Pat. 32 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m.23- "Pat. 46 Edw. Ill, m. II. "Pat. 8 Hen. VI.pt. i, m. 19. 40 Obit. R. (Surtees Soc.), 28. 41 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxviii, 93. " Pat. 3 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 1 8 d. 4H De Banco R. Hil. 9 Hen. IV, m. i 50. 43 L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xiii (i), 1456. been soon after their arrival in England in 1225, as Brother Walter de Colevile, one of the first of the friars to come to this country, had relations in Chichester.44 They had certainly been settled some little time before 1253, when Henry III confirmed the grant made in their favour by his brother Richard, earl of Cornwall, of a lane adjoining their premises.48 In the same year St. Richard, bishop of Chichester, bequeathed to the Friars Minor of Chichester 2OJ. and a psalter.4' In 1269 the friars were allowed to move their house from the original cramped position to the vacant site of the castle,47 and here they built the church of which the graceful remains still stand, and in which Archbishop Peckham held an or- dination in I282.48 Of history these Grey Friars appear to have had little ; when the bishop of Dover visited the house in July, 1538, he found it in good order,49 and so left it undisturbed until 8 October, when it was duly surrendered by the seven brethren then resident.60 The inventory taken upon its dissolution 51 shows little furniture of value, save 140 ounces of silver ; the build- ings were in good repair, ' all ye holl howse new syleyde rownde abowte wyndaus and all ye wyndaus well gleseyd,' and there were ' in ye lybrary iiij stalls and a halff substancyally new made w* dyvrse olde bokes ; item a goodely new presse w* aimers for bokes.' The seal of Hugh, warden in 1253, 's a pointed oval : [the Virgin and Child] under a canopy upheld by two full-length saints, each holding a long cross and standing on a head ? of a lion. In base, under a trefoiled arch, the warden, half-length, in prayer to the left.52 Legend : — ME FOUE PAULE DOCE PIA [VIRGO] PETRE RESOLUE. 26. HOUSE OF FRANCISCAN FRIARS, LEWES The Grey Friars were evidently settled in Lewes some time before 1249, as the Assize Roll of that year mentions the case of a thief who sought sanctuary in the church of St. Mary at Lewes and escaped thence to the house of the Friars Minor of Lewes and remained there for ten days.63 They occur again in 1253 as benefiting under St. Richard's will to the extent of 2os. and a 44 Man. Francisc. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 25. 45 Pat. 37 Hen. Ill, m. 22^. 46 Suss. Arch. Coll. i, 167. "Pat. 53 Hen. Ill, m. 2. 48 Reg. Efist. Peckham (Rolls Ser.), iii, 1029. 49 L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xiii (i), 1456. 50 Ibid, xiii (2), 562. 51 Suss. Arch. Coll. xliv, 71-2. a Harl. Ch. 83, C. 32. The letters M E of 'me,' u E of ' fove,' u L of ' Paule,' and u E of ' resolve,' are respectively conjoined. 43 Assize R. 909, m. 32. 95 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX book of the gospels of St. Luke and St. John.64 A grant of 245. for three days' food, made to the friary in 1299, when King Edward was at Lewes, shows that there were then twenty-four brethren.58 From this time their history is a blank, broken only by occasional bequests of money from pious testators, until shortly before the dissolution. In May, 1533, Cromwell sent one Thomas Folks down to Lewes to make inquiries about a chalice which was in the hands of ' one Robert a Smyzth of Framfield.' The warden, John Parker,56 was away at the time 'at Winchelsea at the visitation of Dr. Quickhoppes,' and the vice- warden knew nothing of the matter, but Thomas Man, ' lister ' of the house, wrote to Cromwell saying that about Easter one of their chalices disappeared, and he heard the warden say that he had lent it ; it was duly returned on 27 April.67 Four years later, when the suppression of the religious orders was proceeding, and spies and sycophants were carrying every light word of ' treason ' to Cromwell, it was reported that Brother Richard and Brother Longe of the Grey Friars of Lewes had said that the king was dead, the wish being evidently assumed to be father to the thought. Brother Richard admitted that he had said so to his brethren, Brother Longe and ' Black Herry ' ; when asked where he had heard the news, he ' stood long amazed and at last said that a somyner who keeps an alehouse opposite the Friars' gate told him ' ; the latter however, denied having even heard the rumour, whence it appeared that Brother Richard himself was the originator of ' the abominable tidings.' 6I The sequel appears three weeks later, when Sir William Shelley writes to Cromwell that 'the friars have their punishment this Saturday at Lewes, and take it very penitently.' 5! This appears to have been one of the last of the friaries to be surrendered, as on 15 December, 1538, the bishop of Dover wrote to Cromwell that if the northern houses had made their releases to the king he knew of no house to re- lease except Lewes.60 Shortly afterwards he writes that he has received the house to the king's use. It was not much of a haul, as the goods, includ- ing altars, bells, windows, and gravestones, would not cover the debts, which were ^15 41. ; there was 77 oz. of plate but it was mostly pledged and would have to be redeemed.61 In 1524 John Peterson desired to be buried ' in the church of St. Frauncis of the Freres Minors of Lewes befor the chapell of saint Bar- bara,'62 but the more correct title appears to have been ' church of St. Mary and St. Margaret.' M 54 Suss. Arch. CoL \, 167. " Ibid, ii, 146. M He occurs as warden in 1531 ; Add. Ch. 29844. " L. and P. Hen. Vlll, vi, 435. "Ibid, xii (2), 1185. "Ibid. 1282. 60 Ibid, xiii (2), 1059. 61 Ibid. 1060. " Will in P.C.C. Bodfelde, 27. 13 Obit. R. (Surtees Soc.), 28. 96 27. HOUSE OF FRANCISCAN FRIARS, WINCHELSEA The Grey Friars were established at Winchel- sea before 1253, m which year they are men- tioned in the will of St. Richard.64 Another early reference is in a plea of 1263 concerning land in Pevensey salt-marshes, when it is men- tioned that the father of one of the parties, not being able to afford the cost of protecting the land from the sea, leased it at a low rent to ' a certain prior of Winchelsea,' who can only have been the prior of the Grey Friars, on condition of his embanking it.66 When the old town of Winchelsea was destroyed by the great storm of 1287 and rebuilt by King Edward the barons stipulated that he should allow no religious establishment to be erected, save only a house of Friars Minors.66 With the exception of a casual reference in 1294, when the abbot of Westminster, as a penalty for harbouring an apostate friar, was condemned to pay 60 marks to be divided be- tween the houses of Winchelsea and Litchfield,67 and of numerous bequests of goods and money, the history of the church of St. Francis M of Win- chelsea is practically a blank until July, 1538, when the bishop of Dover, who was visiting the friaries to receive their surrender, came here.69 He found the Grey Friars very poor ; the warden was absent or would probably have given up the house, as indeed he must have done shortly after this. PRIORS, OR WARDENS, OF WINCHELSEA John Beere, occurs I5io70 Robert Beddington, occurs 1530" 28. HOUSE OF AUSTIN FRIARS, RYE The only settlement of this order of friars in Sussex was at Rye, and of its origin nothing is known except that the friars were firmly estab- lished here by the middle of the fourteenth century. In 1368 the prior and convent of the Friars Eremites of St. Augustine in Rye granted that one of their brethren, being a priest, should celebrate daily at the altar of St. Nicholas in the parish church for the welfare of William Taylour of Rye and Agnes his wife, in return for certain benefactions.73 ' Ten years later, the mayor and commonalty of Rye granted the "Suss. Arch. Coll. \, 167. " Assize R. 912, m. 13. " Parl. Proc. file 2, No. 6. " Man. Francisc. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 60. 48 Obit. R. (Surtees Soc.), 28. 69 L. and P. Hen. nil, xiii (i), 1456. 70 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 129. 71 Ibid, vii, 220. " Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 497. RELIGIOUS HOUSES friars a place called ' le Haltone,' near the town ditch, reserving right of access to the town wall for repairs and other purposes.73 From this time the friars occur frequently in Sussex wills as recipients of bequests, usually of small value, but with the exception of a statement in 1524 that in that year the roof of the buildings (tegumentum fabricae) of the friars was erected at the expense of William Marshe, husbandman,74 their history is a blank. The seals of the community of the office of prior attached to the deed of 1368 are 'vesica- shaped, each representing St. Augustin in the act of benediction.' A different seal is appended to the deed of 1378, and shows ' St. Augustin holding a crozier, with an upright anchor before him, and people standing below.'75 29. HOUSE OF CARMELITE FRIARS, SHOREHAM The only establishment of Carmelite friars in Sussex was the house of the Blessed Virgin founded at Shoreham by Sir John de Mowbray 76 in 1316. The founder's father-in-law, William de Braose, shortly afterwards gave them a messuage adjoining their house,77 and in 1348 Sir John de Mowbray obtained leave to give them a further i^ acres extending from their dwelling to the High Street on the north.78 They also obtained from the Hospitallers in 1326 a house and chapel in Shoreham which had formerly be- longed to the Templars.79 Some fifty years after their foundation they appear to have enlarged their church, as in 1368 Sir Michael dePoynings left £20 to the Carmelites of Shoreham towards building their church.80 They were also the re- cipients of numerous other, but small, legacies. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the inroads of the sea threatened to sweep away the friars' house, and accordingly in 1493 they removed to the vacant buildings of the priory of Sele, which had been suppressed and made over to Magdalen College, Oxford, by permission of whose fellows the friars were allowed to take up their quarters there.81 These Carmelites appear to have been at the time of the dissolution the poorest of all the Sussex friars, against none of whom could charges of luxury be levelled. The other houses all contrived to struggle on in poverty till suppressed, but when the bishop of Dover came in July, 1538, to the White Friars of Sele, he found 'neither friar nor secular, but the doors open ' ; there was no prior, ' nor none to serve God,' and had not been for some time ; the house, chapel, and 4 acres of land belonged to Magdalen College, being only leased by the friars, and with the exception of choir stalls valued at 2Os., and a bell in the church steeple which the parish claimed, the furniture of the priory, including ' a sorry bell ' and some ragged vestments, was valued at only 35. 4 Pat. 6 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 6. " Ibid. m. 5. 64 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 70. M Ibid. * Sun. Arck. Coll. xxi, 50. Richard Hugh, appointed 1402, exchanged 1406 " Nicholas Cotille, appointed 1406, exchanged Thomas Waryn, appointed 1408" Thomas Gardener, occurs 1437 68 Gilbert Boxforde, occurs 1442 M William Forden, occurs 1471 m Hugh Gryndon, occurs 1481," 1490 6S Richard Odeby, occurs 1525" Francis Everede, gent., occurs 1540" Charles Lascelles, occurs I594,66 i6c666 William Lawes, clerk, occurs i6i8,87 1621 36. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY CHICHESTER •» This hospital is said to have been founded in the reign of Henry II by William, dean of Chichester, and was certainly firmly established by 1229, in which year the king licensed the demolition of the poor and dilapidated church of St. Peter in the market and the annexation of its only two parishioners to the hospital of St. Mary.70 From this, and from incidental references in contemporary deeds, it seems that the original buildings were connected with the church of St. Mary-in-the-Market near the present market cross. Whoever may have actually founded the hospital there can be no doubt that it was prac- tically refounded by Thomas of Lichfield, dean of Chichester from 1232 to c. 1248, during which period also most of its property in Chiches- ter and the neighbourhood was acquired. There were at this time thirteen inmates, male and female, under a master, or prior as he is called in Dean Thomas's statutes,71 part of the inmates being sick and infirm and the others sound. The right of admission rested with the prior who, after satisfying himself of the suit- ability of any candidate, caused him to take the vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty ; after which the newly admitted person if a male kissed the brethren, or if a female the sisters, and had his, or her, hair cut short. Excellent rules were laid down for the punishment of offences, the 67 Ibid. 49. M Chich. Epis. Reg. Praty, fol. 70. • Ibid. 80 Pat. 49 Hen. VI, m. 12. 81 Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 73. 61 Exch. Enrolment of Pleas, 5 Hen. VII, 23 d. 83 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 305. 64 Add. MS. 24828, fol. 148. 84 Ibid. 5706, fol. 121. 68 Ibid.; called Charles Lasie and said to have had certain rents for last 25 years. 87 Ibid. fol. 122. " Ibid. 24828, fol. 158. 89 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiv, 41-62 ; Wright, The Story of the Domtu Dei of Chichester. n Pat. 1 3 Hen. Ill, m. 7. 71 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiv, 44-7. ICO \ RELIGIOUS HOUSES usual punishment being to fast on bread and water sitting at the bottom of the table without a napkin. Sick persons without friends were to be admitted without cavil, and upon their recovery allowed to depart with their clothes and money, unless they chose to offer anything ; if they died in the hospital without making any will their property was to be kept for a year and then if not claimed should go to the house. Directions were given for the care of poor persons arriving late at night and departing the next morning, and for the repetition of Paternosters, Aves, and memorial prayers for benefactors. From these statutes it appears that while it was expected that there would often be a priest present no special provision was made for one, but shortly after this Martin, a citizen of Chichester, and Julian his wife gave lands for the support of a chaplain who was to rank next to the prior and was to be present at all the canonical hours, as well as celebrating certain special masses.78 In 1269 the Friars Minor left their original settlement and moved to the site of the destroyed castle of Chichester, and the king gave leave for the hospital to be removed to the place lately occupied by the friars ; whether such removal took place at this time is not clear, but the warden and brethren were licensed to retain this land in 1285," and were allowed in 1290 to close a path running across it.74 Probably, there- fore, it is to the latter date that we should ascribe the final establishment of St. Mary's in its present situation. In spite of the wise regulations set out in the statutes there appears to have been much mis- management, and in 1382 a commission was issued for the visitation of the hospital, to inquire as to the diminished number of inmates, waste of property, and defects in buildings and furniture.76 This is further borne out by Bishop Reade's visitation in 1402, when it was found that the services were neglected, and the thirteen poor inmates defrauded of their ancient allowance of broth and sometimes kept for twenty weeks without their weekly salary of a groat.76 A visitation in 1442 showed that there were then only two brethren and two sisters,77 and in 1478 there were, besides the warden and chaplain, five inmates,78 which number does not seem to have been exceeded after this date. The year 1528 marked an important epoch in the l:re of this institution, for the dean, William Fishmonger, drew up a fresh series of regulations for its government. The warden was in future t'j be a priest, and was to visit the hospital once a .nonth, to see that mass was duly celebrated in 71 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiv, 49. "Pat. 13 Edw. I, m. 42. 74 Pat. 1 8 Edw. I, m. 29. " Pat. 6 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 37^. 76 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 26. 77 Ibid. Praty, fol. 78. " Ibid. Story, fol. 10. the chapel and by the chantry priest, to have general control of the house and to render yearly account to the dean and chapter ; for this he should receive £8 yearly and 13*. $d. for his steward. The number of poor inmates was limited to five aged and infirm persons, each having a room and garden and 8d. a week ; they were all to learn, if they did not already know, the Lord's Prayer, the Salutation, and the Creed. One of the brethren was to be elected as ' Prior' to maintain order in the house.79 Thanks possibly to its recent reformation St. Mary's survived the stormy period of religious change under Henry VIII and Edward VI and prospered, its income rising from £35 6;. 3^. in 1535 to ^44 171. -jd. in I55o.8t) At last in 1582 the hospital was re-established by a charter of Queen Elizabeth on almost the same lines as the regulations of 1528, the number and stipends of the poor remaining unaltered and the patronage continuing with the dean and chapter.81 Unfor- tunately the latter thought more of making money out of the hospital property than of caring for its inmates, so that it was a change for the better when in 1656 Cromwell put the hospital under the control of the mayor and corporation of Chichester, authorizing them to increase the number of inmates up to ten, the greatest number that could be accommodated, and to spend the surplus upon such charitable works as they thought fit.82 The total income of the charity at this time was nearly ^278, out of which the chapter had only allowed the brethren £42 5;. lod. Upon the Restoration the dean and chapter recovered their patronage and again appear to have neglected their duties, as in 1679 Arch- bishop Sancroft reproached the visitors of the hospital for never auditing the accounts, so that for many years a considerable sum of money belonging to the institution had gone into the warden's private purse. This fact was brought to light upon the appointment of Dr. Edes as warden, who brought an action against the estate of his predecessor, Dr. Whitby, for dilapidations and money illegally appropriated, recovering £171 14*. 8d. on the latter ground. We further learn from the account of this action 83 that the salaries of the poor and of the warden had alike been trebled, being respectively 2s. a week and £28 a year. By the regulations drawn up in 1728, when Dean Sherlock was warden, and still in use, the salary of the warden was fixed at a sum equal to the whole amount received by the five poor, namely ^26. A further sum of £10 was set apart for a chaplain, and amongst other rules it was laid down that if any of the inmates were 79 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiv, 50-2. 80 Ibid. 53. 81 Ibid. 53-4. -Ibid. 55-7. 83 Wright, op. cit. 50-72. 101 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX sick those who were well should nurse them if so ordered by the warden on pain of expulsion.84 Between 1815 and 1835 the warden's income averaged within a few pence of ^170, and that of each inmate was over j£3O.86 A further £1,000 of stock was left to the hospital by Mr. Baker in i840.86 WARDENS OF THE HOSPITAL OF ST. MARY, CHICHESTER87 Henry, occurs 1230 88 Walter, occurs 1248 "-63 w Robert de Kyngeston, occurs I2J2S1 and 1279^ Gilbert, occurs 1285 93 Walter, occurs ia8894 Gilbert, occurs I29895 Richard le Orfevre, appointed 1 30 1,96 occurs I30497 William de Selebourne, occurs 1316" Thomas, occurs 1343" Alan de Leverton, appointed 1385 10° Walter Forey, exchanged 1389 101 John Courderay, appointed i^8g102 John Ayleston, occurs 1412 lu3 John Croucher, resigned 1447 104 John Goswell, appointed I44710 John Champion, 14/5 Ivo Darrell, occurs 1478 106 William Fleshmonger, 1525 John Champion, occurs I528,107 1535 108 John Worthyall, 1537, occurs 1542 109 John Peterston, B.D., 1554 William Pye, 1555 George Beaumont, D.D., 1558 81 Suss. Arch. Co/I, xxiv, 60. M Ibid. 61. 86 An account of all the property held by the hospital in 1835 's given in Rep. of Charity Com. 650-8. 87 When other references are not given, the autho- rity for the names and dates of admission is the list compiled by Mr. W. B. B. Freeland, for a copy of which I am indebted to Canon Deedes. 88 Feet ofF. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), No. 226. * Ibid. No. 482. 90 Feet of F. Suss, file 24, No. 30. " Ibid, file 28, No. 2. " Assize R. 922, m. 20. 83 Feet of F. Suss, file 32, No. iz. 94 Assize R. 929, m. 46^. 94 Mins. Accts. 1022, No. 2. M Wright, op. cit. 2 1 . " Assize R. 1330, m. 20. 98 Ibid. 938, m. 55. 99 Pat. i/'Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 39^. 00 Pat. 8 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 7. 101 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Courtenay, fol. 272}. "» Ibid. 103 Cat. Papal Let. vi, 3 1 8. 104 Wright, op. cit. 27. Ios Ibid. 106 Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 10. 07 Wright, op. cit. 34. 08 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 305. "* Chanc. Proc. (ser. ii), bdle. I, No. 42. Hugh Turnbull, D.D., 1559 Edmund Weston, LL.B., 1567 William Overton, D.D., 1570 Richard Kitson, B.D., 1580 Randoll Barlow, 1585 Francis Cox, D.D., 1602 Hugh Perrin, 1606 Henry Challen, 1610 Humphrey Booth, M.A., 1613 Bruno Ryves, 1660 Oliver Whitby, D.D., 1666 Henry Edes, D.D., 1679 William Hayley, D.D., 1703 Edmund Gibson, D.D., 1715 John Wright, M.A., 1717 Thomas Hayley, D.D., 1720 Thomas Sherlock, D.D., 1723 William Sherwin, M.A., 1728 Thomas Gooch, D.D., 1735 Thomas Ball, M.A., 1738 William Clarke, M.A., 1754 Thomas Hurdis, D.D., 1770 John Frankland, M.A., 1772 Charles Harward, M.A., 1778 John Courtail, M.A., 1784 Combe Miller, M.A., 1806 Moses Toghill, M.A., 1814 Charles Webber, M.A., 1825 Thomas Baker, M.A., 1828 Charles Edward Hutchinson, 1829 Charles Webber, junr., 1832 George Shiffher, 1837 Charles Webber, junr., 1849 Charles Edward Hutchinson, 1850 Charles Pilkington, 1864 Charles Anthony Swainson, D.D., 1870 John Russell Walker, M.A., 1882 Thomas Francis Crosse, D.C.L., 1889 Josiah Sanders Teulon, M.A., 1889 James Hoare Masters, M.A., 1902 The thirteenth-century seal is a pointed oval ; the Virgin seated on a carved throne, with crown, the Child, with nimbus, on the left knee. In the field, on the left a star of six points between two crescents, each enclosing a roundle ; on the right a crescent enclosing a roundle between two stars.110 Legend : — l^i SIGILL' : HOSPITALIS : SCE : MARIE : CICESTRIE. 37. THE HOSPITAL OF 'LODDiS- DOWN,' CHICHESTER According to Dallaway,111 the hospital ol St. Mary Magdalen of Loddesdown was situated at ' Maudlins ' Farm in West Hampnett ; this seems probably correct, but he is apparently wrong in saying that it was united with the 110 B.M. xxxviii, 5 1 ; Suss. Arch. Coll. iii, 6. 111 Hist, of West Suss, i (2), 122. 102 RELIGIOUS HOUSES hospital of St. James. It was originally a house for lepers ; 113 a bequest made in 1404 by John Tregoz ' for the maintenance of the poor in the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, on the way to (versus) Chichester' 113 must refer to this house, and there is a definite reference to ' the poor of Loddesdowne ' as late as 141 8. lu Beyond this nothing seems to be known of this small hospital. 38. THE HOSPITAL OF RUMBOLDS- WYKE, CHICHESTER There seems to have been a small lazar-house outside the south gate of Chichester in the suburb of Rumboldswyke,as William deKainesham, early in the thirteenth century, gave money to ' the lepers of Wikes ' amongst other Chichester chari- ties.115 It was possibly the same as the ' hospital of Newykestrete ' mentioned in 1374 in the will of John de Bishopstone, chancellor of Chichester.116 39. THE HOSPITAL OF STOCK- BRIDGE, CHICHESTER ' The lepers of Stocbrigg ' occur in William de Kainesham's deed, mentioned in the last entry, but are otherwise unknown. 40. THE HOSPITAL OF HARTING Henry Hoese, or Hussey, founded a hospital for lepers, under the patronage of St. John the Baptist at Harting, early in the reign of Henry II. Agnes, wife of Hugh de Gundevile, gave 4 acres in Upton in East Harting to these lepers,117 and Henry II, some time before 1 162, granted them a fair on St. John's Day, and its eve and mor- row.118 Nothing more appears to be known of this lazar-house until about 1248, when it was bought from the master of the order of St. Lazarus by the abbot of Dureford, and absorbed into the estate of that abbey.119 41. THE HOSPITAL OF HASTINGS The date and circumstances in which this hospital was founded are unknown, and the first mention of it appears to be in 1294 when Pet- ronilla de Cham, widow, gave to the brethren and sisters of the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen 111 Mun. D. & C. Chich. ' Liber Y.' fol. 125^. "* Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Arundel, fol. 214. 114 Ibid. Chicheley, fol. 316. 115 Mun. of D. & C. Chich. 'Liber Y.' fol. 125^. For a copy of this deed I am indebted to Canon Deedes. 116 P.C.C. Rous, fol. t>b. 117 Suis. Arch. Coll. viii, 58. 119 Dugdale, Mm. vi, 938. 119 Suit. Arch. Coll. vii, 59. in Hastings 5 acres of land in the parish of St. Margaret.130 Protection was granted to the master and brethren in I320,m and in 1381 the proctors of the hospital obtained letters of commendation to the clergy of the diocese of Canterbury.153 The nature of the hospital is best described in the words of the Hastings custumal : — m The bailiffshall have the visitation of the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen of Hastings once a year ; and there shall be in the said hospital brethren and sisters, sometimes more and sometimes less ; but no brother or sister shall be received into the aforesaid hospital except by the assent of the bailiff and the commonalty. And the rules of the aforesaid hospital shall be read before the bailiff at the time of the visitation, at which he shall demand and enquire whether they be well kept or not ; and . . . the bailiff shall enquire into the life of all the brethren and sisters examined, and if any of them be attainted the bailiff may remove him if he will. And the bailiff by the assent of his fellows if he shall find a man in the said commonalty infirm, and who has conducted himself in accordance with the usages of the ports for all time, and who shall be impoverished . . . may put such into the said hospital to partake of the sustenance of the brethren and sisters without paying anything to the said hospital. Apparently the hospital survived the Reform- ation, and was still in existence at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, but came to an end before the close of the sixteenth century, its possessions being diverted to other charitable objects. 42. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JAMES, LEWES The hospital of St. James, outside the gates of the priory of Lewes, appears to have been founded by one of the Warennes as a kind of almshouse supplementary to the priory. In it thirteen poor persons, of either sex, were supported by the priory at a yearly cost of £16 lOi., in return for which support they were bound to pray for the souls of the founder and his heirs.124 Occasional mention of this house occurs in mediaeval wills, Agnes Thetcher in I 5 12 leaving a pair of linen sheets to ' the most needy person in the hospital of St. James.125 With the fall of the priory the hospital lost its revenues, and Peter Tomson and other poor bedesmen of the hospital of St. James were driven to petition Cromwell for assistance.126 Thus, though not actually suppressed, the hos- pital must have fallen into disuse soon after the dissolution of Lewes priory. 110 Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 354. 111 Pat. 13 Edw. Ill, m. n. 181 Hut. MSS. Com. Rep. viii, 340. 113 Suit. Arch. Coll. xiv. 70.. "4 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), u, 331. '"P.C.C. Fetiplace, 17. 1M L. and P. Hen. Fill, xiii (i), 383. I03 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 43. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. NICHOLAS, LEWES The hospital of St. Nicholas in Westout appears to have been established by William de Warenne as an infirmary for the poor under control of the priory of Lewes. The six principal officers of the monastery among them contributed 36*. to its support, and a further 15*. was charged upon the manors of Langney, Falmer, and Swan- borough;127 at the time of the dissolution the total payment to the support of the thirteen inmates was £5 lo*.128 The brethren and sisters at the time of the suppression of the priory put their charters and evidences into the hands of Ralph Crom- well, Mr. Pollerd, and Mr. Mylsent, who pro- mised that they should have their charitable alms as of old, and gave them 15*. to go on with ; 129 but nothing more was done, and the hospital appears to have become an irregularly constituted almshouse for the parish of St. Anne, vacancies being filled, at one period, by the simple entry of the first comer.180 44. THE HOSPITAL OF PLAYDEN The hospital of St. Bartholomew in the parish of Playden, but more often called ' outside Rye,' seems to have been founded either by or under the auspices of the abbey of Fe'camp. The earliest notice of it appears to be a notification by Simon the priest, and the brethren and sisters of the hospital that they had received from Ralf, abbot of Fecamp (1189-1219), the chapel, buildings, and lands of the hospital in perpetual alms, saving an annual payment of 2s. to the abbot and convent, who are to have the appoint- ment of future priests upon the nomination of the officers of the town of Rye.131 Further stipula- tions were made as to the abbey's share of the profits if Simon should succeed in obtaining a grant of a fair from the king, as he appears subsequently to have done ; for, although no re- cord of the grant is known a fair was long held on St. Bartholomew's Day at a spot outside Rye, in the immediate neighbourhood of the hospital.132 The Custumal of Rye (Sections 59, 60) gives some details of the administration of the hospital.133 From it we learn that the nomination of the chaplain or warden lay with the mayor and jurats, who submitted his name to the abbot of Fe'camp in time of peace, or to the lord chan- cellor if there was war with France, and they 117 Cal. Papal Let. v, 417. 38 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 331. " L. and P. Hen. Vll I, xiii (2), 1251. 30 Lee, Hist, of Lewes, 369. " Cal. Doc. France, 52. 133 Holloway, Hist, of Rye, 607. 133 Ibid. 156-7. in turn presented him to the bishop of Chiches- ter. The house was for both brothers and sisters, and the number of inmates was not fixed, but none might be received without the assent of the mayor and commonalty who, moreover, had the right of admitting thereto any — man or woman which had competently borne charges in their time for the welfare of the town, if they be now impoverished and impotent, decayed of their goods and chattels, and little goods have to live with. The seal of the hospital was to be kept by the mayor and jurats so that the inmates should not alienate any property without their consent. This last clause seems to date from 1249, when the barons of Rye issued a charter to that effect.134 From this charter of 1249 we learn that there were then twelve brethren and sisters resident, of whom some were lepers. The warden in 1262 appears to have been hardly a suitable person to have the spiritual charge of the inmates, as he employed one Sybil of Yarmouth to set fire to the buildings and ricks of Mathew de Knoll at Beckley, and when she was arrested assisted her to escape, first to the hospital, where he kept her for a day and a night, and then to Playden church, where she abjured the realm.136 Nor were some of his successors altogether satisfactory. As a result of a commission of inquiry issued in 1380 to William Home and William de Battesford,136 it was found that the master, Robert de Burton, had cut down timber to the value of £20 at Brookland, had wasted and appropriated to his own use grain to the value of £10, and had allowed the hospital lands to go out of cultivation. He had further carried off muniments, bills, and indulgences which brought in 40*. a year in oblations, and had given nothing to the inmates, so that they had to beg daily in the streets ; and worst of all, the brazen vessels of the poor brethren had been seized for arrears of rent, so that they had no vessels in which to prepare their dinners.137 Some sixty years later, in January, 1442, Bishop Praty visited the hospital and found that the master, William Parker, had been absent for six or seven years, the chapel and other buildings had fallen to ruins, and no paupers were maintained there.138 Parker was deprived,139 but how far the hospital recovered from its grievous state is not known. It was bestowed with the other lands of Fecamp Abbey upon the abbey of Syon in I46i,140 and subsequently, in 1502, upon Westminster Abbey, soon after which date it had become 134 Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 69. :" Assize R. 912, m. 4. 1M Pat. 3 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 313. '" Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 134-5, from Inq. 3 Ric. II, No. 1 08. 138 Chich. Epis. Reg. Praty, fol. 80. 138 Ibid. fol. 102. 140 Pat. i Edw. IV, pt. v, m. 14 104 RELIGIOUS HOUSES decayed past remedy, so that in 1521 Bishop Sherborn allowed the abbey to appropriate it.111 MASTERS OF THE HOSPITAL OF PLAYDEN Simon, occurs c. 1 200 J48 Robert, occurs I262143 John de Garlethorpe, occurs I33O144 Hugh Pipard, appointed I343,145 appointment revoked I344146 Randell de Wyke, appointed 1344"' Robert de Burton, appointed 1379 us John de Waldeby, appointed I39I,149 died same year Robert Longe, appointed 1391,"° died 1392 Ralf de Repyngdon, appointed I392,151 resigned Thomas de la Chambre, appointed 1393 1M John Bowetby, appointed 1395 153 John Sharpe, appointed I396184 Thomas Brygge, appointed 1397 158 John Hoton, appointed I399,156 exchanged 1400 John Deye, appointed 1400 167 Robert Kyng, nominated 22 February, 1401 168 John Bedeford, nominated 28 February,159 in- stituted March I40I,160 exchanged 1403 Joseph Scovill, appointed 1403 161 John Preston, appointed I4O5,162 resigned 1407 John Elmeton, appointed 1407 163 Nicholas Colnet, appointed 1 4 1 3 1M Thomas Chase, appointed I42O165 William Parker, appointed c. 1435, deprived I442166 141 Chich. Epis. Reg. Sherborn, fol. 85. 148 Cal. of Doc. France, 52. 143 Assize R. 912, m. 4. 144 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 508. 146 Pat. 17 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 28. "'Pat. 1 8 Edw. III,pt. i, m. 36. 147 Ibid. m. 48. 148 Pat. 2 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 19. 149 Pat. 14 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 21. 140 Pat. 15 Ric. II.pt. i, m. 22. 151 Pat. 1 6 Ric. II.pt. ii, m. 36 ; see also Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 512. IM Pat. 1 6 Ric. II, pt. iii, m. 9. 153 Pat. 1 8 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 5. 154 Saw. Arch. Coll. xvii, 136. 166 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 69. 146 Pat. I Hen. IV, pt. i, m. 12. 167 Pat. 2 Hen. IV, pt. i, m. 15. 148 Ibid. pt. ii, m. 30. '" Ibid. m. 24. 140 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 83 ; John Hoton called last warden. 161 Pat. 4 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 31. 161 Saw. Arch. Coll. xvii, 136. 1M Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 118. 164 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 136. 64 Ibid. He was chancellor of the university of Oxford, and a wealthy pluralist ; Cal. Papal Let. vii, 47'- Chich. Epis. Reg. Praty, fol. 80, 102. John Faukes, appointed 1 442 167 William Tracy, appointed I46i,168 died 1478 John More, appointed 1478,169 died 1479 Thomas Brent, appointed 1479 17° 45. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JAMES, SEAFORD The hospital of St. James of Sutton by Sea- ford was founded some time before 1260, in which year the brethren received a royal grant of protection for five years.171 It was in the pa- tronage of the abbey of Robertsbridge, to whom the manor of Sutton belonged, and was bought from them by Bishop Sherborn, and united with the free chapel of Bargham to form a prebend in the cathedral church in October, 1523, when it was ' lying vacant and of so small rents that no one could take it.'172 But in 1534 the abbey of Robertsbridge granted to John Seman the site of the hospital of St. James and 10 acres of land called Spittelland, he paying yearly to the dean and chapter of Chichester £10, and 2OJ. to Thomas Gerard, clerk, master or warden of the said chapel or hospital.173 MASTERS, OR RECTORS, OF THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JAMES, SEAFORD Simon, occurs I332174 William Crosseby, exchanged 1389 175 William Haker, appointed ^Sg176 Philip Chyntynge, died I4O4177 John Holyngbourne, appointed I404178 Thomas Gerard, last master 179 46. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. LEONARD, SEAFORD A house for lepers was founded outside Sea- ford by Roger de Fraxineto, who occurs else- where180 in 1147 as 'the king's constable,' who gave 10 acres of land for the purpose, and caused a chapel to be consecrated by Bishop Hilary, and subsequently in 1172 made a further grant of 7 acres of land.181 A further endowment was 167 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 1 36. 188 Pat. I Edw. IV. pt. iii, m. 1 1. 169 Pat. 1 8 Edw. IV, pt. i, m. 6. 170 Ibid. pt. ii, m. 9. 171 Pat. 44 Hen. Ill, m. 13. 171 Cott. Chart, xii, 80. 171 L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv, 906 (7). 174 Cal. Robertsbridge Chart. No. 332. 174 Pat. 1 3 Ric. II. ""Ibid. 177 Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 102. 178 Ibid. ; he was a monk of Robertsbridge. 179 L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xiv, 906 (7). 180 Cott. MSS. Vesp. F. xv, fol. 95 d. 181 Suss. Arch. Coll. xii, 115. 105 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX a rent of 40*. charged upon the manor of Bed- dingham at least as early as 1 1 go,182 and still paid in I278,183 if not later. In 1368 the archbishop of Canterbury granted an indulgence to all who assisted the brethren and sisters of the hospital of St. Leonard of Seaford, which had been ruined by the incursions of the sea,184 but it may be doubted whether the hospital ever recovered, as no later mention of it appears to be known. 47. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JAMES, SHOREHAM Practically nothing is known of this hospital beyond the fact that it was in existence in 1249, when an action was brought against the master,186 and that its site and buildings were granted to John and William Mersh of London in I574-186 The space between these dates is only bridged by occasional small bequests in the wills of local testators. Whether this is the hospital mentioned in the Valor187 of 1535 as worth £i 6s. 8d., or whether the reference is to that of St. Katherine is doubtful. 48. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. KATHERINE, SHOREHAM This hospital is only known for its occurrence in mediaeval wills. Thus Margaret Covert left 2s. to the poor of the hospital of St. Katherine of Shoreham in I366,188 and John Borle, rector of West Tarring, left 6s. 8d. to ' the house of St. Kathtrine by Shoreham ' in I373-189 It would seem to have survived the religious changes of the Reformation by abandoning its patroness, and becoming ' the hospital of Our Saviour Jesus Christ,' if we may judge from the promi- nence given to St. Katherine's emblem on the sixteenth-century seal, by which alone the exist- ence of this hospital of the Saviour is known. If this conjecture is correct the reconstituted hos- pital was no doubt ' the spytyll at Shoreham ' to which Henry Marshall, vicar of Wilmington, left 20 pence in I55O.190 The seal just referred to is a pointed oval : Our Lord on the cross on a mount between two trees of peculiar form. In base, a Catherine wheel.191 Legend : — -f-THE . *ELE . OF O* . SAVIOVR . IESVS . CHRIST . OF . THE . OSP1TAL . OF . SHORAM . IN . SVSSEX . 181 Pipe R. 2 Ric. I. •" Assize R. 921, m. 7 d. 84 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Langham, fol. 63. 184 Assize R. 909, m. 7 d. 184 Memo. R., L.T.R. 17 Eliz. Trin. 4. 87 falor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 322. 188 Cartwright, Hist, of Rape of Bramber, 120. 189 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Whittlesey, fol. 127^. 190 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiii, 52. '"B.M. laii, no. 49. THE HOSPITAL OF SOMPTING, OR COKEHAM William Bernehus founded the hospital of the Blessed Virgin and St. Anthony at Cokeham in Sompting in the thirteenth century.192 It appears to have been for women (and probably also for men), as in 1288 Agnes, daughter of Michael de Launcing, brought an action against Aumary the chaplain, warden of the hospital, for disseis- ing her of the substance which she was wont to receive in the said hospital.193 The advowson of the hospital passed with the manor of Cokeham to Ralph de Camoys in 1 324,194 and was granted in 1351 to the priory of Hardham,195 after which time it is not again heard of. 50. THE HOSPITAL OF WESTHAM The particulars of this hospital, which lay in the parish of Westham, and in the lowey, ' league,' or liberty of Pevensey, can best be given in the words of the sixteenth century English version of the Pevensey Custumal : — '96 The Men of the Burgage of the Towne of Peven- sey have an Hospital of Saynte John Baptiste, in the whiche been brothers or sisters, havynge londes and possessions within the Leege aforesaide, and the same Receyvour and the Men of the saide Burgage have the disposicion of the saide Hospitall, to graunte Corodye, as well to men as to women, as they may consente. And they have to visit and chaste after the quantitie. And one of the Men of the Burgage alway shalbe Overseer and Superior of that Hospitall, to oversee the expense, and the accompte of the Master of the saide Hospitall. Also the saide Receyvour and the Men may, yf there be to be hadde a Man or Woman of the saide Burgage, the whiche is come into povertie and have not whereof to lyve, and have borne him or her well by all his or herlyffe, that same Man or Woman in the forsaide Hospitall ther sustenances in the same shall take, nothing paying for the same. Of its early history nothing is known, but casual references 197 to ' the hospital ' show that some such house was in existence before the end of the thirteenth century. A Pevensey rental of I292198 mentions ' the master of the hospital of the Holy Cross,' but no other reference to this establishment is known ; it may have been the predecessor of the hospital of St. John the Baptist, of which ' the brethren ' are mentioned in a rental of I354.199 About the middle of the fifteenth century William Slyhand left 40*. to IM Cartwright, Hist, of the Rape of Bramber, 103. 193 Assize R. 929, m. igJ. 194 Cartwright, loc. cit. 195 Pat. 25 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 15. 196 Susi. Arch. Coll. xviii, 50. 197 In Mins. Accts. passim. 198 Rentals and Surv. (P.R.O.), No. 663. '" Ibid. No. 667. 106 RELIGIOUS HOUSES the hospital of St. John in Westham,200 and in 1489 Henry Dawson left 6s. 8d. to the same house.201 After the Reformation the issues of the hospital were devoted to the support of almshouses, the distribution of food, and other charitable purposes.203 51. THE HOSPITAL OF WEST TARRING The only known reference to this establish- ment is found in 1277, when 'the warden of the house of St. Mary of Tarring ' brought an action against Thomas le Waleys of Salvington touching a tenement in Salvington.203 52. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. BAR- THOLOMEW, WINCHELSEA This hospital was situated in the south-west of the town, near the New Gate, and was established when Winchelsea was rebuilt, as in the survey of 1292 'the house of St. Bartholo- mew' is entered in the thirty-ninth 'quarter.'2* It was for brethren and sisters, was endowed with 2 acres of land worth 6s., and was under the control of the mayor and commonalty, who had the power of admitting suitable inmates.205 From the copy of the Custumal of Winchelsea drawn up in 1577, it would seem to have been still in existence at that date,206 but in 1586 the lands of ' the dissolved priory of St. Bartholo- mew ' were granted to the corporation.207 53. THE HOSPITAL OF THE HOLY CROSS, WINCHELSEA This hospital was originally founded in Old Winchelsea some time before 1252, in which year protection was granted to the brethren thereof.208 When the old town was destroyed by the sea in 1287 and rebuilt by King Edward 'the house of the Holy Cross' was established in the thirty-ninth ' quarter ' near the New Gate.209 The original endowment was I acre of land, but this was subsequently increased to 6^ acres.210 Protection was granted to the master and brethren 100 Early Chanc. Proc. bdle. 16, No. 679. 101 Will in P.C.C. Milles, fol. 159. ** Rep. of Char. Com. 773. 101 Pat. 5 Edw. I, m. 13 d. 104 Cooper, Hist, of Winchehea, 52. ** Ibid. 154, 226. ""Ibid. 107 Ibid. 109. *"> Pat. 37 Hen. Ill, m. 12. *" Cooper, Hist, of Winchelsea, 52. 110 Ibid. .-53. in I3I4,211 and in 1427 Henry VI ratified the estate of Simon Morley in the ' hospital or free chapel ' of Holy Cross.212 It is possible that this was the ' church of the lepers of Winchelsea ' mentioned in I287-213 MASTERS OF THE HOSPITAL OF THE HOLY CROSS, WINCHELSEA Thomas Mille, appointed 1411 214 Simon Morley, occurs 1427 215 Henry Medwall, died 1501 21e Robert Wrothe, appointed 1501 217 The early thirteenth-century seal is circular, and bears a cross with enlarged ends somewhat resembling the heraldic cross pattee. In the field, the first word of the legend :- 218 SI - GIL - LV - M s[C]E CRVCIS DE WINCHELESE 54. THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN, WINCHELSEA Probably this was the oldest and most im- portant of the three hospitals at Winchelsea, as certain rents were assigned to it from time im- memorial from the issues of Great Yarmouth, John de Romeney, as attorney of the brethren and sisters of the hospital of St. John of Win- chelsea, in the time of Edward I receiving 315. 6d. from this source.219 The survey of 1292 mentions the house of St. John in the thirty-fourth ' quarter ' considerably nearer the business part of the town than were the other two hospitals. Its lands, granted to the corpora- tion in 1586, amounted to 10 acres.220 It was under the control of the mayor, who had to visit it once a year, and had power to remove any objectionable inmate, and, with the consent of the jurats, might admit any poor man or woman who had been ' in good love and fame all their time.'221 The Custumal 222 drawn up in 1557 suggests that this house and that of St. Bartholomew were still in use at that date ; but it seems more probable that the section con- cerning the two hospitals was merely transcribed from an earlier copy, and that they were already dissolved, as they certainly were before I586.223 '"Pat. 8 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 31. '"Pat. 5 Hen. VI, pt. i, m. 14. '"Assize R. 924, m. 47. '"Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 147. 115 Pat. 5 Hen. VI, pt. i, m. 14. '"Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 1 1. '" Ibid. ""Egerton Chart. 385. Figured in Arch. xlv. '"Cooper, Hist, of Winckelsea, 153. "°Ibid. 109. "'Ibid. 227. m Ibid. ""Ibid. 109. I07 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 55. THE HOSPITAL OF WINDHAM The Bollandist life of St. Richard mentions that he founded a hospital for sick and infirm clergy. This institution was the hospital of St. Edmund at Windham, 'and was probably founded not long before his death, as in his will 224 St. Richard leaves ' to the house of Wyndeham 30 marks, exclusive of the debt in which I am bound to them,' which suggests that the endow- ment was still incomplete. This is borne out by the series of grants made during the episco- pate of his successor, Bishop John, who was considered co-founder of the hospital.82' Simon de Bosco of Albourne sold to the bishop, 'for the support of the infirm chaplains and clerks dwell- ing in the hospital of Wyndham,' lands in Albourne parish, and other lands there were purchased for the same purpose from Philip Cordwaner with the consent of Nigel de Brok, lord of the fee. Sir Roger de la Hyde remitted to ' the chapel of the Blessed Edmund the Confessor and to the priests and ministers there ' all his claim to the estate of Windham, and Bishop John himself in 1262 assigned an annual rent of 2os. from the church of Ford to the support of the chaplains. Protection for the term of ten years was granted to the hospital of St. Mary and St. Ed- mund of Windham in I258,226 and in 1289 one Ralph atte Hese of Portslade, 'a brother of the house of priests at Windham,' fell off the bridge of ' Blaxinton ' and was drowned ; 22r but beyond these two incidents the house seems to have fulfilled its useful purpose in uneventful quiet, gradually falling into decay, until Bishop Sherborn suppressed it about 1520, taking the revenues and lands to endow a new prebend in the cathedral.228 WARDENS OF THE HOSPITAL OF WINDHAM Walter, occurs 1306 229 John de Teddington, occurs 1342 S3° John Lucas, appointed 1387 231 John Candelsby, resigned I4I4232 William Gyllyng, appointed 1414 233 William Gloucestre, resigned 1504 234 Edmund Wilkynson, appointed I5O4235 Hugh Rolf, last master !3S COLLEGIATE CHURCHES 56. THE COLLEGE OF ARUNDEL Richard earl of Arundel, having divorced his first wife, obtained papal dispensation to marry Eleanor, daughter of the earl of Lancaster, although related within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity, on condition of founding three chaplaincies, worth 10 marks, in the parish church of his chief place of residence. Permission was given shortly afterwards for the chaplaincies to be established in the castle of Arundel instead of in the parish church.1 In 1354 the earl obtained a further papal licence to increase this chantry and convert it into a college, but for some reason he did nothing more until 1375, when, feeling the approach of death, he made his will, and left 1,000 marks for the foundation of a chantry within the castle, to consist of six chaplains and three boys able to read and sing, all of whom were to reside in 'the Northbaillie in the new tower called Beaumont's tour,' the further pro- vision being made that if any chaplain were disabled by illness he should have his sustenance in the priory of Tortington, to which house the earl left 2OO marks for this purpose.2 Upon consideration the earl's executors decided that a castle exposed to the chances of war m Sun. Arch. Coll. i, 169. 111 ' Liber E.' in the Muniments of the Dean and Chapter at Chichester, fols. 233-5. For abstracts of these charters I am indebted to the kindness of Canon Deedes. offered poor security for the permanency of a religious foundation, and the community of alien monks in the priory at the parish church of Arundel having withdrawn to their mother house of Seez and left their cell desolate, the new earl obtained leave in 1379 to send repre- sentatives to treat with the abbot of S£ez for the conversion of the priory of Arundel into a col- legiate church.3 The following year the royal licence was obtained for the foundation of the college, subject to an annual payment to the king of 20 marks so long as the war with France should last,4 a payment which was annulled in 1383, when the earl gave the manor of Seven- hampton in Somerset to the king.* The property which had belonged to the priory included the advowsons of the churches of Arundel, Yapton, Rustington, Billingshurst, Kirdford, Cocking, and half Littlehampton, the "• Pat. 43 Hen. Ill, m. 2. m Assize R. 924, m. 64. mSuss. Arch. Coll. xliv, 10. "* Ibid. 9. >3° Assize R. 631, m. 70. 151 Pat. 10 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 10. "'Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 158. m Ibid. Story, pt. ii, fol. 38. *• Seat, of Chick. Cath. (1904), 65. 108 m Ibid. •"Ibid. 1 Cat. Papal Pet. i, 99. 'Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Sudbury, fol. •Pat. 3 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 12. 4 Ibid. pt. iii, m. 12. ' Pat. 6 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 3. RELIGIOUS HOUSES manor of Yapton, and various lands and rents.6 To this was added in 1381 the advowson of Goring and 208 marks of rent,7 which was in 1386 partly converted into lands of the equiva- lent value, including the manors of Bury and West Burton.8 Thomas, earl of Arundel, on his death in 1415, left the sum of 500 marks to the college,8 and in 1423 certain of his feoffees paid j£ioo for leave to alienate to the same church the manors of South Stoke, Warningcamp, Climpsfold, Pipering, North Mundham, Ang- mering, and Houghton, and other lands amount- ing to the value of about 100 marks.10 A bequest of less value but of some interest was that of Bishop William Reade, who in 1385 left thirteen books to the college with a sum of 20 marks to be expended in chaining the books firmly in the library.11 The college consisted of a master, vice-master, precentor, ten other chaplains, two deacons, two sub-deacons, and four choristers, a fifth chorister being apparently added at a later date. Elaborate injunctions were given for the conduct of the services and of the lives of the members, but as they were on the usual lines of such establish- ments they need not be detailed here.13 While the college was free from gross scandals its management appears to have suffered from the prevailing laxity of the fifteenth century ; a visitation in 1442 shows that the numbers had fallen to eight, the rules were ill-observed, the buildings out of repair, jewels lost, and debts to the amount of £40 incurred.13 In 1478 the numbers were still insufficient and the services slackly celebrated.14 The choir of the church of St. Nicholas being the chapel of the college, while the remainder of the church was parochial, there was some doubt as to the relative responsi- bility for repairs incurred by the college and the parish, until in 1511 an agreement was drawn up relative to ' le crosse yles,' the repairs of the south aisle (i.e. transept), commonly called the chancel of the parish church, being assigned to the college, those of the north aisle and the nave to the mayor and burgesses, and those of the central tower, with the bells, to the two parties in common.16 Arundel College survived the dissolution of the monasteries and appeared to be still secure as late as the autumn of 1541, when Henry VIII granted to the master and fellows the suppressed priory of Hayling and the possessions of the 6 Pat. 9 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 1 1 . 7 Pat. 5 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 24, 3. 'Pat. 9 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 35. 'Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Chicheley, fol. 287. 10 Pat. i Hen. VI, pt. iv, m. 13. 11 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Courtenay, fol. 213. "The statutes are printed in full by Tierney, Hiit. of Arundel, 752-72. " Chich. Epis. Reg. Praty, fol. 82. 14 Ibid. Story, 30^. u Ibid. Sherborn, fol. 155. dissolved preceptory of the Hospitallers at Poling and Shipley, in exchange for the manor of Bury.16 But before the end of the next year its dissolu- tion was suggested by Lord Maltravers, son of the earl of Arundel, who wrote to the king offering £1,000 for the college property to enable him to pay his debts, and undertaking to obtain the consent of his father and of the master and fellows.17 This latter task possibly proved more difficult than Lord Maltravers had anticipated, as it was not until after his succession to the earldom in 1544 that the college fell, being sur- rendered in December of that year.18 MASTERS OF THE COLLEGE OF ARUNDEL u Adam Ertham, first master,20 died before 1383 William Whyte, occurs 1383, died 1420 John Colmorde, appointed 1420, occurs 1443 Edward Poynings, occurs 1447, died 1484 John Neele, appointed 1484, died 1497 21 John Dogett, occurs 1499, ^ied 1501 Henry Ediall, appointed 1501, died 1520 Edward Hygons, D.D., appointed 1520, occurs 1535 Alan Percy, occurs 1539, surrendered 1544 The seal of the college is a pointed oval : the Trinity, in a canopied niche with tabernacle work at the sides. In base, a shield of arms : quarterly, i, 4, quarterly, uncertain ; 2, 3, chequy, for RICHARD Frrz-ALAN, earl of Arundel, founder. Legend : — S* » COMUNE » COLLEGII » SANCTE » TRINITATIS » ARUNDELLIE 57. THE COLLEGE OF BOSHAM.23 It has already been mentioned that when St. Wilfrid came to preach to the South Saxons he found a priest called Dicul and a few com- panions settled at Bosham.34 Here, where the lamp of Christianity was first lit in Sussex, there sprang up during the succeeding centuries a college of secular priests richly endowed with broad lands, valued in the Confessor's time at over £300. This wealthy foundation, of whose early history nothing is known, was bestowed by the Confessor upon his Norman chaplain, Osbern, bishop of Exeter, who continued to hold it under the Conqueror. Henry I subsequently assigned this ' royal free chapel ' of Bosham to UL. and P. Hen. mi, rvi, 1056 (69). " Ibid, xvii, 861. 18 Ibid, xix (2), 734. " Tierney, op. cit. 639—40. 10 Brass in Arundel Church. 11 Will in P.C.C. Home, 19. " B.M. Ixxii, 72 ; cf. Dugdale, Mtm. Angl. vi, 735. n Suss. Arch. Coll. viii, 1 89-200. " See above, p. I. 109 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX William Warelwast, bishop of Exeter, who established there a college of six secular canons with prebends, their dean being the bishop of Exeter. This arrangement held good until the occupant of the western see angered Henry II by taking the part of Archbishop Becket, when the king deprived him of the chapelry and bestowed it upon the bishop of Lisieux, who retained it till 1177, when it came once more to the bishop of Exeter,26 whose successors held it till its dissolution. King John in 1200 confirmed the grant of the chapelry to the church of Exeter,26 but the bishop of Chichester evidently disputed their claims, and was so far successful that in 1205 the king ordered that the chapel should be subject to the jurisdiction of the local see.27 During this dispute the bishop of Chichester appears to have ' suspended ' the church of Bosham, as a priest called Roger was several times excommunicated for ministering there.28 This was only the begin- ning of a long series of quarrels between the bishops of Exeter and Chichester. The question was complicated by the fact that the nave of the collegiate church was the parish church, the vicar of which was vicar of the canon of the parochial prebend; and over this vicar and the parish church the see of Chichester had undoubted jurisdiction — arising, according to an inquest of 1294, from the fact that the parochial vicar, during the time that the chapel was in Henry II's hands, had submitted himself to the bishop's jurisdiction — but the claims of the bishops and archdeacons of Chichester to visit and control the collegiate choir and its canons, though constantly asserted, were always defeated.29 The college 30 consisted of six prebendaries of Bosham Parochial, Walton, Appledram, Funting- ton, Chidham, and Westbrooke, one of whom was sacrist and head of the college under the dean (i.e. the bishop of Exeter). The sacrist, who received £4. yearly from each of the other canons, as well as the offerings of wax and other perquisites, was bound to be resident, and to be in priest's orders either when appointed or immediately afterwards ; he had to see to the conduct of the services, to control the canons and vicars, and to hear their confessions ; he had also to find a clerk to ring the bells and open and shut the doors, of which the keys were to be given to the sacrist after curfew ; to him also it fell to provide the elements and wax and other lights, except the tapers lit at the elevation of the Host, the provision of which — as also of " Gesta Htnrici (Rolls Ser.), i, 181. M Chart R. I John, m. 20, no. 3. " Pat. 6 John, m. 10. K Ann. Man. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 255. " See Exeter Epis. Reg. passim. 30 For the loan of a transcript of the statutes of the college, drawn up in 1398, I am indebted to the kindness of Canon Dalton, C.M.G., of Windsor. books and ornaments and repairs to the chapel — lay at the charge of the other five canons. The canons were forbidden to farm their prebends, and were compelled to provide vicars, who received two marks in addition to six marks composition for tithes — except the parochial vicar, who had special tithes assigned to him. The vicars, with the exception of the parochial vicar, were removable at will, and before admis- sion were examined by the sacrist and the other vicars as to voice and skill in reading and chant- ing. The services were to be according to the Sarum Use, and were to commence with mattins at daybreak during the winter, and about two hours after sunrise in summer. Immediately after mattins came the mass of the Blessed Virgin — with music or not, according to the discretion of the vicar celebrating. During this and the customary subsequent hours the parochial vicar was to visit the poor and perform the other duties of his cure, taking care to be back in time to take part in the procession and high mass in the choir about the third hour, under penalty of a fine. On Sundays and festivals the procession, after prime and the other hours had been sung, was to go so that on its return a halt was made in the nave before the Rood, where the parochial vicar or his deputy was to offer the customary prayers and to expound sermons and other matters touching his cure in English. After this the procession was to go on to the choir, where the high mass was at once to begin, at which the parochial vicar was to take his part until after the offertory, when, provided there were enough to finish singing the mass as solemnly as it had been begun, he might take one of the parish clerks with him — leaving the other to minister in the choir — and begin mass without music at the parishioners' altar ; but this he should do by deputy if it were his turn to celebrate high mass or the mass of the Blessed Virgin in the chapel, which turn must be observed, no excuse being allowed of celebrating ' the so-called parish mass . . . since without doubt that is the parochial mass which is celebrated at the high altar in the choir.' Infringement of these rules involved fines, which were levied in the chapter held on Saturdays in the choir, when excuses might be made, which were to be accredited on the speaker's word without further proof. It was further ordered in 1399 that all the vicars were to live in a house which was to be built for them, £40 having been left for that purpose by Bishop Thomas de Brentingham, and the rest of the money promised by the canons. This house was to have one common entrance, but the parochial vicar was to have a room adjoining the cemetery, where his parishioners could find him whenever required. The earliest recorded visitation of Bosham appears to be that of Bishop Wyville in 1282, when it was found that the church was in bad HO RELIGIOUS HOUSES repair, rain falling even on the high altar ; the vestments were very bad, as was all the church furniture, the supply of books was inadequate, and neither the church nor any altar was dedi- cated. As a result of this visitation the profits of all the prebends were sequestrated.31 When Bishop Thomas visited the chapel in July, 1294, the fabric was still in bad repair, the chancel especially ; altar-fronts, copes and other things were lacking, and books required binding. Orders were ^iven that the canons should be more liberal in almsgiving and should be content with their prebends, not encroaching on those of others ; moreover, lest there should be a tempta- tion to provide unsuitable persons as vicars because they would take lower stipends, each canon was to pay his vicar two marks in addition to what he received from the church in right of his vicarage, and they were also ordered to be more punctual in paying the sacrist his dues, and further to collect certain tithes which had fallen into arrears. To the vicars the only order given was that they should not be absent from service without the sacrist's leave, under a penalty of a halfpenny for every hour which they missed.32 The next visitation was that by Bishop Walter Stapleton in 1 309. The church furniture was still deficient, and an order was made that the books, vestments, and ornaments of the chapel, being provided by the canons, were not in future to be used by the priests celebrating for the parishioners in the nave of the church. At this time the five vicars refused to take the oath of obedience to the bishop, though they could not justify their refusal ; they were also accused of quarrelling in the choir, and of being absent without leave ; the canons gave nothing to the poor, one of them had bought his prebend, and two others were farming theirs to laymen ; the parochial prebendary was a non-resident pluralist who neglected his cure, and .-mother canon had gone abroad without licence. The sacrist was ac- cused of incontinence, but pleaded that he had already been punished and had not since sinned.33 Bishop Stapleton was again at Bosham in March, 1 32 1,34 and his successor, Bishop Grandison, dedicated the high altar in the choir in I354,35 and made a visitation of the chapel in 1363 by command of the king, who had heard a bad report of its condition, both spiritual and material — a report not without foundation, as the vicars were found to be deficient in number, often absent from services, and when present slovenly and ill-behaved, even disturbing service by quarrels and arguments.36 The prebend of Appledram at this time was held by the illustrious William of Wykeham. Bishop Grandison was to some extent a benefactor of the college, as an " Stus.Arcb. Coll. xlv, 216. " Exeter Epis. Reg. Stapleton, 58. 11 Ibid. " Ibid. Graadisoa, i, 174. inventory a of goods drawn up by the sacrist in 1371 shows that he had given them at least three service books, as well as a set of vestments worked with his arms. The most interesting of the other items in this long inventory is a copy of a ' Life of St. Richard.' The state of the college at the end of the fourteenth century could not be called satisfac- tory. In 1375 Bishop Thomas de Brentingham wrote to the sacrist, appointing a date for visita- tion,38 saying — we have heard with grief by the report of many that the canons, though they draw their full salaries, retain them for their own use and do not appoint vicars or ministers in their places ; also they desert the chapelry and live corrupt lives in houses outside. Again in 1380 the bishop stated that he had heard an evil report of the clergy at Bosham and had intended to visit them himself, but being too busy had deputed others to do so.29 In 1384 special notice was made of one of the vicars choral, Robert Dygby, who for two years had neglected his duties and frequented taverns and gambling-houses in Chichester, leading a dissolute life and making strife between the laity and the clergy of Bosham, to whom he had made himself so obnoxious that his brother ministers used to take to flight whenever they met him.40 Next year the bishop appointed his official to inquire whether the canons and vicars were treating his orders with contempt, as it was reported; especi- ally Robert Dygby, who had now gone so far as even to live openly with a certain widow at Bosham, and Peter Carsfelde, a vicar, who had assaulted the sacrist and tried to murder him.41 This same year, 1385, the vicar of Bosham complained that the sacrist and one of the vicars had usurped his parochial rights, baptizing infants and hearing confessions without his leave, and that the sacrist had deprived him of his canonical habit and his share in certain emoluments.42 At last, in January, 1386, the bishop issued a strict command for all the canons to appear before him as he was determined to enforce obedience.43 In April of the same year orders were issued for the prevention of strangers from entering the choir, where they were in the habit of coming and causing disputes and quarrels even during the services,44 and in June penance was enjoined upon one of the vicars who had been guilty of incontinence.46 The college of Bosham survived until 1548, when the ' sexton,' and the other four prebend- aries were pensioned off, and two of the priest vicars dismissed, a third being left to assist the vicar by the commissioners, who also recom- mended that the curate found by the prebend of " Ibid. 80. * Ibid, i, 50. 17 Ibid. BrentingAam, 256. "Ibid. 424. 40Ibid. 161. "Ibid. 1 66. "Ibid. 1 68. 44 Ibid. 614. M Ibid. 149. 41 Ibid. 164. 44 Ibid. 6 10. in A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Appledram should continue to serve the church of Appledram parish.48 SACRISTS OF THE COLLEGE OF BOSHAM Walter de Welewe, occurs 1308*' John, occurs 1318 48 Ralph de Riburghe, appointed 1321 4' Walter de Shireforde, occurs 1323 60 John de Whatenhull, occurs 1334" William de Hardeshull, occurs 1340 ™ William Scote, occurs 1363," 1375" William Mewy,occurs 1379," exchanged 1383 Roger Primer, appointed 1383," exchanged 1388 Peter Carsfelde, appointed 1388," exchanged 1399 Richard Deen, appointed 1399, 8 resigned 1400 Ralph Waterman, appointed 1 400," resigned 1408 John Lamburn, appointed I4o8,60 exchanged 1410 Robert de Gunwardby, appointed 14 1 0,61 died 1412 Robert Tremylet, appointed I4i2,63died 1415 John Leyman, appointed I4I5,63 exchanged 1419 Nicholas Pycot, appointed 1419 M William Spade, appointed 1 424,65 resigned 1431 John Penycoke, appointed 1 43 1 ,66 resigned 1433 Thomas Halle, appointed 1 433," resigned 1434 John Restone, M.A., appointed I434,68 resigned 1439 John Faxe, appointed I439,69 resigned 1444 Robert Langmane, appointed 1444,™ resigned 1454 Thomas Northedone, appointed 1454 71 John Belyncham, alias Velingham, appointed 1 503," died 1504-5 Henry Hant, appointed 1 505" Nicholas Taverner, resigned 1508— 9 74 Thomas Burley, appointed 1509'' John Starkey, occurs 1535" John Rixman, occurs 1548" 16 Chant. Cert. 50. " Exeter Epis. Reg. Stapleton, 56. "Ibid. 192. "Ibid. "Ibid. 80. •" Pat. 8 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 35. * Pat. 14 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 10. °° Exeter Epis. Reg. Grandison, i, 50. 64 Ibid. Brentingham, i, 152. " Ibid. 392. 56 Ibid. 85. " Ibid. 101. M Ibid. Stafford, 148. 69 Ibid. «° Ibid. 61 Ibid. « Ibid. « Ibid. 64 Ibid. For the following eleven names I am in- debted to Preb. Hingeston-Randolph. " Exeter Epis. Reg. Lacy, fol. 68. 66 Ibid. fol. 107. "Ibid. fol. 113. M Ibid. fol. iz6b. ' " Ibid. fol. i8i3. 70 Ibid. fol. 207. 7I Ibid. fol. 280. " Ibid. Arundel, fol. 10 (4th nos.). n Ibid. Oldham, fol. ib. " Ibid. fol. 28. '• Ibid. " Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 3 10. " Chant. Cert. 49, 50. 58. THE COLLEGE OF HASTINGS 78 The College of St. Mary of the Castle of Hastings was founded by Robert, count of Eu, probably about 1090. It is not mentioned in Domesday, when all its subsequent endowments are found in the hands of various tenants, but was presumably in existence in 1094, when Anselm consecrated Robert bishop of Lincoln in the church of St. Mary in the Castle of Hastings.79 It was possibly the successor of an earlier colle- giate establishment, as in the thirteenth century the canons claimed to be of the foundation of Edward the Confessor, and said that the Con- queror gave ' the castle and chapel with the prebends ' to the count of Eu ; but ' la livre domus dei ' to which they appealed does not support their claim. M Of the original endowment of the college we derive most of our information from a charter of confirmation granted early in the twelfth century by the founder's grandson Henry, count of Eu.81 From this we learn that there were ten prebends ; of these, which are here distinguished by the names of their holders, the first was that of Gwymund, to which Count Robert had given the chapels of Wartling, Hooe, and Ninfield, certain tithes of money and salt and a house in the castle and another in the bailey by the bridge. To the prebend of William fitz Allec belonged the churches of Bexhill, afterwards recovered by the bishop of Chichester as appur- tenant to his see, and ' Stutinges,' 82 the chapel of Bulverhythe and land by the 'minster' in that place,83 an annual render of 2,000 herrings and other fish dues, tithes at Chiceam84 and else- where, a house in the bailey and another below it. The prebend of Hugh de Floscis was founded by Walter fitz Lambert who gave the tithes of his own lands and those of his vavassours, and one'hospes' — or squatter — at Hailsham; Walter reserved to himself and his heirs the right of appointing a canon to this prebend when vacant with the common consent of the chapter ; Geoffrey, brother of Hugh de Floscis, gave the church of Guestling and certain tithes, and the count gave a house in the castle. The prebend of Ulbert had only tithes of ' Malrepast ' and ' Agintune,' but Count Henry gave a meadow beyond the mill below the castle ; that of Eustace was endowed by Reinbert the sheriff with the churches of Salehurst, Mountfield, and Udimore, tithes in Etchingham and elsewhere, 78 Sius. Arch. Col. xiii, 132-54. " Eadmer, Hist. (Rolls Ser.), 47. 80 Anct. Pet. E 668. 81 Anct. D., D 1073 is a copy (thirteenth century) of this charter. M Stowting in Kent. 83 Possibly this is the ' monasterium ' founded in Bexhill in the eighth century. 84 Probably the ' Checeham ' of Domesday. 112 RELIGIOUS HOUSES the count adding a house in the castle. The prebend of Auscher, or Anscher, possessed the church of West Thurrock85 in Essex with land there and at ' Sistaleberga,' 86 a house in 'Este- ham ' and another in the castle. To that of Theobald belonged the churches of Peasmarsh, Beckley, Iham, and Iden and the chapel of Playden, with various tithes and a parcel of moor at Rye ; to that of Geoffrey de Blangii the chapel of ' Weklintun,' land at ' Cyletona ' and ' Horna,' tithes at ' Tyntuna ' and other places and a house in the bailey. The prebend of Ralph Taiard was endowed with the church of Ewhurst, the chapels of Wilting, ' Vilesent,' Hollington and Bodiam, and the burial fees of parishioners of Bodiam chapel due to Ewhurst church, various tithes, a house in the castle and a garden outside the bailey. The prebend of Roger Daniel possessed the church of Brightling, the monastery of ' Bochehordea ' 87 and certain lands and tithes. The control of the grammar school was assigned to the prebend of Thurrock and that of the choir school to the prebend of Warding. To the common fund of the church for food and clothing were given the church of St. Andrew at Hastings and a yearly rent of four ambers of salt from Rye, as well as certain rights of pasture. For the support of the fabric, lights and ornaments of the church, the count gave the tithes of his rents in the rape of Hastings, and other grants were made by various persons, Godfrey the priest giving the church of St. Sepulchre subject to the confirmation of Boni- face, on whose land it was built and to whom the canons agreed to pay an annual rent of two shillings. From about the beginning of the thirteenth century the prebends seem to have been as follows : Bulverhythe, Brightling, Crowhurst (sometimes with Ticehurst), Hollington (with Ewhurst and Bodiam), Marlepast, Peasmarsh, Stone, Thurrock, and the combined prebend of Wartling, Hooe, and Ninfield which was divided into three separate prebends 88 ; finally, there was the prebend of Salehurst, which from 1333 onward was held by the abbot of Robertsbridge. After the free chapel had been granted away from the crown these prebends seem to have gradually diminished in number, and in 1535 the Valor only records those of Hollington, Peasmarsh, Hooe, Wartling, Ninfield, Brightling, and Thurrock.89 John, count of Eu, son of that Henry whose 95 The only manor held by the count of Eu in Essex, V.C.H. Essex, i, 5 1 30. 86 ? Tilbury. " This was evidently the church of Duckworth in Hunts, which belonged to a prebend of Hastings in 1246 ; Pat. 31 Hen. Ill, m. 8. 88 Chan. Misc. R. ,&. 89 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 344. charter of confirmation has already been noticed, in 1151 granted the church of St. Mary in the castle to the abbey of Tr^port, so that as the canons died, resigned, or assumed the monastic habit, monks of Tre'port should be intro- duced in their stead.90 This grant, however, possibly owing to the confused state of England at this time and the death of Stephen in 1154, was either revoked or at least not taken advantage of — if indeed it was ever really made.91 No trace of any claim by the abbey of Trdport is to be found until, in I47O,92 apparently taking advantage of the brief restoration to power of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou, the abbey petitioned the latter queen, who was then in France, to restore to them the church of St. Mary given, as they asserted, by Count John in 1 15 1.93 It would seem that she granted the request, as they appointed five of their number to act as their proctors ' in ruling and governing our church or priory of Hastings dependent upon our said monastery,' with power to receive the vows of those admitted into the priory according to the Benedictine rule, especially the vow of obedience, to correct all faults in the members of the priory and to call back to the cloister any who had left it if such there were.94 Edward IV recovering his throne, this attempt of the abbey to plant a cell at Hastings came to nothing. The college remained in the patronage of the founder's descendants until 1267, when, on the death of Alice, countess of Eu, it escheated with the castle and rape of Hastings to the crown.96 It then became a royal chapel, and so remained until its grant to Sir Thomas Hoo in 1446. It was therefore free and exempt from the jurisdic- tion of ordinaries, and although the bishops of Chichester on several occasions endeavoured to enforce their rights of visitation, &c. there, they were always unsuccessful. Although the charter of Henry, count of Eu, was witnessed by ' Hugh the Dean,' it appears doubtful whether there was a dean constantly at the head of the college before the thirteenth century. In the agreement made by Walter fitzLambert for the election of future canons to the prebend of Guestling, the ' common consent of the chapter ' only is mentioned, and in a deed of about ngo96 one Branching, a canon, makes a grant ' by the common coun- sel and consent of the chapter.' Lyttleton's 90 Cal. Doc. Trance, 81. 91 It is only known from the copy annexed to the fifteenth-century petition. 91 The petition is undated, but of the fifteenth century, and judging from the appointment of brethren to take control of the church in 1470 — as related below — was probably of that date. 98 Exch. Transcripts, vol. 1401;, p. 359. M Ibid. 379. 95 Rot. Par/. (Rec. Com.), i, 23. 98 Campb. ch. xvi, 17. A HISTORY OF SUSSEX statement that Becket was dean of this college appears to have arisen from his misunderstanding the fact that the count of Eu gave the patronage of the prebends of Hastings to Becket.87 Henry de Ow occurs as dean of St. Mary's in ngs.88 In 1275 the king ordered William of Faver- sham to visit the chapel and put over it some prudent member of the community in place of the dean.89 That this was done is evident from the direction of a royal mandate next year to the vice-dean and chapter ordering them to convert to the support of the chapel and its ornaments the issues of vacant prebends and other things formerly set aside for that purpose.100 A letter of 1280 addressed to the constable of Hastings Castle directs him to deliver the houses in the castle to Master Luke de Neuport, canon of the free chapel, to dwell in;101 and a royal charter 102 was issued the following year confirming an undated grant of land made by Vincent the dean and the chapter of the free chapel. The earliest constitutions of the college give full directions for the performance of divine ser- vice.103 During the winter, from Michaelmas to Easter, the sacrist should ring for mattins at day- break— the first bell being rung for the time it takes to go from St. Michael's church to St. Mary's ; after a reasonable interval the second bell should ring for half the time of the first, and the third for half that of the second. The full peal (c/assicum) should be rung according to the dignity of the various festivals, and when it rang all should assemble, the lights should be lit in the church and the priest should begin mattins, all facing the east, as they should do at the beginning of all the hours until the 'Alleluia' after the doxology, when they turn and face one another across the choir. Anyone arriving after the end of the first psalm should lose his commons for that day, and if constantly so offending should be removed from the church. Immediately after mattins a bell shall ring three times for the mass of the Blessed Virgin ; the priest shall robe and commence the office, and after the offertory any priests who wish to cele- brate private masses may do so provided the priest whose duty it is to say high mass shall remain behind, and on anniversaries another priest to celebrate the mass for the departed. At a suitable hour the prime bell shall ring the time it takes to go a league, then after a short interval the ' little prime ' shall ring and all shall come to the service and remain to the end, when they assemble in chapter and any faults shall be corrected. After chapter, mass for the departed shall be said, and then terce, during which the " Mat. for Hist, of Thomas Becket (Rolls Ser.), iii, 20. 86 Cal. RobertibriJge Chart. No. 24. 99 Pat. 3 Edw. I, m. 25. 10° Pat. 4 Edw.I, m. c. 101 Close, 8 Edw. I, m. 3. 101 Chart. R. 9 Edw. I, m. 7. 101 Chan. Misc. R. . priest and his assistants shall robe for high mass. If any vicars are not in residence their stipends shall be divided amongst the canons and vicars who are. Two of the vicars shall note any vicars absent and read out the list in chapter, and distribute the commons according to the residence kept by the several recipients. Finally the ' proctor or dean ' of the church with the advice of his brethren, and especially of those resident, shall order all things in the church to the glory of God and the good of the church. Additions were made to these rules in 1286, when it was ordained that any minister absent for a fortnight without leave should lose his per- quisites for a month, and any in residence absent from morning mass should lose his perquisites for a week. All taking part in any service should wear the customary dress and especially their hoods. Anyone causing strife or contention should be punished by the dean by the with- drawal of his commons. Finally all are strictly forbidden to submit to the jurisdiction of ordi- naries to the prejudice of the chapel. The last of these rules was doubtless due to the determined efforts of the bishops of Chiches- ter about this period to subject the college to their jurisdiction. Some of the canons had had to appeal to the king against the bishop in 1279; and in 1299 orders were given to Robert de Burghersh to ascertain whether the bishop should have the institution and admission of the pre- bends,104 which privilege he again claimed, but unsuccessfully, in 1307. m During the vacancy of the see of Chichester in 1305 the archbishop of Canterbury attempted to hold a visitation in the chapel but was refused admission by the keeper of the castle, whom, with certain of the canons, he excommunicated.' Afterwards, while the castle was without a keeper, he sent officials who held a visitation, made divers statutes, and appointed William of Lewes dean, an appoint- ment which the king at once annulled.106 Being exempt from episcopal control the free chapel of Hastings was visited periodically by royal commissioners, and a detailed report of their proceedings in September, 1319, is still extant.107 Master Edmund of London, the dean, and five canons were present in person and three canons by proctors. It was then ordained that all re- pairs to the fabric of the church and the pro- vision of vestments, books, and ornaments should be defrayed from the offerings made in the chapel. Also that the vicars should be fit persons sufficiently skilled in reading and singing, that they should be constant at their duties, not wander about the country, and that they should be of good report ; if any of them were thrice found guilty of infringing these rules he should IM Pat. 27 Edw. I, m. 26 d. 106 Coram Rege R. Trin. 35 Edw. I, m. 41. 06 Pat. 33 Edw. I, pt. ii, m. 2. 107 Chan. Misc. R. A. RELIGIOUS HOUSES thereby forfeit his place in the church. The sacrist, into whose hands all oblations must come in the first place, should be at once removed if found unfit ; also the offerings collected by the proper officers should be kept in safety in locked coffers, and the collectors should swear to collect faithfully and to keep nothing back. At the beginning of each quarter the canons should pay down the full amount due to their vicars for the ensuing quarter, at id. a day, and two of the vicars sworn for that purpose should distribute their commons to the vicars every week accord- ing to their merits ; if by reason of their de- faults anything remained over it should be divided between the vicars and canons in residence at the discretion of the dean. Canons in residence should reside six weeks in each quarter, attending at least one mass or one of the hours every day, and should keep up their houses. In future every canon, resident or not, should receive his share of the common revenues by the hands of his vicar to the amount which he formerly paid from his prebend to the vicar, to whose use the said money should remain. Any money left over after paying stipends and other expenses was to be divided amongst the dean and canons in residence every quarter, but if any failed to reside during the Michaelmas and Christmas quarters they should lose their shares for the year. Direc- tions were also given about the letting of the houses belonging to the college. The dean, being examined, said that there was a fund of £20 set aside for repairs and that the ornaments of the church were in good condition except that two antiphonaries and two graduals were wanting, and he at once presented an anti- phonary of the Sarum Use to the church and appointed one of the vicars to write the other books. Of the spiritual condition of the chapel he had a worse report to make. Six of the vicars were quarrelsome and dissolute and frequently left the chapel unserved, and though often pun- ished were incorrigible. They had also stolen , a coffer fastened to the foot of the cross, from which the expenses of the church were paid, with a large sum of money : moreover they caused the constable's deputies to eject the vicars from their houses in the castle and the sacrists from their rooms in the chapel, where they used to be night and day to receive pilgrims to the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Cross,108 and took from them the keys of the chapel, chambers, treasury, chapter and bell tower so that they might dispose as they pleased of the money ; they also forcibly resisted the entrance of car- penters sent to repair the chapel and belfry, wherefore many defects still remain. In their IOS In the will of Richard, Lord Poynings, made in 1387, the 'crucifix of Hastings' is the object of a bequest with the better known miraculous roods of Boxley, Bromholm, and the north door of St. Paul's : Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Courtenay, fol. 223. defence the vicars alleged that they took the coffer by order of their masters, the non-resident canons, but could produce no evidence thereof ; they also accused other vicars of stealing money from another coffer, but the latter asserted that they themselves stole the second coffer from the high altar by night. To ascertain the truth a jury was sworn who found that the charges were true as far as five of the vicars were concerned. They also made certain statements about several of the vicars, the details of which resemble the charges brought against the monks by Layton and his followers at the time of the dissolution. As a result four vicars were ejected, the fifth not having been convicted three times was allowed to remain. The jury also found that the houses on the west of the chapel in the castle were built with the money of the chapel for the use of the clergy, and that two sacrists had always dwelt in the chapel day and night to receive pilgrims and had two rooms in the same chapel, one on the ground floor by the door for their meals, and an upper chamber at the west of the chapel for their beds. Two years later, in 1321, the king issued a commission for another visitation,109 stating that the ministers of the chapel were neglecting their duties, although receiving their stipends, that some of them were leading dissolute lives, and that the oblations of the Holy Rood which ought to be devoted to the repairs of the chapel and the payment of the ministers were being otherwise disposed of by the dean. Similar commissions were issued in 1328 no and I334111 and also in I335112 ar>d I336,113 the visitors at the latter date being the abbots of Battle and Robertsbridge. An endeavour to effect some improvement in the condition of the chapel was also made by the canons themselves in 1335, when they assembled at Bermondsey Priory, where the prebendary of Thurrock, William de Cusancia — probably a brother of the prior — was staying, and passed certain regulations, the most important being that the dean should be always resident except for three months in the year, when he might be absent provided he left a sufficient deputy. It was also recorded that every canon upon his institution ought to present to the church a cope, or IDS. for the use of the choir and ornaments of the church.114 Misfortune now befell the college. In 1331 the dean and chapter had petitioned 115 the king to cause the castle of Hastings to be inclosed with walls and gates and houses to be built for 109 Pat. 1 5 Edw. I, pt. i, m. 15 d. 110 Ibid. 2 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 12 d. 111 Ibid. 8 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 25 d. 111 Close, 9 Edw. Ill, m. 1 2 d. 1IS Pat. 10 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 13 Pat. 1 8 Edw. III. pt. i, m. 36. 130 Pat. 17 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 32 d. U1 Chanc. Misc. R. A- 116 RELIGIOUS HOUSES of the chapel had lately been rebuilt, but the houses below the castle called ' Godelond,' used by the dean and canons resident, were ruined, and almost uninhabitable. Recent deans had mostly been non-resident, and had allowed many rents and annual payments to be withdrawn from the college to its great loss.132 At last, in 1447, its privileged position as a royal free chapel was lost, Henry VI in that year granting that the colle- giate church of Hastings, with its deanery and prebends, which he had given with the castle to Sir Thomas Hoo, should be exempt from visitation by the king or any other person except the bishop of Chichesterand his official.133 This arrangement was confirmed, in 1460, by an agreement between Sir William Hastings, then lord of the honour of Hastings, and the bishop, by which the college was declared to be entirely subject to the jurisdiction of the bishop.134 It survived the dissolution of 1536-8, but fell under the Act suppressing colleges, &c., in the last year of Henry VIII, and was granted by the king to Sir Anthony Browne, of Battle and Cowdray, and Elizabeth his wife.138 DEANS OF THE COLLEGE OF HASTINGS Hugh, early twelfth century 136 Henry de Ow, occurs 1 195 lb7 Vincent, before ia8o138 Giles de Audenard, appointed 1302 139 William de Lewes, intruded 1305 14° Edmund de London, occurs I3I9,141 1322 142 Walter de Lyndrigge, appointed I337,143 re- signed 1339 144 Geoffrey de Clare, appointed 1340 145 John Wade, appointed I342,146 occurs 1347 l47 John de Codington, occurs I36i,148 1366 149 Robert Leggatt, 1369 15° William de Grysell, exchanged I374151 John de Hardlestone, appointed I374,162 re- signed I383163 John Eyr, appointed I383,164 exchanged 1389 16' 131 Chanc. Misc. bdle. 20, file I, No. 1 1. 133 Chart. R. 26 Hen. VI, No. 38. 134 Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 51. 135 Pat. 38 Hen. VIII, pt. 13, m. i r. 136Anct. D., D 1073. 137 Cal. Robertsbridge Chart. No. 24. 138 Chart. R. 9 Edw. I, m. 7. 139 Pat. 30 Edw. I, m. 15. 140 Pat. 33 Edw. I, pt. ii, m. 2. 141 Chanc. Misc. R. jg. 141 Pat. I 5 Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. 9 d. 143 Pat. ii Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. 22. 144 Close 13 Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. 22 d. 145 Pat. 14 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 30. 116 Pat. 1 6 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 30. Hr Cal. Papal Pet. i, 1 27. I4S Ibid. 363. 149 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Langham, fol. 39. 150 Suss. Arch. Coll. xiii, 1 54. UI Ibid. "' Ibid. 153 Pat. 7 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 45. M Ibid. 155 Pat. 1 3 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 9. John Notyngham, appointed 1389 166 Richard Clyfford, resigned I398157 Gilbert de Stone, appointed I398,168 exchanged 1 40 1159 John Gamull, appointed 1401 16° Henry Rumworth, appointed I4o8,161 ex- changed 1411 162 William Hawe, appointed 1411 163 William Tanfield, 141 5 1M William Prestwick, appointed I423,1S5 died i436"6 John Kingscote, 1458 187 John Carpenter, I46o168 John Fowkes169 Benedict Burgh, resigned 1480 17° John Pensell, appointed I48o171 Richard Brokysby, or Roksbye, occurs I535172 The seal used in 1195 was oval (3 in. long), the Virgin seated holding a model of a church in her right hand and a slip of lily in her left.173 Legend : — SIGILLUM ECCLIE SCE MARIE DE HASTINGES A deed of about 1230 has a seal; oval (i^in.) Virgin and child under a canopy.174 Legend : — S DECANI MARIE DE HASTINGE There is also a fragment of a seal of 1334 showing a robed figure, seated, in profile.175 59. THE COLLEGE OF SOUTH MALLING 176 Aldulf, prince or duke of the South Saxons, about the year 765, gave lands in Stanmer, Lindfield, and Burleigh for the endowment of a monastery in honour of God and St. Michael, which he had apparently already established at Mailing.177 He was therefore commemorated in the list of benefactors as the first founder of the college.178 The manor of Mailing was 156 Ibid. 157 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 69. 158 Ibid. 149 Pat. 2 Hen. IV~pt- "» m- 9- '6° Ibid- 161 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 125. 16J Ibid. fol. 147. * Ibid. 161 Suss. Arch. Coll. xiii, 154. 165 Acts ofP.C. iii, 20. 166 Brass in Warbleton church. 167 Suss. Arch. Coll. xiii, 154. M Ibid. 169 Ibid.; presumably the same as 'Master Foxe, dean of Hastings,' in 1461 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 542. 170 Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, pt. ii, fol. 15. '" Ibid. 171 Vakr Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 344. 178 Cal. Robertsbridge Chart. No. 24. 174 Ibid. No. 187. 1?s Ibid. No. 262. 176 Suss. Arch. Coll. v, 127-42 ; xxi, 159-90. 177 Cart. Sax. No. 197. 178 S«w. Arch. Coll. v, 129. 117 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX subsequently bestowed upon the archbishop of Canterbury by Baldred, king of Kent, about 823, but as he was not at the time in full possession of the kingdom the grant was held to be invalid, and had to be renewed in 838 at the council of Kingston *>y the kings Egbert and Ethelwolf.179 Nothing more is heard of the foundation until the Domesday Survey, which shows the canons of St. Michael holding 4 hides of Mailing Manor and the estate of Stanmer, rated at 20 hides ; as they are here spoken of as canons it is clear that the Benedictine monks — for such the inmates of Aldult's monastery would probably have been — had been replaced by seculars. About 1150 Archbishop Theobald refounded the college, building a new church, and endowing it with all the tithes of his manor of South Mailing and its appurtenances.180 Of the collegiate church thus established the nominal head was the arch- bishop, who held the prebend of Mayfield, but active control was vested in the dean, who was also rural dean of South Mailing deanery, con- taining the churches of Ringmer, Framfield, and Southeram, which were prebendal, Cliffe, Buxted with Uckfield chapel, Edburton, Ifield, Mayfield, Stanmer, Wadhurst, and Glynde. The church of West Tarring with Patching was also at first attached to this deanery, but was after the thirteenth century put under that of Pagham. The dean was required to be con- stantly resident, and the three canons, who held the offices of precentor, chancellor, and treasurer respectively, had to reside forty days every year,180" but this obligation rapidly became merely nominal, the prebends being bestowed upon wealthy pluralists and papal nominees whose sole connexion with the college lay in the pay- ment of stipends to their vicars.181 Originally the profits of the churches of Mailing, Southeram, and Framfield had been divided between the dean and canons, that of Ringmer being held by each in turn for a year, but under Archbishop Chicheley Mailing church was assigned to the dean, Southeram to the precentor, Ringmer to the chancellor, and Framfield to the treasurer.183 Two other officials of the church were the penitentiary and the sacrist, who were obliged to reside, and obtained their income mainly from oblations and certain special tithes, though the sacrist's office was further endowed in 1275 with certain lands and rents which had been left by the vicar of Ringmer to found a chantry, but had proved insufficient for the purpose.183 Each canon had to maintain a vicar, and the rector of Buxted had to provide a sub-deacon of good character and voice to serve with the vicars.184 171 Cart. Sax. No. 421. 1SO Suss. Arch. Coll. v, 1 30. 180a Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Winchelscy, fol. 69. 181 See Cal. of Papal Let. pastim. "• Early Chan. Proc. bdle. iz, No. 85. 183 Suit. Arch. Coll. v, 136. M Ibid. 137. The deans and canons from an early period had each a separate manse with a garden,185 but the vicars had no fixed residence, but lived in such houses as they could obtain in the neighbour- hood, until in 1515 Archbishop Warham ordered the erection of a suitable manse for their use.186 In spite of its antiquity this college has singularly little history attached to it ; beyond its frequent occurrence in the archbishop's regis- ters as the place from which letters were dated or where ordinations were held few notices of it occur. The statutes revised by Archbishops Stafford (1443) and Warham (1515) have already been dealt with, and the visitations held in 1 298 187 and I3y6188 contain only injunctions of a tech- nical nature ; this absence of history, though disappointing to the chronicler, may be taken as evidence of the satisfactory morality of the establishment. It must be remembered that the prebends were mostly held by ecclesiastics who made no endeavour to reside on the spot, even the deanery being occasionally bestowed upon persons who could not execute the duties, as in 1395 when the pope dispensed Richard Courtenay, the archbishop's nephew, then in his fourteenth year, to hold the deanery of South Mailing with canonries of Chichester, Bos- ham, Lincoln, London, Wells, and Wilton.188 The deanery was indeed a sufficiently valuable benefice to attract the attention of Cromwell, who demanded the patronage of it from the prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, during the vacancy of the primacy in I534.190 South Mailing College was valued in 1535 at j£45 12s. $%d. clear,191 and was suppressed in I547>192 'ts s'te ancl possessions being granted to Sir Thomas Palmer,193 but recovered by the arch- bishop in 1553 upon petition showing that the college had only held of the archbishopric as tenants at will.194 Surveys were made in 1555 of the dilapidated church with its six bells, its lead, its ' xxix marbyll stones wherein werre Images and scrypturs of brasse,' and its stone and timber.195 DEANS OF THE COLLEGE OF SOUTH MALLING William de Bosco, occurs I23O196 Nicholas de Wich, appointed 1261 187 85 Ibid, xxi, 161. '""Ibid, v, 136. 187 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Winchelsey, fol. 6<)b. 188 Ibid. Sudbury, fol. 49. 169 Cal. Papal Let. iv, 510. 190 L. ana1 P. Hen. Vlll, vii, 763. 191 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 337. 191 Susi. Arch. Coll. xxi, 164-8. 193 Ibid. 169-72, 174-8. IM Ibid. 173-4. 195 Ibid. 181-5. 198 Cott. MS. Vesp. F. xv, fol. 310'. 197 Cal. Papal Let. \, 377. 118 RELIGIOUS HOUSES Reginald de Gressenhale, occurs I287,198 died John de Berewyk, appointed I293,200 occurs 201 1310 William de S wanton, occurs I3I4,202 I326203 Nicholas Wardedyeu, appointed c. 1327, died '• I333204 John de Aylesbury, occurs 1353, died 1357 206 John de Echingham, appointed I357,207 died I37i m John Patency, appointed March, 1 37 1,209 ex- changed April, 1371 21° Richard de Apulderham, appointed and ex- changed April, 1 37 1211 Thomas Ocle, appointed 137 1,212 exchanged J375 Giles de Wyngremouth, appointed I375,213 died -1380 Adam de Wykemer, appointed I38o,214 died John de Kirkeby, appointed I385,218 occurs 1392"' Richard Corteney, occurs 1395 218 Henry Winchestre, appointed I399,319 ex- changed 1406 William Piers, appointed I4o6,220 died 1439 221 Thomas Hanwelle, occurs I458,223 I4O2,223 died I473224 Thomas Edmond, died 1481 a25 Thomas Brent, appointed I48i,225 died 1515 Robert Wykes, appointed 1515 226 John Piers, occurs I535,227 died 1536 Thomas Heritage, appointed I536,228 died Nicholas Heth, appointed I537,229 resigned 1540 Robert Peterson, appointed I54O,230 sur- rendered 1547 231 A fragmentary example of the collegiate seal shows that it bore the winged figure of St. Michael.232 ALIEN HOUSES 60. THE PRIORY OF ARUNDEL Roger de Montgomery, earl of Shrewsbury, not long after he had obtained the earldom of Sussex, gave certain lands and advowsons to the abbey of S6ez, with a vacant site in Arundel to erect a priory, which was done in 1102 when Gratian, a monk of Seez, became first prior. The priory continued here for some seventy years, but in 1177 the then earl of Arundel removed the English secular canons from the church of St. Nicholas at Arundel, and intro- duced in their place this small priory of four or five monks, which continued a cell to St. Martin of S^ez.1 Of its history very little is known. Its endowment eventually included the advow- sons of the parish churches of Arundel, Yapton, Rustington, Billingshurst, Kirdford, Cocking, and half Littlehampton, as well as the manor of Yapton and lands and rents in other West Sussex parishes, but of individual benefactors and their grants there is no record. The church of Cocking was also claimed by the monks of Seez 198 Assize R. 924, m. 5. 199 Pat. 22 Edw. I, m. 25. *» Ibid. 101 Pipe R. 3 Edw. II. 101 Pat. 8 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 9 d. m Close, 19 Edw. II, m. 5. 804 County Placita, Sussex, No. 1 4. 105 Assize R. 941, m. 5 D. ** Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Islip, fol. 275. 107 Ibid. *08 Ibid. Whittlesey, fol. 84. *» Ibid. "0 Ibid. fol. 84^. 111 Ibid. fol. 8 5*. '"Ibid. 13 Ibid. Sudbury, fol. 1 19*. nt Ibid. fol. 134. ni Ibid. Courtenay, fol. 2 1 ^. in I2OO as belonging to the prebend of Arundel, given them by Earl Roger.2 In 1291 the tem- poralities of the priory were valued at £14 lOs. 6d., with an additional ^5 in pensions arising from various tithes.3 In 1340 the prior of St. Nicholas obtained royal licence to acquire lands to the value of 6oj.,4 and at the same time the earl of Arundel had leave to grant to the same prior a plot of land in Arundel 40 ft. long by 36 ft. broad, with an oratory built thereon in honour of St. Mary.5 Apparently the monks found that this oratory was a source of expense and not of income, as three years later the earl obtained a fresh licence to grant to them 30 acres in Arundel that they should celebrate service daily in honour of Christ 816 Ibid. fol. 259. >" Assize R. 1503, m. 68. 118 Cal. Papal Let. iv, 510. "3 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Arundel, fol. 263. "° Ibid. fol. 313. '" Ibid. Chicheley, pt. i, fol. 478. m De Bane. R. 36 Hen. VI. m Muniments of Magd. Coll. Oxon, ' Sele H.' m P.C.C. Wattys, fol. <)b. *" Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Bourchier, fol. 128. ™ Ibid. Warham, fol. 358. m Vakr Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 337. "8 Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Cranmer, fol. 360. "9 Ibid. fol. 363. "» Ibid. fol. 373. 131 Suss. Arch. Coll. rxi, 168. n> Ibid, viii, 270. 1 Cal. Papal Let. iv, 239 ; Inq. a.q.d. 3 Ric. II, No. 160, printed in Tierney, Hist, of Arundel, 747-57. * Curia Regis. R. 20, m. 10 d. * 'lax. Ecd. (Rec. Com.), 141. ' Pat. 14 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 12. 6 Ibid. m. 21. 119 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX and the Blessed Virgin in the chapel newly founded at the north gate of the town,6 which was presumably the same as the oratory above mentioned. Practically nothing is known of the inner history of this small monastery, the most interest- ing fact being an arrangement made in 1269, by which the priory granted Master William de Wedon, in return for various gifts, board and lodging, and a room in the priory in which he might conduct a school.7 As an alien house Arundel Priory was fre- quently seized into the king's hands during the wars with France, the prior, as a rule, being allowed to farm it of the king. When Edward I took it into his hands it was valued at ^54 3*. I i^d. and was committed to the prior, Denis, for an annual payment of ^35, but as this only left j£i9 3*. ii^d. for the support of the prior and five monks he obtained a deduction of j£8. When, however, Edward III seized the priory in 1337 he again raised the farm to £35, and it was not until 1340 that, out of favour to the earl of Arundel, he lowered it again to £27, and also ordered the prior to be credited with the ^24 extra farm which he had paid during the last three years.8 The farm exacted at the beginning of Richard II 's reign was 2O marks, and at this time the patronage of the priory was in the king's hands, by descent from his father,9 who had no doubt obtained it through Queen Isabella, to whom it was granted by Robert de Morley, heir of Robert de Montalt, in I335-10 When Richard earl of Arundel died in 1376 he left 1,000 marks for the founding of a chantry within the castle of Arundel ; but his son, considering the vicissitudes to which a castle is exposed, and that a chantry in a castle was likely not to be permanent, and seeing also that owing to the long war with France the alien monks had all, with the exception of the prior, abandoned the priory of St. Nicholas, so that service was no longer performed there, decided to found the chantry in the church. He accord- ingly obtained the king's leave in 1379 for mes- sengers to go to Seez and treat with the abbot for the suppression of their cell of Arundel.11 The sanction of the abbot, the pope,12 and King Richard having been obtained, and the earl having undertaken to pay the 20 marks farm due to the crown so long as the war with France should last, the priory was dissolved in 1380 and re- placed by the college of the Holy Trinity,13 whose history has been traced above. * Pat. 17 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 26. 7 Add. MSS. 570i,fol. 18. 8 Close, 14 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 38. 9 Pat. 3 Ric. II, pt. iii, m. 1 2. 10 Pat. 9 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 3. 11 Pat. 3 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 12. " Cal. Papal Let. iv, 239. 18 Pat. 3 Ric. II, pt. iii, m. 1 2. PRIORS OF ARUNDEL Gratian, appointed 1 1 02 14 Walter, occurs 1200 16 Warner, occurs 1241 16 Gervase, occurs c. 1255" Denis, occurs 1269 "-1303 19 Michael de Nauchal, occurs 1351, M 1354" John Messier, occurs I3&422 John Mercer, occurs 1377 23 61. THE BALLIVATE OF ATHERING- TON Besides their priory at Arundel the abbey of Sdez had certain estates in the neighbourhood of Littlehampton which were under the charge of one of their monks settled at Atherington, where there was a grange with a chapel of which there are still considerable remains. This monk was usually called the bailiff of Atherington, though he appears in 1332 on an application for an aid towards the marriage of the king's sister as prior of Atherington.24 In 1349 Edward St. John had licence to alienate to the abbey of Seez, namely to their cell or house of Atherington, property up to the value of j£io.25 Upon the suppression of the alien houses by Henry V the estates of the bailiff of Atherington passed to the abbess of Syon. BAILIFFS OF ATHERINGTON William Olyver, occurs c. I3O426 Peter de OrgericUs, occurs 1325 27 Emerick, occurs 1337 28 Michael, occurs I34529-9SO Michael Nauchal, occurs 1353" Richard, occurs I37&32 Oliver Miche (?), occurs 1403 33 " See above. 14 Feet of F. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), No. 48. "Ibid. No. 379. 17 Dugdale, Man. viii, 1171. 18 Add MSS. 5901, fol. 1 8. 19 Assize R. 1330, m. 18. *° Pipe R. 25 Edw. III. Apparently elected in 1349; Susi. Arch. Coll. xxxv, 118. 81 Pat. 27 Edw. Ill, m. 3 d. •'Cal. Papal Let. iv, 46. n Trevelyan, The Peasants' Rising, 67. " Close, 6 Edw. Ill, m. 163. 18 Pat. 23, Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 10. 86 Anct. D., B. 3485. 17 Pat. 19 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 14. 88 Pat. 1 1 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 13. 15 Cal. Papal Pet. i, 102. 30 Pat. 23 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 28 d. 31 Anct. D., B. 3753. M Ibid. 173. ** ActsofP.C. i, 195; he is called ' occupator pos- sessicmum abbatis de Sagio,' and was probably bailiff of Atherington. 1 2O RELIGIOUS HOUSES 62. THE PRIORY OF LYMINSTER Roger de Montgomery, earl of Sussex, granted an estate at Lyminster to the abbey of St. Peter of Almenesches, of which his daughter was abbess. Shortly after the death of his wife in 1082 he gave for the good of her soul half the manor of Climping, with the church of that vill. These two estates constituted the abbey's possessions in Sussex at the time of the Domes- day Survey, but the church of Poling was prob- ably added shortly after this date, and in 1178 Pope Alexander III confirmed to the nuns of Almenesches all their rights in the churches of Lyminster, Climping, Poling, Ford, and Rusting- ton, as well as in the manors of Climping, Rust- ington, Ford, Preston, and Poling. Some twenty years later Seffrid II, bishop of Chichester, in consideration of the poverty and good fame of the nuns of Almenesches granted them pensions of iooj. from the church of Climping, 60*. from that of Rustington, and 40;. from that of Ford.34 So far there is no reference to any priory at Lyminster, but later tradition asserted that it was founded by Earl Roger,35 and the fact that the abbey's portion of Lyminster was called ' Nonne- minstre ' in 1086 (and ' Nummenistre ' in the bull of 1178) suggests that there may have been nuns resident here from an early date. The first actual mention of the priory of St. Mary of Lyminster appears to be in an action brought in 1263 with reference to lands granted some years earlier to a former prioress, Mabel.36 Of history this priory had none, and its name only occurs in connexion with its periodic seizure into the king's hands during war with France. It was a very small house ; in 1380 there were only two sisters, Julia and Margaret, besides the prioress, Katherine,37 and it came to an end when the alien houses were suppressed by Henry V, its property being granted by Henry VI to Eton College. PRIORESSES OF LYMINSTER Mabel, before 1263 38 Agatha, occurs 1277 39 Agatha de la Poynte, occurs I294,40 Omelina, occurs I32O42 Joan del Isle occurs 1 346 43 Joan de Ferrariis, occurs I3&444 Katherine de Lisle, occurs I377,4 I40046 84 Col. Doc. France, 246. 35 Inq. p.m. 14 Ric. II, 118. 36 Assize R. 912. 87 Cler. Subs. *£. ** Assize R. 91 2. 89 Feet of F. Suss, file 25, No. 35. 40 Pat. 22 Edw. I, m. 5. 41 Pat. 24 Edw. I, m. 21. " Close, 1 3 Edw. II, m. 6 d. 48 Pat. 20 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 29. 44 Pipe R. 37 Edw. III. "Chan. Misc. bdle. 1 8, No. 3. 46 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 79. 2 121 1296" died Georgia la Cloustiere,46 Gloustiere,47 Glover- nestre,48 appointed 1400," died 1409*' Nichola de Hercez, appointed 1409 M 63. THE PRIORY OF RUNCTON Roger of Montgomery, earl of Shrewsbury and Chichester, gave the manor of Runcton to the Norman abbey of Troarn, some time before 1086, and several of his undertenants followed his example and bestowed lands and tithes in West Sussex upon the same abbey, which had further obtained the church of St. Cyriac in Chichester by 1155, when Henry II confirmed these grants.51 A small cell was therefore estab- lished at Runcton under the charge of a prior some time in the twelfth or early thirteenth century. Accordingly, when Hugh de Neville confirmed his ancestors' grants of land in Waltham he stipulated that the prior of Runcton should hold the tene- ment in the name of the abbot of Troarn.52 This deed being attested by 'William the fourth, earl of Arundel,' must have been executed between 1226 and 1230, and a few years later, in 1233, we find the rector of South Stoke abandoning a suit against the abbot of Troarn and prior of Runcton for the tithes of Offham.53 An undated charter by John Sturmy conferring lands near Chichester upon the abbey, with reservation of the services therefrom to the prior of Runcton, gives us the only known name of any of the heads of this small house : ' For this grant William prior of Runcton has given me 405. and a horse worth I mark and to Rose my wife a cloak of violet (pallium de violetta) and a bezant.' M In 1260 the priory of Boxgrove made an agreement with the abbey about the tithes of Richard de St. John's lands, by which they undertook to pay Ss. annually to the prior of Runcton in exchange for the said tithes.55 But in the same year, 1260, an arrangement was come to between Troarn and its daughter house the priory of Bruton in Somerset, by which the latter took over all the English lands of the abbey,56 and as a result the priory of Runcton ceased to exist and became only a grange of Bruton. 64. THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF STEYNING It is rather remarkable that the list of religious foundations in England drawn up about 1200 by the chronicler Gervase, mentions only three ' decanatus ' of secular canons, those namely of St. Martin's, London, Wells, and this of Steyning. 47 Pipe R. 6 Hen. IV. 48 Mem. R., K.R. Hil. 3 Hen. IV. 49 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade, fol. 130. M Ibid. 61 Round, Cal. Doc. France, 170. " Bruton Cartel. (Somers. Rec. Soc.), No. 352. "Ibid. 344. "Ibid. 351. "Ibid. 345. "Ibid. 310-13. 16 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Yet its claim to notice rests rather with its an- tiquity than with its size or importance, and its history is meagre and obscure. The church and manor of Steyning were granted to the Norman abbey of Fecamp by Edward the Confessor, taken from them % Harold i7 and restored by William the Conqueror.58 According to an inquisition made in 1290 the church was a royal free chapel exempt from the jurisdiction alike of the arch- bishop and of the bishop of Chichester, and had so been from the time that it was bestowed upon the abbey of Fecamp ' by King Alfred (sic),' the abbots having cognizance of matrimonial and similar cases by their bailiffs.69 By 1290, appar- ently, the college had been dissolved and the church appropriated to the abbey, but before that time there were three separate portions, or prebends, to which when vacant the abbots appointed clerks at their pleasure, instituting them through their bailiff without presentation to any ordinary.60 This exemption of the ' canons and clergy ' of Steyning from episcopal juris- diction had been confirmed at an earlier date,61 apparently about I230.62 Possibly the collegiate establishment may really have dated back to the time of King Alfred, as the church of Steyning was evidently of importance in his time, his father Ethelwulf being buried there.63 In 1254 there was a dispute between the priory of Sele and Nicholas de Plumpton and his fellow canons of Steyning concerning tithes in the neighbourhood of Steyning, decision 64 being given that the tithes belonged to Sele and should remain 'as in the time of William de Faukeham, canon of Steyning.' This Nicholas occurs as a canon of Steyning in 1250, when he was licensed to hold a cure of souls with his canonry,65 and also in 1252, when he is termed 'provost of the church.' 66 During the primacy of Robert Kil- wardby (1272-8) the archbishop's commissioners contrived to enter the church without the know- ledge of either the abbot of Fecamp or his bailiff and held a visitation, but a similar attempt by the deputies of Archbishop Peckham was foiled by the abbot's bailiff, whom Peckham excommu- nicated,67 as he did also the prior of the Domini- cans of Chichester, who preached at Steyning and declared his interdict void and of none effect.68 This was in 1283, and, as already noticed, it seems as if the college had been absorbed between that date and 1290, after which year no further reference is found to these canons. " Dom. Bk. fol. 17. K Cal. Doc. France, 38. 69 Chan. Misc. Inq. file 49, No. 4. » Ibid. 61 P.R.O. Trans, vol. 140 a, fol. 350. 6> Suss. Arch. Coll. v, 122. " Asser, Life of King Alfred (ed. Stevenson), 132. M Mun. of Magd. Coll. Oxon. ' Bidlington,' No. 19. 64 Cal. Papal Let. i, 261. " Feet of F. Suss. 67 Chan. Misc. Inq. file 49, No. 4. " Reg. Efist. Peckham (Rolls Sen), ii, 620. The seal appended to the deed of 1254 's a pointed oval ; three heads in pale, with the sun and moon on both sides in the field. Legend : — CAPIT . CANONICORUM . DE . STANINGES 65. THE PRIORY OF WILMINGTON 6S> Robert, count of Mortain, proved himself a munificent benefactor to the abbey founded by his father at Grestein in Normandy, and not the least important of his donations was the grant of the manors of Wilmington and Frog Firle in Alfriston, which, with two hides in Beddingham given by his wife the Countess Maud, constituted the abbey's holding in Sussex at the time of the Domesday Survey. To this he added a burgage in Pevensey and forest rights in Ashdown Forest; his son William gave other lands in Pevensey, Jevington, Tilton, Heighten, Milton and else- where, fishing rights at Langney,and the churches of Firle, East Dean, and West Dean. Amongst other benefactors may be noticed Alvred the count's butler, a Domesday tenant of importance in several counties and apparently founder of the house of Montague, who gave tithes at Charlston in West Dean ; Richard son of Haming, who gave tithes at Exceit, Sherrington, and elsewhere, as did Roger Marmion at Berwick, and Roger de Frax- ineto at Sutton. Alvred's son William gave four acres near the church of St. Mary of Pevensey (i.e. Westham), and Hugh de Cahaignes another four acres in Pevensey, and Richer of Laigle gave lands and tithes in his lordship of Pevensey. All these gifts were confirmed to the abbey by Richard I in nSg.70 There can be little doubt that by the end of the twelfth century the abbey of Grestein had some kind of establishment at Wilmington, where at least one of their monks could reside as bailiff of their English estates, but there is no evidence of the existence of a priory here earlier than 1243- Meanwhile the abbey's possessions in Sussex continued to increase, and between 1189 and 1315," when they were again confirmed by the king, lands and tithes had been obtained in West- ham, Willingdon, Natwood, Hailsham, Jevington, and the neighbouring parishes. The abbot's temporalities in this diocese in 1291 were worth 151." The frequent seizures of the priory as an alien house during the French wars afford a certain amount of information as to its value ; the prior of Wilmington, being the proctor of the abbey in England, was in charge of lands in seven counties, valued in 1370 at nearly £200, though 69 Dugdale, Man. vi, 1091 ; Suss. Arch. Coll. iv, 37-57- 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. " Tax. Eccl. (Rec. Com.), 141. 122 RELIGIOUS HOUSES at this date almost all the manors outside Sussex had been granted to ' Tideman de Lynberg ' by the king's licence, and half the manor of Jeving- ton, as well as tithes in many places, had also passed out of the prior's possession.73 In 1337 the prior was ordered to pay the king ,£50 in addition to the £20 which he had already paid to be allowed to have the custody of the priory's lands at a yearly farm of £lJO,7t and these extra payments proved so vexatious that in 1342 he offered to pay £200 yearly instead of ^170 if he might thereby be quit of all other exactions.75 Mention has already been made of the gift of the churches of Firle, East Dean, and West Dean. The latter was granted to Richard de Cumbe and Sybil his wife in 1200 in exchange for the church of Friston by Robert abbot of Grestein,78 who at about the same time gave the church of Firle to the bishop of Chichester on condition that the abbots in future should be canons holding a prebend in the church of Chichester. This prebend was constituted by Bishop Seffrid II out of the churches of Wil- mington, Willingdon, and East Dean,77 to which was added Westham, bringing the value up to 55 marks.78 The advowson of Hartfield rectory was obtained from William Filliol in 13 18,79 and completed the prior's spiritualities in the diocese of Sussex. The history of this alien house previous to its suppression in 1414 is practically a blank. The grant of the honour of Pevensey to John of Gaunt in 1 372 included the advowson or patron- age of the priory of Wilmington.80 When it was seized by Richard II in 1380 the prior of the neighbouring convent of Michelham obtained the custody of it and its possessions, agreeing to pay a rent of £100 to the king, another 20 marks to the prior during his lifetime and afterwards to the king, and to discharge the services, alms, and works of charity customary.81 In 1385, however, the king bestowed the priory upon Sir James Berners in discharge of a promised annuity of j£iOO, and in spite of the prior of Michel- ham's protest, he was put in possession, and probably so remained until 1389, when custody was granted to Sir Edward Dalingregge and Thomas Wysebech, chaplain — the latter possibly undertaking the spiritual affairs of the priory — at a rent of no marks, of which loo marks was regranted to Sir Edward. In 1414 Wilmington was suppressed with the 71 Add. MSS. 6164, fol. 417. 71 Close, II Edw. Ill, pt.. ii, m. 37. 74 Ibid. 1 6 Edw. HI, pt.'i, m. 21. 76 feet off. Sun. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), No. 47. 77 Swainson, Hist, of Chich. Cath. 26. 78 Add. MSS. 6164, fol. 417. 79 Inq. a. q. d. 132, No. 21. 80 Dtp. Keeper" i Rep. xxvi, 37. 81 Anct. Pet. 6229, printed in Salzmann, Hist, oj 1 1 at Is ham, 222. other alien houses, and its possessions granted by Henry V to the dean and chapter of Chichester to found a chantry for two priests for the good of the souls of the king's parents and his servant Nicholas Mortimer. PRIORS OF WILMINGTON John, occurs 1 243 M Reynold, occurs I27O83 William, occurs 1299^ William, occurs 1320 85 William de Blainville, occurs 1338 86 Peter Crispyn, occurs 1341,^ 1344 88 William de Banvilla, occurs I343,89 1345 90 John Pykot, occurs 1352" John de Valle, occurs 1371 92 Walter Bristowe, occurs 1 400 93- 1403 94 66. THE PRIORY OF WITHYHAM Robert, count of Mortain, some time before 1086, gave to the priory of Mortain, a cell of Marmoutier, eight burgages in Pevensey worth 51. 6^., and probably also the manor of Withy- ham and the hamlet of Blackham in that parish.85 These two estates were temporarily usurped by Walter de Richardeville, but were restored to the monks about IO95,96 and further confirmed to them by Robert's son William, as count, about IIOO.97 A single monk appears to have been put in charge of their Sussex estates and dignified with the title of prior of Withyham at least as early as I249-98 In 1325 the monks of Mortain, by their proctor the prior of Withyham, had property in the parish worth £26 15*.," and in 1370 are re- turned as holding the manor and advowson of Withyham, the manor being farmed at £20.™ 81 Feet off. Suss. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), No. 416. 83 Assize R. 913, m. I d. 84 Pat. 27 Edw. I, m. 35. 85 Pat. 14 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 2 d. This appears to be W. de Blanville ; Anct. Correspondence, xxxvii, 55. 86 Pipe R. 12 Edw. III. 87 Ibid. 15 Edw. III. 88 Close, 18 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 19. 89 Pat. 17 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 9, 10. 90 Summoned before the Council at London with other alien priors. Close, 19 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 22 d. 91 Assize R. 941, m. $6 d. 91 Charter in library of Chichester Cathedral; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. 1901, p. 203. 93 Coram Rege R. Hil. 2 Hen. IV, m. 51. 94 Acts of P.C. i, 195. He had custody of the priory until 4 Hen. IV, when it was granted to Ric. Leyntwardyn, clerk, and Hen. Pountfreyt ; Pipe R. 6 Hen. IV. He is in this place called a Cluniac monk, and appears to have belonged to the priory of Lewes. 95 See r.C.H. Suss. i, 376. * Cal. Doc. Trance, 434. 97 Ibid. 436. " Assize R. 909, m. 4 d. 99 Add. MSS. 6164, fol. 340. 10° Ibid. fol. 415. 123 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Rather earlier than this a return of alien religious mentions that the prior of Withyham was an Englishman and had no fellow monk.101 The grant made by Edward III in 1372 to John of Gaunt of those possessions in Sussex which after- wards became part of the Duchy of Lancaster included the advowson of this alien cell,10* which only existed for another forty years, being sup- pressed with the other alien houses in 1413, and given first to the New Priory of Hastings,103 and afterwards to King's College, Cambridge.10* 67. THE BALLIVATE OF WARMING- HURST Edward the Confessor gave to the abbey of Fecamp the extensive manor of Steyning, which included the chapelry of Warminghurst, and William the Conqueror added the manor of Bury in 1085. 105 To manage this important property the abbots were accustomed from an early period to send one of their monks to act as their proctor or bailiff, his residence being at Warminghurst. Although usually, and correctly, referred to as the ' ballivatus ' of Warminghurst, this grange and chapel were occasionally dignified with the title of 'priory,' as in 1380, when the king pre- sented to the living of West Angmering ' by reason of the alien priory of Warminghurst being 101 Chan. Misc. bdle. 1 8, file i, No. 6. 101 Def>. Keeper's Rep. xxxi, 37. 105 Pat. 14 Hen. IV, m. 19. 104 Pat. i Edw. IV, pt. iii, m. 23. 106 Cal. Doc. France, 38. in his hands,' 106 and again about 1414, when the prior or farmer of the priory of Warminghurst was ordered to give the earl of Arundel i oo oaks from the priory woods for the munition of Calais.107 Under the bailiff's control were the churches of Steyning, East and West Angmering, Burp- ham and Clapham, worth in all ^73 131. 4^., and temporalities to the value of ^145 ; whether he was also responsible for the abbey's valuable estates at Brede in the extreme east of the county is not quite clear. Being aliens the abbey's estates were constantly seized into the king's hands, but were usually farmed to the bailiff at a heavy rent — 250 marks, besides an additional 50 marks for the privilege of custody, being exacted in I337,108 and as much as 500 marks in I34I.109 The bailiff was ordered in 1377 not to send any ' ap-rt ' or contribution to Fecamp without leave,110 and in 1400, when it was found that the bailiff had taken timber from the woods of Warminghurst and was building a ship of 80 tons at Shoreham, the ship was seized while still on the stocks and given to one John Marsh.111 When the lands of the alien houses were finally seized by the crown in 1414, the pro- perty of Fe'camp was granted to the great nunnery of Syon. 106 Pat. 4 Ric. II, pt. i, m. n. 107 Acts of P.O. ii, 337. 108 Close, II Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 36. 109 Close, 15 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 22. 110 Close, 10 Edw. Ill, m. 2. 111 Pat. 2 Hen. IV, pt. i, m. 9 ; Memoranda R., K.R. East. 3 Hen. IV, m. 1 6. T24 MARITIME HISTORY The seas that wash the shores of Britain being at once her main defence and the only means by which she can be attacked, one of the first things to be examined in considering the maritime history of an English county is the accessibility of its coast and its desirability as a landing-place from the point of view of an invading enemy. Marshal Saxe and General Dumouriez, both strategists of reputation, were of opinion that the true way to strike at London was for an invader to land in the Thames. Such a course presupposes a maritime superiority on the part of the invader, and on the only occasion in English history when an enemy was in naval command of the Thames invasion was neither intended nor attempted. France has often threatened invasion, but has seldom or never been in undisputed command of the Channel long enough to carry out her designs methodically and in the best way. Therefore as the British navy grew to an equal, and then to a greater, strength the shortest possible sea voyage had to be accepted as the best in the plans of French admirals and generals, and excellence of strategy sacrificed to the necessity for a short passage. Sussex and Kent, as the counties nearest to the continental shore, and as offering harbours and landing places, were, as well in mediaeval as in later centuries, both peculiarly attractive to an enemy who proposed either raiding or a more serious enterprise, and, militarily, their history should be considered together. Confining our attention, however, to Sussex it is to be observed that in early times it was even more inviting to an invader than in subsequent centuries, when such harbours as Rye, Winchelsea, Hastings, Pevensey, Bulverhythe, Cuckmere, Shoreham, and Pagham, more or less capable of receiving mediaeval fleets, had deteriorated or ceased to exist ; and in cases where these harbours, formerly covered by the sea, were dry land but liable to inunda- tion they became sources of strength instead of weakness to the defence. Convenient for attack as is the coast of Sussex, it, like all other coasts, varies in degree of accessibility along its 77 miles of seaboard. Chichester Harbour cannot be entered at all at low water, and at no time is it possible to go in without a pilot. From Chichester to Selsey Bill, and round Selsey Bill to Littlehampton, a chain of reefs, shoals, and strong and uncertain tidal currents render navigation so intricate and dangerous that that stretch of coast is protected naturally. Pagham, as a mediaeval harbour, formed by the remains of the ' fleet ' which once made Selsey an island, can never, at its best, have been of any value. From Littlehampton commences the danger zone. Newhaven is practically modern, its place being taken in mediaeval times by Seaford ; but if such harbours as Shoreham, Hastings, Rye, and Winchelsea attracted an enemy in former ages it must also be remembered that in such times those places were relatively strong and populous naval ports, often able to protect themselves and the adjacent districts. Most of the mediaeval attacks on the Sussex ports were for plunder and destruction and with no view to invasion. Later, when ships and fleets were larger, the harbours were not big enough to receive scores of transports, and the attention of the French government was turned else- where. Later yet, Sussex again became part of a danger belt when, after the peace of Paris in 1 763, the French ministry, longing for revenge, listened to the Comte de Broglie's advice to ignore ports and throw an army across in small craft to the nearest beach, a suggestion taken up by the Directory and adopted and improved by Napoleon. It is obvious that from a strategical point of view such a course is, even under the most favourable circumstances possible for it, utterly unsound, and would only be followed when it was found that the conditions prescribed by the art of war were unattainable. The threat and the possibility, however, caused some anxious fears in England and some nervous moments in Sussex, the preparations in France showing that east Sussex and west Kent was the region selected for the principal descent. For a flotilla invasion no finer landing place than Pevensey Bay could be desired, although when the troops were once ashore it would have been found that, given equal skill in leadership, the topographical situation was favourable to the defence. Between Fairlight and Rye, also, disembarkation would be easy, with the additional advantage that the flotilla lying inside the Boulder bank would have a certain amount of shelter. Westward of Beachy Head the invader would have been compelled to undertake a sea journey of undesirable length, and to weigh the consequences of the fact that the landing of an auxiliary force there would not be simultaneous with that to the eastward. The shore bordering the Straits of Dover, offering the shortest passage to Gaul, must have been the principal centre of any shipping industry practised by the British tribes, while Regnum and Anderida, together with other remains along the coast, indicate the Roman use of the sea. Any 125 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX attack from the eastward, having Kent for its objective, would naturally be extended to Sussex ; therefore the appearance of the Jutes in the former county was soon followed by the first recorded maritime invasion of Sussex in 477 by the South Saxons under ,/Elle. If the place of landing — Cymenes Ora — be correctly assigned to the Selsey district it shows that the Romanized Britons were still able to defend the more desirable ports to the eastward which the Saxons must have passed on their way down the coast.1 The essential strength of the Germanic attack on Britain lay in a feature which the English, in their turn, felt to their disadvantage when they were exposed to the Norse raids, namely the possession of a movable base in their ships which enabled them to choose time and place of appearance. The coast was easily won, but, weak in numbers, the conquest of the interior was slow and, where natural barriers supervened, did not progress at all. Thus the South Saxons, hemmed in by the Andredsweald to the north and by more powerful tribes to the east and west, mainly settled along the coast-line and lived obscurely and perhaps peaceably while the other and stronger kingdoms were fighting for supremacy. Besides the customary occupation of husbandry the same adventurous spirit that had brought them across the North Sea may have taken them farther afield in the Channel for purposes of commerce or war. The story told by a monk ' that the South Saxons were ignorant of the art of fishing until taught by Bishop Wilfrid in 68 1 is quite incredible in association with a seafaring people who, irrespective of their earlier history, had been living for two centuries on the sea-shore and in a country intersected by rivers. Moreover, there is evidence that boats from the Kentish ports were frequenting the Yarmouth herring fishery long before the Conquest ; to imagine that men of the same race, traditions, and occupations, living in communication within a few miles, should have been dependent on a Northumbrian bishop for their knowledge of sea-fishing requires a devout believer. The utmost that Wilfrid can have done would be to introduce some improvement. From the first appearance of the Northmen, close at hand, in Sheppey in 835 to the peace of Wedmore in 878 Sussex is not once mentioned in connexion with them through the long years of murderous struggle during which the Danes were sailing, marching, and fighting for conquest. Their fleets came from the east, from the west, and from France, but passed Sussex by ; to the east, north, and west their armies fought and plundered, but made no attempt to turn, if they could not pass, the Andredsweald. The silence is significant of the poverty and unimportance of such towns as existed in the former South Saxon kingdom, now a part of Wessex. The Danish harrying recommenced in 893, and a raid near Chichester in 895, undertaken merely in passing, was easily repulsed. The next recorded incident affecting the county during these years was the coming ashore in 897 of two battered Danish ships escaping from a defeat in Southampton Water, or Portsmouth Harbour, and unable, it would seem, to round Selsey Bill. Their crews were captured by the country people, taken to Alfred at Winchester, and by him promptly hanged. In 911 Edward, then in Kent, collected a hundred ships or more with which to hold the straits, and Sussex probably supplied some of them. There was a long interval of comparative peace until the struggle recommenced towards the end of the tenth century ; then, in 998, we find that a Danish army wintering in the Isle of Wight was ravaging Sussex for supplies. During this interval of peace and the reign of ^Ethelstan (925-40) mints were working at Hastings and Chichester, and one at Winchelsea a few years later ; this, as a mark of increasing importance, may explain why the raiders now gave more attention to the county. The beginning of the eleventh century showed signs of Danish preparation for complete conquest ; the English were quite unable to meet the Danes at sea, but a determined effort was made to obtain a fleet, and to that end a law of 1008 commanded that every 310 hides of land should build and equip a ship. If Sussex was less advanced than its neighbours in maritime strength and practice such a law must have helped to bring it into line with them and tended to a bolder use of the sea than there is any sign of previously. The first essay of the new fleet was not very successful, for 80 ships, sent in chase of an English rebel, were wrecked, possibly on the coast of Sussex.3 In 1009 the Danes again descended on the county and burnt several towns on the sea-shore, but then the storm of war passed away elsewhere.4 During the reign of Edward the Confessor the Sussex, ports begin to come into historical notice ; towards this it is probable that the influence and encouragement of Godwin, the powerful earl of Wessex, who himself often showed his appreciation of the use of sea-power, contributed not a little. In 1049 a strong fleet was collected at Sandwich to act on the coast of Flanders, to which Sussex must have contributed its quota. In the same year both Pevensey and Hastings are mentioned. Forty-two ships put into the former port, and it need hardly be remarked that in 1 Ingram and Earle identify ' Cymenes Ora ' with Shoreham, but it is generally supposed to be the ' Cumeneshora ' of Cadwalla's charter (Cart. Sax. 64), near Wittering. From the naval standpoint it may be considered certain that the Saxon invaders would not have run along the coast without some attempts, then or formerly, to land before rounding Selsey Bill. ' Bede, Hist. Ecclei. bk. iv, c. 13. ' Flor. ffigorn. (ed. Thorpe), i, 1 60. ' Ibid. 161. 126 MARITIME HISTORY considering the early naval history of Sussex the reader must picture an entirely different coast-line from that which now exists. Hastings sent out vessels, apparently at short notice, to chase Sweyn, Godwin's son, and both pursuers and pursued went far down Channel. With the exception of a reference in 7 7 1 by Simeon of Durham 1 to an attack by Offa of Mercia on the Hastings district, and another reference in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to a similar attack made by the Danes in ioil,thisis the first time that Hastings appears in English history and is its first appearance in naval annals. When Earl Godwin fled from England in 1051 he took ship from Thorney Island in Chichester Harbour, another slight indication of the confidence he felt in the affection of the Sussex seamen for him, an affection he must have won by care for their interests.8 When he returned in the following year we are especially told that the sailors of Hastings and the neighbouring ports flocked to join him, saying that they were ready ' to live or die with him,' and for a short time his fleet sheltered at Pevensey. It is important to notice that in Hampshire, Dorset, and north of Sandwich Godwin and Harold plundered and burnt as in an enemy's country, while in the inter- vening district — practically that of the Cinque Ports — they were received and behaved as friends. It may be that in this circumstance we have the key to some of the obscure questions connected with the rise of the confederacy. Three Kentish ports are described in Domesday, and charters granted by the Confessor to Hythe and Dover are referred to in those given by John. It is evident that before the Conquest, and perhaps for long after it, there was no perfected system among the ports either of duties or privileges, but it is possible that in the reign of the Confessor the first lines of union and common action were sketched in by Godwin. If that be the case it is singular that no charter is known to have been obtained for any port in a county obviously devoted to him, unless the explanation is that he preferred that Hastings and the other towns should serve him rather than the king. Edward gave the manor of ' Rameslie,' which included Rye, Winchelsea, and a part of Hastings, to the abbey of Fecamp ; but a grant of the manor need not necessarily have pre- vented Godwin from keeping the maritime strength, to which he attached the most importance, under his own control or influence. If the earl first drew together the threads which were afterwards to bind the ports into a confederation he must have found that a common situation and common interests among them rendered his work easy, and in fact marked out the lines it was to follow. The geographical situation of the ports from the North Foreland to Beachy Head was one which rendered all of them almost equally liable to attack from three out of the four quarters of the compass, and the same conditions which had enforced the fortification of the ' Litus Saxonicum ' were reproduced in the Middle Ages and in 1804. The first brunt of any assault from seaward was most likely to fall upon them, and the constant raids by the Danes must have speedily taught the Kentish ports the advantages of united action when that was possible. It was a necessity for con- tinued existence that the Kent and Sussex ports should hold their own coast and territorial waters ; it was to their profit as well that they should have the command of all that portion of the Channel fronting them. To do either was out of the power of any one or two ports, but not out of the power of a group when they had learned or been taught the wisdom of combination. The motive for association, therefore, came from within, and it was the product of centuries of stern experience; the deciding impulse may have come from without, and of the two men, Edward and Godwin, whose political position rendered them able to lay the foundation of co-ordinate action, only the latter showed political capacity in his career, while his personal interests coincided with an innova- tion of national utility. In the English Chronicle, under the year 1046, we find Godwin sailing from Sandwich with two of the ' king's ships ' and 42 ' people's ships ' ; 3 it is the first occurrence of such a phrase, and happening where and when it does may well be the first indication known to us of the new coalition. As between Kent and Sussex there was, besides the common motive of defence, a common commercial interest drawing them together. It has been noticed 4 that there are signs in the civil history of the Cinque Ports of the existence of distinct Kent and Sussex groups, united later, but perhaps at one time independent, and if this separation was the original state it may have been owing to the fact that while the Kentish union was mainly due to the welding effects of war, that of Sussex, a county far less troubled by the Danes, was the outcome of the fishery at Yarmouth. Entries in Domesday show that several Sussex manors paid heavy rents of herrings, and among John's charters of 1205 that to Hastings is the only one of the seven which specifically allots the right of ' den and strond ' at Yarmouth. Such evidence and tradition as has survived tends to the conclusion that the boats of both counties met on the eastern fishing grounds long before the Conquest. From conjoint action where commercial interests were involved there was only one step further, under the pressure of necessity or the will of a common over-lord, to conjoint action in 1 Hist. Regum (Rolls Ser.), ii, 44. * At Bosham, close at hand, he had a residence, and the place was also well lik d by Harold. 3 ' Landes manna scipa,' translated as ' ships of the country people,' in Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Rolls ed.), iij ijq. * J. H. Round, Feudal England, 507. 127 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX warfare. Why Hastings, which was one of the weakest of the Cinque Ports in men and ships, should have taken the first place in the confederation is an obscure point of which the explanation is perhaps to be found in an antecedence of appearance in the North Sea and in the local conditions existing after the Conquest. Harold was too good a soldier to leave to chance more than he was compelled to risk, and when invasion was preparing in 1066 collected a fleet and army with which he kept watch on the south coast during the summer ; of the squadrons two were stationed at Hastings and Pevensey.1 There must have been reasons we can only guess at why the fleet was not used during the summer to attack the Norman ports where vessels and men were collecting. The local situation was very similar to that reproduced in 1801 and 1804, and the Saxons and Danes knew quite as well as Nelson and Keith the advantage of striking at an enemy in his own ports and on his own coast.2 There must have been overwhelming reasons, perhaps political, for the discharge of the fleet when invasion was seen to be imminent in September, for the cause given by the chroniclers — lack of provisions — is obviously inadequate, seeing that Harold had previously shown himself to be a capable organizer and still had sufficient provisions, or was able to obtain sufficient, to take an army into Yorkshire and back to Sussex.' Mr. Freeman suggested that the need for getting in the harvest made it impossible to keep an army composed chiefly of husbandmen away from their homes, but that explanation will not meet the dismissal or removal of the fleet. It is possible that the mackerel fishery, which commences in the eastern Channel in August, was a potent influence in causing desertion on a large scale, and thus .destroying the fighting value of the fleet. A fisherman to-day expects to earn sufficient during the season to support himself and his family through the remainder of the year ; and no doubt the need was still keener in 1066, for there were then no auxiliary ways of retrieving the effects of a lost or bad season. The tepid Saxon sense of national unity, unbacked by organization or esprit de corps, would have yielded easily to the urgent call of self-interest. It would be an interesting speculation to consider what course Duke William would have adopted, and the possible consequences, had the fleet still remained on its station. As it was he knew that it had gone, that Tostig and Harold of Norway were effecting a diversion in the north of priceless value to him, and that his path was cleared. But had the English held the Channel he would have had to face the crossing in a fleet largely consisting of small and weakly-built vessels hastily got together, many of them probably fishing boats, manned by crews from many provinces strangers to each other when not enemies, and loaded with horses and the impedimenta of an army. Definite leadership and tactical handling of such a fleet would have been impossible in the battle which would have followed; it would not even have been possible to ensure that any considerable portion would have come into action at all. William was in every way a greater leader than Harold and he must have had his solution of the problem ready, but if he was prepared to take the risk, and his artificially attracted force could not have been kept together long, it was one from which even Napoleon flinched, so that we may conclude that English sea power had not yet acquired any great reputation. Pevensey lies about 60 geographical miles NW. £ W. (true) from St. Valery sur Somme. William left St. Valery with a fair wind on the evening of 27 September and disembarked at Pevensey during the forenoon of the 28th. His landfall was probably Beachy Head or the high land about Hastings, and to make either he must have crossed the whole or a part of one western and one eastern stream of the tide. No doubt there were many seamen in his fleet skilled in working the Channel tides. Whether by design or accident Pevensey was the best spot that could have been chosen, for the flats east and west of Dungeness, preferred by Napoleon, were only coming into existence. The harbour was, then, probably nearly or quite as good as that of Hastings ; William's reason for pushing on to Hastings must have been because it offered a stronger position for a fortification, and perhaps commanded a better road, rather than because of any value he attached to the harbour over that of Pevensey. Mr. F. Baring, tracing the Conqueror's movements by the entries in Domesday4, finds evidence that the fleet raided the West Sussex coast after the battle of Hastings and finally used Chichester harbour as a base. If the union of the coast ports was in its tentative stage before the Conquest that event was the deciding factor which rendered development certain and rapid. For nearly a century and a half the English Channel no longer separated powers more or less hostile, but was a sea road uniting territories subject to the same sovereign. From the point of view of domestic policy it was to the interest of the king to have, in what was the strategic portion of the Channel at that date, subjects on whom he could rely either for a quick and sure passage between his island and continental 1 Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Eccles. bk. iii, c. xiv. 1 Freeman (Norman Conquest, iii, 338, 393, 716) thinks that there may have been some slight action by sea ' of no great importance.' * We read that H.irold marched night and day. That need not be taken literally, but it implies move- ment too rapid to permit supplies of any volume to be swept up along the line of march. 4 Engl. Hist. Rev. xiii, 23. 128 MARITIME HISTORY dominions or for a speedy concentration of ships and trained seamen in the event of a revolt or other urgent necessity. It was further the king's aim so to bind to himself, by grants of favours and privileges, the people holding the gate opening on the vital centre of his new kingdom that they could be relied on not only to refuse to join an enemy, but also to repulse him. The same idea of rendering the coast itself an impassable barrier is indicated in the Conqueror's division of Sussex among his kinsmen or his most trusted followers.1 In the eleventh and twelfth centuries Calais and the other French harbours nearest to Dover and Sandwich belonged to the count of Flanders ; Sussex was the county whose ports offered the quickest passage to Normandy. Thus we find both military reasons and motives of state policy for the charters granted by William and his sons estab- lishing the position of the ports and conducing to a closer union between them. In the case of Hastings its situation as the selected passage port for Normandy,2 the importance of its castle, and the possible magnitude of its fishery in the North Sea, may explain why it took the nominal first place in the confederacy. The circumstances in which these ports were placed after the Conquest thus fostered a continuous growth in wealth and strength. Their privileges gave them commercial advantages which, used profitably, resulted in an increase in men and ships, the instruments of maritime power ; their strategical position for war was more potent than it had ever been now that the central portion of the north coast of France was ruled by the same monarch, for, with doubled strength, they and the Normans could close the sea passage of communication between north and south Europe and dominate the hither portion of the North Sea. William I was not a sovereign likely to neglect maritime power, and if just after the Conquest there seem to be signs of carelessness it must have been because there was little for a navy to effect. By 1071, at any rate, there was a fleet in existence, and in 1072 another was acting in Scotch waters ; to these expeditions the Cinque Ports, as we may begin to call them, no doubt contributed effectively, but not until much later have we any details of the demands made upon them. Hastings is hardly mentioned in Domesday, and it is only by Richard's charter of 27 March, 1191, to Rye and Winchelsea, confirming that granted by Henry II, that we find its service to have then been 2O ships, towards which the other two Sussex towns were to supply two. The reign of Henry therefore marks the time when the two eastern ports were rising into importance ; it has been inferred that it also marks the commencement of the decline of Hastings,3 as requiring assistance ; but it seems unsafe to draw such a conclusion, for we do not know whether the Rye and Winchelsea ships were an addition or a substitution. Between the last threat of a Danish invasion in 1083 and the loss of Normandy in 1204 there were few occasions for great maritime levies, but the Sussex ports must have been required to assist in the squadrons raised to take part in the desultory dynastic wars of the period, and to provide for the passage of the sovereign and his troops between England and Normandy. There can, however, have been no continuous strain ; that began with the appearance of France on the Channel coast, and was intensified when the wars of territorial expansion, initiated by Edward I and continued by Edward III, were carried on. In noi Henry I awaited at Pevensey invasion by his brother Robert, but the latter arrived at Portsmouth. A con- tingent of Sussex ships and men, in which Hastings was largely represented, formed part of the fleet and army which took Lisbon from the Moors in 1147 and established the kingdom of Portugal.4 On 25 May, 1199, John, coming to obtain the crown, landed at Seaford 6 and left Shoreham in June with a fleet and army for Normandy. The series of confirmations of their privileges granted to the Cinque Ports in 1205 bore evident relation to the loss of Normandy and the necessity for energetic action by sea. In the same year there is a list of 5 1 galleys belonging to the crown, of which two were stationed, or laid up, at Rye, two at Winchelsea, and five at Shoreham.6 Although vessels were often collected for John's service they were usually directed to meet at Portsmouth, probably owing to its convenient proximity to Winchester. An order of 1214' directed that a list of all ships of 80 tons and upwards, belonging to the ports throughout England, should be sent to the king by Christmas ; so far as the Cinque Ports were concerned this standard of size points to a fact of which we shall meet other evidence, namely, that although the ships they were bound by their charters to supply for their 'service' were very small, most of them possessed others much larger.8 It also points to a fact too often forgotten, in that although the deeds of the Cinque Ports 1 F.C.H. Sussex,\, 353. 1 By a charter from Henry I Hugh de Bek held lands in Beakesbourne as in charge of the king's passage »hip ' ministerium de esnecca sua de Hastinges' (Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), 34-9; Testa de Nevill, 216-19). See also remarks by Sir N. H. Nicolas in Hist, of the Royal Navy, i, 261, 432. 1 Burrows, The Cinque Ports, 73. * 1 tin. Peregrinorum (Rolls Ser.), cxlii. * Gervase of Canterbury (ii, 92) says Seaford ; Matthew Paris and other historians say Shoreham. As the latter was much the better known port it is more likely that Shoreham should be erroneously substituted for Seaford than the contrary. 6 Close, 6 John, m. Id. 7 Ibid. 1 6 John, pt. ii, m. 16. 8 There was a Rye ship of at least 120 tons in 1212 (Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiii, 23). 2 129 17 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX show up bravely for two centuries, their exploits were mainly performed within a limited area and under special conditions, for royal fleets gathered on a large scale for important operations were made up of levies drawn from the English coast towns generally. The particular value to the crown of the Cinque Ports service was that, although they were entitled by prescription to a warning of 40 days when the full number of 57 ships was required, probably a few vessels could always be relied upon at a Tew days' notice for a small employment. When large fleets were collected the Sussex and Kent ships formed only an inconsiderable portion of the whole. In April, 1216, the bailiffs of Rye were ordered to send to the Thames all the vessels belonging to the town, together with four of the townsmen to inform the king of all the shipping details of the port. By this time Rye and Winchelsea were clearly outstripping their head port, Hastings, in importance. On the whole, the Cinque Ports had been faithful to John ; but they had wavered in the middle of the reign, and again, at the end, their allegiance was doubtful, for the king found it necessary in 1216 to promise Hastings, Pevensey, Rye, Winchelsea, and Shoreham additional privileges if they would remain true to him.1 His death terminated such embarrassments and there was no doubt of their loyalty to Henry III, but no Sussex ships are known to have taken part in the decisive battle of August, 1217, in the Straits of Dover, by which any possibility of a French conquest was overthrown. Louis had taken Winchelsea in 1216, but being blockaded from Rye was unable to leave the town by sea ; a French squadron arrived, which enabled him to take the latter place also.2 The naval history of the reign of Henry III is not important, but the services of the Cinque Ports were in continual request for minor duties. Those duties were no doubt usually made sufficiently profitable ; an early writ of this reign, while thanking the Ports for what they had done, informs them that the king is sending two of his servants to inquire into plunder lately taken and to secure the royal share of it.3 An order of 1224, to prepare for service at sea, is addressed, independently, to Shoreham, Seaford, Pagham, and Pevensey, as well as to Hastings, Rye, and Winchelsea.4 Seaford is said to have been a member of Hastings at least as early as 1229-30, and Pevensey at about the same date.6 The destruction of Hastings Harbour and coast line was proceeding rapidly during the first half of the thirteenth century, and explains the necessity for obtaining external support. Of the 21 Hastings ships 10 now came from Winchelsea and five from Rye ;6 we know that not much more than a century later the six from Hastings were then made up of three from that town, one from Pevensey, one from Bulverhythe and Little Iham, and one from Bekesbourne in Kent, and probably their assistance dates from that given by Seaford.7 The help obtained from the smaller members, Hidney, Northeye, and Greenech (near Gillingham), was only in money and men ; 8 the position of Seaford was anomalous, for it was sometimes called upon for ships irrespective of its head port, its connexion with which seems to have been ill-defined. There is a suggestion of a shipbuilding trade at Rye in an order of 1223 forbidding the export of timber from there, as the king was proposing to build ships and galleys,9 and in 1231 ship carpenters were ordered to go to Portsmouth from Winchelsea and Shoreham.10 Between 1237 and 1243 the king's galleys were lying at Rye and Winchelsea, and in the last year there were seven laid up at Rye ; n there were also some royal dockyards and storehouses at both towns.12 Everything points to the conclusion that this was the most flourishing era of Rye and Winchelsea. The fishery must have been pursued on a large scale in view of the heavy supplies required for the royal house- hold, which can have formed only a fraction of the catches,13 and there is some evidence that the Rye boats were following the cod fishery in the North Sea in the twelfth century.14 There must have been an oversea trade extending over a far greater radius than is usually supposed, for in 1253 both Rye and Winchelsea were required to send vessels to scout off the coast of Castile and Leon, with which power war was threatening, and they were to be manned by men who knew the Spanish coast.15 In 1235 a council was held at Dover for the discussion of naval affairs, to which Winchelsea sent 1 8 townsmen and Rye 12, but Hastings only six ; 16 it is noticeable that no other of the Cinque Ports sent as many as Winchelsea. Again, in 1253, at a council at Oxford, that town sent more delegates than any of the other ports. I Pat. 1 8 John, m. 3. ' Mr. G. J. Turner in Trans. Roy. Hist. See. xviii, 262. 8 Pat. i Hen. Ill, m. 4. 4 Ibid. 8 Hen. Ill, m. 8 d. 6 Jeake, Charters of the Cinque Ports, 122. 6 Ibid. 25. 7 Ibid. 27. In regard to the Bekesbourne ship there must have been some change in the relation to the crown ; see ante, p. 129, note 2. 8 In 1 348 Rich. Smelt held the manor of Greenech by service of finding two men with two oars for the Hastings contingent (Close, 22 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 20 J.). 9 Pat. 7 Hen. Ill, m. 3. 10 Close, 15 Hen. Ill, m. 17. II Ibid. 21 Hen. Ill, m. 8 ; 26 Hen. Ill, m. ^d. ; Rot. Liberate, 28 Hen. Ill, m. 19. " Rot. Liberate, 38 Hen. Ill, m. I ; Close, 22 Hen. Ill, m. 2 ; ibid. 48 Hen. Ill, m. 4. 13 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 118 ; xxiii, 27. '* Ibid, xlii, 79. 15 Close, 36 Hen. Ill, m. 13 d. w Ibid. 19 Hen. Ill, m. 20 d. I30 MARITIME HISTORY Calls to arms were frequent during the reign of Henry III, but they were seldom followed by any action worth notice. Complaints relating to the piratical proceedings of the Cinque Ports ships also gave frequent cause for inquiry. In 1225 there is a licence for a London merchantman loading at Bosham, no doubt from Chichester, to sail in spite of an embargo laid upon shipping ; l another embargo of 1226 is addressed to the bailiffs of Bulverhythe and ' Wythering,' as well as to those of the better known ports.2 A five years' truce with France expired in 1 24 1 , and in the following year sporadic raptorial proceedings commenced again at sea. During the preparation of a large fleet to transport an army to Poitou, the Cinque Ports, with which Dunwich was coupled, were ordered at once to ravage the French coasts ; 3 this they did more piratico rapinis, says Matthew Paris, sparing their fellow-countrymen as little as their enemies. Another order of the same period directs the arrest of all vessels in the Cinque Ports capable of carrying sixteen or more horses.4 This is one of several items of evidence that, besides the 'service' by charter, which was mainly of local application, the Kent and Sussex ports were also sometimes called upon for ships in the same manner as those of the rest of the coast. In 1235 Hastings was required to send one vessel for forty days' service, instead of the normal fifteen, at its own cost,5 and there are instances where seamen to serve in the royal ships were demanded from the Cinque Ports ; this was not textually authorized by the charters even if the ' service,' either in part or whole, was not in commission at the moment. A feature of the maritime history of the thirteenth century is the appointment of one or more persons, sometimes for one county and sometimes for a group of counties, as keepers of the coast, a step towards the organization of systematic defence. As the Warden of the Cinque Ports was in control in east and south Kent and part of Sussex the keepers had little authority in those counties ; we find in 1224 that when Geoffrey de Lucy was appointed his command began at Pevensey, the Warden being ordered to act in unison with him.6 The existence of the keepers, whose duties were both military and judicial in keeping the peace at sea and punishing crime, should however be mentioned here, seeing that, historically, they were the ancestors of the conservators of truces instituted locally by Henry V, and of the later vice-admirals of counties established by Henry VIII. Possibly a large measure of the saturnalia of piracy and murder which characterized the maritime proceedings of the Cinque Ports during the reign of Henry III was due to the fact that the only restraint to which they were subject, nominal and ineffective, was that of the Warden, and that they were seldom under the command of the king's captains and keepers. A part of the system of defence under the care of the keepers was the line of beacons, corresponding to the modern coast- guard stations, which encircled the coast. They were usually placed on the hills nearest to the shore, and in war time were guarded by a watch from the neighbouring parishes.7 The Cinque Ports favoured Simon de Montfort during the civil troubles of the later years of Henry's reign, but there is no doubt that the positive value of the maritime assistance they gave him has been considerably exaggerated. Pevensey Castle was held for the king, but that does not necessarily predicate the sympathy of the townsmen. After the death of the elder Simon at Evesham the Ports, or some of them, still held out for the principles he had upheld, or for the licence to which they had become accustomed ; the younger Simon found a refuge and followers among men to whom piracy had become the ordinary business of life.8 Edward was compelled to storm Winchelsea in 1265, but he did not seek revenge, and after causing as little bloodshed as was possible in that age, told the townsmen ' henceforth not to apply themselves to plundering like pirates.' The Welsh wars of 1277 and 1282, and the Scotch war of 1295, were mainly fought by the feudal armies, but squadrons of Cinque Ports ships assisted in all the campaigns, and the services ren- dered in 1277 were so strategically important as to be rewarded by the charter of incorporation of 1 2 7 8. In August, 1277, Edward granted the Portsmen all plunder taken from the Welsh, and the ransom of all prisoners except those desired by himself, but with the proviso that the_grant was not to be a precedent.9 In 1277, however, there were only 18 Cinque Ports ships out of the total of 27 with Edward; in 1282 there were 40, most or all of which came from the Ports,10 the barons being 1 Pat. 9 Hen. Ill, m. 6. 1 Close, 10 Hen. Ill, m. 27 d. This is Wittering in West Sussex ; it occurs again as « Wodering' (Pat. 26 Hen. Ill, pt. i, m. u). ' Close, 26 Hen. Ill, m. 4. 4 Pat. 26 Hen. Ill, pt. i, m. 1 1. A similar writ issued in 1254 to Hastings, Rye, Winchelsea, Pevensey, Seaford, and Shoreham (ibid. 38 Hen. Ill, m. 5). ' Pat. 19 Hen. Ill, m. 14. 6 Ibid. 8 Hen. Ill, m. 4. In 1295, however, Wm. de Stokes was keeper of the maritime portions of the rapes of Lewes, Pevensey, and Hastings independently of the Warden (ibid. 23 Edw. I, m. 2). 7 'Signa consueta vocata beknes per ignem.' See Southey, Lives of the Admirals, \, 360 (quoting Froissart), for the method of constructing them. 8 Cronica Maiorum . . . Londiniarum (Camd. Soc.), pt. ii, p. 82. 9 Pat. 5 Edw. I, m. 6. 10 Morris, Welsh Wars of Edw. I, 128, 173. '31 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX ordered to send out vessels to deal with Channel piracy ' from the remainder ' of those due from them.1 The year 1293 was signalized by a sea battle, the outcome of a long series of provocations on both sides, fought at a pre-arranged spot in the Channel between the Cinque Ports, with their Irish, Dutch, and Gascon allies, and the Normans, French, and Genoese. Prizes were brought into Pevensey, Shoreham, and the new Winchelsea ; no doubt Rye and Hastings were also well represented Wrecking was common everywhere round the coast, and Sussex was no exception to the rule. A typical case occurred in 1289 when a Bayonne ship went ashore near Shoreham ; the crew reached land and made a salvage agreement for 1 23 marks, but although the Shoreham men received payment they were accused of stealing much of the cargo.2 The town was probably of some importance, for in 1291 it was the only one in Sussex, besides the Cinque Ports, to which a writ was addressed ordering a truce with France to be observed.3 In the early years of Edward's reign it had suffered from the oppression of its lord, William de Braose, whose exactions caused both English and foreign ships to shun the port.4 Rye does not now appear so often, but in 1294 it provided a ' king's mariner,' Richard Marchand, to go in command of two royal galleys to guard the Channel Islands.' In consequence of the war with France which followed the Channel battle of 1293 general preparations for offence and defence were made in England in 1294 and 1295, although Edward himself was engaged in a Scotch campaign. Two large galleys, each of 120 oars, were ordered in 1294 to be built at Winchelsea for the king; the competence of the town for such work in the matter of shipwrights and an ample supply of material is shown by the fact that it and Bristol were the only two out of ten places, including London, where more than one galley was to be constructed.6 In September, 1295, there was a general arrest of ships of 40 tons and upwards, Thomas Alard of Winchelsea being one of the commissioners for Sussex and the southern counties.7 On 22 August, 1297, Edward, with an army and a large fleet, the product of a general arrest of shipping,8 sailed from Winchelsea for Sluys, and his arrival there was marked by an outburst, more than ordinary in its violence, of the hatred always existing between the Cinque Ports and Yarmouth. As far back as the reign of King John the men of Yarmouth had resented the use of their shore by the Cinque Ports fishermen, and on one occasion when the bigger ships from Hastings were absent on the king's service in Ireland, they placed timber where the Hastings men spread their nets to dry and set fire to it.9 At the same time the men of Yarmouth complained against the Sussex men and demanded a royal inquiry;10 the result of this is not known, but in 1219 Henry III, then a boy, had been made to say that he heard that there were quarrels every year between the Portsmen and the Yarmouth burgesses, and that the former, who seem to have been regarded as the aggressors, were not to interfere with the rights, or disturb the peace, of their unwilling hosts. This order was repeated almost in the same words in 1221 and 1222 ; u in 1252 some Yarmouth men were imprisoned at Winchelsea, and the crown had difficulty in obtaining their release. An affray occurred in 1254 when the queen and Prince Edward were about 10 sail for Bordeaux ; probably in order to avoid jealousy it had been arranged that the queen should go in a ship of Winchelsea and the prince in one of Yarmouth. The Sussex men were content to supply a good seaworthy vessel, but the Norfolk port provided a far handsomer ship, and no doubt taunted their rivals upon its superiority ; the latter retorted by attacking and destroying the Yarmouth ship, with the result that the royal party refused to trust to either escort and crossed from Portsmouth.13 As Yarmouth grew in wealth and strength the burgesses became more and more unwilling to suffer the dictation, none too gently exercised, of the Cinque Ports bailiffs, and although we have only occasional notices of the constant friction its existence is proved by the necessity Edward was under, in 1277, of issuing a long and carefully-worded award defining the respective rights of the contestants.13 In reality it was a triple quarrel, for Yarmouth was hated as 1 Close, 10 Edw. I, m. 4. ' Pat. 17 Edw. I, m. zoJ. 1 Ibid. 19 Edw. I, m. 17. 4 Rot. Hund. ii, 203. 4 Pat. 22 Edw.' I, m. 4. ' K.R. Memo. R. 69, m. 77. 7 Pat. 23 Edw. I, m. 6. Reginald Alard is mentioned as owner of La Vache in 1285 (ibid. 13 Edw. I, m. 22), and in 1293 a vessel belonging to Robert Brede of Winchelsea was granted to John Alard as the former had committed piracies with it (ibid. 21 Edw. I, m. 13). In 1298 Nicholas Alard was forgiven £25 due to the king in part payment of a vessel bought from the crown (ibid. 26 Edw. I, m. 22). 8 Close, 25 Edw. I, m. l8<£ In the case of the Cinque Ports they were required to send all ships of 40 tons and upwards as well as their ' service,' but the king allowed that it was not to be a precedent. 9 Plae. Abbrev. (Rec. Com.), 75. For this and the following extract and for those from the Assize Rolls I have to thank the courtesy of Mr. L. F. Salzmann. 10 Ibid. 76. " Pat. 3 Hen. Ill, m. 2 ; 5 Hen. Ill, m. 2 ; 6 Hen. Ill, m. 2. " Matt. Paris, Hist. Minor (Rolls Ser.), iii, 335. " Pat. 5 Edw. I, m. 17. See also Walter of Hemingburgh, 'odium quod inter ipsos et marinarios de Jarnemue ab antiquo duraxerat.' 132 MARITIME HISTORY bitterly by her neighbours on the east coast as she hated the Ports. Edward's award not only settled nothing, but probably intensified, indirectly, the enmity existing, so that in 1289 and 1290 both parties were directed to send deputies to argue out their grievances before king and Parliament.1 For all we can tell the meetings may have been considered a success, since the Portsmen were only accused, formally, of attacking nine Yarmouth ships between 1290 and 1297 >* three of the offenders were Winchelsea crews.3 The quarrel, as has already been noted, reached its height in 1297, in which year while Laurence Quakehand of Winchelsea with a crew of 27 men was lying off Orford watching for pirates from Calais, three armed barges put out from Yarmouth by night and attacked the Sussex men, killing them all. The same year boats of Hastings and Winchelsea were destroyed, with their crews, in Yarmouth Harbour, and when the whole fleet assembled at Winchelsea for the passage to Flanders the sailors of the eastern squadron killed five of the townsmen.1 It was only when exceptionally large fleets were collected that the Cinque Ports and Yarmouth levies were required to work together, for usually the employment of the latter was confined to the east coast and North Sea. In this case both appear to have sailed to Sluys (five days), peaceably, but then a street brawl occurred which kindled latent passion into flame. The Cinque Ports squadron fell upon that of Yarmouth and nearly annihilated it ; 32 vessels, of which 1 6 were burnt, were destroyed or plundered, and nearly 200 men were killed in 2O of them.8 Whether the Sussex ports took a large or a small share in this deed we do not know, but it is distinctly stated that all the Cinque Ports were involved in it. The king required letters of submission from both Yarmouth and the Ports concerning ' the disputes that have lately arisen . . . after the king's arrival in Flanders,' and insisted that both sides should observe a truce to last until three months after his return to England.6 The task of inquiry into the circumstances devolved upon Prince Edward, and the two adversaries were called upon to send deputies to London to state their case.7 It may have been in consequence of this inquiry that the king took into his hands the liberties enjoyed by the Cinque Ports at Yarmouth and, no doubt to prevent more bloodshed, they were not restored until I 299.' Edward issued an award in 1298' which the master and two of the superior officers of each Cinque Ports and Yarmouth ship were, before going to sea, to swear to observe and to keep the peace. It is evident that the political and military importance of the maritime levies of the two contending powers made it impossible for Edward to deal with them as he would have dealt with ordinary law-breakers. His attempt to enforce peace clearly had little result, for in 1300 there was another conference and in 1301 another award. At this time the contending parties put in records of their losses in men and money ; the men of Yarmouth returned losses to the extent of ^6,257 an<^ J35 men> which must have been exclusive of the affair at Sluys.10 Against this the Cinque Ports of Kent showed 180 men killed and ^12,953 IOJ. 8d. damages ;u those of Sussex put their killed at IOO men, and their monetary losses at ^12,485 1 8*. jd., of which ^1,130 was set down as the cost of their preparations for fishing at Yarmouth during the last five seasons, which had been profitless owing to their not being allowed to sell their fish.12 The Ports carried on another quarrel to the southward with Bayonne, of which evidence often shows in the records; in 1277 an^ I294 tne king negotiated a peace between the combatants.13 The feud must have been of old standing, for in 1242, when the Portsmen were given a free hand against France, they were especially warned to act discreetly in regard to the Bayonnais, with whom they seem to have been at open war five years previously.14 In the same year as the fight at Sluys certain persons were appointed to take up ' and maintain' 12 ships at the cost of the inhabitants of Sussex and the adjoining counties, and of such merchants as should be trading in those counties, apparently to form a cruising squadron during the summer.15 A body of Londoners, horsed and armed, marched into Kent and Sussex to defend the coast during Edward's absence, and obtained in 1299 a promise that their action should not prejudice them as a precedent.16 Edward and his troops returned to England in March, 1298, and from the Thames to Southampton there was a general arrest of ships for his passage.17 Both this and the levy of the 12 ships are examples of the application to the privileged districts of the system in use throughout the rest of the country ; in the later instance Winchelsea and Portsmouth were excepted ; but the fact that it is coupled with Portsmouth shows that the exception of Winchelsea was for reasons other than its position as a Cinque Port. We see that after the events at Sluys Edward issued more regulations intended to keep the peace, but, so far from the Cinque Ports being punished, they were granted further privileges in 1298, including that of being quit of all tallages and 1 Pat. 17 Edw. I, m. 8 ; 1 8 Edw. I, m. 42. ' Exch. Misc. £. * Ibid. {{. 4 Assize R. 945. 6 Exch. Misc. |. ' Close, 25 Edw. I, m. 5 ; 26 Edw. I, m. 17. 7 Ibid. 25 Edw. I, m. 6. " Ibid. 27 Edw. I, m. 9 d. ' Ibid. 26 Edw. I, m. 1 1 d. 10 Assize R. 945. " Ibid. 395. " Ibid. 945. " Rymer, Foedera (ed. 1816), ii, 82, 632. " Ibid, i, 406. 15 Pat. 25 Edw. I, pt. ii, m. 14. " Ibid. 27 Edw. I, m. 29. " Ibid. 26 Edw. I, m. 26. 133 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX aids on the hulls and gear of their ships.1 In December they were warned that the full service would be required in Scotch waters in June, 1299,' but in the result only 32 ships were needed, which served in 1300.* Of these one came from Pevensey, two from Hastings, three from Rye, and six from Winchelsea ; Gervase Alard, the ' admiral of the said fleet,' which included vessels from various English and Irish ports, was paid 2s. a day. In the meantime what may be supposed to be a squadron of picked ships, consisting of four from Winchelsea and three from Rye, was commissioned in the summer of 1299 to watch Damme for two months to prevent assistance crossing to Scotland.4 In 1301 orders were given to the ports in March, all round the coast, to send ships to meet at Berwick and Dublin by midsummer ; Seaford was assessed at one vessel, Aldrington one, and Shoreham, Brighton, and Portsmouth, together, for one.5 Possibly experience proved that Aldring- ton by itself was not equal to the cost of equipping a ship, for in 1302 it was grouped with Shoreham, Hove, and Brighton for one, while the abbot of Battle was also required to send another.6 Several towns on the south coast, among them Seaford and Shoreham, incurred the royal displeasure by neglecting the orders of 1301, and in the following year two of the king's servants were sent down with instructions to inflict punishment at their discretion.7 In 1303 there was another commission to inquire into the desertion of Sussex sailors, who were to give security to answer for their contempt.8 Probably both shipowners and seamen found piracy or privateering more attractive than the royal service, but notwithstanding these incidents there was no general disinclination to respond to the demands of the crown. The constant levies of ships and men would seem to be destructive of commerce, but in reality were not nearly so injurious to it as they appear. A trading voyage involved great risk of loss from wreck, piracy, and privateering, or in the sale of the cargo ; the king's service meant certain pay for the fitting and hire of the ship, 6d. a day for the officers and 3^. a day for the men — very liberal wages allowing for the greater value of money. The incessant embargoes that harassed trade — then much increased — under Edward III were not yet common, and the alacrity with which most of the ports answered to the demands made upon them shows that the assistance required was neither oppressive nor unwelcome, especially as those who contributed to the sea service were freed from any aid towards that by land. There was no permanent naval organization at this time. The king possessed some ships of his own, and the commanders were usually charged with their maintenance. When a fleet was to be raised from the merchant navy a certain extent of coast was allotted to one of the king's clerks, or to a sergeant-at-arms, who acted with the bailiffs of the port towns in selecting ships and men and seeing them dispatched to the place of meeting. If a ship did not appear, or the men deserted, they or the owner might be required to find security to come before the king and, although there was as yet no statute dealing with the offence,9 they might, as we see, be disciplined at the pleasure of the king or his representatives. What were blandly called the ' discords ' between the Cinque Ports and Yarmouth still continued, and in 1302 and 1303 there were commissions of inquiry; in the latter year Sussex men were parties to the search after truth.10 It must, however, be remembered that there was a commercial, as well as a military and piratical, side to the maritime history of the Ports, for of course the Winchelsea wine trade, to confine ourselves to Sussex, is well known. Another sign of merchant traffic is a complaint from the Ports in 1293 tnat freighters took their goods out of chartered ships, but did not afterwards pay for the use of the vessel, and it was ordered that merchants should give security for such debts before removing the cargo.11 The actual, if not nominal, supremacy of Winchelsea was maintained during this reign as well by its naval strength as by the personality of Gervase Alard, the most famous member of his family, who, after commanding the Cinque Ports squadrons, became 'captain and admiral' in 1303 of the fleet composed of all the ships taken up from Dover to Cornwall." He held the same rank again in 1 306." In that year the full service of 57 ships ordered from the Ports was commuted to 27 provided they carried as many men as the 57 would have done ; 14 it may be presumed that the need was felt for men more than for ships, and that the steady increase in the size of vessels WES diminishing the fighting value of the small ships due under the service by charter. 1 Pat. 26 Edw. I, m. 17. Yarmouth was given the same favour. * Close, 27 Edw. I, m. 3 Wardrobe Accts. of 28 Edw. I, Lond. 1787, p. 271 et seq. 4 Pat. 27 Edw. I, m. 22, m. 20. 6 Ibid. 29 Edw. I, m. 20. * Ibid. 30 Edw. I, m. 2. I Ibid. m. 14. ' Ibid. 32 Edw. I, m. 28. 9 The first statute was 2 Rich. II, st. I. cap. 4, by which deserters were fined double their wages and imprisoned for a year. 10 Pat. 31 Edw. I, m. 35^. II Ibid. 21 Edw. I, m. 14, m. 13. In 1314 La Lukol Rj-e was a wine ship of 120 tons (ibid. 8 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 9 d.). " Ibid. 31 Edw. I, m. 38. " Ibid. 34 Edw. I, m. 21. " Ibid. 34 Edw. I, m. 25 MARITIME HISTORY In 1308 there was a levy of ships for the Scotch war, and Shoreham— outside the Sussex Cinque Ports — was asked for one to be manned with 42 men.1 The next year Seaford also was included in a writ directed to the passage ports of the kingdom.8 Shipowners quickly found that the methods of Edward II were in unpleasant contrast to those of his father, who, if he often raised fleets, did so at the expense of the crown. His son's extravagance soon forced him to require the ports to provide vessels at their own cost, and Shoreham was assessed for one in this way in 1310, when operations by sea and land were necessary against Robert Bruce.3 A larger fleet was required in 1311, and on this occasion Shoreham was rated for two ships, but at the king's charges.4 The Scotch war was again the cause, in 1314, of heavy levies, Shoreham and Seaford being each ordered to send one ship and Chichester two.6 In all these levies the Cinque Ports supplied their usual ' service,' or such part of it as was demanded ; but in that of 1314 there was a default, for which pardons were subsequently granted to four barons of Winchelsea and four of Hastings, Pevensey, and Rye.6 In 1316 the Warden of the Ports was directed to visit all the coast towns between Greenwich and Southampton and persuade their inhabitants to equip as many ships as they could, or would, to serve as long as possible at their expense, ' for the better keeping of the English sea ' and to put down piracy.7 This was a request, but it was soon followed by commands — a general order issued in 1319 to many ports, including Winchelsea, Rye, and Hastings in Sussex, to supply ships for three or four months at their own cost.8 Such an exaction seems a distinct infringement of their privileges, and could only be defended as a national necessity consequent on the exhaustion caused by the long war. The Cinque Ports, and the coast towns generally, must have welcomed a two years' truce in 1320 with Scotland. When the war was renewed the squadron from the Ports was again in request, but it does not appear that any non-privileged place in Sussex was troubled, and another truce with Scotland, for thirteen years, was arranged in 1323. War then threatened with France, and writs were addressed direct to Winchelsea, Rye, Hastings, Seaford, and Shoreham to send respectively six, two, one, one, and two of the largest ships they possessed to convey troops to Aquitaine.9 It was possibly because this was a supplementary and unusual service that the king ' agreed ' with them that they were to have three-fourths of all prize goods, reserving the remaining fourth for himself.10 During the absence of the Cinque Ports fleet a keeper of the port of Winchelsea was appointed, as, ' on account of its ample size,' a large number of enemy's ships might put in and endanger the town.11 Shoreham, perhaps, saw an advantageous opportunity to act for itself, and, in response to their application, the burgesses received encouragement to make vigorous war against the French on their own account.12 In the meanwhile Isabella and Prince Edward were in France, and invasion was known to be imminent. In August, 1326, officials were nominated to survey and take up all ships of 50 tons and upwards ; the list of ports is very full, but in Sussex we find only Rye, Winchelsea, Hastings, Pevensey, Seaford, and Shoreham.13 The concentration of the southern fleet was to be effected at Portsmouth, and shortly afterwards it was decided to strengthen the royal fleets still further by calling upon those who had not been affected by the first levy to contribute to the equipment of more ships. Rye was put down for three vessels and 114 men, Hastings two ships and 63 men, Shoreham two ships and 46 men, Seaford one ship and 37 men, and Winchelsea 1 8 ships and 654 men.14 The predominance of Winchelsea, not only in the confederation, but over such places as Southampton, Dartmouth, Plymouth, and Bristol, stands out markedly here, and it will be observed that in both these levies the legal liability of the Cinque Ports in the matter of size and number of ships is entirely set aside. The measures taken by Edward or his advisers were remarkably well considered strategically ; but perhaps they came too late or were not loyally executed, for Isabella experienced no difficulty in crossing in September. While helping the king against foreigners, the Cinque Ports appear to have found it easy simultaneously to carry on private war on their own account. The enmity between Yarmouth and the Ports still continued, if only because the fight of 1297 was yet remembered on the east coast and remained unavenged. In 1316 the smouldering fire seemed about to break into flame again, for Yarmouth ships were sinking and burning those of the Ports off the coast of Sussex.16 The Ports prepared for war, a challenge readily taken up by Yarmouth, but the king hastened "to intervene by issuing a proclamation forbidding hostilities, ordering security to be taken from owners and masters to keep the peace, and calling upon both sides to send representatives to discuss their 1 Close, 2 Edw. II, m. 22 d. ' Ibid. 3 Edw. II, m. \<) Ibid. A- II Pat. 17 Edw III, pt. i, m. 17 d.\ Close, 17 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. \d. 3 d. Codelawe is Cudlo Haven, formerly a manor in Anesford hundred (Cal. Inq. p.m. (Rec. Com.), iii, 19 ; Rot. Hund. ii, 214). It existed as a ' townlet ' in Leland's day (///». vi, 29), and is marked as ' Codlow,' on the western side of the mouth of the Arun, in Wagenhaer's Mariners Mirrour of 1588, after which it disappears. 138 MARITIME HISTORY Three MSS.1 allot Shoreham 329 men, while two others 2 give it 339, and a sixth 3 429 men ; the disagreement is only noticeable as one of many indications that the copies cannot be accepted as authoritative. The names in the list are in no geographical order, but after Shoreham and Seaford, and before Hamble, occurs Newmouth with two vessels, which must have been mere fishing boats, and 1 8 men. The place is unidentified, but may possibly be connected with the Ouse or the Shoreham river. It will be observed that 40 ships came from the Sussex Cinque Ports, and the total from Kent and Sussex was double the number of their service by charter. On 29 August, 1350, the battle of L'Espagnols sur Mer was fought and won off Winchelsea by Edward in person, and although most of the vessels present were king's ships there were no doubt many Portsmer. amongst the crews. The Black Prince and John of Ghent were with the king. The naval history of Edward III is an illustration of the fact that the almost invariable conse- quence in former times of the destruction of an enemy's military fleets was an increase in raids and privateering. Although sea victories were won, and no resistance was or could be made to the transport of Edward's armies, the coasts were continually harrassed by French incursions or the fear of them, and the sense of helplessness was aggravated by the losses suffered from privateers and the exhaustion of the shipowning classes. On Sunday, 15 March, 1359-60, the French surprised Winchelsea, partly burnt the town, ravaged the surrounding country, and did not retire until the county levies were gathering in force. The French had many old scores to settle with Winchelsea and Rye, and the Normans still feared them ; but if Shoreham had continued the progress it seems to have been making during this reign it might have won some of the attention paid by the French to the greater ports. We have seen that its quota to the Calais fleet was not much behind that of Winchelsea ; many entries on the patent rolls show its commercial importance, and a writ of 1 346 4 directing the inhabitants to make war on the French by sea and land testifies to its military strength. Seaford, about 1357, had almost ceased to exist, having been burnt down and devastated both by war and pestilence, so that it was unable to supply ships ;6 probably it had never recovered from the losses referred to in the Inquisitiones Nonarum. An unstable peace existed between 1360 and 1369 ; the commencement of war in the latter year caused the king to convoke another council of provincial experts at Westminster in November, to which Chichester and the Cinque Ports sent representatives.6 The renewal of the war was attended by the complete loss of English supremacy in the Channel. Levy followed levy without result; the Commons laid before the king their views as to the causes to which they attributed the decay of shipping, and in June, 1372, after the defeat of the earl of Pembroke before Rochelle, the crown was reduced to issuing commissions of array for the maritime counties instead of defend- ing them by fleets at sea. The ordinary rate of hire for ships impressed was 3;. ifd. a ton for three months, and now both that and wages were left unpaid, in contrast to the liberality Edward had displayed 30 years earlier when he made extra and unusual payments to help the equipment of the fleets. The year 1375 was marked by another maritime disaster in the shape of the capture or destruction in Bourneuf Bay of 39 merchantmen ranging from 300 tons downwards ; only one Sussex ship, the Paul of Rye, of 22O tons, was taken.7 Edward III died 21 June, 1377, and on the 2gth the French took Rye, slaughtering 'without sparing man or woman,' says Froissart. In 1369 the townsmen had obtained a licence to wall, or extend the walls, but courage was needed as well as defences, and in that essential the men of Rye are said to have been wanting on this occasion.8 While holding the town Jean de Vienne, the Admiral of France, who commanded the French fleet, proceeded to threaten Winchelsea, but that place was garrisoned by the abbot of Battle, and Vienne retreated. The Admiral rejected a proposal from his second in command to hold Rye, burnt it, and sailed to Rottingdean, where, having routed a force raised by the prior of Lewes, he marched inland burning and plundering. Hastings suffered the same fate later in the year when Vienne, returning from the westward in August, also assaulted Winchelsea but was repulsed by the abbot of Battle.9 In 1339 the Commons had said that the Cinque Ports had been enfranchised as ' a guard and wall between us and foreigners ' ; the French, even 40 years later, regarded them in the same light if it be true that on their return to France several were hanged for their refusal to keep Rye when it was captured and the barrier thus broken down.10 The late Admiral Colomb " Cott. MSS. Titus, F. Ill, fol. 262 ; Stowe MSS. 570, fol. 230 ; Harl. MSS. 246. Stowe MSS. 574, fol. 28 ; Harl. MSS. 3698, fol. 130. s Rawlinson MSS. (Bodl.), C. 846, fol. 17. Close, 20 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 13 d. ' Ibid. 30 Edw. Ill, m. 13. Toedera (ed. 1 8 1 6), iii, 880. ' Chanc. Dipl. Doc. P. 324. Stow, Cbron. (ed. 1615), 278. The contemporary chroniclers are not in agreement as to the sequence of these events. 10 Rot. Par/, iii, 70. There is some doubt as to the reading of the old French of the Rolls of Parliament, most historians having considered the meaning to be that some of the Rye men were hanged for their weak defence, but the version in the text is also supported by the opinion of Mr. Edward Salisbury, of the Record Office. " Naval Warfare, 3. 139 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX regarded these attacks as examples of useless 'cross-ravaging,' i.e. raids for plunder, inflicting loss and misery on private individuals but of no value in deciding a war. It may be questioned, however, whether these raids were either aimless or valueless. The troops were no doubt animated only by a desire for plunder, but to the leaders Rye and Winchelsea were important naval bases, and their destruction was desired for the same reasons that would lead to similar attempts on Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth to-day. Towards the end of 1377 the need for ships was so great that it was agreed in Parliament in November to call upon many of the inland towns, as well as the ports, to build vessels by the following March ; as an encouragement the burgesses were promised that after the necessity had passed away the vessels should be returned for private use to those who had paid for their building and equipment.1 The Cinque Ports, as a whole, were charged with the provision of five balingers, but Rye was treated exceptionally, being granted certain customs for five years, including id. on every seine of fish exported, in aid of the refortification of the town and the construction of two balingers of 34 oars each.2 Whatever their losses the spirit and strength of Rye and Winchelsea were not yet broken, and early in 1378 they effected a raid of revenge in Normandy; as it was directed against ' Portus Petri ' and ' Wylet,' 3 and as we are told that the Portsmen did in those places as they had been done unto, recovering much of their property, it may be inferred that the French fleet of 1377 was manned largely from those towns. In 1380 the French, still in the ascendant, fell again upon Winchelsea ; this time the abbot of Battle was unable to save the town, and it was more or less destroyed.4 It may not be true to say that this blow was fatal to its prosperity, because there were other factors at work, but it certainly set the seal upon its decline. In September the Warden of the Ports was directed to convoke a meeting of the mayors, barons, and leading seamen, point out to them the dangers to be feared if the command of the sea was not regained, ask their advice as to the measures expedient, and induce them to contribute towards the cost.5 The Portsmen were probably in no condition to contribute money, or even to provide their full service, and if the command of the sea was to be recovered it could only be by the whole maritime strength of England well organized and directed. A writ of I382,6 directing a general press of seamen in Sussex and Kent, seems to point to a temporary paralysis of the Cinque Ports service and the consequent application of general custom to the counties. In 1384 Winchelsea was still desolate, and the ship service was temporarily diminished.7 In the same year the Commons petitioned the king that some steps might be taken towards the defence of Rye and Winchelsea, ' because if those towns were taken .... the whole country would be destroyed.' 8 Rye was, perhaps, regarded as in the more hopeful condition, and the fact that it was ' understood that the French were trying to take it themselves to keep and fortify it ' 9 was a very good reason why the English should look closely to it. The Warden of the Ports was instructed to explain ' the imminent danger ' to the inhabitants, and, if necessary, compel them to refortify it. They were assisted by a tax of 3^. on every noble's worth of fish landed in the Kent and Sussex ports which money was to be used for the defence of the coast and the fortification of Rye.10 In Sussex the French fury fell almost entirely upon Rye and Winchelsea during these years, and probably only upon Hastings because being so near at hand and practically defenceless it could be attacked by a detachment from the main body. The other ports are hardly mentioned in the military sense ; it is curious, for several reasons, to find a Spanish ship arrested at Pagham during the first year of Richard's reign and unloaded there.11 A sign of the exhaustion of the Cinque Ports is the fact that in such fleet lists of this reign as exist, some of them long ones of levies extending from Newcastle to Bristol, none comes from the Ports ; that Shoreham is also absent suggests that it must have shared, in some way, in the misfortunes of its neighbours. A list of 57 ships sailing to Spain with John of Ghent's army in 1386 includes one, nearly the smallest of the fleet, from Winchelsea. Rye, however, could still send ships to sea, and in May, 1382, a squadron won a small victory in the Channel. There is a payment in 1387 of £135 from the Exchequer for its fortification, so that some results followed the efforts of 1384-5. 12 In 1385 and 1386 a great fleet and army was collected at Sluys for the invasion of England ; in both years proclamation was made that persons living within six miles of Rye should collect their property and retire within the town. It was fortunate that several causes combined to disorganize Close, i Ric. II, m. 22. Pat. I R'c. II, pt. ii, m. 17. The balingers would be small ones of their class. Walsingham, Hist. Anglicana (Rolls Ser.), i, 366. St. Pierre en Port and Veulettes. I am indebted to Mr. J. H. Wylie for these identifications. Holinshed says that Rye and Hastings were also burnt, but this is doubtful. Close, 4 Ric. II, m. 35. 6 Pat. 5 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 17. ' Ibid. J Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 13 d. Rot. Par!, iii, 201. 'Tout le pays' may here only mean the surrounding district. Pat. 8 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 38. 10 Ibid. m. 32 d. 2 169 22 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX rich marsh pastures, recovered from the sea either by natural or by artificial means, has more than compensated the county for the loss of ports which modern shipping must early have outgrown. With the decay of maritime importance the energy of the population tended more and more to transfer itself to the iron industry of the Weald, and in the seventeenth century even the agricultural interest gave way to some extent before this promising source of wealth ; Camden, writing at the beginning of the seventeenth century, stated that a great deal of meadow ground had been converted into lakes and wells to turn mills;7 and the grand jury of the sessions of the peace held at Lewes in October, 1661, said that the manufacture had given employment to 'many 1000 of poore people farmers and others.' 8 Already, however, signs of decay were not wanting, and in the same petition the jurors struck a prophetic note when they complained that the industry ' being once lost can never be recovered, depending on growth of woods, which being once grubbed will never be replanted.'9 With the destruction of the timber the number of the iron-works gradually dwindled,10 and at the close of the eighteenth century Sussex was almost wholly dependent upon its agricultural wealth, though the rise of the south coast watering places within the next few years brought its town life once more into prominence. Another feature of no small interest in the economic history of the county is the late survival of local peculiarities, probably occasioned by its strongly defined natural boundaries and the isolation due to the dense northern forest. Amongst these peculiarities the existence of the rapes, the prevalence of the custom of Borough English, the use of the ' wista ' as a land measure, and the possible existence of the eight-virgate hide are the most important.11 In an early volume of the Collections of the Sussex Archaeological Society 12 is a list of some one hundred and thirty-five manors where the copyhold lands descend by Borough English to the youngest son or daughter, with slight variations in default of male issue. Thus in Pevensey ls the inheritance passed to the youngest son by the first wife, whose wardship during minority belonged to his mother, unless he inherited from her, in which case the kinsfolk (parentes] of his father acted as guardians ' ad voluntatem pueri, et cum voluerit de custodia exire habebit terram suam deliberatam sine aliquo impedimento.' With regard to the Sussex land measures, the ' wista ' and the ' daie work ' seem to be the most frequently used after the hide and virgate. The ' daie work ' was apparently equal to 4 perches,1* but the content of the ' wista ' does not seem to have been so definite, being spoken of as equivalent to a quarter of a hide, half a hide, 4 virgates, or i virgate indiscriminately. The usual practice would seem to have been, however, to use the terms 7 Camden, Britannia (ed. Gough, from ed. of 1607), i, 185. 8 Add. MS. 33058, fol. 81 et seq. 'Ibid. 10 Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 204. " V.C.H. Suss, i, 359-60. 11 Vol. vi, 179-89. The writer claims that this list is by no means exhaustive. 13 P.R.O. Rentals and Surv. R. 666. This is a survey of 1353, another taken in 1293 (R. 663) says that the minor shall be in the wardship of his mother until he is of full age, and makes no mention of the peculiar customs attaching to maternal inheritance. 14 Add. MS. 6348, fol. 255, and map of Hamerden, in the custody of Messrs. Hunt, Curry & Nicholson, from information given by Mr. L. F. Salzmann. Probably the 'dietas' of Add. Ct. R. 31261 (Bishopstone) admits of translation as 'daywork.' The daywork was a measure in Essex and Kent also. 170 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY virgate and wista as interchangeable,15 while on the Battle Abbey lands the magna wista seems to have been regarded as almost equal to half a hide.16 The ' ferthingelonde,' apparently a quarter of a virgate, occurs at Rustington in speaking of a period prior to the Great Pestilence.17 The 'helve' or ' hylf ' (half an acre) and ' stytch ' (quarter of an acre) are also found occasionally.17* The Sussex rapes have been the subject of comment and discussion ever since the days when Camden first drew attention to their physical complete- ness.18 They have, however, a special social significance, which must form the background of any survey of the economic conditions of mediaeval Sussex, for each rape formed a large private franchise almost analogous to the imperium in imperio of continental feudalism, and, moreover, the very hundreds were all in private hands.19 Doubtless the centralizing policy of Henry II did much to combat consequent abuses, but the hundred and assize rolls of the reign of Edward I show how far such privilege could run riot in times of disorder such as the reigns of Henry III and John. Some of the grievances recited before the justices were primarily judicial, but cannot fail to have reacted upon the social condition of the county — such, for example, was the frequent release of felons for a bribe by the seneschal of the earl of Gloucester and others, and the interference of the earl of Arundel and the bailiff of the honour of Pevensey with the holding of the sheriff's tourn.20 Others, on the contrary, were more strictly economic, involving a menace to privileges of status and tenure, and the abuse of the lord's power of exacting fines and distraints. Thus freemen were put upon their oath without the king's writ ;21 Earl de Warenne and William de Braose distrained freemen and villeins to follow them with arms wherever they went on pain of a heavy fine ; sub-bailiffs in the rape of Arundel made ' scot ales ' and ' fulst ales ' in order to extort money from the men of their bailiwicks.23 As this offence was coupled with the exaction of sheaves from the tenants' harvest in autumn,23 it seems probable that these ' scot ales ' were ales brewed from malt obtained as a compulsory contribution from the tenants. The serjeant of the castle of Pevensey distrained freemen of his bailiwick for carrying services to which they were not bound,24 the earl of Surrey appropriated to himself free warren through- out his barony in the rapes of Bramber and Lewes, so that no knight nor freeman could have free chase there, and the men of the country-side dared not inclose their fields, nor — though the beasts of the chase were much increased by this system of preserving — dared they drive them out of their corn.25 Richard de Mundeville, who held the hundreds of Easebourne and Rotherbridge, farmed them at an excessive sum, which the farmer could only 15 Chron. Man. de Bella (Angl. Christ. Soc.), 17 ; Add. MS. 33189, fol. 46 &c., and 6348 (an eighteenth- century note at the beginning). 16 Custumal of Battle Abbey (Camd. Soc.), 29 ; for criticisms of the famous passage where the wista is said to contain 4 virgates see Engl. Hist. Rev. xviii, 705 et seq. 17 Cunningham, Growth of Engl. Industry, \, 586. "* Add. MS. 5701, fol. 158 ; Feet of 'F. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), No. 238. 18 Camden, Britannia (ed. Gough, from ed. of 1607), i, 185 ; and cf. V.C.H. Suss, i, 384-5. 19 V.C.H. Suss, i, 502-4 ; Hand. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, passim. 20 Hmtd. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 205, 214. " Ibid. 203 ; Assize R. 912, m. 40. M Assize R. 924, m. 620"., 63, and 912, m. 7. " Ibid. m. 7, ii. " Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 207. " Ibid. 201, 210. 171 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX raise by unjust extortions from the men of the hundreds. In the case of Rotherbridge the grievance was aggravated by the fact that in old days the bailiff or alderman of the hundred26 was elected by the scotters, and in those days they 'gave little or nothing for their bailiwick.' Other complaints mention the erection of new courts,27 the amercing of freemen and villeins in their absence, forcing freemen to serve as jurors without the king's writ, interference with rights of common, and abuses by foresters, who received no payment for their office but such as they could raise by ' weypenny ' and the payments (vadia) which they could exact in the woods of freemen, while their presentments in the forest courts ' though they were false were yet held to be true.' 28 Turning, however, from general social evils to the details of status and tenure within the county, the first point to notice is the increase of freedom between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries. Domesday evidence would seem to show that much depression of status had followed upon the Conquest. Freemen occur in the Survey in the time of Edward the Con- fessor, but not one is mentioned as a tenant in 1086. This does not probably mean, however, that the entire English population had been reduced to villeinage ; indeed there is evidence to prove that this was not, strictly speak- ing, the case. A survey in the Battle Abbey Chronicle, which professes to represent the state of the Lowy at about the time of the foundation of the monastery (io8o),29 mentions three instances of a certain limited condition of freedom — these were Gilbert the Stranger, who, with his land, was quit except for tithes and two services a year, one to Canterbury and one to London ; Aluric de Dengemareis, who acted as summoner on his land in Dengemarsh (Kent) when it owed service (' summonitionem facit de terra ejusdem Aelurici in Dengemareis quando servitium suum facere debet ') ; and Benedict the Seneschal (dapifer], who was entirely free. Aelric ' cild,' whose title might have been supposed to imply freedom, owed jd. and labour services, like the rest of the tenants. Again, in Telham, which lay outside the Lowy, there was one man who was free because whenever he was summoned he rode where he was told, his food and his horse's shoes being provided by the monks. It is noticeable, however, that though the word ' free ' is actually used of these men, and in the case of Gilbert the Stranger, of his land also, yet in each case freedom was conditional upon the performance of a service not unlike a serjeanty, and was obviously a matter of privilege rather than of birthright — a concession based upon the need of the overlord, rather than a survival of pre-Conquest status. Between the eleventh K The Sussex hundreds were frequently administered by aldermen. In the barony of the Eagle the barons and knights were quit of suit at the county court, save the aldermen of the hundreds, who did suit there for their hundreds. (Ibid. 205.) In Shiplake Hundred an inquisition was taken in 1260 by twelve free jurors and by all the ' Borowesaldres of the hundred ' — possibly the aldermen of the ' burghs," a term which is used frequently in Sussex manor and hundred rolls for a tithing or vill. (Add. Ct. R. 32399 and 32609, &c.) In Swanborough Hundred the alderman, 'as a recompence of his paynes and in satisfaction of those moneys wch he disburseth for the Hundred at the Shiriffes Tome twice every yeare,' had a yearly render of sheaves of wheat. (Sust. Arch. Coll. xxix, 121.) " Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), 212, 214. " Ibid. 201, 203, 208, 210, 214. 19 Chron. Men. de Bella (Angl. Christ. Soc.), 12 et seq. The chronicler, writing in the following century, says : ' The brethren . . . allotted dwelling places of certain dimensions around the circuit of the abbey ; and these still remain as they were then first appointed with their customary rent or service." 172 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY and the thirteenth centuries the numbers of freemen, as has been said, increased very largely, and it seems a fair assumption that this increase was in part the outcome of a similar need on the part of other overlords to secure the performance of certain non-agricultural services, either those connected with the administration of a franchise, or those which the overlord himself owed to the crown. Thus a tenant would first be exonerated from the performance of the unfree customs due from his land on condition that he would perform some quota of the lord's free service (usually of course military), and subsequently his descendants, by right of prescription, would be able to claim freedom ' de corpore ' or ' quia procreatus fuit ex patre libro.'30 Actual figures to illustrate the numbers of freemen in the thirteenth century are unfortunately not largely available. In Iham, however, in 1291 there were seventeen on the mainland and fifty-three in the marshes, there had been nineteen others, but their holdings had been submerged ; there were also ten free tenants belonging to this manor whose holdings lay in Guestling and Ore, making eighty in all, even after the floods.31 In Iden at the same date there were eighteen free tenants whose rents amounted to 29^. 6l>ey(Camd.Soc.),4.-i2. M Ibid. 20-1. " Supra. 2 177 23 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX if the idea of commutation was not entirely foreign to the system, although the valuation obviously has its origin in the lord's desire to be certain that the work performed was more than worth the food which it cost him — in Barnhorne the harrowing and brushwood cutting were only worth zd. a day, and the man's three meals cost 3^., so that if the lord exacted the labour he suffered a loss of id. a day on the transaction ! 60 In curious contrast to these somewhat onerous services are the obligations of the customary tenants on Iden manor in 1291. They were thirty-five in number, owing altogether rents amounting to 30^. 3^. a year ; twenty-one of them owed in addition forty hens and one cock, worth in all 5*. \d.\ four of them were bound to cut and bind 4 acres of corn, without drink, and they had also to mow and spread the hay on 2 acres of meadow. The surveyor, however, apparently wishing to make the fact of their villeinage quite clear, and aware that appearances were against him, added the significant phrase ' and they all hold at will.' 61 With these may be compared the practically contemporary survey of Iham, where there were twenty-five foreign customary tenants, most of whom owed a small money rent, a hen, and suit of court, while two of them were bound to mow for half a day.62 The burden of servitude cannot have sat very heavily upon these men, who evidently lived at a distance from the manor, possibly at Guestling and Ore, like the freemen mentioned above, and could probably only be controlled by the bailiff of the manor at considerable trouble to himself.63 It is thus obvious that the nature or extent of services cannot be taken as affording any basis for distinguishing between freeman and villein or villein and cottar, and in fact apart from fourteenth-century evidence of legal disabilities it is very difficult to generalize at all on the question of status. One fact, however, appears to emerge from the mass of conflicting evidence ; namely, that in early days — that is between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries — the normal villein-holding in Sussex consisted of one wista or virgate of land or of some simple multiple or fraction of a wista. The best evidence for this statement comes from the Battle custumal, where the villein services on nearly every manor are assigned to the holder of a wista, or the holder of half a wista, as the case may be. Further corroboration of the fact may, however, be obtained from other sources. Thus at Wadhurst in 1277 the customary tenants are called ' virgatarii operarii.' At Duddington certain services are reckoned on the half virgate.8* At Bibleham in 1334 the villein services seem to have been a burden partly upon the land and partly upon the individual villein, the eleven customers, for instance, were bound to plough 6 acres in common, and each had to harrow for one day with one man and one horse, and to carry manure for a day with two horses or oxen ; there were, however, twenty-one carrying works and forty-two boon works in autumn, which were assigned amongst 60 Custumals of Battle Abbey (Camd. Soc.), 20 ; this would seem to be the explanation of the somewhat curious calculation given. " P.R.O. Rentals and Surv. R. 660. " Ibid. ptfo. ft. 65 Cf. the difficulty of recovering a fugitive villein when once he had contrived to escape from the immediate neighbourhood of the manor ; Add. Ct. R. 31864, &c. 64 Add. MS. 5703, fol. 926 ; and L. F. Salzmann, Hist, of Hailsham, 176 ; cf. also Chan. Inq. p.m. Hen. Ill, file 23, No. 9. I78 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY the 7 wistas held by the villeins.66 Similarly at Crowmarsh,66 where at the same date there were 24 wistas in the hands of the villeins, the survey begins by stating that each villein for each wista must plough and harrow an acre for the winter sowing at the food of the lord ; it then adds as a kind of afterthought if he have his own plough, but if some only have half or one third or a quarter of a plough each whole plough shall mow an acre (et si non habeat nisi medietatem vel tertiam vel quartam partem unius carucae pro qualibet caruca arabit unam acram). And there are on an average each year eight ploughs, and the work, at 8d. an acre, is worth 6s. In this case possibly, and in the case of Bibleham almost certainly, the customary works of the villeins had first been assessed at a time when each villein held the normal holding of I wista ; subsequent subdivisions of land had reduced the tenements in size and multiplied the number of the tenants, and though some of the services were still reckoned on the original unit, in other instances the lord managed to secure some additional service from each new tenant. This process may be seen actually in the working in Wartling in 1311 when William ate Hole had licence to grant to a fellow villein 2 acres of his native holding in Welfeld, for which the new tenant was to pay to the lord I2d. at the three usual terms, and to do one boon work in autumn, though nothing was to be subtracted from William's services.67 The Wartling court rolls afford other instances of this tendency to sub- divide villein tenements : thus, in i 306 William, son of Geoffrey ate Felde, surrendered i acre of his land to the lord, who thereupon admitted John ate Felde to hold it at the usual service — 8^/. a year and one boon day in autumn — and for one additional boon day.68 The system, however, had the obvious drawback of introducing into the manorial economy a comparatively indigent class of tenant who was not always able to meet his liabilities in the shape of heriots ; thus, on the death of Lucas Webbe, who held i acre i rod of land in bondage, the lord received no heriot because Webbe had no live stock ; '* and Mabel, the widow of John ate Felde mentioned above, died in 1320 seised of a messuage and 3 acres of land, which she had held as her free bench after the death of her husband for \\d. rent and the same services, but paid no heriot apparently for a similar reason.70 It is interesting to note that in Wootton, which was an ecclesiastical manor, the virgate and half-virgate villein holdings linger on to the latter part of the fifteenth century,71 though of course even here they are by no means universal. The same thing is also true of the archbishop's manor of South Mailing in i^6.73 There is an instance of a 3o-acre villein-holding in Wartling in 1310,™ but the rarity here, and the obvious instances of sub- division at Bibleham and Crowmarsh,7* make it appear possible that the ecclesiastical overlord was more adverse to the admittance to his manors of a class of very small and probably poor holders than was the layman.76 "Add. MS. 33189, fol. 49. " Ibid. fol. 50 d. " Add. Ct. R. 32617 in dorso. 68 Ibid. 32613 ; cf. 32615, m. 4. ** Ibid. 32610, m. 3. 70 Ibid. 32618. The membrane is much rubbed, but this would seem to be the reason given ; cf. also several cases at the time of the Black Death ; ibid. 32657, also 32610, m. 3<£ 71 Eccl. Com. Ct. R. bdle. 33, No. 26. " Add. MS. 33182, fol. 18. 78 Add. Ct. R. 32615, m. 3. H Add. MS. 33189, fol. 49, $oJ. n On Southease manor, which had belonged to Hyde Abbey, services were still assessed on yardlands in the seventeenth century (Suss. Arch. Coll. iii, 250). 179 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX The court rolls afford instances of nearly all the ordinary disabilities incident to villein status ; tallage, and merchet, inability to alienate his land without leave, or to leave the manor without paying ' chevage,' inability to acquire land or to marry outside the manor, or to serve whom he would without leave, the obligation to grind his corn at the lord's mill, to send his pigs to the lord's pannage, and to serve as reeve or bailiff when elected, inability to cut timber or to sell the stock on his land without leave, and in spite of all this the necessity to keep his house and tenement in decent repair. Moreover, not only might a man be forced to pay ' capitagium ' if he dwelt in the manor without any settled domicile,76 but it occasionally happened that if a villein-tenement were unoccupied, the villeinage at the request of the lord would elect one of their number to receive and occupy the land, where- upon he was bound to accept it even against his will.77 Yet in many cases the position of the villein was probably not as burden- some as might appear at first sight. On the death of a tenant his wife was entitled to free-bench, and his lands were practically hereditary, though the form of seeking admittance was preserved.78 A small money fine would generally procure him acquittance of the more burdensome incidents of his tenure, such as the obligation to serve as reeve or beadle 78a ; and if he took matters into his own hands, as he frequently did, and left the manor, entered into service, married outside the demesne, put his son to school, gave his daughter in marriage, or acquired land without licence,79 he probably felt this exercise of freedom to be fully worth the consequent fine. In the case of those who fled from the manor without paying chevage, though every effort was made to recover control of them, it was frequently a long time before they were brought back. The whole situation, however, must have depended largely upon the character of the overlord. Isabel St. Leger, who was lady of Warding in May, 1307, remitted all the fines of the view of frankpledge until the coming of the lord, upon condition that he at his coming, if it pleased him, should take the profits of the view without any condition as they had been taken in times past, to which terms the tenants gladly acceded ; 80 and in 1310 the Lady Isabel's second husband, Giles de Braunson, accepted a commutation of 2os. for all the tallage due to him from a certain tenant for the term of his life, and pardoned a tenant who had omitted to put up a fence between his land and the lord's demesne.81 In August of the same year the cow, which was due as heriot on the death of Stephen le Tut, was restored to his widow, ' of the lord's grace, for the soul of Lord John St. Leger,' and the pig, which was the best beast left by Adam ate Hole, was given to his widow Agnes, and on her death two months later to her son and heir William.82 Wartling, however, was probably an exceptionally humanely adminis- tered manor, and the lord seems to have reaped consequent benefit, for the cases of neglect of service and consequent ruin of crops are comparatively few. At Ashburnham, on the other hand, in 1275 the lord of the manor treated his villeins with great severity, depriving them of their right to take wood 76 Add. MS. 33189, fol. 46 (Hamerden custumal). " Add. Ct. R. 31253, 31887, 31898. 78 Add. Ct. R. of Laughton and Wartling passim ; the widow's free-bench sometimes consisted of the whole (ibid. 31887), sometimes of half (ibid. 32632), and apparently sometimes of a quarter of the tenement (ibid. 32610). 78a Ibid. 31887. 79 Ibid. 31246, 32630, 32636, 32609, 31885, 31898, 31905. 80 Ibid. 32613. "Ibid. 32615. "Ibid. 1 80 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY for fuel and repairs in his woods, and exacting such burdensome services that many were reduced to beggary 83 ; nor could they obtain redress, the king's court being only able to give aid to a villein against his lord in cases of bodily injury. It is, therefore, natural that attempts should have been made from time to time to prove that various manors were ancient demesne, the villein tenants of ancient demesne being privileged to hold by fixed customs. An instance occurred in 1280 at ' Cholynton ' — one of the manors of Eastbourne — when the tenants complained that Roger le Ware had increased their services ; but upon reference to Domesday the manor was shown not to have been in the king's hands after the Conquest. 83a It may possibly have been due to discontent at oppressive exactions that, at Laughton, not only the ordinary tenants but even the reeve himself seems to have been constantly negligent, and it was difficult to get the services performed. In 1376 Reginald Chiselbergh absolutely refused to keep the lord's pigs in Hawkhurst wood,8* and two years later there seems to have been a revolt amongst the ploughmen, Henry Whyte was placed in the stocks for refusing to serve, and John son of Reginald Chiselbergh was to be attached to do the work on pain of 6s. 8 In the same way the autumn wages of the ' ripereve ' rose from 4*. to 5*., and of the ' tassator ' appar- ently from 2/. to 2/. 6d. In 1253 the mowers employed by the prior of Michelham received ^d. an acre in defiance of the Statute of Labourers (Assize R. 941, m. II d.). 95a Cunningham, Growth ofEngl. Industry (1905), i, 586. 96 Add. Ct. R. 32657 passim, 32659. " Ibid. 32681, 32683, 32685. 98 Ibid. 32681, 32683, 32685, m. 2 d. etc., where the 'old services' are still stipulated for. " e.g. Feet ofF. (Suss. Rec. Soc.), No. 23. 10° Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxvi, 185. 101 Close, 13 Edw. I, m. 10. 1M Suss. Arch. Coll. xlix, 9-26. '83 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX ranks of what we may call the gentry there must have been considerable homogeneity, due primarily to the identity of services which caused the villein and small freeholder to work side by side. This unity and inter-dependence was furthered by the jurisdictionary arrangements of the period. The unfree having no lands — and technically no chattels — of his own which could be seized for his offences, responsibility for his good behaviour was made collective, all persons over twelve103 being enrolled in tithings, and the whole tithing being liable to amercement for the offence of any member. These tithings were the subdivisions of vills as vills were of the hundreds, but they occasionally attained to a semi-villar independence under the title of ' borghs ' or ' boroughs.' 10* Although all the unfree were supposed to be enrolled in tithings, an exception was made of the personal servants and retainers of landowners ; for their misdeeds their masters were responsible, and so when in 1278 Thomas Alin stole a deer at Folkington, the prior of Michelham, in whose ' mainpast,' or household, he had been, was fined.106 A state intermediate between the tithing and ' main- past ' existed in 1277 at Chidham,106 where the bishop of Exeter had certain tenants not in any tithing ; they were the ploughmen, carters, reapers, and threshers of the manor, and were bound to come twice in the year to their lord's court with the bishop's reaper (probably the ' ripereve ')107 as their tithingman, and also to appear before the coroner in the tithing of ' Westenton ' and not elsewhere. The position of tithingman or head- borough was somewhat onerous : he had to attend at the hundred court, to make presentments of offences, and if he came late was liable to be fined,108 while he was the object of oppression of such arbitrary officials as John de Pallingfeud, who in 1 275 fined the headboroughs for wearing their hoods when they appeared in court before him.109 The inquiries made at the various courts were searching, and tithings were frequently amerced for omitting to make full presentments ; at Steyning uo a remarkable system existed by which the twelve jurors made their presentments at the manorial court, and were then given a date, about ten days later, at which to make a fuller or revised charge ; this ' court of Morewespeche ' (presumably, ' morrow speech ') showed more consideration for the jurors than did Nicholas le Bretun, who in 1275 used to fine them because they could not answer without premeditation111 — the Sussex man has never been remarkable for a glib tongue. The result of all the searching examinations of manorial and hundredal courts was to reveal a mass of lawlessness, but it is clear from the pleas of the crown, held from time to time,112 that a very large proportion of the crime escaped unpunished; constantly it is stated that the criminals are unknown, or have fled, rarely were they arrested, and then they were usually acquitted. The tithingmen seem to have been the normal police, and in 1 306 it is stated that when the hue and cry was raised the 'decenarii et custodes pacis' came to the pursuit.113 During the night police duties were discharged by two, or more, honest men, and their duties were no sinecure, for at Steyning even the parish clerk 103 Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 216. IM Suss. Arch. Coll. xlii, 190. 106 Assize R. 921. "* Ibid. 924, m. 70, D. 107 Cf. Mins. Accts. bdle. 1031, No. i. I0» Ct. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 126, No. 1869. ™ HunJ. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 214. "° Ct. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 206, m. 43. 111 Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 211. '" Assize R. 909, 912, 921, 924, &c. "Mbid. 1339, m. 6J. 184 i I SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY was a night walker, and assaulted one of the watchmen.114 The jury at Seaford were required to present ' smale theves that ys to say nygth walkers and hoystroppers that drawe mens goods out of there howsyng at wendoe by night,'115 and at Elsted in 1403 John Fay was caught standing up against John Wythard's house to hear what was said in secret there, the mischief being all the greater because his wife was a gossip — she was, indeed, fined 3J. ^d, for being a chatterbox (garulatrix) and disturber of the peace.116 They were less tender of women's peccadilloes in those days, and at Seaford during the sixteenth century presented ' goodwife Pupe for misusyng her tunge to the hurt of hire naybors,' ' Cooper's wifFe for makinge discord betwixt neibours ' and 'Goody Ranee' as a scold.117 To be quite fair, the women were not the only offenders with the tongue, and in 1480 several men were fined at Steyning for chattering and disturbing the steward and all the court.118 As a whole, no doubt, the Sussex peasantry were a quiet, peaceable race, possessing a certain shrewd humour, which is displayed in many of the nick- names which preceded hereditary surnames. Physical peculiarities originated such names as Silverlokkes, Bullnekke, Vayrheye (Fairhair), Hoppeover- humba (Hop o' my thumb, a dwarf), or Strongithmouth ; moral characteris- tics were commemorated by Truelove, Dousamor (Sweetlove), Vayrname, or less pleasantly by Slogard, le Trulle, or Kokkesbrayne ; fancied resemblances caused their owners to be called Sparhawke, le Mous, or le Swan, and there was no doubt plenty of point to such quaint names as Koc Halfeherring, Castehering, Gotomebedd, Swetemelk, Godmefech, and Takepeni.119 Still it cannot be denied that quarrels were numerous and resort to the knife fre- quent ; indeed, when a state of almost private warfare existed between the earl of Warenne and Robert Aguillon,120 and when Luke de Vyenne, lord of Cudlow manor, was attacked on the high road and ducked in a horse pond by John de Bohun and his servants,121 it was not surprising that the lower classes should be lawless. Occasionally resentment against undue interference emboldened the peasants to defy their lord, and in 1280 when Simon de Pierrepoint endeavoured to force Hildebrand Reynberd to serve as reeve at Preston, he with fifty-three other villeins attacked Simon and his servants, set fire to his house in three places, killed his falcon, and maltreated his palfrey, and with drawn knives and axes compelled Simon to swear upon the Gospels that he would not make exactions against their will, nor call them to account for their insubordination.123 At Pevensey also, in 1353, when the deputy steward ordered the men to withdraw beyond the bar, Simon Porter threatened him and bade him 'come outside and try it on' ('quod foras veniret et temptaret'), and when the steward himself took his seat, with the portreeve carrying his rod before him, Simon and his brother Roger defied him and left the court pursued by the steward and his officers, being only captured after a desperate fight, in which Simon and one of the steward's men were severely wounded. 123 114 Ct. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 206, No. 43. m Suss. Arch. Coll. vii, 94. 116 Ct. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 126, No. 1870. 117 Suss. Arch. Coll. vii, 96, 103, 104. us Ct. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 206, No. 43. 119 These names all occur in Sussex subsidy lists and assize rolls of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 110 Hund. R. (Rec. Corn.), ii, 209. '" Coram Rege R. 35, m. izJ. m Assize R. 924, m. 56 d. ; Coram Rege R. 62, m. 1 8 d. '" Assize R. 941, m. 10. 2 185 24 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Still, as a whole, the populace lived a peaceful and united life, bond and free together, with the parochial clergy at their head. The incumbent was, as a rule, one of the same class as his parishioners, and might even be by birth a villein, the manumission of Richard de Wyflise of Slindon, priest, son of one of the archbishop's serfs, being enrolled in I352.12* After all a vicar with £y a year, and many of the Sussex clergy had less, was little better off than an artificer earning £5, and probably receiving at least one meal a day as well, while an assistant chaplain with £4 was not far removed from the unskilled labourer who could earn about £2 1 5^. It is therefore hardly surprising if we find the country clergy occasionally associated with their parishioners in law-breaking, especially in the venial sin of poaching, but sometimes in worse deeds, as Walter, rector of St. John-sub-Castro in Lewes, who was one of a gang of burglars. m Even in his dwelling the rector was often little better off than his neighbours, and at Berwick when the lord of the manor anticipated a nineteenth-century social panacea by assign- ing to every tenant a cottage with ' 3 akers and a cowlease,' the only advantage given to the parsonage was that it was free while the other tenants were copyhold. 12a After all, even the better class dwellings had suprisingly little accommodation;127 the main apartment being the great hall, where all the household dined together, the retainers and servants sitting either at the lower end of their lord's table, or at a separate ' yoman bord,' the privilege of heading which at Aldingbourne belonged to the park-keeper. 128 The social conditions of life in Sussex, as in other parts of England, altered comparatively little between the end of the twelfth and beginning of the six- teenth centuries, but the economic development was much more rapid. The two great events round which these changes centred in the fourteenth century are usually considered to be the Black Death and the Peasants' Revolt. Of their relative importance in Sussex there can be no doubt. The rising of 1381 is supposed to have received considerable support in the county, though there is little extant evidence of its character. Its results, however, apart from a possible crystallization of the idea of copyhold, to judge from the court rolls, were practically nil ; cases of neglect of service occur alike before and after that date, 129 commutation is at least foreshadowed in earlier custumals, 13° there are instances in 1308, 1324, and before 1379, 1S1 yet it was not universal in I396,132 and the Bishopstone court rolls lay stress on 'native fealty' in 1403, 133 and the bishop of Chichester manumitted bondmen as late as 1539, m the last manumission in England being probably that of three brothers bondmen of the manor of Palmer in the reign of James I.135 The actual growth of copyhold tenure was an equally gradual process, though in several instances the phrase ' to hold by roll of court ' first occurs '"Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Islip, fol. 63^. '"Gaol Deliv. R. 178, m. 17. '" Suss. Arch. Co/I. vi. 227. '"e.g. Crowhurst manor-house ; ibid. vii. 47. lw Assize R. 1491,111.41. 119 e.g. Add. Ct. R. 31860, 31900, 31906 (Laughton), 1336-1383, 31259 and 31252 (Bishopstone I 373 and 1403). Add. MS. 33182, fol. 13^. and 19 (S. Mailing, 1379 and 1388). Eccles. Com. Ct. R. ff , ff (Wootton, 1369 and 1389.) 130 e.g. The Battle Abbey custumals quoted above, where valuations of works are given consistently. '" Rentals and Surveys Ptfo. J£ the customary tenants around the forest (Ashdown) return yearly for the customs 39*. \d. Mins. Accts. bdle. 1148, No. 13, Eastbourne (apparently) and Iden. and Add. Ct. R. 3 '898- 13> Add. MS. 33182, fol. 1 8. '"Add. Ct. R. 31252. 131 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ' Various Coll,' i, 194. '» Suis. Arch Coll. ix, 224. 1 86 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY at about the time of the revolt. At Warding the exact obligations of several tenants in villeinage were enrolled upon the court roll in 1330. 1M In 1374 Robert Brok was admitted to a messuage and 4 acres in bondage and had entry by the rod,137 and in 1381 Stephen Elphege received a shop in Warding market with 4 acres of land, to hold to him and his heirs by rod and roll of court, and two other tenants were put in seisin on a similar tenure. 1S8 Enrolments of services occur in Wivelsfield in 1396, 139 apparently rather as a means of safeguarding the rights of the lord than in order to assure the tenure of the tenants, yet, even here, showing the first tendency towards the introduction of copyhold. In Laughton there is mention of a case of enrolment taking place as early as 1359, uo but upon this manor the growth of a class of customary rent-paying tenants may be partly due to the influence of the assart holdings, which seem as a rule to have been held at will for a money rent. The first specific mention of copy of court roll here also is in :38i.ul All evidence would seem to point in the direction of a general breakdown about this time of the old communal organization, a breakdown neither acceler- ated nor retarded by the peasants' attempt to give the coup de gr&ce to the old order. Nor was the collapse confined to the agricultural and tenurial system ; there can be little doubt that the frankpledge and the hundred court, regarded as instruments of police and trade regulations, were no longer efficient. U2 The two conclusions to which the documents seem to testify are in the first place the loss of the sense of joint responsibility by the community, and secondly the overstraining and consequent breakdown of the system of trade regulation in a society which had outgrown such tutelage. Complaints that watch and ward have not been kept according to the Statute of Winchester are frequent ; at Lullington in 1374 the capital pledge and tithing were fined for concealing the shedding of blood, and because they would not decide in a certain case whether the hue and cry had been justly raised,143 nor agree over the election of a new tithingman. u* Bakers and butchers, tanners and tailors carried on trade outside the markets, and exacted unlawful prices ; millers took excessive tolls and used false measures ; bakers and brewers refused to sell outside their own houses ; presentments of regrating are not infrequent ; nor did the fact of being presented and fined once have any apparent influence upon offenders in these respects. U6 The general disintegration was not, indeed, confined to the manorial system, the towns also were suffering considerable decay at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries. From the Conquest to the end of the reign of Edward III had perhaps been the most prosperous period in the urban life of the county. The extent to which Chichester, Arundel, Lewes, Steyning, and Pevensey increased in wealth in the few years which intervened between 1066 and the Domesday Survey has been noticed 1M Add. Ct. R. 32630. '" Ibid. 32686. IM Ibid. 32691. 189 Add. MS. 33182, fol. 18. '"Add. Ct. R. 31902. '"Ibid. 31901. 41 There is, of course, no evidence that they had worked efficiently in previous centuries, but it seems a fair inference that a system which had its origin before the reign of Edgar, and had been developed by such legislators as Henry II and Edward I throughout the country, must originally have been succeisfnl. '"Add. Ct. R. 32408, 32414, 31243, 31248 &c. "'Ibid. 31243. 145 Ibid. 32399-410, 31529 &c. 31258, 31243, 32025 and Duchy of Lanes. Ct. R. bdle. 126, No. 1870. 187 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX elsewhere.1*' Chichester and Lewes acquired gilds merchant as early as the reign of Stephen,1'7 Rye and Winchelsea rose to importance in the reign of Henry II,1*8 and though Winchelsea suffered utter annihilation in the storm of raSjj^yet after its rebuilding by Edward I it seems to have recovered more than its former prosperity.1*9 In the thirteenth century, indeed, traders both in town and country suffered to some extent from the tyrannies of the great overlords. Thus William de Braose purchased corn of merchants coming to his borough of Shoreham, paying them what price he would, so that foreign merchants shunned the port;160 the constables of the castle of Bramber seized the timber which poor folk were carrying to Shoreham market and made no payment for it ; and similar attacks were made on the merchandise which was brought to Lewes,151 and there are other instances of abuses of the right to take assize of bread and ale, as in the hundred of Hartfield, where Richard of Pevensey, bailiff of the honour, forced bakers to make four loaves for \d., and brewers to sell 3 gallons of beer for id., when corn was as high as 8s. a quarter ; m there was, moreover, a certain amount of unfairness in the exaction of bribes from craftsmen before they were allowed to exercise their trades. Nevertheless, it was just at this period that Arundel and Chichester put forward their claim to most extensive privileges ; Arundel asserted its right to choose its own coroner in full borough-court, and had to be reminded that in the matter of presentment of Englishry it must adhere to the custom of the county, and answer for all attachments before the justices as any other town, and the mayor and citizens of Chichester claimed, though ineffectually, the right of trial by duel, and to better purpose testamentary powers over their lands and chattels.163 About the same time the men of Seaford owed no customary services to their overlord, and sailors and merchants dwelling there were allowed quittance of all dues to the manor court if they were not present in the town on the day of summons.154 There can be no doubt that the export of wool was one of the chief factors in the wealth of the Sussex ports in the thirteenth century.166 The monasteries of Robertsbridge, Dureford, and Bayham, exported considerable quantities to Florence and Flanders,166 and Sussex stood seventh in the assessment of wool from each county in I34I.167 In 1353 Edward III fixed a staple at Chichester, which had already been pointed out as the place most suitable for the holding of the county court,168 and in 1364—5 it was enacted, in order to obviate unnecessary expenses of carriage, that anyone who chose might take their wools and wool-fells to Lewes, where the Chichester customers were to attend for the purpose of weighing them,169 though it would seem that this privilege was soon lost, for in 1402 the burgesses of Lewes prayed for its renewal, seeing that the town was situated close to the sea, in the very heart of the wool-growing district of the county, and was "• V.C.H. Suss, i, 382. '" Gross, Gild Merchant, ii, 47 and 145 note. 148 V.C.H. Suss, ii, 'Maritime History.' " Inderwick, King Edward and New Winchelsea, 1 8 and 99 et seq. 160 Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 203 ; cf. also Assize R. 921, m. 14. 151 Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 210 ; Assize R. 921, m. 14. I61 Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), 218-19. 153 Assize R. 924, m. 65 and m. 73 ; cf. also R. 921. 164 P.R.O. Rentals and Surv. ptfo. f|. 1M Cal. of Pat. 1272-81, pp. 38, 48, 107. 1M Cunningham, Growth ofEngl. Industry, i, App. D. 157 Rot. Par/. (Rec. Com.), ii, 131. 158 Cal. of Pat. 1334-8, pp. 289 and 318. 159 Rot. Part. (Rec. Com.), ii, 288^. 1 88 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY the home of considerable numbers of merchants.160 But excessive taxation and the other evils which marked the close of the Lancastrian and the opening years of the Tudor period told heavily upon the prosperity of the towns. Old Shoreham practically vanished, and the inhabitants of New Shoreham were reduced by 1421 from over 500 to 36. Between 1472 and 1496 the borough 'now of late gretely wasted by the sea' was nine times exempted from contribution to tenths and fifteenths ; m and Henry VIII in 1540 and 1541 had to put pressure upon Chichester, Lewes, and the Cinque Ports to induce them to effect restorations.162 It was upon a society in this state of transition that the changes of the sixteenth century dawned. It is unfortunately impossible to estimate the exact effect of the inclosing movement in Sussex, as no returns exist of the commission of 1517. There are, however, certain special considerations which have to be taken into account in considering the question in this county. In the first place the Weald of Sussex is one of those districts mentioned by Dr. Slater as being ' first brought into cultivation after the disappearance of serfdom,' and consequently inclosed easily and naturally at a comparatively early date.163 This fact is well illustrated by the important part played by the assart lands in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and subsequent centuries.164 Possibly the first recorded example of an assart in Sussex was that made at Burwash shortly after the Conquest by the count of Eu and given by him to Levessunt his huntsman;165 and another early instance occurs in the twelfth- century charter of Robert de Dene, giving to Lewes Priory certain lands ' which down to recent times had been woodland.' 168 In the court rolls of Weald and forest parishes such as Laughton, Mayfield, Framfield, Wadhurst, Uckfield, and Buxted, there are frequent notices of assart holdings.167 In 1294—5, 4 acres of land within Ashdown Forest were thus leased to tenants at a rent of 4^. an acre, and reclaimed ; 168 while in Laughton a single assart tenement might consist of as many as 30 acres.169 In Burwash in 1334 nearly half the chace of ' Dalynton ' was already assarted.170 When it is remembered, moreover, that in spite of this system of reclaiming the waste, the forests of Ashdown, St. Leonards and Worth remained real forests until the great age of the iron industry, it will be seen that there cannot have been much room in primitive times for common fields husbandry. In the Down parishes there must have been large tracts of sheep pasture from a comparatively early date ; not only is there evidence of considerable export,171 but in the early years of the thirteenth century the bishop of Chichester decreed that 3,150 sheep should always be kept upon the episcopal manors,172 and in 1244 there were in Eastbourne manor a pasture 160 Rot. Parl. (Rec. Com.), iii, 497*. "l Cunningham, Growth of Engl. Industry (1905), i, 455 ; Rot. Parl. (Rec. Com.), iv, 159^ ; vi, 40^, 114^, 119*, 151^, 197^, 4ou, 438^, 442^, and 514*. 161 Stat. 32 Hen. VIII, cap. 18, and 33 Hen. VIII, cap. 36; cf. Cunningham, Growth of Engl. Industry (ed. 1905), i, 507. 163 Engl. Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common fields, 148 and 176-7. 164 Add. Ct. R. 31860. 16i Assize R. 912, m. 16. 1M Cott. MS. Nero, C. iii, fol. 217. "7 P.R.O. Ct. R. (Gen. Ser.), ptfo. 206, No. 33 and 35. 168 Mins. Accts. bdle. 1027, No. 22. 169 Add. Ct. R. 31865 and 31868. 170 Add. MS. 33189, fol. 49. 17: Supra. 171 Cal. of Chart. R. i, 34 ; cf. stock on the bishop's manors in Add. MS. 6165, fol. 107 seq. 189 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX on the hills worth I mark, a pasture in ' Linche' (? the Links) worth 2s. 6d., and another pasture on the hills which the shepherds held, also worth i mark a year.178 Later in the same century, in 1287, the sheriff seized 2,150 sheep belonging to Earl de Warenne as a distraint.17* John de St. John was evidently a considerable sheep-farmer, for in 1284 he impleaded Isabel Mortimer for imparking 1,405 sheep in a place called ' Molecombe in Havernake in Westhampton ' which he claimed as his several pasture,175 and in 1299—1300 the earl of Cornwall died seised of a sheep-market in Chichester. It is clear, moreover, that in the fourteenth century several of the tenants of Bishopstone manor were small sheep-farmers and leased pasture from the lord for a term of years.176 At a rather later date the tenants of Iford and Northease had some 230 acres of sheep-down, each yardland having the right to support twenty-six sheep.177 In view of this evidence it would seem probable that new inclosures for sheep were not extensively made in the sixteenth century. At the same time it must not be supposed that the movement left the county undisturbed. In the latter years of the reign of Henry VIII there were armed riots in the neighbourhood of Waldron, Laughton, and Hoathly, and at Lordington and elsewhere, in which inclosures were destroyed, hedges burned, and animals taken out of pound.178 About the same time the copy- hold tenants of the manor of Ecclesden in West Angmering complained that John Palmer, who had of late purchased the property from the king, immediately after his entry, took from them their pastures and inclosed them together with other lands, converting them to his own use, and turning their commons into fishponds ; that he seized their houses and drove them away from their holdings by force and violence, obliging them to take other lands in other places, ' being worse lands and not like in value nor number of acres nor the title thereof and lease, and to some of the said poor tenants he hath appointed no lands nor recompense to their impoverishment and utter undoing.' When some of the bolder spirits refused to leave their homes Palmer came with more ' evil disposed persons, having staves and other weapons,' and beat upon the doors until they came out, whereupon he riotously broke open the doors of the houses, frightened some so that they lost their reason, and said to others, when they expostulated, ' Do ye not know that the king's grace hath put down all houses of monks, friars, and nuns, therefore now is the time come that we gentlemen will pull down the houses of such poor knaves as ye be?'179 Palmer, however, succeeded in showing that the copyholders had been removed to other places in Angmering by agreement, and the case was dismissed. In 1 545 a complaint was made against Richard Elderton that he had engrossed several farms in Preston and Patcham, and was keeping more than 2,000 sheep, contrary to the form of the statute ;180 and in the reign of Elizabeth there were several suits about inclosures of waste or common in Framfield, Petworth, Plumpton, and Lancing Marsh,181 while in 1611 m Chan. Inq. p.m. Hen. Ill, file 2, No. 7. '" Assize R. 924, m. 38 d, 174 Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), 206. "' Add. Ct. R. 31258-9 ; cf. also 31250-1-2. 177 Sias. Arch. Coll. xxix, 123. 178 Proc. of Ct. of Star Chamber, bdle. 24, No. 193 ; bdle. 19, Nos. 306 and 315 ; bdle. 26, No. 208. 179 Ibid. bdle. 6, No. 1 8 1. 18° Memo. R. Mich. 37 Hen. VIII, r. 109-10. 181 Chan. Enrolled Decrees, 33 Eliz. pt. 74, No. I ; 37 Eliz. pt. 92, No. 14 ; 38 Eliz. pt. 90, No. II ; and Exch. Dep. Mich. 34 & 35 Eliz. No. 17. 190 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY Robert Bedoe, of London, gave evidence that Jewell Parvishe, of Cuckfield, was occupying 100 acres of land in that parish which had been converted into pasture for sheep, and had not restored it to tillage in pursuance of the Act of 1596 ; the complainant, therefore, prayed that the delinquent should forfeit £200, one-third of which he himself claimed as informer.182 It is rather curious to note that in nearly all these cases the presumption of justice is in favour of the incloser ; he generally succeeded in showing that he had compensated the evicted tenants in accordance with previous agreement, and the evidence in one case certainly would seem to point in the direction of real improvements having met with opposition from the tenants. The two cases in which information was given as to the engrossing of farms and excessive sheep-farming were probably prompted by the informer's expectation of obtaining a share in the delinquent's fine, rather than by any knowledge of real injury having been inflicted upon the inhabitants, or upon the agriculture of Cuckfield, Preston, and Patcham. It has, indeed, been recently shown that the whole question of inclosing in Sussex bears a very different aspect from that which it has assumed in other midland and southern counties. William Marshall, in 1791, noted the rarity of common fields both in the Weald and elsewhere throughout the county,188 and Dr. Slater estimates that the total area of common arable fields inclosed by Act of Parliament throughout the county between 1727 and 1900 amounted to no more than 15,185 acres.184 The greater number of parliamentary inclosures within the county have consequently affected commonable waste only, and have had the result of extending cultivation, rather than 'exterminating village communities.'185 The disappearance of the small proprietor and the increase of the labouring and potentially pauper population must consequently be accounted for here on other grounds. Indeed, small holdings have always been regarded as characteristic of the Weald, and it was chiefly to lack of capital and maladministration of the poor law that much of the distress of the county in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was due.186 The dissolution of the religious houses and gilds was probably more seriously felt than the inclosing movement. Many of the monasteries had been the dispensers of considerable endowed charities ; thus Lewes Priory distributed doles on Septuagesima Sunday (Carnipedoio), Holy Thursday, and Whit-sunday, amounting in all to 103^. 8d., as well as making a weekly distri- bution of 2s. \od. to 'sundry poor,' and allowing i IQJ. a year to the hospital of St. Nicholas Westout, and £16 los. to that of St. James beside the Priory Gate — all these charities being endowed for the soul of the founder of the priory, Earl William de Warenne. The Battle Abbey doles in silver, bread, and herrings at divers times of year, especially on the feast of St. Martin in winter and on Maundy Thursday, amounted to io2s. iod. ; and at Box- grove six poor people received I \d. a day, and on Maundy Thursday distribu- tions of money and corn were made to the value of 30^. At Dureford and Tortington there were annual distributions on the same day, amounting in each case to 26s. S^.187 The county had, moreover, been rich in hospitals, 188 Memo. R. Hil. 8 Jas. I, rot. 173. 188 W. Marshall, Rural Economy of the Southern Counties, ii, 100 and 230 ; and Dr. Slater, op. cit. 232-4. 184 Op. cit. 302. 185 Ibid. z. 186 Infra. 187 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 331, 349, 307, 312, 321. 191 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX and though some of these had perished before the sixteenth century, and others survived the fall of the monasteries, a few certainly vanished about this time, either being swept away in the general upheaval or falling into decay after the dissolution of the priory upon which they had in part depended for support/18 There seems, however, to have been no rioting on the suppression of the monasteries,189 a fact which may possibly be partly explained from the economic standpoint by the rapid growth of the iron industry, which gave rise to an increasing demand both for the land which the dissolution threw into the market, and for the labour which had hitherto been dependent upon the more precarious profits of agriculture.190 The industry, however, was by no means entirely popular. The destruc- tion of timber, which Drayton m regretted at the beginning of the seven- teenth century from a picturesque point of view, had already been the source of serious uneasiness to the towns of Hastings, Winchelsea, and Rye, in 1577 and 1 58 1,192 and had been to a certain extent met by legislation of the year i585-193 Nor was this the only grievance of the towns at this time. The growth of commerce had combined with troubles on the continent to bring a great influx of foreigners to the Sussex coast ; in 1523 there were already over fifty aliens of various nationalities (including Scots) in Rye,194 and in 1572 they were dwelling in considerable numbers in all parts of the county.196 In Rye, at any rate, they were at first popular, and when the lords of the council issued orders to the mayor and jurats to make a return of howe manie straingers of every nation are within the town . . . howe many are come into that towne since the 25th of March laste, and by what qualitie and meanes they do lyve and sustayne themselves and howe they doe inhabite, and in what sort they do resorte orderly to any churches, 19S they reported that as yet they saw ' no cause but the same persons may have continuance.' By February, 1574, however, in spite of orders to ' common passengers or fishermen who shall fortune to come from Diepe ' and elsewhere that they were not to bring any Frenchmen or Flemings other than ' marchantes, gents, common postes or messengers,' large numbers 'of the Frenche being very poore people, both men, wemen and children,' had been brought over ' to the great crye and griefF of the inhabitants of Ry and other places about the same.' 197 The objections to their admission were obviously twofold : in the first place their poverty, which undoubtedly added to the difficulty of supporting the poor of the neighbourhood, and secondly their competition in trade, which was regarded as an offence against the exclusive system which still prevailed.198 In 1575-6 the complaints of the men of Rye on this score led to the licensing by the mayor and jurats of two new craft gilds — the mercers and the cordwainers.199 There can be very little doubt, however, that the active interference of both the central and local authorities at this time was 188 See V.C.H. Suss, ii, ' Religious Houses.' 189 Ibid. 190 Camden, Britannia (ed. Gough), i, 185 ; and Add. MS. 33058, fol. 8 1 et seq. 191 Polyolbion, Song xvii. m Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 56, 64, 76. » Ibid, iii, 6. 1M Lay Subsidy R. iff. 19S Ibid. ||». '" Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 4, 6. The returns include several merchants, a bookbinder, a clockmaker, a cooper, a minister, and several families whose occupations are not specified. 1W Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 30. 198 Ibid, 30, 37, 55, 85. l" Ibid. 55. I92 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY of little real avail in checking freedom of action ; the apprenticing laws and the rules of craft gilds were frequently broken and the statute of main- tenance and liveries disregarded.200 The system of corn engrossing practised by officers of the ports gave rise to grievous complaints from farmers ;201 and in December, 1583, a miscellaneous collection of presentments were made before the mayor and jurats of Rye, including common absentees from church, users of pots and other measures unlawful, forestallers, regrators and engrossers, persons indulging in quarrellings and frays, householders for having wooden chimneys, victuallers for keeping idle and poor people in their houses to drink and play unlawful games, and people who broke the sumptuary laws,302 and there are similar presentments for other parts of the country.203 At the same time the period was certainly an age of increasing activity on the part of the local authorities — the churchwardens and overseers of parishes were taking the position left vacant by the decay of the manorial organiza- tion. The manuscripts of the corporation of Rye are full of a sense of responsibility not only for the material but also for the moral welfare of the town ; 20* in 1580 the churchwardens and sidesmen, who had been obliged to present certain persons for drunkenness, whose ' estates were not able to bear the charge of presentment in the Spiritual Court,' prayed the mayor and his brethren that ' no taverns or victualling houses shall suffer any of those persons to drink either in or at the doors of their houses under a penalty,' m and in 1599 the inhabitants of Lewes petitioned the justices to refuse to license any ale-house within the borough or the parish of St. Mary Westout, except in open court, and at the request of the constables and fellowship.206 The same sense of responsibility is manifest in the care of the poor, a considerable number of charitable bequests date from the close of the century,207 and the earl of Dorset founded the large almshouse at East Grinstead known as Sackville College, in i6o8.208 Between 1581 and 1616 numerous appeals were addressed by villages on the Pelham estates for leave for widows or aged labourers to build cottages for themselves upon the lord's waste.809 In these and in the case in which the mayor and jurats of Hastings licensed a decayed freeman of the port to beg for a year in Rye and Winchelsea,210 there is perhaps some trace of a desire to shift responsibility on to other shoulders, but Hastings at least professed itself ' alwaes reddy to performe (the same) towards such as resort in like manner from you to us,' and that such outside help was occasionally given voluntarily is clear from the fact that in January, 1597, when Rye was visited, apparently, by famine, Ashford sent the sum of £5 ' towardes the releavynge of the poore saintes of God amongst you.' 2U A further impetus was give to the energy and sense of responsibility of local authorities by the famine of the middle of the seventeenth century. So 100 Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 45, 48, 60 ; and Memo. R. Hil. 9 Eliz. rot. 98, 99 ; Hil. 43 Eliz. rot. 125 ; and Mich. 43 Eliz. rot. 118. *" Cal. ofS. P. Dam. 1591-4, p. 362 ; cf. also Hut. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 29, for the state of famine to which Rye was almost reduced by attempts to regulate the corn trade. *" Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 84. 2(8 Memo. R. East. 9 Eliz. rot. 85, 88, 919 ; Lay Subsidy R. ]f|. m e.g. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 45. ** Ibid. 74. 106 Horsfield, Hist, of Levies, \, 194. *" Proc. of Commissioners for Charitable Uses Inq. bdle ii, No. 3 ; bdle. xvii, No. 1 5 ; bdle. xii, No. 1 2 ; and Dep. bdle. ix, No. 7. 106 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vii, App. 43-4. *" Add. MSS. ^o^, passim. 210 Suss. Arch. Call, xii, 105-6. "' Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 113. 2 193 25 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX great was the distress and disorder to which it gave rise that justices of the peace throughout the kingdom received special directions for dealing with engrossers of corn, and providing for the poor and suppressing vagrancy, and were ordered to send frequent reports of their proceedings to the Privy Council. From these reports it is clear that the scarcity was principally felt in Sussex in the Weald districts. In February, 1630, the justices stated that in several divisions of the county there was not half enough corn to support the inhabitants until the next harvest, and in consequence of the scarcity the price of wheat had risen in a comparatively short time from 6s. to 8j. the bushel, and that of other grain in proportion.213 The ensuing season, moreover, brought little relief, in Arundel rape in the following December, though the markets at Arundel and Petworth were reasonably well supplied, the prices were still high, wheat being at 6j., rye 5-r. 6d., barley %s. ^d., oats zod. and pease 3.?. the bushel. The justices were active in trying to alleviate the distress. They had issued orders that no corn should be sold in the markets to any but the poor until two hours after the market bell had been rung, and they reported that they had lessened the numbers of badgers who were sus- pected to be forestallers of grain, and had ordered such maltsters as had engrossed any quantity of grain to serve the market weekly at a reasonable rate. There were at this time but few farmers in the rape who had more than sufficient corn for the support of their own families, but those who had any surplus had been warned to supply the markets according to their store and 'to have considera- tion of the poor in their parish.' All export of grain from Arundel port had been forbidden.213 A similar return of scarcity was made in February, 1631, but on 23 April the justices of Lewes rape notified that there was sufficient corn 'to serve the people and to help the wildish parts of the county.' The poor, they added, bought chiefly barley for their bread, it was then sold at 5^. a bushel, while wheat was at 8j.2U Lewes, however, was evidently specially fortunate at this time, for in Hastings rape there was ' not sufficient quantity to suffice by full a third part,'216 and the scarcity was still so great in the Wealden division of Pevensey rape that the justices had been obliged to make special appeals to the ' more substantial inhabitants of those parishes where the poor did most abound, to afford some liberal help to their poor people, who, partly by the persuasion of us and of their own charitable dispositions have laid down in some one parish about £30, in another £20, some less, according to the extent and ability of their parishes.' Badgers had been appointed in every parish to buy corn and sell it to the poor ' i zd. in every bushel better cheaper than it did cost.' There was no lack of work in this part of the county, for the vicinity of the clothiers of Kent afforded employment to the women and children, while the Sussex iron-works gave employment ' for the stronger bodies.' »• The scarcity in the Weald parishes and elsewhere throughout the king- dom naturally affected prices in the more fortunate districts. The justices of the division including the east part of the Sussex Downs reported in May that "' S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 185, No. 80. 114 Cat. S.P. Dom. 1631-3, p. 18. m S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 192, No. 99. ni Ibid. vol. 177, No. 61. Ili Ibid. 37. 194 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY the ( scarcity in the wildish and other parts of the kingdom occasioned by the unreasonableness of the winter and spring foregoing this, hath drawn from here great quantities of wheat, but especially of barley to London and other places.' They hoped, however, that by a diligent adherence to the orders of the Privy Council they might yet have sufficient to supply ' the greater part of this county adjoining to those downs,' provided that it was not bought up in the market for the supply of London and Kent. Prices remained at the unusually high rate reported from Lewes in the previous February.217 A more hopeful report came from Pevensey in November of the same year. In spite of diligent inquiry no trace of exportation, engrossing or combinations of corn-masters and farmers had been found, ' none that we know of carrying such uncharitable minds.' The supply was still very small, but the price of wheat was not above 4^. 6d. or 4^. \d. the bushel, and barley was usually sold at zos. the quarter, so that the justices, though willing if necessary to continue the measures prescribed by the Council, hoped that there was no longer any occasion for them to do so.818 The last harvest had indeed yielded ' such a plentiful increase as few years have exceeded, in many places it yieldeth not so well to the bushel as in former years, but there is sufficient to serve the county if not carried thence as last year.'319 No hoarding of corn was now practised at Arundel, the late high prices being attributed to the proximity of the Surrey markets, to which purveyors from London resorted. Best wheat was now (January, 1632) at 32^. the quarter.220 Together with these reports on the condition of the corn supply and the rate of prices the justices forwarded returns of their success in administering the apprenticing laws, and putting down ale-houses and vagrants and disorders of all kinds throughout the country. At the height of the bad season, in May, 1631, it was reported from the Wealden division of Pevensey rape that during the last three months about thirty poor children had been apprenticed and sixteen ale-houses suppressed in a district of eighteen parishes, and vagabonds and rogues had ' been by the constables so well looked into that we think the country hath no cause to complain of their numbers ; and some have been punished for harbouring of them.' 221 In Arundel rape the return of the justices for the same date was to the effect that in spite of strict orders to the officers and the offer of rewards to informers they had received no presentments concerning abuses of inns and ale-houses. All poor children of ten years old and upward who were fit to be apprenticed had been provided with masters and particular note had been taken of all children above the age of eight which are yet unfit to be put forth, with the names of the ablest inhabitants of every parish who are fit to receive them .... and [we] have likewise taken a particular note of the number of impotent people that are to be relieved in every parish. Large numbers of rogues and vagabonds had been punished and sent to their birth-place or last habitation, and a new house of correction had been built at Petworth, which had hitherto been annexed to the house of correction of J17 S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 192, No. 98. "' Ibid. vol. 203, No. 102. 819 Cat. S.P. Dom. 1631-3, p. 210. "° Ibid. 257. "' S.P. Dora. Chas. I, vol. 192, No. 99. 195 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Chichester rape.828 A return of Petworth charities is annexed with a state- ment that all the funds were properly applied.823 In the year 1631 fifty children were apprenticed in the rape of Chiches- ter, and ejghty in the rape of Arundel,22* thirty were apprenticed from the parishes of Battle, Burwash, Hooe, and Heathfield in the four months pre- ceding July, 1632, and during the same period twenty-seven rogues were whipped in that district, and sent to their birth-place or last abode.226 The return from Hastings rape in July, 1663, mentions the apprenticing of thirteen children during the year 1632, but the justices evidently felt that the state of their division still left much to be desired. ' We have had as great care as we can of the ridding of the country from rogues and vagabonds,' they wrote, ' and we conceive good hopes that we shall by our diligence hereafter bring the country about us to better conformity and more agreeableness to his Majesty's orders and directions.' 226 The succeeding years saw a considerable improvement in the good order of the county. In October, 1633, there were in the Wealden division of Pevensey rape ' not a fourth part of the rogues ' that there had been pre- viously ; in the Downish division of the same rape only two were punished between June and October, 1634 ; and in Bramber in that year, as well as in 1633, very few were to be seen or heard of ; the poor in every parish were sufficiently relieved, and there were no ' disordered ' ale-houses.227 At this date one ale-house was considered sufficient for a country village, and for a market- town ' the same number of inns as have anciently been there.'228 In 1636 there were said to be two in Arundel, Petworth, Horsham, Cliffe, Steyning, East Grinstead, Battle, and Brighthelmston, three in Rye, four in Midhurst, five in Lewes (if the borough so chose), and six in Chichester.229 With the passing of the more immediate stress of famine rogues and vagabonds seem to have increased again to some extent. In the Wealden division of Pevensey forty-six were punished in 1637 and seventy-seven in 1638, and in the rapes of Lewes and Arundel the numbers returned for 1637 were thirty-five and forty-seven respectively.230 This may possibly have been occasioned by some feeling of discontent being aroused when there was no longer any need to make the same special provision for the poor as had been done during the scarcity, or possibly with the passing of immediate anxiety vigilance had been somewhat relaxed, with the result that a fresh outburst of disorder subsequently occurred. Socially the period from about 1500 to the Commonwealth, and more particularly during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, was one of luxury and ceremonial magnificence, the service of a great lord's house, as set forth in Lord Montague's regulations for his household at Cowdray in 1595, being an ornate ritual. So far was the dignity of the nobleman upheld at Cowdray that not only was the table laid for dinner with an elaborate cere- *" S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 191, No. 45. Unfortunately no figures are given. *** These were, one hospital in the parish erected by one Thomas Thompson for twelve poor people, endowed with the annual rent of I oo marks, the rent of one house given by Edward Hall for the ' breeding up of poor children to school,' being £4 ; and the rent of other houses given by other men towards the relief of the poor to the value of £8 a year, with a stock of money of £100. "• S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 210, No. 92 ; 220, No. 41. ni Ibid. 220, No. 19. "* Ibid. 243, No. 19. K Ibid. 247, No. 46 ; 250, No. 43 ; 265, No. 33. •* Ibid. 250, No. 42. m Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxiii, 272. "° S. P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 364, No. 125 ; vol. 395, No. 1 8. 196 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY monial of bows and reverences, but while the joints were cooking in the kitchen no one might stand with his back irreverently turned towards them. Small wonder that Edward VI complained of the excessive banqueting at Cowdray ! 231 An attempt to prevent the humbler ranks from aping their superiors in extravagance was made by the passing of sumptuary laws, one of which forbade the wearing of silk by the wives of persons not maintaining a horse and equipment fora soldier. In 1561 at Steyning the wives of six esquires are stated to have worn silk gowns, their husbands duly fulfilling their obligations, while the wife of John Wyatt of Slyndon husbondman (i.e. farmer) ... did weare in her utter- most garment that is to saie her cassock or Frock a cape of Black velvett, the said John havinge not yet any geldinge wth the furnyture for a light horseman to serve.238 The amusements of the poorer classes were also strictly regulated, and while Lord Montague's guests might play cards after dinner,233 such relaxation was only allowed to servants during the Christmas festivities.234 Perhaps this was as well, for a fatal quarrel occurred at Rye in 1613 over a game called ' newe cutt.'236 Amongst other games forbidden was bowls, and in 1567 a Lewes draper and five Brighton men were summoned for playing this popular game, while the constable of Brighton was called to account for not making search for bowling alleys and similar places of unlawful games.236 Football, instances of which occur in Sussex as early as the beginning of the fifteenth century,237 was another cause of offence, and in 1548 thirteen persons were fined for playing it at Wadhurst.238 Regular sport was within reach of comparatively few, but poaching was common, and was indulged in by many men of good position, the most famous instance being the affray at Hellingly in which one of Sir William Pelham's keepers was killed, and for his share in which the young Lord Dacre of Herstmonceux was hanged in I54I.239 Some eighty years later a raid on the Pelham deer involved Thomas Lunsford in a fine of £1,750, in revenge for which he attempted Sir Thomas Pelham's life, for which he was imprisoned and fined ,T8,ooo.240 Hawking was carried on at Herstmonceux, where the old-established heronry afforded good sport to Lord Dacre,211 who was also an enthusiastic sailor and possessed a ' yought ' called the Primrose as early as i645.242 Pheasants and partridges appear to have been preserved at Herstmonceux at this time,243 while pea-fowl adorned the garden, in which no doubt were grown some of the strawberries, cherries, plums, quinces, and apricots which were consumed at the castle.244 The Pelham accounts of expenses at Laughton and Halland afford some idea of the housekeeping of a wealthy Sussex gentleman in the seventeenth century. Catering seems to have been conducted on a generous scale. The accounts for the week ending 28 March, 1657, include 700 oysters for 2s- 8d., 4 Ib. butter is. 6d., 6 chickens is. 6^,4 chickens 2s., a firkin of herrings gj., a burden of salt fish 14^. The following week the 131 Sun. Arch. Coll. vii, 173-212. BI Ibid, xxxiii, 271. "3 Ibid, vii, 199. *" Act of 33 Hen. VIII, cap. 9. *" Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 149. 136 Memo. R. K.R., 9 Eliz. Easter, m. 85-91. "7 Stus. Arch. Coll. xii. "a Ct. R. P.R.O. bdle. 205, No. 13. 1M Sun. Arch. Coll. xix, 170-9. 140 Add. MS. 5682, fol. 648. M1 Suss. Arch. Coll. xlviii, 126. '"Ibid. 127-9. "'Ibid. '" Ibid. 119. A very good idea of the quantities, variety, and prices of the fish, flesh, fowl, and other articles consumed in a great house can be obtained from the Herstmonceux Account Book ; ibid. 104-38. 197 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX steward accounted for 1 3 green geese at 6d. each, 8 chickens at 3^., a pig which cost 2s. 494 Lower, Hist, of Sussex, 60. *** Hist, of Eastbourne — Dedication. The writer stated that there were on the beach some ' tolerable good modern buildings ' . . . ' chiefly inhabited by visitors who come in the spring, summer, and autumn months for the ad vantages of sea air and bathing,' 18. "* J C. Wright, Bygone Eastbourne, 29. "' C. G. Harper, The Brighton Road, 19 et seq. ; Suss. Arch. Coll. viii, 250. "• C. G. Harper, The Brighton Road ; J. C. Wright, Bygone Eastbourne. "• Hay, Hist, of Chichester, 393. 204 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY road daily, and in 1826 the total coaching receipts amounted to £100,000 a year, £60,000 being taken by the sixteen permanent coaches, and the remaining £40,000 by the 'butterflies.' Between 1823 and 1838 the first 'steam-carriages' were seen upon the road, but in 1833 upwards of four hundred and eighty persons still travelled to Brighton by coach on a single day in October, and it was not for another six years that any serious falling off in the numbers was noticed. In 1839, however, the numbers had decreased appreciably and fares rose : in 1841 the Brighton railway was opened, and the day mail ceased, and in the following year the night mail ceased also.800 Hastings station was opened in 1846, and Eastbourne followed in 1849. The third-class fare from Brighton to London at this time was js. 6d. and the first-class 15^. or by express igs. id., and for many years the third-class carriages were open to the weather and not provided with seats.801 In spite of all drawbacks, however, the innovation proved the death-knell of the old coaching system. Sussex was not exempt from the general distress which resulted from the maladministration of poor relief in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As early as 1730 the vestry of Hastings was ready to supply clothes and shoes to such ' persons belongen to the poore ' 302 as applied, and in Hailsham a great number of persons were in receipt of relief and a great variety of relief was required and granted.303 By 1776 the total expendi- ture of the county on account of the poor was £54,734 8j. yd., £3,915 19^. being expended on rents of workhouses and £1,235 los- 5^- on litigation — chiefly in connexion with the settlement of paupers.304 Within the next decade the poor rate had risen nearly £20,000, the average expenditure for the years 1783, 1784, and 1785 being £72,877 los. lod. The average expense of overseers' journeys was £839 3.1-. 2d., their entertainments cost on an average £457 ys. yd., law business £1,445 os- 6 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiii, 98. ** L. F. Salzmann, Hist, of Hailsham, 56. *" Accts. and Papers, 1777, ix, 539. ' m Ibid. 1787, ix, 730-1. 506 Holloway, Hist, of Rye, 444. It should be noted that the year 1795 was one of scarcity. 205 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX and Sutton sixteen.807 Arundel and Petworth were single parishes under the Act, and Brighton and Chichester were administered under local Acts.308 Discontent and poverty, however, increased to an alarming extent ; threaten- ing letters were circulated in West Dean as early as I795,309 and rick-burning occurred" in Hailsham in 1816-17; in Northiam the vestry was violently entered in 1822, and the labourers declaring that they would help themselves to their own, burnt the tithe ricks.810 Elsewhere throughout the county riots became prevalent about the year 1830 — Rottingdean, Singleton, Chiddingly, Worth, and Crawley being almost the only districts which were exempt from some form of rioting. The causes of discontent most usually alleged in answer to the inquiry held in 1834 were the high price of provisions and the low rate of wages, especially to single men, and the attempt of the parish authorities to find employment for the labourers on the roads — the work being unprofitable, and consequently degrading and ill-paid, and affording ample opportunity for dis- cussion of grievances. In certain districts the trouble was attributed to malice and drink and political agitation, due to revolutionary literature and William Cobbett's lectures,311 and in others, such as East Grinstead, it was said that the concessions granted by the employers in their first panic had encouraged the rioters to further excesses. For the most part, however, the tendency was towards a charitable policy in its most pernicious forms. The true secret of the outbreak was revealed in the report from Northiam. The labourers, ran the return, have for some time past been fully aware that they can claim a subsistence, and the opinion has so far prevailed, that whether idle or industrious, the amount must be regulated by the number of the family, that in the riots they took upon themselves to regulate the amount of relief, as well as the rate of wages — indeed the former yet more than the latter. The consequence of the riots was that both relief and wages were now given in accordance with the demands of the rioters.81* There were two principal factors in this miserable policy of pauperiza- tion. In the first place the farmers preferred to pay low rents and high rates, and at Eastbourne, at least, they openly avowed the fact at the vestry meet- ings. By pursuing such a system they could always secure what extra hands they needed, and as soon as rain came they were able to turn them off on to the parish again, so that the shopkeepers and lodging-house keepers bore a share in their maintenance. They were not sufficiently far-sighted, nor had they a sufficiently permanent interest in the land to dread the destruction of property or the pauperization of the labouring population.318 In justice to the good feeling of the ratepayers of the county at that period, however, it ought to be stated that by far the greater amount of demoralization was due to a real, though in part misdirected, interest in the welfare of their poorer neighbours. The great objection which was urged against the dissolution of the Gilbert unions of East Preston and Sutton in 1844 was that the rate- 307 Accts. and Papers, 1844, xl. ** Ibid. 1847-8, liii. *" Ibid. 1834, xxxiv. "0 L. F. Salztnann, Hist, of Hailsham, 60 ; Accts. and Papers, 1834, zxziv. 111 At Brede there had been no burnings till ' after Cobbett's harangue at Battle ' ; Framfield, Guestling, and St. John sub Castro had also been roused by political agitators. At Brighton the outburst was attributed to wantonness and spleen ; Arundel, Ditchling, Eastbourne, Framfield, Lindfield, and Ringmer complained of the beer-shops. 111 Attti. and Papers, 1834, **»*• ** Ibid. 1884-5, 206 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY payers could not bear the idea of being restrained in their relief. They thought, with some show of reason, that they were themselves the best judges of people in distress in their own neighbourhood. If the Act of 1834 were enforced, help would have to come through the relieving officer or the board of guardians, or the Poor Law Commissioners.314 Moreover, it is certain that the Act of 1834 had, in some instances, been carried out in a way eminently calculated to create prejudice even had it not already existed. In the case, for instance, of the new poor law union of West Hampnett, Lord Egremont, one of the most benevolent of Sussex landowners, was naturally excessively annoyed to find that Up Waltham, where he was sole landowner, and which should naturally have been grouped with his other parishes of Duncton and Petworth, had been added to West Hampnett. The commissioner had in that case, as the witness expressed it, ' made the union with a pair of compasses,' arbitrarily taking Chichester as his centre, with no regard to local interests or prejudices. s16 Moreover, the county had for many years previously not been at all blind to the need of reform, or negligent in its efforts to effect improvements ; and the methods adopted, if not always successful, were both valuable and interesting as experiments. Lord Abergavenny, for instance, very early attempted to establish allotments at Rotherfield, but here the holdings proved too large and only tended to further pauperization. The ground had been leased at a quit-rent of 5-r. an acre, and the tenant undertook to require no relief from the parish after the expiry of two years from his entering upon occupation. Should this condition not be fulfilled he was to surrender his land again. The tenements, however, were of such a size that the men could not cultivate them in addition to their ordinary labour, and consequently relied upon them for their whole support, and became petty farmers without sufficient capital to succeed. They fell further and further into poverty, and were finally obliged to sell their land to a man from some neighbouring parish, who in his turn became impoverished and came upon the rates. s16 The situation became so alarming that on 22 February, 1827, the vestry resolved to object to all grants and admittances, and by 1834 the parish was glad to buy up the allotments as they fell vacant in order to prevent a succession of families becoming pauperized. About 1825 William Allen started a yet more elaborate scheme upon the Gravely estate at Lindfield. In the first instance he had established a school of agriculture and industries for boys and girls, where the children were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, gardening, straw-plaiting, tailoring, shoe-making, printing, needlework, spinning, knitting, and other useful trades ; and he had also been the chief promoter of the Lindfield Benevolent Society, whose members undertook to visit the poor in their cottages, and apparently to give help upon a more scientific method than that usually employed by the vestries. Shortly after the starting of this scheme Mr. John Smith, the , member for Chichester City, purchased Gravely — an estate of about i oo acres — and with the co-operation of Mr. Allen built fourteen cottages, each with not less than i J acres of land attached, and six small farms of 5 or 6 acres apiece. The cottagers were supposed to be able to cultivate their land in addition to 114 Accts. and Papers, \ 844, x ; Mr. Oliver's evidence. 815 Ibid. 1844, x ; Rev. T. Sockett's evidence. "' Ibid. 1884-5, 207 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX their regular labour, and if they could be persuaded to till the ground upon the system which he proposed, Mr. Allen was convinced that in the worst seasons they could make 2s. a week all the year round, in addition to their usual earnings. The distress in Lindfield at the time was terrible, and the expenditure on relief enormous. In 1831 it was estimated that £1,200 had been spent in one year on the support of 215 paupers, 100 of whom were able-bodied. The scheme met with considerable opposition, and the conservative mind of the Sussex native was slow to accept the system of potato cultivation and spade husbandry which was recom- mended, but in spite of this, up to 1831, considerable success had attended the attempt. S17 Somewhat similar experiments were tried in the neighbourhood of East- bourne by Mrs. Gilbert, widow of the lord of the manor. She induced the parish to organize experimental allotments in 1827, and herself established most successful 3-acre holdings at Willingdon, upon which it was said that a man could support himself and three children, as well as paying rent, rates, and taxes amounting to £12 i 2s. a year, and selling dairy produce to the value of £10 per acre. Willingdon also had a 'self-supporting reading, writing, and agricultural school ' at this time.318 Another expedient which had been extensively tried in order to mitigate the evils of unemployment was the enforcement by the parish of the labour rate ; by this scheme each ratepayer was compelled to employ a certain quota of labour in proportion to his assessment to the poor rate. In parishes such as Nuthurst, where the percentage of the population to the acreage of agricultural land was small, the plan met with success and approval, but elsewhere it proved both hard on the employer and in- jurious to the employed.319 At Crawley and elsewhere where the rate had not been adopted, owing to the fact that there was not half enough agricultural land to give employment to all the inhabitants, great distress was occasioned. Men who had been in work in a distant parish were now sent home, owing to the obligation placed upon their master to employ his own parishioners whether they were equally efficient or not, consequently industrious labourers were thrown out of work and had to be supported by the parish in comparative idleness.320 A far more effectual remedy for the prevalent distress was an attempt made about this time to educate public opinion. A certain number of the most influential landowners in the county formed an association known as the 317 Quarterly Rep. of the Suss. Assoc. for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes, i. The details of the scheme were as follows : — PRODUCE. OUTLAY. £ s. d. £ ,. d. \\ bushels potatoes per rod - -600 52 weeks rent at is. 6d". - - 6 10 o i acre of corn - -\ - -4100 Hired labour in aid - I o o 2 pigs fattened - - - -3170 Taxes - - 10 o 1 2 bushel seed potatoes at u. ij. - 14 o 1470 3 „ „ oats at 3s. -90 \ • ' \ 93° 318 J. C. Wright, Bygone Eastbourne, 144-5. 319 A labouring man of H urstpierpoint complained bitterly that he was assessed to the poor rate, and there- fore obliged to hire labour to outset his quota, though he himself was out of work. 510 Accts. and Papers, 1884-5, quoting the report of the Poor Law Commission of 1834. 208 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY Sussex Association for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes.3" Their object, as stated in their first quarterly report, was to obtain correct information as to the condition of the labourer in different parts of Sussex, and details of experiments tried in other parts of the kingdom, and through their secretary to give advice and to promote allotments and other improve- ments. They were of opinion that the prevalent distress was not so much due to the superfluity of the population as to the misapplication of methods of agriculture. They were opposed to the system of giving out-door relief to able-bodied labourers, and cited the instance of Hellingly, where £360 was spent in 1830 on setting the unemployed to work upon labour which was almost entirely unproductive, and which tended to lower the rate of wages and to transfer part of the farmer's capital from its natural course — the employment of free labour — to the payment of compulsory and unproduc- tive work. The absolute necessity of taking some measures must have been clear to anyone who perused the Poor Law returns of 1834. In the parish of Battle the expenditure on relief in 1803 was £1,708, in 1813 it was £3,280, and in 1821 £4,001, and although by 1831 it had fallen to £2,325, it was still said that all the labouring population was out of work for four months in the year, and from thirty to eighty persons for the other eight months. Of these, some were billeted upon the tradespeople, and others employed by the parish in spade-husbandry or stone-breaking. In Rottingdean, on the other hand, there was no unemployment, and the expenses of relief had fallen by 1831 as low as 5^. 6d. per head of the population (the total expense being £245), but this was an exceptional case, and though in practically every instance the pro- portion of the rates to the population was considerably less in 1831 than it had been in 1813, and in most cases less than in 1821, yet in many parishes the expenses still exceeded £i per head of the inhabitants, and the total figures ran into thousands.322 The prevalent wage of the agricultural labourer throughout the county at this time was I2s. a week. In Eastbourne the single man only received 8j. a week, while the married man earned 1 2s. and is. Afd. for each child in addition ; in Hamsey, Weston, and Lewes an efficient worker might earn as much as 1 5-f. a week in summer, and in Meeching the usual rate of wages was 14^. In the hop districts of East Sussex women were extensively employed in the hop-fields, but elsewhere their labour was not in great demand except for occasional harvesting or weeding. S2S In spite of the Act of 1834, and of all efforts to improve matters locally, very little was accomplished before the middle of the nineteenth century. All but three of the Gilbert incorporations were indeed dissolved before 1844, and into those that continued their existence some of the new ideas filtered ; thus the guardians of the Sutton incorporation made an effort after the passing of the Act to do away with the system of giving the able-bodied relief in bread according to the number of their children ; but ' the poor men came and represented their cases as very distressing,' and the guardian was directed to continue as before, though a stipulation was made that no one who had 321 Quarterly Rep. of Suss. ASM. for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes, i. Amongst the first members were H.R.H. the duke of Suffolk, the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Chichester, the earl of Sheffield, Viscount Gage, and the earl of Surrey. 3" Accts. and Papers, 1834, xxx. 3JI Ibid. 2 209 27 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX married after the passing of the Act should be entitled to such relief. The clerk to the board of guardians of East Preston Union had, moreover, assimi- lated the administration of out-relief as far as possible to the new Act to the saving, since 1837, of fifty per cent, in the keeping of the poor, and at Button a considerable reduction of expenses was effected between 1832 and i837.SM The commission of 1844, however, revealed the most extraordinary abuses in the incorporations. The master of East Preston workhouse was unable to read or write, and had indeed been himself a pauper in Yapton workhouse. He had been brought to East Preston to teach sack manufac- turing, and while there had married the matron of the workhouse, who apparently held office by a sort of hereditary title.326 Under his governorship the able-bodied men were not employed, the children were ill-taught, and in one Case, certainly, most insanitary conditions had been allowed to prevail in the treatment of disease. Neither here nor at Sutton was there any proper classification of the inmates, and in both cases irregularities in the administra- tion of the details of the Act had been permitted.328 In spite, however, of all these drawbacks, considerable reluctance was still felt to dissolve the incorporations. It was said that the inmates of the workhouse were better fed and more contented than they were in the neighbouring Poor Law unions, and two clergymen, who had always taken the keenest interest in the question, though they thought Gilbert's Act might well be amended, were yet most urgent that it should not be repealed.837 This was, perhaps, the less surprising in view of the partial failure of the local authorities to administer the new Act successfully. In 1848 the Commission on Vagrancy showed how far the guardians and relieving officers had failed in dealing with casual paupers, and in exercising that discretion with regard to admittance to the workhouse which was vested in them. From Hailsham came the complaint that the number of vagrants was greatly on the increase, and that the guardians were of opinion that it had become a system with many to travel from union to union to obtain food, the same individuals having applied more than once under different names at intervals of three or four months. At Midhurst the number of casual paupers was said to be ' fearfully increasing, now almost daily crowding the doors of the workhouse, and the residences of our relieving officers .... as well as encouraging idleness and vagrancy throughout the district.' In a similar strain the Steyning guardians wrote that in consequence of opinions . . . given in your reports from time to time upon this subject, officers fear the responsibility attaching to them if they refuse applicants a night's lodging in the workhouse. It is a fact that until the union workhouse was built at Shoreham, that parish was seldom troubled with applicants of this description. . . . Vagrants consider they have a right to lodgings in a workhouse, they go to the relieving officer and state that they are destitute . . . and take care never to have money about them.328 The second half of the century, however, saw a real improvement in the situation, new poor-law unions were created, and in the half-year ending *** Accts. and Papers, \ 844, x. M5 So also did the governor of Sutton workhouse. "* Thus the guardian of Broadwater admitted that some things were probably done against the law. The overseer, for instance, often did the guardian's work ; he himself, however, had never read the Act thoroughly, and did not know what provisions it contained. At Sutton the treasurer was appointed without security, the guardian did not, in his official capacity, try to find work for the able-bodied, and a certain amount of contracting was admitted. m Accts. and Papers, \ 844, x. *" Ibid. 1 847-8, liii. 210 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY Michaelmas, 1855, the expenditure on relief of all kinds was £2,962 less than in the corresponding period of the previous year ; while on I January, 1856, the numbers in receipt of relief throughout the county were 1,029 ^ess than on I January, 1855. By the year 1883, moreover, the number of paupers of all classes in receipt of relief on i July throughout the county was exactly the same as the number in receipt of relief on the corresponding day of the year 1856, excluding the Gilbert unions and the parishes still adminis- tered under the poor-law of 1601 ; while by I July, 1884, the numbers had fallen from 16,922 of i July, 1883, to 16,766, out-door relief being decreased by 152 cases, and indoor by 4.82' In the half-year ending July, 1882, the total number of vagrants relieved was 1,600, while in the half-year ending July, 1883, the numbers were reduced to i,456.S3° It was well that a more efficient administration was able to effect these improvements, for though the agricultural depression was never so severely felt in the county as it has been in other parts of the kingdom, yet the Weald farmers were ill able to bear the burden of heavy rates. As early as 1798 William Marshall remarked upon the fewness of the inhabitants and the unproductive course of husbandry pursued in the district. The land was almost entirely arable, though in Marshall's opinion far better suited for permanent grass. The rotation adopted was fallow, wheat, oats, ley herbage as long as it would last, oats, fallow, &c., which he condemned as ' probably the oldest and certainly the worst course of management in the island,' while he considered the tenantry, notwithstanding the lowness of their rents, ' as poor, weak, and spiritless as their lands ; drawn down as for ages they have been, with exhausting crops, without sufficiency of stock, or of extraneous manures to make up for this endless exhaustion.' With good roads, and a suitable course of practice, however, he believed there were men who had substance and spirit enough to raise the Weald lands to twice their existing value.331 The rest of the county, however, was in a far more prosperous condition. In the district between Pulborough and Midhurst, though ' a large portion of ill-placed prejudice ' was prevalent, the farmers were on the whole wealthy and intelligent. The land was chiefly arable, but a considerable number of early lambs were reared for the London markets. The sea-coast and the Downs he regarded as being intelligently and successfully farmed, the chief produce being corn and sheep. The flocks of the South Downs he noted as having ' of late years grown into high repute.' 332 The distress which followed the Napoleonic wars and the sheep-rot of the close of the second decade of the nineteenth century contributed not a little to the further depression of the Weald farmers. In 1833 it was said that land which had formerly been let at 12s. or 14^. an acre had fallen to 5-r., and in spite of this it was difficult to get tenants. Several farms between Tonbridge and East Grinstead were untenanted, a good deal of poor land had gone out of cultivation, and since 1822 the remainder had deteriorated considerably, chiefly because it was not so well farmed as it had been, and had become sterile from over-cropping. It was stated that throughout the Weald of Surrey, Kent, and Sussex, there was scarcely a farmer who was solvent, a *" Accts. and Papers, 1856, xlix ; 1884, Ixviii. *" Ibid. 1884, Ixviii. *" Marshall, Rural Economy of the Southern Counties, ii, 133-45. *" Ibid- »» 23°> 363- 211 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX state of affairs attributed to the smallness of their holdings and their conse- quent pauperization after the end of the war,333 but probably really due to the pursuit of a system of farming unsuited to the district and to their own means. During the ensuing fifty years a considerable movement towards the conversion of arable into pasture took place, and in the Weald there was a noticeable increase in the number of cattle reared. The rapidly increasing population of the south-coast watering places, moreover, provided an ever- extending market for all kinds of agricultural and garden produce. At the same time there were still complaints of serious depression from nearly every part of the county. One land agent wanted tenants for fourteen farms, and on those which he had succeeded in letting he had allowed a reduction of rents varying from twenty to twenty-five per cent. A gentleman had taken a farm near Brighton at £300 a year which had formerly been let and another farm, the rent of which had fallen since 1 872 from ^55° to a year, was not considered a safe bargain by an experienced land valuer. Throughout the county there had been very general remissions of rents, varying from ten to twenty per cent., and one agent writing in February, 1880, stated that, whereas he had only had nine tenants in arrears in 1876, in 1878 there were thirty-six, and though the rents for 1879 were not yet collected he feared a yet further increase. It was again supposed that the Weald farmers were scarcely solvent, and this in spite of the fact that in many cases they lived harder and worked harder than the ordinary labourer, while their children were for the most part less well educated than his. In the Chichester district the hill farms where sheep were bred and barley was grown had suffered but little until quite recently. They were, for the most part, owned by substantial men, the small farmers having been bought out about the middle of the century. Even here, however, there were complaints of the general rise in the cost of production due to high rents and high sanitary and school rates, and the expense of machinery, together with the rise of wages and the deterioration in labour, consequent on the better- educated lads leaving the neighbourhood. Both here and in the Pulborough districts it was said that the cottage accommodation for the labourers was good, rents varied from is. to 2s. bd. a week, there were few allotments, but the general condition of the labourer, according to the Pulborough Market Committee, had improved in the last few years.334 The increasing popularity of poultry and dairy farming and the fall in the prices of corn and sheep, tended in subsequent years to re-adjust the balance between the Down and Wealden districts of the county. Owing to the lack of capital the small Weald farms, where poultry could be reared on anything varying from \ acre to 15 or 20 acres, easily found tenants at a comparatively high rent, and further breaking up of the larger properties was contemplated and indeed carried out where the owner had sufficient capital to build. On the Down farms, on the other hand, where sub-division was impossible, considerable reductions of rent were again necessary between 1873 and 1893, and further scarcity and deterioration in labour was noted — a difficulty not met with on the smaller holdings where the farmer and his family could carry on all the work themselves. A member of the East *" Accts. and Papers, 1833, v. *" Ibid. 1 88 1, xvi. 212 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY Sussex Farmers' Club stated it as his opinion that the condition of the labourer was on the whole improved, but as wages had risen the demand for allot- ments had decreased ; he considered that small holdings were suitable for small shopkeepers but not for labourers, whose position in the eyes of the farmer was apt to be prejudiced by the fact that he held land of his own, to which he would be naturally expected to devote his first attention ! The relations between landlord and tenant were generally friendly, and rents, in his experience, were pretty regularly paid, though farms were frequently in a disgraceful condition when they fell vacant. Foreign competition was pressing hard upon butchers and market gardeners, and better means of distribution were much needed for all kinds of produce except poultry, which was bought up on the farms and distributed by ' higglers.' He considered the charge made by the County Council for technical instruction prevented its being much sought after by young men, who could hardly afford to pay for that as well as for their board and lodging; dairy schools, however, he stated were popular.886 As further evidence of the actual position of the Sussex labourer at the present day the report of the commissioners on agricultural wages issued in 1900 may be cited. The average total earnings of the agricultural labourer throughout the kingdom in 1898 amounted to i6s. iod., while the average in Sussex for that year was ijs. lod. ; a large part of this sum was con- tributed by piece-work, the average cash wage not amounting to more than 14-r. 2a VO N 00 M -a !>. o« co W O t— ( Pi Q-, •jj ^ 5 <* •^3 TJ- + -i- jc w I 1 h i « 5 OO m •" ~ is I « "* . 11 j S3 o. o -A ' M U i 60 a * a r*i bo I H OO -^ U _H ,™WH w ^ *?Z ^ HOOMfSS U O-i PL, PH t«T3 SP u oo «) ao c c , -3 o o r2 .. 31^1 hJ5P^ 214 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801 TO 1901 Introductory Notes AREA The county taken in this table is that existing subsequently to 7 & 8 Viet., chap. 61 (1844). By this Act detached parts of counties, which had already for parliamentary purposes been amalga- mated with the county by which they were surrounded or with which the detached part had the longest common boundary (2 & 3 Wm. IV, chap. 64 — 1832), were annexed to the same county for all purposes ; some exceptions were, however, permitted. By the same Act (7 & 8 Viet., chap. 61) the detached parts of counties, transferred to other counties, were also annexed to the hundred, ward, wapentake, &c. by which they were wholly or mostly surrounded, or to which they next adjoin, in the counties to which they were transferred. The hundreds, &c. in this table are also given as existing subsequently to this Act. As is well known, the famous statute of Queen Elizabeth for the relief of the poor took the then- existing ecclesiastical parish as the unit for Poor Law relief. This continued for some centuries with but few modifications ; notably by an Act passed in the thirteenth year of Charles IPs reign which permitted townships and villages to maintain their own poor. This permission was necessary owing to the large size of some of the parishes, especially in the north of England. In 1 80 1 the parish for rating purposes (now known as the civil parish, i.e. 'an area for which a separate poor rate is or can be made, or for which a separate overseer is or can be appointed ') was in most cases co-extensive with the ecclesiastical parish of the same name ; but already there were numerous townships and villages rated separately for the relief of the poor, and also there were many places scattered up and down the country, known as extra-parochial places, which paid no rates at all. Further, many parishes had detached parts entirely surrounded by another parish or parishes. Parliament first turned its attention to extra-parochial places, and by an Act (20 Viet., chap. 19 — 1857) it was laid down (a) that all extra-parochial places entered separately in the 1851 census returns are to be deemed civil parishes, (b) that in any other place being, or being reputed to be, extra-parochial overseers of the poor may be appointed, and (c) that where, how- ever, owners and occupiers of two-thirds in value of the land of any such place desire its annexation to an adjoining civil parish, it may be so added with the consent of the said parish. This Act was not found entirely to fulfil its object, so by a further Act (31 & 32 Viet., chap. 122 — 1868) it was enacted that every such place remaining on 25 December, 1868, should be added to the parish with which it had the longest common boundary. The next thing to be dealt with was the question of detached parts of civil parishes, which was done by the Divided Parishes Acts of 1876, 1879, and 1882. The last, which amended the one of 1876, provides that every detached part of an entirely extra-metropolitan parish which is entirely surrounded by another parish becomes transferred to this latter for civil purposes, or if the population exceeds 300 persons it may be made a separate parish. These Acts also gave power to add detached parts surrounded by more than one parish to one or more of the surrounding parishes, and also to amalgamate entire parishes with one or more parishes. Under the 1879 Act it was not necessary for the area dealt with to be entirely detached. These Acts also declared that every part added to a parish in another county becomes part of that county. Then came the Local Government Act, 1888, which permits the alteration of civil parish boun- daries and the amalgamation of civil parishes by Local Government Board orders. It also created the administrative counties. The Local Government Act of 1894 enacts that where a civil parish is partly in a rural district and partly in an urban district each part shall become a separate civil parish ; and also that where a civil parish is situated in more than one urban district each part shall become a separate civil parish, unless the county council otherwise direct. Meanwhile, the ecclesiastical parishes had been altered and new ones created under entirely different Acts, which cannot be entered into here, as the table treats of the ancient parishes in their civil aspect. POPULATION The first census of England was taken in 1801, and was very little more than a counting of the population in each parish (or place), excluding all persons, such as soldiers, sailors, &c., who formed no part of its ordinary population. It was the de facto population (i.e. the population 215 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX actually resident at a particular time) and not the dt jure (i.e. the population really belonging to any particular place at a particular time). This principle has been sustained throughout the censuses. The Army at home (including militia), the men of the Royal Navy ashore, and the registered seamen ashore were not included in the population of the places where they happened to be, at the time .of the census, until 1841. The men of the Royal Navy and other persons on board vessels (naval or mercantile) in home ports were first included in the population of those places in 1851. Others temporarily present, such as gipsies, persons in barges, &c. were included in 1841 and perhaps earlier. GENERAL Up to and including 1831 the returns were mainly made by the overseers of the poor, and more than one day was allowed for the enumeration, but the 1841—1901 returns were made under the superintendence of the registration officers and the enumeration was to be completed in one day. The Householder's Schedule was first used in 1841. The exact dates of the censuses are as follows : — 10 March, 1801 30 May, 1831 8 April, 1861 6 April, 1891 27 May, 1811 7 June, 1841 3 April, 1871 i April, iqoi 28 May, 1821 31 March, 1851 4 April, 1881 NOTES EXPLANATORY OF THE TABLE This table gives the population of the ancient county and arranges the parishes, &c. under the hundred or other sub-division to which they belong, but there is no doubt that the constitution of hundreds, &c. was in some cases doubtful. In the main the table follows the arrangement in the 1841 census volume. The table gives the population and area of each parish, &c. as it existed in 1801, as far as possible. The areas are those supplied by the Ordnance Survey Department, except in the case of those marked ' e,' which are only estimates. The area includes inland water (if any), but not tidal water or foreshore. t after the name of a civil parish indicates that the parish was affected by the operation of the Divided Parishes Acts, but the Registrar-General failed to obtain particulars of every such change. The changes which escaped notification were, however, probably small in area and with little, if any, population. Considerable difficulty was experienced both in 1891 and 1901 in tracing the results of changes effected in civil parishes under the provisions of these Acts ; by the Registrar-General's courtesy, however, reference has been permitted to certain records of formerly detached parts of parishes, which has made it possible approximately to ascertain the population in 1901 of parishes as constituted prior to such alterations, though the figures in many instances must be regarded as partly estimates. * after the name of a parish (or place) indicates that such parish (or place) contains a union workhouse which was in use in (or before) 1851 and was still in use in 1901. I after the name of a parish (or place) indicates that the ecclesiastical parish of the same name at the 1901 census is coextensive with such parish (or place). O in the table indicates that there is no population on the area in question. — in the table indicates that no population can be ascertained. The word 'chapelry ' seems often to have been used as an equivalent for 'township' in 1841, which census volume has been adopted as the standard for names and descriptions of areas. The figures in italics in the table relate to the area and population of such sub-divisions of ancient parishes as chapelries, townships, and hamlets. 216 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION 1801 — 1901 — Acre- age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 Ancient or Geographical County1 933.269 159.471 187.873 233.328 272,644 300,108 336,844 363,735 417.456 490.505 550.446 605,202 PARISH Acre- age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 RAPE OF ARUNDEL — A rundel Hundred Arundel'J . . . 1,969 1,855 2, 1 88 2,511 2,803 2,624 2,748 2,498 2,956 2,748 2,644 2,739 A visford Hundred Barnham ft • • 872 124 112 173 148 125 149 125 '55 184 230 255 Binsted J . . . 1,105 IOO 88 98 114 in 124 no 139 135 103 105 Climping3 ft-. 1,805' 197 216 258 269 279 273 33' 255 264 248 215 Eastergate J . . 918 163 '5' 1 66 208 208 162 162 165 161 174 216 Felpham % . . . 1,886 306 536 58i 588 555 596 592 611 565 724 744 Ford A 74 7O 71 83 81 70 1 06 82 7^ IOO IO2 Q4 Madehurst J . . *T / H 1,891 / ** 133 132 J 169 154 / v 150 204 208 / J 194 190 176 y*t 192 Middleton J . . 374 40 50 44 43 IOO 108 89 77 44 40 35 Stoke, South J . . 1,279 1 06 99 "5 101 102 107 ii i 1 08 133 '31 117 Tortington J . . 1,116 68 78 88 76 75 104 112 138 165 288 452 Walberton t J • • 1,752 502 612 687 616 561 578 588 583 607 665 610 Yapton f . . • • i,740 543 512 579 578 54i 609 589 608 556 629 715 Bury Hundred Alfold (part of)4 1 . 296 — — — — 33 — 20 24 3i 30 29 Bignor't- • • • 1,344 95 150 138 130 2IO 203 I67 150 '54 '59 147 Buryf ^,40? 361 ^79 CO4 1:47 6n SQQ COO Clt 1:17 5" ' 489 Coates .... ji^yj 347 J 30 j i ? 41 ^V*f 41 j" / 75 67 J;? 63 J 78 J J J 94 56i 84 7' Coldwaltham J 1,231 237 265 357 449 460 441 447 426 389 338 35« Fittleworth J . . 2,362 564 525 631 668 713 782 683 695 696 761 657 Hardham J . . . 956 85 89 114 '34 "5 98 87 117 IOI 124 ii i Houghtonf . . . 1,739 144 142 162 174 177 193 165 189 196 '74 154 Wisborough 8,565 :,307 1,421 1,679 1,782 1,807 1,746 1,682 1,75° 1,656 1,599 1,585 Green f Poling Hundred Angmering f * . • 3,15°' 708 793 897 928 I,OO2 I,OI2 953 1,019 955 990 1,022 Burpham J . . . 2,725 20 1 229 223 273 280 267 256 304 286 280 249 Ferring . . . . 950 238 243 286 258 285 312 253 267 232 226 243 Goring J . . . . 2,004 419 439 476 527 503 569 535 464 528 561 55' Kingston .... 43i 53 42 43 61 45 40 45 27 34 43 40 1 Ancient County. — The County is defined by the Act 7 & 8 Viet. cap. 61, which altered Sussex to the following extent : — Added to it the Tithings of North Ambersham and South Ambersham (from Hampshire). In addition to these changes part of Bramshott Ancient Parish — viz. Bohunt Farm — was transferred from Sussex to Hampshire, with which County it had always been returned. A small part of Horsmonden Parish (area only at the 1901 Census) is in Sussex, but the whole is shown for convenience in Kent. The population given for 1811 excludes 2,470 militia, who were not assigned to their respective Parishes. (Ste also notes to Alfold, Bramshott, Broomhill, West Blatchington, Frant, and St. Mary Bulverhythe.) ' Arundel. — Extensive building works were in progress at the time of the 1871 Census; they included the erection of a Roman Catholic Church. 8 Climping. — Barracks were established in this parish between 1851 and 1861 ; the military seem to have been mainly removed between 1861 and 1871. 4 Alfold. — The remainder is in Surrey (Blackheath Hundred, First Division), where the entire population is shown 1801-1831 and 1851. • It seems probable that the detached Hamlet of Buddington, which really belongs to Bignor Parish, was wrongly returned with Eastbourne Parish in 1801 ; the latter Parish completely surrounds it. 2 217 28 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued) PARISH Acre age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 RAPE OE. ARUNDEL — cont Poling Hundred — cont. Lyminster J : — 3,59 478 554 675 715 785 794 908 1,230 1,715 1,852 2,031 Lyminster f 2,66 357 428 562 611 666 655 80 1 1,071 1,587 1,693 1,831 Warningcamp 930 121 126 113 104 119 139 107 159 128 159 200 Tything Littlehampton f J 1,10 584 882 1,166 1,625 2,270 2,436 2,350 3,272 3,932 4,455 5,954 Poling 1 1 . . 92 170 148 191 202 212 192 203 192 191 196 216 Preston, East f 489 170 218 259 242 270 310 320 335 425 417 572 Rustington f J . 1,063 261 292 327 365 350 342 340 359 371 437 616 Stoke, North J . 94 48 62 63 86 89 80 58 95 103 100 9i Rotherbridgc Hundred Barlavington J . 1,199 73 78 94 in 132 128 136 132 182 '75 130 Burton t • • 814 14 27 14 7 7 28 45 67 73 57 54 Duncton f . . 1,360 205 233 246 272 308 272 258 262 268 259 245 Egdean \ . . 74i 72 78 66 88 121 105 85 80 76 75 59 Kirdford t - . 12,275 i,34o 1,452 1,602 1,653 1,973 i,955 1,784 1,787 1,703 1,642 1,439 Lurgashall f J . 4,850 521 549 664 718 77' 744 727 75' 739 768 709 North Chapel J 3,923 621 634 749 845 843 864 785 802 794 742 782 Petworth . . . 6,128 2,264 2,459 2,781 3,U4 3,364 3,439 3,368 3,3°4 2,942 2,867 2,5°3 Stopham J . . . 863 164 163 139 129 '35 161 130 '45 156 '5' 139 Sutton f . . . . 2,06,; 3°3 342 353 379 420 389 364 33i 310 325 243 Tillington J . . . 3,816 614 650 681 806 949 982 908 843 886 871 820 Woolavington8 . . 2,530' 192 20 1 272 338 418 462 488 405 372 505 595 West Easwrith Hundred Amberley : — 2,942 346 444 548 637 722 671 650 686 73' 659 692 Amberley 1,941 — — — 534 498 456 535 570 525 560 Rackham Ham- 1,001 — — — — 188 173 194 151 161 134 132 let Billingshurst J . . 6,863 1,164 1,295 1,369 1,540 1,439 1,458 1,495 i,577 1,611 1,658 1,591 Chiltington, 4,007 558 5'4 638 718 747 686 668 701 659 612 622 West f t Greatham . 770 79 55 71 79 64 76 51 60 59 66 52 Parham . . 1,284 51 58 77 46 53 55 7i 65 88 58 73 Pulborough \ 6,395 1,334 1,613 1,901 1,979 2,006 1,825 1,852 1,855 i, 808 1,787 1,725 Rudgwick7 J. 6,022 760 837 974 950 1,097 1,031 i ,068 1,069 1,122 i,i77 1,148 Slinfold J . 4,432 55° 549 644 682 691 702 755 796 773 853 981 Storrington J 3,249 846 792 901 916 990 1,038 1,104 1,184 i,35i 1,293 [,016 Wiggonholt . 849 42 43 47 37 36 39 34 39 38 52 48 RAPE OF BRAMBER Brightford Hundred Broadwater t 2,240' 1,018 2,692 3,725 4,576 5-345 5,970 6,466 8,641 1,841 5,970 8,216 Clapham i, 806 197 201 245 229 262 252 249 246 239 270 226 Durrington 900 140 1 86 194 162 191 177 171 165 181 153 257 Findon J . 4,37° 38i 421 477 544 589 559 655 68 1 708 775 656 HeeneJ . 43' 101 136 178 '53 185 233 194 427 845 1,691 3,oi9 Lancing J 2,534 451 5'9 590 695 78i 828 950 1,069 i,34i 1,285 1,244 Sompting \ 2,917 405 441 472 5'9 SIS 559 628 726 682 700 679 • Woolavington, Farnhurst, and Terwick. — Detached parts of Woolavington Parish were added to Farnhurst and Terwick Parishes by an Act of 1869. The populations of these detached areas were not distinguished at the 1871 and 1 88 1 Censuses, and are consequently necessarily included with Farnhurst and Terwick Parishes. " Rudgwick. — The population in 1841 includes 73 visitors attending the fair 2l8 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued) PARISH Acre- age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 RAPE OF BRAMBER — cont. Burbeach Hundred Seeding, Upper : — Seeding, Upper f 14,047 3,893 689 459 717 443 904 499 1,122 589 1,389 614 1,666 585 1,702 553 1,826 580 1,920 611 1,790 506 1,834 623 Seeding, Lower, 10,152 230 274 405 533 775 1,081 1,149 1,246 1J09 1,284 1,211 Township Edburton (part of)8 2,646 9' 92 92 101 142 84 112 93 341 359 348 IfieldJ . . . . 4,133 637 654 758 916 1, 06 1 1,112 1,307 1,639 2,043 2,817 3,383 East Easwrith Hundred Itchingfield | . . Sullington t t • • 2,519 2,340' 249 256 268 234 349 287 356 320 337 242 371 243 377 241 377 246 434 303 492 320 535 250 Thakeham*tt . 3,000 539 522 603 597 620 63I 559 631 539 494 408 Wanninghurst J . 1,105 112 91 116 i'3 117 116 1 06 140 97 70 81 Fisher gate Hundred Kingston-by-Sea J. 782 77 60 56 60 46 153 93 245 262 253 545 Shoreham, New * J '35 799 770 1,047 ', 5°3 1,998 2,590 3,35' 3,678 3,505 3,393 3,837 Shoreham, Old J . 1.923 1 88 210 235 231 224 278 282 285 248 260 281 Southwick9 J . . i ,006 271 321 374 502 957 1,190 i,3S8 2,339 2,561 2,564 3,364 Patching Hundred Patching .... 1,767 192 >83 222 149 249 271 275 268 274 270 248 Singlecross Hundred Horsham * t • • 10,741 3,204 3,839 4,575 5,105 5,765 5,947 6,747 7,831 9,449 io,955 12,994 NuthurstI0tt • • 3,260' 465 539 628 723 768 727 767 699 787 814 775 Rusper \ . . . , 3,123 399 45° 487 53' 564 533 590 599 539 548 522 Warnham J . . . 4,96o 680 774 914 952 1,007 1,016 i, 006 1,007 1,065 i, 060 1,075 Steyning Hundred Bramber .... 851 91 95 98 97 138 130 119 173 1 86 169 162 Botolphs .... 920 36 5' 62 81 48 55 54 81 94 70 75 Coombes J . . . 1,280 47 61 70 71 80 72 77 92 71 86 68 Steyning f \ . . . 3,414 1,174 1,210 ',324 1,436 1,495 1,464 1,620 1,665 1,672 1,705 1,752 Washington f . . 3,i85 512 619 704 793 880 884 908 908 844 S3' 735 Wistonft . . . 2,842 258 289 293 296 34i 301 3ii 3" 3'5 3" 279 Tarring Hundred Tarring, West . . 1,191 487 568 650 626 567 593 606 656 733 i,°35 1,720 Tipnoak Hundred AlbourneJ . . . 1,763 253 293 360 362 395 377 341 334 306 3°5 277 Henfield 1 1 • • • 4,518 1,037 976 1,404 1,516 1,763 1,664 1,662 1,856 1,890 2,006 1,867 Woodmancote J . 2,239 231 247 294 342 378 326 331 320 347 3'4 306 8 Edburton Ancient Parith is situated partly in Burbeach Hundred and partly in Poynings Hundred. The entire area and population 1881-1901 are entered in Burbeach Hundred. The part of Edburton Ancient Parish in East Sussex Administrative County was created Fulking Civil Parish in 1894; the area of this new Civil Parish is 1,552 acres, and its population 225 persons in 1891 and 228 in 1901. Lewes Rape is in the ancient division of Sussex known as East Sussex, and Bramber Rape is similarly in ancient West Sussex ; these divisions were erected into separate Administrative Counties by the Local Government Act of 1888. ' SouthwicH. — The 1841 population includes 114 persons in vessels. 10 Nuthurst. — The 1861 population includes 52 labourers on railway works. 219 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued] PARISH Acre- age 1801 iSn 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 RAPE OE- BRAMBER (cont.) West Grinstead Hundred Ashington t • • • 1,288 173 198 229 285 282 223 234 277 255 267 213 Ashurst, near 2,372 385 408 394 423 427 441 374 388 376 33i 3'8 Steyning f t Grinstead, West"t: 6,720 939 998 1,229 1,292 1,225 1,252 1,403 1,344 1,476 i,578 1,500 Shipley . . . . 7,778 997 1,011 1,159 i, 1 80 1,187 1,277 1,212 i,'47 1,114 1,061 901 Windham and Ewhurst Hundred CowfoldJ . . . 4,5°' 601 614 822 809 943 975 946 993 1,042 945 968 Shermanbury J. . I,9IS 274 270 320 345 411 458 464 388 363 356 340 RAPE OF CHICHESTER Aldwick Hundred Bersted, South : — 2,750 737 1,195 1,851 2,190 2,490 2,694 3,128 3,794 4,166 4,953 6,549 Bersted, South . 2,227 — — — 781 605 983 876 849 1,482 Bognor Town- 523 — — — — — 1,913 2,523 2,811 3,290 4,104 5,067 ship Lavant, East . . 3,655 274 348 364 407 370 421 421 392 401 421 370 Pagham .... 3,886 652 847 1,009 958 1,047 1,022 988 877 874 887 853 Slindon J . . . The Cumber, 2,614 343 374 437 47i 539 544 13 599 20 521 22 }5l8 507 (5<2 I 27 482 25 Extra Par. Tangmere J . . . 775 136 '57 '74 197 225 221 2O I 198 185 164 1 66 Bosham Hundred Bosham J 3,190 880 1,079 1,049 1,181 1,091 1,126 I,I58 1,184 1,255 1,258 1,149 Chidhamf . . . 1,525 209 243 293 320 325 308 3IO 314 266 241 260 Funtington J . . 3,762 68 1 687 847 969 983 1,079 1,099 1,065 1,108 1,020 994 Stoke, West \ . . 87r 76 64 92 101 98 98 94 95 95 103 1 20 Thorney, West " \ 1,228 71 62 in 104 128 in 93 181 131 ISO 148 Box and Stock- bridge Hundred Aldingbourne J 3,098 725 636 855 833 772 744 772 77? 743 798 779 Appledram J . . 937 136 119 133 1 88 156 150 129 136 '59 144 '34 Boxgrove J . . . 3,677 682 754 868 778 736 755 666 728 708 699 651 Donnington f t • 1,038 183 222 267 228 206 184 1 88 203 188 191 '95 Eartham J . . . 1,539 114 122 105 "3 117 103 121 134 '54 •38 118 Fishbourne, New J 597 309 252 288 291 295 317 341 362 3'6 323 366 Hunston .... 1,013 123 III 1 66 '73 '93 219 176 183 176 I87 217 Merston J . . . 7i8 77 84 107 129 104 76 79 no 96 1 08 121 Mundham, North . 1,892 324 43° 422 467 495 444 426 405 401 373 326 2,080 464 476 637 780 79o 876 O4Q 1404 1,662 1,973 2,O22 Rumboldswyke J . ,;* 7 652 224 269 Jf 303 / V7 3'9 / y** 324 3i8 7" y 582 642 902 jy I J 1,497 2,033 Up Waltham \ . . 1,275 65 49 99 95 99 67 71 67 82 67 41 West Hampnett J . 1,909 400 444 401 449 520 637 502 530 521 505 346 Dumpford Hundred Bramshott(part of)13 349 — — — — — — — — 9 80 136 Chithurstf • . . 1,04;' 94 127 146 172 232 223 215 279 315 277 243 Didling .... 825 83 79 81 82 119 1 02 85 94 85 61 45 u West Grinstead. — The increased population in 1861 is attributed to the temporary presence of labourers engaged on the new railway line from Horsham to Shoreham. la Wist Thorney. — Extensive works in progress in 1871 to reclaim land from the sea. The area is taken from the 1901 Census Volume. 18 Bramshott. — The remainder is in Hampshire (Finch Dean Hundred), where the population is entirely shown 1801-1871. 22O SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued) PARISH Acre- age iSoi 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 iSSi 1891 1901 RAPE OF CHI- CHESTER (cont). Dumpford Hundred (cont.) Elsted. . . 1,840 121 128 190 174 212 208 174 '75 208 191 191 Harting J. . 7,946 863 947 1,072 1,290 1,267 ',33° 1,247 1,277 1,274 1,279 i >2J38 Rogate . . 4,984 5l8 595 7^4 901 1,023 1,117 990 999 986 953 932 Terwick131!! 718 91 109 112 97 1 08 97 106 138 192 1 68 '55 Treyford . . 1,273 95 114 137 13° 155 174 123 143 147 114 122 Troiton f. . 3,877 329 370 39° 416 481 484 452 462 481 539 493 Eastbourne Hundred Bepton f t . . . 1,224 129 148 140 166 207 211 211 201 229 235 '95 Cocking J . . . 2,597 300 332 340 453 464 482 430 493 574 449 408 Easebourne 13b * f . 4,040 764 720 777 904 1,074 1,076 859 88 1 1,016 1,360 ',355 Farnhurst 13i f • • 4,757 383 508 593 769 762 768 769 880 1,040 1,020 919 Graffham . . . i,7i4 260 295 343 372 390 426 416 435 413 407 347 HeyshottJ . . . 2,184 275 265 309 358 408 432 396 386 448 393 389 Ipingf . . . . 1,925 209 3'4 305 338 409 438 404 468 459 457 368 Linchf . . . . 1,220 78 84 77 88 70 94 III 95 "5 in '35 Linchmere ft- . 2,IOI 249 258 282 301 280 339 283 320 387 39' 415 Lodsworth Liberty 1,805 433 393 S'3 599 634 66 1 629 607 625 592 575 and Par.f J Midhurst"J. . . 669 1,073 1,256 i,335 1,478 1,536 1,481 1,340 1,465 1,615 1,674 1,650 Selham f \ • • . 1,042' 78 7i 80 89 121 120 123 87 106 101 1 20 Stedhamf . . . 2,249' 258 353 453 494 557 533 530 502 54i 558 567 Steep (part of)15 :— 2,6l4 263 260 309 3°4 322 289 254 3" 287 346 271 Ambersham, 1,112' 106 99 134 121 133 128 111 160 163 160 145 North Tyth- ingt Ambersham, 7,502 157 161 175 183 189 161 143 151 124 186 126 South Tyth- ing Woolbeding f . . 2,253' 212 238 261 307 3" 320 338 354 400 390 312 Manhood Hundred Birdham J . . . l,8n 361 375 532 486 506 531 436 456 455 453 389 EarnleyJ . . . 1,140 "5 1 06 148 '53 139 137 116 142 132 140 "5 Itchenor, WestJ . 546 161 199 181 237 232 254 167 1 80 '54 "5 121 Selseyt .... 2,986 564 648 766 821 879 934 900 937 901 1,039 1,258 Sidlesham ft- • 3,96l 805 865 1,029 1,002 927 941 960 960 946 920 799 Wittering, East f I 1,176 202 214 216 226 261 233 223 219 230 214 •57 Wittering, West ft 2,286 396 483 504 606 575 609 616 613 655 582 494 Westbournc and Singleton Hundred Binderton . . . 1,337 53 86 67 89 75 96 109 108 too 1 10 117 Corapton f • • • i,66r 199 216 233 241 274 285 266 286 281 264 281 Dean, EastJ . . 4,654 305 353 397 39' 433 419 343 3i8 343 303 305 Dean, West . . . 4,803 510 554 622 641 657 669 68 1 683 732 611 614 Marden, Eastf J . 968' 46 52 85 44 67 69 63 72 76 64 55 Marden, North J . 697 20 23 20 S2 24 19 28 27 39 39 9 ' Mid Lavant . . . 418 198 215 243 278 279 284 257 239 404 366 364 Racton J . . . . 1,199 III 102 100 88 101 96 95 97 97 IOO 147 ( Singleton J . . . 4,063 '445 481 484 563 563 603 556 606 555 579 5'3 Stoughton t • • 5,422- 502 489 519 570 578 644 633 612 649 618 580 Up Marden . . . 2,943 255 246 306 364 348 36o 366 365 336 310 309 Westbourne * . . 4,5°3 i,549 1,702 1,852 2,031 2,093 2,178 2,165 2,335 2,450 2,409 2,269 1>a See note 6, ante. 18b See note 5, ante. " Midkurst includes the Liberty of St. John of Jerusalem. 15 Steep Ancient Parish.— The remainder is in Hampshire (East Meon Hundred^. 221 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued) PARISH Acre- age I So i 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 RAPE OF HASTINGS Baldslow Hundred Crowhurst 16 1 . . 2,168 321 265 340 370 126 591 430 405 421 446 574 Hastings St. Leo- 1,108 — — — 77 173 5'3 452 1,251 2,052 3,694 4,999 nard (part of) 17 1 Hastings St. Mary- 777 100 73 "5 121 103 146 183 847 1,261 1,402 1,422 in-the-Castle (part of) 17 Hollington . . . 2,463 208 233 272 338 386 579 S3' 1,053 1,752 2,056 2,332 Ore (part of) " » *. 2,177 243 33' 546 965 1,218 i,74i 1,607 2,649 2,991 4,586 5,353 Westfieldt . . . 4,3'4 306 707 897 938 866 900 883 1,031 1,051 1,051 956 Battle Hundred Battle18*. . . . 8,252 2,040 2,53' 2,852 2,999 3,039 3,849 3,293 3,495 3,3'9 3,'S3 2,996 Whatlington " J . 1,259 211 242 285 286 279 458 343 320 378 348 343 Bexhill Hundred Bexhill (part of)19 . 7,134 1,091 1,627 1,907 1,867 1,822 2,026 2,01 1 2,051 2,333 5,089 12,110 Foxearle Hundred Ashburnham t • • 3,691 473 572 768 721 790 865 844 867 774 746 673 Herstmonceuxf • 5,052 961 1,013 1,318 1,338 1,445 1,292 1,287 1,204 1,294 1,269 1,268 Warding f . . . 4,743 858 874 990 948 962 1,039 914 846 787 748 702 Goldspur Hundred Beckley % . . . 5,6i9 742 1,170 1,371 1,477 1,412 i,342 1,252 1,367 1,230 1,141 948 Broomhill (partof)20 1,134 — — — — 78 75 44 112 in 85 110 Guldeford, East . 2,826 59 94 124 126 127 137 152 157 182 '59 137 Iden t • • -> q^Q 289 456 542 517 CC4 626 600 r r j 462 Peasmarsh ft- • 3,772 611 j~ 913 J i 920 J J" 902 898 906 92O 837 795 IfV* 734 Playden . . . . 1,295 179 223 3i7 297 312 3'4 3°5 3'3 294 282 282 Gostrow Hundred Brede ft-... 4,840 80 1 787 902 1,046 1,151 1,059 1,083 1, 006 1,056 1,071 990 Udimore t +• • • 2,277 321 375 428 454 483 435 444 451 410 385 394 Guestling Hundred Fairlight J . . . 2,884 414 385 477 533 63I 625 501 487 482 478 439 Guestling16}: . . 3,576 496 5'4 697 768 803 860 73' 818 802 801 753 Icklesham t J • • 4,934 384 411 585 604 68 1 728 816 865 867 954 Pett \ 1,908 185 233 300 2Q7 385 364 •2 2O 2QO 281 282 28l Hawkesborough J y/ J J J V*T yy *"-' j Hundred Burwash (part of)a Heathfield . . . 7,452 8,032 1,524 1,226 1,603 i,3io 1,937 1,613 1,966 i, 80 1 1,894 1,917 2,227 2,208 2,143 1,892 2,232 2,044 2,285 1,995 2,093 2,300 i,977 2,745 Warbleton f- • . 5,986 908 966 1,167 1,225 1,300 1,509 1,43' 1,482 1,468 ',379 ',355 16 Crowhurst, Ore, Whatlington, Guestling, Etchingham, Salehurst, and Mountficld. — A number of railway labourers present in each of these Parishes in 1851. w Huttings St. Leonard, Hastings St. Mary-in-the-Castlt, and Ore Parishes are situated partly in Baldslow Hundred and partly in Hastings Borough. The entire areas of St. Leonard and Ore Parishes are entered in Baldslow Hundred. The entire population of Ore Parish is entered in Baldslow Hundred 1801-1831. The entire population of St. Leonard Parish is entered in Hastings Borough, 1801-1821. 18 Battli. — The population in 1851 includes about 600 railway labourers. 19 Bexhill Parish is situated partly in Bexhill Hundred and partly in Hastings Borough and Cinque Port. The population is entirely shown in Bexhill Hundred 1801-1821. M Broomhill. — The remainder is in Kent (Langport Hundred). The population is entirely shown in Kent 1801-1831. Too small an area was taken for the part in Sussex in 1861. M Burwash Parish is situated in (i) Hawkesborough Hundred ; (2) Henhurst Hundred ; and (3) Shoyswell Hundred. The entire area and population 1801-1831 and 1851-1901 are entered in Hawkesborough Hundred. 222 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued) PARISH Acre- age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 RAPE OF HASTINGS (cant.) Henhurst Hundred Burwash(partof)sla — — — — — 158 — — — — Etchingham2lbt • 3,783 414 485 625 631 820 950 864 894 907 894 897 Hawkhurst (part 136 o o o o o o o O 13 10 8 of)M Salehurst slb J . . 6,565 1,611 1,653 2,121 2,204 2,099 2,191 2,014 2,080 2,133 2,061 1,803 Nctherfield Hundred Brightling t J • • 4,647 507 497 641 656 692 812 66 1 641 674 73o 554 Dallington t • • 2,894 401 449 548 577 612 664 591 629 522 479 464 Mountneld81bS3ti 3-900 564 581 683 663 60 r 769 585 642 622 576 562 Penhurst . . . 1.455 8l 67 106 102 103 1 20 105 97 1 06 1 20 84 Ninfield Hundred Catsfield f J . . 2,091 464 552 575 6l9 589 550 584 707 705 791 806 Hooe M J. . . . 2,473 424 470 600 525 5'9 574 496 516 470 480 436 Ninfield t J . . . 2,575 492 505 618 606 563 570 587 537 603 621 619 Shoyswell Hundred Burwash (part — — — — — 41 — — — — — — of)"' Ticehurst M * . . 8,265 1,436 i,593 1,966 2,314 2,465 2,850 2,758 2,939 3,007 2,931 2,93i Staple Hundred Bodiam M J . . . 1,604 225 261 3'4 349 377 306 303 306 324 310 252 EwhurstJ . . . 5,846 847 1,032 1,225 1,200 1,169 1,213 1,043 1,079 1,095 1,041 935 Northiam 1 1 • • 3,585 997 1,114 i,358 1,448 1,329 1,306 1,260 i,i74 1,207 1,128 1,024 Sedlescombe J . . 2,061 510 506 667 732 668 7U 703 639 648 622 522 RAPE OF LEWES Barcombe Hundred Barcombe ft- • 5,027 615 700 753 93' 1,028 1,075 1,090 i, 006 1,182 i, 068 1,165 Hamsey J . . . 2,747 367 492 537 608 533 529 54i 577 553 564 552 Newick J . . . 1,977 393 452 540 724 914 966 991 988 1,083 1,033 953 Buttinghill Hundred Ardingly .... 3,841 506 553 579 587 742 666 626 1,095 1,564 1,280 1,346 Balcombe "7 J . . 4,795 45' 559 606 641 1,542 851 880 965 878 977 1,052 Bolney J . . . . 3,557 497 510 560 635 713 789 789 804 800 829 886 Clayton". . . . 2,459 337 425 453 489 747 645 863 i.iii 1,849 1,966 2,295 Crawleyt . . . 780 210 234 334 394 449 447 473 505 45' 437 441 Cuckfield29*. . . 11,275 1,693 2,088 2,385 2,586 3,444 3,196 3,539 4,420 4,964 5,730 7,058 Hoathly, West . . 5,340 794 840 943 980 1,095 1,068 I,I2O I,2IO i,547 1,442 1,446 Hurstpierpoint so . 5,088 1,104 1,184 1,321 1,484 2,118 2,219 2,558 2,827 2,736 2,883 3,033 »"> See note 21, ante. Mb See note 16, ante. w Hawkhurst. — The remainder is in Kent (East Barnfield Hundred). » Mountfeld.—lo. the 1831 Census Volume 102 persons are said to have emigrated to America from this Parish since 1811. M Hooe. — Sixty-four families out of the 99 in the Parish were in receipt of relief in 1821. 85 Ticehurst. — About 100 persons temporarily present in 1851 in consequence of the construction of the Tunbridge Wells and Hastings branch railway. M Boditm. — The population in 1841 includes 53 persons attending the annual fair. W Balcombe. — The population in 1841 includes 550 persons temporarily present (labourers on the London and Brighton Railway and their families). 58 Clayton. — The population in 1841 includes 137 labourers on the London and Brighton Railway. M Cuckfield. — The population in 1841 includes 304 persons temporarily present (labourers* on the London and Brighton Railway and their families). 80 Hurstpierpoint. — The population in 1841 includes 77 persons temporarily present (labourers on the railway and their families). 223 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued) PARISH Acre- age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 iSSi 1891 1901 RAPE OF LEWES (cont.y Buttinghill Hundred (cont.) Keymer81 . . . Slaugham J . . . Twineham J. . . 3,583 5,482 1,937 465 56o 238 536 759 234 679 933 275 68 1 740 337 1,364 1,286 358 i, 006 1,418 343 1,612 1,518 339 2,397 1,574 369 3,439 i,593 292 3,845 1,616 3'4 4,360 1,527 273 Worth38 . . . . 13,331 1,501 1,539 1,725 1,859 2,423 2,475 2,988 3,209 3,57i 4,047 4,297 Dean Hundred Patcham M \ . . 4,425 286 331 403 489 579 490 638 760 873 1,064 I, HO Fishergate Hundred Aldrington, or 744 o o 0 o i 9 7 27 144 2,222 6,829 Atherington 3< f J Hangleton . Portsladef • . • 1,120 1,968 36 284 48 358 52 421 64 615 7i 678 57 733 5' 1,103 61 2,344 79 3,719 49 4,256 69 5,515 Holmstrotv Hundred Newhaven, or 964 584 755 927 904 955 1,358 1,886 2,549 4,009 4,522 6,373 Meeching* J Piddinghoe . . . 2,342 194 208 251 231 263 253 243 237 225 241 231 RodmellJ . . . 1,936 256 291 336 35° 360 323 292 280 233 229 231 Southease J . . 851 108 105 I 12 142 120 102 84 105 IOO 66 66 Telscombe 3i . . i, 1 80 89 95 I'3 121 I67 I76 156 130 94 128 120 Lewes Hundred and Borough All Saints J . . St. John the Bap- 51 545 1,196 487 1,427 543 1,586 6gi 2,112 831 2,123 1,229 2,175 1,269 2,092 1,344 2,018 i,33i 1,962 1,462 1,903 1,264 1, 80 1 ',35' tist, Southover \ St. John-under-the- i,372 659 1,126 1,795 2,388 2,502 2,447 2,308 2,707 2,778 3,050 3,178 Castle J Castle Precincts 4 78 16 27 33 35 27 32 36 26 52 36 Extra Par.36 St. Michael . . . '9 786 933 961 1,074 988 957 1,076 1,041 978 804 748 St. Peter and St. Mary Westout, 1,838 590 918 66 1 746 777 745 980 1,701 1,945 2,101 2,219 or St. Ann 37 J St. Thomas-in-the- 33 i, "3 1,258 1,362 1,408 ',545 1,477 1,568 i, 600 1,664 i,559 1,605 Cliffe J Poynings Hundred Edburton (part of) 37» :— Fulking Hamlet — 167 170 177 166 176 205 1 88 208 — Newtimber J . . 1,721 148 173 161 172 165 161 162 1 80 217 203 167 Poynings J . . . Pyecombe J . . . 1,642 2,286 173 '34 181 '75 232 218 268 227 283 564. 261 300 261 283 299 282 316 343 3°5 353 295 307 Preston Hundred Hove .... 778 IOI im 1 T *7 Ilf\r\ 2ff\r\ 4 TO/1 n £\1 A Preston3". . . . / /u 1,308 222 '93 429 312 3'9 ,3°° 235 i5°9 756 ,IO4 906 9,024 1,044 1,277 2,470 20,004 8,545 20,097 13,316 29,695 21,371 81 Keymer. — The population in 1841 includes 450 persons temporarily present (labourers on the railway and their families). 83 Worth.— The population in 1841 includes about 90 labourers on the railway. 88 Patcham.— the population in 1841 includes 60 labourers on the railway. 84 Aldrington. — The church and village destroyed by the encroachment of the sea prior to 1801. 86 Telscombe. — The 1841 population includes 41 persons in barns and tents. M Castle Precincts:— Too large an area was taken in 1801. 87 St. Ann. — The population in 1811 included the wives and children of the soldiers in a barracks which was demolished before 1821. County Prison erected between 1851 and 1861. 37» See note 8, antt. 88 Preston.— The 1811 population includes the wives and families of some soldiers. 224 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued) PARISH Acre- age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 IQOI RAPE OF LEWES (font.) Street Hundred Chaileyft • • • Ditchling39J . . S.944 4,265 738 706 818 740 946 844 1,030 917 1,091 1,148 1,263 1,069 1,344 1,082 1,462 1,271 1,522 1,342 1,333 1,226 1,363 ',253 Plumpton I ... 2,450 229 233 272 275 294 383 404 383 466 468 595 Street t . . • • 1,281 112 133 152 1 68 197 170 190 20 1 183 208 219 Westmeston J : — 4,107 368 379 494 494 533 617 569 634 738 718 674 Westmeston . . 2,436 205 189 251 236 262 308 288 317 326 282 284 Chiltington, East 1,671 163 190 243 258 271 309 281 317 412 436 390 Chap. Wivelsfield 40 . . 3.'42 442 468 537 559 732 608 1,162 I,6l6 1,916 1,983 2,157 Swanborough Hundred Ifoid 2.IQQ I4O 117 I C7 187 174 182 16? IQO 181 181 I 7Q Kingston (near , 77 1,676 **TV^ 124 • / 149 1 !>/ 172 i \j / 1 60 * / *l 149 134 *w/ 137 1 y*-* 129 120 10j 117 1 /y 128 Lewes) Whalesbone Hundred Blatchington, 873 44 49 54 58 64 53 59 49 59 95 99 West41 Brighton, or 1,629 7,339 12,012 24,429 40,634 46,661 65,569 77,693 90,011 99,091 102,716^102,320 Brighthelmston Younsmere Hundred Falmer .... 4,393 255 322 437 432 493 537 512 5'9 577 543 458 Ovingdean J . . 1,630 85 75 79 119 116 149 121 148 136 161 250 Rottingdean J . . 3,154 543 559 772 8So 983 1,084 1,016 i,544 1,673 1,627 1,992 RAPE OF PEVEN- SEY A I cist on Hundred Alciston f . . . 2,088 1 86 233 247 266 275 257 22O 212 191 204 1 80 Alfriston J . . . 2,445 576 590 648 694 668 576 522 58l 581 585 53.4 Lullington J . . . i,i57 32 48 39 49 39 26 16 19 16 25 Bishopstone Hundred Bishopstone \ . . 1,785 188 209 277 293 288 328 322 276 277 301 301 Denton % ... 1,018 54 83 '33 117 120 '95 206 238 486 534 516 Burleigh Arches, or Burarches Hundred Lindfield"!. . . 5,763 1,077 1,237 1,410 1,485 1,939 1,814 1,917 2,018 2,080 2,233 2,606 Dane/till Horsted Hundred Horsted Keynes . 4,232 59' 627 7'3 782 812 847 790 811 1,149 932 1,005 Selmeston f . . . 1,599 130 149 208 189 228 260 197 206 188 2IO 225 Tarring Neville, or 933 74 80 81 80 81 74 84 79 65 87 72 East Tarring 89 Ditchling. — The 1841 population includes 85 persons temporarily present. <0 Wivelsfield. — The 1841 population includes 75 labourers on the London and Brighton Railway. Sussex County Lunatic Asylum built and occupied between 1851 and 1861. n West Blatchington. — The 1801 population is an estimate. " Lindfield. — The 1841 population includes 183 labourers on the London and Brighton Railway. 2 225 29 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued) PARISH Acre- age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 RAPE OF PJ;VEN- SEY (coitt.) Dill Hundred Hailsham43 J . . Hellingly . . . 5,330 6,050 897 936 1,029 1,041 1,278 ',3'3 ',445 i,5°4 1,586 1,675 1,825 1,761 2,098 1, 606 2,429 1,636 2,964 1,646 3,369 i,57' 4,'97 1,855 Eastbourne hundred Eastbourne 44 *. . 4,755 1,668 2,623 2,607 2,726 3,0' 5 3,433 5,795 10,361 21,595 34,278 42,701 East Grinstead Hundred East Grinstead . . 15,128 2,659 2,804 3,'53 3,364 3,586 3,820 4,266 5,39° 6,968 7,569 8,610 Flexborough Hundred Blatchington, East45! Heighten, South . Seaford, Cinque Port and Par.J 729 930 2,344 '54 90 847 362 69 1,001 187 1,047 170 1,098 163 81 953 138 85 997 128 104 1,084 130 88 ',357 213 1,674 434 217 1,991 740 I8' 2,615 Hartfield Hundred Hartfield. . . . Withyham . 10,388 8,126 1,050 1,074 1,250 1,440 ',393 ',455 1,610 1,603 1,607 ',573 1,692 i,45i ',597 1,540 1,970 2,150 i,5S8 2,073 1,501 2,147 Longbridge Hundred Arlington Berwick J . . . Folkington f J • • Litlington J . Wilmington ft- • 1,104 1,526 904 1,788 472 170 119 in 236 55° 169 158 117 270 614 172 1 86 '33 321 727 203 1 68 '43 328 686 199 198 140 3'4 614 '75 171 105 288 623 169 '54 '34 250 611 156 1 66 "3 280 585 '73 '33 246 648 172 146 112 277 542 '74 '43 108 215 Loxfield-Dorset, or Loxfield-Cam- den Hundred Buxted . . . . Framfield J . . . IsfieldJ . . . . Uckfield * J . . . 8,961 6,468 1,894 1,760 1,063 969 334 8u 1,292 1,074 464 916 1,509 ',437 569 1,099 1,642 1,468 581 1,261 ',574 ',434 477 ',534 1,694 ',385 508 1,590 1,624 ',355 458 1,740 1,868 1,521 507 2,041 ',934 1,527 45' 2,146 2,039 1,663 423 2,497 2,038 1,616 43' 2,895 Loxfield-Pelham Hundred Lamberhurst (part of)46 Mayfield .... Wadhurst 47 . . . i,937 13,666 10,214 569 1,849 1,677 699 2,079 1,815 787 2,698 2,136 949 2,738 2,256 1,098 2,943 2,491 1,174 3,055 2,802 1,051 2,688 2,470 1,145 2,828 1,197 2,912 3,216 1,158 3,2'7 3,354 1,030 3,164 3,232 Pevensey Lowey, or Liberty Pevensey J . . . Westham \ . . . 4,397 192 560 254 584 292 583 343 752 323 770 412 761 385 833 330 858 365 1,000 437 1,140 468 1,286 48 Part of Hailsham is in Pevensey Lowey ; none shown there. 44 Eastbourne. — The wives and children of soldiers and sailors less numerous by 221 persons in 1821 than in 1811. 46 East Blatchington. — The wives and children (numbering 215 persons) of soldiers in barracks in 1811 are the cause of the increased population in that year. The soldiers were withdrawn before 1821. 4« Lamberhurst.— The remainder is in Kent (Brenchley and Horsmonden Hundred). 4' Wadhurst. — A number of railway labourers present in 1851. 226 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued) PARISH Acre- age 1801 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 l8gi 1901 RAPE OF PEVEN- SEY (cont.) Ringmer Hundred Glynde J . . . . 1,570 216 203 250 276 270 323 321 362 284 329 359 Mailing, South J . 2,545 348 443 620 705 646 730 716 677 732 743 725 Ringmer48J . . 5,739 897 i.°55 1,271 1,271 1,339 1,374 1,522 1,478 1,388 1,497 1,488 Stanmer .... i,34i 105 105 123 123 120 130 147 124 129 M7 94 Rotherfield Hundred Frant (part of) 4» . 8,580 1,090 1,439 i,727 2,071 2,280 2,447 2,162 2,949 3,210 3,354 3,5'6 Rotherfield . . . 14,73' 1,963 2,122 2,782 3,°97 3,036 3,531 3,413 4,149 4,334 5,099 6,462 Rushmonden Hundred Fletching . . . 8,522 1,279 1,397 1,690 1,870 i,9!4 2,007 2,028 2,155 2,213 2,245 2,111 Horsted, Little J . 2,384 207 235 286 300 278 283 296 298 300 265 265 Maresfield . . . 8,132 960 1,117 1,439 1,650 i,579 1,805 1,911 1,965 2,082 2,116 2,001 Shiplake Hundred Chalvington J . . 748 143 169 181 188 192 170 149 155 127 152 "5 Chiddinglv . 4,481 673 739 870 902 930 1,085 992 946 88 1 882 824 Hoathly, East \ . 2,622 395 468 510 5°5 607 667 615 730 857 882 808 Laughton J . . . 5,!77 539 612 731 804 850 812 742 770 712 723 616 Ripet . . . . 1,901 296 33' 364 360 375 383 358 393 385 387 322 Waldron J . . 6,244 752 840 965 997 1,065 1,106 1,132 1,252 1,342 i,43i 1,698 Totnore Hundred Beddingham. . . 2,888 219 227 255 264 268 321 334 35° 448 454 481 Firle, West . . . 3,429 494 551 644 618 722 701 631 615 573 53° 535 Willingdon Hundred Dean, East . . . 2,163 284 249 296 330 360 368 334 327 290 268 277 Dean, West t • • 2,268 88 114 163 150 129 129 153 139 134 117 123 Friston .... 1,436 35 45 62 89 9i 78 89 80 94 92 135 Jevington t t • • 2,052 229 280 300 35° 329 325 263 321 296 237 256 Willingdon t . . 4,281 347 445 520 603 621 678 709 794 1,243 1,521 1,667 CITY OF CHICHESTER All Saints, or the 12 297 3ii 294 288 327 286 265 317 327 269 250 Pallantj . . . St. Andrew J . . 10 573 649 708 719 625 670 613 578 512 448 416 St. Bartholomew . 238 259 282 306 296 297 312 373 359 325 259 308 The Cathedral 15 187 198 '45 169 MS 134 156 no 127 '35 121 Close Precinct St. James, Extra 10 — — — — 40 47 54 16 22 25 38 Par. St. Martin J . . Newtown, or Black- 4 5 \ 303 352 | 321 82 315 112 282 123 291 135 277 143 244 127 242 157 210 138 256 132 friars, Extra Par. St. Olave J . . . 4 244 282 260 280 238 257 247 246 225 174 1 66 St. PancrasJ . . 139 939 1,046 1,058 1,156 1,065 1,177 1,087 i, 06 1 1,184 1,001 1,004 St. Peter-the-Great 1,428 1,605 2,910 3,766 4,579 5,021 4,986 5,325 4,777 5,056 4,894 5,95i or Sub-deaneryso*-| St. Peter-the- 23 345 395 422 356 349 352 344 370 392 334 292 Lessft 48 Ringmer. — Some soldiers' wives and families present in 1821. «9 Frant. — The remainder is in Kent (Washlingstone Hundred). 1801-1851. 60 Sub-deanery. — Chichester Barracks contained no soldiers in 1851. 227 The population is entirely shown in Sussex A HISTORY OF SUSSEX TABLE OF POPULATION, 1801—1901 (continued] PARISH Acre- age 1801 1811 1821 1 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 HASTINGS BOROUGH AND CINQUE PGlo1 All Saints . . . 394 1,094 1,522 2,197 3,111 2,839 3,410 3,486 3,477 4,613 6,037 6,771 Bexhill (part of) 6te :— Liberty of the Sluice 88 1 — — — 64 94 122 73 107 119 117 103 Ore (part of) 50b . — — — — 10 4 29 28 666 1,094 1,279 St. Clement . . . 130 1,589 1,823 2,360 2,981 3,189 4, 1 66 4,073 4,508 4,623 4,856 4,656 St. Leonard (part — 73 104 IOO 269 595 827 1,241 2,427 5,"3 6,589 7,143 of)60" |i<>s St. Mary Bulver- 136 20 25 34 5' 37 77 68 45 47 191 273 hythe" St. Mary-in-the- 216 f2,823 4,278 4,626 4,933 9,228 11,869 12,498 Castle (part of)50b 238 349 i, "3 1,890 ( St. Andrew . . 34 I 7 8 84 1,444 i,759 1,666 1,447 St. Mary Magdalen St. Michael-on-the- 360 3 51 53 87 657 Kl 3,803 269 7,106 441 9,547 364 12,238 352 14,415 334 13,123 323 Rock The Priory, or Holy 202 10 76 294 1,074 9 124 1,683 2,518 3,6i9 5,172 4,825 Trinity 6J RYE CINQUE PORT Rye'U • - • 2,462 2,187 2,681 3,599 3,7'5 4,031 4,592 4,288 4,366 4,667 4,368 4,337 WlNCHELSEA TOWN AND CINQUE PORT St. Thomas the 965 627 652 817 772 687 778 719 679 613 686 670 Apostle f t GENERAL NOTE The following Municipal Boroughs and Urban Districts are co-extensive at the Census of 1901 with one or more places mentioned in the table : — Place Battle Parish (Battle Hundred) East Blatchington Parish (Flexborough Hundred) and Seaford Parish (in the same Hundred) Uckfield Parish (Loxfield-Dorset Hundred) Arundel Parish (Arundel Hundred) New Shoreham Parish (Fishergate Hundred) Southwick Parish (Fishergate Hundred) '**> See note 19, ante. 50b See note 17, ante. 51 St. Mary Bulverhythe. — The 1801 population is an estimate. 61 Holy Trinity. — The decline in population in 1841 is caused by the removal of houses built on derelict land, which was taken possession of by the Crown. Municipal Borough, or Urban District Battle U.D Seaford U.D Uckfield U.D Arundel M.B New Shoreham U.D. . Southwick U.D. . 228 INDUSTRIES INTRODUCTION IN treating the industrial history of a county it is necessary to select for examination such industries as are either peculiar to that district or are noticeable for their great development or the possession of some peculiar feature. It is clearly impossible, even if it were desirable, to chronicle every reference to ' the butcher, the baker and candle- stick-maker ' — the latter, by the way, a trade of which the rarity should have preserved it from the contempt which seems to have attached to it even as early as 1611, when a goldsmith of Rye ' said the harbor makers were brewers and bakers, shepherds and silver candle- stick-makers, carters and hogschops, and divers other bad speaches.'1 In Sussex one industry stands out pre-eminent — the manufacture of iron ; but although very large quantities of iron were produced in the shape of bars, ordnance, chimney-backs and similar objects, no particular metal-working industries appear to have arisen ; nailers are occasionally mentioned, as at Ashburn- ham in I5743 and at Horsted Keynes in 1592,' edge-tool-makers occur at Crowhurst in 1594* and Waldron in i627,5and a sickle-maker at Frant in 1644,° while in 1599 Ralf Willerd of East Grinstead described himself as an 'armourer.'7 These are but incidental references ; there was, however, an important manufacture of NEEDLES at Chichester, which town is even said to have practically ' monopolised the trade of England in needle-making ' at the beginning of the seventeenth century.8 The date at which this industry was established is not known, though Dallaway mentions8 that a John le Nedeler was an official at Chichester in early times, and a Richard le Nedler occurs there in 1308. 10 Very few facts concerning this trade are recoverable, but it seems that the needle-makers resided mainly in the suburb of St. Pancras, and that when this 1 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 147. ' Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxiii, 57. * Suss. Rec. Sue. i, 13. ' Ibid. 21. 5 Levies Wills (Index Soc.). • Ibid. r Ibid. 8 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxii, 223. 9 Hist, of Rape of Chick. 204. 10 Coram Rege R. 3 Edw. II, Mil. m. 19. was destroyed during the siege of Chichester in 1642 the industry received a blow from which it never recovered.11 One of the manufacturers whose business appears to have survived this period was Robert Hichcock, who in 1667 issued a halfpenny token bearing the arms of the needle-makers. At a later date, in 1685, the Rumboldswyke registers contain the marriage of Thomas Belchamber of St. Olave's, Chichester, needle-maker ; }" but soon after this the competi- tion of the rising manufacturing towns in the north, which produced an inferior but far cheaper type of needle, began to be felt, and Spershott, writing of the year 1725, said, 'I remember there were also many master needle-makers who kept journeymen and apprentices at work, but now are reduced to one.' n By the end of the eighteenth century the industry had ' dwindled almost to nothing,' 14 and shortly afterwards became extinct. The mineral wealth of Sussex was always confined to its iron, though it may be noticed that in 1570 Sir Thomas Smith endeavoured to remedy this by some experiments made at Win- chelsea in the transmutation of iron into copper.15 The soil of the county, however, besides yielding excellent clay for pottery and bricks, contains a considerable supply of stone, its QUARRIES, though now little worked, having been of some impor- tance in the past. The most interesting variety of stone in some ways, though by no means the most important commercially, is that known as ' Sussex marble ' ; it is a calcareous stone formed by a deposit of freshwater shells, of which the remains are clearly visible, and takes a high polish, being used with excellent effect for ornamental features in the cathedrals of Chichester and Can- terbury and at Petworth House. It is found mainly in the neighbourhood of Petworth and Kirdford. Sandstone appears to have been worked by the Romans at Pulborough for use at Bignor ;18 and 11 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxii, 223. " Ex inf. Rev. Canon Deedes. " Suss. Arch. Coll. xxx, 149. 14 The Chick. Guide (ed. 1794), 30. 15 Strype, Life of Sir T. Smith, 101. 16 Suss. Arch. Coll. xi, 136. 229 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX the quarry of greensand at Eastbourne supplied the enormous quantity of stone required for facing the great Roman walls at Pevensey, and was subsequently used for the building and repairs of the mediaeval castle of Pevensey. The regular price of hewn, blocks of this Eastbourne stone was 5*. the hundred in 1290," exclusive of the cost of carriage ; it was used in several neighbouring churches, and was even carried as far as Hastings, the churchwardens' accounts of that town con- taining a payment made about 1580 'for bringing of stone from Borne ' for the windows.18 Three quarries are mentioned in Domesday, one at Stedham being valued at 6s. 8^., another at Iping worth 9*. 4^., and the third at ' Greteham ' worth ids. lod. ; there was also at Bignor a quarry yielding stone suitable for millstones, which was worth 4*.19 The high values here given point to the economic importance of stone as an article of commerce, but in a large number of cases the quarries seem to have been worked only for building and repairs upon the estate. When the erection of Battle Abbey was begun a quarry was found so opportunely adjacent as to be considered miraculous,20 and in the case of Dureford Abbey the founder made a grant of any quarry found upon his land, and William le Vaisseler made the specific gift of a quarry at ' Wyhus.'21 A local outcrop of sandstone seems to have been used for building the church at Hailsham in the thirteenth century, and in 1536 a quarry at Bolney was worked ' for dyggyng of ston for the stepyll ' of Bolney church.22 At East Grinstead, when the church tower was rebuilt about 1785, stone was obtained from Wych Cross;23 in the case of Steyning the church quarry appears to have been in Shoreham,24 but in 1477 wnen repairs were to be done to the bridge of Bramber the contractor arranged to obtain his stone from the Isle of Wight.25 Sandstone was constantly required for the iron furnaces, and was usually obtainable in the vicinity, as in the case of the rebuilding of Brightling forge in 1648, when 140 loads of stone were dug in Dallington Forest at is. the load for rough and 2s. 6d. for shaped stones,26 or at Waldron, where a quarry was opened on the beacon hill in 1 704 for use at the furnace.27 The question of a tenant's right to dig stone was occa- sionally raised, and in 1587 Roger Gratwick seems to have been considered to have exceeded his privi- leges as a lessee of iron mines in St. Leonard's Forest in digging 200 loads of sandstone for his 17 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 479, No. 15. 18 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiii, no. " V.C.H. Sussex, i, 367. -° Chron. Battle Abbey (ed. Lower), 1 1. -' Cott. MS. Vesp. E. xxiii, fbl. 10. "' Suss. Arch. Call, vi, 246. 81 Ibid, xx, 149. " Ibid, xxii, 7. 25 Magd. Coll. D. ' Bramber,' No. 1 6. 36 Add. MSS. 33155, fol. 43. "Ibid. 33 154, fol. 53. house at Cowfold.28 The tenants of the Duchy of Lancaster in Ashdown Forest had the privilege of taking stone for the repair of their buildings from the Stonequarry Hill at East Grinstead, subject to the condition of leaving the quarry clear of rubbish.29 The most economically important quarries in Sussex were those of ' Horsham stone,' sometimes called ' Horsham slates.' Dr. Burton, speaking of Horsham in 1751, says, 'From the quarries of stone there they work out split slabs and use them instead of tiles to roof their houses.' *° This stone, owing to the readiness with which it could be split laterally into comparatively thin slabs, was at one time much used for roofing purposes, and its warm tones still lend beauty to many Sussex villages, though it has fallen into disuse, owing no doubt chiefly to its great weight, which not only renders its transport expensive, but would prove disastrous to the unsubstantial tim- bers of many modern residences. It is found chiefly at Horsham and in Slinfold, where, how- ever, it is difficult to work,31 the largest hewn blocks being probably those used in the cellars of Chesworth manor-house.32 An early reference to stone of this nature, of which the place of origin is not given, occurs in 1301, when 2,500 ' stones which are called scletes ' were bought for the barn of Thorney manor.33 About a hundred years later, when repairs were being done at Warminghurst, some 9,000 blocks of ' Horsham stone ' were obtained at Sedgewick,34 where there was a quarry which was still working in i6oo.36 In a lease of the manor of Littlehampton made in 1468 it was stipulated that the lessee, John Cooke, should receive ' Horsham stones ' for repairs from the lands of the abbess of Syon.38 The quarries in this case were no doubt those at Shortsfield, in an account of which manor for 1470 it is noted that there were no profits from the sale of stone slabs (petras laterales) that year as none had been sold, though five loads had been used for repairs to the manors of Ecclesdon and Bur- phamwick.37 Slightly earlier than this we find one Thomas Burgess, a ' stonehelyer ' of Hors- ham, prominently associated with the rising under Jack Cade.38 Few references as to the value of this material are available, but in 1550 when the church of South Mailing was pulled down, the Horsham stone with which it was roofed brought 5*. 8d. the load.39 18 Dep. by Com. 30 Eliz. Easter, No. 17. w Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiii, 245-70. 30 Ibid, viii, 255. 31 Ibid, xl, 38. >2 Ibid, xxiv, 232. 53 Mins. Accts. bdle. 1031, No. 2. 34 Ibid. No. 9. 35 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxv, 52. 36 Mins. Accts. bdle. 1 100, No. i. 37 Ibid. bdle. 1 1 oo, No. 4. 38 Anct. Indictments (K.B.), 122. 39 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxi, 182. 230 INDUSTRIES Although chalk has been used for building purposes, notably in the chancel of Ditchling church, and in recent times at Lancing college, Parkminster and Arundel, its commercial value lies in its use for conversion into LIME, either for mortar or for manure. The early method of burning seems to have been in pits. In 1407, when certain repairs were being done to the castle of Pevensey,40 1 8d. was paid ' for making a pit to burn lime,' and 30*. ' for burning 3 pits- full of lime,' the high rate of payment indicating that successful burning required considerable skill at that time, as it did later. In 1535 the arch- bishop was receiving 231. 4^. for the rent of a ' lymepytte ' at Ringmer,41 and five years earlier the 'lymepytte' had brought in 13*. \d., while an additional IOJ. had been received from the prior of Lewes for chalk from Cliffe,42 no doubt from the same ' quarry of the cliffs of Southram near Lewes,' whence chalk was obtained for making mortar in the reign of Edward IV.43 At what period the lime-kiln was introduced it is difficult to say, but during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when the liming of arable was almost universal on Sussex farms, nearly every large farm near the chalk hills possessed a kiln. These kilns44 were usually cask-shaped, about 8 ft. in diameter at top and bottom and 9 ft. in the centre and some 10 ft. in height ; the walls were of stone lined with bricks, and about 3^ ft. thick ; the floor was ' dishing,' or hollow, and surrounded by a stone 'bench' on which the chalk to be burnt was built up into a kind of oven, leaving a vaulted hollow for the fuel, which was introduced through the mouth or eye in one side of the kiln. The art lay in ' setting the kiln,' that is to say, in building up the arch of chalk so that it should be strong enough to bear the weight of the chalk which was placed upon it, the larger pieces being put lowest and the top filled with small pieces and finally covered with bricks, so that the fire might readily and evenly pass through the mass, but not escape to waste at the top ; as the ' setting ' re- quired expert knowledge, lime-burning became an industry of some importance and not ill-paid, I Of. being the charge for setting a kiln. Such a kiln as has just been described would require I ,OOO 'spray-bavins,' or faggots, for fuel, costing about j£ 2 IOJ., and would yield some 250 bushels of lime, which in 1798 fetched at Pet worth jd. the bushel,45 and at Hastings from 50;. to 54*. the hundred bushels.46 Besides these ' flame kilns' there were large 'tunnel kilns' using coal. The latter fuel seems to have been occasionally used for this purpose at a very early date, as in 40 Dy. of Lane. Accts. bdle. 32, No. 24. 41 Pahr Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 2. " Lambeth Ct. R. 1328. 43 Ibid. 1306. 44 Marshall, Rural Economy of the Southern Counties, 179 ; Young, A gric. of Suss. 206-9. 45 Marshall, loc. cit. 4S Young, op. cit. 205. 1288 'sea coal' was obtained at Seaford to use in burning lime at Willingdon.47 In these ' tunnel,' ' draw ' or ' perpetual ' kilns a layer of faggots and wood was first laid, and on that were placed alternate layers of coal and chalk ; the faggots were then lit, and the lime, as it was burnt, drawn out at the bottom, fresh layers of coal and chalk being added at the top.48 Both types of kiln are still in use, though coal fuel is now used in each case ; opinions as to quality of the resultant lime appear to differ, and it seems prob- able that with equal skill and care equally good lime can be produced by either process, the ' draw ' kiln having the advantage of a greater output. The kiln described by Young was of 1,200 bushels' capacity with a daily yield of 300 bushels of lime. This was at Hastings, where, as also at Rye, there were important kilns sup- plied from the Holywell chalk pits near East- bourne, about 350,000 bushels being consumed in a year at the end of the eighteenth century.4" It is probable that the consumption of chalk increased considerably, as there were only sixteen sloops employed in the trade when Young wrote, but in 1833 there were often twenty or twenty- five boats loading at Holywell, and new kilns had been erected at Wallsend and Pevensey.50 In 1851 there were sixty-six persons engaged in quarrying and burning lime ; this number had risen to seventy-six in 1871, but fell to forty- seven in 1901, the decrease being no doubt largely due to the much smaller use of lime as a manure. This cause has especially affected the production of lime from the pure white chalk, that made from the grey chalk, or limestone, being more suitable for mortar and cement, so that the principal limeworks at present are those of Messrs. Pepper, at Amberley, and Newington at Glynde and Lewes ; there are also two works at Pulborough, and one at Jevington. Details of output are difficult to give, as there are constant fluctuations, the supply being controlled by the demand.51 Closely connected with the lime industry is the manufacture of CEMENT. ' The Sussex limestone, upon trial, has been discovered to be superior both to the Maidstone and Plymouth stone, and it is now supposed that for cement none equal to it is found in the kingdom.' b'2 As a consequence of this natural advantage several important cement works have been established in the county, namely those of Messrs. Newing- ton and Pepper at Amberley, the Sussex Portland Cement Co., at Newhaven and at Upper Beeding, and the Lewes Portland Cement Co. at Lewes. These all employ a considerable number of hands, and turn out a good quality " Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 479, No. 15. 48 Young, op. cit. 204. 4' Ibid. 203, 50 Wright, Bygone Eastbourne, 68. 61 H. W. Wolff, Suit. Indus. 1 1 3. 51 Young, op. cit. 13. 231 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX of cement. There are also manufactures of the varieties of cement known as Keene's and Parian, and of plaster of Paris, at Mountfield, controlled by ' The Gypsum Mines, Ltd.' This industry originated in 1872 as the result of scientific borings made at Mountfield for geological purposes. During these experiments a rich bed of gypsum was struck at a depth of 1 60 ft., and has since been worked with great success. Gypsum is sometimes sold in the natural state for use in brewing, but for the most part it is converted into plaster of Paris by desiccation for some four and twenty hours in a kiln. The blocks required for cement are burnt, in much the same way as chalk for lime, and then ground and sifted previous to receiving the distinctive treatment required : — Keene's cement is made by treating the burnt gypsum with one part of alum to twelve parts of water at a temperature of about 95 degrees. Having stood three hours the material is re-baked in the furnace, and then thoroughly ground and powdered. When so treated it requires less water, sets more slowly, and acquires a tenacity half as great again as that of ordinary cement. Parian cement is ordinary plaster hardened with water containing ten per cent, of borax, and afterwards rebaked and ground. Stucco is plaster prepared with a strong solution of glue.63 The beds of red ochre at GrafFham, Chidham, and elsewhere, and of fuller's earth at Tillington, do not call for special treatment. Nor do the chemical works near Rye and Lancing ; M and the only mineral substance which remains to be dealt with here is SALT. Valuable as salt is now as a condiment, it would be difficult to over- estimate its value in early times when modern preservative methods and artificial foods for the support of cattle during the winterwere unknown, and the population were dependent for their meat supply during part of the year upon salted provisions. The great source of salt was the sea, and the industry of salt-making flourished all along the coast, and not least in Sussex. The simple method employed at Appledram as late as the nineteenth century was to admit sea water into a series of broad, shallow ' pans,' or ponds with clay bottoms. The water was reduced in three or four days by the heat of the sun to a strong brine, which was further concentrated by boiling in shallow iron vessels, and was then allowed to cool, when the salt crystallized out and the remaining liquor was drawn off.66 Another method commonly employed in England was to allow the sea water to flow over a sandy soil, or ' sleech,' exposed to the sun's rays, and after collecting the top layer of sand and salt crystals, dissolve the latter in a pit filled with salt water, filtering through peat and concentrating as before by boiling. sa Possibly both these processes were 63 Suss. Indus. 67-74. " Suss. Arch. Coll. xxv, 85. 66 y.C.H. Essex, i, 380. "Ibid. 116-25. used in Sussex in early times. In 1 086 there were in the county, according to the Domesday Survey, 285 salt-pans, varying greatly in value, but worth on an average 2*. bd. each.67 Of these I oo were on the lands of the abbey of Fe'camp, in the marshes round Rye and Winchelsea ; in Pevensey Levels were another 26, exclusive of 1 6 belonging to Eastbourne manor on the one side, and 30 belonging to Hooe on the other. In the estuary of the Ouse only 1 1 are men- tioned, but in that of the Adur were 42, besides an unspecified number in Coombes, which yielded 50*. $d. An entry under the manor of Washing- ton 68 shows that the five salt-pans in that manor yielded yearly no 'ambers' of salt worth <)s.2d.t so that the 'amber' was clearly worth id. It is worth noticing that at this time, and for some centuries later, the water flowed sufficiently salt for salt-making at least as high as Bramber. About the end of the twelfth century a salt-pan close to the castle of Bramber was given to Box- grove priory,59 the ' aqua de Cnappe ' occurs in 1200 amongst the 'aque salsae,' 60 tithes of salt are mentioned here and at Sele in the Nonae returns of 1 34 1,61 and salt works occur at Bramber in I4O4,62 and again as late as I422.63 Grants of salt-pans and salt-cotes, the buildings in which the manufacture was carried on, were frequently made to monastic houses, as, for in- stance, a salt-pan in Lancing called ' Oxeneput,' to Dureford Abbey,64 and the ' Guldenesaltkote ' in Pevensey marsh to the abbey of Otham.6* Rents of salt are also of common occurrence ; 66 the villeins of Otham who held half a virgate of land were bound to carry to their lord's court an amber of salt from the pan at Otham,67 and special arrangements were made towards the end of the thirteenth century by the dean of Hastings for the delivery of the salt due to his prebend.68 All these facts point to the extent of the industry, which is further borne out by the numerous entries of the sale of salt at Winchelsea to French, Dutch, and other merchants between 1266 and I272,69 in spite of the great destruction wrought amongst the salt-cotes in this place by the storm in I25O.70 Further havoc must have been wrought along the coast by the great storm of 1287, to which we may probably attribute the destruction of seventy salt-cotes at Lancing, the tithes of which " V.C.H. Suss, i, 367. 68 Ibid. 444. 59 Cott. MS. Vesp. E. xxiii, fol. 50. 60 Gervase of Cant. Opera (Rolls Ser.), ii. 61 Inq. Non. (Rec. Com.), 389. 6> Anct. D., A 11033. 63 Ibid. 9865. 64 Cott. MS. Claud. A. vi, fol. 77. "Add. MS. 6037, No. 50. 66 e.g. Anct. D. D 1073. 67 Salzmann, Hist. ofHailsham, 1 77. 68 Cat. Chart. R. ii, 251. 63 Mins. Accts. bdle. 1031, Nos. 19-21. 70 Cooper,/////, of Winchelsea, 14. 232 INDUSTRIES had formerly been worth 235. 4^/.71 The en- croachments of the sea continued ; at least one salt-cote at Rye, which was working in I32O,72 being submerged before 1342,™ and by 1350 it would seem that the output of the Sussex pans had so far diminished that it was worth while to send salt from la Baie de Bourgneuf in Poitou to Winchelsea, although the freight was 15^. the quarter.74 In 1357 also there is mention of salt being brought by ship into Shoreham for sale,75 but its place of origin is not given. To restore the industry assistance appears to have been called in from outside, as in 1440 John de Schiedame was given licence to export tin to Germany as a reward for having assisted in de- veloping the manufacture of salt at Winchelsea.78 The price of salt appears to have remained con- stant, for in 1 400 it was selling in Winchelsea at 32^. the quarter,77 and in 1500 it stood at the same price in Hastings.78 Between 1457 an(^ 1475 a few entries relative to the export of salt from Rye occur,79 and in 1573 a ship left the same port for Dantzig with a cargo of salt,80 but this was possibly not of local manufacture, as in 1574 the mayor and jurats complained of the great scarcity of salt in the district, and mentioned that vessels laden with salt had called at the port, but owing to a recent prohibition they were un- able to avail themselves thereof.81 The industry appears to have been almost dead at this time, and, although a ' salt boyler ' was living in Rye in i632,82 it must have been finally killed for the time being in 1638, when the Sussex ports un- successfully opposed the grant of a monopoly for the manufacture of salt at Shields.83 A revival took place in the western part of the county, but when, and in what circumstances, does not appear to be known ; extensive saltworks were, how- ever, in use at Appledram down to the middle of the nineteenth century,84 and two salt-workers were returned in the census of 1871, but as one was over 55 years old and the other over 75 it is probable that they were survivors of the extinct works at Appledram. The county of Sussex being still very heavily wooded, and having been in former days still more so, it is natural that the TIMBER industry in its many branches should always have been of much importance. The excellence of Sussex 71 Inq. Non. (Rec. Com.), 389. 71 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 507*. 73 Mins. Accts. bdle. 1028, No. n. 74 Close, 24 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 2. 75 Mem. R., K.R. Mich. 3 1 Edw. III. 76 Cat. French R. 19 Hen. VI, m. 4. 77 Cooper, Hist, of Winchelsea, 205. 78 Mins. Accts. Hen. VII, No. 862. 79 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 493-4. 80 Ibid, xiii, App. pt. iv, 30. 81 Ibid. 36. ra Suss. Rec. Sac. i, 198. 83 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 205-8. 84 Suss. Arch. Coll. xviii, 85. oak caused it to be in constant demand, not only for local building and repairs, but also outside the county, large quantities being used at Dover in King John's reign,85 and again early in the four- teenth century.86 Two oaks were also sent from Worth Forest in 1337 to the Tower,87 and the shingles for the roof of Westminster Hall came from this county in I3I2.88 It is not, however, easy to obtain any details of the regular timber trade. About 1490 Shoreham and Rye exported considerable quantities of logs, laths, and ' sawe borde,'89 the latter commodity occurring also at Arundel in I55O.90 When the inhabitants of Rye complained in 1577 of the threatened destruction of the adjacent woods by the new iron foundry at Westfield, Lord Buckhurst replied that they had no right to complain, as within the last two years they had themselves exported 'not so little as 1,000 tons of timber.'91 It is probable that most of the timber here re- ferred to was exported in the form of billets, a form of fuel for which Rye and Winchelsea early became famous. In 1307 the sheriff of Sussex was ordered to prepare 2O,OOO great billets of wood and send them to Boulogne,92 and a return for the years 1323-6 shows that the purchases of billets made by foreigners at Rye and Winchelsea were extremely large.93 In 1430 a tax, or ' maltode,' was levied at Rye on vessels loading with these billets, the payment being \d. per thousand, or I d. if the billets were laid on the ' strond ' : the suggestive addition is made that anyone cursing a collector of maltodes should be fined 3*. \d. 94 The value of these billets was about 3i.95 or 2J. 6^/.96 the thousand, but the growth of the iron industry, with the consequent destruction of wood, rapidly forced the price up, so that in 1580 the charge at Brighton for ' billet or tale wood ' had risen from 25. 6d. the hundred (weight) to 8*.97 It would seem that as a con- sequence of the rise in price there was tendency to reduce the size of the billets, for in 1581 the authorities at Hastings, Winchelsea, and Rye determined that such billets called by the name of Winchelsea billets for Calais may be made for those towns as for- merly, so that they keep the ancient size, for that kind of billet is the fittest for those towns and for shipping and carrying along the Ports to the aforesaid towns ; the further proviso being made that any infringe- ment of the assize should entail forfeiture, to be "Ibid, iii, 4, 7; xxii, 235. 1 Ibid, xvii, 1 1 6. 87 Ibid. 18 Close, 6 Edw. II, m. 15. 89 Customs Accts. Sf., sf. 90 Ibid. -»f 91 Hilt. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 57. "Close, i Edw. II, m. 16. 93 Customs Accts. Sf.. 94 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 489^. 95 Ct. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 206, No. 59. 96 Customs Accts. 3f-. 97 Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 51. 233 30 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX taken for the benefit of the harbours of the said three towns.98 Complaint was made by the mayor of Rye in 1584 that Lord Montague had been granted a licence, and apparently a mono- poly, of the export of ' Callice billets, a kynde of fuell ofjonge tyme used here and alongest the coast,' to be made of his own wood ; but although his own cut wood had long been ex- hausted he continued to export the billets, selling them at Winchelsea, so that as their sale was prohibited at Rye the traders were resorting to the former town and buying up all the billets, with the result that little fuel came through to Rye, 'and the poor can have none for their money.' Moreover, as they could no longer load up with billets, ships with cargoes of wheat, malt, &c., came no more to discharge at Rye" — a fact which points to the export of wood being almost the only trade left to the once prosperous port. The complaint would appear to have caused the prohibition to be withdrawn, as in November, 1589, the mayor of Rye licensed John Allen to carry twenty or thirty thousand billets to Dieppe for the use of the perse- cuted Reformed Church.100 In 1628, however, the export of billets was again prohibited, and this, combined with the increasing demands of the iron furnaces, the deterioration of the Sussex harbours, the disturbances of the Civil War, and possibly foreign competition, appears to have practically killed the trade in fuel. But though one branch of the timber trade was thus ruined, other branches continued to flourish and make rapid growth, oak timber being in great demand during all periods of naval activity, and especially during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Writing in 1798, Young said : — The quantity of oak which has of late years been sent to Portsmouth and other places has exceeded the amount which was transported twenty-five years back in the proportion of four to one. . . . Far greater quantities of oak timber have been lately felled and carried coastwise from Sussex, chiefly to the king's yards, than the country will in future be enabled per- manently to supply.101 The industry continued to grow during the nineteenth century, but gradually assumed a double character in face of the expanding Nor- wegian timber trade and the coincident demand for cheap wood, so that the imports of timber have now overwhelmed the exports along the sea coast. There is still, however, a steady demand for Sussex oak for such purposes as plank-fencing and palings, the chief seat of this branch of the industry being round Billingshurst.102 Oak is also required locally for such purposes as the 98 Hist. AfSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 76. 99 Ibid. 84. 100 Ibid. 89. 01 Young, op. cit. 164. 101 Suss. Industries, 137. manufacture of the wattles used so extensively by sheep farmers in East Sussex. Wattles consist of four-barred wooden fencing, measuring each 6J feet in length, held together by cross-stays fastened diagonally, and provided with stakes at either end, the pointed feet of which are driven into the ground.103 These wattles are also made, in a lighter and cheaper form, of chestnut, but the special use of the latter wood is for hop-poles, for which pur- pose very large numbers were at one time required,104 though the demand has naturally fallen off lately with the rapidly diminishing area of hops grown in the county. The census re- turns show 87 timber merchants in the county in 1851, 331 timber and wood merchants in 1871, and 238 in 1901 ; in connexion with which should be taken the numbers of sawyers in those years, which were respectively 88 1, 747, and 503, the fall being no doubt partly due to labour-saving machinery. Of the wood industries the most important in Sussex was SHIPBUILDING. The history of this industry has already been dealt with from the naval and political aspect,105 but here it is neces- sary briefly to trace its economic history. The Sussex builders were evidently expert at their trade by the beginning of the thirteenth century, as in 1231, when repairs were required for the king's ship at Portsmouth, William Wade, a carpenter of Winchelsea, was sent with other carpenters from Shoreham.106 Repairs to the king's galleys were also carried out at Rye in 1252 and the following year,107 while in 1337 a galley was built, or refitted, at Winchelsea, at a cost of about J^7O.108 Other repairs were done to royal ships at the same port in 1352, the accounts of which show that shipwrights received from \d. to 6d. a day, ' castlewrights ' 6<£, and sawyers 5^., while men employed in the unskilled labour of cutting a way from the dry-dock to the harbour received 3^.109 Two balingers of thirty- two oars were built at Rye in I377,110 and it is possible that one of those who worked upon them was John Wikham, ' schipwrite,' of whom the mayor and barons of Rye testified in 1392 that he had been a worthy freeman of the town for sixteen years while building the ships of that port.111 A certain amount of shipbuilding was no doubt being carried on at many places along the coast of Sussex, as in 1399 Hugh de Veretot, agent of the abbot of Fecamp, began to build a ship at Pende near Shoreham ; but, as he had 103 Ibid. 138. 1MIbid. 132-3. 105 See ante ' Maritime Hist.' 106 Close, 15 Hen. Ill, m. 1 6. lor Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 123. 108 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 20, No. 22. 109 Cooper, Hist, of Winchelsea, 72. 110 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 1 24. 111 Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 500*. 234 INDUSTRIES taken for the purpose 80 tons of timber from the woods at Warminghurst without the king's licence, the ship was seized the following year while still upon the stocks (super palos), and lack- ing ' pychyng, rosenyng, hecchyng, calfatyng, and takelyng.' 1] For some time after this date no details touching this industry appear to be available. In 1580 the constable and leading landsman at Brighton was a ship carpenter,113 but the chief seat of the industry was clearly at Rye, for it was stated in 1581 that the towns of Brighton, Meeching (Newhaven), Eastbourne, Lydd, Romney, Hythe, Folkestone, Dover, the Downs, Sandwich, and the Isle of Thanet all came to have their barques and fishing boats built at Hastings, Rye, and Winchelsea,114 and of these the latter was practically extinct as a port, and Hastings was little better. Shoreham, however, soon began to rival the eastern port, and rapidly surpassed it, becoming, early in the seventeenth century, the chief centre of ship- building in the county.116 Further west, ships were being built at Arundel at least as early as 1630, as ships built in that port were exempt from paying ' anchorage ' and ' boomage ' when passing up the river on their first trip ; and in 1675 it was said that Arundel 'enjoys a good trade ; several ships being here built, as of late the Society and MaryJ &c. 116 The reason for the establishment of the industry at these two places is given in an Admiralty report of 1728, which names Shoreham and Arundel as eminent for building of ships, hoys, and ketches — the first at Shoreham, the latter at Arundel ; and they are great builders because of the vast quantity of large timber which this part of England produces more plentifully than elsewhere.117 Nor was it only in quantity that the advantage lay — the quality of the oak timber may be collected from the circumstance of the Navy contractors preferring it in all their agreements and stipulating for Sussex before every other species of oak.118 During the nineteenth century the Sussex ship- building trade may be said to have been in a flourishing condition. In i849119 Shoreham was 'noted for its shipbuilding, in which above 100 men are generally employed,' several vessels of over 500 tons ' remarkable for swift sailing ' having been launched there. At Lewes there was a small yard, Rye had three yards, at Hastings ' some of the finest schooners in the Mediterranean trade' were built. In 1851 there were at Hastings 16 shipbuilders and 111 Mem. R., K.R. 3 Hen. IV, East. m. 16. 113 Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 49. 111 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 76. 115 See ante ' Maritime Hist.' 116 Saw. Arch. Coll. xix, 158. 10 boatbuilders,120 while the census returns for that year show a total for the county of 297 shipwrights and 38 boatbuilders, the combined total of the two trades in 1871 being 355. About this latter date vessels up to 200 tons were being built at Rye, but by 1882 only small craft were issuing from the two yards which were still working there. Of these two yards the larger, that of Mr. James Hoad, built chiefly for ports outside Sussex. The smaller vessels go to Ramsgate, say from 35 to 50 tons measurement ; the next in size, varying from 50 to 60 tons, go to Lowestoft, and the vessels larger still, say from 70 to 75 tons, to Grimsby.1" For this last port Mr. Hoad was also building ' well-vessels ' of about 90 tons for the convey- ance of live cod, &c. The vessels from this yard were what is called carvel-built, the planks being fitted square upon the ribs, in contradistinction to the over- lapping of planks termed clinker-building in use at Hastings, and the diagonal principle, which is com- mon for life-boats and is adopted by his local rivals, Messrs. Clarke.1" The largest ships, ranging from 500 to 1,000 tons, were at this time built at Littlehampton,123 where Mr. Harvey, of Rye, had established in 1846 a yard which is still in the hands of his successors, Messrs. J. & W. B. Harvey. In 1882 Hastings had still a reputation for fast-sailing yachts, Mr. Tutt's yard — which, at the Great Exhibition of 1851 took two prizes, the one with a lifeboat, the other with a fishing-boat, which was judged the best of its kind for the purpose — having turned out, amongst others, the lugger-yacht New Moon, of 209 tons, built for Lord Willoughby d'Eresby, of which yacht the Yacht- ing Magazine said in 1886 that she was considered ' the ablest sea boat of her class and tonnage in the world.' "' The yachts built at Shoreham by Messrs. Stow had also a good reputation, a special feature being their roominess and excellent internal planning.125 Messrs. Hutchinson at Worthing also turned out sailing boats, the Skylark of Captain Fred Collins being especially well known to Brighton visitors.126 The trade, however, has decreased ; in 1901 there were only 181 actual shipwrights and boat- builders and 82 'others' employed in the trade. Of boat builders fourteen firms remain, four being at Brighton ; yachts are built by Messrs. Courtney & Birkett at Southwick, Gausden & Sisk at Eastbourne, and Suter at Shoreham. Besides Messrs. Harvey's yard at Littlehampton the only firms of shipbuilders are Messrs. G. and T. Smith at Rye, and T. Apps at Bosham. 17 Ibid, xi, 1 8 1. 18 Young, op. cit. 164. 19 Lewis, Topog. Diet. ofEngl. (ed. 1849). 1*° Hastings Past and Present, 84. 111 Suss. Industries, 59. 118 Ibid. 59. 186 Ibid. 64. 182 Ibid. 60. 124 Ibid. 63. 126 Ibid. 66. 235 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX An industry of comparatively small extent, but interesting as being peculiar to Sussex, is the manufacture of TRUGS. The trug, which derives its name from the Anglo-Saxon trog, a tub or boat, is a flattish oblong or elliptical basket made of strips of wood, strengthened with ' braces ' and having a curved handle and, usually, broad feet. The industry has its only seat at Herstmonceux, where the present type of trug was evolved from its rough and cumbersome predecessor by Thomas Smith — father of Messrs. George and Thomas Smith, the present chief manufacturers — about the end of the eighteenth century. The body of the trug is formed of five or more strips of sallow wood, which is very pliable when moistened ; the widest strip forms the bottom of the basket, the others being fastened symmetrically on either side ; the top band or edge to which the strips are nailed is made of a band of ash, steamed and bent into the required shape, as are also the handles and the strengthening braces.127 Such trugs, which may vary in length from 8 in. up to 4 ft., the breadth being as a rule about a third of the length, form ideal baskets for garden- ing purposes, being light, strong and capacious, and have therefore found their way not only into such representative agricultural collections as those at the Kew and Royal Dublin Agricultural Museums, but also into the catalogues of most leading providers of garden requisites. Small trugs are also made with elaborate neatness for fancy uses, and some of these, finished with silver nails, were awarded prizes at the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Paris Exhibition of 1855, the Fisheries Exhibition, Edinburgh, 1884, and the International Exhibition, London, 1885. At the former they attracted the attention of Queen Victoria, who ordered a number, her example being followed by members of the Russian imperial family and others.128 Sussex trugs at present are sent to all parts of the kingdom and to most coun- tries on the continent. Although the Sussex trug in its present form has an antiquity of little more than a century it possesses a pedigree of respectable length. An inventory of the goods of Cornelius Humphrey of Newhaven, taken in 1697, mentions 'one dozen of truggs ' in the dairy ;129 ' four truggs ' are amongst the household goods enumerated in the will of Thomas Fuller of Hellingly in i6n,129a and the Calendar of Wills at Lewes mentions ' truggers ' or ' trug- makers ' at Rotherfield in 1566, East Grinstead 1592, Isfield 1598, Warbleton 1626, and Slaug- ham 1629 and 1639. It would be interesting if 127 Suss. Industries, 11-17 Suss. Anh.CoIl.\\, 194. 188 Ibid. 1 6. 9a Lewes Wills, A 13, fol. 148. John Edwardes of Slaugham, trug-maker, in 1629 left to his son James the tools of his trade, namely ' one sledge, two sockett wedges, foure adzes, one axe and one hatchett .and foure shaves' ; ibid. A 20, f. 158. we could identify as a follower of this trade the ' factor corbell,' working at Hurstpierpoint in 1380 ; 13° but it is perhaps more probable that he was an ordinary basket-maker, a trade which is still well represented in the county, especially round Hailsham, Herstmonceux, Brighton, and Crawley, at which latter place a company called ' The Sussex Basket Industry, Ltd.,' has recently been formed. A special variety of basket which was in use in early times was the ' dorser,' used in East Sussex for carrying fish. In 1598 the earl of Nottingham asked the mayor of Rye to send him ' twoe dorsers of your beste fishe,'131 and in 1685 orders were issued at Hastings for the ' feelers or dosser-makers ' to make their dorsers 12 in. wide in the yoke 'between the bores,' 7 in. deep, and 17 in. ' between bayle and bayle.' 132 Dorser-makers occur at Peasmarsh in 1574, Westfield 1582, and in 1611 at Brede,133 at which latter place John Sanders carried on the trade as early as 1450, when he was concerned in Jack Cade's rebellion.134 An allied industry is the manufacture of HOOPS for casks, which has long flourished in Sussex. Although references to coopers are of frequent occurrence in early documents, they are too widely scattered over the county to point to any definite seat of the trade. In 1798 large numbers of hoops were required for export to the West Indies for binding sugar casks ; these, however, were not bent in Sussex, but were sent up in the form of rods. The Hoop Rods are slit and shaved up rough in the woods ; and are sent to London in bundles of sixty each, and about thirteen feet long, to the hoop- benders.135 Hoops are of two main varieties ; the ordinary hoops used on casks being known as ' smart hoops,' while the stiff hoops round which these are moulded are called ' truss hoops.' To make a ' truss hoop ' a well-seasoned ash stem is split and steamed in 'a special apparatus, con- sisting of a long closed case of boards, with a boiler underneath,' and is then bent into shape, ' an operation which requires the labour of two strong men.' 136 The manufacture of ' smart hoops ' is naturally a simpler matter : — When the wood is stacked it has to be soaked for at least 24 hours before use, having been previously split with an axe and shaved. When the boughs are green soaking is unnecessary. Next the split boughs are bent on an instrument called a 'jorer,' and that done, they are formed into rings inside a truss-hoop lying on the floor, and bound together with withes, six in a bundle."7 130 Lay Subs. ift8-. 131 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 1 16. 133 Ibid. 362. 13S Cal. of Lewes Will,. 134 Anct. Indictments, K.B. bdle. 122. 135 Marshall, Rural Economy of the Southern Counties, 137 Ibid. 136. 129. 136 Suss. Industries, 135. 236 INDUSTRIES A good workman can turn out 600 hoops a day, and even as many as 750 have been made. In 1871 coopers and hoop-makers to- gether numbered 368 persons, which number had fallen in 1901 to 284. It is probable that there has been a further considerable decrease during the last five years, as there appear to be now only ten firms of hoop-makers and twelve of coopers. At the end of the wood industries may be put the burning of CHARCOAL. As charcoal was the most used fuel of the mediaeval period it is natural that references to its manufacture in the wooded county of Sussex should be not uncommon. The sheriff was frequently required to supply large quantities of charcoal for the needs of the army or royal household, as for instance in 1307, when he was ordered to have 200 quarters of charcoal made and sent to Boulogne.138 On the other hand in 1290 orders were given to prevent the export of charcoal from Sussex.139 One of the chief places of export seems to have been Winchelsea, at which town much charcoal was made, to the danger of the shipping, so that in 1355 an order was issued that in future it should only be burnt at ' le Sloghdam,' within the port of Winchelsea.140 The poll tax of 1380 mentions a ' factor carbonis ' at Worth and a ' carbonator ' at Lindfield,141 while documents relating to the woodlands of the Weald afford numerous instances of ' colliers,' more especially during the most flourishing period of the iron industry, for which enormous quantities of charcoal were annually required. The demands of the iron furnaces not only threatened the existence of large tracts of woodland, but naturally sent up the price of charcoal, so that in 1580 the inhabitants of Brighton complained that charcoal had risen from 6s. StJ. a load to I4J.143 A further stimulus was given to the trade at the expense of the county by the latter being required to send supplies to ' his Majesty's collehouse in White- hall'; the amount at first demanded in 1605 being 400 loads, subsequently reduced to 240. 143 For these supplies the government appears to have paid the value, probably at a rather low estimate, of the material, leaving the county to discharge the cost of carriage ; so that in 1628, when 250 loads were required, payment was made at 13*. <)d. the load, the justices contracting with William Flood to supply the same at 22*. the load.144 As the iron industry died out in Sussex, and pit coal began to come into general use, charcoal-burning began to lose its importance, though fresh sources of demand were found in the increasing cultivation of hops, for the drying 138 Close, i Edw. II, m. 1 6. 139 Ibid. 1 8 Edw. I, m. 14. 140 Cooper, Hist, of Winchelsea, 1 20. 141 Lay Subs. iff-. m Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 5 1. "s Add. MS. 5702, fol. 235-43. *" Suss. 4rch. Coll. xl, 32. of which charcoal was used, and in the manu- facture of gunpowder. For the latter purpose alder and dogwood were used almost exclusively. 'The gunpowder wood is invariably peeled, being left standing until the bark will run ; and is charred with peculiar care.' l43 The ordinary method of burning, however carefully done, prov- ing unsatisfactory, the government about 1800 set up a special manufactory at North Chapel to supply the ordnance powder mills at Waltham and Faversham. The process here used con- sisted in charring the wood in closed cylinders. The cylinder room is 60 feet in length ; . . . three sets of iron cylinders are placed in a bed of brickwork built nearly along the centre of the house ; each of them contains three cylinders, each being 6 ft. long and 2 ft. diameter. To prevent every possibility of air being admitted, iron stops are con- trived, 1 8 in. in length and the size of the inner circumference of the cylinder, which are placed in the mouth, and are filled and rammed down with sand ; besides which sand-doors are made to project obliquely over the front or opening of the cylinder, and are entirely filled with sand, and the stops covered with it. At the back of the building are copper pipes projecting 7 ft. in length, communicating with the far end of the cylinder, and at the other extremity immersed in half-hogshead barrels. These pipes serve to draw off the steam or liquid, which flows in large quantities into the tar barrels during the process of charring.140 These cylinders were charged with wood cut into pieces from 3 to 4 in. long from which the knots had been removed, the larger pieces being put in the centre, the whole closed with the iron stop and sand, and fires of pit coal lighted and kept burning brightly until the tar ceased to flow, when the fires were allowed to die down ; next morning the charcoal was removed into large tin coolers and the cylinders recharged. The daily consumption of the three sets of cylinders was 15 cwt. of wood, yielding 4 cwt. of charcoal.147 With the invention of more powerful varieties of explosives the need of this manufactory of charcoal ceased, and it was closed down about 1831. The earliest reference to the making of GUN- POWDER in Sussex appears to be an entry made in 1448 in the town accounts of Rye : — Pd. the maker of pellet powder (pu/veris librillaruni) for the old gonnys, for his labour y. Pd. for a quart of vinegar to test the saltpetre \\d. Pd. John Bayle for making a little sack of sheep's leather to carry sulphur and saltpetre for the pellet powder which the Lord Chamberlain gave 6J. Pd. John Bayle for a strainer through which the charcoal was sifted or cleansed for the pellet powder.145 This, however, is merely an incidental refer- ence ; the regular manufacture of gunpowder 145 Marshall, Rural Economy of the Southern Counties, 129. 147 Ibid. 432-5. 46 Young, op. cit. 433. 14i Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 490^. 237 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX seems hardly to have been practised in England before the middle of Elizabeth's reign, and its connexion with Sussex dates from the reign of her successor. The East India Company early in 1625 established works for the manufacture of gunpowder _cn the borders of Windsor Forest, but being compelled to close these, petitioned in 1626 for leave to erect others in Kent and Sussex,149 which petition, thanks to the good offices of Sir John Coke,180 was granted the same year.151 The company, however, did not avail themselves of the permission so far as Sussex was concerned, but it is clear that the making of gunpowder was being carried on by private per- sons, for amongst the unauthorized powder-mills which were to be suppressed in 1627 was a water- mill at Battle.182 It was at Battle that the lead- ing Sussex gunpowder factory was subsequently established. In November, 1676, John Ham- mond of Battle, joiner, obtained a twenty-one years' lease of ' Peperynge Lands ' in that parish with permission to erect a powder-mill.163 This lease was renewed to William Hammond, pow- der maker, in i6()O,lM and again in I7io.165 In 1750 George Matthews of Battle, late officer of excise, gave security to Sir Thomas Webster, George Worge, and William Gilmore, gunpow- der maker, for the proper conduct of their powder works at Battle.156 About this time the reputa- tion of the Battle factory was very high, Defoe mentioning that the town was remarkable for making 'the finest Gunpowder, and the best perhaps in Europe.'157 The quality of the powder must have somewhat deteriorated, or at least been surpassed by that of rival establish- ments soon after this, as Young, writing at the end of the eighteenth century, said : — There is an extensive private manufactory of gun- powder at Battle. The chief proprietors are Sir Godfrey Webster and Mr. Harvey. Every sportsman knows it ; but the Dartford is stronger and the quality superior.158 There were also powder-mills at Brede from about 1766 down to 1 82 5, 1S9 and one was work- ing at Maresfield as late as i862.160 In a county employing so much shipping as Sussex ROPEMAKING must always have been practised to some extent, but few early notices of it are to be found. Ropemakers occur at Playden in 1572 and 1587 and at Rye in i6io161 and 149 Cal. S.P. Dam. 1625-6, p. 376. 150 Catho&c Rec. Sue. i, 96. 151 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1625-6, p. 407. 151 Ibid. 1627-8, p, 493. 1K> Thorpe, Cal. Battle Chart. 164. 144 Ibid. 167. "6 Ibid. 170. 156 Ibid. 179. 157 Defoe, Tour (ed. 1753), 182. 158 Young, op. cit. 435. 159 Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 207. 160 Ibid, xiv, 158. 161 Cal. of Lewes Wills (Index Soc.). 1626 ;162 at the latter town the ropemakers were amongst the trades which in 1680 paid 3^. a quarter — persons not being freemen of the town paying 6^.163 — while in 1683 mention occurs of the rope-walk on the north side of the town.164 The allied manufactures of sacking and mats were, and are, often carried on with that of ropes. Manufactories of sacking were started for the employment of the poor at Rye in I794165 and at Petworth about the same date,168 but neither appears to have been very successful. The num- ber of persons employed in the rope and sacking industry has remained pretty nearly constant at about 140 since 1851, the chief seat of the industry being at Hailsham, where from eighty to ninety people were being employed in i84o,167 numbers which are if anything exceeded at the present time. The firm of Burfield & Sons, who employ machinery, and the smaller firm of Green & Sons, who use only hand labour, send large quantities of twine, cordage, fibre-mats, hop-sacking, &c., from Hailsham to all parts of the kingdom. PAPER appears to have been made in Sussex as far back as the beginning of the eighteenth century, as tenements called ' the Paper mills ' in Hooe were in dispute in I7O4.168 At the end of the century Young recorded that 'Paper is manufactured at Iping and other places. Lord Egremont has established a manufactory of it at Duncton.'169 Both the factories here mentioned were working in i837,170 and that at Iping, now in the hands of Messrs. J. C. Warren, is the last surviving mill in the county. Paper-mills of considerable size existed on 'the Pells' at Lewes, from about 1800 to about 1850; Thomas Savage, papermaker, occurs in i8o3,171 Thomas Johnston in i8i8.172 Johnston occurs again in 1826 with Charles Hester and George Munn and three journeymen papermakers ; 173 in 1830 the trade is represented by Charles King, William Thomas, papermaker's foremen, and a journey- man,174 while in 1835 Henry Savage and William Thomas are both entered as paper- makers.176 In 1851 there were 41 persons engaged in this industry, in 1871 only 12, but this number had risen in 1901 to 24. At what date PRINTING was established in the county it is difficult to say, but Sussex was early provided with a newspaper of its own, the Sussex Weekly Advertiser or Lewes Journal being started 161 Sun. Arch. Coll. xvii, 133. 163 Holloway, Hist, of Rye, 362. 164 Ibid. 364. 1M Ibid. 357. 168 Young, op. cit. 34. 167 Salzmann, Hist, of Hailsham, 64. 68 Exch. Dep. by Com. i Anne, Easter, No. 2 1 . 69 Young, op. cit. 436. 170 Moule, English Counties DeRneated (s.v.). 171 Poll Book, Lewes (1803). 172 Ibid, (i 8 1 8). m Ibid. (1826). 174 Ibid. (1830). 17S Ibid. (1835). INDUSTRIES in 1745, and only coming to an end in 1906 by amalgamation with the Brighton Gazette and certain other papers under ' The Sussex Amalga- mated Newspapers Ltd.' Lewes was probably the first town to set up a press, and the firm of Lee seems to have been the only printers there until about i8i8,176 when John Baxter settled in Lewes. Baxter was the most notable of the Sussex printers, and was the inventor and first user of the inking-roller ; his quarto Bible, with notes and illustrations, attained a great reputation, and had a wide sale in America as well as in England.177 His son George Baxter was the inventor of the well-known oil process of printing in colours. J. Seagrave was printing at Chiches- ter during the last decade of the eighteenth century, when he published a Chichester Guide and some of Hayley's poems. Presses were working at Rye in 1773, when The Cabinet, or Christian Miscellany, was printed there, and in 1785 at Hailsham ; James Hurdis issued his poem ' The Favourite Village ' and other works from a private press at Bishopstone, between 1797 and 1800, and there was a private press at Glynde in I77o.178 The growth of this industry has been as remarkable in Sussex as elsewhere, but presents no particular features of interest ; at the present time the county has 42 local newspapers, and the number of persons engaged in printing, which was 221 in 1851 and 553 in 1871, had risen in 1901 to 1,310. In the industrial history of any district, factors of great importance are the means of communi- cation and transport. The more completely a district is isolated the more it will be compelled itself to produce the articles it requires, while at the same time the production will be limited by local needs. So that, broadly speaking, where transport and communication are lacking, indus- tries will tend to be numerous but unimportant, but where they are good the industries will be more or less confined to those for which the district is particularly suitable, and will therefore probably be of some importance. In the case of Sussex we have a long seaboard with a chain of harbours which were of importance in mediaeval times, though owing to the change of the coast- line and the increase of size in shipping they are now mostly of small value ; there are also a series of rivers, of no great size, but even now for the most part navigable for barges to a consider- able distance inland. Against this system of water communication must be set the possession •of roads which were, at least in the northern portion of the county, notoriously bad. In the south, where the roads could run for the most part over the high ground of the Downs, the 176 In that year he printed the Levies Poll Book, which from 1768 onwards had been printed by William Lee. 177 See Diet. Nat. Biog. 178 Cotton, Typographical Gazetteer (2nd. ser.). requirements of traffic were sufficiently well met, but in the Weald, with the exception of the Roman road of the Stane Street from Chichester to London, and possibly one or two other high- ways, communication was only possible by country lanes sheltered from the drying influence of sun and wind by great woods, difficult and unpleasant in any but the driest summer weather, and impossible in winter. ' Souseks full of dyrt and myre ' the county was called in the time of Henry VIII, and for some centuries it con- tinued to deserve the title. When Prince George of Denmark visited Petworth in the winter of 1703 one of his suite wrote to a friend describing the journey through the worst ways that I ever saw in my life. We were thrown but once indeed in going, but both our coach, which was the leading one, and his high- ness's body coach, would have suffered very often if the nimble boors of Sussex had not frequently poised it up, or supported it with their shoulders from Godal- ming almost to Petworth ; and the nearer we ap- proached the Duke's house the more unaccessible it seemed to be. The last nine miles of the way cost us six hours time to conquer them ; and indeed we had never done it, if our good master had not several times lent us a pair of horses out of his own coach, whereby we were able to trace out the way for him.1'11 Defoe in his Tour of 1724 also alludes to the execrable state of the Sussex roads, mentioning an instance of a lady of quality being drawn to church by a team of oxen as the mud was im- passable for horses. Dr. John Burton, in his account of a journey through the county in 1 75 1,180 speaks enthusiastically of the Romans' work in making the Stane Street, for from the moment I left it I fell immediately upon all that was most bad, upon a land desolate and muddy, and upon roads which were, to explain concisely what is most abominable, Sussexian. No one would imagine them to be intended for the people and the public, but rather the byways of individuals, or more truly the tracks of cattle drivers ; for everywhere the usual footmarks of oxen appeared, and we too who were on horseback going on zigzag almost like oxen at plough, advanced as if we were turning back, while we followed out all the twists of the roads. Not even now, though in summer time, is the wintry state of the roads got rid of, our horses could not keep on their legs on account of these slippery and rough parts of the roads, but sliding and tumbling on their way, and almost on their haunches, with all their haste got on but slowly. Writing some fifty years after this the Rev. Arthur Young said : — The turnpike roads in Sussex are generally well enough executed .... The cross-roads upon the coast are usually kept in good order ; . . . . but in the Weald the cross-roads are in all probability the very worst that are to be met with in any part of the island.181 179 Suss. Arch. Coll. xiv, 15. 180 Ibid, viii, 254. 151 Agiic, of Suss. 416-17. 239 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX He further mentions that a turnpike road had been made from Horsham to London in 1756. Before that time it was so execrably bad, that whoever went on wheels were forced to go round by Canter- bury, which is one of the most extraordinary circum- stances that the history of non-communication in this kingdom can furnish.188 Marshall also, writing at the same time, in 1798, bears similar witness regarding the Sussex roads : Excepting the more public ones, as between Godalmin and Petworth ; Petworth and Horsham (by Pul- borough) ; and Horsham and Dorking ; and except a less public one from the Godalmin road towards the center of the Weald ; this extensive district may be said to be at present without roads .... The lanes through the enclosed lands as well as the glades across the commons lie in their natural state ; worn into gullies and trodden into sloughs. Even in the spring and early summer months they appear intolerable to a stranger ; and in winter are barely passable to a native of the country.183 For many centuries, the upkeep of communi- cations was enforced upon the owners of the adjacent lands, and the manorial court rolls con- tain innumerable presentments for allowing por- tions of the roads to become impassable or bridges to fall into disrepair. Bequests were also fre- quently made of money to be expended on mend- ing the foul ways in the neighbourhood, from which no doubt the testators had suffered during their lives. In 1534 an Act was passed extend- ing to Sussex certain provisions already allowed in Kent, for substituting new roads for less con- venient old ones.184 More important than this was the Act of 1585, 'for the Amendment of High Waies decaied by carriage to and fro Yron Mylles,' in Sussex, Surrey, and Kent, by which any person carrying charcoal, ore or iron, between 12 October and I May, should carry for every six loads of ' coales or mine,' and for every ton of iron, 'one usuale carte loade of sinder, gravell, stone, sande or chalke, meate for the repairing and amendinge of the said Highways.' The effect of this, however, was lost, as apparently owing to an error in the drafting of the Act, it was made to apply only to Surrey and Kent.185 This Act having proved a failure, another was passed in 1597 which included Sussex, and enacted that every one so carrying charcoal, ore or iron, should pay for every three loads or for every ton of iron, 3*. to a justice of the peace as a highway rate ; while further, anyone carrying thirty loads, or ten tons of iron between i May and 12 Octo- ber, should carry and lay one load of cinder, gravel, stone or chalk.186 A notice of the methods used for improving the roads occurs in May, 1632, when the justices of the rape of Bramber reported: 151 Agric. of Suss. 418. 18S Rural Economy of the Southern Counties, 98. ' we have caused the Dikes in the Highways of the wildishe parte of the rape to be made or scowered, and have ordered the surveyors to mend the worst places with sinder (i.e. iron slag) and rubbishe stone.'187 In 1663 the legislature in- troduced the turnpike system, by which the burden on the parishes was lessened by the taking of tolls from persons using the roads. Apparently, how- ever, it was not until 1696 that Sussex availed itself of the Turnpike Acts, the roads between Crawley and Reigate being made subject to tolls in that year.188 Attempts to improve the roads were not appre- ciated by the populace, and when an Act for amending the way from London to East Grin- stead was introduced, the gentry, farmers, and other persons using the roads, petitioned against the charging of tolls, partly on the ground that the worst part of it lay in Surrey.189 Nor was it only an objection to paying tolls that animated the conservative men of Sussex, for when there was a proposal to make a road from London to Brighton, by way of Cuckfield, the inhabitants of Hurstpierpoint petitioned that it might not pass through their parish for fear of its bringing pick- pockets and other bad characters down from London, to contaminate their village, so long pre- served from evil influences by its protecting sea of mud.190 At Mayfield, also, the proposal for a turnpike road was opposed as extravagant and absurd, ' because, how can a broad-wheeled wag- gon stand upright if it has no ruts to go in ? ' 191 In spite of opposition, however, new roads were made and old ones improved, until now it is only in the country lanes that it is possible to realize what the roads were like that gained Sussex so bad a name in times past. The London and Brighton Railway was in- corporated by Act in 1837, the line to Brighton being opened 21 September, 1841, and branches east to Hailsham, Eastbourne, and Hastings, and west to Chichester, during the next five or six years. This railway amalgamated with the London and Croydon Railway in 1846, under the title of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, and has now a network of lines covering the greater part of the county, except the extreme east, where the South Eastern and Chatham Railway have a line, built under an Act of 1846, from Hastings to Tunbridge Wells, with branches from Robertsbridge down the Rother valley to Tenterden, and from Crowhurst to Bexhill. The South Western have also a short branch from Petersfield to Midhurst. One of the earliest light railways, or steam tramways, built in England was that opened between Chi- chester and Selsey in 1897, while the most recent development of communications has been the running of small motor trains between Hastings 1M Suss. Arch. Coll. xv, 139. 185 Ibid. 140-2. "Mbid. 142. 187 Ibid, xvi, 42. 189 Ibid. 147. 191 Ibid. Xxi, 21. 88 Ibid, xv, 143. 190 Ibid, xix, 1 68. 240 INDUSTRIES and Eastbourne, Lewes and Seaford, and Brigh- ton and Kemp Town. Sussex possesses several canals which, though at present comparatively neglected, may possibly in the near future recover something of their former value. The most important of these are in conjunction with the River Arun, which is connected with Chichester Harbour and Ports- mouth by the Arundel and Portsmouth Canal, with Petworth and Midhurst by the West Rother Canal, and with the Wey by the Arun and Wey Canal, now practically disused. IRON1 There can be little doubt that Caesar's state- ment that iron was produced in the maritime regions of Britain, though only in small quantities, refers to the Weald of Sussex as well as, if not exclusive of, other districts along the coast. Cir- cumstantial evidence of the early working of the mineral wealth of Sussex was produced by Pro- fessor Boyd Dawkins in 1862, when he found a rude type of pottery and some flint flakes on the top of, and therefore evidently of later date than, a slag heap in Battle parish.2 This points to the smelting of iron in the county at a period when metal had not entirely replaced the earlier instru- ments of the Stone Age. For the period of the Roman occupation we have ample evidence of the activity of the iron works ; at Maresfield large quantities of Samian ware were found in the beds of ' cinders ' (i.e. metallic slag), when they were dug for road metal.3 Roman coins were also found here and in similar cinder heaps at Sedlescombe, Westfield,'* and Beauport, near Battle.6 From the fact that the coins found at Maresfield were principally those of Vespasian (died A.D. 69), though some ranged as late as Diocletian (286), and that coins of Trajan and Hadrian (A.D. 138) were found at Reauport in fine condition, pointing to a short length of cir- culation, it is evident that the Sussex ironworks date from an early period of the Roman occupa- tion. An examination 6 of this cinder mound at Beauport, and one of similar date near Brede, suggests a very elementary knowledge of smelting and the use of primitive methods, which is further borne out by the richness of the cinders in iron. 1 The Suss. Arch. Coll. contain much matter relating to the iron industry ; vols. ii and iii having good lists of forges and their owners ; xiii a good early inventory, and later inventories in xxiv and xxxii ; xlvi, descrip- tions and illustrations of a large number of iron articles of local manufacture, for which see also ii, and Archato- hgia, Ivi, pt. i. The accounts for the works at Worth in i 548 are of much interest (Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 501, No. 3), as are those of the Waldron and Bright- ling works, extending from 1628-1730 (Add. MSS. 33I54-6)- * Suss. Arch. Coll. xlvi, 2. 3 Ibid, ii, 171-3. 4 Ibid. 174. 5 Ibid, xxix, 173. The most interesting object found in the Beauport mound is a small Roman statue- ette of good execution, particularly valuable from its being of cast iron, the use of which amongst the Romans had hitherto been unknown ; ibid, xlvi, 4-5. 6 Ibid, xxix, 169-72. Apparently a hearth of charcoal was first laid, on this a layer of the ' mine,' or ore, was placed, and a layer of clay put over the whole to retain the heat, the iron running out at the foot of the mound ; and this process was repeated, each set of layers being placed upon its predecessor, with the result of eventually forming a regularly strati- fied mound, with a maximum height of about 50 ft. in the case of the Beauport heap. It is remarkable that an industry so well esta- blished in a spot so well supplied with the raw material of ore and fuel, and one moreover so valuable for a warlike race, should have been completely overthrown by the Saxons, but such appears to have been the case, for documentary and circumstantial evidence is alike lacking for any workings of iron by the Saxons in Sussex. Moreover, the Domesday Survey makes no men- tion of such renders of iron as occur in its account of Gloucestershire or Somerset, and merely men- tions the existence of one iron-mine (ferrarla) in the hundred of East Grinstead.7 It would seem that for some two centuries after the Con- quest, the monopoly of iron production in southern England was practically in the hands of the miners of the Forest of Dean and that neigh- bourhood. The extensive demands for iron occasioned by the Crusades, and by building operations at Winchester and elsewhere,8 do not seem to have galvanized the Sussex ironworks into life, and as late as about 1225, that excellent man of business, Simon de Senliz, the bishop of Chichester's steward, advised his master about pro- curing iron from Gloucestershire, with no sugges- tion of the possibility of obtaining it locally.9 It would appear, however, that by the middle of the thirteenth century, the industry was beginning to revive, as in 1253 l'le sner'ff °^ Sussex was ordered to send 12,000 nails to Freemantle for the roofing of the hall, and next year he had to supply 30,000 horse-shoes and 60,000 nails.10 A few mines and ironworks were evidently in exis- tence, but apparently little valued or used, for in 1263, when the right to a third part of a mine of iron in East Grinstead was disputed between Agnes wife of Nicholas Malemeins, and Isabel wife of Thomas de Audeham, it was stated that during the life of Isabel's first husband, Ralf de la ' V.C.H. Sussex, i, 367. 8 See article on ' Mining,' in V.C.H. Glouc. ii. ' Roy. Let. (Rolls Ser.), i, 278. 10 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 1 1 7, from Lib. Rolls. 241 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Haye, a third part of the profits had always been sent to Agnes, but since the death of Ralf, Thomas and Isabel had had no profits from the mine.11 Much has been made of the Lewes murage grant in 1266, the inhabitants of the borough being empowered to levy a toll of one penny on every horse-load or cart-load of iron brought into the town ; one writer even says ' this obviously pre-supposes an already flourishing trade in iron'; 12 but as an identical toll was to be levied on lead and tin, neither of which was ever found in the county, the argument is clearly unsound. Iron, as a necessary of life to civilized men, would naturally be brought into a market town such as Lewes, but it was probably for the most part foreign, as large quantities of Spanish iron were being imported at Winchelsea about I27O.13 By the beginning of the thirteenth century, however, there is evidence of activity in the Sussex iron manufacture, as in 1 300 the gild of ironmongers in London made formal complaint against the ' smiths of the Wealds (de Waldis) ' — most of whom were probably Sussex men — that they brought into the city iron rims for wheels too short for use, and accordingly three iron rods were made of the standard length and breadth, and notice was issued to all smiths that they should conform to the standard.14 In 1327 the sheriff was paid £4. 3*. $d. for 1,000 horse-shoes and an extra 35. for carriage of the same from Roffey, near Horsham, where they were made, to Shoreham.15 The fact of these shoes being made at Roffey renders it probable that the 3,000 horse-shoes and 29,000 nails furnished by the sheriff in I32O16 were also of local pro- duction, while this was certainly the case as regards the 6,000 arrows, with heads well sharpened, provided in 1338, as the payment of £14. ioj. 4^. included carriage from Horsham.17 In 1347, however, when the sheriff had to provide 266 sheaves of arrows, he obtained only 1 50 sheaves at Horsham and bought the remaining 1 1 6 at London Bridge.18 For some little time evidence of iron- working in Sussex is very scanty, but to about the middle of the fourteenth century may be assigned the cast-iron monu- mental slab in Burwash church, bearing an ornamental cross and the inscription ORATE p ANNEMA JHONE COLINS.19 This probably com- memorates a member of the family of Collins who were at a later date owners of the Socknersh 11 Assize R. 912. 11 Suss. Arch. Coll. xlvi, 3. 13 Mins. Accts. bdle. 1031, Nos. 19-21. 14 Liber. Cuit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 85. 15 Saw. Arch. Coll. xvii, 1 1 7. 16 Ibid, ii, 178. 17 Ibid, xvii, 1 17. 18 Pipe R. 20 Edw. III. 19 Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 178, and plate. Iron grave- slabs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are numerous in Sussex, e.g. at Uckfield, Mayfield, Sedles- combe, and especially at Wadhurst. forges. Towards the end of this century, in 1379, the poll-tax returns show that the industry was flourishing in Crawley, as William Rokenham, ' factor ferri,' was assessed at the very high rate of 6s. Sd.t and another ' factor ferri,' William Danecombe, at 40^. ; there were also two smiths and a farrier (femur) in the same vill.20 The returns do not give such positive evidence in any other vill, but the occurrence of a charcoal burner and six smiths at Lindfield suggests that irpn was worked in the immediate neighbour- hood. For the fifteenth century we have little documentary evidence, but there are a number of firebacks and andirons, especially noteworthy being a pair of the latter terminating in human heads with the characteristic caps of the period, which were until recently at Michelham priory.21 There was also at Eridge as late as 1790 a hooped bombard or mortar of the early part of this century, traditionally held to have been the first made in England ; 22 another mortar of about the same date was found in the moat of Bodiam Castle, and is now at Woolwich ; the interior of this is of cast iron, and the outer body of wrought iron.23 Both these may have been of local manufacture, but the greater part of the iron ordnance for the French wars of Henry VI was apparently made in London.2* One of the chief works in the county at this time was at Buxted, and there is at Lambeth a note of the payment of £6y Os. 2d. to 'ye lernefounders of Buxstede ' in I492.25 To about the same period, namely, between 1493 and 1500, belongs the complaint of ' Pieter Roberd alias Graunt Pierre yernefounder dwellyng in Hertfelde.' In this he set forth that he had entered into partnership with one ' Harry Mayer otherwise Harry Fyner of Southwarke, goldsmythe,' and had sent him 52 tons 7^ cwt. of iron at £3 the ton, and had also done various repairs, but the said Harry had caused him to be arrested and ' fetyred w* grete yernes ' on an action for debt for £20, and had done him other injuries.28 With the reign of Henry VIII we enter upon what we may call the historic period of the Sussex iron industry, when it ceases to be a local and assumes the character of a national industry. It will therefore be as well at this point to consider some of the details of the process of manufacture. The deposits of iron ore lie widely diffused throughout the whole geological district of 'the Hastings sands,' stretching westwards and north from Hastings, and bounded by the 10 Lay Subs. *££-. " Figured in Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 180. 22 Ibid. 182 ; Archaeologia, x, 472. 23 Suss. Arch. Coll. xlvi, 15-16. 24 See, e.g. Foreign R. 12 Hen. VI, m. D. ; 13 Hen. VI, m. L. ** Lambeth Court R. 1352, schedule. 26 Early Chan. Proc. bdle. 222, No. 112. 242 FIRE-BACK (FIFTEENTH CENTURY) FORMERLY IN THE POSSESSION OF THE LATE DR. PRINCE, OF CROWBOROUGH FIRE-BACK WITH SALAMANDER, DATED 1550, IN THE LEWES MUSEUM FIRE-BACK AT PENSHURST, DATED 1652 FIRE-BACK, DATE 1636, SHOWING RICHARD LEONARD, FOUNDER, OF BREDE, WITH THE IMPLEMENTS OF HIS TRADE SUSSEX FIRE-BACKS INDUSTRIES chalk hills of the North and South Downs. 'The ore mostly used was clay ironstone, occurring in thin beds of nodules near the bottom of the Wadhurst clay. There is a thin bed of shelly ironstone beneath it, the lime in which was probably used as a flux. A nodule of the ore when broken is of a bluish-grey colour, but bright steely specks can be seen in the fracture. The outer side of the nodule is usually rusty with iron-oxide.' 27 A more technical account of the ore28 says : — The stone from which this iron was manufactured seems principally to have been a spathose ore, or an altered spathose ore, where the carbonate of iron has been converted into a hydrated peroxide. The percentage of this class of ore seems to be very good, some of which, on being tried, produced as much as 50 per cent. ; a fair average would seem to range from 25 per cent, to 40 per cent. Other classes of ore have also probably been used, for clay ironstone is often found, although, so far as observed, generally poor, and siliceous ores occur in other places. But the spathose ore is certainly the most valuable ; indeed, as far as one can judge, it seems the only stone existing in sufficiently compact bodies to be worked to profit. Mr. P. J. Martin,29 also, speaking of the clay country of the Weald, mentions 'a kind of " bog-iron," frequently turned up by the plough, and called iron rag. It is composed of clay, gravel, and perhaps about 25 or 30 per cent, of oxide of iron, and is a superficial and fragmentary formation, a recent " pudding-stone." ' Arthur Young, writing in 1792, gives a section of the different varieties of ironstone found at Ash- burnham : — 30 1. Small balls, provincially called the twelve foots, because so many feet distant from the first to the last bed. 2. Grey limestone ; what is used as a flux. 3. Foxes. 4. Riggit. 5. Bulls. 6. Caballa balls. 7. Whiteburn ; what Tripoli, properly calcined and treated, is made of. 8. Clouts. 9. Pity. Several of the terms here used occur, but in a different order, in a valuable, but imperfect, eighteenth-century treatise, 'Of the Iron Mines in the County of Sussex,' amongst the Sloane manuscripts.31 The interest of the details given by this treatise, and apparently by it alone, justifies its inclusion here : — The principle indication of iron ore in this county is the badness of the highways, for where they are very deep and clayey the iron is not far off. The " Suss. Arch. Coll. xlvi, 6. w Ibid, from The Pick and Gad. ™ Suss. Arch. Call, ii, 1 70. 30 Ibid. 206. 31 Sloane MS. 4020, fol. 189. mine itself lying in beds of Blew Marie, which is admirable mendment for sandy light landes, tho it does very well upon stifFer landes if it be not laid on in too large a quantity. All the names and measures of our mine are accounted and beginn from the lowest stratum of all which they call Bottom, from which they count upward to the surface, which Bottom lies from sixteen to thirty foot deep from the surface. All the veines run from East to West, tho very rarely they some- times are North and South. The miners are very often troubled with water, which they draine by making Rock Pitts. . . . The admirable and exact order the stratums are placed in and from which Nature seldom varyes (tho very few places have all the stratums entire) is very surprising. Wherever any particular stratum is want- ing, there is generally an appearance of its going of upon the stratum that lyes next to it either above or below, and whatever is wanting in one stratum is made up by the thickness of another so that there is generally the same quantity of mine in each Pitt when you are upon the middle of the vein. If the stratums of the best sort of mine are thick there is very little course mine. If the course on the contrary is thick there is very little fine. The first stratum of mine is called Bottom. This is a course indifferent sort of mine having very little iron but it is useful to work with the richer mines, because it is a sort of Limestone, which fluxes other metall and keeps it alive and quick in the Furnace, the best sign of its goodness is being of a Cherry Red Colour and that only is good, the Iron Masters seldom taking any other, it (is) sometimes two and even three foot thick. The second stratum next to the Bottom is Bull and lyes about a foot and a half above it, the Vein itself is generally a foot thick. It is a Hard Hott mine, and abounds with Iron which is hard to melt out of it, it is reckoned among the course mines. If upon break- ing it with a hammer it break blew and clear and bite sharp to the teeth it is good. If otherwise it is bad, vizt. sandy or soft it is good for nothing, and generally no stone has iron which bites soft. The Bull that is rocky on the underside the upper part of it is good. If the Vein be above six or eight inches thick it is generally nought. (io)3* Good Bull ready burned for the Furnace. The charcoal fire in which all our mine is burnt gently before it is put into the Furnace causes it to run into the striae at the bottom of this stone which the Hard mines never doe unless it be this sort of mine, and of others that run into these striae the Looking Glass Grinders make their Tripoli, they have people att our Furnaces continually picking the mine for that purpose, the Bull ought to be of a whitish blew colour before it be burnt. In the place of this Bull sometimes lyes a sort of mine called Pitty Rugg, it is but indifferent mine unless it come up in great round pieces or Balls as big as a man's head, and then is as good as any, as is generally all mine that comes up in such round pieces. In the place of this Bull sometimes lyes Colour, so like the Cherry Coloured Bottom that it is hardly dis- tinguished from it (and) of the same nature. " The number appears to refer to a specimen, possibly in the collection of Sir Hans Sloane. 243 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX The third stratum next the Bull upwards is Three foot Pitty that is three foot from the Bottom, of this there are three sorts vizt. The White Veined Pitty, Pitty half White half Gray, the Gray Pitty. The White veined Pitty is very good mine especially if it lye deep, about 1 6 foot from the surface and "Sifters from the best mine only in hard- ness, which may be perceived by the touch, and also by the coarseness of the grain which as it appears to the eye finer or harder or more gross makes iron accordingly. The half White half Grey Pitty in the same stone is good according as there is more or less White veined in it. The Gray Pitty (which I take to be Gray Measure of Mr. Plott) is the hardest and worst of all the Pittys tho it contains as much Iron as any ; but works so very hott and fiery in the Furnace that if they carry too much of it it will tear the Firestones to pieces, and will very often come through the Furnace unmelted. It is apt to be in great quantityes in most places, and as there is more or less of this quantity of mine we judge of the goodness of a vein of mine in generall for where there is much of this and the former sorts already described there is less of the other sorts which come now to be described, which are the best. However some of it must be used in all Iron It is unfortunate that the treatise is defective just at the point at which would have begun the description of the best varieties of ore, which were probably the ' mine called veines,' charges for digging which occur in the Waldron accounts of the beginning of the eighteenth century, the lower layers occurring therein as ' marie pitte mine' and ' botom mine.'33 The method of mining whenever the iron lay at any depth was by means of bell-pits, that is to say, shafts wider at the bottom than at the surface. In good mining each pit would be carried down to the lowest layer of 'mine'; but sometimes only the richer and more accessible layers were taken, and a fresh pit was then started. Thus in 1587 in a dispute between Edward Carrill and Roger Gratwick 34 it was stated that Gratwick's work- Take onlie the uppermost veynes of myne which lie fleetest and are most easie to come by and many tymes have left undigged the lower veynes so that the miners of the complainant and others have drawn out of the sd myne pytts to the number of 7 or 800 loads after the defendant's workmen had left digging in the said pittes. Moreover, they had Lost and spoiled great quantities of myne and ower by suffering the water (by their negligence in not digging the pits deeper) to drown the said myne. That is to say water accumulated in the half- worked pits and so prevented access to the lower 33 Add MS. 33154, fol. 39. 54 Exch. Dep. by Com. 30 Eliz. Easter, No. 17. layers of ore. The natural result of thus using up the more accessible ironstone was that they could not 'find the myne to be so fleete as heretofore it hath don,' and the cost of digging accordingly rose from about 2dd. to 3*. for a load.35 The general question of the respective rights of the lord of the manor and his tenants to dig iron ore appears to have been doubtful ; but in the case of the manors of Chiltington and Nutbourne we find in 1634 that Lord Abergavenny on two occasions when he had drawn mine for the use of Sir Edward Carrill's furnace at Pallingham had allowed the copyhold tenants on whose lands he had dug 2d. a load ; it is noted at the same time that if the land is dug -for ore the loss is about seven years' profits.38 The ore having been ' drawn,' or dug, was subjected to a preliminary calcination, alternate layers of charcoal and ore being laid in a small kiln and burnt sufficiently to enable the ore to be easily broken, but not sufficiently to cause the iron to ' loop,' that is to say, to melt and run into a mass. The furnace being charged with charcoal the broken mine was cast in from above and, slowly melting, fell through into the hearth, from which it was run out into rough moulds of sand, the resulting mass of iron being termed a 'sow' if over 1,000 lb., or a 'pig' if under that weight. No Sussex furnace now exists, but in the valley of Cwm Aman in South Wales are the remains of one built by certain iron-masters of the sixteenth century who came from Sussex.37 Roughly speaking the furnace was a building some 24 ft. square outside, mea- suring about 26 to 30 ft. in height, containing an egg-shaped cavity, at the bottom of which was the hearth of sandstone and the iron vent of the bellows. These latter were at first worked by foot blast, but by the middle of the sixteenth century water power was chiefly used, in all probability. When a furnace had once been lit it was kept burning, sometimes for as long as forty weeks, the period of its blowing being reckoned in ' foundays,' each ' founday ' being six days, that is to say the working week. , During each ' founday ' on an average eight tons of iron would be made at the expense of twenty- , four loads of charcoal (each load being 1 1 quar- ters), and as many loads of mine (at 18 bushels to a load).38 The great heat of the furnace, which was gradually increased, attaining its maximum about ten weeks after the start, more or less rapidly ate away the sandstone of the hearth, 'so that at first it contains so much as 36 Ibid. No. 8. 86 Exch. Dep. by Com. 9 Chas. I, Easter, No. 1 7. 37 Arch. Cambr. (Ser. 3), ix, 86, where detailed measurements are given. ss These figures are for the end of the seventeenth century, and are taken, as is most of this paragraph, from the contemporary account of Walter Burrell of Cuckfield. Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 200-2. 244 INDUSTRIES will make a sow of six or seven hundred pounds weight, at last it will contain so much as will make a sow of two thousand pound.' Conse- quently the hearth had to be renewed after every period of blowing. The iron having been cast into sows had next to be worked at the forge before becoming a marketable commodity. The forge, iron-mill, or hammer, was a building containing two open hearths, the ' finery ' and the ' chafery,' and a great hammer of some seven or eight hundred- weight worked by a waterwheel : — At the finery . . . they melt off (from the sow) a piece of about three-fourths of a hundredweight, which ... is called a loop. This loop they take out with their shingling-tongs, and beat it with iron sledges upon an iron plate near the fire, that so it may not fall in pieces, but be in a capacity to be carried under the hammer. Under which they, then removing it, and drawing a little water, beat it with the hammer very gently, which forces cinder and dross out of the matter ; afterwards by degrees draw- ing more water, they beat it thicker and stronger till they bring it to a bloom, which is a four-square mass of about 2 ft. long. This operation they call shingling the hop. This done they . . . bring it to an ancony, the figure whereof is, in the middle, a bar about 3 ft. long, of that shape they intend the whole bar to be made of it ; at both ends a square piece left rough to be wrought at the chafery. At the chafery they only draw out the two ends suitable to what was drawn out at the finery in the middle and so finish the bar.59 The greater part of the iron manufactured in Sussex, apart from ordnance, was disposed of in bars, and it would seem that these were often made of such a size that they could be easily worked into ploughshares, the term ' share- mouldes' being of frequent occurrence in accounts. Thus in 1705 there were sent to Maidstone 27 tons of iron from Waldron fur- nace,40 'it being all shearemouldes except one ton of clout iron that Mr. Ludd had ; theire was 1388 barres of ye said 27 ton of iron.' Other forms of iron bars were ' longe tire iron ' — pre- sumably iron tires for wheels, similar to those about which complaint was made in 1300 — ' short broades ' and ' meane broades.' There are also occasional payments for the making of small quantities of ' scrapp iron,' that is to say bars made out of old iron and ' scrappes ' ; this was charged at a higher rate, being counted ' dowble worke,' 41 and there was the additional expense of selecting suitable material, £11 in. being paid in 1648 at Brightling to ' Russell the scrapper for pickinge of soe much iron as made three tunne and 1 7 hundred at 3" p tunne.' 42 All 39 Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 200-2. For an interesting seventeenth-century inventory of implements used in iron-working see ibid, xxxii, 29 40 Add. MS. 33154, fol. 53. 41 Ibid. 33156, fol. 65. 43 Ibid. 33155, sub anno. this was wrought iron, but a certain amount of casting was also done at most furnaces, hammers and anvils being of common occurrence, and a certain number of firebacks being also made. One of the earliest surviving ironmasters' accounts, that of 1 548 for Worth Forest,43 enters ' the value of iiij plates for Chymnyes at ye furnes at iijj. iiij^. the peece, xiijj. i\ijd.\ while those of Waldron furnace for 1708 44 record the payment of icw. 'for 2 large plates for Halland Halle,' and of 125. 6d. 'for casting 5 small plates for farm houses.' Returning now to the general history of the Sussex iron industry, we find, in addition to such works as have already been mentioned, that there were iron mills of some standing in the forest of Ashdown early in the reign of Henry VIII, as in 1523 the steward of the Duchy of Lan- caster's lands in Sussex46 enters '^14 13*. 4^. from the farm of the iron mills in the forest of Asshedowne not received, because they are in the king's hands unoccupied, with all the imple- ments and necessaries belonging thereto, because no one will take them on farm,' and they con- tinued for some years unworked until one of them was leased to the earl of Wiltshire for a term of twenty-one years.46 Upon the death of the earl in 15393 survey 46a was made of some of his property, including ' The yron mylles called Newebridge in the nether end of the Forest of Asshedon,' in connexion with which the sur- veyors report : — One Nysell hath assignment of this mill of my Lord Wiltsh', & yeres to come vij or thereabout. The myll well repaired in all things. Md. that to melt the Sowes in ij forges or Fynories ther must be iiij persones and at the Forge to melt the Blomes ther must be ij psones. So ar ther at every forge ij psones whereof the oone holdeth the work at the hamo' and the second kepeth the work hot. Md that oone man cannot kepe the hamor bicause the work must be kept in suche hete that they may not shifte handes. They ar paid for every tonnes hameryng 6s 8d viz to the hamor man and his man for every tonnes drawing into Barres 6s 8d the said forgemen or Fynors. Md that they paie to the lord of the soill for licence to dyg or myne for core for every loode jd. xiiij lood of orre or myne will make j tonne of yron. The dygging of every tonne aft' viijd the lood dothe amount to ix! iiijd. The cariage of every lood to the furnace iiijd amount in the tonne iijs viiijd for cariage of a tonne of Soues to the forge xd. For xj lood of Cole delivered at the Furnace to mak the tonne of Iron into Sowes for every load iijs — xxxiij5, 43 Exch. K.R. Accts. 501, No. 3. "Add. MS. 33154, fol. 87. 45 Mins. Accts. bdle. 446, No. 7157. 46 Ibid. No. 7185. 46a For. Proc. (T.R.), No. 197. 245 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX For v lood delivered at the Forges to melt sovves and at the hamor to make a tonne of Iron up every lood iij' — xv* The Casting ot every tonne at the Furnace into Sowes iij" iiijd Sma iiij" xxd Yf the Stylford were up she wolde mak yerely xl or 1 tonne Sma Claro — xl" or 1" Repacons coTbus annis in Bellowes Hamors Andevilles romars lynkes sundry great Spynsars and Skepes xl* or more after as the workemen ar so are the newe instrumentes preserved. Md this myll will make yerely if she be well stored and applied every yere iiij" tonne at least. Md she is well watered and well repaired. A newe furnace pteyning therto lying in the Kynges comon called the Stomlett. Md if the yron be caried to London it cost vj5 viijd the loodes cariage. Yf the Tonne be solde at Forge it is comanly solde for v" somtyme vij". So comenly clere of the tonne oone with another at leest xxs. At clere by the yere at lest xx" or at lest xl markes. Md they say Iron is fallen in price by reason of no Utterance. Md this if it be not well folowed cannot prevaill. This myll will spende at fynories & furnaces xijc lood of cole at lest or xvc. Ther is another myll called the Stylford myll & xiiij acres of ground val' g ann' iiij5 viijd molend n' quia prostrat ' At this point the manuscript comes to an end, but whether there were any more of these interesting though disjointed notes is not certain. The accounts of 1523 mention 'a tenement called a Forge of Stele in the same forest,' then in the hands of John Glande, and in 1525 demised to John Bowley, who still held it in I548.47 This is one of the very scanty references to the manufacture of steel, which was also made at Warbleton, and at Salehurst, where in 1609 John Hawes held the site of the abbey of Robertsbridge with eight steel forges and other buildings for the steel- makers.48 At Robertsbridge the steel industry appears to have been established by the intro- duction of foreign workmen early in Elizabeth's reign, as in 1567 one John Sharpe of Roberts- bridge, ' naming himself a master of fence,' was complained of for beating certain ' Duchemen ' (i.e. Germans) employed by Sir Henry Sydney in making steel, and using opprobrious language towards them.49 Another early furnace was that of ' Pannyngrydge,' near Ashburnham, of which the accounts for 1546 are extant,60 and about the same date Denise Bowyer, widow, obtained a lease of an iron-mill and furnace in Hartfield from one Richard Warner, whose title was sub- sequently challenged by William Saunders as " Mins. Accts. bdle. 445, No. 7185. "Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 197. " Acts ofP.C. (New Ser.), vii, 333. *° Thorpe, Battle Abbey Charters, 143. lessee of John Carryll, lord of the manor of Parrock. The dispute led to a pretty quarrel, Saunders and his son-in-law, Thomas Mynn, coming with eight servants ' with swordes, buck- lers, staves, and other warrelyke weapyns, and with sculles upon theyr heddes in maner of warre arrayed,' to remove the bellows and let the water out of the ponds ; which they did after a slight affray in which the worthy widow was said to have taken some part, striking the cart oxen 'overwarte the mus- sells ' with her stick, and encouraging her men to attack one of the others by crying out, ' Downe wyth Greyberde,' and ' Shoote at grey- berde."1 The most important event of this period, how- ever, was the introduction of the improved pro- cess of gun-founding, by which cannon were cast in the entire piece and bored, instead of being wrought of separate portions banded together. It was in 1543 that Ralph Hogge, of Buxted, with the assistance of Peter Baude, a Frenchman, cast the first pieces of ordnance thus made in England, according to Holinshed, who was writing at a time when this event must have been within the memory of many persons, and may therefore be relied upon. The manufac- ture of ordnance speedily took a firm hold in the county where it had been thus introduced, and the Lord Admiral Seymour's iron-mills in Worth Forest alone turned out 56 tons I cwt. of 'ordy- naunce of dyvers sorts,' valued at ^560 15*., as well as 52 tons 5 cwt. of shot for the same, worth ^214 15;. 3^., between 1547 an(* Janu- ary I549-62 The actual cost of making the ordnance was £280, to which has to be added the value of the metal used, a sum of £4. 12s. 3^. ' for making a workhowse for ye gonne founders,' and £69 6s. id. for constructing 'a duble fur- neys ' for the work ; there were also payments of ^9 195. for carrying 16 tons n£ cwt. of ordnance to the Tower, and of i IDJ. for carriage of 13 tons of shot as far as Southwark, and 5 tons 15 cwt. thence to the Tower. Particu- lars of the cannon made are given in an inventory of I549,63 which shows ordnance to the value of j£62O, that remaining at the furnace being ' culverens, xiv. ; dim. culverens, xv ' (with 6 tons 5 cwt. of shot for the same) ; ' Itm. ordy- nance caryed from thens to Southwark, and remanyth ther as foleth, sakers, xv ; ffawkons, vj ; mynnyons, ij ; and dim. culverens, j ; Itm. in shotte for the same xiij tonne.' The industry was now growing rapidly in all branches, and for the first time we find iron figuring among the exports of Sussex in 15 SO,64 though its destination in each case was to a home 51 Star Chamber Proc. ; xxiv, 422 ; xxv, 107 ; xxvii, 30. " Exch. K.R. Accts. 501, No. 3. 63 Suss. Arch. Coll. xiii, 1 29. " Customs Accts. ST.. 246 INDUSTRIES port, foreign export being prohibited. From Chichester six casks H of ' English iron ' were sent to Jersey, from Lewes ten casks to Dartmouth and fifteen to Southampton, nine casks from Hastings to Sandwich, and twenty-eight from Rye to London ; but the largest shipments were from Pevensey, forty casks of ' rough iron ' being sent to Colchester, six of ' English iron ' to Chichester and elsewhere, while fifteen were dis- patched to London and eighteen to Southampton by Edward Woodman, a relation no doubt of Richard Woodman, the great iron-founder of Warbleton, who suffered for his faith during the Marian persecutions, his fate being commemo- rated on a fireback which shows a man and woman chained to a post in the midst of flames.66 Pevensey continued to be the port of an iron- working district, of which the centre might be taken as being at Brightling, where the Socknersh furnace was working at least as early as 1 5 5 o,67 and where the Pelhams had two forges at the end of the seventeenth century.58 Adjacent to the haven of Pevensey was ' the liberty of the sluice,' in the parish of Bexhill but part of the liberty of Hastings, where a certain amount of iron was shipped from time to time.89 The chief ports, however, while the iron industry was at its height, were Lewes or Newhaven and Rye. During the reign of Elizabeth the iron indus- try continued to expand, to the great enrichment of the county ; many families through its aid rose from the yeomanry to the ranks of the gentry, as the Fowles, the Fullers, and the Frenches, while many of the great landowners, the Carrylls, Pelhams, Nevilles, and others added to their wealth. Moreover, employment was given to large numbers of the labouring class ; in 1549 the iron mills at Sheffield in Fletching60 employed twenty-three men, ' whereof, hammer- man and servaunts ij ; fyners, ii ; servaunts, ij ; a founder, j ; and a fyller, j ; coleyars, ij ; sar- vants, vj ; myners, ij ; servaunts, iiij,' besides an overseer and two ' wyenmen ' or carters ; the works at Worth at the same time employed thirty-three men,61 including gun-founders. In 1557 Richard Woodman declared, 'I have set aworke a hundreth persons, ere this, all the yeare together,' though allowance must be made in this instance for the rhetorical attrac- tion of the round number. The names of forty-nine of Edward Carryll's miners in the forest of St. Leonard's are mentioned in 55 The iron bars appear to have been usually packed in casks. 64 Suss. Arch. Coll. xlvi, plate 8#. 57 Suss. Rec. Sue. iii, 3 1 . 68 Add. MSS. 33155, 33156. 69 Suss. Arch. Coll. xix, 34. 60 Ibid, xiii, 128. 61 Ibid. 129. *• Exch. Dep. by Com. 30 Eliz. Easter, No. 8. while in 1631 the justices of Pevensey Rape said — As for worcke for the poore, our parte of the contrey affordeth great plenty of its owne nature ... by reason of our iron workes which yeelde imployments for the stronger bodies.63 In 1664 the number of workmen employed in the county was estimated at the impossibly high figure of SO,OOO.M But while the mineral wealth of Sussex was thus coming to the fore, there was a danger that its valuable stores of timber should be lost, or at least seriously diminished. Acts were passed in 1558, 1581, and 1585 regulating the cutting of wood for use, as charcoal, in the furnaces, and pro- hibiting the use of timber trees for that purpose. Nor were these acts passed without reason, for at the beginning of the seventeenth century Norden 65 said : — I have heard there are or lately were in Sussex neere 140 hammers and furnaces for iron . . . (which) spend each of them in every twenty-four houres two, three, or foure loades of charcoale, which in a yeare amounteth to an infinit quantitie. The Worth accounts for 1547-9 show an expenditure of 5,872 cords of wood (the cord being 125 cub. ft.) to make 2,418 loads of char- coal for the furnace, and of 2,753^ cords of wood for the forge,66 and about 1640 some 1,300 cords of wood were being used yearly at the Brightling works.67 The woods at Kirdford, Petworth Park, Balcombe, Dallington, and the Dicker 68 were only a few of the greatest sufferers. Jove's oak, the warlike ash, vein'd elm, the softer beech, Short hazel, maple plain, light asp, the bending wych, Tough holly, and smooth birch, must altogether burn, What should the builder serve, supplies the forger's turn.69 While the country's loss in timber might be held to be balanced by its gain in mineral wealth, there was another danger incident to the iron trade in which the gains were those of individuals and the loss national. This was the export of ordnance to foreign nations, and especially to Spain, with whom our relations were always strained almost to breaking. The impolicy of thus supplying possible enemies with high-class weapons to be used against ourselves was clear, and the more open question of the export of the raw material appeared to Elizabethan statesmen equally impolitic. Forfeiture, fines, and patriotic sentiment, however, were alike powerless against 63 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvi, 31. u Ibid, xxxii, 25. 65 Surveyor's Dialogue (1607), Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 192. 66 Exch. K.R. Accts. 501, No. 3. 67 Add. MS. 33155,/JwJOT. 68 Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 193. 69 Drayton, Polyolbion (1612), quoted in Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 197. 247 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX the handsome profits of this contraband trade, and seizures of iron destined for foreign parts were frequent, no fewer than fourteen cases occurring in 1591 at Lewes and Newhaven alone, John Harman of Lewes in one case ex- porting twshty-six ' sacars and miniones ' worth ^312, and in another case forty-five 'sacars, minions, and falcons' worth £420 ; while Lu- dolph Ingolsted of Hamburg shipped iron gun- metal to the weight of 40,000 lb.70 Six years later eighteen cases of the unlicensed export of wrought iron were reported from Chichester, Newhaven, Shoreham, Arundel, and Rye, the largest quantity being 26 'casks,' valued at j£3i2.71 A further check was put upon such illicit export by granting monopolies. Thus in 1574 Ralph Hogge, the crown ordnance maker, complained of the infringement of his patent for the sole export of ordnance, and bonds were taken of the holders of more than a hundred ironworks72 in the county not to export. In 1626 the monopoly of export was held by Philip Burla- mack and Philip Jacobson, and that of manufac- turing ordnance and shot in Sussex and Kent by John Browne and Sackville Crowe,73 the latter of whom held the export monopoly in 1620. About this date, not only the products of the Sussex forges but also their workers were appar- ently in demand abrcad, and efforts were made in 1627 to induce workmen at Maresfield to give their services to foreign employers.74 During the Civil War a certain amount of injury was done to ironworks held by royalists, those at Ifield being apparently destroyed by Waller's troops,76 but those belonging to the crown were evidently not damaged, as is shown by the survey of the iron-mills in St. Leonard's Forest in i65O.76 The period of the Common- wealth was at first one of much activity, espe- cially during the Dutch War, but was succeeded by a period of slackness, so much so, that of twenty-seven furnaces which were working in 1653 (seventeen of which cast ordnance and shot) seven were completely ruined before 1664, and ten others had been discontinued and only repaired shortly before that date, when the war brought a revival of the iron trade ; and of forty- two forges working in 1653, nineteen were ruined, five others stood unused, and only eighteen continued ' in hope of encouragement ' in 1 664." The reason for this depression, '° Memo. K.R. Mich. 33 Eliz. m. 64-78. 71 Ibid. Mich. 39 Eliz. m. 421-31 ; as the 'cask' is uniformly valued at £12, and quantities of 500 lb. are valued at ^3, it is clear that the 'cask ' contained 2,000 lb. " The list is printed in Suss. Arch. Coll. iii, 240-5. 71 Hist. AfSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 178. 74 Cal. S.P. Dam. 1627-8, pp. 196, 254. 76 Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 211. K Ibid, xxiv, 238-41. 77 Ibid, xviii, 15-16 ; xxxii, 21-3. according to the grand jury at Lewes in i66i,78 was the Importacon of great Quantities of Swedish Iron (made after the English fashion though not soe usefull, to y" abuse and deceipt of the Buyer and workeman) and other Foraine iron at low rates. It was further alleged that the object of the foreigners was to capture the English market, when they would be able to raise their prices as they chose : — It will be proved upon oath that some Swedes who brought over iron this yeare, being demanded why they imported soe great quantities at such low rates, plainly affirmed that they hoped thereby to destroy the makeing of Englishe iron. His late Ma'ies Gunfounder formerly carryed over great quantities of guns into Holland hopeing to sell them at the Swedes price, but the Swede thereupon lowered his price from 20'' p ton to 1 2'' p ton till he had beate out the English gunfounder, and then raised it to 20" p ton againe which is his present designe. As a remedy the jury prayed for an additional impost of at least 401. per ton on the Swedish iron, adducing other arguments of which the most remarkable, in view of the havoc wrought by the furnaces in Sussex woods, was that, As woods maintaine iron workes soe doe iron workes mutually maintaine them and in them great quantities of timber soe that timber is not cheaper on any part of this Island. . . . Nor can any timber be destroyed by Iron workes, being above four times in valluc more than the price of cordwood commonly used for that purpose. ... If the English iron works cease the coppices will be grubbed up, which are the great nursuries of timber. The counter argument was advanced that English iron was of bad quality, to which the reply was made : In Sussex and other places of England where iron is made the iron made there is much more proper for or English manufactures in scythes, hoockes, sickles, white-ware, nayles and many other thinges then Swedish iron, from whence it comes that those whoe worke y* English Iron will and doe give higher prizes to the same men and at the same Markettes then for Swedish Iron. A considerable recovery took place about this time in the Sussex iron industry, partly owing to the constant demand for military supplies. A letter of April, 1695, sent apparently to one of the Fullers, owners of several works in East Sussex, mentions the sale of twenty -eight small guns to the Ordnance Office at £16 IDS. per ton, and asks for twenty minions of 5^ ft. and twenty 3-pounders of 5 ft. to be sent up, and further sends a list of guns required for the fleet.79 The Waldron furnace turned out 100 tons of shot 78 Add. MSS. 33058, fol. 81-9 ; cp. Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxii, 25. 79 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxii, 32. 248 INDUSTRIES between 25 October, 1690, and the following June, the cost being as follows : — 80 £ '• d. Pd to Joseph Mittell for making y° shott moldesfor 32 payer of 24 pounders at !'• y* pair 1120 Pa to him for making of 42 payer of 12 pounder at !'• y" payer ... 220 Pd to him for making 54 paire of 9 pound' at !*• ye paire .... 2140 Pd to him for setting y° Broad R upon ye 128 paire at 3* ye paire ... 1120 Pd for making of one hundred tunn of Shott at seaven shill' ye Tunn ..3500 Pd for carying of 90 Tunn and a halfe to Lewes of y* sd shott at 5'- 6* ye Tunn 24 17 9 67 17 9 For some years the Waldron accounts con- tinue to contain entries relative to the making of shot, and between October, 1694, and May, 1695, the furnace turned out over 150 tons of 'shelles and carracases,' and about 3 tons of shell-moulds.81 The discovery, however, of the way to use mineral coal for iron-smelting brought dangerous competitors into the field in the north and west of England, so that during the eighteenth century the number of Sussex ironworks rapidly dwindled. By 1740 there were in the county only ten furnaces, with a total annual output of only 1,400 tons. Cannon were still made in considerable quantities at Heathfield 82 and other places, especially at the Gravetye and Warren furnaces on the borders of Sussex and Surrey, from which place large numbers of guns ranging from 3-pounders to 32-pounders were carried to Woolwich about I762,83and at the Gloucester furnace in Lamberhurst, whose owner, Mr. Legas, made a large fortune before his death in 1752.** From this last-named furnace also came a series of iron castings representing scriptural subjects, apparently taken from German originals by Thomas Prickett, about I77o.86 The greatest production of the Lamberhurst ironworks in some ways was the massive iron railing cast for St. Paul's in the early part of the eighteenth century, at a cost of over £i i,ooo.86 This fur- nace, owing to mismanagement, came to an end in 1765 ;87 one in West Sussex, at Linchmere, struggled on until ijj(>,*s but by 1788 there were only two furnaces left in the county,89 and that of Farnhurst succumbed shortly after this date, so that by 1796 there was but one solitary survivor.90 The last of the Sussex ironworks was that at Ashburnham, of which the furnace appears to have blown out about 1811," though the forge was continued for some years longer, and only abandoned about i822.93 BELL-FOUNDING The earliest reference to the casting of bells in Sussex appears to be the entry, in the twelfth- century list : of householders in the vill of Battle, of the messuage of /Edric ' qui signa fundebat,' which Mr. Lower translates, probably quite cor- rectly, as ' who cast the bells.' From this time down to the late sixteenth century we have no definite proof of the existence of any bell-founder in Sussex, but from the evidence so carefully col- lected by Mr. Daniel-Tyssen,* it is clear that many of the ancient bells still hanging in the churches of Sussex were cast within the county, though under the direction of founders ' from the shires,' to use the local term for the inhabitants of other counties. That this was the case at a later date is sufficiently established by actual records. Thus the four bells of All Saints', Hastings, were cast in that town in 1614, by, or under the direction of two founders whose works were seated at Chichester and Tarring ; four at Hailsham were cast in 1663 by William Hull, foreman of John Hodson, a London founder, at 80 Add. MS. 33156, fol. 5. 81 Ibid. fol. 58. 1 CAron. of Battle Abbey, trans, by M. A. Lower, p. 17. 1 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvi, 138-232. To this admir- able article I am indebted for the materials for my own article, except where other references are given. Bell Banks in that parish, which appears to have been subsequently chosen, in 1676, as the place for re-casting one of the Ninfield bells. In 1673 the earl of Dorset contributed towards the cost of re-casting a peal of five for the church of Withyham, which had been burnt down ten years earlier, and further provided fuel for melt- ing the metal ; three of these bells were re-cast at Withyham in 1715 by John Waylett, an itinerant founder, by whom some forty Sussex bells were made, mostly in their own or adjacent parishes, as, for instance, those of Ripe in 1717, and one at St. Clement's, Hastings, in 1718. Early in 1724 Waylett erected a temporary fur- nace at Lewes, where he re-cast the bells of St. John-sub-Castro, those of Laughton, and one of the Mayfield peal, for which he further made a new bell. Another itinerant founder was John Wood of Bishopsgate, who in 1697 visited Hastings, and cast three bells for All Saints' and one for St. Clement's, the latter parish providing ' four hundred and a quarter and twenty-four 81 Suss. Arch. Coll. n, 211. * Ibid, xlvi, 64-8. "Ibid, ii, 213. 85 Ibid, xxxix, 214 ; xlvi, 40-41. 86 Ibid, ii, 203. w Ibid. 213. 88 Ibid. 214. 89 Ibid, iii, 247. *> Ibid. 91 Ibid, xxxvi, 3. » Ibid, xxxiii, 267. 249 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX pound of Brass Gunn which was had of Mr. Thomas Lovell ' ; he was next year at Alfriston, where he cast one of the bells of the parish church and one for that of Berwick, giving in the latter case a bond that the bell should be ' found tuTieable.' Arguing from the known to the unknown, we may safely assume that at an earlier period, when transport was even more difficult than in the seventeenth century, bells would be more often made in temporary furnaces erected by itinerant founders, than sent from, say, Reading or Lon- don, to their destinations in Sussex. The princi- pal foundries from which this county was supplied seem to have been at London and Reading ; to the latter may be assigned a group of nine West- Sussex bells — at Eastbourne (2), Elsted, Cocking (2), Fittleworth, Findon, Felpham, and West Itchenor. A group of twelve mid-Sussex bells — at Preston, Pyecombe, Wivelsfield, Clayton, Ed- burton, Little Horsted, Woodmancote, Litling- ton, Tarring Neville, and Iford (3) — bear a shield 3 with what is apparently the monogram of Thomas Lawrence, who succeeded to the busi- ness of William Culverden of Houndsditch about 1523, and it is most probable that all this group were cast at or near Lewes, possibly at two separate visits, as the bells at Clayton, Iford, and Litlington differ slightly from the remainder of the series. Lewes may also have been the birth- place of ten handsome bells cast in the reign of Henry VIII by John Tonne, for Lewes (the market tower), Beddingham, Keymer, Twine- ham, Sullington, Botolphs (3), Findon, and Rotherfield. Edmund Giles of Lewes appears to have been the first known bell-founder resident within the county, and he was probably also an ironfounder, as the implements of that trade are figured on two of his bells — at Portslade and South Ber- sted ; indeed, from the small number of his bells that are known, only nineteen, and those covering a period of nineteen years, from 1595 to 1614, this portion of his trade could hardly have supplied a living. He died in February, 1614-15, his Lewes foundry passing to his relative, Thomas Giles, bell-founder of Chiches- ter, of whose earlier work only three specimens remain, at Mayfield 1602, Oving 1613, and South Bersted 1614. After his settlement in Lewes Thomas Giles cast bells between 1615 and 1621 for Cliffe, Glynde, Beeding, Findon, Chiddingly, and Ashburnham. It is probable that he sold his Chichester business to Thomas Wakefield, whose foundry in that town turned out about a dozen bells of poor execution for West Sussex parishes between 1615 and 1618. * Fig. 22 in Mr. Daniel-Tyssen's account ; the reference to Thomas Lawrence is in a note facing this illustration, but the writer did not connect the two, though I think there can be little doubt about the reading of the monogram. Wakefield had previously been in partnership with Roger Tapsell of West Tarring, whose father Henry had been a bell-founder before him, Henry Tapsell's initials occurring alone on a bell at Bury in 1599, an(^ 'n conjunction with his son's on one at Felpham in 1600. Tapsell and Wakefield together cast bells at Hastings, Washington, and Stopham in 1614, after which year, as we have seen, the latter set up for himself at Chichester, but he does not seem to have long prospered there, as in 1621 he and Roger Tapsell are again found together casting a bell for Graffham. This partnership did not last apparently, as Tapsell is found working by himself down to 1633, in which year he made bells for Pcvensey and Chiddingly. Wakefield's name occurs again in 1628 at Up Marden, this time in connexion with Bryan Eldridge, the founder of the famous Chertsey foundry and previously connected with Wokingham and Horsham. As early as 1593 we find bells sent from Slinfold 4 and Lindfield ' to Horsham to be re-cast, so that there was evidently at least a temporary foundry there at this time, and Mr. Stahlschmidt6 suggests that this may have been the establishment of a founder whose initials A.W. appear on eight Sussex bells, ranging from 1594 to 1605, as well as on several in Kent and Surrey. It is, however, evident that the foundry had ceased to work before 1606, as in that year the parishioners of Slinfold, wishing to have one of their bells re-cast, had to send it to White- chapel, incurring expenses 7 naturally very much in excess of those of 1593 when they could get their work done at Horsham. From 1610 to 1622 there was a permanent foundry known as the ' Bell House ' leased by the churchwardens to Richard Eldridge, formerly of Wokingham, and the Slinfold people availed themselves of its existence to have two more bells recast in 1611 and i6i8,8 while in the parish accounts of Horsham s there are many entries of work done by Eldridge in connexion with the bells. Bryan Eldridge was tenant of the ' Bell House ' in 1618, when he cast a bell for Ifield, but he removed soon after this date to Chertsey, where he rapidly established a large connexion in Surrey and Sussex, the latter county being apparently without any local foundry after 1623, when Richard Eldridge disappears from Horsham, from which place bells were sent to Chertsey in 1633, 1645, and 1652. At this latter date there was a small foundry at Chiddingly in the hands of John Lulham, who 4 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxi, 88. 6 Ibid. 82 n. 6 The Church Bells of Surrey, 109. 7 The details of these expenses are given frc m the churchwardens' accounts by Mr. Rice ; Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxi, 89. 8 Ibid. "Ibid. 81-94. 250 INDUSTRIES cast some bells for Eastbourne in 1651, but his business must have been very small as only two specimens of his work now remain, at Cliffe, bearing the date 1649. An establishment of more importance was that of William Hull, who acted as foreman to a great London bell-founder, John Hodson, between 1654 and 1671, in which capacity he superintended the re-casting of the Hailsham peal in 1663. About 1672 he appears to have worked for Michael Darbie, his initials occurring on two of Darbie's bells at Withyham in 1674 ; finally in 1676 he set up for himself at South Mailing, where during the next eleven years he produced more than a score of bells, the largest being the tenors of Catsfield and St. Clement's, Hastings. Upon his death in 1687 he left his business to his son John Hull, who, however, seems to have only cast one bell, that at Kingston, bearing the date 1687, which was probably in the foundry at the time of his father's death. This was most likely the last bell cast in the county, and since this date Sussex has been supplied with bells almost entirely by the Whitechapel foundry, from which some four hundred bells in this county derive their origin. POTTERY1 That earthenware was made in Sussex previous to and during the Roman occupation is certain, but no particular characteristics appear by which the products of this district may be distinguished. Traces have been found of a Roman pottery and brickfield at Bignor,2 and recent excavations at Pevensey suggest that part at least of the tiles there used were manu- factured on the spot. It is not until the late twelfth century that any distinctive Sussex pottery appears, but to that date may be assigned two remarkable objects, of which one, found at Lewes in 1846, is a rude representation of a man on horseback, while the other, found at Seaford in 1858, is of somewhat similar design, being in the shape of an animal of which the flanks are ornamented with small grotesque figures in relief. Both are hollow and were apparently designed to contain liquids, and the glaze in each case is a light green.3 From com- parison with a number of fragments found with the remains of several kilns at ' Bohemia ' in Hastings,4 it seems highly probable that they were products of these Hastings potteries. To the thirteenth century may be ascribed a number of green glazed pitchers and jugs found in 1867 at Horsham, and evidently of local origin, as the iron tool with which they had been roughly ornamented was found with them.5 Some more pieces of a similar ware were found at Horsham in the summer of 1906,° and the site of the kilns was probably commemorated by the name Pottersfield, which occurs in a rental 1 I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Heneage Legge for most of the items from the Lambeth Court Rolls relating to Ringmer and Mayfield. * Suss. Arch. Coll. xi, 139. 3 Ibid, x, 193-4 ; cf. the example found in Wilts.; Arch. Ji,urn. No. 102, p. 188 ; and the miniature specimen showing a female figure mounted on a pig (?) in brown pottery, found at Hastings ; Suss. Arch. Coll. xviii, 190. 4 Suss. Arch. Coll. xi, 230 ; xii, 268. 5 Ibid. * Antiquary, Oct. 1906. of 1532.' Midhurst would seem to have been another seat of the industry at this time, as an inquisition of 1283 mentions a rent of 361. %d. called ' Potteresgavel,' 8 this being presumably a payment similar to that of the potters of Ringmer. In this latter parish a sum of f)d. was paid yearly by each potter for licence to dig clay on the Broyle Common ; this customary payment can be traced back to 1 3 1 2^ when however the number of potters paying is not given.9 In 1349 there were six potters at Ringmer paying 4*. 6J. ; 10 in 1388 the three potters then working gave in addition to their customary dues of 2*. 3^/., a further 300 eggs for licence to dig clay in the forest of the Broyle.11 There were four potters in I395,12 but next year it is noted that three had died ; I3 their numbers subsequently rose to six or seven, but again an epidemic, possibly the 'sweating sickness,' attacked them, and in 1457 no pay- ments are recorded from the potters ' because they are dead and no one has taken their place.' ]' The industry subsequently revived, and in 1485 there were seven potters working,15 and the same number as late as I53 Ct. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 126, No. 1870. 11 Ibid. bdle. 206, No. 59. " Suss. Arch. Coll. xi, 230. 13 Lambeth Ct. R. 1302. "Ibid. 1305. 84 Ibid. 1303. 26 Ibid. 1306. numbers, 16,500 of the flat tiles being used in one instance against only 50 of the concave.27 Another seat of the industry was at Battle, where the abbot in 1521 granted John Trewe a ten years' lease of a tile kiln, with licence to dig clay and gravel.28 This kiln was evidently still working in 1535, as the Valor mentions ' 265. 8d. for rent of a building in Batell called a Tyle-house.' 29 The more recent history of tile making in Sussex is so closely connected with the brick industry that the two may best be treated together. A remarkable instance of the use of terra-cotta mouldings of great artistic merit at Laughton Place in 1534'° must not be left unnoticed, though for some reason this admirable example was not followed elsewhere in the county, and terra-cotta did not become an article of industrial importance until the nineteenth century. The history of the potter's art in this county takes a fresh start in the eighteenth century with the appearance of a definite type of Sussex ware. This, which much resembles that made at Wrotham in Kent, is of two main descriptions ; a dark rich brown coloured pottery, mottled and streaked with a darker tint, called ' tortoiseshell ' ware ; and a highly glazed rich burnt- sienna coloured ware, with decorations in yellow clay artistically impressed into the body in patterns of great delicacy.31 The dark speckling of the first-mentioned kind is due to the presence of iron-oxide, and is parti- cularly characteristic of the pottery from the east of the county at Iden and Rye. The white or yellowish ornamentation was of soft pipe-clay, which was at first applied with a quill, but in the later and more finished examples the design was stamped or incised upon the body of the ware and the incisions filled with the pipe-clay. A third method, employed as being more durable and less liable to chip, was to use the pipe-clay in a more liquid form, painting it on with a brush.32 The earliest known example of this ware is said to be a small two-handled mug from Wadhurst with raised slip-decorations and the date 1721," but no other dated piece is known earlier than 1774, to which year belongs an elaborately orna- mented vase believed to have come from the Dicker potteries.84 The most important of the Sussex potteries were those at Chailey. Here was made a punch bowl by Robert Bustow in 1791, and it is probably to the same hand that we owe the similar but finer example now in 87 Ibid. 695. 88 Thorpe, Cat. Battle Abbey Chart. 136. 89 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), iii, 346. 30 Suss. Arch, vii, 69-72. 31 Reliquary, Jan. 1903. ,3J Susi. Arch. Coll. xlvi, 28-9. M Ibid. 30. 34 Ibid. 30, 59. A 'crock kiln ' and a brick kiln at the Dicker, belonging to William Cuckney, were sold in July, 1779 (Suss. Weekly Advertiser). v'-v.v.'.'.'-' \ ;-.. BRAYS HE P • TWO-HANDLED CUP, FROM WADHURST TEA-POT OF SUSSEX WARE, 1806 SPIRIT FLASK, MADE AT EASTBOURNE, 1791 BOWL MADE AT CHAiLEY, 1792. (In the possession of Sir William Granthani] EXAMPLES OF SUSSEX POTTERY INDUSTRIES Sir William Grantham's possession ; this bears the date 1792, and the name of Thomas Alcorn of Chailey, for (or possibly by) whom it was made, and well executed festoons and a rhyming inscrip- tion." From about 1827 to about 1848 a number of articles occur bearing the names of members of the family of Norman, who still hold the Chailey potteries. Of the articles turned out by the Sussex pot- teries two are peculiar and typical. The first is the famous 'Sussex pig,' known traditionally throughout the county, but now so rare as to be unobtainable except in modern copies. This was a model of a plump and well-conditioned pig, very different from the ungraceful Sussex swine against which Dr. Burton inveighed in I75I,86 standing sturdily upon its four legs, but capable of sitting up when required to serve as a vessel for liquor, its head removingand serv ing as a cup so that, as the oft-repeated joke went, the guest might drink a hogshead of liquor without harmful effects. The other article was a flatfish round flask, one side of which was ornamented with a dial-clock face, while the other side had some conventional decoration, and the edge usually bore an in- scription testifying to the merits of the flask's contents. About 1850 a new variety of Sussex pottery sprang up, Mr. W. Mitchell of the old Cadborough works and his son Mr. F. Mitchell, who built the Bellevue Potteries at Rye, introducing the so called ' rustic ware ' which has had and still has a considerable vogue. It is of a peculiar shade of brown, obtained by blending Dorset clay with the native material,37 and is remarkable for being ornamented with green sprays and clusters of hops, acorns, leaves, or flowers care- fully modelled from nature. The clay is mixed, well beaten, sifted with great care, once, twice, three times, and washed in the clay pan. This is filled every spring. When washed the clay looks like cream. It lies in the pan for months, dries, and then is stored for use — sufficient to last a year. When used it is weighed, so much to each article, and spun in the old fashioned way upon the wheel . . . The moulded pieces are left to dry until they can bear the weight of ornaments. These are then added, the ware is biscuited, glazed, kiln-dried — in seggars — and turned out for sale." Besides these ornately decorated objects, the Rye potteries now turn out large quantities of simpler fancy articles, the demand for which extends beyond the boundaries of the county. BRICKMAKING When the use and manufacture of bricks first began in Sussex, after they had fallen into disuse with the ending of the Roman period, is not known, but the county possesses probably the finest early brick edifice in England in Herstmon- ceux castle. Documentary evidence relative to bricks is scanty for the early period ; the church- wardens' accounts at Rye for 1517 record the payment of 8s. <)d. for 6,000 bricks for a chimney,1 which is rather under is. 6d. the 1,000, but other entries to compare with this are lacking, so that we cannot say whether this was a normal price. In 1584 Roger Gratwick is recorded to have burnt ' one clamp of brickes ' in St. Leo- nard's Forest for use in Gosden furnace and in his house at Cowfold.1' Brickmakers occur at Hollington in 1580 and 1590,* at Ringmer in 1588 and 1 5 94,* and again in 1640,31 Hailsham in 1603 and 1640, and at Barcombe in i6i9-4 During the eighteenth century references to bricks and their makers become more numerous, and at the end of that century there would seem to have 36 Suss. Arch. Coll. xlvi, 55. Suss. Industries, 5 . 86 Ibid, viii, 259. 59 Ibid. 4. 1 Holloway, Hist, of Rye, 480. u Exch. Dep. by Com. 27 Eliz. Hil. No. I. '' Cal. of Wills at Levies. 3 Reliquary, Jan. 1903. 4 Cal. of Wills at Lews. been a local boom in the trade, as the Lewes Journal in 1792 recorded that so great is the rage for building in this town and neighbourhood that among all the brick kilns within two miles round there cannot be got a quantity of bricks sufficient for finishing our bell tower within the limited time.4 About the same time Young recorded ' that : — Near Petworth a kiln has been lately constructed for supplying the West Indies ; an open-kiln, and a dome-kiln, each holding 28,000 ; they take thirty hours burning with 2,500 bavins, at 9*. per 100 : three men fill in three days and draw in three more. If the demand was brisk the kiln would burn all the year. In 1796 only 300,000 (bricks) and 100,000 tiles were made ; sold at 29*. per thousand on the spot, at Arundel 34;. To burn 400,000 requires nine men ; wages \i. 64. per thousand. Size 9 inches, 4, 2^. With the prices here given may be compared some of earlier date. In 1 704, T. Gibson and W. Danne supplied 4,500 bricks for rebuilding Waldron furnace at 2os. the i,ooo,7 and in 1692 the accounts for Brightling forge record the payment of 13*. bd. to T. Pankhurst for 1,000 tiles 'at his kelle,' that is to say exclusive of 6 Suss. Arch. Coll. xl, 257. 6 Agriculture of Suss. 436. 7 Add. MS. 33154, fol. 36. 253 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX carriage.8 In 1648 there were bought for the same forge of William Roberts 11,000 tiles at ijs. \d. the i,OOO, 100 gutter and 100 corner tiles at 12s. 6d. the 100, and sixty 'redging* or ridge tiles at 2d. the tile ; but these prices included carriage to the forge.9 The clay at Littlehampton 10 and Worthing11 yields a good quality of white brick, but it is especially for a warm red colour that Sussex bricks have obtained a good name, the best examples coming from the Ditchling, Keymer, and Burgess Hill district, where there are several large works turning out bricks, tiles, and pots, and a certain amount of more ornamental ware. The Hove Town Hall is a good example of brickwork from these yards, and Ditchling terra-cotta has been used not only at the Children's Hospital in Brighton, but in the Central Station at Man- chester, for the Martyrs' Memorial at Stratford, and the City Market at Dublin.12 A good quality of brick much used for paving is turned out by the Dicker potteries and brickyards, and the industry flourishes over a wide area of tne county, more especially in the east, 156 firms of brick and tile makers being recorded in the Directory for 1905, of whom most were in the neighbourhood of Hastings, Polegate, Worthing, Horsham, Ditchling, and Uckfield. The number of persons employed in brickmaking in the county rose from 633 in 1851 to 1,486 in 1901, but is possibly slightly lower at present, as the great demand for bricks which was so noticeable about 1900 has very much slackened since that time. GLASS One of the chief centres of the manufacture of glass during the mediaeval period J was at Chiddingfold in Surrey, from which place the industry spread over the border into Sussex, glass- houses existing during the fourteenth century at Kirdford,2 Wisborough Green, and Loxwood. None of these, probably, were of as great im- portance as the Chiddingfold works, and it was not until the reign of Elizabeth that Sussex became prominently associated with the industry. In 1567 Jean Carre, a glass merchant, settled in England with the encouragement of the queen. The place selected by Carr£ for his works was Farnfold Wood in Wisborough, where he erected ' two houses to make glass and one fair dwelling- house covered with shingles, and the windows thereof well glazed.' 3 For fuel he hired ' the spoil of the wood growing there ' at a rent of £35.* In August, 1567, Carr£ appears to have taken into partnership Anthony Becku alias Dolyn, but the partnership does not seem to have been a success, possibly owing to jealousy between the workers. Carr6 himself came from Antwerp, but his associates were from Lorraine, while Becku appears to have introduced workers from Normandy.5 At a later date the two 8 Add. MS. 33156, fol. 16. 9 Add. MS. 33155, fol. 43. 10 Young, op. cit. 436. 11 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxv, 97. " Suss. Indus. 82. 1 The discovery in 1848 of certain lumps of coloured glass has suggested the possibility of a Romano-British glass manufactory having existed be- tween Brighton and Rottingdean, but the evidence is incomplete. Hartshorne, Old English Glasses, 108-9. ' On 3 April, 1380, John Glasewryth, of Stafford- shire, had a grant of house and land in Shuerwode, Kirdford, and there made ' brodeglas ' and 'vessel' (i.e. window glass and drinking vessels) ; ibid. 132. 3 Add. MS. 5701, fol. 150. 4 Ibid. * Antiquary, xxx, 21 1. classes appear to have worked together, as the parish registers of Wisborough between 1581 and 1600 contain the names (in corrupted shapes) of Hennezel, Thi6try, Thisac, Bongar, and Cacqueray, all members of the 'gentils- hommes verriers,' the first three being from Lorraine and the last two from Normandy.5 At first, however, there was considerable fric- tion, Becku complaining that although Carr6 had entered into partnership with him he had subsequently made agreements with John Cheva- lier and Thomas and Belthazar de Hennezel of Lorraine to his exclusion. By this last agree- ment, made in April, 1568, Chevalier and the Hennezels were to erect two ovens in England, to bring over four ' gentlemen glasiers,' and to make every day ' in eche of the said oovens the quantitie of thirtie bundells of glas whyte or coullers good lawfull and merchaunt- able of good height and largnes well propor- cioned.' The costs were to be shared, and the Hennezels, who were to be in control of the ovens, were to receive annually 2OO crowns as their third of the glass produced, the further profits being divided, half to the Hennezels and half to the other partners.7 It is difficult to make out exactly what happened, but apparently Jean Carr£ had only entered into partnership with Becku in order to prevent his starting for him- self, and then managed, through Becku's fore- man, Pierre Briet, to prevent his workmen from carrying out their engagements, so that none of the 200 cases of Normandy glass which should have been made between 23 October and the following Easter had then been turned out. As a result Becku lost about £280, the wages paid being very high, ' for the principall workeman hathe daylie xviiij., and for that he is bounde to- ' Scottish Antiquary, vii, I 50. 1 Antiquary, xxx, 213. 254 INDUSTRIES make iii caces of glass.' Moreover, the rival parties came to blows, Becku's son-in-law, who was in charge of his glass-house, being severely mis- handled ; 8 accordingly, in August, 1569, Richard Onslow and William More were appointed to examine and inquire into the quarrel between Anthony Breku (sic), John Carr6, Peter and John Bougan (? Bongar) and others, glassmakers in Sussex.9 The end of the dispute is uncertain, but the West Sussex glass-houses continued work- ing for many years longer ; as only foreigners were employed, the workers keeping their secret jealously, they appear to have been unpopular in the neighbourhood, and in April, 1574, the bishop of Chichester recorded the arrest of certain persons near Petworth who had planned to rob the French glassmakers and burn their houses.10 Besides the works near Wisborough there were also glass-houses in the eastern portion of the county, but whereas the former were mainly for the manufacture of window glass and were controlled by Frenchmen, the latter were for drinking-glasses and ornamental glassware, and were managed by a Venetian. In March, 1579, Sebastian Orlanden, of Venice, was involved in a dispute with John Smith, citizen and glazier of London, concerning the glass-house at Beckley. Stephen Duvall, of London, a Frenchman, de- posed that the said Sebastian ought to have a third share with Godfrey Delahay for the making of ' bugles ' at Beckley, and that the said Godfrey had sold to John Smith all the wares, stuff, and instruments which were at Beckley. Two glassworkers belonging to the works also gave evidence ; John Okes, of Beck- ley, said that, being a workman in the glass-house at Beckley, he knew what was made there, and that there were two great baskets of glass, two ' paniers of canvas amell,' and ten cases of ' ameld ' canvas. Sondaye Exanta, of Loraine, glassworker, said that the above-named Godfrey on 1 8 January last past sold to John Smith all his goods in the glass-house at Beckley, with all the Stuff for making ' amells (? enamels) and glasse in collers,' and tools, &c.u Smith's right to a share in the works appears to have been proved, as in 1581 we find a dispute in progress between Jacomo Virzilini, glassmaker, and John Smith and Sebastian Orlandini concerning a certain furnace that had been pulled down.13 This was evidently the Beckley furnace, as in January, 1581, the authorities at Rye made a note that a glass-house which had been of late in Beckley had destroyed much wood, and now another had been set up in the adjoining parish of Northiam.13 Their further declaration of the harmfulness of glass-houses owing to the ease with which they could be moved as the neigh- bouring woods were exhausted seems to have borne fruit, as in December of the same year the Privy Council took action against one of the Sussex glass works. It appears that one Gerard Ansye, with certain other Frenchmen, had set up a glass-house within a mile of Hastings, to the annoyance and injury of the town ; Lord Montague was therefore requested to inquire into the matter and to forbid the felling of any wood for use in the glass-house until the Council had considered further.14 Probably these works were discontinued, but nothing more is to be found about them, and, indeed, the history of the glass industry in Sussex comes to an end at this time, though apparently glass continued to be made in the county as late at least as i6io,15 but the final prohibition of the use of wood fuel for glassmaking in 1 6 1 5 16 must have put a definite end to the industry. The only con- nexion of the county with the manufacture of glass at a later date appears to have been about the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was found that ' the white sand of Hastings is very good for glass ; a Mr. Sharpe took a contract for from three to 4,000 tons annually.' 17 TEXTILE INDUSTRIES Sussex with its turf-clad downs and well- watered levels must always have been adapted for sheep-farming, but it would seem that what- ever the quantity of wool produced in early times the quality was poor. In 1337, when the king required 30,000 sacks of wool, the price to be given for a sack of Sussex wool was fixed at 6 marks, the lowest price being 5 marks for 8 Antiquary, xxx, 212. 3 Hist. AfSS. Com. Rep. vii, 621. 10 S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 95, No. 82. 11 Hist. AfSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 6z. " Acts of P. C. (New Ser.), xiii, 4. J3 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 76. 14 Acts of P. C. (New Ser.), xiii, 281. that from the barren district of the four northern- most counties of the realm, while Herefordshire wool scaled as high as 12 marks.1 According, however, to the valuation of 1343 the best Sussex wool was worth ^6, just the average price for the whole kingdom, that from the marshes being put at j£S-2 The religious houses in the county at this time trading in wool with the Italian and Flemish merchants were the Cistercian abbey of Robertsbridge and the Pre- 15 Speed. 16 Cal. S.P. Dom. 161 1-18, p. 287. 17 Hastings Past and Present (1855), 72. 1 Close, 1 1 Edw. Ill, m. 32. 1 Cunningham, Growth of Engl. Industry and Com- merce, 628. 255 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX monstratensian abbeys of Bay ham and Dureford.3 A century later, in 1454, the price of Sussex wool was fixed at 501. the sack, while that of Kent stood at £3, and of Hampshire at 7 marks.4 Great improvements, however, were wrought during che eighteenth century, at the end of which South Down fleeces were ' second only to those of Hereford and neighbourhood." It is further remarked that : — Sussex wool is soft and fine, and will make a good cloth in light and full blues and whites, and some other very sound colours ; but in olives, snuffs, &c., will not mill to a firm substance of cloth. A York- shire woollen manufacturer writes, ' We never were in the county of Sussex, but are told the wool of that county varies very much according to the kind of soil the sheep graze on. Sussex wool being the freest from black hairs of any English wool we are ac- quainted with must, on that account, be properest for light-coloured kerseymeres ; and for dark-coloured kerseymeres the same wool is suitable for them as for other plain-wove cloths of the same dark colours." When, where, and how the Sussex woollen cloth industry originated cannot be said. Indeed, it may be doubted whether it can be said to have had an origin ; probably spinning and weaving were carried on in every village, and it was only gradually that special districts began to supply special kinds of cloth to the local and, after a time, to the foreign markets. The particular types of cloth which were manufactured in Sussex were kerseys and broadcloths. Win- chelsea appears to have done a small trade in the export of woollen cloth about 1270, and as the same place also imported a good deal of woad it is probable that dyeing was also carried on there. One of the earliest references to a dyer appears to be a mention of one of that trade at Uckfield in 1300,** and another was resident in Rye in 1313,' while in 1341 Stephen le Oghir had a dyer's establishment in Midhurst.8 Lewes, having been appointed in 1363 a port for the shipping of wool, subject to the staple estab- lished at Chichester in 1353,' was naturally a centre of the wool and cloth trades; in 1380 the poll-tax 10 shows five wool buyers and six cloth merchants in the borough, as well as a wool merchant, a wool packer, and a weaver in Southover. In the immediate neighbourhood of Lewes, at Piddinghoe, were three weavers of woollen cloth and three shearmen n ; at South- ease one cloth weaver, a woman ; at Rodmell two. Further afield we find weavers of woollen cloth at Crawley, Preston, Perching, and Hurst- pierpoint, at which place was also a clo'th 1 Cunningham, Growth of Engl. Industry and Com- merce, 628. 4 Suss. Arch. Coll. x, 77. 4 Young, Agriculture of Suss. 359. • Ibid. 6l Assize R. 934, m. 18 d. ' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 5064. ' Suss. Arch. Coll. xx, 10. ' Ibid, x, 70-1. 10 Lay Subs. *££•. " Cissores pannl lanucl. merchant. About this time Lewes was cele- brated for the manufacture of wimples,13 the wimple being the lower part of the female head-dress covering the neck and chin ; one Robert ' le Wympler ' occurs as witness to a number of Lewes deeds of about 1275," and when William Wynter was accused, in 1374, of stealing from Margery Chelsham at Ashburn- ham, a 'keuerchef Lewense' worth 4O441 16,130 Shoreham 938 496 422 823 1,580 Worthing 1,746 1,064 521 771 2,225 Bognor 60 22 123 282 1,229 Selsey . 46 23 407 570 7,712 These returns show that no inconsiderable part of the value is derived from shell-fish, especi- ally in West Sussex ; the lobsters, prawns, and cockles of Selsey have long been celebrated, and the same district has long supplied ' abundance of exceeding good oysters.'70 Early references to oysters on the Sussex coast are very few, but a case occurs in 1303 when Isabel de Stopham successfully claimed from John de Bumenore a rent of 2u. and 3,000 oysters for a tenement in North Mundham.71 The account of the duties of the water-bailiff of Arundel about 1630 mentions his right to take half a hundred of oysters from every oyster boat entering the har- bour.72 The distribution of the oyster along the Sussex coast was formerly much wider than at present; about 1870 there were beds at East- bourne.73 There were also extensive beds at Pevensey, the beach being strewn with oysters 67 Ct. R. (P.R.O.), bdle. 205, No. 46. 68 Memo. R., K.R. Mich. 5 Jas. I, m. 197—204. 69 Par/. Return, Fisheries, 1905-6. 70 The Church Guide (ed. 1794), 36. "Assize R. 1330, m. 17. 71 MS. in library of Suss. Arch. Soc. n J. C. Wright, Bygone Eastbourne, 68. 270 INDUSTRIES after every storm ; but about thirty-five years ago, as the writer was informed by an old inhabi- tant in 1906, a Brighton boat lay off Beachy Head and watched where the Pevensey men were dredging, and then the whole Brighton fleet came down and worked the beds, as many as seventy boats lying off Pevensey at a time, so that within three years the beds had been torn to pieces and destroyed. At the present time oysters are dredged off Selsey, and are cultivated at Bosham and Emsworth. During 1901 74 as many as 576,976 ' natives and sclents ' were taken from Bosham, their value being ^1,875 y. lod., and their loss was made good by laying down 500,000 brood from Burnham, and 41 5,200 oysters from the Solent. Xhe indus- try, however, suffered very severely during 1902 through the oysters becoming polluted by sew- age, so that during 1903 only 13,975 oysters, worth £39 4*. lid., were taken from Bosham, while at Emsworth, from which place the oysters had obtained an evil notoriety as the cause of several deaths, no trade at all was done.75 The causes of pollution having since been removed and public confidence restored, the oysters and the industry have alike become more healthy. A fish which must not be ignored, and which occupies a place intermediate between the sea and freshwater fishes, is the Arundel mullet of well-earned celebrity. The mullet has always been recognized as a dainty, and when King Edward I was at Chichester in 1299 we find that 301. was paid ' to one going by the sea coast to make provision of grey mullet.1'6 No doubt this mullet was obtained from the neighbour- hood of the mouth of the Arun, in which river, as high as Arundel — and no higher — the best grey mullet in the kingdom are to be caught. :< Part. Return, Fisheries, 1901-2, p. 14. " Ibid. 1903-4. " Suts. Arch. Coll. ii, 151. The Arundel Castle accounts77 for the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries contain many entries relating to these fish; in 1653 mullet were sent on several occasions to London for the countess, and to Albury for Sir Richard Onslow ; four persons were paid £5 i8s. $d. for catching mullet for the earl in 1654, while on the other hand the earl took proceedings in 1656 against certain men for poaching mullet, bream, carp, pike, dace, and eels, and in 1707 Richard Beach of Littlehampton gave a bond of j£iOO not to use any net or other engine for taking mullet between Arundel bridge and Littlehampton, and not to do anything to frighten or disturb the fish. Freshwater fish were formerly of far greater importance, both commercially and for local con- sumption, than at the present time. The Domes- day Survey mentions fisheries as appurtenant to many Sussex manors, and records large yearly renders of eels from them, and from the mill- ponds, while disputes over the right of fishing in streams and ponds were of frequent occurrence in the mediaeval period. Coming down to recent times Young, writing about 1798, says : '8 A Mr. Fenn of London has long rented and is the sole monopolizer of all the fish that are sold in Sussex. Carp is the chief stock ; but tench and perch, eels and pike are raised. . . . Mr. Milward has drawn carp from his marlpits 25 Ib. a brace and with two inches of fat on them, but these he feeds with pease. ... At 12 inches carp are worth 50;. and £3 the hundred ; at 15 inches £6, at 18 inches £8 and £9. Now, however, freshwater fish are neglected commercially, and their culture and capture have passed from the sphere of industry to that of sport. 77 MS. in library of Suss. Arch. Soc. 78 Sun. Agriculture, 393-401. 271 AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURE in Sussex has probably maae as great strides in the last century as it has done in most of the English counties, and though the bad times since 1878 have doubtless had their effect and thrown things back, yet when we come to consider her sheep, her cattle, her poultry, and fruit industries, it must be confessed that as a county Sussex holds her own with most of her neighbours. Roughly speaking the county is divided into two sections, the South Downs, forming a barrier against the sea on the south, and the Weald, lying to the north of the downs ; — the first, a range of chalk hills with only a sparse covering of soil, the second, chiefly clay or a sandstone formation. The major part of the county, the Weald, must have been formerly practically one great forest. Gervase Markham writing in 1660 does not give a very happy picture of the Weald of Sussex from a farming point of view. He writes : — The Weald was for many yeares held to be a wild desart, or most unfruitful wilder- nesse, and indeed such is the nature and disposition of the soyl thereof to this very day ; for it will grow to frith or wood if it be not continually manured and laboured with the plough and kept under tillage. It is throughout (except in very few places adjoining to brooks or rivers) of a very barren nature and unapt either for pasture or tillage, untill that it be holpen by some manner of comfort, as dung, marie, fresh earth, fodder, ashes, or such other refresh- ments ; and that seemeth to have been the cause for which in old time it was used as a wilderness, and kept for the most part with herds of deer and droves of hogs as specified in divers historical relations. He goes on to say, there be yet remaining in Sussex divers great forest and sundry commons or wastes, having five or six miles in length, which for the most part are not fit to be manured for corn, and yeeldeth but little profit in pasture. Markham seems to have been a great believer in marling land in the Weald, and gives minute directions as to the different kinds of marl to be found, the quantity to be applied, as well as the rotation of crops, quantity of seed to be sown, and cultivation for the crops. Marling, according to Markham, with a rotation of arable and pasture, seems to have been the only way in which it was possible to farm the Weald. Arthur Young, writing in the early part of the last century, says : So predominant is the timber and wood of one sort or another in the Weald, that when viewed from the Sussex Downs, or any eminence in the neighbourhood, it presents to the eye hardly any other prospect but a mass of wood. This is to be ascribed to the great extent and quantity of wood, preserved by a custom so extraordinary that it is not a little surprising no steps have been taken to put an end to it. When this country was first improved by clearing, it was a common practice to leave a show of wood several yards in width, to encompass each distinct enclosure as a nursery for the timber, &c. 2 273 35 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX And he further adds : A system, however, or greater barbarity can hardly be imagined ; the country being gener- ally so wet, the means to air and dry it here used are, to exclude the sun and wind by tall screens of underwood and forest around each field, and these being so small, a great number are so wood locked that it is a little surprising how the corn can ever be ripened. And adds : In whatever light this subject is considered, whether in respect of the landlord or his tenant, to individuals or the public, the woods are inferior to corn, and the first step to an amelioration of the Weald would be the diminution of them. By properly lessening them, the improvement of such heavy soils would already be more than half carried through, and the consequent success great, rapid, and effective. Corn and cattle, mutton and wool, would mark the progressive improvement of the county, and the Weald, in lieu of being covered with woods, would smile with plenty and prosperity. Arthur Young, writing further of the Weald, states : ' In the northern part of the Weald the soil is generally bad, a considerable part incorrigible at any expense that will repay the cultivator, and would be most profitable for the growth of birch.' But the country between the forest range and the South Downs he says ' contains much good land, rich, sandy, warm, and fertile clay, generally mixed with some sand, capable of producing every kind of crop.' The Sussex Weald in the days of Markham was evidently not a place where one would wish to settle as a farmer. And in the days of Arthur Young, although he admits it contains ' much good land,' yet from him and contemporary writers we learn that its agriculture was carried out under very great difficulties. The badness of its roads was notori- ous, the fields were generally small, undrained, and surrounded either by woods or plantations, growing underwood and oak trees, locally known as ' shaws.' Since then, however, a great change has taken place : hundreds of acres of these shaws have been grubbed, land has been drained and limed, fences planted and straightened, roads improved, and with the railways and towns springing up on the coast and their demand for produce of all kinds, agricul- ture has taken a decided turn for the better. In the twenty odd years from 1855 to 1877, probably farming in Sussex, as in other counties, had its best times. The farmer in the Weald grew wheat, oats, beans, peas, clover, roots, did some butter-making, or bred Sussex cattle, which he either fattened himself or passed on to his more fortunate neighbour with better land, or to one who held, with his farm, land in Pevensey Marsh. He kept a small flock of wether lambs, which he bought from the breeder on the South Downs, and which he sold out as tegs, again to be fattened off on the better land, or took in Southdown or Kent sheep to keep during the winter. He probably kept one or two sows of the old Sussex breed. The four-course system still obtains to a very large extent, and although the system of clear fallows, a few years back universal in the Weald, is not followed to the same extent as formerly, yet the best farmers now have clear fallows at least once in eight years, and more often if through wet seasons any portion of the farm gets very foul. One thing specially noticeable is the absence of lime as applied to the land. Twenty- five or thirty years back 274 AGRICULTURE any one driving from the Weald to the Downs would have constantly met the Sussex wagon with its four horses drawing lime from the kilns in the chalk pits, the lime being ploughed in on the fallows as a preparation for the wheat crop ; now one may go from year's end to year's end with- out seeing lime carting, except for building purposes, and the familiar sight of the heaps of lime on the land is absent. Though possibly liming was over done, yet it is certain that the abandonment of the practice has been a change for the worse and the land has suffered in consequence. The growing of hops, once a considerable industry in East Sussex, has gradually declined. Probably this is due in great measure to the fall in price, but it is also due to the fact that practically all the most suitable land has been planted, and much of the old plantation is worn out. Like other crops, hops want a change of soil. Again, few landlords encourage their cultivation, except in specially favoured places, as they think farmers are apt to neglect the rest of the farm for the sake of the hop garden. The cultivation of hops is a very expensive business, running up as high as £50 an acre. Washing is now an essential part of the cultivation, and any one who does not under- stand this should not go in for hop-farming. This process is also expensive, the cost being from 30^. up to perhaps £5 an acre, which naturally adds largely to the cost of production. Picking and drying costs 2os. to 2$s. per pocket of ij cwt., and it will therefore be seen that unless a good yield be secured hops mean a loss to the farm. The average in Sussex is said to be 10 cwt. per acre. Sussex is handicapped in hop growing by the fact that its hops fetch in the market less than Kentish hops, though probably the buyers would find it difficult to distinguish the difference if it were not for the marking of the pockets. The acreage of hops in Sussex has decreased from 9,989 acres in 1867 to 4,647 acres in 1905, and many parishes in which once practically every farm had a hop garden, have now not an acre of land planted with hops in the whole parish, although the oast houses remain to give evidence of a former industry, and give a quaint beauty and character to Sussex rural scenery. A great change, however, has come over agriculture in the Weald : bad prices for corn have led to land being laid down; low prices for store stock in many years, and the enormous increase of population in the towns, such as Brighton, Eastbourne, Hastings, with better railway facilities, have encouraged the production of milk at the expense of butter-making and the rearing of young stock, and whilst in the year 1867 the figures (for the whole of Sussex) for arable were 388,304 acres, and pasture 239,611 acres, in 1905 they were 249,944 acres arable and 416,753 acres pasture. Arthur Young foreshadowed this when he wrote : The want of a proper mode of managing pasture is the more reprehensible because it is obvious that the Weald in general, from its natural quality for grass, as well as from the uncertainty of ensuring the production of full crops of grain, is far better adapted to the raising of Cattle than Corn. This change, we fear, is not altogether for the better ; much of the so- called pasture really gives but little return, many of the fields have either been badly laid down or else allowed to ' tumble down ' owing to want of capital, nor have the live stock, as a whole, increased to the extent that they should 275 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX have done were the pastures capable of carrying the stock. This is shown by the following figures from the returns : — 1867 1905 _ Cattle - 86,705 Cattle - - 127,041 Sheep - - 557,39° SheeP - - 400,715 Pigs - 54,140 Pigs - 41,102 It is true that cattle show a very large increase, but on the other hand it must be borne in mind that, in addition to the large increase in pasture as against arable, the increase in cultivated land as shown by the returns of the two years quoted has been nearly 39,000 acres, and further that there has been a very heavy fall in the return for sheep. From the returns of 1906, just to hand, it appears that cattle have increased since last year to the extent of nearly 1,700, whilst sheep are 1,700 less. The cattle kept in the county are not confined to any particular breed. Sussex, the breed of the county, are kept in comparatively few hands. They were originally kept for the fattening qualities of the stock bred from them and for working oxen. At the time when Arthur Young writes apparently only oxen were used for farm work. A Sussex herd is kept by very few actual tenant farmers, although there is a great demand amongst farmers for Sussex bulls for use with the Shorthorn herds kept for milking purposes. It is claimed for the Sussex breed that ' they are unequalled for beef- production, hardiness, early maturity, and thriving disposition,' and that ' the improvement that has been effected in respect to symmetrical appearance, depth of flesh, and early maturity, has been obtained without any loss of these important qualities to the export buyer, i.e. soundness of constitution and hardiness.' In a pamphlet issued by the Sussex Herd Book, from which the above is quoted, it is shown that in the Smithfield Shows in the eight years 1 898 to 1 905, the average daily gain in live weight of the steers under two years was 2 Ib. 1*55 oz., and in the case of heifers of the same age i Ib. 10-72 oz. These weights are for the whole of the animals shown in these classes during the period stated ; the figures speak for themselves. Excellent herds are kept in the county by the Right Hon. the Earl of Winterton, Shillinglee Park, Petworth ; the Messrs. Ernest E. Braby and James Braby, Rudgwick ; Thomas Bannister, Haywards Heath ; J. E. A. Gwynne, Folkington Manor, Polegate ; James W. Lord, Northiam ; Charles J. Lucas, Warnham Court, Horsham. The presence of so many large towns in the county, with London within easy distance by rail, has led to a very large milk industry being carried on. The dairy cows in the herds where milk is produced are almost entirely Shorthorns purchased from Buckinghamshire and the western coun- ties. With these cows a Sussex bull is now generally used and the calves sold shortly after they are dropped ; these calves sell at good prices to farmers, who rear them for store stock. The cross with the Sussex turns out some excellent beasts, and has given an impetus also to the rearing of that breed. Where butter is produced Jersey cows are kept, and are found to answer extremely well, but are not popular with the tenant farmer, the cows and their produce being of little value to the butcher. Good herds are kept by Colonel Walter A. Hankey, Beaulieu, St. Leonards-on-Sea ; R. J. Streatfeild, 276 AGRICULTURE The Rocks, Uckfield ; David Mutton, Triangle Farm, Plumpton ; Captain A. B. S. Fraser, Withdean Farm, Brighton ; F. Freeman-Thomas, Ratton, Willingdon ; Admiral the Hon. Thomas S. Brand, Glynde Place ; Viscount Gage, Firle Place ; H. H. Pownall, Ades, Chailey ; S. Austen Leigh, Alfriston. The Duchess of Devonshire keeps a select herd of Dexter Kerrys at Compton Place, Eastbourne. For grazing Welsh Runts used to be bought in considerable quantities, both for use as working oxen and to be fattened off on the marsh or brook land. Fewer runts, however, appear every year at the fairs, and those sent do not seem to be so well bred as formerly, many being manifestly crossbred and now having a second or third cross. Irish cattle are forwarded from Bristol, and find a sale since the stock rearing has been so largely dropped, but grazing has largely given way to the dairy, and now even on much of the brook land one sees nothing but cows, where a few years back the land was all farmed for grazing and fattening. A few polled Angus herds are kept, notably by his Grace the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, Goodwood; and by Sir James Duke, bart., Laughton. The milk industry, which is, as we have said, a very large one, is now carried on all over the county, particularly on farms near a town, a railway station, or a dairy factory, but in some cases even at a considerable distance — we know of cases as far as seven miles — from a town or railway station. The milk after being cooled over a separator is sent by road to the station or factory ; some of the smaller farmers combine for this purpose, one of their number carrying his neighbours' milk with his own, and making a charge per gallon for the accommodation. There are several dairy factories in the county, two of the largest being at Glynde and Sheffield Park. The first of these was started by the late Lord Hampden as a private venture in 1887, and has, since his death, been turned into a limited liability company, and does a large business. Milk is received from the neighbouring farmers, and also by rail from producers at a distance ; it is separated by machinery, and the cream is either sold or made into butter. The cream and butter are sold wholesale with other dairy produce at the shops held by the company in London and elsewhere. The whole of the work is carried out under the best system, every operation is done by machinery worked by steam. Payment to the farmers is made monthly, and contracts are entered into half-yearly. When butter is made the cream separator is largely in use, hand separa- tors being used on many of the smaller farms, although a good deal of butter is made from skimming ofF the cream in the old-fashioned way. Butter- making, throughout East Sussex particularly, has been greatly improved during the last few years by the action of the County Council, who sent round to the country districts an instructress with a van, fully equipped with dairy utensils, to give practical lectures. These lectures were largely attended by farmers' wives and daughters, and were of great benefit ; practically the whole of the Weald of East Sussex was visited, but the lectures have now been dropped. The lectures and teaching were of undoubted benefit, butter- making in East Sussex, at all events, is better understood, and the butter a more saleable article in consequence. The Sussex pig is now nearly extinct as a breed ; formerly it existed as a large black pig with very little hair and very large ears hanging down over 277 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX its eyes, and it was of great length. The sows were good mothers, and had good litters, possibly some twelve or thirteen pigs. The pigs, however, were slow in coming to maturity, and Berkshires have largely been introduced. The pigs from a Sussex sow, mated with a Berkshire, were most profitable, but now, owing to crossing, a pure Sussex is practically a thing of the past. Berkshire pigs are largely kept, some so-called Sussex, and the large black breed. Black seems to be the prevailing colour ; white and Tamworth are but seldom met with. Sussex as a county cannot pride herself on the excellence of her horses, though a very marked improvement has taken place in the last thirty years. During this time several excellent Shire stallions have been brought into the county, and have been allowed to serve at comparatively low fees, with the result that a better-class horse is to be found on most of the farms than formerly. Clydesdales and Suffblks have been used but very little, and the best of the cart horses generally are of the Shire type. The breeding of light horses is not often done on the farm. There are, however, a certain number of hunters bred, notably by Sir Merrik R. Burrell, bart., who has established a very fine stud at Knepp Castle. The hackney has not found any favour with the farmer. Underwood used formerly to form a considerable item on the Weald farm. In addition to the shaws before referred to, many of the farmers had a certain amount of woodland attached to their farms, and the cutting of wood not only provided work for the labourers in winter but also the material was used on the farm in many ways. The grubbing of a very large acreage of hops, and the use of creosote for preserving poles, together with the use of wire, has led to hop-poles being now a drug in the market. Cooper's work has declined, as has also the sale of toy wood, i.e. backs of brushes, &c., as these are now largely imported from Germany. The disuse of the farmhouse and cottage ovens, the use of coal in the cottages, the use of foreign firewood for fire lighting, has made the faggots almost unsaleable, with the result that underwood and its products have fallen in price ; this has made what was once a source of profit to be almost a source of annoyance on the farm. The result has further been that labourers of the present day have largely lost the art of wood-cutting, and on large woodland estates it is difficult not only to sell the underwood but even to get the wood cut at all. Formerly cut at from ten to fifteen years, one may see in the woods underwood of twenty or more years' growth running to waste. Coming from the Weald to the sea, we find large tracts of very fertile pasture land, notably the well-known Pevensey Marsh, lying between East- bourne and Bexhill. This is almost entirely grazed by cattle or sheep, many of the agreements having restrictive covenants as to mowing. Land in the marsh is held, as a rule, together with farms on the Downs or in the Weald. Cattle are sent down from these farms as soon as the season will permit, in April or May, fattened off, and sold in Pevensey or Hailsham markets. The better farmers generally send down bullocks forward in flesh, which are sold off when fat, and are followed by a second lot, the best of which go off before the bad weather sets in at the end of October ; those that are not 278 AGRICULTURE sufficiently forward are taken back to be finished on the farm. The cattle in the marsh are placed under the care of * lookers,' who take charge of them and the land at so much per acre. The ' lookers ' and the men under them live on the spot, look after the cattle, cut thistles, see to small repairs, bring the cattle to market, &c.; and, in fact, in many cases the farmer leaves his cattle to the looker and hardly sees them from the time they leave the farm until they are for sale in the market. Similar land is to be found near Lewes and between this and Newhaven, known as the Lewes and Laughton Levels, and again near the other Sussex rivers, such as the Arun and Adur. Such marshes and levels are under the management of Commissioners of the Levels, owners of land in the level and their agents, who carry out all the work necessary to maintain the main watercourses, generally known as main sewers, the expenditure being charged to owners and occupiers in proportion, the charge being known as ' water scot.' In the extreme east of the county, near Rye and Winchelsea, are again marsh lands. On these marsh lands, and, in fact, generally on the farms east of Battle, large numbers of Romney Marsh or Kent sheep are reared. The lambs of this breed are, as a rule, sent up into the Weald, and are kept during the winter by the small farmers in the Weald ; these lambs, known as ' keepers,' are driven up through the country at Michaelmas and remain in the Weald till the following Lady Day, the Weald farmers receiving about 8j. per head for the keep. Another change in the Weald of Sussex may be noted in recent years in the increase of small holdings. Large farms are split up into smaller holdings, and probably revert to what they were some hundred years ago. This division is on the increase, though it must be a matter of time, as few landlords can afford, in these bad times, the outlay of providing additional houses and buildings. The number of farmers in East Sussex by the returns was: In 1867 — 7,903 ; and in 1905 — 8,951. On these smaller holdings are now reared a large number of chickens, an industry which is spreading every year all over the county, particularly in East Sussex. Heathfield is in the centre of the district, which has long been famous for its poultry fattening. In the Heathfield district a very large number of birds are reared, whilst many are purchased from Ireland, Wales, and many English counties. The businesses of breeding and fattening are, as a rule, kept distinct, although combined on some farms, generally on the larger ones. The fattener buys from the breeder, or from a local collector known as a ' higgler,' and keeping the birds shut up in a barn or outhouse, feeds them by machinery, a man and a boy working the ' crammer.' The food, grit, &c., is taken round by a merchant in a traction engine. The birds when ready for the market are dispatched by train to London to a salesman, or in some cases direct to a shop. At Heathfield station a special truck is provided for the purpose, and in a busy week no less than 80 tons are sent off from this station alone. From Uckfield and other stations heavy consignments are sent, and it may be easily understood that this industry is a valuable one from the following figures : — In Mr. Rew's report to the Royal Commission on Agriculture in 1894, the annual output of fattened fowls from Heathfield and Uckfield stations was stated to be 840 tons (estimated to represent 1,030,400 chickens) ; 279 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX according to information supplied to Mr. J. W. Hurst of Uckfield, and issued by the Board of Agriculture in the present year (1906), 'the output has now increased by some 360 tons per annum, and the fatteners of East Sussex are fattening over 200,000 chickens more per annum than twelve years ago.' The same writer mentions that ' as an indication of the increased imports from Ireland of lean chickens, it may be mentioned that during 1893 {here arrived at Heathfield station 1,014 'tops' or crates full; but that in the one month of March, 1904, no less than 863 'tops' were received. The Heathfield chicken trade has been in existence many years. Before the days of railways the Messrs. Bean, whose family still carry on the business of higglers, made the journey to London of some fifty miles by wagon. These fowls have been known in London for many years as Surrey fowls, and as such have made good prices. In the last few years, however, the Sussex poultry breeders have brought them out as a breed of their own, ' the Sussex Fowl,' and these can be seen at the Royal and other shows, divided into three classes — red, white, and speckled. Mr. E. J. Wadman, now of Upper Deeding, has kept the red variety for many years, Mr. G. J. Lenny, of Buxted, the speckled, and the Messrs. E. and H. Russell, of Chiddingly, the white, and these have been amongst the successful breeders. Leaving the Weald and its marshes and coming to the South Downs, known locally as ' the Hill,' a range of hills running from the borders of Hampshire to Beachy Head, we find probably some of the best farming in the county. The farms run generally to a considerable area, from perhaps 300 to 1,200 acres in extent, with good farmhouses, substantial buildings, and good cottages, built in the main of flint picked or dug from the adjoining land. The houses are occupied by some of the most able practical farmers of the county. Sheep-farming is, as a rule, carried on on these holdings, although near the large towns dairying has here, as elsewhere, made itself felt, to the exclusion to a certain extent of sheep ; still, in the main, farming for sheep is the principal industry. These farms have a proportion of down land, the short turf of which with its fine grass and herbs gives to Southdown mutton its excellent flavour. The proportion of down land varies in the case of different farms, probably from the fact that in the days of high prices for corn, any land that was at all worth the cultivating was broken up ; still, every hill farm has a sheep run of this kind. The remainder is under the plough, with the exception of a few fields near the homestead inclosed with flint walls ; in the case of West Sussex probably some brook land is attached to the holding, and in the case of East Sussex a certain acreage in Pevensey Marsh, or brook land where the farm runs off the hill on to the adjacent lowlands. The arable land is farmed for wheat and oats, and of the latter heavy crops are grown, but very little barley is sown ; apart from these cereals a large provision is made for the mainstay of the farm, the Southdown sheep ; crops for these important animals follow one another in succession, the aim being to ensure a plentiful supply of food in addition to that which the sheep pick up on the down. Thus, as soon as the harvest is carried trifolium is sown, rye, winter barley, and tares are put in for feed for the ewes and their lambs. During the year a large acreage is sown with rape or cole-seed (and 280 AGRICULTURE perhaps mustard), for feed in the later summer and through the winter. Every farm has its acreage of mangolds and swedes, and a large number of cabbages are grown of the round and thousand head varieties. The extent of meadow-land on the hill farm being as a rule very small, a considerable acreage of broad clover is sown for hay, both for feeding the ewes during lambing and also for horses, whilst a good portion of the ploughed land is given up to what is locally known as gratton, i.e. rye-grass and trefoil, with perhaps some white clover and alsike. 'On these grattons the ewes and lambs are run when brought forward from the meadows, and in a favourable year for growth, any part of the gratton which cannot be fed is mown for hay. The pasture-fields being of small extent, and being generally used for the ewes and lambs when first drawn from the lambing yard, it will be seen that there is but little chance for the horses on the farm to have a grass run in the summer. The horses, therefore, are mainly dependent on the arable land, and are fed on clover, hay, and oats, and in the early summer on trifolium and tares. Formerly oxen were used for working purposes and were kept in large open yards, and fed on oat-straw and hay, with the addition in winter of oats or cake ; but now working oxen are practically things of the past and the farms using them are very few, probably not more than half-a-dozen in the whole range of the South Downs, if so many. The yards now, where dairy cows are not kept, are filled with store stock, fed with oat-straw, hay, and mangold, and are brought into better condition with oil-cake in the last few weeks, so as to go down to the marsh or brook land at the end of April or the beginning of May. The once familiar sight of a team of six bullocks drawing the old wheel plough on the Downs, the subject of many an artist's sketch, has gone, and no longer is there to be seen the eight oxen yoked together in pairs slowly drawing the Sussex wagon into the market town laden with wheat or other farm produce. On the purely flock farms a flock of from 300 to 1,000 ewes will be kept. The ewes lamb down in February or March, in East Sussex generally not until the middle of March, yards being formed for them with gorse cut from the Downs, of which there is a plentiful supply, or in the open yards attached to the buildings on the farm ; where these are available, barns and sheds are brought into use, and where these are not sufficient thatched shelters are made. The lambs are tailed, &c., in about three weeks, and a few days later the ewes and lambs are drawn into a meadow to ensure, if possible, a plentiful supply of milk for the lambs. From here they are drawn on the grattons, and then ewes and lambs go into a fold, and begin also to feed off the first of the spring crops provided for them. From this time on till near lambing again, the ewes ' go to fold.' In June the lambs are taken away from the ewes and go to fold on their own account. In June also comes the washing of the ewes and ewe tegs, followed by shearing. The first fairs, St. John's in the east and Findon in West Sussex, take place early in July, and here are sent chiefly the cull lambs of both sexes ; these fairs are followed by Bat and Ball Fair at Chiddingly at the end of July, chiefly a lamb fair, but now, owing to its position some four miles from a station, presenting very modest propor- tions. Lindfield Fair early in August, near Hayward's Heath, takes many of 2 281 36 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX the better lambs, and here a good many draught ewes as well as wether tegs make their appearance. Findon second fair, early in September, has a good show of lambs and draft ewes, sent almost entirely from West Sussex, followed by Lewes on 21 September, the great fair of the year, where the best lambs and draft ewes from nearly all the East Sussex flocks are sold, together with a number of rams from both East and West Sussex breeders. A week later is another fair at Lewes, at which are penned small lambs, over- year ewes, &c. These fairs were formerly the only means, excepting private sales, by which the breeder sold his produce. At all of them except Findon the fair is an open one, and the buyer treats with the seller. Of late, however, a large number of sheep have been disposed of by auction, and large sales are held, notably at Chichester in the month of August, where Messrs. Stride and Messrs. Hobgen hold large sales of Southdown sheep, patronized chiefly by West Sussex, the East Sussex breeders preferring to deal with their customers direct. In August or September the flock is made up of three ages, 2-tooth, 4-tooth, and 6-tooth, in equal numbers, the 2-tooth being the lambs of the previous year ; and in addition to the ewe flock the best of the ewe lambs are kept, and some ten or twenty more than the probable number required for flock purposes, to allow for contingencies. These lambs are the future mothers, and are then dignified by the title of ' stock ewe lambs.' Possibly also some ram lambs are saved for sale, or for use in that part of the flock where they are not related. The ewes, as has been before stated, are folded either on a piece of tares, rape, or cabbage, and in wet weather are folded in what is termed a dry fold, on the gratton, stubble, or possibly fallow ground, it being realized that it is the best and easiest way of manuring the land. The stock lambs are similarly folded, but have in winter a specially made fold, probably against a straw stack, with wattles bound with straw ; this yard is littered down with straw, and the sheep are thus protected against the bitter winds sweeping across the Downs. Both ewes and lambs receive hay during the winter, and also cake or oats, the latter feed depending on how they hold their own, and on the par- ticular management carried out on the particular farm. In writing of the agriculture of Sussex, however, one cannot pass by Southdown sheep with merely a brief account such as has been given in our notes of their life history on the farm. The best breed of sheep in the world, as Sussex men believe, and, at all events, well known for the excellence of their mutton, their hardiness, good wool, and disposition to fatten, the South- down is worthy of at all events a short description. When one talks of Southdowns, one naturally goes back to John Ellman of Glynde, who did so much for the breed, and whose name is a household word to anyone interested in Southdown sheep. If one turns to Arthur Young's History of Sussex Agriculture, before referred to, one finds that most of his notes on the breed were received, and his conclusions drawn, from information given him by John Ellman. Arthur Young, writing about 1800, tells us that up to 1773 no polled breed existed west of the Shoreham River (West Sussex), but that the flocks were Dorsetshire or Hampshire ; that about 1779 Southdown rams were used, 282 AGRICULTURE and that in 1791 some horned flocks were left in West Sussex ; but he leads us to believe that in about twenty years the Southdown sheep had spread generally over West Sussex, whilst in East Sussex Southdown sheep were the breed par excellence of the country. He specially mentions Mr. Pinnix's flock at Up Marden in West Sussex as being a good one, and as having been started in 1788, and notes that it was reared in the centre of the Dorsetshire breed. Reading the account of John Ellman's flock, and the way he farmed it, one will see but very little difference in the custom followed at the present time. He had the same flock, of the same ages, and the same relative number of stock ewe lambs ; the cultivation pursued was very much the same, although perhaps more wheat was grown then than now, prices being better. There were, however, some important differences. A certain number of wether lambs were kept, and these and the ewe lambs were put out to keep in the winter, two or three shillings a head being paid for their keep. These wether lambs became in turn ' stock wethers,' and were kept on the farm until two years old, and then fattened ; indeed some seem to have been kept till three years old. The general rule on the hill farm now is to keep the stock ewe lambs on the farm all the year round, and to sell all the wether lambs ; thus two- or three- year-old mutton is a thing of the past, unless under exceptional circumstances. Another practice of John Ellman's, now very rarely followed, was the shearing of the lambs. As the wool shorn was only \ Ib. or under per lamb, and only realized about 6d. per lb., one cannot think the game was worth the candle. Ellman's idea, however, was that it improved the clip of wool in succeeding years. Ellman, whose name was, of course, well known, had a ready sale for his draft ewes to other breeders, and also bred a considerable number of rams. It may be noted that he did not believe in using ram lambs with the flocks, and would not do so with his own flock. The engravings of Ellman's ewe and ram in Arthur Young's book show rather a different character from those of the present day. The ewe has a very small and short head, the body short in front as compared with the hind quarters ; and the ram particularly has, as we should say now, not masculine enough head, with too much daylight under the body, whilst both have very small ears, and an absence of wool on the poll cheeks and lower part of the legs. The fleeces from Ellman's flock averaged about 2j lb., whilst Pinnix's flock averaged 3 Jib. : this is considerably less than the weight of the present day, although something like the relative proportions of East and West Sussex, the weight for ewe and ewe teg fleeces being now, perhaps, 4lb. in East Sussex and 4! lb. or 5 lb. in West Sussex. The writer of this article has in his possession the flock-book kept by his great-grandfather, who farmed a very large acreage between Brighton and Lewes at the same time that John Ellman held the Glynde Farm. The flock-book runs from 1772 to 1805. This flock would probably be typical of the general Down flock. This breeder kept a large flock, the management of which was practically identical with Ellman's as regards the keeping of a flock of ewes, ewe and wether lambs, and stock wethers. From this book one finds that the clip of wool was about the same, running from an average of 283 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 2j lb. up as high as 2 Ib. 7^ oz., which must have been thought extraordinary in those days for an ordinary flock, as in 1793, when there was an average clip per sheep of 2 lb. 5 oz., there is a remark, ' a wonderful average.' This flock-book gives details of the sheep kept, of the ewe flock, of the dry flock (wethers and wether lambs), prices for shearing, added to which was always a bottle of Geneva, lambs sent out to keep, &c., clip of wool, average, and prices. The flock at shearing time often ran up to over 2,500, including the lambs which were shorn, as in Ellman's case. The wool fetched from \od. per lb. in 1774, the lowest price, to 2J. per lb. in 1792, noted as a wonderful rise, and in 1796 to 2s. zd. The lambs clipped about J lb. of wool, which was sold at 6d. The lambs put out to keep in this case cost 2s. yd. to 5-r. per head. It is interesting to note that John Dudeney, known as ' the Sussex poet,' was shepherd to the owner of this flock. In the case of this farm, part of the land farmed was Tenantry Down. Apparently several other owners with rights over the Down had small lots of ewes in the flock, the flock, however, being managed by the largest owner. During the last hundred years a great improvement has taken place in the Southdown sheep ; better farming has increased the size of the sheep with- out affecting the quality of the wool, an increased demand for Southdown sheep all over England, and also for export, has put the breeders on their mettle, and much greater care is taken not only to produce lambs that will meet the views of buyers to turn into mutton, but to supply with the raw material, in the shape of ewes and rams, the large numbers of flockmasters, at the head of which is His Majesty the King, with his well-known flock at Sandringham. There is, we think, no doubt that when the breed is taken off their native hills they do to a certain extent lose some of their character, and it is to Sussex that the breeder must return for purity of type. It is from the South Downs that the best specimens are to be obtained. To give the names of the Southdown breeders in Sussex would require more space than we have at our command. They are to be found in the Southdown Flock Book, which has been established some years. Amongst the oldest flocks in the county we may mention that of Admiral the Hon. T. S. Brand, whose flock at Glynde goes back to John Ellman's blood. A flock has been kept at Stanmer on the Earl of Chichester's home farm for many years, and we may mention the old flocks of Mr. R. R. Verrall at Palmer, and Mr. Allan Cooper at Norton. In West Sussex, the Duke of Richmond and Gordon has at Goodwood a very old flock, known wherever Southdowns are known. This flock, we believe, goes back to the end of the eighteenth century. Mr. E. Hobgen of Shripney, Bognor, with Mr. F. N. Hobgen of Appledram, and many other names both in East and West Sussex, will occur to those who know the county, and amongst those breeding rams should not be forgotten the name of the Pagham Harbour Company. We may add that wool, like many other farm products, has found its way to the auction sale room, and is now sold by auction at Chichester and Lewes, the former open wool fairs at these towns having fallen through. The number of sheep kept on the Downs has of late years largely diminished, as previously mentioned ; there has been a falling-off in Sussex from forty years back of some 150,000 sheep, and this has largely taken place on the Hill. The large towns on the sea-coast have extended, whilst 284 AGRICULTURE before them are driven the allotment holders, building and allotments in certain cases taking what were formerly flock farms ; then the dairy industry again comes in, and where there are many cows sheep are either kept in very small numbers or disappear entirely. Yet prices for Southdowns have risen considerably. In Ellman's day lambs sold at (an average for seven years) about 15-r. each, now they would probably fetch 28*.; draft ewes, i8j. 62° Another park belonging to the same lord is mentioned under Waltham, where two hides of land had been included in the earl's park. Waltham, now Up Waltham, was on the borders of Arundel Forest. At Tortington is record of ' a hide of land which the earl has in his park ' ; an ^ inclosure probably within the bounds of Arundel Forest. At the other end of the county Domesday mentions, under ' Wiltingham,' one rod of land as being in the park of the earl of Eu, the lord of the rape of Hastings. This is all we learn from Domesday of the parks of Sussex. What it tells us of its forests is practically nothing, amounting to a mere mention, under Dallington, that the earl of Eu had half a hide of land there within his forest, doubtless that which was variously called Brightling, Burwash, and properly Dallington. Every park, at least in the vicinity of a forest, before inclosure and recognition as such had to be licensed by royal grant ; while before a man could chase the deer over his own demesne a grant of ' free warren ' or right of free chase must be obtained — at a price — from the same source, and if the kings were ready enough to grant rights of free warren they were not the less severe to those who, without licence, presumed to enter the royal woods or forests in pursuit of game. Such were made to suffer severely by imprisonment or fine. Thus in 1186 Seffrid II, bishop of Chichester, was fined 10 marks for hunting in Sussex woodlands which were at that time in King Henry's hands as escheats.21 But in spite of fines and imprisonments illegal hunting was extensively indulged in during the Middle Ages, and innumerable instances occur of 'malefactors in parks, warrens, and chaces ' who ' arrayed in manner of war killed and took away deer, beat and assaulted the keepers.' The disaffbrestation by Henry III and John of great tracts of land hitherto under the forest laws would not, of course, affect the natural features of the land, and a large part of Sussex still retained its wild and forest character, so that fifteen guides through Sussex were employed when Edward I journeyed to Chichester in I2y6.22 To the same conclusion points the universality of the grants of privileges in the woodlands, as well as of actual transfer of extensive tracts of wood, to the numerous houses of religion which were established all over the county. Space will only allow reference to a few instances, one of the earliest of which was the endowment of Battle Abbey, which included all the woodland of its well-timbered ' leuga,' extensive enough to allow of the formation of three parks — one of which was called ' the Plesset ' — and in addition the woods of all its numerous manors throughout Sussex. Further west at Lewes was the great priory of St. Pancras, founded by William de Warenne and Gundrada his wife, whose endowments included the privilege of taking deer in any of the founder's parks and forests, for the use of sick or infirm monks of the house. Still further west the religious houses of Sele, Tortington, Dureford, and others were all endowed with grants of woodland or privileges therein, while all had the usual rights of house-bote, hey-bote, hedge-bote, plow-bote, and wain-bote, by which they obtained free timber for repairing their houses and warming them, for making or mending their hedges, fences, ploughs, and wagons. In addition to serving the purposes aforesaid, the timber of Sussex was constantly in demand for the construction and repair of castles and bridges, and the building of ships. Thus in 1206 King John addressed a writ, 'To all Earls, Barons, etc. of the county of Sussex Greeting We pray you for the love of us to assist us now in carrying our timber to Lewes . . . not as a right but as a favour . . . and so act in this matter that we may have cause to thank you.' 23 A more particular instance is afforded by a chamberlain's account of the Domus Dei at Southampton in 1306, which relates to a Sussex park, that of Bosham, to wit — Expenses of the men cutting down six logs of timber the gift of the Earl Marshal and shipping them for splitting, three weeks, with their expenses going and returning 15*. 6 Pat. 28 Edw. Ill, m. 10. 295 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX imparked a plough-land in his park of Shelley, which with the contiguous park of Beaubush con- tained more than 400 acres of land ; the earl of Warenne had taken three holdings into a park, the name of which is not given, while at Ovingdean his rabbits abounded to such an extent that they had ' devastated ' no less than 100 acres of crops. King John was frequently in Sussex, and doubtless, upon occasion, he hunted therein. He was particularly brought into relation with Knap (or Knepp) in the rape of Bramber, of which he had dispossessed its owner William de Braose. Frequent were the demands he made upon the contents of its well-stocked park, which was clearly of exceptional extent, since it was often denominated a forest or chase. It must have contained, not only deer, but wild boars, for in 1215 Roland Blouet, the king's custos of Knepp, was ordered 'to suffer Wyot our huntsman to hunt with our boarhounds in the park of Cnap, and to take two or three boars daily ' ; 81 on another occasion several huntsmen were sent with no less than 200 hounds to hunt in ' the forest of Cnepp.' ™ It is clear that there was a certain amount of genuine forest, subject to the full forest law, in the county at the beginning of the reign of Henry III, as in 1223 the sheriff was ordered to summon the foresters and regarders to make a ' regard ' or report in preparation for the coming of the justices.323 Again, in 1225 justices were appointed to hold an assize and perambulation between the parts which were to be disafforested and those which were to remain forest.33 Indeed at thie- very gates of Chichester lay the Broyle, a woodland tract which was disafforested and granted to William St. John and by him given in 1227 'to God and the Church of Chichester.' 33a There is also record of an enlargement of this forest by Henry II, who afforested four crofts which formerly rendered 4*. 105^. in the farm of the city.34 There is evidence that Edward I hunted when sojourning at Bramber, for in the summer of 1299 there was paid ' to Walter Balle coming to the King with thirteen staghounds by gift of the King 411.' But of all our mediaeval kings Edward II probably had the greatest experience of Sussex woods and forests as hunting grounds. For prior to his accession he had been banished from court for a hunting offence in the woods of a northern prelate. Betaking himself into Sussex he sojourned at Ditchling, in a neighbourhood the great part of which was still forest land, with parks, warrens, and chases abounding around him. Nor was his father forgetful of or indifferent to his pursuits, for a Wardrobe account contains record of the payment of 'Thomas de Erlham going as far as Lewes by command of the King with hounds for the King's son.' During the succeeding period of the Middle Ages the history of Sussex woodlands is little more than a catalogue of licences for park enlargements, disputes concerning hunting rights, and of poaching and affrays ' in parks, chaces, and coney-borrows,' as the phrase went. The total number of parks in the county we do not know, but that they were extremely numerous is more than probable. Doubtless great changes in the woodlands of Sussex took place in the reign of Henry VIII, when the vast landed estates of the numerous religious corporations were annexed by the crown, or granted to royal favourites, either outright or by means of exchange, as when William Fitzalan exchanged with the crown for the manor of Michelham most of his ten parks — mainly constituents of Arundel Forest35 — as Bignor and Woolavington, others lying in the north of the rape, as Shillinglee and Meadhome. This, too, was the period of the great development of the iron-smelting industry, which was wholly carried on in the woodland districts, in which lay beneath the surface a ferruginous ore containing as much as 33 per cent, of iron, while above ground grew fuel in abundance for the furnaces. Two chief localities of this industry were Ashburnham, in a thickly-wooded district of East Sussex, having the large Darum Wood, or Darvel Forest, as it was sometimes called, contiguous on the north, with Dallington Forest lying to the north-west, and St. Leonard's Forest, occupying the north of Bramber rape. The southern fringe of Ashdown Forest also was the seat of this industry, as at Maresfield. The woodlands of the long lordship of South Mailing, stretching from Lamber- hurst through Wadhurst, Mayfield, and Buxted to Cliffe-juxta-Lewes, also well knew the noise of hammers and the flare of furnaces. The court rolls of these manors, besides containing an early reference to the ' lern founders of Buxted,' 36 have numerous entries concerning charcoal-making, felling and selling timber, and kindred matters. So great was the destruction of the woodland of Sussex, that in 1543 an Act of Parliament was passed with the view to limit the process ; a wise proviso enjoining that in felling timber and underwood of more than twenty-four years' growth twelve standard oaks, or as many ash, elm or beech, were to be left standing in each acre.87 11 Close, 1 6 John, m. 13. n Close, 15 John, m. 3. * Pat. 7 Hen. Ill, m. t>d. « Pat. 9 Hen. Ill, m. 6J. 93 Cal. Chart R. i, 8. M Pipe R. 7 John. » Pat. 33 Hen. VIII, p. I. 36 Ct. R. Lambeth, Nos. 1352-7, temp. Hen. VII. » Act of Parl. 35 Hen. VIII. 296 FORESTRY Further action was taken in Queen Elizabeth's reign by 'an Act for the preservation of Tymber in the Wildes of the Counties of Sussex, Surrey, and Kent.'38 To this period we owe perhaps the first map of Sussex, showing its woods, parks, and forests. Its cartographer, Thomas Saxton, inserts within the county boundaries only thirty parks, and three forests as such, Arundel and Ashdown appearing- as parks. Exiguity of space probably accounts for the small number of Sussex parks shown, for the number actually existing was probably at least twice as great. Since it is in this period that the parks and forests attained their maximum number, it is at this stage most convenient to glance at their situation and comparative distribution. We find that in the main the parks were inclosures in or on the verge of the seven forests, and that the greater proportion were located in the western division of Sussex. Originally, in all probability, Stanstead and Arundel formed one great forest, containing a group of parks, of which Up Park, Harting, Stoughton, and Stanstead composed the 'forest of Stanstead' of later days, while the parks of East Dean, Guden- wood (Goodwood), Halnaker, Selhurst, and Arundel formed the forest of Arundel. On its southern verge were Aldingbourne, the park of the bishop of Chichester, and Slindon, belonging to the archbishop, while on the northern border was Houghton, another park of the Sussex see, of such size as to be often denominated a forest. Also on the northern border was the group of Bignor, Downton, Woolavington, and Burton parks ; and further north were the inclosures of the wood- land of the Honor of Petworth, viz. Petworth, Meadhome, River, Michel, and Shillinglee parks ; the park of Farnhurst, with remains of a supposed castellated hunting-seat of Verdly lying to the west, all these being west of the Arun. On the other side of that river there were in the south the parks of Badworth and Angmering, Findon and Michelgrove, which were united in the fifteenth century under the Shelley family into the great estate of Michelgrove, which ' formed a noble tract of sylvan beauty containing a vast amount of stately trees/ In the centre ot the country between the Arun and the Adur were the parks of Warminghurst, Wiston, Ashurst, while in the north of the rape was the extensive forest of St. Leonard, with the park of Knepp on its southern verge. Constituent parts of this forest were the large parks of Sedgewick, Chesworth, Beaubush, and Shelley, which contained among them more than 2,260 acres. Separated from this forest of St. Leonard by the artificial boundary between the rapes of Bramber and Lewes is the forest of Worth. Part of it has the alternative name of Tilgate, a comparatively modern nomenclature of which apparently no instance occurs before the seventeenth century. Further south in the rape, and lying northwards of the Downs, are the parks of Hurst, Danny, Ditchling, and Keymer. Between this group of parks and the south of Worth Forest was another congeries, viz., the parks of Slaugham, Bentley, and Cuckfield. East of the Ouse, which divides the rapes of Lewes and Pevensey, lay the parks belonging to the archbishops of Canterbury, viz. Ringmer, Plashet, More, Glynde, and the so-called forest of ' la Broile,' sometimes — presumably from the number of its beech trees, which are said to have attained a great size — denominated in the parkers' rolls, &c., Broyle 'Fania,' a very rare term. Further north they also had the parks of Frankham, Buxted, and Mayfield. These last-named parks are on the southern fringe of Ashdown, largest and most important of Sussex forests. The parks within the bounds of this forest, or upon its verge, were Bolebrook, Buckhurst, Stoneland, Newenden, and Maresfield. To the east of Ashdown is Waterdown Forest, the parks in relation to it being Eridge and Rotherfield. In the centre of this rape of Pevensey was the wooded district which may be called Waldron Woodland, and was sometimes known as Waldron Forest, extending over the parish of that name, and those of East Hoathly, Chiddingly, Laughton, and Hellingly, and including the Dicker. Under the Downs lies Firle Park, its eastern portion being the ancient park of Collinghame, mentioned in a court roll of the year I333,39 which affords the earliest reference to the Gage family in connexion with its present-day home. At this court the bailiff reported that William Gage, armiger, had died tenant of the park of Collinghame. Passing to the rape of Hastings, we find that its chief woodland district was around Burwash, Brightling, and Dallington, and this formed the forest of the rape. On the verge of this forest, if not within it, were the parks of Mountfield and Whatlington, while to the south lay the three parks of the abbot of Battle, and the large park of Ashburnham. Still further south was Buckholt Park, to the west of which was the park of Herstmonceux. Between Buckholt and the sea lay the park of Bexhill. In addition to all these parks and the six forests, the seventeenth-century maps of Speed, John Norden, and Robert Morden also show various uninclosed woods, which, with slight exceptions, have little or no history. They mostly appear of considerable size, or at least larger than the average park, and are described as ' Thonicus ' or ' Themeus ' in the north of the rape of Arundel, ' Homewood ' in the centre of the rape of Lewes, ' Vert Wood ' and ' The 38 27 Eliz. cap. 19. :* Add. MS. 33182. 2 297 38 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Dicker ' in Pevensey rape (both names and places in existence to-day), ' Petley Wood ' and ' Darum ' or ' Darvel ' in the rape of Hastings. Other parks are found mentioned in various mediaeval documents, such as Hayley, in West- meston ; Plottesbridge, between Lewes and Little Horsted, called ' the ancient park ' in a document of the reign of Richard II ; and Clares or Cleres Chace in the same neighbourhood. Of some we are ignorant even of their approximate locality, as those we read of in the will of William Reade, bishop of Chichester (who died in 1385), who left 500 marks for the works at Amberley on the con- dition that his executors might have sufficient timber in — inter alia — 'Pubhurst' and ' Pelock's Wood.' 40 Possibly the latter wood was an acquisition for the see by SefFrid I, bishop of Chichester, who died in 1150, and so-called from his nick-name 'Polokin' or ' Pelockin.' 41 Equally uncertain are the woods of ' Ulvehola ' and ' la Hamoda,' which Robert de Dene and Sibella his wife gave to the priory of Lewes. They were, in all probability, portions of the great woodlands of Ashdown Forest, though the latter may have been ' Homewood ' already referred to. Such is an approximate enumeration of the parks of Sussex at that period when they were probably most abundant, namely, the reign of Henry VIII ; an enumeration which, according to those marked in Saxton's, Speed's, and Mor- den's maps, amounts to sixty parks, seven forests, and eight uninclosed woods — numbers which may be raised by counting other parks and woods named in various documents, etc., to approximately one hundred parks and at least twenty woods. As the times became more utilitarian these conditions underwent great change, and in the reign of the last Tudor, though she herself was almost as great a huntress as Diana, many parks were dis- parked and numbers of landowners made ' their deere leape over the pale to give the bullock place.' 42 The period of the war between king and Parliament was one of considerable destruction of the woodlands of Sussex. Thus Sir William Ford, of Up Park, Harting, complained that 2,OOO cord of timber had been cut down ' for satisfaction of wrongs done to certain countrey people thereabout by some parties of horse of Colonel Ford,' Sir William's son. This park was, however, replenished with such abundance of trees that, when Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh in the beginning of the next century bought the estate for £19,000, the wood alone was said to be worth the purchase money.43 Other royalists were obliged to make particular application that their woods might be released from sequestration — not having been included in the ' particulars,' as being held for pleasure and of no profit. Such was Lord Lumley, who petitioned that a value might be set upon the woods growing in Stanstead Forest and warren, so that the sequestration might be discharged, in order that he might have wood ' for fuell and reparacions ' for the dwelling house there.44 Many parks were entirely disparked at this period, such as the abbot of Battle's, 300 acres being described in 1651 as part only of the great park of Battle Abbey lately disparked.45 During the Commonwealth many surveys of Sussex woodlands were made of which the reports are extant.46 From these we may gather that 'much spoyle and destrucon' had indeed been made, for that phrase is often repeated, and details are given of many instances of deliberate waste of woods and thieving of timber. The commissioners had various suggestions to make as to the disposal of these Sussex woodlands ; some portions, they ' conceived ' should be sold, others farmed out ; one should be turned into a ' shepewalk,' another ploughed and sown. In spite of the continual demands made upon the woodlands of Sussex by the iron and ship- building industries they still contained a great amount of timber. A petition 47 of the ironfounders in favour of the protection by tariff of their industry, in the reign of Charles II, states that there is ' greate plenty of woods and iron mine in ye County of Sussex,' and estimates that these woods ' by computacion amount to 200,000 acres.' The oaks of this county still served to build great numbers of England's ships. Defoe, speaking of his journey from Tunbridge Wells to Lewes, says — the timber I saw here was prodigious, as well in quantity as in bigness, and seemed in some places to be suffered to grow only because it was so far from any navigation that it was not worth cutting down and carrying away . . . and sometimes I have seen one tree on a carriage, which they call in Sussex a tug, drawn by twenty-two oxen, and even then it is carried so little a way and thrown down and left for other tugs to take up and carry on, that sometimes it is two or three years before it gets to Chatham.48 Under this continuous consumption of timber, Sussex woodlands were now diminished to a degree that called forth the laments of contemporary observers. Nor was the greatly extended cultivation of hops in the eighteenth century without effect, the wide demand for hop-poles leading 40 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxviii, 50. 41 Ibid. 17. " Carew, Survey of Cornwall. 43 Shoberl, Suss. 68. " Royalist Comp. Papers (znd Ser.), vol. 14, 870. 44 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 33. " Parl. Surv. P.R.O. 47 MS. in Suss. Arch. Soc. Library. w Tour. (ed. 1753), 187. 298 FORESTRY to the consumption of a quantity of young timber, particularly chestnut and ash in the coppices, without any commensurate planting to replenish the supply for the future. Fortunately, as time went on compensatory forces came into play to preserve the woodlands of Sussex, the county came into favour for residential purposes, and with increased facilities of access, old residences were re-occupied, new ones built, and the forest-lands of Ashdown and St. Leonard have become the seats of numerous country houses, and the sites of prosperous villages and even embryo towns. Well- wooded parks still abound, and the extensive preservation of game at least necessitates the preserva- tion and planting of the ' vert ' requisite for its propagation and protection. Deer, both red and fallow, still live in Sussex woodlands, even to a greater extent than in counties of more ample acreage or wider wilder wastes. The most recent writer on the subject states that Sussex has more inclosed land given up to deer than any other county.49 He names Eridge Park as the largest English park ; and states that Warnham Park, north-west of St. Leonard's Forest, has produced the largest deer in the country, an animal, namely, of 44 stone — 8 Ib. to the stone — and with 36 points. This park also furnishes fifteen deer each season for the Warnham Stag-hunt. There are at least twenty deer-parks within the county ; the number of parks of the usual description is also very large, but indefinite, the application of the term being somewhat elastic nowadays. They will be dealt with under their respective parishes in the topographical portion of this work. Arboriculture in Sussex can hardly be said to exist in any degree commensurate with favouring conditions of soil, climate, and demand. Very large tracts of land are practically virgin soil, and its geological nature so varied that almost any kind of tree will flourish, particularly in the western division of the county, where the rainfall is more liberal, to the extent of fifteen or twenty per cent., than in the eastern. Young, indeed, declared that there is ' no region of the earth where trees of all kinds thrive better, particularly oak and ash. . . . Even now if a field is neglected it will become a wood, principally of oak and birch, intermixed with hazel, some kinds of willow, and dogwood.' 5< The sixteenth century is given as the earliest date when tree-planting was practised in Britain,51 but so abundant was the timber still growing in Sussex that it is doubtful whether this county was the scene of much of that kind of work, though doubtless preservation as distinct from planting of trees began therein at that period ; for the Act of Parliament of I543,52 which provided for the preservation, when felling wood, of twelve standard oaks, elms, ashes, or beeches on every acre, applied, of course, to Sussex as well as the rest of the kingdom. In the next century the growing need for plantation of trees came to be more generally recog- nized, and doubtless Evelyn's Sylva was not without effect, particularly in its advocacy of the culture of oak for the Navy. Especially may this influence have been operative in Sussex, since the author, if not native to its soil, was connected with it, at Lewes and Mailing, by education, family, and residence. Another and earlier Sussex writer, who by his book of Howe to plant and graffe all sortes of trees may have stimulated arboriculture in the county, was Leonard Mascall, of Plumpton. He is indeed credited (on doubtful evidence) with the introduction of pippins into English orchards. As an actual instance of seventeenth-century arboriculture in Sussex may be quoted some items from Lord Dacre's Household Account-book at Herstmonceux : as 24;. paid in November, 1644, for ' planting and staking trees ' ; an equal sum later on paid to four men for ' 6 daies work for digging up young trees and planting them in the Park'; ' 141. paid for digging Ground to set young syca- more trees ' ; 51. 6d. to four men setting acorns, and a further payment for gathering and setting sixty ' checker ' trees — ' wild service tree ' — and 500 quicksets.53 Whether Sussex landowners in general were as provident in arboriculture as the lord of Herstmonceux is doubtful, while it is very certain that felling was continuous. In the south of the forest-land of Worth, Anthony Stapley, of Hickstead, in the same year that Lord Dacre was planting timber, cut no less than 249 oaks, 'all of them very fine and they sold well' ; while of his underwoods he made 18,800 faggots, of which he sold 13,075, at an average of 5*. per hundred.54 Eighty years later 275 oaks were felled on the same estate and sold for ^132, in addition to which there were 'sold to John Bridges 562 oaks to be cut this year, for ^330,' while ninety other trees were sold for ^23 2J.55 The acreage of Sussex woodland at this period was 200,000 acres. As time passed on, and the consumption of timber by the ship-building for the fast-growing mercantile and naval fleets of Great Britain more than neutralized the saving effected by the with- drawal of the iron industry to the north, apprehensions of the exhaustion of the woodlands of Sussex acted as a stimulus to the plantation of hard-wood timber, particularly oak, while the numerous Inclosure Acts, though most of the lands dealt with under them were made arable, afforded a great deal of ground suitable for timber-growing. , The long struggle with Napoleon occasioned a great demand for timber for ship-building, to make good the damage sustained by the naval and mercantile marine. The oaks of Sussex, being 49 Whitaker, Descriptive List of Deer Parks, 1892. 50 Young, Agru. of Suss. 469. " Encyel. Brit. "35 Hen. VIII. 5S Suit. Arch. Coll. xlviii, 113. " Ibid, xxiii, 61. " Ibid. 63. 299 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX deemed especially suitable for the ships of the royal navy, were in much demand. Landowners con- sequently were not without inducement to devote some of their land and their energies to the cultivation of trees. One of the most active in this direction was Lord Sheffield, at Fletching ; so that early in the nineteenth century the stock of fine young oaks in the plantations of the Sheffield Park estate was the largest in the county.66 Yet he was moved to say, in spite of his evident success, that had he attended to the pruning and management of his woods earlier they would have been worth many thousands more," a remark which, though partaking somewhat of the nature of a platitude, is yet worthy of attention. The writer has seen, only last year, plantations of young trees, chiefly ash and sycamore, where, on the sunny side of a Southdown hill, the growth of tall flowering plants, brambles, and things twining, creeping, innumerable, was so luxuriant that many of the infant trees were dead, and the greater part of the plantation a sight more picturesque than profitable. The modern modes of making plantations differ somewhat from those in vogue in the days when Lord Dacre set his four men to seek and to sow acorns. For ' labour ' in the country is now so scarce and expensive that such a method would prove costly in inception, and tardy in result, at least as regards oak trees, as they are slow of growth, and do not produce acorns until fifteen or seventeen years old. Yet it is a valuable wood and always in demand, and if planted more plentifully and expected with patience, will prove profitable to posterity at least. Its modern price is 2s. or 2s. 6d. per foot. Almost equally disused as a method of tree-plantation is that by the collection of self-sown seedlings, as it is dependent to the same degree as acorn collection upon the labour question. Yet it might be advantageously used in the case of such trees as freely form and successfully sow their fruit, as in particular the sycamore — a tree in considerable demand for hoops and other bent-wood work, as well as for such higher uses as for making violins ; and above all other trees perhaps it is a quick grower. But almost all planting of trees is now done by the medium of the nursery gardens. There is a great local demand for oak in Sussex for making ' shingles ' and park-pales ; which are made by splitting oak to a thickness of £ an inch, a breadth of 3 or 4 in., and a length, for pales, of 4 to 6 ft. Shingles are sections of these, 5 or 6 in. long, and are used for covering roofs, and in particular church spires. In the reign of Henry VI their price was 22d. per thousand, at which cost 15,000 were sent from the archbishop's woodlands of Mayfield to cover the roof of his manor house at Lambeth.58 To-day their price is 90;. per thousand. Oak pales are in even more general use in Sussex, and are set on rails between posts, with their edges overlapping. In mediaeval days their price was is. per hundred,59 to-day the same number would cost 25*. Next to its oaks the beech trees of Sussex are celebrated for their age and size, particularly in the western division of the county, flourishing on the slopes of the Downs, and climbing to their very crests. The high green hill of Chanctonbury is crowned by a clump of beeches nearly 150 years old, planted when no larger than ' twigs ' — so he called them — by the father of the Rev. John Goring, who lived to cele- brate in song his setting them sixty-eight years before ; a fact that should encourage arboriculturists.60 In more universal use perhaps than beech, the ash is a tree that might be more generally cultivated in Sussex, since it is always in demand for the wooden parts of agricultural implements, the felloes, spokes, and other components of carts and wagons, hoops, and last, not least, hop poles. In some parts of the county there are whole plantations of it ; in others it is grown intermixed with syca- more, and is always set closely, that the natural rivalry to top its neighbour in seeking sunshine and air may draw it up tall and straight. Sussex woods also contain young chestnut trees, for they are more commonly used for hop-poles than any other young timber. Plantations for such use are generally cut when about eleven years old, and usually, in addition to ash and chestnut, contain a considerable amount of birch. The price of hop poles is commonly 3^. each ; in 1781 they were valued at less than a farthing.61 In the county of the Southdown sheep there has always been a constant demand for hurdles and wattles. To make the former great quantities of hazelwood are used, cut in the coppices and underwoods of the county, wherein perhaps it is the most abundant tree — or shrub — for it is never allowed to attain to the size of a tree, the underwoods being cut at more or less fre- quent intervals, according to the kind of soil, the climate and the trees, growth of course being more rapid in a rich soil and a warm moist air than in a poor ground or a dry climate, differences which may occur even in the area of one county. The pine or Scotch fir and the larch are plentiful in Sussex woods, and almost always planted more for ornament than use as timber, though fine straight larches are objects of culture, and for them there is always a local sale to wheelwrights and carpenters, mainly for making ladders. On the duke of Norfolk's estate there are 50 acres of young larch plantations, out of the total 5,000 acres of woodland. Though no new area is afforested there, large quantities of hardwood trees are 64 Young, Jgric. ofSusi. 469. " Ibid. 68 Ct. R. Lambeth, No. 1303. M Ibid. No. 1302. 60 Highways and Byetvays of Suss. 146-7. 61 Suss. Arch. Coll. xlviii, 159. 300 FORESTRY planted annually, and when underwood is cut every suitable ' teller ' is preserved. At the other end of the county, however, where there are large woods of Scotch firs on the marquis of Aber- gavenny's estate at Eridge, the practical value of that timber is not overlooked, and periodic fellings are made. There are very fine beeches and oaks in this beautiful district, but the greater part of the Eridge woodland is coppice, with oak standards, the total area being 2,500 acres. Ordinarily Sussex underwoods and coppices are cut every ten or twelve years, usually after sale by auction, at which £7 or £8 or £10 per acre are realized. Where the timber is mainly oak the intervals of cutting are longer, averaging twenty years, and for such wood a higher price is given. Ash trees have the advantage of being, caeteris paribus, of equal value when young as mature. Willow plantations are usually cut annually ; but there is little cultivation either of osiers or other kind of willows except in the river valleys, ponds, and marshes. The poplar tribe is plentiful in Sussex, especially the black poplar, but the tall Lombardy variety is rarely seen. Early in the nineteenth century Lord Gage planted most of the Scotch firs that are now to be seen in Plashet Park. At Glyndebourne a considerable number of beeches were planted in the eighteenth century, probably by William Hay ' the philosopher.' The present lord of the manor has planted a few acres on a hillside, chiefly with sycamore and ash, hardly more than will replace the trees that have been cut down in the parish during the last twenty years. It is very much to be desired that arboriculture should be more extensively and systematically practised in a county so eminently suitable in soil and climate. It is true that the remuneration might be remote ; it is certain that as regards underwood prices have fallen considerably — faggots, for instance, can be bought retail for no more than 261. per hundred — yet there must always be a demand for such timber as Sussex oak and ash. But the rising price and increasing scarceness of rural labour will continue to present discouragement. Sussex does not now possess any celebrated trees whose names are known beyond its borders. Gone is ' the hoar apple tree ' which marked the spot where Harold and William strove for the mastery of England ; 62 nor can any man now point to the great ash under which the earl of Arundel's bailiffs held their court at Midhurst in the thirteenth century.63 Nevertheless, there are some very fine elms, oaks, and beeches in various parts of the county. The elm in the High Street of Crawley is still a remarkable tree. Sixty-one feet in girth near the ground, its hollow trunk was so capacious that a generation or so ago thirteen people sat down to a banquet within it. Its floor was then paved with brick, its entrance fitted with a door. It is now in a very dilapidated con- dition, but still bears verdant branches growing to a height of 30 or 40 ft. At Hollington, in east Sussex, is an ancient beech tree, reputed to be more than 400 years old, and to have served, from its size, as a landmark to ships .at sea. But it is the oak which is the most celebrated of Sussex trees, and many survive to which more or less veracious histories attach. Such as Pope's Oak at West Grinstead, beneath whose shade that master of the ' most absolutely chiselled ' language — as Ruskin says — wrote ' The Rape of the Lock ' ; and ' Betsy's Oak ' at Parham, under which Queen Elizabeth rested on her way to Cowdray. Burton Park has some fine timber, an oak in particular being 25 ft. in circumference ; and at Glyndbourne there is also an ancient oak 21 ft. in girth, hollow, but still verdant, growing in what was probably once More Park. Cowdray and Halnaker possess some splendid Spanish chestnut trees ; the avenue composed of them at the former park is hardly second to any in the country. The well-known park of Goodwood contains a variety of fine timber. In addition to oaks and beeches, there are tulip trees, cork trees, and some fine cedars of Lebanon, survivors of 1,000 planted by the duke of Richmond in 1761. The county also possesses some yew trees of great antiquity and size. The most ancient, perhaps, is that at Hardham near Pulborough ; the most celebrated that in the churchyard at Crowhurst ; and the most beautiful the very ancient tree on the north side of the church of Wilmington. This last is 22 ft. in circumference, and divides at a foot or two above the ground into two massy trunks. At Kingly Vale near Chichester is a remarkable grove of yew trees, some of them of enormous girth. Doubtless Sussex once possessed many ancient and historic trees, but more perhaps than in other counties they have suffered under the axes of the Goths and the Philistines. When we come to the history and description of the forests of Sussex we are met with the •difficulty of deciding which of the six or seven groups of woodland usually so denominated are actually entitled to the name. If ancient but occasional usage were accepted as the criterion such mere parks as Knepp, Houghton, and even such uncertain localities as ' Claverige ' would have to be included. But mediaeval nomenclature is too inexact to allow of such procedure, and it is preferable to account forests those which ancient usage generally, though not invariably, designated such. Even this will admit doubtful instances, such as Stanstead. Spelman does not include this in his list of English forests, and if the bounds of Arundel Forest have been correctly handed down there appears hardly a large enough extent of country between the western end of Arundel Forest and the county 61 Angl.-Sax. Ckron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 167. " Assize R. 914, m. 17 d. 301 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX boundary in which to locate another 'forest. Moreover as Henry Hussey's action in inclosing a chace upon the Downs (mantes) of Harting and making a park there, was considered in 1283 to be ' to the injury of the chace of Arundel,' 64 it is clear that what was afterwards usually called Stan- stead Forest was at this time considered part of the chase or forest of Arundel. However this may be there is no doubt that Stanstead Park and woodland circumjacent was very often denominated a forest. Lying on the extreme western border of the county, to within two miles of which Arundel Forest extended, STANSTEAD FOREST must have had its greatest extent from north to south, including in its bounds Compton, Racton, Harting, Stoughton, and Stanstead. The two former belonged to Saxon kings ; Compton to Alfred, coming afterwards to Earl Godwin ; Racton to the Confessor ; while Harting, Stoughton, and probably Stanstead were possessions of Godwin, and after him doubtless of Harold. A wide and wild woodland district such as this would doubtless be denominated a forest while held by royal families as those of the Saxon line, and the designation would persist under succeeding though different tenures ; and the same argument will be seen to apply to most of the other forests of Sussex. At the Conquest, Harting, Racton, Stanstead, Stoughton, and their woodlands, as parts of the rape of Chichester, came into the possession of Roger earl of Montgomery. Domesday does not mention either the forest or any of its constituent parks, but it is evident that there was considerable woodland in this district, for Stoughton rendered 100 hogs, Harting 100, and Racton 4. The only house of religion associated with Stanstead was the small abbey of Dureford, founded by Henry Hussey in 1165. The canons of this house had tithes from the wood of ' Herchaia,' 6S and from all the woodland lying west of the road to London, from Dureford to ' Styngel,' localities unknown to-day. But the abbot's wood of la Wyke, which tenants of lands at Chithurst were bound to fence and to guard, was probably the locale lying north of Harting.66 In 1114 Henry I was at Westbourne — into which parish the forest extended — waiting for a favouring wind to set sail for France.67 Henry II also spent a week at Stanstead in 1177, and it was possibly owing to the exertion of hunting that his leg, which had been injured by a kick from a horse, grew painful and drove him back to rest at Winchester.68 His son, King Richard, in April, 1194, went over from Portsmouth to Stanstead for a day's hunting.69 In the latter part of the reign of Edward I, during the minority of Edmund, earl of Arundel, a trespass was committed by a certain William de Whiteway in Stanstead Park. For this he was fined and imprisoned in the Tower, but in 1307 was fortunate enough to obtain an order for his deliverance when he should have paid his forfeiture to Edmund of Arundel, now in possession of his estates, to whom it was assigned.70 The lords of the forest of Stanstead built themselves a mansion, or at least a hunting-seat, in the forest-land, where they might sojourn when hunting over a woodland so far removed from their central castle of Arundel. Their original seat at Stanstead was apparently but a small abode, and a description 71 of it in the early part of the fourteenth century reads singularly like the 'lodges' in St. Leonard's and Ashdown Forests surveyed by the Commonwealth Com- missioners more than 300 years later ; for it contained a hall, two chambers, a kitchen, and a chamber over the porch, but with the addition of a chapel. Such an inconsiderable house would scarcely meet the requirements of its lords for an indefinite period, and thus in 1480 it was rebuilt on a far larger scale. Here the earls frequently sojourned, and here they held their forest courts.72 One of the foresters and parkers — for he appears to have had the custody of both the forest and the park of Stanstead — appointed by Edmund, earl of Arundel, was Henry le Rede, who had a salary of a penny daily and a coat yearly — or 30^. in its place — together with house-bote, hedge-bote, and fuel, to be delivered by the steward of the manor of Stanstead.73 Ten years later there is record of one of those sporting clerks whose zeal outran their discre- tion in their pursuit of game ; for in 1340 William ' le Chanoyn,' of Shulbred Priory, together with other men of the same kidney, was charged with breaking into Stanstead and other parks of the earl of Arundel vi et armis and killing and carrying away deer.74 A valuation of the honour of Arundel taken in the reign of Henry VIII does not mention this forest ; but the aghtment or feeding of cattle in the park of Stanstead is included among the items.76 ' Common of pasture ' is also mentioned in a record of Queen Elizabeth's reign, a certain John Leefe dying seised inter alia of communis pasturae in Foresta de Stamted.™ In this reign Stanstead, its manor, park, and forest passed on the death of Henry, last of the Fitzalans, to Lord Lumley, who had married Jane Fitzalan. A survey " of Lord Lumley's manors 64 Inq. p.m. 12 Edw. I, No. 91. « Suss. Arch. Coll. v, 4. 66 Cott. MS. Vesp. E. xxiii, fol. 95. <" Engl. Hist. Rev. TL, No. 39. 68 Benedict of Peterborough, Gesta (Rolls Ser.), i, 182. 69 Rog. Hoveden, Cbron. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 251. "Close, i Edw. II, m. 18. "Escheat R. 20 Edw. II. 7> Cartwright, Rape of Chic. 158. "Pat. 4 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 37. 74 Pat. 14 Edw. Ill, pt. 2, m. 2. "Close, 16 Hen. VIII. "Bodleian, Rawlinson MS. B. 433. "Rentals and Surv. portf. ^f. 302 FORESTRY in 1587 gives the extent of the forest of Stanstead as 1,413 J acres 15 poles, and values the timber therein at £5,000 ; it is not quite clear whether these figures include the 797 acres of the forest lying in Charlton manor, with timber estimated at £2,800, but they were certainly exclusive of the Little Park, round Stanstead House, containing 560 acres and timber worth £595, and Great Park of 836 acres, valued at £1,713 14*. 8J. This Lord Lumley died seised of the forest of Stanstead and Overholte, and the parks of Stanstead and Downley ; Overholte being, possibly, the more ancient name of Ladyholt, a park contiguous to Stanstead on the west.78 In the succeeding years of this century the Lumleys increas- ing in riches and honours and becoming earls of Scarborough, Stanstead was the scene of much development ; a mansion, variously described as splendid, magnificent, or elegant, succeeding the older house, while 25 miles of turf rides and coach-drives were laid out in this 'majestic woodland.' Beautiful in situation, commanding wide views of down, forest-land, and sea, abounding with beech trees of great size, in the midst of this woodland of more than 1,600 acres, with its celebrated triple avenue of beeches, the central one, three chains in width, extending 2 miles in length to the border of Hampshire, Stanstead was one of the finest seats in the south of England. The boundary between the forests of Stanstead and Arundel is doubtful, and so we pass, insensibly as it were, on to the latter, the greater part of which lay in the same rape as Stanstead. THE FOREST OF ARUNDEL was a wide tract of country extending over the two rapes of Arundel and Chichester, stretching from the west bank of the Arun nearly to the western border of Sussex, in length about 1 2 miles, and in breadth from 4 to 6 miles. According to Tierney's painstaking History of Arundel its forest bounds were as follows : — Leaving Fishbourne on the west the boundary passed eastwards to Crocker Hill and Avisford, thence south to Cudlowe on the coast, and abruptly changing its course returned along the river Arun in a northerly direction through the marshes of Tortington, ascended the hill behind Arundel and hastened down the opposite slope to Houghton and Paplesbury. From thence westwardly through Swan- bridge and Berkhale to Normansland on the Downs. Then turning to the right towards Waltham it crossed the hills of Cocking, North Merdon, and Compton, and suddenly wheeling to the south terminated its course near the present Chichester Harbour. The circumference thus described could scarcely have measured less than 50 miles. Mr. Tierney considers its ancient boundary to have been less extensive, and describes it, but as he gives no authority for the one boundary or the other it would be useless to discuss the question. Within or on the verge of this forest were the great and little parks of Arundel, and the wood called Ruell, the parks of Selhurst, Halnaker, Goodwood, East Dean, West Dean, Downley, and Walberton. In addition, Earl Roger possessed other parks in various parts of his rapes, no fewer indeed than eighteen in all. Nevertheless a large amount of the woodland of his vast territory was in the hands of various other lords. The first earl found his forest encroached upon, as it were, by the bishop of Chichester's parks of Houghton on the north-east — a park so large that it was often denominated a forest — and Aldingbourne on the south, possessions of that see from the days of Csedwalla, while in the middle of the forest itself lay the manor of Halnaker with its extensive woodlands successively in the possession of the de Haia and St. John families. In addition, at the south-west corner of his forest was Broyle, north of Chichester, which, as we have seen, was once a forest. The manor of Slindon with its park had belonged to the see of Canterbury, but had been separated from it at the Conquest. Taking advantage of the forfeiture of the wide lands of Earl Roger's son Robert, Anselm obtained from King Henry I its restoration to his see in i io6.79 Meanwhile, the forest, with the rest of the honour, remained in royal hands until, after the death of Henry, the marriage of his widow Adelisa (whose dower it had become) carried all these things into the possession of her second husband, William d'Albini. During this period and the years succeeding the acquisitions of those religious houses in the close neighbourhood of Arundel afford many items of information concerning the forest and its constituent woodlands, particularly those of Halnaker. Both the families who owned that manor were generous donors to Boxgrove, or to its Norman parent, the abbey of Essay. Thus, Robert de Haia gave the foreign house tithes of the profits of his woods of Halnaker, with house-bote, fire-bole, and pannage for their swine therein. His successor, the first St. John, endowed Boxgrove with the wood of Bessole — the Bexley of to-day — ' near to the wood of Halnac,' while in the latter wood his brother granted pasture for their cattle, as well as pannage for their pigs, together with part of the wood itself. The earl himself endowed Boxgrove with another part of the wood of Bessole, called Hazelwood — both name and wood surviving to-day — together with pasture for a certain number of their cattle and horses, and pannage for forty hogs. His successor gave them yet another portion of Bessole, and in addition the wood of Winkinges, a name of Saxon origin surviving to-day. 18 Inq. p.m. 7 Jas. I. " Somner, Canterbury. 3°3 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX To the small priory of Pynham this William d'Albini, the second, gave annually thirteen loads of wood from his forest of Arundel, for the fuel of their house and the repair of the bridge of wood, as well as pannage for their swine 'sine numero,' both in his park and his forest. All these alienations of the woodland of the forest operated, in a manner, as so many imperla in imperio, and could hardly fail to give rise to conflicting claims, with their resultant encounters, legal or personal. And thus, as a matter of fact, such contested rights brought about so many disputes, legal and otherwise, that a great deal of the history of this forest is derived from records of such proceedings. When after the death of William, the fourth d'Albini, his heir Hugh succeeded, his long minority having come to an end in 1234, he found the lengthy period during which his estates had been in the hands of the weak king, Henry III, had sufficed for various encroachments — as he viewed them — to arise within his forest. Chief of these was the claim of the archbishops to hunt, not only in their manor of Slindon and its park, which lay within the forest bounds, but also over the earl's estate, as part of their right to hunt in all the forests of the realm, the archbishop ignoring its limitation, viz., to the occasions when the primates were journeying on visitations. The dispute was at last settled by compromise, twenty years after, and the king's seal confirmed the same.80 By this agreement it was provided that the archbishop, when going to or from his manor of Slindon, might, after due notice to the earl's foresters, hunt once a year with six greyhounds, and no other kind of hound, neither with bows nor arrows, while if the ecclesiastical hunters took more deer than one, the best should be retained by the archbishop, and the remainder delivered to the forest officers for the earl's use. The earl, on his part, agreed to render annually at the manor house of Slindon thirteen bucks or harts of grece, and thirteen does or hinds from his forest of Arundel. Another encroachment suffered by the earls with respect to their forest was at Halnaker, at the hands of John de St. John,81 its lord, who had enlarged ' Halfnaker parcus ' by annexing sixty acres of his overlord's land, ' to the prejudice of Arundel Chace.' But the earl himself was not innocent of offence, for some years earlier the jurors of the Hundred Rolls complained that 'whereas the lord of Arundel was wont to hold the court of Woodplayt once a year, he now holds it every month ' — (per tres septimanas in tribus ieptimanii). It is difficult to see which of the forest-courts is intended by the 'Woodplayt,' since if the complainants meant the ' Woodmote,' monthly session was correct. They could not have referred to the 'Eyre,' held by justices of the forest at more or less — generally more — lengthy intervals ; nor does it appear likely they intended to say ' Swainmote,' or court of attachment, since that was held three times a year. ' Woodplayt ' sometimes appears as ' Wudplat,' and is a corrupt abbreviated compound of ' Wud ' (for wood), and ' plat ' (for p/acitum, a plea), i.e. pleas in causes relating to the woodlands. In 1274, the honour of Arundel was again in the king's hands on the death of its lord, and, together with the custody of the forest, was committed to John de Wanton,82 ' during the king's pleasure.' This appears to have been short-lived, since two years after it was granted to Ralph de Sandwich, seneschal of the king.83 In this grant the king calls the forest ' Our wood,' as he does two years later in making Emericus de Cancellario its ' custos,' 84 when reference is also made to yet another keeper of the forest in the clause ' so that he [Emericus] answer for the revenues thence arising, from the time when Henry de Nauberg was its custodian.' The profits and perquisites of such keepers were evidently considerable, for in some cases they paid for their posts ; as, for instance, in 1271, the keeper of part of Arundel Forest, the park and 'walk' of Ruell, made an annual render of a silver cup worth 135. 4^. (one mark) for his post, which the earl granted him by charter,85 while the forester of Charlton paid 12s. yearly in lieu of rendering twelve silver spoons.86 Some years later the archbishop obtained a commission to try Robert de Morleye, Thomas de Hevere, and others for breaking into the park of his manor of Slindon, hunting and carrying away deer.67 Nearly forty years later the earl of Arundel and the archbishop, Simon Islip, came to an agree- ment in the matter of the annual render of the twenty-six deer from his forest to the archbishop. By the payment of 240 marks to the primate he was induced to forgo for ever this perennial due of_ venison.88 The sum seems excessive, but even if there were no other considerations the actual expenses of this render of venison were considerable, 59*. lid. being paid to archers and hunters with their dogs taking deer for the archbishop in Arundel Forest during the week before Lent, 1274, and another 735. 4^. for eleven days' similar work about the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.89 Similar troubles arose with other neighbours from kindred causes, the existence namely of that imperium in imperio caused by the possession of sporting lands and rights by one lord 80 Cat. Chart. R. ii, 187. el Inq. p.m. 10 Edw. I, No. 38. "* Orig. R. 3 Edw. I, m. 35. 83 Ibid. 5 Edw. I, m. i. M Ibid. 7 Edw. I, m. 4. K Escheat Roll, 56 Hen. III. 66 Mins. Accts. bdle. 1019, No. 22. s; Pat. 17 Edw. II, pt. I, m. 68 Lit. Cant. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 432. *9 Mins. Accts. bdle. 1019, No. 22. 3°4 FORESTRY over a territory within or contiguous to like lands which were in the hands of another landowner ; in this case between Richard earl of Arundel and the bishop of Chichester in 1292 concerning the episcopal park of Houghton. Situated on the north-east border of his forest, and originally, no doubt, an actual part thereof, the earl perhaps considered himself entitled to hunt over it by ancient right of over-lordship. But the bishop was prompt to protest against this action, at first with any- thing but success.' The earl, 'and his servants at his bidding, hunted twice in the chace of Hough- ton with greyhounds and archers without any license or leave.' The bishop having sent his clerks to protest, the earl declared ' that he had hunted and would hunt there again, notwithstanding the rights of the bishop.' Thereupon the sentence of excommunication was pronounced upon the earl, but his contumacy continuing the bishop laid an inderdict upon his chapel and his lands, within the diocese of Chichester. Eventually, when the earl was spending Christmas at his manor of East Dean, within the forest land, mollified possibly by the amenities of the season, and 'moved by healthier counsel,' he sent to the bishop, who was at Amberley, where he had a castle and a park. A meet- ing was arranged between earl and bishop, and the former having proceeded to the chapel of Houghton was duly absolved, but subjected to a penance of three days' duration and a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Richard at Chichester.90 On the death of John, thirteenth earl of Arundel, the honour and forest came into the hands of Henry VI, the heir being a minor. On this occasion Sir Richard Dalyn- grygge was appointed ' custos.' 91 At the upheaval of the Reformation such portions of Arundel Forest as had belonged to religious houses were taken into the king's hands, and usually regranted to court favourites. Some passed by exchange, more or less compulsory, such as Slindon, the archbishop's manor and park within the forest, which Cranmer thus disposed of to the king. William earl of Arundel himself made an exten- sive exchange with the king of parks and forest land,92 obtaining in return the greater part of the lands of Michelham Priory. But most of those thus changing owners were outside the bounds of Arundel Forest, such as the parks of Meadhome and Shillinglee, which lay in the north of his rape. The parks of Woolavington and Bignor, however, were, if not actually without its metes, at least contiguous to its northern verge. Some few years earlier there is record of the same king in connexion with Houghton. For 'n J533 Henry VIII sent the following command to his forest-officer at Houghton, which was then in his possession : — To the Kepar of our chase or Forreste of Houghton in our Countie of Sussex and in his absense to his Depute there. We will and charge you that unto our welbeloved John Heskett or to the bringar hereof in his name ys delivered or do to be delivered too bukkes of season to be taken of our gifte within our chace or forreste of Houghton, now being in our hands and disposicon by reason of the vacancy of the temporalities of the Byshopric of Chichester, any restrainte or commandment to the con- trarie notwithstanding and this our lettre signed with our hande shalbe your sufficient warrant and discharge. Yevyn und' our signet at our Manor of Greenwich vi July, xxii yere of our reign.93 Houghton appears to have been disparked soon afterwards, for the Bishop's Registers under the year 1548 contain record of a lease made of 200 acres of wood there. Its final separation from the see took place in 1810, when the bishop sold his part of the 'Forest of Houghton' to the duke of Norfolk.94 When we come to post-Reformation times we find less and less information on the subject of Arundel Park. In 1605 it appears to have been in royal hands, and a commission was issued to inquire into various matters connected with it, as, for instance, whether ' Rewell Walk ' — the ancient Ruelle — was part of the forest.95 There was the usual destruction of its woods during the Civil War. Some parts of it were in the possession of the Lumley family, and when they ' compounded ' for their estates Charlton and Singleton, constituent parts of the forest, were omitted from the calculation as being of no profit, the deer and rabbits almost all destroyed, and the land overgrown with gorse and briars. The commissioners were therefore petitioned to set some value upon them so that their sequestration might be discharged, and the owners be free to use such wood as they required for fuel and repairs.86 In the time of the last Stuarts both Arundel and Stanstead forests came into much favour as hunting centres, and Charlton was so much a place of resort for Lord Lumley and the nobility for sporting purposes that its name came to be attached to this forest-land. The unfortunate duke of Monmouth, we read, was particularly pleased with ' Charlton Forest ' as a hunting ground, and in after years George I and George II, when Prince of Wales, hunted over this district. Nowadays this forest- land, to a great extent, wears a different aspect ; cultivation has largely supervened ; but in the demesne of the lord of Arundel both fallow and red deer roam. The beautiful home-park of 90 Chich. Epis. Reg. Reade. " Pat. 13 Hen VI. 9f Pat. 33 Hen. VIII,pt. I. w Chich. Epis. Reg. 'C,' fol. 107. " Dallaway, Rape of Arundel, 218. 95 Dep. by Com. (Exch.) Easter, 3 Jas. I, 28. * Royalist Comp. (2nd Ser.), vol. 14. 2 305 39 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Arundel is more than a thousand acres in extent, and contains some splendid timber, chiefly beech trees, some of great size and age ; while between four and five hundred fallow deer, and more than two hundred red deer, wander over its hills and dales. North of the forest-land of Arundel lies the well-wooded park of Petworth, the seat of Lord Leconfield. Nearly seven hundred acres in extent, it shelters a herd of more than five hundred fallow deer, and contains a clump of ancient trees wherein ravens have been wont to breed. North-east of Arundel is Parham Park, more than four hundred acres in extent, containing over two hundred fallow deer, and harbouring a heronry among its trees. Leaving Arundel we pass on to the contiguous division of Sussex, where, in the north-east of the rape of Bramber, is the FOREST OF ST. LEONARD, one of the most important in the county. It occupied the huge parish of Beeding, and extended southwards far into the centre of the rape. It derived its name in all probability from the fact that within its bounds stood a chapel dedicated to St. Leonard, of remote and unknown origin. From the immense number of flint flakes and implements of various kinds found in the loose sand of this forest-land, particularly about Horsham, it is evident that the district of St. Leonard's Forest was much frequented by our Celtic forefathers, who must have had to travel many miles to get the materials for their tools, Findon in the south and Reigate in Surrey in the north being the nearest localities for flint. Beeding, Steyning, and other places in the woodland were manors of Godwin, Harold, and Edward the Confessor, and very possibly of Saxon kings before him.97 Both Beeding and Steyning are credited in Domesday Survey with a considerable amount of woodland affording food for swine, and the lord of Beeding received two sextaries of honey of the bees that resorted to its woods. Bramber itself must have been densely wooded, 3,000 acres of wood therein being mentioned in a record 98 several hundred years later than the days of Domesday. The forest of St. Leonard is not mentioned in Domesday, neither any of the parks its con- stituents ; probably they were inclosures of the forest-land of a later date, while its claim to the title of a forest in the strict sense of the word has been called in question. It is likely that the designation is a survival from the days of the Saxon kings. The foundation of the priory of Sele or Beeding affords some items of information concerning this forest. Founded by the lord of Bramber, William de Braose, in 1075, the priory of Sele was endowed by him and his successors with pannage for their swine in this forest, and in all the woods of the barony, with timber from the same for building and reparations ; together with the tithes arising from pannage, from the underwood of the forest, from recent assarts, i.e., land reclaimed from the forest and converted to cultivation, and from colts born in the forest-land. From the last item it would appear probable that, like the neighbouring Hampshire forests, this forest of St. Leonard contained among its ' ferae naturae ' wild forest-ponies, and this is borne out by the fact that in 1 305 a canon of Calceto Priory and other persons were convicted of hunting in Sedgewick Park and of wantonly driving a herd of horses (equitium) belonging to Mary de Braose into their nets and beating the horses with their bows.38a Like the other forests of Sussex, it gave origin to one of the little rivers of the county. We have noted how these tidal rivers gave access to the densest forest lands ; they were also of the highest importance as carriers of the timber supplies which Sussex woodlands rendered for the building and repair of the castles, houses, bridges, and ships of past ages. In 1207 there is record in the accounts of the bishopric of Winchester of wood from this Sussex forest being conveyed to various episcopal manors. The steward of Southwark manor enters in his account of that year the ' cost of timber coming from the forest of St. Leonard for the mill, and of the carpenter to saw it up ... timber brought from the forest of St. Leonard to Dorking . . . timber brought from the same forest to Kingston.' " It must have been a matter of some difficulty in those days of deep and miry roads to convey timber such distances as these, the shortest of which was to Dorking, and the easiest. For the Stane Street, a road of Roman formation, passed through the north-western corner of the rape of Bramber adjoining, if not piercing, the verge of St. Leonard's Forest. The timber that was conveyed to Kingston-on-Thames, and to the mill of Southwark, may also have travelled the same route, unless it was floated down the Adur river for transference to London by sea and up the Thames. About the same period we meet with various parks on the borders of or within this forest- land ; Cnep or Knepp in its southern part, Sedgewick in the west, Chesworth, Shelley, and Beaubush (or Beaubusson) in the north. Knepp was doubtless an inclosure of the forest around the castle of the same name, probably of ancient formation. For it was already in existence in the twelfth century, when the monks of Sele complained that William, the third lord of Bramber, had taken some of their land for the enlargement of his park at Knepp.100 97 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxvii, 177 et seq. * Inq. a.q.d. 9 Edw. II, No. 204. ''•Assize R. 934, m. 7. " Rot. Compoti Petri Epis. Winton. a° quarto, m. 9 (1208-9). 100 Sele Chartul. at Magdalen Coll. fbl. 14. 306 FORESTRY When the Braose estates were seized by King John, Roland Bloet had the particular care of Knepp entrusted to him. While this castle and park were in the royal hands the king paid them more than one visit, and several missives were at other times sent by him to Bloet on the subject of the deer, the boars, and the timber, evidencing a keen intent to make the utmost profit out of this portion of the forest of St. Leonard.101 Thus in 1212 he wrote directing Bloet to ' permit Michael de Punning to take all the fat deer he can in the park of Cnapp, by bow or by hound, and to salt the venison, and preserve the hides.' The next year the king sent various huntsmen, with more than a hundred hounds, to hunt in what he now dignifies with the title of the ' Forest ' of Knepp. A still larger pack of hounds was sent in the following year, namely, 240 greyhounds, accompanied by nineteen huntsmen, to hunt the does in the park. About the same period Bloet received an order upon the Exchequer for his expenses incurred in sending timber from St. Leonard's Forest by sea for the construction of 'our hall at Dover.' Two years later the king wrote forbidding the felling of timber 'in our park or forest of Cnapp.' In 1214 'Wyot, our huntsman,' was sent with boarhounds into the park of Knepp, to take two or three boars daily. 102 This same year Knepp was honoured by a visit of Queen Isabella, who stayed there for a period of eleven days, in connexion with which the king ordered the barons of the Exchequer to pay certain expenses incurred for the keep of horses, hounds, and keepers. South of Knepp was the manor of Ashurst, its name sufficiently indicative of the woodland nature of its neighbourhood. Originally held by Earl Godwin, and subsequently by Harold, it may possibly be identical with that ' Aishurst ' which appears more than once as forest-land in the early Pipe Rolls. Thus in 1189 the sheriff of Sussex accounts for money received from the herbage of ' Boscus de Aisherst.' 103 Some few miles further north within the forest-land was the manor, park, and fortified dwelling of the ancient family of Savage, called Sedgewick. In the near neighbourhood of Sedgewick was Chesworth Park, containing also a hunting-lodge or dwelling-house. This park was the smallest of these inclosures in the forest, and does not appear to have ever contained more than the 233 acres credited to it in a survey of the year 1608. 1M To the north-east of Chesworth lay the park of Shelley, anciently Shullegh, containing more than 600 acres. The adjoining part of the forest, with the park itself, formed a woodland district once called ' Shepherds Field Forest,' and the name appears on some few maps. Adjoining Shelley Park on the north was the park of Beaubush or Beaubusson. It was the largest of the inclosures of St. Leonard's Forest, containing 757 acres. It may be there were other inclosures of woodland — at a somewhat later period there is mention I of a 'Little Park' in this forest — or some of these already named may be referred to in the complaint of two new imparkations which the jurors of Horsham voiced in the Hundred Rolls. A claim of free warren made by the lord of Bramber in 1278, when brought to trial, disclosed a singular sporting custom, in the right of the knights and free tenants of the barony to hunt and carry off any kind of wild beast on Shrove Tuesday.105 On a subsequent occasion Sir Roger de Covert claimed this ancient privilege with the additional right ' to cut bludgeons in the woods to throw at the hares ' — ' amputare baculos in boscis ad jactandum propter lepores.' 1( Edward I doubtless enjoyed the pleasures of the chase in the forest of St. Leonard. For he visited both Bramber, Chesworth, and Horsham, and while at Bramber made payment to a certain William Bolle, ' coming to the king with thirteen staghounds.' 107 Edward II also hunted over it while at Chesworth. A record of the reign of this king gives us a rough estimate of the size of St. Leonard's Forest, and also of the park of Knepp. Seven thousand acres is stated to be the area of the forest, while Knepp Park contained 1,000 acres, estimated at the exiguous value of IQJ. beyond the cost of the upkeep of the fences and the feeding of the deer.108 Early in the next reign we find the lord of Ifield (a manor on the Verge of Shelley and Beaubush parks), Sir John de Ifield, in possession of certain lands in St. Leonard's Forest or chase, Edward III confirming the same to him in I329-109 Possibly this was the same land which some years later the jurors of the Nonae Rolls complain of as imparked by Sir Johnde Ifield at 'Shullegh.' The grant thus confirmed included pasture for his horses, cattle and sheep, and pannage for his swine * in the chace called the forest of St. Leonard,' and in the parks of Beaubusson and la Knepp. On the death of this William de Braose, the lordship of Bramber passed, by his daughter Aline's marriage, to the Mowbray family, and John de Mowbray, her husband, obtained the royal recognition of his succession to the Bramber barony, including ' the free chase of St. Leonard — de novo facta,' the meaning of this phrase not being apparent.110 By this new lord of Bramber a certain William de Green was appointed c Gustos ' of the park of Knepp, for the long term of sixty years, and at the usual salary of id. per diem, an appointment 101 Suit. Arch. Coll. m, 1-12. I0> Close, 16 John,m. 13. 1M Pipe R. I Ric. I. 104 Ellis, Parks ondFortsts of Sussex, 179. 10J Assize R. 921, m. 16. 1M Ibid. 924. 107 Lib. R. 9 Edw. I. m Inq. p.m. (re Wm. de Braose), 19 Edw. II, No. 89. 109 Pat. 4 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 46. "° Pat. 16 Edw. Ill, pt. 2, m. 25 d. 3°7 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX confirmed by the king in I369.111 John de Mowbray was succeeded by Thomas his son, who in 1398 was created duke of Norfolk. While he was lord of St. Leonard's Forest, William Roger was appointed keeper of the park of Knepp for life, at the same salary as his predecessor.112 But his tenure of the post was short, for in the first year of the reign of the new king we find John Pilton appointed to the keepership of the same park.113 The next ' Gustos ' we hear of, John Penycoke by name, was paid at the higher fee of 3^. a day.114 About this period the chief ranger of St. Leonard's Forest was a certain Thomas Anknapp — possibly a transcriber's error for 'att Knapp.' There is still extant one of his accounts for the year 1441. From this it appears that, as with other forests, St. Leonard's was divided into wards, baillies (ballia), or walks, as they were called in Tudor times, there being four in the south and six in the north part of the forest ; the names of the latter were Throstelhyle (Throstlehill), Thornyngbroke, Boghe (Beaubush) with Shulleghe (Shelley), Forters- lond, Whiteberewe, and Hyde. The pannage and the agistment of the forest were let out to farm ; the sums received, such, that is, as are legible, varied from 5*. to 13;. 4^., and 3*. i^d. was received from the rent of the garden of the lodge within the new park, and 2od. from a field called Pirifeld, parcel of a tenement called Derlond (? Deerland) within the forest, and ' no more because for three- quarters of a year it had been on the lord's hands for want of a tenant.' Another entry affords the very interesting information that a fair was held within this forest-land, for the ranger accounts for money received from 'tolls and dues of St. Leonard's Fair held on the feast day 'of the saint. Profits from the forest court there were none, for no court had been held within the period covered by this account, neither had there been any wood sales ; and the sum total of receipts was ,£6 12s. 8d. From this were to be deducted such expenses as the ranger's salary of 6oj. 8^., and 10*. for a furlong of new paling at ' Bronnyngestum.' The very modest sum of 66s. was due to the lord as the year's profit from his forest of St. Leonard.115 With the advent of a new king, the first of the Tudors, some forty years later, the forest, together with .the rape, came under a new lord, being granted to Thomas Lord La Warr, who in 1494 sold the lordship to Thomas earl of Surrey.116 In the next reign we meet with one of the rare mentions of St. Leonard's Chapel in the forest, the Valor of 1535 containing the following entry : — ' Chapel of St. Leonard within the Forest of St. Leonard ; Alan Coke clerk now incumbent, worth in rents ^6, oblations 191., profits of wood sales and other casual revenues £2 14.5. $d. Total £<) 13;. 4^.' m This chapel was abolished at the time of the Reformation.118 On the attainder of Thomas third duke of Norfolk, St. Leonard's Forest was granted in 1547 to Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral, who, after sixteen months' possession of these lands, fell under a bill of attainder. The ' Inventory ' of his possessions, taken at Chesworth, 20 January, 2 Edward VI, contains interesting particulars of the forest of St. Leonard, and its constituent parts. We may judge how important was the economic aspect as compared with the sporting uses of the parks of those times, by the number of fatting oxen, sheep, and pigs, which figure in the details of this inventory. Thus in Knepp Park there were 100 fatting oxen, fifty-three fatting sheep, and one cow, together with thirteen ' young ambelyng geldyns ' ; towards the keep of all these there was a store of fifty-nine loads of hay in the park. In ' Segewyke Parke ' were ten porkers worth 2od. apiece, and 100 deer. Chesworth Park contained nine fatting oxen and ' one bare and syk ox' ; a horse, six other oxen, sold, but remaining as unpaid for ; still other fatting oxen to the number of twenty-eight ; the deer in the park amounting to 100. Another inclosure called the 'Litill Parke in the Forest,' contained ' by estimacion fourscore dere.' By the same ' Inventory ' we learn that at Knepp Park William Skoterall was ' Keper there, havyng at my lordd's pleasure wh therbage of xiiii bests, 1 1 horsys and ten hr^s. -aeufge" rreTnara-j'i^.-Wkeper there, havyng the goyng off vi bests or naggs v.J .! . •'• '06. _.'.^.«V William Barwyke was keeper of Sedgewick, 'havyng for his fee iiii''- xij- iii^ per ann. and the rate of viii oxyn, xii keane, vi marys & geldyngs and xvi swyne.' The keeper of Chesworth Park was a certain Henry Foyce at a fee of vi''- xxj-. The same Henry was also under- steward at xl'- , and ' recevor there, havyng for hys Fee, by yere xl'- wh therbage of xiii bests, ii horsys, and also ii horsys founde in my lord's stable.' At Beaubush and Shelley parks John Berde was keeper, receiving ' vi'''' xxj- p an. ix catall and xx hors bests.' The keeper of ' Litill Parke in the Forest ' was John Myles, receiving 6cs. a year ' and the goyng of serteyn catall.' The over- sight of the ponds and fisheries was the office of ' John Roose, water-bayliffe there,' receiving 26s. jd. ; while we seem to find an echo of the olden time ' Riding Forester ' in the official styled ' Bayliff- errant,' Thomas Bradbrige by name.11' 111 Pat. 43 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 16. »" Ibid. 22 Ric. II. " Ibid. I Hen. IV, pt. 2, m. 17. "« Ibid. 23 Hen. VI. '" Exch. Accts. K.R. bdle. 145, No. 9. "• Formulare Anglic, p. 212. 11? Valor Ecd. (Rec. Com.), i, 320. "" Chant. Cert. No. 50. "' S.P. Dom. Edw. VI, vol. 4, No. 3 ; printed in Sust. Arch. Coll. xiii. 308 FORESTRY With regard to Seymour's tenure of St. Leonard's Forest documents at Magdalen College state that There is communication that the Lorde Admirall aforesaid will buylde a toune wthin the Forest of St. Leonardo, wher increase of tythes may growe to the College . . . wheras now we have but 3/. for the herbage of the foreste and 8/. for the parke of Bewbushe sometyme parcell of ye foreste. During Queen Mary's reign St. Leonard's Forest was once more in the possession of the Norfolk line, the duke spending much time at Chesworth. A certain John Beard was the chief official of the forest during this period, according to a herald's visitation, which says he ' had lands at Cuffold and served the Duke of Norfolk when his grace lived at Chesworth in Sussex, and was Ranger of St. Leonard's Forest in the tyme of Queen Mary, and lyeth buryed in the parish church of Cuffold under a fayre marble.' 12° In Elizabeth's reign the forest was still in the hands of the duke. Apparently his actual resources by no means corresponded to the extent of his possessions, for in 1561 he was constrained to offer to mortgage to the queen the manors of Sedgewick, Ches- worth, Baybush, Shelley, and the forest of St. Leonard. ' In them is plenty of woods for fortifica- tions or ships.' m The duke's troubles, however, pecuniary and otherwise, were brought to an abrupt termination by his execution for treason in 1572, when the queen by his attainder came into possession of the Sussex parks and forest which had been otherwise offered to her. In the event the forest of St. Leonard was leased to various persons, Sir John Caryll ultimately acquiring the greater part of it, such as Sedgewick and Chesworth.122 The family of Ford had a sub-lease of a portion of this territory, since in 1642 Sir William Ford leased — with the consent of Sir John Caryll — 324 acres of pasture and woody ground, parcel of the park of Sedgewick, to John Gratwick, gent. The over- lord, Caryll, reserved the right for himself and heirs ' to meet and bring convenient companies to hawk or hunt, fish or fowle, upon the same and to carry the game away.' The great timber was reserved by Sir William Ford, but Gratwick had the usual allowances of wood for reparations, viz. hedge-bote, stake-bote, wain-bete, and plough-bote. A state paper of about the year 1636 places the rents received by the crown from St. Leonard's Forest leases, Sedgewick, Chesworth, &c. at £725 i6s. 8J., 'from which being deducted the king's rent £227 14?. 6d. there remains a saleable value of £498 2s. 2d.' 123 Some idea of the enormous destruction of wood in the forest at this time may be gathered from the fact that Sir Thomas Sherley in 1578 obtained leave to take 2,OOO cords (a cord being 125 cubic feet) of beech, birch, and oak yearly, and next year had licence for a further 2,000 cords ; under which licences he had taken by 1597 as much as 75,016^ cords, while another lessee, Edward Caryll, had taken 8,580 cords.121 The total destruction for these twenty years was therefore well over a million cubic feet, and would be represented by a stack of wood rather more than a hundred feet in height, length, and breadth. In 1650 commissioners were appointed to perambulate and report on this district and the ' Survey ' they made affords many details relative to this portion of the forest of St. Leonard, namely of ' lands sometime called Sedgwicke Parke ancently disparked . . . containing by admeasuremt one thowsand therty three acres and twenty five pches.' The part containing Sedgewick Lodge and its circumjacent park-land comprised more than 372 acres, 'the timber trees and young oakes being in number eight hundred, besides other young trees and Beeches ' growing there, being valued at j£200. The extent to which this and the remainder of the ^033 acres still retained its park and forest- like character is shown by the fact that upon the eleven farms into which it was cut up stood no less than 1,857 trees, 'timber trees, young oakes, Beeches, tillers, together with many great Beeches' (i.e. not included in this enumeration), whose grand total amounted to 2,657 trees besides the great beeches, valued at £490. 125 From another 'Survey,' of 1650, we gather that the disparked park of Chesworth was cut up into farms, ten in number, mostly of small acreage, the largest consisting of but sixty-three acres more or less. A portion of one of these holdings bore the remarkable sobriquet of ' Jenny Bare-leggs Close.' Another portion of the estate was in the tenure of Sir Thomas Ersfield, and containing a ' conny-warren,' arable, pasture, and woody lands, was called ' The warren and ould parke.' Richard Waller, of Horsham, held 1 6 acres at a rent of eleven pounds, with a covenant to ' plant or graft six crab stockes or perrye stockes yerely ' ; a covenant which it is much to be desired could be introduced elsewhere nowadays when circumstances permit. There seems to have been but little 180 Herald's Visitation of 1634, quoted by Horsfield, Hist, of Sussex, \, 243. 121 S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. n, No. 56. '" Pat. 44 Eliz. 115 S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 339, No. 16. "4 Exch. Spec. Com. 2123. 115 Parly. Surv. Sussex, No. 48. 3°9 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX timber left on Chesworth lands, the surveyors only enumerating 254 trees, 104 of which were ' small oake trees,' the value of the whole being set at £46. Of all this the great timber had been reserved by the crown, when, by patent of 44 Elizabeth, the queen had granted the estate to Sir John Caryll, who in this connexion had merely such wood and underwood as he required for house-, fire-, hedge-, pale-, plough-, wain-, and cart-bote, a sufficiently comprehensive catalogue, and one whose benefits became enjoyable by the ' meane ' (mesne) tenants whose holdings are passed in review in this survey.126 The manor of Colstaple in Horsham was also surveyed. Leased by the Caryll family, it had been sub-let to a certain Matthew White ; the lord reserving the great timber, and the right to hunt or hawk. The timber on this small estate consisted of 350 ' small oake trees, besides Tellars and some beeches,' of an estimated value of £52 lew.127 In 1655 another survey128 was taken of 'St. Leonards Forest, Iron Mills etc. there .... lying and being within ye deafforrested Forrest of St. Leonards.' It commences with an inventory of the forges of the forest. No less than 250 loads of charcoal and 30 cord of wood were ' reserved yerely out of ye said Forrest of St. Leonards for ye use and service of ye said Forges or Mills.' The surveyors conclude with the remark that ' there hath binn very greate Distrucon of ye Woods within the afforesd Forrest .... but there is Sufficient Coppice Wood yet remaining if well p'served' — an 'if in which there is much virtue. Of the other parks of the forest we find the Middleton family in possession of Beaubush and Shelley, described as disparked.129 At the Restoration Edward earl of Sandwich obtained the grant of these two parks. The Carylls, too, recovered Knepp and some other of their possessions in the forest-land, as Sedgewick. These woodland properties seem to have been much sought after, judging from the petitions of John Browning and John Fifield for the reversion, after Sir J. Caryll, of Ches- worth manor and parks, St. Leonard's Forest, and other lands rented at £226 13*. 6d. ' with such increase as is fit.' 1: We find, however, that the forest of St. Leonard itself was conferred by Charles II on his chief physician, Sir Edward Greaves, from whom, by his daughter's marriage, it came ultimately into the possession of the family of Aldridge, whose descendants still remain therein. Their residence, albeit called the ' New Lodge,' is considered to occupy the site of the old ranger's house ; while the park of 250 acres surrounding it is supposed to represent the ' Little Park' men- tioned in old documents. Several other estates and mansions, such as 'Leonardslee,' 'Newells,' &c., occupy various other portions of the old forest-land ; thus partially, in a way, realizing the idea of the unfortunate Admiral Seymour. During the eighteenth century St. Leonard's forest-land began to come into favour as a residential locality, and Horsham flourished as a county town, while the assize courts continued there. Dr. Burton, in his ' Iter Sussexiense,' described it as ' the metropolis of the Weald of Anderida.' Proceeding, he says he passed ' through a forest which has its name from St. Leonard, extensive and easily passed through. After passing this we fell again upon the especially impassable Sussex roads.' m Nowadays these ways are mended, and St. Leonard's district continues in favour as a residential neighbourhood. Nor is it destitute of deer-parks, Warnham, West Grinstead, Denne, and Leonardslee parks containing in all more than 600 deer, red, roe, and fallow. Other parks are Holmbush (the ancient Beaubush), Horsham, and Knepp. Separated from St. Leonard's Forest, more by an imaginary than an actual line, WORTH FOREST lies in the north-western corner of the rape of Lewes. Even to-day the district is very woody, and travellers between London and Brighton may form some idea, albeit inadequate, of the aspect of this country-side in days of old, by the sight of the miles of continuous woodland through which the train passes about Balcombe. Worth was a royal possession in the days of the Confessor, and doubtless, as in the case of some other so-called forests in Sussex, its subsequent denomination as such was a survival from those earlier times. The boundaries of the forest are unknown, but they probably extended from the northern end of the rape of Lewes at least as far south as Cuckfield ; possibly as far as Ditchling. In the former case they would include the woodlands of Crabbet, Wakehurst, Worth itself, Balcombe, and Cuckfield, with the addition in the latter case of those of Homewood, Hurst, Keymer, and Ditchling. No forest or park is named in Domesday in connexion with Worth or its forest-land, though Wanningore (where Richard de Plaiz had a park in the thirteenth century) is mentioned, but no woodland is given as bringing in any payment in money or kind for pannage privileges. There are, indeed, no manors, vills or centres of habitation in this forest-land except Worth mentioned in Domesday, a fact most suggestive of the remote and unopened-up nature of that woodland district, since in the other forests of Sussex that survey names not a few such places in connexion with each. IM Parl. Surv. Sussex, No. 22. '" Ibid. No. 31. "" Ibid. No. 35. l" Royalist Comp. (ist Ser.), vol. 45, fol. 575. 13» S.P. Dom. Chas II, vol. 48, No. 46. "' Iter Surrienie et Stusexiense, Oxon. 1752. 310 FORESTRY At the time of Domesday's compilation Worth manor was apparently outside the county, since it is entered under Surrey as in the possession of a certain Siward, who held it of Richard of Tonbridge. But the forest which derived its name from Worth appears to have been in the hands of the earls of Warenne, lords of Lewes, since the distribution of lands at the Conquest. It extended over the parishes of Worth, Crawley, Ardingly, Slaugham, and Balcombe. Whatever its ancient area, probably very extensive, in later days it comprised more than 12,000 acres, divided into two parts, east and west, each of 2,567 acres, in five squares ( ? wards).138 Parks, or paled inclosures of some kind such as ' parrocks,' were probably formed at an early period within the forest for the purpose of confining deer, driven into them from the woodland at large, in order to fatten them for killing and salting in the autumn for the winter food supply, or for hunting purposes. Such were the Great and Little parks, Crabbet Park on the north, Wakehurst on the east, and Cuckfield park in the south. In these parks and in the woodlands uninclosed within the rape and so in the forest of Worth, the priory of St. Pancras at Lewes had the right of taking venison for the use of the sick and infirm monks.133 The same religious house held the wood of Homewood (nemus de Hamewuda), a southern offset of the forest, shown on old county maps, not as a park, but as a large uninclosed wood.134 The Hundred Rolls disclose many arbitrary proceedings of the lord of Lewes, John de Warenne, in connexion with his forest-land. The jurors of the hundred of Bottingill (which included all the forest of Worth) complained that the crops of the neighbouring tenants were almost destroyed by the ravages of his superabundant game. He had also extended his claim of exclusive hunting rights over almost the whole of his barony of Lewes, not suffering the knights or free tenants to hunt where they had been accustomed to so do. His bailiffs had behaved in equally tyrannical manner in the forest-land, and had destroyed the preserve (vivarium) of Richard de Plaiz, and had cut down his wood at ' Werplesburn,' the Wapsburn of later days. The earl also had declared the chase of 4le Clers' a forest, and had extended its bounds into the lands of the archbishop of Can- terbury at Lindfield, and had ousted the canons of South Mailing from their hunting rights at Stanmer and Balsdean.135 As far as ' le Clers ' is concerned it appears that from an early date it had been denominated a forest. Its precise situation is unknown. In some records it is said to be near (juxta) South Mailing ; in another actually at (apud) the same place. It is constantly spoken of as the property of the lords of Lewes ; but frequently as belonging to the canons of South Mailing. In 1236, Sir William de Say, lord of ' Hammes ' (afterwards Hamsey), relinquished (remisit) to the earl of Warenne the chase of hart and hind (red deer), buck and doe (fallow deer), hare, fox, and all other wild beasts, both great and small in the woods which are called les Clem, and in all the warrens of the said earl in Sussex. He also agreed not to inclose his wood at Hammes, or to hunt in it, or to make a park of it. The earl on his part relinquished to Sir William the fishery of ' Midewinde ' — the middle-wind (or bend), in the River Ouse at Hammes — and all right to the rabbit warren in the demesne of the same manor.138 Walter Bacheler, the earl's forester of Cleres, is recorded in 1287 to have fined Giles de la Beche at the Woodmote court, 'without any cause' said the jurors.137 Tyrannical as he was, John de Warenne doubtless was not without just cause of complaint against others. In 1325 he obtained from the king leave of taking steps against 'malefactors' who had hunted and taken his deer in the free-warrens and chases of Worth, ' Claris,' and elsewhere.138 This is one of many instances in which the chase or forest of Cleres is credited to the lords of Lewes. Yet, somewhat later, a jury replied to an inquisition into the rights and possessions of the small house of religion at South Mailing that the dean and canons ' by ancient custom can and ought to hunt ... in a certain chace in Claris called the chase of the dean and canons of Southmalling, near Horlockescrouch and Raychesgate.' I39 Meanwhile the arbitrary and illegal proceedings of the earl's forest officials continued, and in 1331 the priory of Lewes had cause to obtain an order from the earl restraining the zeal of these persons, in these words : Whereas the Bailiffs and Foresters of our woods, waters, and parks challenge and demand of our house of Lewes various things under colour of their office, to wit silver, corn, cheese, and divers repasts every year, contrary to the tenour of our foundations, we will and grant that our house of Lewes be quit of all such challenges and demands.140 137 Horsfield, Hist, of Suss, i, 265. '" Chartul. of Lewes Priory ; Cott. MS. Vesp. F. xv, fol. 16. 134 Mr. Round thinks ' Hamewuda ' may be Hammerwood near East Grinstead (Suss. Arch. Coll. xl, 69), but that name is clearly derived from some Hammer-pond of the iron-forges, and of very much later origin than the charter of King Stephen which records the grant of this wood. 13S Rot. Hund. (Rec. Com). 186 Feet of F. Suss, file 13, No. 4. "' Assize R. 924, m. 57. "* Pat. 19 Edw. II, m. 37^. 138 County Placita, Suss. No. 51 and 65, 40 Edw. III. 14° Misc. Bks. (P.R.O.) B f, fol. 62. 3" A HISTORY OF SUSSEX At this period poaching affrays were particularly prevalent. In 1327, on his complaint that certain evil-doers had hunted and carried away deer, hares, rabbits, and pheasants from his parks of Worth, Cuckfield, Ditchling, and from his free chase of Cleres and his warren of Lewes, John de Warenne was granted a commission of oyer and terminer to try them.141 Three years later a similar commission was obtained in regard to like offences committed in Worth and the other parks.143 Durrant Cooper speaks of timber from this forest having been supplied for the church of Worth, about the middle of the thirteenth century.143 In 1337 the sheriff had orders to deliver to the Constable of the Tower of London two large oaks from the forest of Worth, which John de Warenne had given to the king for making the beams of a certain great engine in the Tower.144 Outside the forest itself there was plenty of timber in the various parks and woodlands of the rape of Lewes. Even the small manor of Hamsey must have contained a good supply at this period, since William de Say sold to the prior of St. Pancras three hundred trees, half of the number oaks, half « fewers.'146 John de Warenne was the last of his line, and to him succeeded Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, as lord of the forest of Worth and all other possessions of the Warennes. As with his predecessor his forest, parks, and chases suffered much from the inroads of poachers, and so in 1379 we find him obliged to prosecute a large band of malefactors, who, led by the parson of Ripe, had raided his forest-land and parks and carried off hares, rabbits, and pheasants.146 The execution of this earl in 1397 was followed by the forfeiture of his estates. In the patent conferring them upon Thomas, duke of Norfolk, is mention — among other lands and manors — of ' Worth, with its two parks,' doubtless the Great and Little parks within the forest.147 In the succeeding reign, in 1411, a subsidy roll states that Thomas, earl of Arundel and Surrey, held, inter alia, Worth, with its parks and chases, ' worth nothing beyond reprises,' a statement which affords some idea of the cost of foresters' and parkers' wages, the repair of pales, fences, and banks, and the provender of deer.148 The chase of Cleres, meanwhile, appears to have come into other hands, since in 1363 John Dymok died possessed of it,149 but it came again under its former lordship, for John, duke of Norfolk, possessed it by right of marriage, in the reign of Edward IV, dying seised of ' Cleres Chacea,' as well as of the manor and forest of Worth.160 On the attainder of Thomas, duke of Norfolk, in 1546, his estates were bestowed on Thomas Seymour, lord admiral, and among them the forest of Worth. In less than a year and a half he, in his turn, was attainted, and his property seized by the crown. Consequent upon this an inventory m was made which shows that ' Thomas Michell, gent, Raynger ther,' had ' for his fee per diem by the year lx9- xd- . . . . also the herbage and pannage of the said Forest and Parke, by patent, during his leif.' Two keepers, Robert Monke and Robert Cowstock, had ' yerely for their wages, every of them xl8- with the kepyng of serteyne cattail ther.' In Queen Mary's reign Sir Richard Sackville was master of the game in the forest of Worth, with the modest salary of £3. Under him was Robert Monk in the south ward, with a fee of j^2 ; Robert Coulstock in the north ward, Robert Brown in the west ward, and Christopher Somer in the east ward, each with the same fee as Monk.152 About this period — the earliest date being uncertain — we begin to meet with the place-name ' Tilgate,' applied to part of Worth Forest, but whether it be to the moiety held by the Middleton family by grant from the queen, or to the other half in possession of the Eversfields, it is not easy to determine. But from this period the name ' Tilgate Forest ' appears to be as frequently used as Worth for this woodland, until eventually it almost superseded the more ancient Worth. In this manner it seems to have been used in a settlement made in 1639 by Thomas Covert on his wife Diana, in jointure, of ' Tilgate,' described as lying in Worth, Crawley, Slaugham, Balcombe, and Cuckfield. Subsequently Sir Walter Covert died seised of Tilgate, held of the king in capite by knight service.153 In the period of the Civil War such of the estates in this forest-land as were owned by Royalists were either sequestered or compounded for ; and in some cases the woodlands hereabouts suffered waste ; tenants of the Parliament, in most cases, being under no restrictions against felling timber.154 At Slaugham Park John Covert was allowed to compound for his estates ; those of John Middleton in Worth forest-land were sequestered, albeit Thomas Middleton, his relative, was one of the sequestrators appointed for the county. In the northern part of Worth Forest, not far from Crabbet Park, was a wild tract of land called Copthorne, now Copthorne Common, much frequented in the seventeenth and eighteenth 111 Pat. I Edw. Ill, m. 26. l*» Pat. 4 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 46. 143 Suss. Arch. Coll. viii, 237. 114 Close, 1 1 Edw. Ill, pt. I, m. 32. "5 Misc. Bks. (P.R.O.) B f, fol. 89, No. 3. u'De Banco R., Mich. 3. Ric. II, m. 477, 243. "' Pat. 21 Ric. II, m. n. "• Subs. R. 13 Hen. IV. '" Inq. p.m. 37 Edw. Ill, No. 22. lso Ibid. 17 Edw. IV, No. 59. 151 Suss. Arch. Call, xiii, 129. "• (Burrell) Add. MS. 5684, fol. 432. 143 Parks and forests of Sussex, 207. '" Royalist Comp. (ist Ser.), vol. 43, fol. 91. 3" FORESTRY centuries by lawless characters, such as smugglers and horse stealers. It is said that a horn was kept in the neighbourhood by whose sound aid might be summoned to withstand or capture such evil- doers. In after and more law-abiding times this relic of the past has gone the way of most obsolete implements ; but the late Mr. Scawen Blunt, of Crabbet Park, is said to have seen it.15s In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries this forest-land of Worth, pierced by the main road between London and Brighton, came into favour as a residential neighbourhood, and was cut up into various estates, and in 1828 a private Act of Parliament was obtained for the inclosure of waste — that is forest-lands — at Keymer, Balcombe, and Worth.156 There are no deer parks : some of the various estates into which it is now divided possess, however, park-like lands, such as Worth Park, Crabbet Park, Tilgate Manor, Worth Lodge, Huntsland, Copthorne, &c. Under such arrangements this ancient forest-land is likely to remain, for its soil is too poor to tempt agricultural experiment. There is not even so much great timber as in most of the other Sussex forests, what there is being largely birch, and there is considerable heath-land, beautiful though barren, as at Copthorne Common, Old House Warren, and High Beeches Warren. So waste and woodland is all the northern stretch of Sussex, and so insensibly we pass eastwards from St. Leonard's Forest to that of Worth, and thence to Ashdown, that the Copthorne part of Worth Forest is sometimes described under dissertations on Ashdown.157 ASHDOWN FOREST is the most important of those portions of the great woodland of Andredes- wald which were formed, more or less artificially, when Sussex was divided into rapes, and this importance is derived from its size, its connexion with kings and queens, and its association with the iron industry and the timber supply of the country, from a remote antiquity until the near past. Extending over about 18,000 acres, it occupied the parishes of Maresfield, Fletching, East Grinstead, Hartfield, Buxted, and Withyham, and is still the largest tract of forest-land remaining in Sussex. The origin and meaning of the name are unknown, and though it would appear to have relation to the ash tree, and a presumed prevalence of it in this forest, as a matter of fact the ash is, and probably always was, a quite uncommon tree in the district. The late Rev. Edward Turner, who lived and moved and wrote about this forest-land during many years, declared that all the remains of such ancient trees as he had seen recovered from their subterranean or subpaludal places, wherein they had lain buried for ages, were either oak or fir ; trees of great magnitude withal. There is little wood- land of any great extent or denseness, such as is usually associated with the word 'forest,' existing nowadays ; and it is highly probable that this particular expanse of forest-land always possessed more open though wild country, and less thickly-timbered tracts — at least in the portion called the Forest Ridge — than the more westerly parts of the ancient Anderida Silva. This is quite what one might expect, since, speaking generally, although Ashdown Forest in parts possesses heavy clays whereon the oak flourishes, as well as localities of loam sufficiently stiff to support great timber, yet a large proportion consists of green sands and gravels. As the aspect of a district is affected by its geology, so is its history ; and the same sandstone formation that gives its picturesque and uncultivated beauty to Ashdown Forest, also contained in its iron-ore-bearing strata the essential element of that industry which is so interwoven with the history of Sussex, and its woodlands and forests. Ashdown Forest finds no mention in Domesday, either by its own name or that of any of its constituent parks ; but there are the usual entries about the woods of manors — all originally por- tions of the forest-land — and the swine that fed therein. From these we find that the lords received from such woods as are mentioned 719 hogs ; so that we may number the pigs pannaged in those woodlands, parts of Ashdown Forest, of which Domesday takes note, at more than 7,000. The forest which we now call Ashdown, lying in the north of the rape, and extending into only six parishes, in the days when it was called Pevensey Forest covered also much of the south, reaching as near to Pevensey as to justify its name. This is shown, among other things, by the fact that Earl Robert granted to the religious house of Wilmington herbage, pannage, and wood for fuel and repairs from his forest of Pevensey, while the confirmations of these gifts by his son William particularize the places as the woods in Waldron, Hoathly, Hellingly, and Laughton,158 most of which places lie quite in the southern part of the rape. The early history of this forest is in the main a record of donations of forest-lands and forest- rights to various religious houses of the neighbourhood. The grant to Wilmington Priory by Earl Robert, and its confirmation by his son William, has been already referred to. The succeeding lords of the forest, the De Aquilas, continued to befriend the same monastery ; and Gilbert, third of the name, in 1229 founded the priory of Michelham, seated beside the little River Cuckmere, in the woodlands of ' the Dicker,' a tract of land in the south of Waldron Woods. By his charter of endowment Gilbert de Aquila gave to this convent, among other things, his park of ' Peverse,' an inclosure in the forest, together with pasture for sixty cattle in the Dicker, the Broyle of IM Suss. Arch. Coll. xiv, 63. w Ibid. xvi. 157 Cf. Suss. Arch. Coll. xiv, 62, 63. 1M Dugdale, Mon. vi, 1091. 2 313 40 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Laughton, and other his woods in Sussex, and pannage for zoo pigs in the same. Timber also he granted them, in the same forest-land, for building, repairing, and fencing, ' to be taken under the view of my foresters.' The neighbouring abbey of Otham was also the recipient of the benefactions of the same Gilbert, consisting of two trees, an oak and a beech, to be taken yearly in his forest, under the supervision of his foresters ; also pannage for twenty pigs in it ; together with 120 acres of land in the Dicker. Not many years after the date of these donations to Otham and to Michelham the lordship of Ashdown Forest passed again into new hands. In 1245 Peter of Savoy was lord of the honour of Aquila, its castle, and forest,169 and a few years later obtained hunting rights over it.160 His bailiff, or chief forester there, William de Fawkham, endeavoured to set up various new customs in the forest to the prejudice of the free tenants there, calling on them to serve on 'inquisi- tions which he made of timber felled in the Forest of Asshedoune,' whereas formerly this had only been required of them ' by precept of the king.' 161 A survey made in 1273 gives a valuable insight into the conditions and customs of this forest.162 There were then 208 customary tenants dwelling on the borders of (circa) the forest paying at Michaelmas money rents amounting to 39*. O^d., at Christmas 208 hens, and at Easter 416 eggs. They had the right to all windfall wood 163 within their ' communia ' throughout the year — save that what was torn up by the roots (roth events) by the wind belonged to the king ; moreover between Hockday and Michaelmas they might go into the forest with their carts in search of drift wood, but not during the winter. They could also have brushwood, furze, and broom for fuel, ' and if it be necessary for the improvement of their common pasture they may burn all the afore- said, so that they burn no wood ' ; 164 a reference to clearing the ground for pasture by burning the gorse and other shrubs. Further, they might have on their 'communia' as much stock as they could maintain throughout the winter in their own buildings,105 but for six weeks between Michaelmas and Martinmas the stock must be kept out of the woods upon the heath so that it should not enter the pannage, on penalty of being impounded. They might also have all the swine that they could support themselves 166 running in the forest, in the ' defense ' as well as elsewhere, all the year except for fifteen days before and after the Nativity of St. John the Baptist ; and at Martinmas all the swine should come to the pound-fold (ad pontfoldani) for pannage, and id. should be paid for every pig over a year, but those under a year should be assessed by the foresters according to their age. The foresters' accounts 167 show that the young pigs were charged at \d., id., or i\d., according to their age. If any customary tenant had ten swine the king could take one, namely the best, and for every additional ten another ; this tenth pig discharged the others from their pannage fees, for it was open to the king to take "id. for each pig instead of the payment in kind. An examination of such pannage lists as remain shows that it was very rare for any tenant to have more than five or six swine. The total number of swine feeding in the forest varied from time to time ; in 1293 the customary tenants had no full- grown pigs and 70 young ones, while foreign tenants (extranet) had 300 full-grown (at ^d. a head), and 366 young pigs (varying from id. to 2^.), making a total of 846 ; 168 but unless these figures are incomplete this was a tremendous downfall from the previous year, when William Savary, swineherd of ' Lampol,' accounted for 533 grown pigs and 455 yearlings; Richard Preston, swine- herd of Walheath, for 340 of the former and 225 of the latter ; and Gilbert Brounyng, of ' Heselwode,' for no less than 746 full-grown and 485 young pigs, making a grand total of 2,784 — and those, as the charges show, all belonging to foreigners.169 The amount received this year from foreign pannage was well over £25, while 631. "]\d. came from the pannage of the customary tenants, ' which is called gersheues.' 17° The survey of 1273 records the right of the prior of Michelham to 60 cows and a bull running all the year on the east of ' la Redee,' between that place and ' la Wigge,' and of the prior of Wilmington to have 36 oxen from Hockday to St. Peter ad Vincula upon Bromknoll, under charge of his own herdsman. The rector of Maresfield could have 1 6 cows and a bull where the prior of Michelham had his ; and the chapel of Maresfield had a right to 1 5 cows and a bull at ' Uleley ' m 158 Chart. R. 30 Hen. III. I6° Ibid. 37 Hen. III. 161 Assize R. 912 (47 Hen. Ill), m. 40. 16f Rentals and Surveys, ||. ra In the bishop of Chichester's wood of ' Menesse ' in Amberley, Wisborough, and Fittleworth, certain tenants had the right that when a tree fell the first comer might take all the branches and outgrowth, back to the trunk, and this they called ' Twyshewencartfelghe ' or 'tuvs haggen fellighe ' ; Year Bk. 14 Edw. Ill (Rolls Ser.), 104-15. ' Et si necesse fuerit ad pasturam commune sue emendam debent omnia dicta ardere.' 65 ' Omne instaurum quod possunt per totum yems sustentare ad domos suas.' so ' Omnes porcos suos quos nutrire possunt de nutrimento suo proprio.' 167 e.g. Mins. Accts. bdle. 1027, No. 22. IM Ibid. 169 Ibid. No. 21. "» Ibid. 171 Geoffrey de Say and his esquires had hunting rights (curius) at ' Oulele 'in 1353; Assize R. 941, m. I d. FORESTRY south of ' la Loggebrok,' as well as 2O swine quit of pannage, and house-bote and hey-bote. We know from other sources that the rector had also the tithes of the pasturage and pannage of Maresfield park, the tithes of the forest going to the bishop of Chichester.172 The survey continues : — ' The forest can be controlled in time of peace by one master forester with his servant and eight other Serjeants and not less.' Moreover Ralph the Marshal (marescalf) either in his own person or by deputy had to be one of eight Serjeants with a horse, by reason of the land he held in 'Bodinggeham ' and ' Rottingeham ' ; in return he could have 12 oxen at ' Colbebech ' and ' Uleleye,' and a beech tree yearly for fuel, while his swine were free of pannage. William de Hodlee had to be, or to supply, a forester for his lands, and Roger de Dalingerigge had to serve in person as forester, receiving 3*. for his livery. John de Farnlegh was required to serve as one of the eight Serjeants, but received 5*. from the king for so doing ; his land was clearly that 'great serjeancy ' held by Roger de Farlegh, forester, about 1353 by service of keeping the queen's chase of Ashdown, or of finding a keeper for the same with horn, bow, and arrows.173 The ranger or master-forester received qd. daily, riding foresters, of whom there were two in 1283, 2d., and ordinary foresters id. ; while the parker of Maresfield had ' i^d. daily.174 There were also perquisites of office, for the parker of Maresfield and foresters of Ashdown took the honey and wax made by the wild bees in the hollow trees ; 176 and occasionally they abused their powers, for one of the foresters was imprisoned at Pevensey in 1395 for taking the tenants' cattle grazing in the forest and using them in his own plough.176 The head forester also claimed to have the windfall wood ' called cablis,' 177 Sir John St. Clare, who farmed the chase of Ashdown from 1366 to 1370, complaining that the queen had appropriated all such woods 'since the time of the great storm of wind' — presumably the famous hurricane of I362.178 This claim was probably unfounded, unless the custom was of recent growth, for in 1292 the ranger accounted179 for 211. received ' de cablicio vendito,' as well as 2s. 6d. for 'coperones' from timber felled for making new pales. Ten years earlier he entered 8x. lod. for 'coperones' — 'namely for logs felled for the pales of the forest ' — and 48*. lod. for dead wood sold,180 which in 1283 brought in £21 Ss. 2d.m When timber was felled at Maresfield in 1387 for repairs to the weir, 41. were obtained for the ' croppes ' of the trees, and the ' chippes and loppys of the said timber' were sold to carpenters.183 As the bark was in this case sold for 31. 4^. the trees were probably oaks, and several cases of oaks being cut in Maresfield Park occur, but when the nature of the wood cut in the forest is mentioned it is almost always birch or beech, a hundred of the latter being sold in 1285 for 25*.183 The comparative scarcity of oaks in the poor soil of the forest seems also borne out by the fact that while payments for ' the acorn pannage ' (pannagium ad glandei) are common in the parkers' accounts for Maresfield, the foresters of Ashdown almost always return 'nothing' from this source 'because there are no acorns,' almost the only exception being in 1385 — presumably a good year for that fruit — when the ranger had £4 8j. from the West ward, jos. from the South ward, and 321. from Coteresley ward for the acorn pannage.184 The main pannage, called ' Evesfold,' was derived from beech mast. Ashdown Forest, as might be expected, is found to have been the scene of much illegal hunting and carrying away deer. Timber, too, was subject to unlawful or excessive felling, and in 1309, when Ashdown was still held by the queen-mother in dower, the king ordered an inquiry into the waste committed by John and William Dalyngrigge in the ' chase of Asshedon ' 185 — an inquiry doubtless necessary, since the normal demands made upon the timber of Ashdown forest- land by house and farm building, and the frequent repairs of Pevensey Castle, were sufficiently large. Thus in 1288 and the succeeding two or three years extensive repairs went on at that castle, and there are records 1S6 of five cart-loads of wood, ' the queen's own material,' and twelve cart-loads of birch poles for scaffolding brought from Claverigge Wood in Waldron, as well as timber for the stairs. Fourteen loads of scaffold poles were taken from the same wood, and fifty-six cart-loads of firewood cut there and conveyed to Willingdon, while from Waldron fifty scaffold poles and fifty hurdles were brought to Pevensey Castle in connexion with the same work. "' Mins. Accts. bdle. 441, No. 7085. 17S Assize R. 941, m. 5 d.\ ibid. 941^, m. 2 d. 174 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 136, No. 18 ; but in 1222 the master-forester only received ^d. and his four subordinates \\d. a day ; Pipe R. 1 6 Hen. III. 175 Assize R. 941, m. 7. 17' Mins. Accts. bdle. 441, No. 7096. 177 At Aldingbourne the parker claimed, in 1384, to have yearly one complete tree of those cut or blown down, all outgrowth of all trees cut by the bishop for timber for repairs, and all chips (guisjuilias) and other waste wood thrown aside by the carpenters and workmen ; Assize R. 1423, m. 41. 178 Mins. Accts. bdle. 1028, No. 4. "9 Ibid. bdle. 1027, No. 21. 180 Ibid. "» Ibid. 182 Ibid. bdle. 441, No. 7087. I8S Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 136, No. 18. 84 Mins. Accts. bdle. 441, No. 7085. 1Si Close, 2 Edw. II, m. 7. 188 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 479, No. 15, printed in Susi. Arch. Coll. xlix. 315 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Ten years later John de Winterselle, the bailiff, rendered account for cutting and squaring beams in the park of Maresfield, and for making 7,000 laths from the same timber.187 The next year, during the reconstruction of the royal free chapel within Pevensey Castle, 2,000 laths were made from timber from 'Essesdoun forest,' together with 150 props. In addition the chapel was panelled with 400 beech-boards from timber of ' Assesdon.' In addition to the deer, the birds of Ashdown were objects of the poachers' depredations -f partridges and pheasants are often mentioned in records as being killed by unlicensed hunters. The hawk tribe, so much in request in falconry, were also occasionally taken from park and forests, and in Ashdown a certain John de Holmdale took sparrow-hawks belonging to William de Maufe in ; ia87.188 Considerable care, however, was taken to preserve hawks ; in 1283 three sparrow-hawks were taken in Ashdown Forest by the forester and sent to the king at Marlborough ; three years later zs. was spent in taking care of two sparrow-hawks and two ' muskes,' and carrying them to the court ; and in 1287 a charge of 6d. was made for looking for two sparrow-hawks and two ' muskes * in the trees, and 2s. for sending them to Amesbury, with a piece of canvas to cover them.189 As late as 1539 the ranger received ^6 15*. for watching the hawks in this forest, while two falconers were paid ' costs into Sussex to take hawks.' 19° The Hundred Rolls record various illegal practices in connexion with this forest. In the hundred of East Grinstead Walter le Dykere was charged with encroaching upon the king's rights ' in the forest of Eschedune ' during the last four years. A charge was brought, a few years later, against Roger Covert, of making a park in the vill of ' Bradebrigg,' in the forest-land. Roger replied that he did not claim hunting rights in it, and a jury declared that it did not encroach upon the king's soil or rights. As a result the inclosure was allowed the status of a legal park.191 The names of some bailiffs in the forest of Ashdown have come down to us from this period j such as Walter de Brayboef, John de la Rude, and John de Waukeford.192 In 1284 William de Gulderig was master-forester of ' Essendon.' ls3 Ten years later Walter Waldeshef was appointed to the same post, ' to be held, with all that appertains to it, as long as the king pleases.' 1! In the next reign the chief forester of Ashdown was Thomas Culpeper.195 Edward I granted to a certain Thomas Peynel licence to hunt with his own hounds the fox, hare, wild cat, and badger in the king's forest of Ashdown, except during the fence month, so that he did not hunt the deer or course within the king's warrens. Possibly one of these latter was at what is now called Gardine Hill, in Hartfield, where, as a survey of the time of the Commonwealth tells us, a piece of land, 86 acres in extent, was ' formerly impaled, and employed and used as a coney warren, which paling is all gone and taken away.' 196 In 1350 a Sussex knight, William de Fifhide, obtained a grant from the king of ten wagon- loads of beech faggots from the forest of Ashdown, to be taken every year, under the view of the keeper of the forest, from the neighbourhood of the.manor of Birkham ; and in addition pasture for thirteen cows and a bull, and pannage for thirty swine within the forest bounds.197 The Assize Roll of the next year narrates some poaching affairs in this forest, as when Roger Leukenore, ' chivaler,' captured with his harriers a ' sour ' — a four-year-old buck of fallow deer — in the chase of Plagh, within Ashdown Forest, doubtless in the neighbourhood of what is to-day called Flaw-Hatch. Another ' evildoer in parks and chaces ' was Andrew Mulssh, ' who took a staggard ' — a four-year- old buck red deer — at Mayeslond in the same forest.198 In 1370 Edward III granted to his third son, John of Gaunt,199 the 'free chase of Ashdown, with the rights and liberties pertaining thereto.' John of Gaunt being duke of Lancaster, Ashdown Forest became a portion of the duchy, and was subsequently denominated in official documents ' Lancaster Great Park.' There are a few notices of places within this forest, of the period of Edward III, contained in the Inquisitiones Nonarum. The woodland parish of Hartfield is noted as having some forest-right (quondam custumam) in connexion with its church, but its nature is not stated. Apparently it was of more value even than that of Maresfield, since it is stated to be worth 40*. per annum, double the valuation set upon the privileges of the latter.200 Another church noted as possessing certain ' custom ' in the forest is Withyham, a parish lying partly within its metes and bounds. In addition the jurors report as diminishing the value of their ' ninths ' the imparkation of certain lands in Mayfield into the archbishop's park of Frankham, on the verge of the forest. Mr. Turner, the historian of Ashdown, considers the forest, or main part of it, to have been imparked in this Edwardian period, but his sole basis for this supposition appears to be the use of 187 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 479, No. 16. 188 Assize R. 924, m. 10. 189 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 136, No. 18. 19° L. and P. Hen. PHI, xiv (2), p. 342. 191 Assize R. 921, 7 Edw. I, m. 16. 19> Assize R. 912, m. 40. 193 Mins. Accts. -L°f*. I94 Rot. Orig. 25 Edw. I, m. 17. 195 Pat. ii Edw. II, pt. 2, m. 33. I96 Parl. Surv. No. 12. 197 Pat. 24 Edw. Ill, pt. 3, m. 16. 198 Assize R. 941, 25 Edw. Ill, m. I. 1M Pat. 44 Edw. Ill ; Orig. R. 46 Edw. Ill, m. 20. *» Inj. Non. (Rec. Com.), 378. FORESTRY the term ' Lancaster Great Park,' an insufficient basis, considering the loose use by mediaeval scribes of terms which had by right a rigid application. However this may be, lands once presumably portions of the forest are at this period found in the possession of different owners. Thus we find much of Waldron woodland in other hands than those of Edward III or John of Gaunt. In 1370 Michael, Lord Poynings, died seised of it; 201 in 1388 his son Richard 'on the day on which he died held the manor of Waldron of the Duke of Lancaster, as of the Honor of Aquila.' 202 Before the Poynings the Badlesmeres had been lords of its woodlands, and had free warren there. On the southern verge of the forest the Pelhams possessed lands whose names had at an earlier date been associated with Ashdown Forest, and at a still earlier period we find Thomas de Audeham possessed of ' the manor of Fletchinge in Ashedon forest.' 203 Shortly after the death of Thomas Boleyn, earl of Wiltshire, keeper of Ashdown, a survey was made of the forest,204 of which a fragment is still extant.205 According to this, the Forest is about by the pale 3 5 myle, it is a barren ground and hathe no covert of any underwood saving great Trees and in some of the Covers birchen Trees. Itm there is no faire launde in it but only hethes and they are not playne but all holies. Itm there are in it of Redde Dere ccc Whereof male dere 1. Itm Falowe Dere vij or viij c whereof male dere c. There were six lodges for the officers, all ruinous, besides Newebridge lodge, which was lately built, but unoccupied, and falling to decay. There were three foresters and three ' walkers,' each receiving 45*. 6d. yearly, and each paying for the pannage of his 'walk ' 2Os. 'in a maske yere.' In 1539 Edmund Henslow, or Hensley, was Master of the Game in Ashdown Forest, and in the Broyle of Ringmer. Subsequent holders of this post were members of the Maresfield family of Kidder, and Mr. Turner considers that the office became hereditary in their family.206 In 1540 it was found that the waste of timber in Ashdown Forest and the neighbouring woodlands had become so great that a commission was appointed to inquire into the matter, and to view the actual state of affairs, including in their scope the destruction of game that had also taken place. From their ' perambulation ' it is seen that most of the various walks and wards and lodges bore the same names that survive in the district to-day : such as South, Costeley, Newbridge, and West wards, with Duddleswell, Pippyngworth, Deans, Browns, and Cavells lodges. The conditions disclosed by this and similar commissions — for this was not the first inquiry made on the subject, and by no means the last — were such as to call for remedial, preventive, or restrictive measures. Waste of wood and destruction of game continued, and in the reign of Mary, Edmund Hensley, still Master of the Game of Ashdown, proceeded against various delinquents — including some of the keepers — in the Duchy Court,207 charging them, inter alia, that in ' the great waste ground called the Forest of Ashdowne ' divers persons named, with others to the number of twenty, assembled about midnight at Hartfield, having with them divers and many greyhounds, crossbows and arrows, longbows and arrows, pikes, forks, bills and clubs and arrayed with coats of fenses and skulls of iron . . . then and there ... in most riotous manner did chase her Majesty's deer and did Kill one Red deer and four fallow deer and carried them away, and wounded and ill-treated the keepers of the said deer. Another band of twenty-six persons were at the same time charged with similar misdeeds committed in the forest about six weeks later, on which occasion eight fallow deer were killed ; while yet another company of evil-doers hunted the deer and wounded the keepers. The defendants pleaded that the bill of complaint was untrue and insufficient in law ; that if they had offended against forest laws they ought to be tried by a forest court. A swaynemote should be called and chose 1 2 inhabitants to enquire into all misdemeanours, and go through the forest and seize all spoil and waste. The second band of supposed evil-doers declared their assembling together as alleged was actually the subsequent proceeding to a ' wood-court holden in a place called Duddles by the steward and others to make enquiry,' after which, ' the defendants and others walked through the woods and surveyed the waste.' William Bruges was one of the keepers accused, not only in the complaint of the Master of the Game, but also by certain ' commissioners of the view of waste and destruction of deer, woods, and underwoods,' namely, John Sackville and Edward Gage.208 Bruges replied that he was keeper 101 Inq. p.m. 43 Edw. Ill, pt. 2, No. 17. "' Ibid. 1 1 Ric. II, No. 43. w3 Ibid. 4 Edw. I, No. 45. ** L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xiv (2), 29. m For. Proc. (T.R.), 197. m6 Suss. Arch. Coll. xiv, 47. *" Duchy of Lane. Dep. vol. 69, H. 2. 108 Duchy of Lane. Plead, xxxviii, R. 7. The Sackvilles, ancestors of the Dorset family, had been seated in the forest-land for centuries. Jordan de Sackville, in the beginning of Edward I's reign, held in the manor of Buckhurst, in Ashdown Forest, 'a certain park of which the pasture was poor, and its pannage, together with that of the outside woods, only worth z/,' and the pannage in his park of Newenham was only worth 8ls Ibid. "4 S. P. Dom. Jas. I, vol. 1 3, No. 6. "• Ibid. vol. 48, No. 57. FORESTRY ^^ Southward walke, Pippinford walke, Hine leapewalke, Brodestone walke, Comedeane walke and Whitedeane walke. Southward als ) Southward in the parishes of Maresfield and Bucksteed begins at Milbrook Duddleswell Walke J in Nutley and thence goes upye gill East to Beggars Bush and thence to Blackpitt gill & thence to Crowborrow gate & then south and west to Pound Gate and Westwards to Barnes gate and soe along the Pale rounding, and through Nutley to Milbrook againe. Pippinford ) Begins at Milbrooke afforesd and thence west runs downe to Stonegate and thence Walke J to litle stone gate below the vachery and soe to Chalwood gate and thence to Pike church gill. And thence returns north east up the said gill to Witchcross, and thence along the gill called depedeane gill unto ye steele Forge past the lodge & thence southward to Milbrooke againe. Hyneleape) Lying in the parishes of Maresfeild and Eastgrinsteed, begins at Pikechurch gill and Walke J goes along west by ye Pale to Dallingridge & thence to Plowhatch gate and soe to Leggesheath gate and thence Northward to Mudbrooke gate and claypitts gate, Kidsbrooke gate, to Highgate, and thence southward to Honneywell and soe to Witchcross and thence to Pikechurch gill. Broadestone) Lying in ye parishes of East Grinsteed and Hartfeild, and in the north part of the Walke Jsaid parke and begins at Highgate and goes along the pale eastward to playes gate and Posternegate and soe to Blackegill into Hartfield Parish, and soe to quabocke, thence to Farmers gate and colemans gate and thence to Newbridge gate and soe to Newbridge River, and thence South- ward up the River to Steele Forge and thence westward along deep deane gill to Wichecross and thence Northward to Honnywell and soe to Highgate. Comedeane ) Lying in ye Parish of Hartfeild and in ye north part of ye said Parke, begineth at Walke {Newbridge and goes along the pale to Chuckhatch gate, and soe to Readesgate and thence to Buckhurst pke and soe to Blackbrooke and thence southward to Landwelheade, thence to Newledge and thence to Beggars bush, and so to the three wards and downe the brooke to Steele Forge and soe to Newbridge. Whitedeane) Lying in Withiham parish, and in the east part of the sd park Eastward begins at Walke j Blackebrooke agst Buckhurst pke & passes along the pale by Fidges gate and frayes gate and grubbs gate and so to Newmans gate, and thence south along the pale to Crowborrow gate and thence west to Beggars bush, and thence to Loudwell hedge & thence northward to Blackbrooke. The survey goes on to view the various lodges attached to these ' Walkes,' each with its resident keeper. The first on the list, Duddleswell Lodge, to which all the others assimilate closely, con- sisted of — a Hall, a parlor, a kitchen, and other necessary roomes below stares, with four chambers above stares, besides garretts, with a barne, a stable, and gardens & severall inclosed parcells of land adjoyn- ing and belonging . . . containing by estimacon thirty acres ... in the tenure and occupacon of Robert Brookes keeper of the said Walke. . . . All which ... we estimate to be worth p ann 30 acr. o r. oo p, xv"- Pippinford, Hineleape, Broadstone, Comedean, and Whitedean lodges, of which John Pranke, Francis Hesmon, James Kingsland, and John Palmer were the tenants and keepers, were of similar description and value, with the chief exception of Whitedean, whose grounds contained only ten acres, and whose value was estimated at only four pounds. In addition to these keepers' lodges Southward Walk contained the Chamberlain's residence, called the White House, which, however, ' with thappurtenances ' was estimated at little more than six pounds, because — as great a part of ye sd howse as is now standing was pulled downe & carryed away & sould or otherwise disposed of by Sir Henry Compton about anno 1638, who was then Ranger or by the Earle of Dorcett, then M' of the game in the said Parke, which was of the value of Therty pounds, 30"" In addition to the strictly sporting parts of this forest, its walks, or wards, the surveyors report upon certain ' franchises ' of the territory, ' loci immunes,' localities without the pale, immune from forest law, anglice 'commons' in one meaning of the word. There are [they say] belonging to the said parke divers pcells of land . . . commonly knowne and called by their severall names viz' Part of Chelwood Common lying on the south side ye said Parke . . . And Buntisgrove als Bunchgrove in ye pish of Maresfeild . . . Alsoe Forrest row greene in ye pish of Eastgrinsteed . . . Alsoe Quavrocke Comon or greene lying in ye pish of Hartfeild . . . Alsoe Colemans hatch greene lying in the pish of Hartfeild afforesaid . . . Alsoe Chuckehatch greene lying in the pish of Hartfeild afforesaid . . . Alsoe Mershe greene al* Leigh greene lying in the pish of Withyam . . . Also Crowborrow Comon lying in the pish of Rotherfeild & Bucksteed . . . Alsoe Harney Comon in the pish of Maresfeild . . . Memorandum Y* when there is any drove made in the said Parke that ye Officers doe usually drive all the said lands or commons and doe impound all such catle or horses of such psons as have custome for the same in ye said Parke. Deare red ) There are w'in the said park about 120 deere red and fallow wch wee value in. and fallow J grosse at 120 pounds. Woods and \ The woods & und'woods upon the whole parke wee estimate in grosse at six und'woods j hundred pounds. A HISTORY OF SUSSEX The commissioners then take under survey three ' cottages incroached,' which they value at 231. t^d. Upon these ' purprestures ' they comment — Memorandum That the said Pollard & Hever abovesd are poore, especially the said Hever having three children, & both have beene at charges in building the s* cottages and fencing ye said platts of ground . . . therefore we doe conceive the said widdow especially is to be pittyed and considered. Eight other ' cottages incroached ' are described as ' very p'judicial to the said parke and rather to bee pulled downe than continued, and therefore we have put noe value upon the same.' The commissioners comment upon the earl of Dorset's claim to offices, fees, and perquisites, ' the said Earle by letters pattent from King James under the scale of the Dutchy dated i8th Junii 22nd of the said King ' having been appointed ' Master of the Forrest of Ashdown and governor or principal Mr of the game in the same Forrest ' at the yearly fee of £6 1 6s. I O^d., and alsoe keep' and surveyor of all the woods and underwoods and trees then growing or thereafter to grow in the said Forrest. And also Stewart of the Honor of ye Eagle & of the Forrest of Ashdowne . . . and of the Court Barron, Avesfeild, Woodmote, and Swainmote Courts within the said Forrest ... at the yearly fee of xls for execysing the said sev'all offices. They also note that by patent of the 8th of King Charles the earl had been granted the rents and perquisites of those various courts within the three wards of the forest, paying therefor £8 19*. 'ould rent,' and 32*. for two 'stirkes' (heifers) at Michaelmas and Lady Day by equal portions, covenanting to acquit and discharge the crown of all the fees due for all the offices mentioned in the first patent. The earl also had by the same patent of King Charles a grant of all the underwoods and coppices of the forest, as well as the chamberlain's house and grounds, the fish-ponds and waste ground on which were situate the forges, furnaces, and workmen's dwellings. All marked oaks, elms, ashes, and beeches, and all chestnut trees and crab trees were excepted, and also twelve of the fairest young trees of Oake, Elme or Beech upon every acre, and alsoe trees of eight inches square foure feet above the stem. Also all Herbage, pannage, mast and ackornes, chcsnuts and Beeches. And also excepted Browse for the Deere and estovers to the keepers and tennts Habendum all the premises from the annunciation last for 3 1 yeares paying for the woods xvi" xiiis iiiid, & for the Chamberlains house xxs at Michs and Lady day by equal porcones wth divers other covenants, pticularly for repairing all the houses and Fences at his own proper costs and charges. These various grants the commissioners ' conceive if evr authenticke to be voide in regard hee hath not made good the covenants menconed,' the earl having almost destroyed the woods and underwoods and suffered, or even occasioned, many of the encroachments, and allowed the pales to be ruined, and the privileges of the courts to be lost. Coming to the various ' reprises,' or deductions from profits in connexion with the forest, the surveyors note that the afore-named keepers had received — 'before the late troubles' — from the earl the yearly fee of £6 135. \d. each, with allowances for hay for the deer in winter time. In addition, they had been allowed to agist a hundred cattle and twenty horses or mares ' each of them for their owne benefitt,' but ' they have continued to take in considerable numbers of Catle and horses.' Adverting to the inclosures of Buckhurst Park (44^ acres), Newneham Park (14 acres, 2 roods), and Newbridge lands (9 acres), they declare them to be all ' taken and inclosed out of ye great pke of Lancr ' by the earl of Dorset or his ancestors, 4 who produceth no evidence whereby they claime to hold the same.' Of another inclosure known as the ' Vachery lands,' of 100 acres, together with a barn, they say the 'title hath beene claimed, and Dan1 Rogers proved immediate tenant and the estate in fee allowed.' As regards the inclosures of the park, the surveyors state that they ' make noe reprise for the fenceing and repayring of the Pales of the said Parke, which are ruined through the neglect of the Earl of Dorsett.' The ' Aves Court kept the next tuesday after all saints' day ' apparently represents the ' swain- mote ' of the middle ages, albeit that court was held thrice a year ; while ' the Woodmote Court wherein they present abuses of Customes, incroachments, Spoylers of game or wood,' was held three weeks after All Saints' day instead of every forty days, as in the period when the forest laws prevailed. It was at this ' Aves ' court (from ' Avesagium,' here equivalent with agistment, the pasturing of cattle within the forest) that the tenants did ' pay their aves money for the yeare past,' and at which doubtless any questions touching agistment came under review, together with the kindred matter of pannage or feeding of swine within the forest. The figures presented in this connexion by the surveyors seem immense, and are evidence of the former great extent of the forest, since it would appear impossible that its then contracted compass could afford appreciable sustenance for the vast number of horses, cattle, and swine, in addition to the large herds of deer which the forest at one time maintained. By ancient Customalls (say the Commissioners), which ye jury and tenn" did produce, it did appear that ye tenn" wcl1 did belonge to ye Dutchy, who have custome in ye said Parke, if they kept a draught of oxen they were allowed to have two mares & one coult going in ye said Parke all ye Summ' till Mich*, paying therefore iid, but noe such Custome or allowance for any other tenn' neither any mencon for any of the tenn'1 keeping of a horse or a gelding in the said Parke, but they have of a long time used the same. . . . 320 FORESTRY Also they doe claim Custome for their hoggs paying therefore for their grown hogges iid and a pigg id, but by their ancent Customalls pduced as afforesd they are to have the swine of their own breeding to goe in ye said Parke all the yeare except in Fence month, when any of their hogges may be impounded and the tenn" amerced at the Woodmote Courte, paying for their Custome yearely for ev'y hogg of a yeare old iid, of J a yeare id ob, & for undr halfe a yeare id except sucking piggs and all ye said tennts are to be sworne at the Aveshould Court aforesaid to Aves truly for their said cattle mares & swine. Also they doe claime Custome in the summer for what Cattle they can brede and winter upon their customary lands in the sd great Parke, paying therefore at ye Aves Court for a bullocke halfe a penny & for a horse a penny, and if they have any cattle going in the said Parke betwixt Michs and Martinmas to pay two pence lipp >18 besides their Custome money afforesaid . . . Memdum that we find the number of Catle assessed for by all that claime Custome in the said Parke to bee Communibus Annis about one thousand, and the horses assessed for about one thousand and fifty. Memorandum That the said Keepers have been allowed to keep as ajustment six hundred Catle and two hundred horses besides their owne, and alsoe ye Warrowner and keep' of the old lodge & Chamberlain's howse a hundred and forty Catle and sixty horses, besides their owne, and besides what ye Ranger juisted without limitacon. The profits to the lord of the Aves rents or pannage rents payable by the Free ten"" ... & by Forraine tenn" who claime custome in ye greate Parke of Lancaster for their mares, catle and swine for their liberty of running in ye said Parke payable only at Michs are communibus annis viii1' xs . Driving ye ) Ye benefitt arising to ye lord by driveing ye said Parke and Commons thereunto Parke j belonging at ye will of ye lord . . . wee value ... at x". „. , . ) The Royall Fishings Fishing ponds and other Fishings are worth communibus IlnSe " Little is said about the deer, usual and proper denizens of a forest. The surveyors merely say, ' their hathe been some thousands of deere keept upon the said Parke both Redd and Fallow, and alsoe a considerable quantity disposed of for the use of the comonwealth.' This interesting report concludes with ' an Abstract ' Of the present rents future improvements and all other pfitts of the said mann'. and Parke — The severall rents, pquesits, and Royalties are p ann Ixxxvi1' i*. The Parke and lands at the improved value is p ann MMCCCCXV"- vis- vn4 Some totall of improved value is MMDVII>L vu51 vmd- ob. Totall of acres in ye said parke are 14000'"- or- 2Jf- Reprises are p ann liii"- vi* iiii11 The reserved rents of the lord of Dorsetts lease bee in force are p ann xxixlu viii5' iiii4 Deere valued in grosse at cxx"' Woods and und'woods valued in grosse at DCXX"' Part of Whitehouse destroyed valued at xxx"' Fish in Whitehouse pond wee value at !"• Another survey was appointed to be made about five or six years later, but the reasons are not apparent. Among the State Papers of the year 1656 there is a petition to the Protector himself on the subject.217 ' You appointed us to survey ' (say the petitioners) ' the lands in question, and we are in readiness, but know not ' what allowances are to be paid or when, what clerks, messengers &c. allotted, or when to enter on the survey. ' We therefore beg to know your pleasure.' In reply to this petition of the month of August comes an order in November for ^250 to be paid out by the barons of the Exchequer to John Marsh, who is to distribute £5010 each surveyor,"8 and in the result the survey was 'perfected' in i658.s19 There is but little difference in the two surveys, but we find the value of Old Lodge and grounds reduced from £6 to 40;., and its extent from 12 acres to 9, for ' Henry Ford lately deceased did in his lifetime intrude into the said house and premisses and utterly destroyed the fences of the said enclosure, as also the fruite trees and conyes and alsoe suffered the said house to goe much to decay.' At Warren Lodge also the ^35 of the former survey had fallen to ^21 4*., for the 86 acres ' formerly impaled and imployed to and used as a cony warren ' were now open to all comers, for 'the paleing is all gone and taken away.' Similar destruction seems to have supervened upon the wood, for instead of a valuation of £620, as in i65O,^4i4is the price set upon the timber in 1658. The ' old banck of the said Forest' is spoken of, 6 ft. from the pale being the outmost bound. The survey of 1658 includes long lists of free- and copy-holdings ; of twenty-four 'highways allowed and sett forth wth in the forrest or chace aforesaid,' and in addition no less than eighteen !16 This is the agistment of cattle ' tempore leptyme ' of the various foresters' accounts ; e.g. Mins. Accts. bdle. 441, No. 7082. >lr S.P. Dom. Interregnum, Vol. 129, No. 142. 118 Ibid. Vol. 130, No. 122 (41) "9 Parl. Surv. Suss. No. 27. 2 321 41 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX gates besides the various gates peculiar to a forest, the ' hatches' namely, such as Prickett-, Flaw-, Coleman-, Chuck- and Braby's-hatch. In 1660 Richard earl of Dorset petitioned for a grant at the rental of £5 of the office of master of Ashdown Forest and Broyle Chase, ' his ancestors having for centuries past had custody of the forest, as lying near their estates,' 22° and in June of the same year he obtained this appointment. In 1 66 1 George earl of Bristol obtained a grant of Lancaster Great Park, Ashdown Forest, with leave to disafforest.821 The earls of Dorset and Bristol appear to have come to a mutual agree- ment concerning the forest, which however fell through, the matter being involved in some confusion. What is certain is that those parties obtaining demises of portions of the forest-land failed to realize the profits prospective, owing to ' the crossness of the neighbourhood ' as it was termed. For the tenants of surrounding holdings, considering themselves deprived of their immemorial rights in pasturage, pannage, and wood by the various inclosures made, took the law into their own hands, and destroyed the offending fences and pales. These disputes went on for a considerable period, particularly in connexion with the tenants of Maresfield and Duddleswell manors, until at length, early in the reign of William III, a commission issued dividing the forest of Ashdown, or Lancaster Great Park, between the proprietors and the tenants claiming common of pasture and allowance of timber. No less than 6,500 acres were allotted to the latter, and divided in proportion to their holdings ; and since the whole amount of forest-land inclosed within the pales was 13,000 acres, the possession of half of it now granted to the tenants must be regarded as distinctly advantageous when compared with the mere exercise of privileges decidedly restricted in their nature. Various banks or dykes in Ashdown Forest were utilized as boundaries in the new allotment and award.222 Like this award, which remains the land arrangement of to-day, these earthen banks still exist in many places, in some cases inclosing rectangular spaces. Possibly these were inclosures into which the deer were driven to be fattened previous to the autumnal salting-down for winter use. Or they may be remains of the ' parrocks ' of olden time, whatever they were. Whether of a kindred nature to the fatting inclosures, or whether they were little or back-parks, ' parrocks ' appear to have existed chiefly in this part of Sussex, particularly in the archbishop's manors in the woodland. Though as early as the reign of Richard II the word ' parrock' came to be used as a name for the ' pannage ' court,223 yet originally it denoted some kind of inclosure, as is seen by an Account Roll of South Mailing in the time of Edward II, wherein are recorded payments for mending the pales around the parks and the parrocks.224 These ancient banks are practically the sole relics of the aforetime forest. Its timber has left few remains except such as is preserved in the various parks, as Withyham and other possessions of the Dorsets, still the chief landowners in the forest-land. Some idea of the amount of timber remaining in Ashdown Forest early in the eighteenth century may be obtained from a rent-roll of the Duke of Dorset in lyao.225 Thus even in days when wood was so cheap more than £680 was received from wood-sales of standing timber, pollards and poles; 279 loads being felled in Withyham alone that year, and 3,850 faggots sold from Bramblegrove Wood. In Fletching there was some particularly fine timber as late as 1771. In that year two oak trees, whose tops were quite decayed, sold standing, at the risk of being unsound, at £69. They contained upwards of 23 loads, or 1,140 feet of square timber. The carriage of them to the water-side, only 9 miles, on a good turnpike road, cost upwards of ^30. Each tree was drawn by 24 horses, on a low carriage made for the purpose, and travelled only 4^ miles a day. They were floated from Landport, near Lewes, to Newhaven, where they were with difficulty embarked for the use of the Navy at Chatham.116 The wild deer, both red and fallow, are now entirely beings of the past on Ashdown. According to Mr. Turner ' the last, a doe, was accidentally sprung from a patch of brakes, just below Gill's Lap, by the Hartfield and Withyham Harriers, while pursuing a hare, and after a run of two hours, killed, about the year 1808. Of this I was an eye witness.'237 So too with regard to the black game, which at the period of this doe-hunting episode were as numerous on Ashdown as pheasants in a modern preserve, the continual cutting of the heather and cranberry, the cover and the food of these fine grouse, has brought about their total disappearance. But if the wild deer have become things of the past there are both fallow and red deer preserved in various parks in this forest-land. Buckhurst, a beautiful park with some fine old timber, has a herd of about 600 deer, red and fallow, roaming over its 2,000 or more acres. Buxted, "° S.P. Dom. Chas. II, vol. 5, No. 36. m Ibid. vol. 40. "* See Duchy of Lane. Maps, No. 85. m e.g. ' Et de vi" iii5 xd de parroco tento in yeme.' Ct. R. Lambeth, 17 Ric. II. (No. 929). "' Mins. Accts. 7 Edw. II, P.R.O. m Suss. Arch. Coll. rxxix, 140. "• Horsfield, Hist, of Suss, i, 377. "7 Suss. Arch. Coll. xiv, 62. 322 FORESTRY another picturesque park, extends over 300 acres, harbouring amidst its ancient trees a herd of 250 fallow deer. Sainthill is another deer park of small dimensions, its 40 acres being the home of about as many fallow deer. Outside the forest-land of Ashdown, and sole remnant of the numerous deer that once wandered over the woodlands of the archbishops of Canterbury, in the small park called ' Moat ' (the northern portion of the ancient park of Plashet), a small herd of fellow deer is kept. Contiguous to the north-eastern part of Ashdown Forest, in the same rape, and originally distinct from that woodland, more perhaps by reason of its different ownership than by its situation, is the forest anciently called Rotherfield Chase, afterwards Waterdown. WATERDOWN FOREST occupied the whole of Rotherfield, an extensive parish lying in the north of the rape of Pevensey, east of the forest of Ashdown. Once a possession of King Alfred, Rotherfield was among the lands granted by the Conqueror to Odo his half-brother. His tenure of it was but brief, for he was thrown into prison, and some at least of his possessions confiscated. Among them was Rotherfield, which, consisting largely of forest-land, and also comprising a park, may have on that account particularly appealed to the sporting tastes of William. During the life of the Conqueror this manor and park in the woodland remained a royal possession, but in the next reign it came into the hands of Gilbert of Tonbridge,228 who gave the church of Rotherfield, ' with its lands ' and all that appertained to it, to the monks of Rochester Cathedral.829 Gilbert also granted to Rochester ' one stag from my forest every year.' Whether this forest was Waterdown or the forest of Tonbridge across the county border is not clear. Indeed the woodland of Rotherfield was perhaps considered part of the forest of Tonbridge, of which Gilbert was lord. Archbishop John Peckham in 1282, in an Inspeximus, enumerating the various things pertaining to Rotherfield when granted to Rochester, uses the expression ' both in tithes and in hunting rights.' The forest itself continued in the possession of the house of Clare for many generations, and it appears probable that it was considered by its lords as ' the south part of their forest of Tonbridge.' In the reign of King John, Richard earl of Clare granted to the Sussex abbey of Bayham pannage for twenty hogs in this ' south part of his forest.' 23° Another part of Waterdown Forest extended on the east into Eridge and Frant ; the portion in the latter parish being of a very open nature, consisting of heath-land and ferny ground. Hence the ancient name for Frant was Ferneth — ' fernheath.' In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Wauton family possessed this part of the forest- land, Sir John de Wauton obtaining a grant of free warren there in the reign of Edward I.231 From this knight Bayham Abbey obtained rights of pasture and taking wood in ' the common and heath land of Farenth.' In the same reign there is record of a poaching offence committed in Waterdown Forest at Rotherfield, by certain persons who had entered the free chase of Gilbert de Clare at Thornbrigge (Tonbridge) and Rotherfield (while the said earl was in the king's service in Wales), and hunted and carried away deer.232 On the other hand, the jurors of the ' Hundred Rolls ' complained that the earl had appropriated free warren in the hundred of Rytherfeud contrary to ancient usage, and had exceeded the bounds of such as he legally possessed. In 1315 we find Thomas Colepeper obtaining ' the office of forestership of Rotherfield in Tonbridge chace.' 233 The forest was now in the possession of the king's favourite, Despenser, who in 1320 transferred 'Retherfeld manor . . . with 8,OOO acres of wood in Retherfeld, Westpeckam and Tonebrigge ' to Hugh de Audele and Margaret his wife.234 Hugh fell under the new king's displeasure in 1329, and in January of that year Bartholomew de Burghersh was appointed custodian of ' the forests of Tonebrige and Retherfeld, late (the possessions) of Hugh Daudele.' 235 But the next month, on 6 February, Bartholomew was ordered to deliver these forests back to Hugh Daudele, ' they being in his (Burghersh's) custody by the king's commission.'236 Seven years later the king ordered de Burghersh to fell and sell timber in places where it would effect the least harm, in the woods or park pertaining to the manor of Rotherfield, ' which he holds by the king's commission.' 237 In the previous year poachers had been active in this forest, and had entered ' the king's free-chace at Retherfeld,' hunted therein, cut down timber, and carried away deer and trees.238 In 1401 Henry IV granted to 'his knight John Dalynrugge the custody of the lordship of Retherfeld with the chace there to hold during the minority of the heir of Thomas, late lord le Despenser, and so from heir to heir.' 239 He was to undertake the maintenance of all houses, woods, inclosures, and gardens, and meet all charges, and account for any surplus over the value (64*.) set upon the estate. "* Mr. Round, in Suss. Arch. Coll. xli, 50. m Reg. Roffensc, 590. I3° Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 154. "' Chart. R. 14 Edw. I, No. 30. "' Pat. 1 1 Edw. I, m. ^. m Orig. R. 8 Edw. II, i. 334 Pat. 13 Edw. II, m. 3. "» Ibid. 3 Edw. Ill, pt. I, m. 38. m Close, 3 Edw. Ill, m. 33. »' Ibid. 10 Edw. Ill, m. 19. "• Pat. 9 Edw. Ill, pt. I, m. 28. »" Ibid. 2 Hen. IV, pt. 4. 323 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Ten years later, Richard Beauchamp earl of Warwick became possessed of this forest,240 and his family, in some branch or other, as the Nevilles and Abergavennys, have held the eastern part, the neighbourhood of Eridge and Frant, ever since; George, Lord Abergavenny, dying in 1536 possessed of one moiety of Waterdown Forest and of lands called Eridge.241 The large amount of woodland in this district is evidenced by the fact that as late as the reign of Charles II the rector of Rotherfield kept a woodward or keeper for the 366 acres of wood pertaining to the rectorial manor, while of the residue of the parish a large proportion of its 14,344 acres was heath, common, or wood.242 Camden described Waterdown as one of the three great forests of Sussex, and Aaron Hill said of this forest-land : ' There is a place called Eridge Park . . . and an open old appropriate forest of the name of Waterdowne that butted on the park enclosure. The park is an assemblage of all nature's beauties.' 24S To-day its acreage is 2,500, and it has large tracts of heather and bracken, together with fine timber trees of oak and beech. The ' green rides ' cut in its woods are said to total no less than 70 miles in length. This park contains 400 fallow and 100 red deer, and has several pieces of water. We now come to consider the last on our list of Sussex forests. DALLINGTON FOREST lay in the easternmost part of Sussex, in the centre of the Rape of Hastings. It extended over the parishes of Dallington, Brightling and Burwash into Mountfield, and by the first three of these names it was variously denominated. Its exact metes and bounds are not known, and they may have included Penhurst and Ashburnham woodlands. Like several of the other forests of Sussex, Dallington appears to owe that denomination to an original royal ownership, for in the Saxon era much of this forest district was in the possession of Edward the Confessor, as Brightling, Ninfield, and Ashburnham ; or of members of his family, as Goda his sister, who held Mountfield and Netherfield. Other parts of the forest-land were held by Earl Godwin or his heir Harold, as Whatlington, Crowhurst, and Sedlescombe. It is in connexion with Dallington that the sole use of the word ' Forest ' in the Domes- day of Sussex occurs, where, under that manor, is the entry that ' the count holds half a hide in the forest.' The only park mentioned in Domesday in this division of the county is Wiltingham, but it does not appear to have had any relation to the forest, lying as it did beyond its southern verge. After Domesday, the charters of Robertsbridge Abbey, which stood on the bank of the river Rother, on the eastern margin of the forest, contain references to this woodland. To this establishment Henry, count of Eu, granted pannage for their hogs in his woodland, and the vills of ' Werth, with Cumba, near my forest of Bristlinga, with woods, -plains, and pastures.' All these three place-names were at one time or another applied to the forest as alternative to Dallington, albeit Werth and Combe were quite insignificant localities, to-day surviving as the names of farms. From a succeeding count of Eu, Ralph de Issounden, the monks obtained free pasturage for their bullocks, sheep, and hogs, in his ' forest of Werth.' From his wife, who survived him, the abbey received, in 1225, right of pasturage for twenty oxen, twenty cows with their calves, and twenty mares with their foals, in her ' forest of Burgherse.' The same convent had also received from Ralph de Issounden grant of a forest-privilege which recalls the decision given by the seventeenth-century commissioners who adjudicated upon tenants' rights in Ashdown Forest and defined their right to wood-allowance as applicable only to beech, alder, and willow. For the earl had given the monks the right to take ' dead wood in his forest of Werth,' viz. ' le boul, le algneit, le fredne' — birch, alder, and ash — and another wood of doubtful identity, viz. 'le curhive' (? hazel). Judging from the number of persons who obtained grants of ' free warren ' over various parts of this forest-land it seems probable that this portion of the great Andredeswald became subdivided, in course of time, in such a way that the chief mesne-lords exercised rights of hunting over the forest-land in, and in the neighbourhood of, their particular manors ; for in the Middle Ages a man might have ' free warren ' over the lands of another. As early as the reign of Henry I the St. Leger family are found holding Dallington and Warding. William of that name obtained a grant of free warren in 1 244,244 his son Walter 246 and his grandson John 246 receiving confirmations of the same in 1264 and 1301 respectively with regard to that part of the forest within their lands, as Dallington. Walter de Echingham had similar hunting rights conferred by Edward I247 over the forest-land of Burwash, Brightling, and Mountfield. These privileges the family retained for several generations, Thomas de Echingham obtaining confirmation of them from Henry VI.248 Doubtless one cause of so many co-existent rights over coterminous lands was the forfeiture incurred by William, count of Eu, for adhering to the king's enemies, whereby his estates came into the hands of King Henry III, who in 1248 140 Pat. 12 Hen. IV. "' Inq. p.m. 27 Hen. VIII. MJ Terrier of 1675. 141 Horsfield, Suss, i, 402. '" Chart. R. 28 Hen. Ill, m. 2. M6 Ibid. 49 Hen. Ill, m. 4. 48 Ibid. 30 Edw. I, m. 50. '" Ibid. 21 Edw. I. "" Pat. 16 Hen. VI, pt. 2, m. 18. 324 FORESTRY conferred them upon Peter of Savoy, the royal favourite.249 Forfeitures and minorities of heirs were the main causes of the numberless gifts of honours, offices, and privileges by the sovereigns in those days ; but it would be difficult to find an instance of more numerous co-existing or rapidly alternating grants of kindred rights than are met with in the case of the forest-land of Dallington. In addition to those already mentioned, others to obtain free warren over it or its constituent parts were Stephen de Burghershe in 1272 ;250 a certain Iterus Bochard five years later;2'1 and Alan de Boxhull in I3i4.282 Edmund de Passeleye obtained an extensive grant of free warren in 1283 over lands in that forest, as Brightling, Mountfield, Ticehurst, and Battle.253 From the terms of this concession it appears that the forest was at the time a royal possession, since it contained a clause ' saving the king's rights in his forest.' An early ' extent ' of the manor of Burwash, within the forest bounds, shows that in the park itself practical economy was evidently not sacrificed to sport, for it contained some of the arable land of the demesne ; its herbage and pannage was worth half a mark annually ; sale of wood gs. ; of heather (much used for thatching and for the bedding of cattle) I2d. ; while the 'warren of conies' brought in 4.5. In addition to its arable and pasture the park contained 20 acres of wood. By the same survey the forest of Dallington was reported to have herbage worth 5 marks annually ; while the swine-owners who turned out their hogs to feed on the beech-nuts and acorns paid on an average 2 marks annually. Timber sold in the forest brought in £4 ; and 'wainagium,' or the toll of wagons passing through the forest, was worth I2d., from which we may conclude that traffic and trade were not very brisk in the interior of the rape of Hastings at that period.254 Evidently the timber of Dallington Forest was of good repute, since in the fourteenth century it was sent on the long journey to Lincolnshire, to build a bridge withal at Boston. Nearer home John, duke of Brittany, used it to repair his manor-house at Crowhurst.255 About the same period John de Ashburnham obtained from King Edward III payment for sixty oak trees which Edward II had cut down in Ashburnham Woods (the southern part of Dallington forest-land) for the repair of Pevensey Castle. The king had also caused to be felled therein 169 oaks for Dover Castle repairs.356 Although these facts tend to show that the growth of heavy timber was considerable over Dallington Forest, there was much country in it of an open nature, barren, or supporting only broom, gorse, and kindred growths. Hence the special mention of the sale of such vegetation — ' brueria ' — as among the usual revenues from the forest. Hence, too, the designation ' waste ' (vastum) as applied to the forest in a return of the possessions of John, duke of Brittany and earl of Richmond. Among the estates of which he died possessed was, it is stated, the rape of Hastings, and Cumbwood waste — ' Combwode vastum ' — which is doubtless but another name for the forest, the 'Brislinga, Werth, and Cumba ' of Earl Henry's grant to Robertsbridge Abbey.257 Dallington appears in 1400 to have been again in the royal hands, for John Fraunceys, the king's serjeant- farrier, was appointed ' Bailiff of the Rape of Hastings and Keeper of the Forest of Dallington.' 258 In 1457 Sir John Pelham by his will required his trustees to enfeofF John Pelham, his son and heir, in ' the Forest and Chace of Dallington ' ; and in this family it remained for many generations. But questions of possession arose between the Hoos and the Pelhams concerning the manors of Crowhurst, Burwash and others, and Dallington Forest; these were ultimately composed in 1465 by Thomas Hoo's son, William Lord Hastings, renouncing in favour of the Pelhams all claims to those manors, three hundreds of the rape, and ' the Chace of Dallington.' 2W Not till the eighteenth century did this forest come into other hands ; until, in fact, 1774, at which time we find John, earl of Ashburnham, lord of Dallington. The later history of this forest is entirely industrial, rather than sporting ; for the ironworks were particularly active and persistent in this district. Yet though no more the wild deer range over Dallington forest-land, or shelter within the recesses of Darum Wood, there are still some fallow and a few red deer in the largest park of this woodland, Ashburnham. Comprising more than a thousand acres, this beautiful park, wild and hilly, with sandstone rocks appearing here and there, contains some very fine timber, oak, beech, fir, and Spanish chestnut ; and nearly 250 deer, mostly fallow, roam over its surface diversified by streams, lakes, and ponds. At Brightling Park, too, in the centre of the old forest-land, fallow deer are still preserved. Lying high on the forest-ridge, a wide and varied outlook from it affords splendid views over hill and dale and woodland, as far as the southern sea that bounds an isle which, when the Romans invaded it, was little else than primaeval forest-land, of which the county of Sussex preserves to-day the greatest remains. "' Pat. 33 Hen. Ill, m. 2. 1M Chart. R. I Edw. I, pt. t, 22. '" Ibid. 6 Edw. I, pt. i, 20. '" Ibid. 8 Edw. II, pt. i, 1 6. *° Ibid. 12 Edw. I. '" Inq. p.m. 8 Edw. I, No. 50. '" Pat. 32 Edw. III. !M Close, 3 Edw. Ill, m. 26. '" Inq. p.m. 15 Edw. Ill, No. 43. 148 Pat. 2 Hen. IV. pt. I, m. 8. ™ Duchy of Lane. Plead, vol. 48, F. 16. 325 ARCHITECTURE ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE IN fixing his attention upon the churches of Sussex, the student will do well at the outset to disabuse his mind of a prejudice due to the ill- informed and unsympathetic dicta of the older generations of county historians and compilers of guide-books. One such writer has sweep- ingly described them as ' rude and mis-shapen buildings, humble in their pretensions' ; and the Rev. Edmund Cartwright's verdict upon his own picturesque old church (Lyminster) is that it was ' of the coarse parochial architecture ' * ; while, more recently, a writer, who might be expected to speak more sympathetically, curtly dismisses the very interesting little church of Ford — containing specimens of seven periods of architecture, from pre- Conquest to Caroline — with the words, ' an insignificant place, with a church to match.' Such harsh criticisms, whether from the archaeological or the architectural point of view, are quite undeserved. Many of the churches, as might be expected in a purely agricultural county, possessing but little building stone, and whose notoriously bad roads must have made the carriage of materials peculiarly difficult, are of the plainest design, and often built of the humblest materials ; many also are on a very small scale, such as the churches of Binsted, Burton, Eartham, Tortington, and Selham ; but there is always grace of outline and proportion, and not seldom considerable beauty and refinement in the sparing ornamentation. And if we can say this much in vindication of the rank and file, it is waste of time to attempt a defence of such universally recognized masterpieces as the Cathedral and Greyfriars' church at Chichester, and the great churches of Boxgrove, New Shoreham, Steyning, and Winchelsea. Its maritime character, and the convenience of its coast and harbours for trading with the Continent, have had a marked effect on the architecture of the county, rendering it peculiarly open to foreign influence. One result of the constant intercourse with Normandy (which, it should be remembered, was for centuries a province of the English Crown) was the importation of the finest building stone from the famous quarries around Caen, in exchange for cargoes of wheat, which were returned in the flat-bottomed barges that brought the stone. It may be doubted whether this foreign influence did not, especially during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, outweigh that of the neighbouring counties. Along the western boundary — particularly where the chalk downs afforded good marl or clunch — the masons who wrought some of the marvellously delicate work of the late twelfth century seem to have 1 The Rev. Edmund Cartwright, joint-author of Dallaway and Cartwright's Hist, of Suss, was vicar of Lyminster from 1824 to 1834. 327 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX been employed as much as in Hampshire, and even to have come as far east as Steyning. It has been noted (V.C.H. Surrey, ii, 425) that, especially along the northern border, Surrey and Sussex have something in common in the masonry, and still more in the timber bell-towers and spirelets of a group of churches in the forest country, which in early times virtually obliterated any artificial boundary between the two counties.8 The successive occupations by Roman, Saxon, and Norman, and the resulting religious changes, have left their mark upon the architecture of the county ; while such minor events as the removal of the see from Selsey to Chichester, towards the close of the eleventh century, and the varying fortunes of alien priories and other monastic bodies holding lands and spiritualities within the county, have affected the churches to no small extent ; still more, of course, the Reformation of the sixteenth century, with the resultant changes in their structure and fittings. There were at one time or another nearly seventy monastic establish- ments in Sussex, including the cells of alien priories, colleges of secular priests, friaries, houses of the military orders, nunneries, and hospitals, most of them exercising considerable influence in the building, rebuilding, and main- tenance of parochial churches and chapels, as well as contributing their own very important quota towards the total of the ecclesiastical architecture of the county. Thus, the influence of the wealthy and important Cluniac priory at Lewes, which had the patronage of over fifty Sussex churches, is clearly traceable in the churches of West Grinstead, Iford, Newhaven, &c., and in the elaborate early wall-paintings of Hardham, Westmeston, Plumpton,and Clayton, all executed in the first quarter of the twelfth century. The scanty remains of the priory itself — especially the beautiful ornamental details of mouldings, capitals, and carvings — show that Burgundian workmen and art followed in the train of the foreign monks by whom the great foundation was constantly recruited. The plans of this great church, of the infirmary and its chapel, together with some others of the buildings, have been recovered in recent excavations. (Vide Suss. Arch. Coll. xlix, 66, &c.) Doubtless there were churches of some sort to supply the needs of the Roman-British converts, but of these we have no certain trace, although, as will presently be shown, Roman materials have been abundantly used in a large group of early churches. It is possible that the original sites may, in one or two cases, have been retained by later generations of church-builders ; and also that the sites of heathen temples were appropriated to Christian uses, as e.g. in Chichester and in the fortified hill-village of Burpham. Urn burials were found on the site of Arlington church in a late restoration. Even more important than Lewes Priory was the great Benedictine abbey of Battle. It'proved to be one of the wealthiest of English abbeys at the dissolution. Richly endowed by the Conqueror with lands and churches in and out of the county, it influenced the character of many parish churches, including that of Battle itself ; and as its first monks were brought from Normandy it is only to be expected that they should exert their influence in * The churches of Reigate, Wotton, Chiddingfold, Dunsfold, and Alfold, show Sussex influence in their masonry ; while the fourteenth-century timber towers of Rogate and Tangmere, Sussex, are of the same type as the Surrey examples at Alfold, Burstow. Crowhurst, Dunsfold, Elstead, Horley, Home, Newdigate, Tandridge, and Thursley. 328 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE favour of French architecture. Accordingly we find distinct evidence of this in some of the fine vaulted chambers beneath the refectory of the abbey (early thirteenth century), and in the late twelfth-century arcades of the parish church. Among other churches in their possesion were those of Mountfield, Whatlington, and Westfield, the early features in the chancels of which churches may be fairly ascribed to the monks of Battle. The Bene- dictines had another house at Wilmington, near Eastbourne, a cell of the Norman abbey of Grestein, and the chancel of this church, with its small windows and ornamented string course, is evidence of their care.8 A fifteenth- century gateway, some undercrofts of earlier date, and a few other fragments incorporated in farm-buildings are the sole remains of the priory. Happily, we still possess in the grand priory church of this same order at Boxgrove the quire and transepts of a church of the first class, which have come down to us in an exceptional state of preservation. The nave and its aisles, separated by a solid wall from the crossing, and originally used as the church of the parish, are ruined and roofless, as are all the conventual build- ings ; but the whole of the eastern limb, including the massive central tower, and two bays beyond to the west (forming a sort of Galilee), remain in a singularly perfect state. Of this church the transepts and part of the central tower, with the two eastern bays of the nave and the entrance to the chapter-house (forming part of the east walk of the cloisters), are relics of the first building of about 1 1 20. The transepts are narrow and shallow, and the nave was also planned upon a small scale; but both the parochial church, comprising the western part of the nave and its aisles (c. 1175), and the noble quire (c. 1210), were built upon spacious lines, and the latter is one of the best examples of the emergence of Early Pointed architecture from the Romanesque to be found in the south of England. The quire and its aisles are about 83 ft. long and 48 £ ft. wide ; the parochial nave and aisles nearly 90 ft. by 44 ft. ; while the eastern bays of the nave and the crossing make the total internal length over 221 ft. Its corbel- tables and flying buttresses, its beautiful arches, circular and pointed, with clus- tered and plain columns, and a liberal use of Purbeck marble, compare closely with the slightly earlier work of Bishop Seffrid II in the quire and other parts of Chichester Cathedral. The work of the same masons is to be found in the quire of St. Thomas of Canterbury, Portsmouth. The piers of the central tower, inserted c. 1 170, the late chantry chapel of Lord de la Warr, and the ar- caded entrance to the chapter-house are other specially interesting details. The influence of Boxgrove Priory is to be traced in Barnham and Walberton churches (in its gift) and also in the chancel of West Wittering. Of the Benedictine priory of Sele, in Upper Beeding, dependent upon the abbey of St. Florent, Saumur, no remains of any importance exist in situ, but built into the walls of the chancel of the parish church are a singular two-light window and door brought from the priory church after the dissolution. The Premonstratensian order had houses at Bay ham, on the extreme north-east of the county, and at Dureford, on the north-west border. They originally (in the latter part of the twelfth century) built a house for them- * Among other possessions of the abbey of Grestein were the churches of Eastdean and Friston (near Eastbourne), which contain several curious early features probably attributable to these patrons. 2 329 42 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX selves at Otham, in Hailsham parish, near the modern hamlet of Polegate (before migrating to Bayham), the desecrated chapel of which still remains, showing some interesting early fourteenth-century windows and handsome sedile and piscina. Of Bayham Abbey, founded about A.D. 1200, the plan of the destroyed church, 252 ft. in length, with its polygonal apse and double transepts, has been recovered, but the least injured parts are the cloisters, the frater subvault, and the chapter-house. The work is mostly of early thirteenth-century character, simple, but marked by exceedingly graceful proportions. The quire and eastern transepts are of the beginning of the fourteenth century, and the nave was partly rebuilt before its close. This establishment does not seem to have influenced the church architecture of its neighbourhood to any extent. Of the abbey of Dureford, near Rogate, founded in the reign of King John, by De Husee, lord of Harting, as a dependency of Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, nothing remains but a few foundations, some carved stones, grave-slabs, and encaustic tiles. It only acquired Rogate church, but it owned land in the neighbouring parishes, such as Trotton, and probably both churches owe some features of their architecture to the canons. The Cistercian abbey of Robertsbridge, founded by Robert de St. Martin in 1176, and enlarged by his successors, has little now remaining but some walls of the church, a crypt, and a portion of the refectory. Salehurst church was probably partly built by these monks. The Augustinian canons had more houses than any other order in Sussex, and of nearly all some remains exist. Of the priory of Pynham, or De Calceto, near Arundel, only the stump of a gate-house or tower, with good early thirteenth-century buttresses, remains, but excavation would probably reveal the ground plan of the church and offices. Torting- ton, in the same locality, founded early in the twelfth century, exhibits walls and fragments of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; among them a wall with graceful triple vaulting shafts, which may have formed part of the church. This priory owned numerous lands in the neighbourhood, and Tortington church, with its interesting chancel arch, was among their possessions. In it, and in the similar small twelfth-century church at Binsted, hard by, we may trace the influence of the canons. Hardham Priory, higher up the Arun, founded temp. Henry II, retains in the entrance to its chapter-house one of the most beautiful pieces of early thirteenth-century architecture left to us in Sussex. Its pointed arches, with quatrefoil piercings, slender detached shafts, and dog-tooth ornament, recall the work at Boxgrove. Shulbred, in Linchmere parish, lying in the remote north-west corner of the county, had another small priory, also of late twelfth-century foun- dation, and although the church has been destroyed, others of the buildings, such as the prior's house, remain. To this priory we owe the perfect little mid-thirteenth-century chancel of Linchmere church. Michelham Priory, in the parish of Arlington, near Hailsham, founded in 1 22 1, also possesses extensive remains of its domestic buildings, such as a gatehouse, the refectory, with its great west window, the monks' lavatory in the cloisters, and some fine vaulted chambers ; but of the church very little exists save the foundations. 330 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE Of the establishments at Hastings and Warbleton — the latter a trans- ference from the older house — practically nothing remains save the founda- tions of the cruciform church at Warbleton. (For the plan see Suss. Arch. Coll. xvi, 294.) The various orders of friars, who had houses in Chichester, Arundel, Shoreham, Lewes, Rye, and Winchelsea, have left practically nothing in the shape of buildings, save in the first and last named towns. At Chichester we have the very perfect, stately, and lofty quire of the Franciscan church, which has never been unroofed. The nave has been destroyed (probably as far back as the fifteenth century), and the cloisters and other adjacent buildings — which there are grounds for believing to have been largely of timber construction — have likewise vanished. The ruins of the Franciscan church at Winchelsea, on a much smaller scale, show features in common with the foregoing — especially in the peculiarly elegant chancel arch ; but its quire has a straight-sided apsidal termination, and the tracery of the windows is more advanced. The date can hardly be earlier than A.D. 1290. The Dominicans have no buildings remaining in Sussex, though they once had settlements at Chichester, Arundel (established c. 1221), and Winchelsea, but parts of the small house of the Carmelite order remain at New Shoreham. The Augustinian friars had a small house at Rye, of which the parts left show mid-fourteenth-century details, chiefly windows with tracery of French or Flemish character. These occur in what was probably the chapel. Both the military orders — the Knights Templars and the Hospitallers — had preceptories and commanderies in Sussex, the Templars at Shipley and Sedlescombe (near Brighton), and the Hospitallers at Poling (near Arundel) — the last-named still retaining its chapel and other buildings, with features of the late twelfth and early fifteenth centuries, which have never been suffered to go to ruin, and retain their original roofs. Some of the very remarkable features in the transeptal chapels of Sompting church (in which parish the Hospitallers had an estate) and the fine twelfth-century tower at Southwick may be traceable to their influence ; while Shipley church owes its work of the same period to the Knights Templars. Nearly every trace of the nunneries at Lyminster, Ramestede, or Rams- combe near Lewes, and Rusper has disappeared ; but considerable remains of that at Easebourne, near Midhurst, founded about the middle of the thirteenth century, still exist, forming a quadrangle together with the parish church. Finally, we have to notice a large class of religious buildings in the shape of hospitals such as the Maisons Dieu at Chichester and Arundel, the leper and other hospitals at Rye, Playden, Seaford, New Shoreham, Lewes, and Arundel. The first-named is of the highest importance architecturally. It must be borne in mind that, besides the foregoing monastic houses, another group — the foreign — exercised a marked influence on the ecclesiastical architecture of Sussex, from the reign of Edward the Confessor down to about 1420, when Henry V seized the alien priories and confiscated their estates. The abbeys and priories of Bayeux, Seez, Almanesches, Fecamp, Bee, Grestein, St. Denis, and St. Florent, Saumur, &c. — nearly all in 331 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Normandy — owned land and churches in the county, and in many cases had their cells in Sussex. Many of the sea-coast and some inland parish churches show traces of foreign influence largely due to this connexion, but in some cases merely owing to nearness to the Continent. The following may be instanced — mostly twelfth-century examples : — East Dean (West Sussex), Climping, Ford, Lyminster, Rustington, East Preston, Angmering, Ferring, Broadwater, Lancing, New Shoreham, Steyning, Bramber, Rotting- dean, Newhaven, Bishopstone, Seaford, Westdean and Eastdean (East Sussex), Eastbourne, Hellingly, Guestling, Icklesham, Brede, and Rye. Chichester Cathedral and Boxgrove Priory church also show foreign charac- teristics, as, e.g., in the square abacus, retained well into the thirteenth century. The influence of wealthy families must likewise be remembered, particularly in such cases as those where the architecture wears a foreign look. The de Warennes at Lewes, the de Braoses at Bramber and Shoreham,* the family of de Hauterive, Earl Roger de Montgomery and his successors in Arundel and the neighbourhood, Gilbert de Aquila and his successors at Pevensey — these and many other lords, and later the wealthy merchants who traded with France and the Low Countries, contributed to keep up a certain foreign strain, noticeable especially in these sea-coast churches. So late as about 1537 we find a window with tracery of French character put into the chantry chapel of the Oxenbridges in Brede church. Chichester Cathedral, the successor of the original Saxon cathedral (now under the sea, at Selsey), was in building under Bishop Ralph, 1091 to 1 1 08, when the eastern limb and the transepts were consecrated. The nave was in progress when the partial fire of 1114 occurred, the restoration and completion of the building occupying the greater part of the twelfth century.5 The work is rude, and for the most part plain, but it is possible to distinguish periods of execution in the details, although the original plan seems to have been adhered to. In 1186-7 another and more destructive fire made the cathedral almost a ruin. To this calamity, however, it owes its most beautiful and characteristic features, in the remodelling of the nave and the rebuilding of the retro-quire under Bishop Seffrid II, between 1187—99. It is evident, however, that there was no real pause at this date in the building operations. The transformation of the rude early work, the adding of chapels, porches, and sacristy, the building of upper stories to the western towers, and of the lantern to the central tower, and even of additional aisles to the narrow-aisled nave — all this and more was in progress, almost unceasingly, up to and beyond the death of Bishop Ralph Neville in 1244. The Galilee porch at the west end dates from about 1260. After this the next landmark is the extension and partial rebuilding of the Lady Chapel, under Bishop Gilbert de Sancto Leophardo (1288—1301). Later still are the great windows of the transepts — the south early, and the north ' It is curious to note that some of the same peculiarities in detail are found in the quire of New Shore- ham church and in the late twelfth-century arcades of Reigate church, Surrey (see post). Both churches were built by the de Braoses, or under their influence. * There are reasons for believing that the ground story and triforium of the nave, and the corresponding stages of the two western towers, were completed by 1130 or 1140. The church was only consecrated in 1 1 84, and among the last works to be finished was the vaulting of the Lady Chapel of Bishop Ralph by Bishop Hilary, 1147-69. 332 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE late fourteenth-century work, the cloisters (of the latter period), the spire of the central tower, and the detached bell-tower — the last two being still in progress during the early years of the fifteenth century. Bishop Sher- born's great altar-screen of oak, now happily replaced, brings us into the opening years of the sixteenth century. Chichester Cathedral is specially valuable for its late twelfth-century architecture, for the studies in several different kinds of early vaulting, and for' the woodwork of the quire stalls, c. 1300—30. Of course, directly and indirectly, the influence exercised by the mother- church upon the ecclesiastical architecture of the county was very considerable, and we constantly come across features, in the churches of West Sussex especially, which owe their inspiration to the cathedral. Amberley (chancel, arch, &c.), Boxgrove (quire arcades), Aldingbourne (south chapel), Burpham (chancel vaulting), and Climping churches are cases in point. The bishop and the cathedral body had the patronage of more than thirty livings, and the bishops had manor houses or palaces at Selsey and Bexhill, besides a castle at Amberley. Another influence to be reckoned with is that of the archbishops of Canterbury, who had manors and palaces at Mayfield, Mailing, Tarring, Slindon, and Pagham, and the right of presentation to some seventeen livings. The thirteenth-century chancels at South Bersted, Tangmere, Patching, and Edburton, and the beautiful fourteenth-century work in the chancels of Isfield and Buxted, are probably due to them. Not only so, but the clergy whom they would appoint to these and other ' peculiars ' would often be Kentish men, who would naturally import Kentish masons to rebuild their churches. The two important livings of Winchelsea and Rye belonged from an early date to the Crown, and we may suppose Edward I to have interested himself in the building of the former church. As to the sites of churches, it is interesting to record that St. Nicholas, Brighton, stands within a Druidical inclosure, and that Arlington, Ford, and Iping, as well as St. Olave's and St. Andrew's, Chichester, are built upon Roman or older sites — the last-named upon a Roman pavement. Climping and Etchingham stand within a moat — probably chiefly meant to keep them dry. We have next to consider the materials used in the construction of Sussex churches ; and in this connexion what is written will apply equally to other classes of buildings. Sussex, like Surrey, is not a stone county, and such building stones as it possesses are not of first-rate quality, either for durability or for high-class masonry ; from which it follows that the county has never boasted a flourishing native school of stone-craft, such as must have existed in the neighbourhood of the great quarries of the Midlands. Its masons must often have been imported, like the best of its building stones — Caen — many of them at first from Normandy, but afterwards from other parts of England. For the ordinary walling of most of the sea-board churches, and inland also in the western and central parts of the county, seashore flints, and flints dug from the chalk or taken from the fields, are commonly employed. They are equally the usual material in domestic and castellated buildings. The use of flints for the walling makes a marked contrast with the sandstones employed in eastern Sussex and the chalk rag of the north-west corner. 333 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX There is very little faced or squared flint work, the barbican at Lewes Castle and the churches of Alfriston, Poynings, Steyning, West Tarring, and Boxgrove being some of the exceptions of mediaeval date, and St. Michael's, Lewes, and Laughton (chancel) of the eighteenth century. In some cases there is an attempt at decorative treatment in the form of chequer-work, as in the chancel of Upper Deeding church, in the towers of Felpham, Steyning, Hailsham, St. Clement's Hastings ; in the porch of All Saints' Hastings ; in a gateway tower at Arundel Castle ; the Carmelites' building at New Shoreham, and in some of the Lewes houses — all late four- teenth- to sixteenth-century work. For constructional rather than ornamental reasons we find common flints built herring-bone fashion in a few early churches, such as Hangleton and Ovingdean, the treatment being obviously derived from the similar disposition of Roman bricks (as at Rumboldswyke, West Hampnett, and Eastergate churches) ; and the thin shaly rubble used at Bosham, West Wittering, Wisborough Green, West Grinstead, Lurgashall, Sutton, Terwick, Elsted, Burton, Selham, West Sussex, and Bexhill, East Sussex ; or water-worn stones, as in the early manor-house at Nytimber, Pagham. Bricks have been comparatively little used in Sussex, except for house chimneys, but there are one or two noteworthy exceptions, (i) in churches partially constructed with Roman bricks — the spoils of some villa hard by — as at St. Olave's, Chichester, Bosham, Rumboldswyke, West Hampnett, Easter- gate, Walberton, and Hardham : and (2) in mediaeval and later buildings, such as Twineham Church, entirely rebuilt in this material temp. Henry VIII, Herstmonceux Castle, a noble example of fifteenth-century brickwork, Cake- ham Tower, East Wittering, early sixteenth century, and another tower with a rich projecting cornice at Laughton, built 1534. Besides these there are many later manor-houses (such as Brickwall, Bolebrook, Tanners, and Holms- hurst), and lesser domestic buildings wholly or partially built of brick, to which reference is made elsewhere. Caen stone is found in almost all the churches near the coast, and in many inland churches of importance, but often in conjunction with native stones, and stones brought from the Isle of Wight. It seems to have been imported from a very early date, as it appears in at least two pre-Conquest churches — Sompting (tower, with other stones), and Ford (nave, north wall), and in the bas-reliefs from Selsey, now in Chichester Cathedral. With the Norman Conquest it was imported freely, and good examples of its use may be pointed to in the Lady chapel (c. 1 150), Chichester Cathedral ; Seffrid's casing of the nave arcades, 1187-99 5 Boxgrove Priory church, West Wittering, Climping, Old and New Shoreham, Broadwater, and Steyning churches. It was superseded, however, by local stones after the middle of the fourteenth century, although used in the rebuilding of Arundel collegiate church (c. 1380), and in many of the remarkable series of late tombs (c. 1480 to 1550) for which Sussex is famous. The excellence of the stone is attested by the manner in which it has withstood the south- westerly rains and humid atmosphere near the sea for seven or eight centuries, so that the original tool marks are, in most cases, plainly visible. But before this stone came into general use another was widely employed in south-western Sussex in pre-Conquest times. It is a fresh-water limestone, 334 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE of immensely old formation, belonging to the Eocene age, and prominently associated with the Bracklesham beds of the Selsey peninsula — although a stone of the same formation is quarried as far away as Brussels. It has a sponge-like appearance, being filled with small holes, and resembles the tufa or travertine so largely employed by the Romans. Perhaps, owing to this likeness, it was sought out and used by the early builders in this part of Sussex ; and although its texture renders it unsuitable for delicate mouldings • and carving, it becomes exceedingly hard with exposure, and weathers very well. It is found in most of the sea-coast churches, and for some distance inland in the western part of Sussex, as at West Wittering, Bosham (pre- . Conquest work), Singleton (pre-Conquest tower), South Bersted, Yapton, and Sompting. In the last well-known pre-Conquest tower it is used for the short stones in the ' long and short ' pilaster buttresses and strips. A hard white stone, close-grained and resembling Portland, is also found in the pre-Conquest and other early work of the south-west part of the county, as in Singleton, Eartham, Eastergate, and Barnham churches, and in the earliest parts of Chichester Cathedral. It was probably brought from the Isle of Wight. The stone used by Bishop Ralph Luffa for the building of Chichester Cathedral was chiefly from other quarries in the Isle of Wight. It is generally known as Binstead stone, and is easily distinguished by its greenish colour and coarser texture from the Caen stone used by the late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century builders. In the fourteenth century another Isle of Wight stone — from the quarries near Ventnor — a green sandstone of poor weathering qualities, and suitable only for walling and large features, was imported for work at the cathedral. The detached bell- tower is a prominent instance of its use. During the same century the famous Beer freestone was also imported from Devonshire for use in Bishop Stratford's Sacellum in Chichester Cathedral, and for other fine mason's work. Chalk, quarried from the Downs that form so important a scenic and geological feature of Sussex, is extensively used both for rubble and internal dressings, and also for vaulting in the cathedral and many other churches. The hard chalk-rag is employed for the walling of many churches, such as Treyford, Elsted, Harting, and Easebourne, in the north-west corner of the county, and in such churches clunch of excellent quality is found in use for the dressed stonework. There is an instance of the use of clunch in eleventh-century quoins at Hangleton, near the sea, in Mid-Sussex. The delicate early fourteenth-century tracery of the east window at Sutton, near Petworth, is in this material. Its marble-like surface, freedom in working, and subsequent hardening in exposure, rendered it a very favourite material with the masons. A green calcareous sandstone, closely resembling the firestones of Surrey, appears in some West Sussex churches, such as Aldingbourne, where it is used in alternating stones with the white clunch. Probably this has been brought from under the deeper beds of chalk in the Downs at the back. The sandstone dug from the hills at and near Pulborough has been extensively employed in the churches and other ancient buildings of that neighbourhood. It is of various shades of brown, yellow, greyish-green, and orange, and though it weathers well, has a rough and striated appearance 335 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX owing to its uneven composition, rendering it unsuitable for any but the plainest work. It was in use from before the Conquest down to the sixteenth century and later, but was chiefly employed by the eleventh- and fifteenth- century builders, being displaced in the interval by Caen and other imported stones. Pulborough, Arundel, and Lyminster churches, and Arundel Castle, afford good examples of its use. A rare instance of carving in this stone is to be seen in a rude bas-relief upon the head of an eleventh-century window in the south wall of Tangmere church. Various sandstones of paler colour, finer grain, and lighter colouring, are quarried in northern, central, and eastern Sussex. Thus, at Henley Wood, to the north of Midhurst, and elsewhere in the hilly country of the district, an excellent, hard, and very durable stone of grey, greenish, and purple colours was employed in the eleventh-century work at Linchmere church, in work of the same period at Easebourne, and in many other churches and domestic buildings of that locality, including parts of Cowdray House. Another, softer, and of a streaky yellow colour, is quarried near Horsham. It is a good deal used in Horsham parish church and the churches and houses of the neighbourhood. Horsted Keynes gives its name to another sandstone, harder and of a more even texture than the last. It is of various colours, yellow, buff, and grey, and is dug from the hills. Horsted Keynes, Ardingly, and West Hoathly churches and the great Elizabethan house at Wakehurst are examples of its use. It is possible to work finer details in this stone than in most of the Sussex sandstones, as witness a fourteenth-century carved corbel at West Hoathly church. A yellow sandstone of somewhat uneven quality is associated with Hastings. It has furnished the principal material for the two ancient churches and the castle, and was employed in the building of Battle, Westfield, Sedlescombe, Penhurst, Crowhurst, Ashburnham, Brightling, and Etchingham churches, being dug from many places in the hills round Hastings. It has weathered well for the most part, but, as in the Hastings churches, St. Clement's and All Saints', the sea air and smoke from coal-fires have caused disintegration. A coarser-grained sandstone, of various colours, is quarried near East Grinstead, and appears in all the neighbouring churches and houses. Hart- field and Withyham churches are good instances of its employment. In the country to the south and south-east of Tunbridge Wells, as far as to Hailsham and Battle, where iron ore had been melted from the time of the Romans, the stone quarried from the hills is largely impregnated with iron, and we find ironstone used for rubble and quoinings in the churches of Lamberhurst, Ticehurst, Wadhurst,Rotherfield, Mayfield, Maresfield, Buxted, Framfield, Little Horsted, Warbleton, Hellingly, Heathfield, Herstmon- ceux, Burwash, Brightling, Dallington, Penhurst, Ashburnham, Battle, Cats- field, &c. The stone is of a dark brown colour, with red, orange, and purple tones, and while hard and durable in plain work, is unsuitable for any but the simplest mouldings and ornaments. It is sometimes found used, with evident design, in bands, alternating with a lighter stone (such as a greenish firestone or Caen), as in a composite respond and two beautiful mid-twelfth-century windows in Hellingly church, and in an internal arch, slightly later in date, in Arlington church. Conglomerate, or ' pudding-stone,' found in various 336 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE parts, such as on gravelly heaths, is employed as rubble in a few churches such as West Wittering in the Selsey peninsula. Eastbourne Rock is the name given to a pretty green sandstone of hard and even texture and excellent weather-resisting qualities, found upon the coast and in the hill-country behind Eastbourne. It resembles the firestones of Surrey in appearance, but is of a deeper and more uniform colour. The best examples of its use from pre-Conquest times are the churches of St. Mary Eastbourne, Jevington, Eastdean, Westdean, Friston, Willingdon, Wilming- ton, East Blatchington, Litlington, Arlington, Westham and Pevensey, and the buildings of Michelham Priory. Sussex or Petworth marble (quarried near the town of that name) has been extensively used in work of the twelfth century and later. In the cathedral it is most conspicuous in the work of Bishop Seffrid II and his successors, particularly in the form of shafts. Many capitals and bases are also carved in it. Purbeck marble is used side by side with it, and both are em- ployed in coffin-slabs, and in the fine series of late pre-Reformation tombs for which Sussex is famous. Good examples of the structural use of these marbles occur (besides in the cathedral) in Bosham (east end), West Wittering (lancets in east wall), Boxgrove (pillars and shafts of quire), East Preston, Ferring (east windows), and other churches. Many fonts — particularly those of a common square pattern and of late twelfth-century date — and ancient altar-slabs are in this material. From the same formation that has yielded Horsham and kindred sand- stones, a stone of hard quality, capable of being naturally split into thin layers, has been used from early times as a roofing material. Probably both the Romans and the Saxons made use of it, as did all later generations of church and house builders down to the seventeenth century. These Horsham slabs or ' stone-healing ' furnished a practically indestructible roofing material, highly picturesque in appearance, but of such ponderous weight that exceptionally heavy roof-timbers had to be employed, and for this reason when the roofs have been renewed the stone-healing has usually been discarded. It is still found upon the roofs of over fifty churches, chiefly in Vest Sussex, among which the following may be instanced : Ardingly, Upper Beeding, Bury, Clayton, Coombes, Cuckfield, Findon, Framfield, West Grinstead, Hamsey, Lancing, Lyminster, Pulborough, Shermanbury, Shipley, Old Shoreham, Sompting, Southease, Stopham, Thakeham, Twineham, and Woodmancote. In towns such as Horsham and Lewes, and in many way- side cottages and manor houses, stone-healing is still often to be seen. Where thatch would ordinarily be used (as in many ancient cottages around Horsham) we often meet with this heavy stone roofing. Reed- and straw-thatched roofs remain in great numbers — such as in Amberley and the neighbouring villages on the Arun — but only over cottages and farm buildings. Tiles are, and have been for many centuries, one of the commonest roof-coverings. So also oak shingles for the numerous timber spires and turrets : these have been used as sheathing for roofs or walls since the Roman occupation, and in the case of the spires there is no doubt that the present shingling represents the original thirteenth- or fourteenth- century covering. The oak framework of these spires, timber towers, and 2 337 43 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX turrets is in most cases ancient, and so also in numerous instances are the roofs of the churches. The sweet chestnut was also largely used in Sussex for the framework of church roofs, and in houses, as in the range of old buildings to the north of Eastbourne church. Considering the prominence of the iron industry, it is not a little remarkable that there is hardly any ancient wrought ironwork remaining in Sussex, and that of simple character. In like manner, although glass was manufactured from a very early period along the north-west border, there is but little of ancient date now in existence. With regard to floors, besides the plain and encaustic tiles, we find a good deal of paving in the cathedral and many churches of slabs of the blue- grey marble quarried round Petworth, and of kindred stones of bluish colour. They are known locally as ' winkle-stones,' from the presence of numerous fossil shells. There are some three hundred and thirteen parish churches and chapels- of-ease of ancient foundation remaining in Sussex, substantially as in mediaeval times, or rebuilt upon the old sites. About thirty parish churches have been pulled down, mostly during or before the sixteenth century. In addition to these, there were between sixty and seventy hamlet chapels, and fully as many private chapels and oratories attached to the various castles, manor houses, episcopal residences, &c. The number of the hamlet chapels is exceptionally large, probably larger in proportion to that of the parish churches than in any other county. The sites in most cases are known, and very often parts of the walls, or at least the foundations, are still visible : sometimes, as in the case of Bowley farm, in Pagham parish, a piscina, or other distinctive feature, remains. Good examples of these chapels are found in a more or less perfect state, though desecrated, at Nytimber, in Pagham parish (early thirteenth century) ; Bilsham, in Yapton parish (early fourteenth century) ; Atherington, Climping parish (late thirteenth century, with very beautiful carved capitals) ;* Durrington, West Tarring parish (twelfth and thirteenth centuries) ; and Balsdean near Ovingdean (eleventh century). They are simple aisle-less buildings, without structural division between nave and chancel, and were usually detached, standing within their own yard, in which interment seems sometimes to have taken place. The private chapels of the greater houses and castles were, on the other hand, annexes to the main structure, and were usually open only on two or three sides. Of these the following may be cited : the chapel of the bishop's palace, Chichester (early thirteenth cen- tury) ; Halnaker (early thirteenth century) ; Petworth (with good early fourteenth-century arcading) ; Cowdray (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) ; Arundel Castle, St. Martin's Oratory in the keep (early twelfth century) ; Hastings Castle (late twelfth century) ; Herstmonceux (mid-fifteenth cen- tury) ; and Bodiam Castle (late fourteenth century). The principal types of parish-church plans are as follows : — i. Nave and chancel, mostly small, with or without a chancel arch, and occasionally with an aisle of later addition. To this class belong the churches t>f Rumboldswyke, Eastergate, Clayton, Selham, Burton, Friston, Ford — all si "l * Atherington may be considered as both a manorial and a hamlet chapel. It served as the chapel of the Or'iff of Seez, whose moated house it adjoins, and as a chapel-of-ease to the mother church of Climping. •also Nytimber, before mentioned, was both the chapel of the manor and the hamlet. See for account of erington, Suts. Arch. Coll. xliv, 148 ; and for Nytimber, xlvi, 145. in 338 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE originally pre-Conquest; Hardham, Chithurst, Elsted, Treyford, Buncton, Tangmere, Eartham, Coates, Linchmere (originally) — late eleventh century ; North Marden, Up Waltham, Coombes, Tortington, Binsted, Terwick, Ease- bourne, East Wittering — first half of twelfth century ; Didling, Hough ton. East Marden, Greatham, Wiggonholt, Folkington, Lullington, Earnley, and Chalvington— thirteenth century and later. Many of the churches in other classes were originally of this simple type, but the plans have been altered by subse- quent extensions. 2. A class of larger churches with aisles, but without towers, and having in- stead timber bell-turrets. They are of mixed dates. To this belong : Barnham, Bignor, East Blatchington, Denton, Fer- ring, Itchingfield, Litlington, Up Marden, Merston, Selmeston, Walberton and Wil- mington, &c. 3. A numerous class, having western towers and usually one or more aisles, com- prising about one hundred and ninety churches, of which the following are typi- cal examples, arranged according to the date of the distinctive feature, the tower : — Pre- Conquest : Bosham, Jevington, Singleton, Sompting. Eleventh century : Fittleworth. Twelfth century (early] : Bishopstone, Burwash, Fletching, Guestling, St. Michael's Lewes, Piddinghoe, and South- ease (the last three round towers) . Twelfth cen- tury (late] : Horsham, Rustington, Southwick, and West Thorney. Thirteenth century (early] : Amberley, East Blatch- ington, Bury, Cuckfield, Ovingdean, Preston, Rudgwick. Fourteenth century (early] : Chid- dingly (with stone spire) , Cocking, North Mundham (upper part), West Tarring (upper part), Trotton, Withyham. Fourteenth century (late] : Eastbourne, Hamsey, Hailsham, Hooe, Felpham, Pulborough, Ripe, Thakeham. Fifteenth century : Ashburnham, Battle, Burpham, Bolney, Brede, Westbourne, Cowfold, Crawley, Crowhurst, Dallington (with stone spire), St. Clement's and All Saints' Hastings, Penhurst, Poling, East Preston (with stone spire), Waldron, Warbleton, Warnham, Wash- ington. Sixteenth century (early] : Angmering, Twineham (of brick), Steyning. 339 Ground 'Plon. A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 4. Churches with a flanking tower, i.e. on the north or south of the nave, sometimes at the western, but more commonly at the eastern end of the nave: — Eleventh century: Eastdean (East Sussex). Twelfth century: West Grinstead, Icklesham, Climping, Yapton, Goring (originally), Herstmonceux, Stoughton, West Hampnett. Thirteenth century : Pevensey, Patching, Clapham, Ashurst, Aldingbourne, West Wittering, Midhurst, Stedham, Pevensey, Little- hampton (destroyed) , West Stoke, Willingdon. Fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: Donnington, Wivelsfield, Warnham. Battle church had a mid-twelfth- century transeptal tower on the south until the fifteenth century. 5. Churches consisting of nave, central tower and chancel, without tran- septs, but usually with aisles, arranged according to the date of the dominant feature, the tower : — Twelfth century : Shipley, Newhaven, Playden. Thir- teenth century: Rottingdean, Kingston-by-Sea, East Dean (West Sussex), Stedham (before restoration), Ditchling, Lancing. Fourteenth century: Etchingham. 6. Cruciform churches, with or without aisles, and nearly always having a central tower. These cannot be classified strictly in order of date, but are mostly early, the last three, however, being of the latter part of the four- teenth century. Burpham, Climping, and Stoughton, which appear above, belong to this class also. Chichester Cathedral, Sompting, and Worth (pre- Conquest), Bramber, Old and New Shoreham, Boxgrove, North Stoke, Burpham, Climping, Stoughton, Broadwater, Sidlesham, East Dean (West Sussex), Horsted Keynes, Fletching, Ditchling, South Harting, Lindfield, Rye, Poynings, Alfriston, and Arundel. The round towers in the Ouse Valley are a remarkable local feature. They occur at St. Michael's Lewes, Piddinghoe, and Southease ; were built circular to save stone quoins, and constructed of the material nearest to hand — field flints. They are crowned with short timber spires, and all date from the first half of the twelfth century. The detached bell-tower of the cathedral is a special feature, paralleled originally in the cases of Westminster Abbey and Salisbury Cathedral, and in Sussex in the case of Winchelsea church, which possessed a stone and wood bell-tower. There are only four ancient stone spires besides that of Chichester Cathedral in Sussex, viz. : those of Chiddingly (early fourteenth century), Northiam, and Dallington (East Sussex), and East Preston (in West Sussex), the last three of late fifteenth-century date. Timber spires on towers are very numerous in every part of the county, there being some forty examples of mediaeval construction covered with oak shingles. Notable among these are the fine spires of Alfriston, South Bersted, Berwick, Billingshurst, Bosham, Burwash, Bury, Buxted, Chailey, Cuckfield, Ditchling, Fletching, West Hoathly, Horsham, Horsted Keynes, Lurgashall, Mayfield, Rotherfield, Sompting, and Tarring. South Harting spire is sheathed with copper. There are also numerous spirelets on timber turrets, as at Alciston, Chalvington, West Chiltington, Denton, Eastergate, Folkington, Friston, Westmeston, Wilmington, &c. ' Pepper caster ' turrets of diminutive size are found at Barnham, Ford, Tortington, &c. Three towers built with massive oak framework from the floor of the church, each crowned with a spire, and all of mediaeval date, remain at Itchingfield, Rogate,and Tangmere,in West Sussex ; and Slinfold church had another before it was rebuilt. The two 340 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX former belong to the first half of the fourteenth century ; Tangmere is possibly a century earlier. At Yapton an interesting skeleton framework of oak has been constructed, in the early part of the fourteenth century, within the older tower, which had shown signs of failure, to take the weight of the bells. There is a somewhat similar oak staging within the stone tower at Lyminster. Akin to these constructions are the rare instances of a timber arcade to an aisle, found at Selmeston, in the neighbourhood of Lewes, dating from the early part of the fourteenth century ; also the nave of the Hospital church of St. Mary, Chichester. The four-gabled pre-Conquest tower of Sompting — a design unique in England, though commonly met with in Germany — is crowned with a timber spire, the framework of which is probably coeval with the tower. It is now covered with shingles; Rickman describes it (circa 1848) as * slated ' — i.e. roofed with small Horsham slabs. Apsidal terminations have never been popular or numerous in Sussex. Bishop Ralph, following the Norman fashion, planned the new cathedral at Chichester with a great apse to the quire, and smaller ones to the Lady chapel, quire aisles, and transepts, all of which have been replaced by square- ended terminations, although traces of the apses remain. Lewes Priory church and its infirmary chapel had apses, and one of these belonging to the latter remains fairly perfect, with its altar, to a few feet above ground. Battle Abbey church had a triple apse to its quire (traces of which remain in the crypt beneath the high altar), and others to the transepts. The remarkable pre-Conquest church of Worth still retains its apsidal plan ; while very perfect late eleventh- and early twelfth-century examples remain at North Marden, Up Waltham, and Newhaven. Both Old and New Shoreham churches had originally apsidal east ends and transept chapels. Keymer church (rebuilt) had an early apse ; and the foundations of an apsidal chapel on the eastern face of the flanking tower at Eastdean (East Sussex) can still be seen above ground. The semi-hexagonal, or straight-sided, apses (late thirteenth century) of Bayham Abbey church and the Greyfriars' church, Winchelsea, are interesting instances of the same idea, revived at a later period. Minor features in planning remain to be noticed. The broad nave and the narrow aisles — the latter being chiefly intended originally for processional purposes — are typical of the earlier churches (twelfth and thirteenth centuries). In such cases the nave and aisle, or aisles, were usually all under one long roof with eaves only five or six feet above ground — a very practical construc- tion, both as regards the weather and economy of stone and walling materials. Cocking, Sidlesham, Mundham, South Bersted, Yapton, Climping, Lymin- ster, Bury, and Amberley, in West Sussex, and Berwick, Burwash, Bishop- stone, Icklesham, Playden, and Beckley, in East Sussex, are typical examples of this treatment. Yapton may be instanced as retaining the original windows in its low aisle wall. In other cases — as at Felpham, Rustington, Lancing, and Ifield (West Sussex), and Heathfield and Beddingham (East Sussex) — a break is made in the roof at the point where it reaches the nave walls, so as to allow of the formation of a row of clearstory lights ; but sometimes, as at Felpham, this occurs only on the north or less-exposed side^ 342 343 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX With regard to the fenestration of clearstories, we have some interesting varieties in treatment; thus at Horsham, West Tarring, Pevensey, Battle, and Salehurst, the clearstory windows are pierced through the wall-space above the piers of the arcades — not over the apex of the arches. These are all thirteenth-century churches, Battle being somewhat earlier as to its arcades. At Salehurst the lancets are set very curiously in the clearstory bays. In order from west to east they are single, double, single, triple, single. Quatrefoil- shaped openings occur in the small clearstory (thirteenth century) on the south side of Rustington church, and again at Lancing. Similar quatre- foils were found at Rogate some years ago, but were destroyed. At Bosham, Firle, and Playden there are plain circular openings ; at Felpham trefoil- headed openings ; at Beddingham ogee-quatrefoils ; and at Arundel quatre- foils under hood-mouldings, carried round the nave and transepts, of late fourteenth-century date. Two West Sussex churches, Ashurst and Findon — displaying evidence in their arcades of having been rebuilt about A.D. 1200, by the same masons 7 — are peculiar in possessing twin naves, divided by a central arcade, but spanned by one lofty roof, the tower in both cases being placed to the south of the west end. Aisles, or chapels, on a large scale, parallel to the chancel and used as Lady chapels or Saints' chapels — sometimes built at the cost of a family or a gild — remain at the following among other churches : Arundel, Beckley, Brede, Brightling, Buxted, West Chiltington, Ditchling, Eastbourne, Findon, Firle, Framfield, Funtington, Guestling, Horsham, Icklesham, Mayfield, Northiam, Pevensey, Ringmer, Rodmell, Slaugham, Winchelsea, Rye, and West Wittering. Certain peculiarities group together the small attached chapels of early date (twelfth and thirteenth centuries) at Arlington, Beckley, Guestling, Newtimber, and Wivelsfield ; while there is another remarkable group, all dating from the closing years of the twelfth century, placed at the end of the south aisle of the nave, and all vaulted, at West Hampnett and Aldingbourne (West Sussex), and St. Ann's Lewes and Westmeston (East Sussex) — probably all by the same gild of masons. The plan of Sompting church stands by itself. It has a large chapel abutting upon the western end of the north wall of the nave, and eastern chapels opening off the transepts, that from the northern transept taking the form of a vaulted aisle, while that from the south is a shallow recess with a small chamber adjoining. The floor of the south transept is sunk several feet below that of the nave owing to the site being upon the slope of a hill.8 Sloping floors, due to the same cause, are exceptionally numerous in Sussex, and have been found at Fletching, Hangleton,Portslade, Pulborough (chancel), and Rottingdean. Before restoration the arch between the chancel of Ditchling church and the Lady chapel on the south was filled in by a coped wall with an opening in it ; and at Arundel the Fitzalan chancel is entirely separated r A third church — West Grinstead — has an arcade of exactly the same character, with capitals enriched with delicate early foliage and double chamfered arches, precisely similar to the work in the other two, but here the roofs of the twin naves are of the more usual M shape. Clapham Church also has arcades of the same date and character, but the roof is of the ordinary type, prolonged to cover the aisles. * No satisfactory explanation has yet been given of the many peculiar features in this remarkable plan. Prob- ably they are partly to be accounted for by the presence in this parish of an estate of the Knights Templars. 344 EXAMPLES OF CORBELS 345 44 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX from the body of the church by a coeval iron grate and a brick wall. The arcade between the quire and its aisle is also partially blocked by a stone wall with battlemented cornice. A similar arrangement obtained in connexion with the chapels of the north aisle of the nave at Chichester Cathedral. 0f stone porches the following are typical examples : — Pre-Conquest : Bishopstone. Twelfth century : Lancing. Thirteenth century (early) : Chichester Cathedral (north and south), Patcham, Walberton. Thirteenth century (late) : Chichester Cathedral (west), Edburton, Horsham, Litlington, Portslade, Salehurst (west), South Stoke, and Wisborough Green. Fourteenth century (early] : Bosham, Brightling, Eastbourne. Fourteenth century (late] : Alfriston, Arundel, Battle, Lindfield, Lamberhurst, Poynings, Ticehurst, Wadhurst. Fifteenth century : Buxted, All Saints' Hastings, Mayfield, Playden, Singleton, Steyning, and Winchelsea (early sixteenth). Nine or ten of the later examples have, or had, parvise chambers over the porch. Ashburnham, Elsted, and Trotton are of seventeenth-century date, as is also the brick porch at Ford. Twineham, Thakeham, and Stough- ton have brick porches of the early part of the sixteenth century. The pre-Conquest porch at Bishopstone is a rare feature. It has a coeval sundial, with the maker's name inscribed thereon, and probably had a priest's chamber over. One or two of the others are vaulted, the Arundel and South Stoke porches having transverse stone ribs, with stone slabs laid across, recalling a very early form of stone roofing, of which a kindred example is found in the Great Hall at Mayfield. Porches of mixed timber and stone construction are numerous, and often highly picturesque. Of some twenty or more the following are the best examples : — Thirteenth century : Barnham, West Chiltington, Rustington (North). Fourteenth century : Arlington, Arundel, Etchingham, West Grin- stead, Mayfield, Penhurst, Rustington, Shipley, Sompting, Yapton. Fifteenth century: Ifield, Lyminster, Newick, Salehurst. Sixteenth century : Bury, Coates, Thakeham. Seventeenth century : Fittleworth. Lurgashall has a unique feature in an early seventeenth-century narthex of timber, extending along the low south wall of the church and abutting against the tower at the east. This is said to have been built to provide a place of rest and shelter for the farmers who had to come long distances to church in inclement weather. There are not many ancient sacristies or vestries ; probably in most churches the tower was used for these purposes, or a space curtained off in nave or chancel. Examples occur, besides the cathedral, at the following churches. They are of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century dates : — Arundel, Bosham, Boxgrove, Eastbourne, Etchingham, South Harting, St. Clement's Hastings, Horsham, and Winchelsea. With the exception of Eastbourne (at the east end), all are on the north of the quire. There have also been sacris- ties opening off the sanctuary at Appledram and Pulborough (both early thirteenth century), the first on the north and the second on the south side, at the extreme east end. Anchorites' cells must at one time have been fairly numerous — usually as an annex to the north or south wall of the chancel. Traces of their squints and other features remain at Hardham and Kingston-by-Sea. A squint on the north side of the nave of Battle church, and another on the east side of the north transept at Boxgrove, may have had some connexion 346 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE Priory, Ferring, Lyminster, East Marden, Patching, Rottingdean, Rustington, Rye, West Tarring, New Shoreham (flying buttresses), Westfield, and West Hampnett. The late thirteenth-century buttresses at the Franciscan church, Chichester, the fourteenth-century examples at Harting, Isfield, Poynings, Ripe, and Winchelsea ; and the fifteenth-century flying buttress at Rye are specially noteworthy later examples. Parapet walls and corbel-tables of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries occur at Chichester Cathedral, Boxgrove, New Shoreham, &c., and of the early fourteenth century at Winchelsea (traceried). Several church towers retain their original parapets of early date, such as Climping and Yapton (traces) — twelfth century — Amberley and Cuckfield, thirteenth century. The latter has a fine corbel-table, a feature found also at Preston — both resembling the work at Chichester, a fact perhaps to be accounted for by these churches being in the gift of the bishop. Quite a number of churches still retain ancient stone coping on their gable walls, as e.g. Chichester Cathedral, Boxgrove, New Shoreham, Hor- sham, Battle, Winchelsea, Rye, Willingdon, Pevensey, Icklesham, Ardingly, Climping, and Linchmere. In connexion with the coping, angle turrets or pinnacles of twelfth- and thirteenth-century date still remain at Rye, Chichester Cathedral, Battle, and Horsham. Some of these copings have knee-stones of ancient date, such as at Linchmere, Icklesham, Arlington, Pevensey, and Willingdon. Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century gable crosses remain at Climping and Winchelsea, and one of pre-Conquest date was lately discovered at Walberton. A gable cross of wood is found at Lyminster, old at least in idea. Coming to the smaller features ; priests' doors are comparatively rare ; the following are the principal examples in order of date : Coombes (twelfth century), Stoughton (c. 1190), Rustington, Climping, Etching- ham, Oving, West Wittering (north side), Boxgrove, Fittleworth (north side), Warbleton, Peasmarsh (early thirteenth), Ardingly, Beddingham, Trotton (late thirteenth), Wadhurst (fourteenth), Ringmer (fifteenth). The proportion of pre-Conquest nave doors is unusually large. They occur at Bolney, Friston, Lyminster, Stopham, and Woolbeding, on the south side ; and at West Dean (West Sussex), Lurgashall, Selham, Old Shoreham, Slaugham, Wivelsfield, and Worth, on the north side. The typical ' Norman ' doorway of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, so commonly a richly ornamented feature in other counties, is comparatively rare and usually plain in Sussex, and it is remarkable that there is not a single instance of an enriched tympanum, and that the beak-head ornament only occurs once on a door, at New Shoreham. The following are the best examples in order of date : Ovingdean, Bramber, Patcham, East Lavant, West Grinstead, Steyning, Lyminster (west), Chichester Cathedral (south tower), East Wittering, Chichester (door in close), Terwick, Tortington, Bishopstone (porch), Sompting (north and south), Horsham (north aisle), Rye (north transept), Old Shoreham (north transept), West Chiltington (north door), New Shoreham, Shipley (west doors), Climping (west door of south tower). Verging on the end of the twelfth century is a group of doors of very simple character and a close family likeness, all in west walls, and all with pointed heads, at Cuckfield, Halnaker Chapel, Horsham, and Portslade ; others with 349 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX round heads of the same date are Aldingbourne and the Bishop's Palace Chapel, Chichester. The south door of East Dean Church, near Chichester, with pointed head, and French-looking capitals, is possibly by the same hand as the last. Good early thirteenth-century doorways are found at Chichester Cathedral, West Thorney, North Mundham, Oving, Lodsworth, Willing- don (finely moulded), Preston, and Battle; late thirteenth century, at Trotton and Amberley (south, very richly carved and moulded) ; fourteenth century, at Tangmere and Aldingbourne (west) ; late fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries, at Alfriston, Poynings, Arundel, Mayfield, Hastings (both churches), Wivelsfield, Singleton, Iden, and Coates. Low side windows are exceptionally numerous ; 92 or more examples have been noted, ranging in date between c. 1225 and c. 1525. The most interesting occur at Climping, Rustington, Apple- dram, West Thorney, West Wit- tering, West Hampnett, Edbur- ton, Up Waltham, Botolphs, Trotton, Ardingly, Arlington, Wilmington, Isfield, Alfriston, Coombes, St. Clement's Hastings, and Twineham, the last-named a brick opening.11 Some have squints adjoining, which com- municate with a chapel in the neighbouring aisle, as at Apple- dram and Isfield ; others have sill niches, as at Coombes and Hast- ings, and nearly all are rebated to hold a shutter. The iron grate remains at Trotton. Many churches have two or even three such openings, e.g. Climping and Clapham. Dial markings and pilgrims' signs occur on or near some of them, as at West Thorney, West Hampnett, Rustington, Ford, Yapton, Edburton, and Litlington. Eastbourne Church shows many incised outlines of fish on its pillars, and New Shoreham has a variety of such graffiti. A very perfect pre-Conquest sundial is preserved over the south porch at Bishopstone, inscribed with the maker's name, * EADRIC, within a Greek fret border. A sundial at Bexhill is dated 1599. Consecration crosses are found incised on the tower and priest's door (with IHC) at Climping, a nave quoin at East Blatchington, the pre-Conquest chancel arch, Lyminster, and on many door-jambs, such as at St. Olave's Chichester, East Wittering, Aldingbourne, Chichester Cathedral (south door), East Preston, Ford, and Amberley. One on a pillar of the north arcade at 1 The greater part of these openings have been described and illustrated in Suss. Arch. Coll. xli and xlii, but since the publication of these papers the list has been considerably added to. 35° COOMBES CHURCH, Low SIDE WINDOW IN SOUTH WALL ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE New Shoreham is a deeply cut ' Templar's ' Cross. They take the form of crosses in black flints at Boxgrove, Broadwater, Seaford, and Westham, and of tiles at East Preston ; they were also painted upon the walls inside at Ford (? pre-Conquest), Amberley (twelfth century), Climping, Slindon, Poling, Warminghurst, Trotton, Pevensey, &c. Squints occur in the churches of Appledram, Arundel, Barlavington, West Chiltington, Chithurst, Framfield, Heathfield, Isfield, Jevington, Kirdford, Lyminster, Mayfield, Mountfield, Peasmarsh, Penhurst, Rustington, Selham, &c. At Rodmell and St. Thomas-at-Cliffe Lewes, they have a sort of mid-wall shaft in the centre, of twelfth-century date. Altar recesses are found at Worth (south transept), Albourne (high altar), Clayton, Coombes, Friston (high altar), Ford, Arlington, Bolney, and Mid Lavant (destroyed), Patcham, Sompting, Tangmere, Thakeham, West- meston, Wisborough Green, and Wivelsfield (side chapel), of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Most of these take the form of round-arched recesses on the western face of the chancel arch wall. At Rustington two such recesses with pointed arches (c. 1210) appear on the eastern face; possibly they were originally pierced. (See illustration p. 374.) The original stone altar in the Fitzalan chancel at Arundel with its ponderous slab of Purbeck marble has never been destroyed. Altar slabs, marked with the five crosses, are preserved in Chichester Cathedral Lady chapel, Aldingbourne, Broadwater, Chithurst, Mundham, Oving, Salehurst, Selmeston, South Stoke, Tangmere, Treyford, Waldron, Westham, and a few other churches. A small chantry-altar slab is built into a buttress quoin at Yapton. There are a number of Elizabethan and later altar-tables, as e.g. at Rye (in mahogany). Aumbries remain in Chichester Cathedral and nearly all churches (e.g. Little Horsted, West Grinstead, Rogate, Burpham, and Climping) ; and not a few stone recesses, sometimes rebated for doors, usually in the east wall. Tabernacles, or what may be presumed to be such, occur at Sompting (? pre-Conquest) ; Binsted (twelfth century, oak-lined, with triangular head, in south wall), Stoughton (east wall), Sullington (triangular head). Wivelsfield, Rogate, Sompting, Climping, and Burpham have twin recesses of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, rectangular and rebated for doors, all in the east wall, behind the altar. At Eastbourne there is a canopied recess over the high altar of late fourteenth-century date. Of piscinae, which are extremely numerous, the following are valuable examples in order of date : ? Pre-Conquest, Rumboldswyke — of the pillar type, resembling one of like date in Brading church, Isle of Wight. Pillar piscinae, of eleventh and twelfth century dates, Bosham (north aisle), Woolbeding, Icklesham, Up Waltham, Pevensey and Hastings castles, East Hoathly (very richly ornamented), and Walberton (traces of). Niche- piscinae of the twelfth century remain at Sompting (2), Binsted, Alding- bourne, Ford, Rogate, Lyminster (with scallop-shell basin), Bosham, Yapton, Burpham, Litlington, and Guestling ; thirteenth century^ Albourne (east wall), Bayham Abbey, Bosham (3, one double), Boxgrove (4), Amberley, Ferring, Cocking, Tarring Neville, Battle, Stoughton (very rich work), Climping, Pulborough, Thakeham, Barnham, and Fittleworth (round trefoil heads, very much alike), Tangmere, East Blatchington, Rustington, Portslade A HISTORY OF SUSSEX (very good), Boxgrove, Willingdon, North Stoke, West Stoke, Mountfield, Cocking, Ditchling (2), Linchmere (east wall), Chichester Cathedral, West Tarring, Preston, Sompting, St. Mary's Hospital Chichester, Buxted, Otham (the last three elaborately carved), Trotton, Wisborough Green, Jevington, Icklesham, and the Greyfriars' Church, Chichester. Triangular piscinae are found at West Thorney, West Wittering, Bosham, Sidlesham, and Lurgashall. Of the fourteenth century^ fine examples, nearly all moulded and carved, remain at Winchelsea (3), Arlington, Buncton, Pyecombe (double), Rudg- wick, Icklesham (2), Kirdford, Salehurst, Denton, Sutton, Isfield, Ripe, Chichester Cathedral, Cocking, and St. Olave's Chichester. Piscinae of late fourteenth and fifteenth century work occur in Bodiam Castle chapel, East- bourne, Etchingham (2), Poynings, Alfriston, Westbourne (very good), Arundel, Poling (Commandery Chapel), Worth, Hastings, St. Clement's (2), and All Saints'. Rood-loft piscinae, high up in the wall, occur at South Harting, Petworth, and New Shoreham — great rarities. Sedilia are not so common, and must often, as at Chichester Cathedral, have been of wood, and so have disappeared altogether. Early examples are found at Rogate (late twelfth), Guestling, Litlington, Shipley, Portslade, Tangmere, Aldingbourne, Rotherfield, East Blatchington, Findon, North Stoke, Ditchling, West Hoathly, Preston, Sedlescombe, Otham, Buxted, St. Mary's Hospital (very fine) and the Greyfriars' church, Chichester, the Cathedral Lady chapel, Winchelsea (2, very richly carved), Beckley, Sutton, Denton, Ripe, Etchingham, Poynings, Alfriston, Pulborough, and Eastbourne — ranging in date from the early thirteenth to late fourteenth century. Holy-water stoups are found at Ovingdean (eleventh century), West- field, Beckley, Ferring, Firle, Fletching, Eastdean and Westdean (East Sussex), Isfield, Cuckfield (2), Iden, Wisborough Green, Rogate, Worth, Maresfield (2), Ashington, Westham, Wivelsfield, Fletching, Ripe, Bury, Crawley, Lancing, West Hoathly, Singleton, Telscombe, and the two Hastings churches — generally of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Stone recesses for the Easter sepulchre, or tombs used for placing the sepulchre in or upon, are found at Cocking (thirteenth century), Lancing, Berwick, Denton, Westdean (East Sussex), and Bepton (fourteenth century, early), Eastbourne, Alfriston (fourteenth century, late). In addition to these are certain small recesses, like aumbries, in several churches (e.g. Sompting), and a large number of late tombs which served this purpose, and which are noticed post. One of these latter — the canopied altar tomb of Lord Dacre (d. 1534) — was directed by his will to be used for the Easter sepulchre. Niches and brackets for images are few and poor in character, as compared with other counties. Chichester Cathedral (south porch), Ditchling, Buncton, Eastbourne, East Blatchington and Bishopstone (east wall of porch), are noteworthy exceptions. Bishop Sherborn's great altar-screen of oak, lately restored to the cathedral, is the only thing of its kind in the county, but there are in two of the nave chapels in Chichester Cathedral what may be termed early stone reredoses, i.e. a group of trefoil-headed niches, with quatrefoils above, richly moulded and with foliaged capitals, all inclosed within a horizontal 352 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE and vertical string-course — the imagery in one of these reredoses has been restored, so that the original effect can be readily appreciated. As to pavements, we find plain slabs of ' winkle ' stone or Sussex marble, occasionally in square pieces, used for the general floor covering, as at Chiches- ter Cathedral, Arundel, Trotton, Boxgrove, New Shoreham, and Winchelsea. A great many churches retained until their ' restoration ' a good deal of plain red or buff tiling (e.g. Climping), but of this very little is now to be seen. Of encaustic tiles we have excellent examples in a large number of churches and monastic houses, particularly in the following : — Alfriston, Appledram (very good thirteenth century), Battle Abbey (all dates), Bayham Abbey (thirteenth and fourteenth), Binsted (thirteenth century, including a remarkable glazed and incised tile), Boxgrove (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), Chichester Cathedral (several dates), St. Mary's Hospital (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), St. Olave's Chichester (thirteenth century), Ditchling (thirteenth century), Dureford Abbey (thirteenth century), Etchinghafn (late fourteenth), Horsted Keynes (various dates), Lewes Priory (twelfth to fifteenth centuries), Michelham Priory (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), Poynings (late four- teenth), Robertsbridge Abbey (thirteenth), Rustington (thirteenth century, by the same artist as those at Dureford), Rye (various dates), and Winchelsea (fourteenth century). There is no doubt that excavation would reveal many more tile pavements on the sites of monastic and other churches. Considering how much glass was made at Chiddingfold, on the Sussex border, during the Middle Ages, it is surprising how little ancient glazing has survived. The following is almost an exhaustive list : — Alfriston (figure of St. Alphege, &c., late fourteenth century), Ardingly (early fourteenth cen- tury), Arundel (late fourteenth century), Battle (fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, very fine), Boxgrove, Brede, Brightling (good early fourteenth cen- tury, figures and canopies), Bury, Chalvington (figure of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and inscription recording the donor — east and north windows, c. 1300) ; Coombes (flowered quarries, fifteenth century) ; Denton, East- bourne (cinquecento] ; Eastergate (fine heraldic and quarry glass, c. 1360) ; Etchingham (fourteenth century, late) ; Firle, Fletching, West Grinstead, Harting, Hooe (figures of Edward III and queen), Isfield, Linch (German or Flemish — sixteenth century — an importation) ; Newark (Agnus Dei, thir- teenth century) ; Penhurst (fifteenth century), Poling, Poynings (The Annun- ciation, good late fourteenth century), Ringmer (Crucifixion, &c., fifteenth century) ; Rotherfield, Rustington (cinquecento roundels) ; Shermanbury, Singleton, Stopham (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, heraldic, figures and portraits) ; Sutton (very good early fourteenth century) ; Ticehurst (four- teenth and fifteenth centuries) ; Warbleton, Warding, Westham (very good fifteenth century, figures, &c.) ; Withyham, Wiston (heraldic) ; Woolbeding (sixteenth century, from Mottisfont Priory, Hampshire) ; Worth (heraldic) ; Yapton (thirteenth century, grisaille fragments). The wall-paintings of Sussex, recorded or still existing, are numerous and of great importance. The following is a summary condensed from the lists that have been printed in vols. xliii, xliv, &c., of the Sussex Archaeological Society's Collections : — Aldingbourne (fragments, eleventh to sixteenth centuries) ; Alfriston (a 'Doom,' whitened over, &c.) ; Amberley (consecration crosses, figure 2 353 45 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX subjects and texts, eleventh to sixteenth centuries); Angmering (a. 'Doom,' destroyed) ; Arlington (fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, including St. George and St. Christopher, floral ornaments and floriated crosses) ; Arundel (consecra- tion crosses, the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Acts of Mercy, c. 1380, and a fifteenth-century painting of the B.V. Alary) ; Battle (Scenes from the Passion, &c., fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, destroyed) ; Beddingham (figure and foliage on arch soffit, c. 1200); South Bersted (fifteenth-century paintings on nave pillars, &c.) ; Binsted (St. Margaret of Scotland, a Trinity tree, &c., remaining, and a series of Scriptural subjects, destroyed, c. 1 140) ; Bishopstone (painting on a niche in porch, &c.) ; Bosham (Virgin and Child, destroyed) ; Boxgrove (late twelfth-century scroll and pattern work, and floral and heraldic designs on the vaulting, by the Bernardis, c. 1530); Broad- water, Buncton, Burpham, Burton (figure of female saint on a window splay), Bury, Chichester Cathedral (late twelfth-century figures and decoration on arch to library and walls, capitals, &c., of Lady chapel ; paintings, similar to those at Boxgrove, upon the vaulting of the latter, &c.) ; Chichester, St. Olave's (a thirteenth-century series of figures and architectural ornamentation on east wall — destroyed) ; Bishop's Palace chapel (very fine early thirteenth- century painting of the B.V. Mary and Child and consecration crosses) ; Chiddingly ; West Chiltington (a very important series of late twelfth-, early thirteenth-century and later paintings — saints, the Incarnation, Nativity, and the Passion, &c., with very beautiful architectural ornamentation) ; Clapham ; Clayton (a valuable early twelfth-century series of a 'Doom,' &c.) ; Climping (consecration cross, twelfth century, and the animals going into the ark, and others of the thirteenth century) ; Cocking (the angel appearing to the shepherds — on a window splay — early thirteenth century) ; Cuckfield (heraldic and other colouring on nave roof) ; Ditchling ; Eastbourne ; Eastergate (eleventh-century architectural and figure-work on north wall of chancel) ; Elsted (eleventh- and early fourteenth-century fragments) ; Farnhurst (thir- teenth-century figure-subjects) ; Findon (The Last Supper, early thirteenth century) ; Ford (eleventh to seventeenth centuries, including a pre-Conquest consecration cross, the ' Agony ' and a ' Doom ') ; Friston, West Grinstead (St. Christopher, fifteenth century) ; Hardham (a most valuable series of New Testament scenes, the history of St. George and other legendary subjects covering the walls of the entire church — all dating from the commencement of the twelfth century la) ; South Harting (fourteenth- century paintings of St. Helena, St. Anne, and St. Lawrence, now covered up) ; Hastings All Saints (a fifteenth-century ' Doom ' ; also other subjects now destroyed) ; Henfield, West Hoathly, Hooe, Horsham (many paintings of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, almost all destroyed at the restoration) ; Icklesham (Martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury) ; Iford ; Keymer (early twelfth century and later figures and decoration — destroyed) ; Kirdford (figure subject, destroyed) ; Mid Lavant, fifteenth- century figure subjects, destroyed) ; Lewes Priory (twelfth-century frag- ments) ; St. John's, Southover (painting of St. John the Baptist, destroyed) ; Lindfield (St. Michael and B.V. Mary, destroyed) ; Lurgashall (fourteenth- century heraldic shields) ; Lyminster, Maresfield (Martyrdom of St. " For a full account see Suit. Arch. Coll. xliv, 73. These paintings are evidently by the same Leives Priory artists as those at Clayton, Westmeston, Plumpton, &c. 354 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE with destroyed anker-holds. We know from the will of Bishop Richard de la Wych, in 1253, wherein he leaves bequests to certain recluses, that, besides the Hardham anker, there were others at Pagham, Houghton, Stopham, and the church of the Blessed Mary of Westout (now St. Anne's) Lewes. Rustington church probably had a cell on the north side of the chancel. Crypts beneath churches are rarely found in Sussex. The cathedral, owing to its low-lying site, possesses none. A portion of the crypt under the high altar at Battle Abbey church, with three straight-sided apses, is still to be seen. There is a small crypt (probably a charnel) partly sunk below the east end of the south aisle at Bosham, the crown of its vault forming a raised chapel in the aisle over. This is of mid-thirteenth-century date. Heathfield and Winchelsea have crypts of the fourteenth, not now accessible, and there is one of the fifteenth cen- tury below the quire of St. Clement's Hastings, also closed. Examples of vaulting in monastic and parish churches occur as follow : — Twelfth century (early) : Boxgrove, over aisles of eastern bays of nave. Twelfth century (late) : Icklesham, tower, Bishop- stone, sanctuary (by the same builders), Burpham, chancel (evidently modelled upon the Lady chapel vault of Bishop Hilary at the cathedral), Sompting (chapels opening off transepts), Aldingbourne, St. Anne's Lewes, and West- meston — all three with a vaulted chapel at end of south aisle, c. 1190.' Thirteenth century (early): New Shoreham, quire and aisles, c . 1 200 — with many interesting peculiarities in detail ; Boxgrove (closely resembling contemporary vaulting in the cathedral), quire and aisles — note the use of dog-tooth moulding and the fine carved bosses ; Broadwater, with chamfered ribs, and singular « hook '-corbels to the shafts, resembling those at New Shoreham ; Kingston-by-Sea, central tower, with peculiar treatment of ribs, c. 1220. Rye, chantry adjoining south transept. Fifteenth century : Hastings, towers of St. Clement's and All Saints' churches, elaborate examples of later lierne vaulting, with many ribs and curiously carved corbels. Besides these, there are the crypts above referred to, a vaulted apartment of early thirteenth-century date at Shulbred Priory, and remains of vaulted monastic buildings at Bayham, Robertsbridge, Lewes, Tortington, Easebourne, &c. 1 West Hampnett, near Aldingbourne, ha« a similar chapel of the same date. 347 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX A very large proportion of the roofs of churches have been renewed in * restorations,' but a good number of mediaeval date remain. Thus, at Hardham, Binsted (parts), Burpham, Clayton, Climping, Bury, Buxted, Lurgashall, West Grinstead, Felpham, West Chiltington, Hamsey, Ifield, Lyminster, Playden, Tortington, and Yapton are simple early roofs of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, constructed of rafters, collars, braces, and struts, with tie-beams. Somewhat more elaborate roofs of the thirteenth century remain at Old Shoreham (chancel), with the dog-tooth moulding on its tie-beams ; Ditchling (chancel), with richly moulded wall- plates ; 10 Up Marden, with nail-head moulding on a plate ; and Linchmere (restored), with a finely moulded tie-beam. The greater part of the roofs over the vaulting at New Shoreham, Boxgrove, and Chichester Cathedral are of this early period. As a rule they are of a very sharp pitch, with heavy timbers. Of the fourteenth century there are good examples at Sutton (early, with remains of coeval colour decoration, arched braces, and good mouldings), Winchelsea, Arlington, Cuckfield, Friston (chancel), the Greyfriars' church, Chichester ; and later in the century, Alfriston, Rotherfield, Chichester Cathedral cloisters, the chapel of the commandery of the Knights Hospitallers, Poling (the last three with arched braces), Thakeham, Pulborough, Trotton, and Racton churches. Trotton roof has a very wide span, with graceful arched principals, purlins, and wind-braces. The Fitzalan chancel, Arundel, has an elaborate (restored) roof of oak groining with moulded ribs and very beautiful bosses. The nave roof of the same church is a restoration upon the ancient lines. The wall-plate in the chancel of Ford church has an early fourteenth-century moulding. Examples of fifteenth-century roofs occur at Billingshurst and Eastdean (with panelled ceilings), Ford (nave), Friston (nave — a very fine, massive con- struction), Crawley (nave — with coeval inscription on one of the tie beams), Penhurst, Waldron (aisle), Ringmer, Westham (nave), Horsham (resembling the nearly contemporary roof at Cuckfield), Singleton, Sidlesham (nave and aisles), and Lyminster chancel (with arched principals). Framfield (1500) and Buxted have early sixteenth-century roofs. At South Harting is an interesting and rare instance of a fine Elizabethan roof on a large scale over the chancel dated 1577. The outlines are Gothic, but the detail is Renais- sance in character. There are three mediaeval lych-gates, viz. that under a house dated 1520, at the side of the churchyard, Hartfield, and others at Pulborough and Worth. The steps of a churchyard cross remain at Brighton. Sussex has an interesting series of early buttresses. The germ of these is found in the pilaster strips of pre-Conquest date at Woolbeding, Worth, and Sompting ; those on the angles of the tower at the latter being sloped off at the top. Typical shallow twelfth-century buttresses remain at Alding- bourne, Boxgrove, Buncton, Chichester Cathedral, Climping, Horsham, Herstmonceux, Icklesham, St. Anne's Lewes, Newhaven, Rustington, New Shoreham, Old Shoreham, and Southwick. Of late twelfth and early thir- teenth century dates are a numerous group, comprising Aldingbourne, Apple- dram, Bosham, Boxgrove (including flying buttresses), Chailey, Chichester Cathedral (flying and other buttresses), Chidham, Clapham, De Calceto 10 Before restoration this roof had a tie-beam with dog-tooth ornament. 348 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE Bartholomew, &c., destroyed) ; Mayfield, Midhurst (B.V. Mary and Child, thirteenth century) ; Newick, Nuthurst (a 'Doom,' St. Christopher and other saints, &c., destroyed) ; Patcham (a fine ' Doom,' and other paintings of twelfth- and thirteenth-century dates) ; Pevensey, Plumpton (an early twelfth- century * Doom' and scriptural subjects, in tiers — destroyed) ; Poling, Ports- lade (a ' Doom,' Adoration of the Magi, &c., destroyed) ; Poynings ; Preston (Martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury, St. Katherine and St. Margaret, a bishop, St. Michael weighing souls, Incredulity of St. Thomas, * Noli Me tan- gere,' the Last Supper, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, &c., mostly destroyed by fire in 1906 — illustrated in Arcbaeologia^ xxiii, 109, and Suss. Arch, Coll. xliii, 242) ; Rogate (St. Christopher and masonry patterns, destroyed) ; Rother- field (a * Doom,' Incredulity of St. Thomas, the Annunciation, St. Christopher, patterns on columns, &c.u) ; Rustington, Shipley, Shulbred Priory (the Na- tivity, &c., sixteenth and seventeenth centuries); Sidlesham, Singleton, Slaugham, Slindon (consecration crosses, beautiful masonry patterns, late twelfth century, mostly destroyed) ; Stedham (St. George, the Three Marys, a ' Doom,' the Man of Sorrows, St. Christopher, and our Lady as the Queen of Saints, thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, all destroyed u) ; Steyning (figure subjects of late twelfth-century date on columns of north arcade, one the Anointing of Christ's feet) ; Sutton (decoration of early fourteenth-century roof and chancel) ; West Tarring, Thakeham, Treyford (scroll-work, diaper patterns, six-winged seraphim, &c., early thirteenth century) ; Trotton (the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Acts of Mercy, beneath figures of Moses and our Lord as the Divine Judge, &c. c. 1390; also the legends of St. Hubert and St. George) ; Udimore (figures and scroll-work, &c., thirteenth and fourteenth centuries) ; Warminghurst (a consecration cross, c. 1280); Westbourne, Westfield (St. George, destroyed) ; Westmeston (Scenes from the Passion, the Adoration of the Lamb, the history of St. George, the Signs of the Zodiac, &c., early twelfth century, all destroyed15); Wisborough Green (the Seven Deadly Sins, fourteenth or fifteenth century, destroyed, St. James of Compo- stella and a crucifixion 16) ; Wiston, Withyham (a ' Doom,' &c., destroyed) ; West Wittering, Wivelsfield (thirteenth-century lozenge pattern); Worth (patterns on windows, fourteenth century); Yapton, red colouring on columns, &c. The fonts of the county are for the most part plain and of ordinary character, all periods being represented. There is a large group of early fonts, of tub, pudding-basin, or cup shape, nearly all in a hard freshwater Chara lime- stone, of Eocene age, a stone no longer to be dug or quarried in Sussex, presumed to have been brought originally by sea from the Isle of Wight or Purbeck, and almost always found in West Sussex churches of pre-Conquest date and foundation. Those at Yapton and Walberton have shallow incised ornamentations, the Yapton font having arrow-heads and long sword- shaped crosses. The following is a list, in order of date : Bepton, Berwick, Bignor, Burton, Chidham, Cocking, Didling, Farnhurst, Ford, Graffham, Hardham, Littlehampton, Lodsworth, Up Marden, North Mundham, Poling, Selham, Tangmere, Trotton, Up Waltham, Walberton, Waldron, West Wittering, Woolbeding, Yapton. u Suss. Arch. ColL xl, a 1 8. «• Ibid, iv, i. u Ibid, xvi, i. M Ibid, xxii, 134. 355 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Twelfth Century : Aldingbourne,* Amberley,* Appledram,* Ashurst, Barnham,* Battle,* Binsted, Bishopstone, Bosham,* Brighton, Coates,* Denton, Easebourne,* Eastdean (East Sussex), Edburton, Ewhurst,* Felpham,* West Grinstead,* Ifield, Lancing,* Lewes, St. Anne and Southover, Lyminster, Midhurst, Pagham, Piddinghoe, Pyecombe, Pul- borough,* Rodmell, New Shoreham,* Sidlesham,* Slaugham,* Sompting, Stoughton,* Tillington, West Thorney, Tortington, Warnham,* Wiggonholt. Those marked with an asterisk are of a type very common in the south- eastern counties, having shallow square bodies, with circular basins, standing upon a square base and supported by a large central and small angle shafts. The bodies are of Sussex or Purbeck marble, usually ornamented with shallow sunk arcading, but sometimes this is supplemented by floral and other devices, as at Barnham, New Shoreham, Sidlesham, Slaugham (carving of a fish on west side), and Stoughton. The font at Brighton is circular and ornamented with bas-reliefs of the Baptism of our Lord, the Last Supper, and the legend of St. Nicholas ; those at Denton, Eastdean, and St. Anne's Lewes are by the same artist, tub-shaped, and ornamented with basket-work and other patterns. The Binsted and Tortington fonts are richly carved with arcading, and those at Edburton and Pyecombe — almost identical in design — are among the finest examples of leaden fonts. Thirteenth Century : Buxted, Cuckfield, East Dean (West Sussex), Ditchling, Etchingham, Ferring, Henfield, Iford, Itchenor, Linchmere, Oving, Maresfield, Rottingdean, Rustington, Salehurst, Slindon, Sutton, Warbleton, Worth. Those at Cuckfield, Iford, and Rottingdean are evidently by the same hand, as are also the Buxted and Worth fonts. Slindon is a very graceful design. Salehurst font has a salamander carved on its base. Fourteenth Century : Alfriston, Arlington, Arundel (late), Barcombe, Beddingham, Westdean (East Sussex), Eastbourne, Herstmonceux, Jevington, Southease, Willingdon, and Wilmington are all square fonts, of almost identical design, having engaged angle-shafts and tracery panels, and all worked in the green Eastbourne rock, evidently by the same mason or school of masons. Other fonts of this period occur at Climping (late), Etchingham, Lindfield, Newick, and Poynings. Fifteenth Century : Burpham, Burwash (with shields of arms), Bury, Cowfold, Crawley, Dallington (heraldry), West Dean (West Sussex), Fittleworth, Hailsham, Hartfield, St. Clement's Hastings (with emblems of the Passion), All Saints' Horsham, Horsted Keynes, Mountfield (an early font re-worked), Patching, Portslade, Rogate, Rotherfield, Shermanbury, Singleton, Sullington, Thakeham, and Westham. The fonts at Bury, Burpham, and Patching (with Climping, somewhat earlier) are of a common octagonal type, having quatrefoil panelling and carved paterae. Those at Cowfold, Shermanbury, and Thakeham (the former recorded to have been made in 1481—2) are by the same hand, and all have roundels of star and other geometrical patterns on bowl and base, besides tracery. Sixteenth-century fonts, very plain, are found at Litlington and Ticehurst ; and interesting examples of the seventeenth century at Kirdford (1620), West Hampnett, Stedham, Ashburnham (1660) ; Lurgashall, and North Chapel, of the same design, 1661 ; and Mayfield 1666. Fonts built into walls occur at Berwick, Telscombe, and Tarring Neville — all of late date and in the same locality. 356 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE Font covers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries — some of which have been destroyed — have been recorded at Battle, West Grinstead, Nut- hurst, Patching, Sedlescombe, Sompting, and Ticehurst — the last two singularly interesting and elaborate structures with doors. That at Ticehurst has much late tracery of Flemish character. Good seventeenth-century covers remain at Penhurst and Trotton. Of ancient wooden doors there are singularly few examples, nor are there many mediaeval door fittings remaining. Arundel, Barlavington, Chichester Cathedral, Coates, Pulborough, Rye, Steyning, Ter- wick, Ticehurst, Trot- ton, and Westbourne, are almost all the old '. t examples left. Ter- wick west door has the original hinges of the twelfth century, and two of the doors at Trotton have very graceful hinges (c. 1290), while the door at Coates is a perfect example of early sixteenth-century work. The north door and some internal doors at Chichester Cathedral retain their original hinges, roses, and scutcheons. The south door at Botolphs church is dated 1612, and that at Wadhurst 1682. The screen-work is scanty and mostly of plain character, but there are more examples of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries than in any other county. The germ of the rood-screen of a later period is found in the rood-beam, such as the remarkable beam with the double billet moulding upon it (date c. 1120) across the east wall of the nave at Old Shoreham. At Binsted the ends of another early rood-beam, richly moulded (date c. 1260) have been left sawn offin the wall, at a height of about 7 ft. from the floor ; while at Bury we have a rood-beam of about 1280, which now crowns a screen of the fifteenth century. A complete chancel screen of about the date 1270 is found at Old Shoreham, with very beautiful trefoil-arched openings and trefoil piercings above, having slender octagonal shafts and a battlemented cornice. This plainly never had a gallery or loft. Of about the same date is the low screen at the east end of the south aisle of Rodmell church (it is not clear that this is its original position) , having a battlemented cresting and delicately moulded quatrefoil and trefoil tracery of very early design. A truly magnificent piece of thirteenth-century screen-work (c. 1290), in a state of almost untouched perfection, is found in the rood- screen dividing the nave of St. Mary's Hospital, Chichester, from the chancel. This consists of eight bays of window-like tracery on moulded shafts, each bay under a crocketed pediment between pinnacles. The two centre bays form the ' holy doors,' and their posts are carried up to give support to a richly-moulded beam, with carved scroll-work of bold design on its soffit, ' curling ' off the beam in a very original manner. For beauty and antiquity combined this screen is perhaps unrivalled, especially taken in conjunction with the perfect returned quire stalls of the same early date. 357 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX At Bignor is a rood-screen with early reticulated tracery and turned shafts, dating from about 1320. Next in order of date are the beautiful parclose screens at Eastbourne, six in number, the earliest dating from about 1310 and the latest about 1340. The tracery and moulded shafts are of several patterns, and with the battlemented beams are in very perfect preservation. Midhurst has a small tower screen of about 1320, with elegant trefoil tracery. The Palace Chapel at Chichester retains its ancient narthex screen of about 1340, with interesting tracery on baluster shafts, repaired in a characteristic fashion in the early part of the seventeenth century. Playden and West Thorney, at the opposite extremities of the county, have screens of somewhat similar character and about the same date — the tracery at the former being of a fantastic ' flamboyant ' character. The chancel screen at Etchingham also dates from about 1340, while at Sackville College, East Grinstead, and at Ovingdean, Patcham, and Poynings, are screens dating between 1350 and 1370. Newtimber retains a part of its rood-beam, richly coloured (c. 1380), while the following belong to the fifteenth century: — Ardingly (rich tracery — removed to the tower), Brighton (very elaborate carved rood-loft, and tracery on two planes), Broadwater, Burton (a perfect example, retaining the rood-loft), Cowfold, Fletching, Mayfield, Henfield, Itchingfield (parts only old), Kingston-by-Sea, Playden (a parclose screen), West Tarring (a low boarded screen with doors, but having iron spikes instead of an upper part of tracery), Thakeham, Racton, Rotherfield, Rye, Westham, Warnham, and Wiggonholt. Screens of this period, destroyed within the nineteenth century, existed at Climping, Framfield, West Grin- stead, Horsham, Litlington, Rustington, and Sompting. A fine screen, dated 1522, is preserved in Steyning Vicarage. There is a parclose screen of early seventeenth-century date in Warnham church. There are remains of the rood-loft at Arundel, to the west of a lofty screen of wrought ironwork (late fourteenth century) which fills the entire eastern arch of the tower. Modern copies have replaced the screens of iron scroll-work (twelfth century) once found in Chichester Cathedral. A solid chancel screen of timber and plaster with a door in the middle and a loft on the western face formerly existed at Treyford church (now in ruins) — Barnham had a timber-arched framework, of thirteenth- or fourteenth- century date, in the same position. In some cases, as at Henfield, Ifield, Rusper, Warminghurst, and Racton, the head of the chancel arch, or roof space, was filled in with close boarding or tracery as a back-ground for the rood, or for a painted ' doom.' Chapel screens of iron (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) occur at Ashburnham and Sidlesham. Rood-loft doors and stairs exist in some twenty-five churches, as at Appledram, Ardingly, Battle, Chichester (Franciscan church), Denton, Eastbourne, Ifield, Poling, Rudgwick, Rustington, Salehurst, Singleton, Westbourne, Westham, Willingdon, Winchelsea (Franciscan church), and Yapton. Corbels for the loft occur at Trotton. Quire stalls, with traceried canopies and carved misericordes, are found in Chichester Cathedral and St. Mary's Hospital, having graceful ogee-arched canopy work, and beautiful carvings of figure-subjects and foliage on the misericordes, date c. 1290 to 1310. Etchingham has very good stall-work of about the date 1340, while that in the Fitzalan 358 OLD SHOREHAM ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL, CHJCHESTER RODMELL EASTBOURNE EARLY SCREENS ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE chancel at Arundel (restored) belongs to the close of the same century. The Alfriston, Bosham, Broadwater, East Lavant, Mayfield, Poynings, Rye, West Tarring, and West Wittering stall-work all dates from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. A carved misericorde remains at Hardham church. There is an oak lectern of late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century date in Old Shoreham church. Two stone pulpits of the late fourteenth century remain — at Arundel (with good carved canopy) and Climping — and oak pulpits are found at Goring (c. 1540), Rye (c. 1550), Newtimber (late sixteenth century), Worth (1577), Arlington, Botolphs, Buxted, West Chiltington, Eastdean (East Sussex — 1624), Lamberhurst (1630), Poynings, Rotherfield, South- wick, Tortington, Twineham, and Wilmington (early seventeenth century). Ancient oak seating is found at Slindon (early fourteenth century), Felpham (c. 1370), Climping (c. 1380), Hardham, Tortington, Singleton, and Sutton (c. 1420). Kirdford, Didling, and Burpham also have fifteenth- century seats, while those at Burton, Coldwaltham, Rogate, and East Preston belong to the sixteenth century. There were formerly seats dating from the fourteenth century in Ford and Rustington churches, but they have been destroyed, or replaced by modern copies. Seventeenth-century pewing still remains in a few churches, such as Botolphs, Mayfield, and Sedlescombe ; and there are some quaint deal 'Gothic' seats of the latter part of the eighteenth century in Warminghurst church. There is a good seventeenth-century western gallery at Worth, and one in the tower at Singleton. Slinfold had one, richly carved, dated 1660. Sussex possesses an unrivalled series of early thirteenth-century church chests — part of a group found in the southern and eastern counties, some at least of which are probably to be identified with the Crusaders' alms-chests ordered to be placed in all churches by Pope Innocent III in 1199. The Sussex examples are found at South Bersted, Bosham, Chichester Cathedral (chapter- house), Climping, Felpham, Horsham, Rogate, and Midhurst ; within the last half-century there were others at Arundel and Rustington. They vary in size and details, but all have a central body and broad end-standards ; the lids, in one slab, open upon the 'pin-hinge'; the ends have an applied framework in front of the panel, and nearly all have roundels on the front, filled with shallow geometrical carving of ' whorl,' star (or flower), and prism patterns, the feet being also ornamented in some cases. They have a slit in the lid, an internal hutch, with a separate lid, to receive money, and, in most cases, three locks, generally original. All the woodwork appears to have been adzed or cleft, and finished with a chisel. Other and later thirteenth-century chests occur in Chichester Cathedral (one small and another long chest, both portable), Buxted (richly ornamented) and Ditchling churches. The last two are evidently (like the early group) by the same guild of craftsmen. Later mediaeval chests are to be found in West Tarring (iron-bound), Lyminster (c. 1530), and other churches ; and within living memory there were two fine ' Flanders ' chests — at Guestling and Sidlesham. The cathedral retains a handsome chest, made to the order of Bishop Sherborn. There is a very remarkable chest bearing the inscription : SAY I/IT • OLAVE • CHYCHESTERE • , in the church of that name, richly carved with the Annuncia- tion, mitres, pastoral staves, keys, swords, the open Bible, chalices, and the 359 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Dove, &c. On the lid is a carving of the arms of the see — our Lord, with the two-edged sword in His mouth. It bears the date XLV • E • R, i.e. 1603. Seventeenth-century chests occur at Rusper, Lurgashall, Arundel, &c. The sepulchral monuments of Sussex may be classed under : — -i. Coffin-slabs. — The oldest of these is the child's coffin-slab in Bexhill church, with Celtic interlaced patterns, 'battle-axe' crosses, &c. — an important example, dating probably from the eighth century. Next in date is a priest's slab from Arundel Castle, bearing a representation of a pectoral cross (c. A.D. 1000). At Stedham, Chithurst, Elsted, Cocking, Aldingbourne, Fittleworth, and Steyning numerous coffin-slabs have been discovered built into the foundations and structure of eleventh and twelfth century walls. These bear rude crosses and other designs, such as a Y figure at Stedham and Chithurst, and are in many cases of pre-Conquest date. Others, perhaps of the twelfth century, are built upright inside the chancel walls at Elsted. The richly carved slab of black ' touch ' that formed the gravestone of Earl William de Warenne and Gundrada in Lewes Priory church (now in St. John's Southover Lewes), is a most important example of twelfth-century art ; so also are the coffin-slab of Bishop Ralph (died 1123) in Chichester Cathedral, and that bearing the beautiful design of doves drinking, an Agnus Dei, and a cross in Bishopstone church. Lyminster has a slab with a curious herring-bone fluting and a central ridge : and others of the twelfth century have been found in the Infirmary chapel at Lewes. Early stone coffins are preserved at Walberton and Sullington. A slab marking a heart burial and many other thirteenth-century coffin-slabs are to be seen in Chichester Cathedral, and at Aldingbourne, Arlington, Barnham, Battle, Boxgrove, Eastdean, Little Horsted, Icklesham, Isfield, Lewes (St. John-sub- Castro), Lyminster, East Lavant, Yapton, &c. Fourteenth-century examples occur at Arlington, Alfriston, Poynings, Rogate, Trotton, &c. Head-stone crosses of this period have been preserved at Trotton and West Wittering ; and ledgers of a much later date are found in many churches having heraldic and emblematical designs in low relief, as e.g. one with a skull and palm branches at Rustington. 2. Connected with the foregoing is the peculiarly Sussex group of cast-iron grave-slabs. The oldest of these is perhaps the slab at Burwash to Ihone Coline, probably of the fourteenth century. Others of four- teenth- and fifteenth-century date are found at Rotherfield (ornamented with al sword or double cross) and Playden (with Flemish inscription), and sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century examples occur at Burwash\ All Saints' Hastings, Lamberhurst, Mayfield, Mountfield, Pen- hurst, Sa^Iehurst, Sedlescombe, Wadhurst, and Withyham. 3. The monumental brasses of Sussex, considered as a series, have not as yet received the attention that they merit at the hands of experts. It is impossible tiere to name every brass, but it may be said that the best examples are as follows : — Trotton : to Margaret de Camoys, c. 1300 (the second oldest brass of a lady in England) ; Thomas, Baron Camoys, and lady, 1419, under canopy and supper-canopy; Bodiam : a knight, 1360 ; Rusper: John Kygges- forde and wifel c. 1373; Etchingham : Sir William de Etchingham, 1387, Sir William th\e younger, his wife and son, under triple canopy, 1444, and other members\ of this family ; Fletching : a knight of the ? Dalyngruge 360 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE family and his wife, 1380, &c. ; Ore : civilian and wife, 1400 ; Herstmon- ceux : Sir William Fienes, 1402 ; Amberley : John de Wantele, 1424, in a tabard ; Arundel : several priests, fifteenth century ; Poling : a priest's half effigy, c. 1460 ; Wiston : Sir John de Braose, 1426 ; Ardingly : Richard Wakehurst and wife, 1457 ; Cowfold : Thomas Nelond, prior of Lewes, 1433 — a particularly fine brass, having a canopy with clustered pinnacles, flying buttresses, and imagery; Buxted : John de Lewes, 1330, and Britell Avenell, priest, 1408, in the head of a floriated cross ; Horsham : a priest in a cope, 1411; Warbleton : Dean Prestwick, 1436; Pulborough, 1423, 1452 (good canopies) ; Broadwater : a good brass of a priest, 1432, and a Calvary cross, 1445. 4. External tomb recesses occur (in the south wall of the chancel) at Warbleton and Sutton. Internal wall-tombs, generally with canopies, some- times containing a coffin-slab or an effigy, and ranging in date from the end of the twelfth to the middle of the fourteenth century, are found at Ardingly, Arlington, Bepton, Berwick, Bosham (2), Boxgrove, Chichester Cathedral, and Greyfriars' church, Cocking, Westdean (East Sussex), Denton, East- bourne, Little Horsted, Lancing, St. Anne's Lewes. Effigies on detached altar-tombs, or tombs alone (sometimes with brasses), of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, remain at Ardingly, Arundel, Burton, Chichester Cathedral, Easebourne, Horsham, Herstmonceux, Hurstpierpoint, Southover church Lewes, Mundham, Single- ton, Slindon, Slinfold, Sullington, Thakeham, Trotton, and Wiston. The most noteworthy are the tombs of an unknown lady and Bishop Stratford at Chichester, the sumptuous Fitzalan monuments at Chichester and Arundel, and the effigies at Slinfold (a lady), Slindon (a knight, in oak), Southover (Sir John de Braose, 1232), Horsham (Thomas Lord Braose, 1396), Hurst- pierpoint (early mailed figures), and Herstmonceux (late plate armour). 5. A later group of canopied altar-tombs possesses features almost peculiar to Sussex. Beginning with a series of Sussex marble canopied wall- tombs as at Chichester Cathedral (Bishop Sherborn, &c.), Singleton, Burton, Horsham (Lord Hoo, 1453), Thakeham, and Trotton (3), it concludes with a remarkable series, in which the use of Caen stone and mixed Gothic and Renaissance detail are the chief features, combined with a wealth of delicate figure-sculpture and much fanciful ornamentation. These tombs are found at Arundel (Fitzalan tombs), Boxgrove (Lord de la Warr's sumptuous chantry, c. 1530), Broadwater (de la Warr monuments, c. 1525 and c. 1554), Clapham (Shelley tomb), Kingston-by-Sea, North Mundham (fragments), Petworth (1527), Racton, Rustington (Dawtrey family ?), Selmeston, Selsey (1537), Slaugham (Coverts), Sompting (Burre tomb), Warminghurst (Shelleys, 1554), Wiston (Shirleys, 1540) and West Wittering (two Earnley tombs, with sculpture of the Annunciation, Resurrection, and patron saints, c. 1545). An altar-tomb of the Shelley family — now used as the altar — at Preston has much in common with these. It is covered with late panelled work and minute heraldic shields. 6. Later sixteenth- and seventeenth-century monuments of Renaissance design are found in many churches ; the following may be taken as representative: — Battle (Sir Anthony Browne and wife, 1548), Chiddingly (Sir John Jefferay), Ditchling (Poole monument, 1580)., Easebourne 2 361 46 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX (first Viscount Montague, 1592), Firle (Gage tombs), Friston (Selwyns), Harting (Carylls, 1586), Shipley and Warnham (Carylls, 1613, 1616), Slaugham (Coverts, 1579, &c.), Isfield (Sir J. Shurley and two wives, 1631), Horsham (Elizabeth Delvey, 1654), and Withyham (Sackville monument, 1697). Flaxman's masterpieces of monumental sculpture at Chichester Cathedral, Eartham, Withyham, &c., form a fitting pendant to the series. The church bells of Sussex have been exhaustively described and illus- trated in Suss. Arch. Coll. xvi, 138—232. There are a large number of mediaeval examples, including the oldest dated bell in England — that at Duncton, 1389. Others, as at Yapton, Appledram, and Ford, probably date from the first half of the fourteenth century. There are fine brass can- delabra of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century dates at Chichester Cathedral, Rogate, and Mayfield. The church plate of the county is now (1907) in process of being catalogued, under the auspices of the Sussex Archaeological Society. With vessels in actual use should be included the very valuable early examples found with interments at Rusper (twelfth century, see Suss. Arch. Coll. ix, 203) and Chichester Cathedral — preserved in the library. Chithurst church has a handsome alms-dish (seventeenth century), bearing figures of Adam and Eve. PRE-CONQUEST REMAINS Remains of pre-Conquest work are numerous and highly important ; some of the most valuable examples of this period in England are to be found in Sussex, including the famous church of Bosham, the unique tower of Sompting, and the perfect plan of Worth. It must be borne in mind that this period in Sussex church architecture is one covering the greater part of four centuries, from the evangelization of the South Saxons by St. Wilfrid, A.D. 68 1, to the Norman Conquest of 1066, and that the missionary work began in Selsey, the south-western extremity of the county ; also that almost the whole of the northern part of the county was then a dense forest, with small clearings. We should therefore expect that timber churches would be the rule, except near the coast, and that these would for the most part be maintained and rebuilt in the same material until towards the close of the eleventh century and later, only gradually giving way to a stone architecture. But allowing for all this, it is reasonable to expect that where Roman building materials existed in any quantity — as in the neighbourhood of Regnum (Chichester), in the military stations along the Roman roads traversing the county, and in the chain of Roman villas to the south of the great range of Downs — they would easily be made use of in church-building. ARLINGTON. — South and west walls of nave, 'long and tenth or eleventh-century work, and is itself of two short ' quoins, and double splayed window of Roman or more dates. The tower arch construction, a bricks. triangular-headed door, and the windows with ARUNDEL. — Coffin-slab from the castle (now at Wai- mid-wall shafts are specially noteworthy. berton). BOTOLPHS. — Chancel arch (cf. Sompting tower arch), BEXHILL. — Child's coffin-slab — probably as early as south wall of nave, with windows. the eighth century — of a northern stone (? from CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL. — Bas-reliefs, brought from Whitby), covered with interlaced patterns, serpents, Selsey (two scenes in the Raising of Lazarus), and battle-axe crosses. These are very fine pieces of sculpture, with much BISHOPSTONE. — Nave walls and south porch — both vigour and expression in the attitudes and faces, lofty — (with sundial) ; long and short quoins. They probably date from the commencement of BOSHAM. — The chancel arch (horse-shoed and moulded) the eleventh century. Cf. fragments at Jevington. stands upon two enormous bases of Roman columns, CLAYTON. — Walls of nave, with long and short quoins, possibly the triumphal arch of Vespasian's basilica. and chancel arch. The rude capitals somewhat The capitals were copied from these bases by the resemble those of the Bosham chancel arch, later builders, whose mouldings are curious and EASTERGATE. — Chancel, with a narrow window open- well worthy of study. There is a window (blocked) ing in the north wall. The lower part of the of this first period. The tower is probably later — south wall is largely composed of Roman bricks in 362 ay) i* ! odour of ry iddt« ffoft, 363 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX herring-bone work. Remains of painting of very early date occur on the north wall inside. FORD. — North wall of nave, with two windows and a stone bearing an interlaced pattern. The nave work is quite different in character from that of the chancel, which dates c. l loo, and has thicker walls. FRISTON. — Nave walls, with blocked window and door. A late eleventh-century door stands in close proximity to the latter. HAMPNETT, WEST.— At the restoration the chancel arch (destroyed) was found to be built with Roman bricks and flue tiles, and the south wall still shows a quantity of the former in herring-bone work, and one window of pre-Conquest date ; another — -opposite to it — has more recently been taken out. Both were of the rudest character, with a single stone for the head, and plastered jambs inclining upwards. JEVINGTON. — Tower and tower arch, with baluster shafted windows and sound holes in bell-chamber ; and remarkable early sculptured fragments — Christ bruising the serpent's head, and the emblems of the Evangelists. LEWES. — A doorway preserved from the rebuilt church, with surface strip-work. Cf. that at Old Shoreham LURCASHALL. — North wall of nave, with narrow and lofty door and herring-bone rubble. RUMBOLDSWYKE. — Built of Roman bricks and large pick-dressed stones. Later windows inserted, but chancel arch is original, and possibly also a very early piscina. SELHAM. — The plan of this church and the north door and chancel arch are pre-Conquest. The former is a narrow unrebated opening, of large, roughly-dressed stones. The latter is moulded and stands upon very remarkable abaci and capitals. SINGLETON. — The exceptionally spacious western tower, parts of nave walls, and a two-light window in east gable of nave. There was probably a roof-chamber over the nave, with which a tall and narrow triangular-headed door in the middle stage of the tower communicated. The quoin stones are doubled, as at Ford and Lyminster, and there are double-splayed windows in the lower stages. OLD SHOREHAM. — The nave represents that of the pre-Conquest church with the addition of a western porticus, the long and short quoins of both are plainly visible on the north side ; together with a tall and narrow doorway, having remains of strip- work round it, and a triangular-headed window in west gable. SOMPTING. — Tower, with four-gabled termination, and spire ; perhaps parts of nave and chancel walls, with carved work built into same. The tower has long and short work, pilaster strips, ornamental string- course, vertical circular shaft, with capitals and bases, in the centre of each face. The windows are in pairs, round-headed and triangular-headed, and those north and south of the uppermost stage have mid-wall shafts with corbel-capitals of peculiar design. The tower arch has a half-round member upon the flat soffit and Corinthianesque capitals, flanked by Classical-looking cornuacopiae. The spire timbers appear to be of the same early date (c, A.D. 1000) as the tower. STOPHAM. — Nave, with north and south doors, the latter having mouldings to the arch, and angle shafts with capitals of a serrated section. STOUGHTON. — There is a double-splayed window, high up in the south wall of the nave, closely resembling those at Singleton a few miles away. WOOLBEDINC. — The south wall of the nave, in par- ticular, is pre-Conquest, as is evidenced by a number of pilaster strips. The blocked south door is of the same period, and perhaps the bowl of a pillar piscina. WORTH. — The apsidal and cruciform plan, the chancel arch of bold proportions and wide span, the massive transeptal arches, the lofty north and south doors, the windows in pairs with mid-wall baluster, the external string-course and pilaster strips, are the most noteworthy features in this remarkable church. The following churches contain work of very early character, but the evidence in favour of a pre-Conquest date, although weighty, is not conclusive. In most cases they probably represent the period of building activity which set in with the Confessor's reign — the quarter of a century pre- ceding the Conquest, when Norman influence was strong. ALDINGBOURNE. — Parts of walls of nave, and perhaps BIGNOR.— Chancel arch, built of ponderous stones of blocked windows in south wall. Roman character, pick-dressed. BEXHILL. — The western part of nave walls pierced by BOLNEY.— South door of nave, nearly 9 ft. high, of a later arcade ; herring-bone work. two orders, rudely moulded, on chamfered abaci 364 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE and plain jambs ; chancel walls, with two windows (originally more windows and a north door). BURPHAM. — North wall nave, with small blocked window of very primitive character. BURTON. — Nave, north wall, &c., with much herring- bone work. CHICHESTER, ST. OLAVE'S CHURCH. — Nave walls, with narrow south doorway. The chancel (rebuilt) in- corporated part of a Roman building. Note the dedication to a Danish saint. DEAN, WEST (WEST SUSSEX). — Nave, north wall, with tall and narrow doorway. EASTDEAN. — (East Sussex). Tower on north side of nave. This stands on the borderland of the period. The window-jambs incline inwards, and there are other marks of pre-Conquest date. It would seem to have been a semi-defensive tower, with an oratory-apse on its east face. ELSTED. — Nave walls. The piercing of an arcade of late eleventh-century character in the north wall is presumptive evidence of older work in the fabric. Much herring-bone work. The lofty chancel arch is horse-shoed. FELPHAM. — Nave walls ? Early Norman or Saxon. These have been tunnelled through to form ar- cades in the twelfth century. They are enormously thick. FERRING. — Blocked window south wall. A very small and rude apercure, resembling that at Burpham. FITTLEWORTH. — Tower ? Very plain early-looking work, without, however, any distinctive features. HANGLETON. — Nave, with north and south doorways, and the heads of blocked windows. This may be of post-Conquest date. The walls are built of herring-bone flints. HARDHAM. — Largely built of Roman materials. The square-headed north door quoins and narrow splayed windows in the nave are of very early character. The dedication is to St. Botolph, a Saxon saint. KINGSTON-BY-SEA. — The quoins have an early appear- ance. LYMINSTER. — The lofty nave and chancel, with a tall south doorway, pierced through the wall without a rebate, and the singular chancel arch are probably pre-Conquest. There was a nunnery here from the ninth or tenth century, and this was the nuns' church. MARDEN, UP. — Chancel ar^h, triangular head, square jambs, and rude masonry. NORTHIAM. — Some of the masonry in the tower re- sembles that at Appledore (Kent), an admitted pre- Conquest example. OVINGDEAN. — Nave and chancel, with several original windows, the north doorway, chancel arch, and a triangular headed recess in east wall, formed of Roman bricks. ROTTINGDEAN. — Parts of west and north walls, nave, including many fragments (? of baluster shafts), built in as old material. The lower courses of the north door quoins and the west quoin of nave, north side, are in large blocks of sandstone. SLAUGHAM. — The north wall of the nave, with its early doorway, resembling those at Wivelsfield and Bolney. STEDHAM. — Fragments of rude coffin-slabs, &c., found in and beneath the walls of the twelfth-century church. Spiral shell-like ornaments of very unusual character are carved upon some fragments. STOKE, SOUTH. — North wall of nave, &c. TANGMERE. — One of the very primitive windows has a rude bas-relief of (?) the Decollation of St. John the Baptist. WALBERTON. — The nave, recently almost rebuilt, had arches of late eleventh-century date pierced through its walls, and the walls were found to be largely composed of Roman bricks. A rude gable-cross of (probably) pre-Conquest date was found in the west wall. WESTDEAN. — Window, north wall, nave. A very rude blocked opening. The circle of the head has an upward scoop (as at Ovingdean) for the freer admission of light. WIVELSFIELD. — In the north nave wall (rebuilt) is the original narrow and tall door, with square jambs, chamfered abaci and rudely moulded arch of two orders, so precisely similar to the south door of Bolney Church that it is evident they are the work of the same hands. YAPTON. — Parts of west and south walls of nave, against which a tower of late twelfth-century date has been built without bonding in, showing the nave walls to be earlier. The remarkable font, with sword-shaped crosses under circular arches, and herring-bone ornamentation, is probably pre-Con- quest. FROM f. 1070 TO f. 1120 The work of this period is plain and rude in character. At first sight there is but little to distinguish some of these examples from those at the end of the last list — the ' Saxon over-lap.' The stonework is tooled broadly with the axe ; masonry joints are wide, square-edged arches are the rule, and the only exceptions are a coarse three-quarter round moulding, as at Chichester Cathe- dral, Steyning, and Amberley, or the various forms of billet and simple zigzag, as at Lewes Priory, Chichester, Lancing, and Wilmington. Windows are usually narrow, but sometimes broad and square, as at Barnham and Tangmere. At Amberley, Chichester Cathedral, and New Shoreham church, they are wider and much more architectural in treatment, having shafts and mouldings. Plain cushion capitals or the earlier form of scalloping are usually found, but sometimes they are voluted (e.g. Chichester Cathedral and Amberley), or very rudely carved. Doors, chancel arches, and the rare instances of nave arcades (Elsted, Aldingbourne, and Walberton) are very plain, with simply chamfered abaci. Walls, as a rule, are thicker, and not so well built as in the 365 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX pre-Conquest period. Early in the twelfth century shallow buttresses came into use, as at New Shoreham (transepts), and Newhaven (apse). ALBOURNE. — Chancel walls, with a window (blocked) and chancel arch, of good chevron work on square piers with chamfered abaci ; also arches from the nave, built into churchyard wall. ALDINGBOURNE. — A blocked arcade in north wall of one of the nave, including coeval painting on i soffits, c. 1 080- 1 100. ALCISTON. — Parts of fabric, with window in north wall of chancel. AMBERLEY. — Valuable example. Nave, with several original windows, blocked north doorway and chancel arch. Note the capitals, &c., of window nook-shafts, coeval painted consecration crosses, and the very fine chancel arch, of rich zigzag work with voluted capitals. Amberley belonged to the bishops of Chichester, and this work should be compared with Bishop Ralph's in the cathedral. Date, c. 1090. APPLEDRAM. — A window head and parts of north wall of nave, c. 1080. ATHERINGTON CHAPEL. — Masonry of this period in the walls, 26 ft. 3 in. by 14 ft. 4 in. internally. BALSDEAN CHAPEL. — Two windows of this date remain and part of a doorway, together with much of the walling. Window splays run out to a feather-edge. BARNHAM. — Small windows, broad and squat, high up in south wall of nave, outer cases in Pulborough stone ; inner dressings in a hard white stone. Cf. the Tangmere windows hard by. BATTLE. — 1107-24 (fragments). Both in the abbey buildings (e.g. an arch with billet moulding in the refectory) and parish church some small remains of the period exist. BEDDINGHAM. — Windows in north wall of nave, &c. BISHOPSTONE. — Tower of four recessed stages, with double windows in bell-chamber, and a good corbel table. Narrow windows and circular light in lower stages. Round moulding on angle of quoins. Archway under pediment built out from pre-Con- quest porch, c. 1 1 20. BOSHAM. — Pillar piscina, north aisle. Large window in north wall of chancel. Top stage of tower, with corbel-table of unusual design. BRAMBER. — Tower arch, with curious sculptured voluted capitals, door, &c., c. 1080. BUNCTON. — The nave with early windows and door and chancel arch (carving of two periods), c. 1070. This may belong to the previous period. BURWASH. — Tower, with two-light shafted windows in bell-chamber. CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL. — Nave, transepts, parts of western towers, and quire. Note the clearstory windows (outside), nave arcades, scale ornament in triforia, cable and prism mouldings of tower arches. Note the remains of original windows and corbel table on south side of quire, the frequent occur- rence of the billet moulding, the carved and cushion capitals of the triforia, and the parti-coloured opus reticulatum of the tympana, 1091 — 1123. CHITHURST. — A small church of nave and chancel, retaining its original windows and chancel arch. CLAPHAM. — North wall nave, pierced by later arcade. One original window, c. 1080. COATES. — Nave and chancel, including a wide chancel arch, an original window and font. COCKING. — Original windows in nave and chancel and chancel arch. Font. COOMBES. — The nave and chancel, with some of the original windows, priest's door, and chancel arch. EARTHAM. — Chancel arch and walls. Note voluted capitals, with carving of man's face, c. 1070. EASEBOURNE. — Parts of nave, south walls, &c., with original south door and quoin, c. 1 080. ELSTED. — North arcade of two arches pierced through an earlier wall ; cf. Aldingbourne and Walberton, c. 1 1 oo. FINDON. — Arch in south transept, horseshoed, with unusual mouldings, c. 1120 FLETCHING. — Tower, with two-light shafted windows, parts of nave walls, and remains of windows, c. 1 1 20. FORD. — Chancel arch (the abaci have star-pattern ornamentation) and chancel (one window), and parts of others built in. The chancel, though smaller and lower, has much thicker walls than the pre-Conquest nave. c. lioo. FRISTON. — Doors, &c., side by side with similar pre- Conquest features, c. 1 120. GRINSTEAD, WEST. — North wall nave herring-bone masonry, with window and two doors. Recess in east wall and lower part of tower, c. 1080. GUESTLING. — Tower, with single and double windows, the latter having good shafts and an original stair turret — a rare feature in this period, c . 1 1 20. HAMSEY. — Parts of nave, &c., including plain chancel arch. HORSTED KEYNES. — Parts of fabric, including an arch on north side of nave. HORSTED, LITTLE. — Chancel, with curious external arcade, pierced for one window. [This is unique in Sussex, and reminiscent of the Saxon chapel at Bradford-on-Avon.] c. 1080. ICKLESHAM. — Parts of nave walls (west end, &c.) pierced for later arcades, c. 1080. ITCHINGFIELD. — Walls and windows of nave and chan- cel, c. 1 100. KEYMER. — Apsidal chancel (rebuilt), c. noo. KIRDFORD. — Parts offabric, windows, &c., e. noo. LANCING. — Walls of chancel, with double-billet string- course, c. 1 1 20. LAVANT, EAST. — West door, with billet and other ornaments, c . 1 1 oo. LAVANT, MID. — One small window in nave, and parts of walls, c. I loo. LEWES, ST. MICHAEL. — Round tower, c. 1 100. LEWES, ST. JOHN'S, SOUTHOVER. — Plain piers and arches (altered), c . 1 1 20. LINCHMERE. — West wall with door, and head of win- dow (detached), c. 1080. LYMINSTER. — West door of nave, with two square- edged orders, chamfered hood and abaci, c. \ 100. MARDEN, NORTH. — Church, with apse, c. noo. MARESFIELD. — South wall of nave, with one window ; others have been found and destroyed, c. 1 100. NEWHAVEN. — Apse and tower, c. 1120. The corbel- table and two-light windows of tower, the arch, windows, and buttresses of apse, are noteworthy. NEWICK. — South wall, nave, and one window, c. 1 100. PATCHAM. — Nave and chancel (chancel arch and north door), c. 1080. PEASMARSH. — Chancel arch, horseshoed, with curious bas-reliefs of (?) lions, c. 1080. PETWORTH. — Windows on north of nave, c . 1 1 20. 366 QUIRE TRIFORIUM, CHICHESTER FROM LEWES PRIORY TWELFTH-CENTURY CAPITALS NEW SHOKEHA.M P. M. Johnston. Photo. ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE PIDDINGHOE. — Round tower, with well - preserved windows, c. 1 1 20. PVECOMBE. — Chancel arch, plain and lofty, and parts of walls, c. 1080. SEAFORD. — Lower part of tower, with curious ar- rangement of arches, c. 1120. SHIPLEY. — Nave, axial tower, and chancel, with richly moulded arches, c. 1 1 20. This church re- tains an enamelled reliquary of twelfth-century date. SHOREHAM, NEW. — Begun 1103. The fine arches of central tower, walls, and windows of transepts, arch of ruined nave arcade, and font belong to this period, c. 1 103—20. SOUTHEASE. — Round tower and parts of walls, c. I loo. SOUTH WICK. — Lower stage of tower and arch in chancel. Note early voluted capitals of tower arch, rude Ionic in character, c. 1080. STEYNING. — Arches in quire, and east end of aisles, chancel arch, and part of walls. Note scalloped and carved capitals, earlier than the remarkable arcades of the nave, c . 1 1 20. STOKE, SOUTH. — Plain south door, c. 1 1 20. TERWICK. — West wall, with door and window. Door retains its original hinges, c. noo. TREYFORD. — Door in north wall of nave. WALBERTON. — Arches of two dates in nave, win- dow in west gable, insertions in older walls, partly destroyed in recent rebuilding, c. 1070 to mo. WALTHAM, UP. — Apsidal chancel and nave ; pillar piscina with voluted cap. WESTFIELD. — Chancel arch, parts of walls, and a win- dow, c. 11 oo. WESTMESTON. — Chancel arch (destroyed in restora- tion), doors, and walls. WHATLINGTON. —Chancel arch, &c., with the main walls, c. 1080. WILMINGTON. — Chancel, with good windows and semi-octagonal string-course, bearing a zigzag mould- ing, c. n 20. WISBOROUGH GREEN. — Walling and some windows in nave, c. 1080. FROM c. 1 1 20 TO c. 1160 The work in this period is much richer in treatment, and the mason-craft more skilful. Towards its close ' pen-knife ' joints are common, and there is a good deal of finely axed Caen stone- work in buttresses and wall faces, as at New Shoreham and Southwick. The billet is found at Old Shoreham and Steyning. Rich chevron work occurs at East Wittering, Tortington, Burpham, Old Shoreham, Bishopstone, &c. ; and varieties of the chevron at Shipley, Burpham, Steyning, Broadwater, Rodmell, and Iford. Two instances only of the use of beak-heads as an enrichment are found — at Tortington (chancel arch) and New Shoreham (west door). Some of the most typical work is at Steyning and Old Shoreham, where the student will find almost every form of enrich- ment in use in this period. Scalloped or pleated capitals here and elsewhere are common, the scallops being sometimes (as at Burpham) concave and serrated. These are varied by grotesque forms (human and animal faces and figures), and early attempts at foliage. Roses, limpet shells, bunches of grapes, &c., occur as enrichments at Old Shoreham, Tortington, and Buncton. The pointed arch is found towards the close of this period, as at Shipley and New Shoreham (doors), and Buncton (arcading). The windows are mostly longer, while preserving their narrowness, as at Hellingly and Litlington, but sometimes — e.g. Steyning nave and Rye transepts — they are of considerable breadth. Banded shafts occur in the later work, as at Hellingly, Rye, &c. Flat buttresses are used, and roofs of moderately steep pitch are the rule. The earliest instances of vaulting in Sussex occur towards the close of the period. Good examples of nave arcades are found at Steyning (some of the richest in England), New Shoreham, Bexhill, and Icklesham. A very early instance of the use of dog-tooth moulding occurs in the arches at Steyning (aisle side), where also an extraordinary variety will be found in the capitals (of circular form), arch-mouldings, and string-courses. There is a touch of Saracenic art — the result of the Crusades — in many of the details — as e.g. in some of the capitals at Steyning. BEXHILL. — Arches in nave (capitals with enriched scalloping and rudimentary foliage), arch in tower, c. 1150. BINSTED. — The small church, built by the monks of Tortington, belongs entirely to c. 1140, saving inserted features. Note coeval windows, piscina, tabernacle (?), font, and mural paintings. BISHOPSTONE. — The low north aisle, with its small windows, c. 1 1 60. BLATCHINGTON, EAST. — Fabric — a good deal altered, c . 1 1 60 . BLATCHINGTON, WEST. — Walls and some windows, c. 1 150. BOXGROVE. — Transepts, and east bays of nave, with early vaulting, arcaded entrance to chapter-house (a rich piece of work), &c., c. 1 130. BULVERHYTHE. — The plan and some fragments of this ruined church. Some of the latter resemble the capitals of nave arcade at Icklesham {post}, c. 1 150. BUNCTON. — External wall arcades of chancel, c . 1 1 60. Acutely pointed arches, with fruit and strap orna- ments. Cf. Tortington, post. BURPHAM. — Arch in south transept, c. 1150. Very rich example. Note the varieties of scalloped capitals, the fine base-spurs, and the different pat- terns of chevron mouldings. The north transept has a plain arch and a chevron-bordered window of the same date. Note cap with palm-leaf ornamenta- tion (detached). See illustration on p. 369. CHILTINGTON, WEST. — Arcades of nave having pointed arches and enriched scallop capitals (cf. Rustington), north and south doors, and arch to south chapel, window in chancel, &c., c . 1 1 50. HELLINGLY. — c. 1 1 50-60. Respond in nave, and windows in chancel, with early foliaged capitals 367 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX and banded shafts above a string-course enriched with the Greek honeysuckle. Cf. Rye, post. HORSHAM. — North aisle, with door and windows, c. 1140, tower c. 1150-60. ICKLESHAM. — c. 1 1 50. Arcades of nave with enriched scallop capitals, and others of Saracenic character. Cf. Steyning. Arches at end of aisles and aisle windows. Tower vault with enriched capitals, &c. c. 1 150-60. IFORD. — c. 1140. Chancel, axial tower, &c. Note windows in east wall and enriched chevron to tower arch. LITLINGTON. — North and east walls of chancel, with window, c. 1150. PORTSLADE. — Arcade, &c., nave, c. 1160. Cf. Rusting- ton and West Chiltington in next list. PRESTON, EAST. — North door, c. 1150. A south door, destroyed, was of this period. RODMELL. — Chancel arch, enriched with varieties of the chevron moulding, squint with pillar in centre, c. 1150. Arches to aisle with peculiar capitals. RYE. — Transepts, c , 1 1 30-50. Note the wall arcades and clearstory windows, having banded shafts and foliaged capitals. Cf. Hellingly. SHIPLEY. — West door (pointed arch), c. 1150. SHOREHAM, NEW. — Upper stages of central tower, with good windows of two and three openings under inclosing arches, and corbelled parapet, sound- holes, &c. Font — c. 1130-60. SHOREHAM, OLD. — Central tower, transepts, &c. — a most important example. The tower has an ex- ternal arcade, partly pierced in the upper story, and circular sound-holes (cf. Southwick, New Shoreham, and Jevington) ; and retains a coeval stair-turret. The arches upon which it stands are richly orna- mented, as is also the door in south transept. SOUTHWICK. — Tower of stone and flints, c. 1 1 50 (lower part earlier) with blind arches in middle story, having pleated, scalloped, and other ornamented capitals, zigzag string-course, coupled windows with pointed heads, upper story sound-holes (cf. Old Shore- ham and Jevington), and a corbel-table under eaves of spire, originally crowned by a parapet. The work is of peculiar character, and resembles that in transepts at Sompting. STEYNING. — The nave — a work of great size and beauty, richly ornamented — is of this period (c. 1150). One of the capitals is by the same hand as those to the south door at Winchfield, Hants ; another is very similar to one at Icklesham. The rich clearstory windows and pilaster buttress are other notable features. TELSCOMBE. — Nave. TORTINGTON. — Church generally — a diminutive build- ing, retaining several of the original windows, the south door, chancel arch (with beak-head orna- ment), and arcaded font. UDIMORE. — Door in north of nave, &c., c. 1120. WITTERING, EAST. — South door, walls, and windows of nave, c. 1 120. FROM c. 1 1 60 TO c. 1200 The pointed arch is used with greater frequency, side by side with the round (as in Rustington tower and south arcades, and Seffrid's work, Chichester Cathedral). Stiff-leaf foliage of the most beautiful type was slowly evolved. Windows were larger as a rule, and usually rebated for glazing. The zigzag moulding is still occasionally found, as at the cathedral (vault over library), Climping (tower doorway, together with dog-tooth work), Eastbourne, and Guestling (arches). ALDINGEOURNE. — South nave, arcade and font, c. 1185, south chapel, c. 1190. ANGMERINC. — Chancel arch. The piers have the same unusual undulating section as some in New Shore- ham quire, and the capitals are similarly carved, c. 1185. ARLINGTON. — North chapel ; circular-headed windows, dog-tooth moulding, &c., c . \ 1 80. ASHURST. — Tower and arcade, c. 1200. Cf. Clap- ham, &c. BARLAVINGTON. — Arcade, blocked. BARNHAM. — Font. Blocked arches in north wall, c. 1 190. BATTLE. — Nave arcades and chancel arch, c. 1 1 80 ; parts of chancel, c. 1 190. BEDDINGHAM. — South aisle (curious cap, cf. St. Anne's Lewes, &c.), c. 1 190. BERSTED, SOUTH. — Tower, with large buttresses. BILLINGSHURST. — Tower. BISHOPSTONE. — Arch from nave to chancel, and sanc- tuary arch (with early and elaborate dog-tooth work), wall arcades, &c., coffin-slab, and font, c. 1 1 60-80. BOXGROVE. — Piers, &c., of central tower, with the ' keel ' moulding and late scalloping to capitals, c. 1165. Cf. Chichester Cathedral, Lady Chapel, Ruins of nave, with good scalloped capitals. BURPHAM. — Arcade in chalk to south aisle, with scal- loped and foliaged capitals in chalk ; also a capital lying loose, c. 1 1 60-70 ; vaulted chancel, c. 1 1 90. CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL. — I. Western part of Lady Chapel, with richly carved capitals to the triple vault-shafts; stonework, finely axed, c. 1165. 2. The works of remodelling and rebuilding under Bishop Seffrid II, 1189-1200. Note the much- detached shafts of piers and the union of circular and pointed arches in the eastern bays of the quire, also the fine stiff-leaf foliage and square abaci. Cf. the corbels to arch in south transept with those over quire arcades, New Shoreham. CLIMPING. — Tower, c. 1 160—70, of very massive con- struction, with much fine-jointed masonry and a singularly beautiful doorway having a trefoiled head within a circular arch, on which are dog-tooth and chevron mouldings. The buttresses pierced by win- dows and the corbelled parapet are other original features. Cf. remains of similar parapet at Yapton. COMPTON. — Pillar and arches (blocked) in north wall of nave, and chancel arch, c . 1 1 90. EASEBOURNE. — Arcades, font, &c., c. 1170. Late examples of scalloped capitals. EASTBOURNE. — Chancel arch, c. 1 1 60. North and south arcade, chancel, c. 1175. North and south arcades of nave and clearstory windows, c. 1190. 368 369 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX EASTDEAN (EAST SUSSEX). — Chancel, with windows, some having banded shafts, c. 1 1 70. EDBURTON. — Leaden font, c. 1160. The design is almost identical with that at Pyecombe. EWHURST. — Arcade pillars of nave and font, c. 1 180. Tart of tower. FELPHAM. — Cf. Burpham chancel and Pagham. North arcade (square capitals) and font ; curious corbels, c. 1 1 80. South arcade, c. 1190. FERRING. — Chancel, east and north walls, lancets and piscina, c . 1 1 90. FINDON. — Parts of nave (pillars, &c.), c. \ 1 90. FORD. — Two long lancets in north wall of nave, with round internal arches, altar recess on south side of chancel arch and piscina, remains of blocked arcade south wall, e . 1 1 80-90. GORING. — Pillars of nave arcades ; cf. Rustington (for- mer south-west tower, &c., same date), c. 1165. GRAFFHAM. — Arcades, pointed arches and scalloped capitals, c . 1 1 80. GRINSTEAD, WEST. —Parts of building and font, c. 1 1 80. GUESTLING. — Arch to north chapel, arches between same and chancel, piscina, tabernacle or aumbry, sedilia, squint, long narrow round-headed window at west end north aisle, lancet windows in chancel and chapel, c. 1180—90. The arches are circular, and have chevron moulding in one case, with very beautiful early foliage to the capitals and corbels. HALNAKER CHAPEL. — West door (cf. Portslade and Cuckfield), lancets, &c., c. 1195. HAMPNETT, WEST. — South arcade, south tower and chapel under. Capitals a variety of the scallop and early mouldings, c. 1185. HASTINGS. — Chancel arch of castle chapel, with early foliage, and pillar piscina, c. 1 180. HERSTMONCEUX. — Tower, nave arcades with palm-leaf caps, c. 1 1 80 (cf. Battle). HORSHAM. — Tower, west door, &c., c . 1 1 70. The tower arch (pointed) retains some coeval colour decoration. It has square orders and a carved head of a priest at the apex. HOVE. — Arcades, much spoilt, c. 1 170. ICKLESHAM. — Chancel arch with carved corbels, pointed, and the two chapel arcades, c. 1180-90. The detail of these is very good. LANCING. — South porch, important ex- ample, c. 1 1 80. Body of tower. LEWES. — St. Anne's ; nave, chancel, south chapel, and tower. Note the local type of capital to nave arcade, having a pendant or corbel connecting the square upper part with the round column, and carvedwithstiff-leaffoliage. Cf. Rodmell, Telscombe, and Beddingham, c. 1180. The arches are circular. LYMINSTER. — Arcade to north aisle, c. \ \ 70. Pointed arches, having square soffits, with scalloped and foliaged capitals. Cf. Rus- tington and Yapton. MARESFIELD. — Window in chancel. MIDHURST. — Tower, c. 1200. PAGHAM. — (St. Thomas of Canterbury). Nave arcade c. \ 1 85, and chancel c. 1 200. Fine work, on a large scale. PEASMARSH. — Nave arcades, &c., c. 1 1 90. PLAYDEN. — Nave and aisles, c. 1170-80. Note the peculiar shape of the arches. Two are elliptical, and have a small cir- cular clearstory window over them. POLING. — Aisle and arcade, c. 1 1 90. RODMELL. — Nave arcade, &c., c . 1 1 80. RUSTINGTON. — Tower and south arcade, f. 1 165. The tower has good flat but- tresses and belfry windows, ha vi ng pointed arches on shafts, inclosing circular sub- arches with central shaft. Scalloped and foliaged capitals. The tower arch and south arcade are pointed, and have similar details. RYE. — Nave and aisles, south door, c. 1 1 80—90. Pointed arches, well moulded, on columns with circular moulded caps. Dog-tooth and other orna- ments. The lofty arches on north side of the quire and the windows of north chancel date from c. 1 190 to 1 200. Note the wall-passage through window splays and the good mouldings. SEAFORD. — Arcades and clearstory windows, with in- teresting bas-reliefs, c. 1190. SHOREHAM, NEW. — Quire and aisles, c. 1170-1200 — a work of great importance. The aisle walls are 37° ST. ANNE'S, LEWES ROOM ELL PALACE CHAPEL, CHICHESTER LATE TWELFTH AND EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY CAPITALS AND CORBELS G. C. Druce and P. M. Johnston, I'hvtu. ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE probably the oldest part in this period ; then the north arcade. The clearstory and vaulting are the latest. The early stiff-leaf carving of the capitals and arches is among the finest of its period in Eng- land. Cf. the ' hook '-corbels with those at Broadwater. Note the enriched chevron of wall arcades and the palm-branch border to main arches. Cf. Reigate, Surrey, and a destroyed door, South wark Cathedral. All these were built by the de Braoses. SHULBRED PRIORY. — Some windows and a vaulted chamber, c. 1 1 90. SLINDON. — South aisle, c. 1170, north chapel, c. 1190, and windows of chancel — narrow lancets. The arch to north chapel has the first in a remark- able group of corbels, of which examples are named in the two following periods from the best- known church, 'Climping corbels." (See illus- tration.) They consist of a bunch of flutings — convex or concave — bound into one under a cir- cular abacus. SOMPTING. — Transepts and chapels, c. 1170. Very curious and unusual details. Cf. Southwick tower. SOUTHEASE. — Parts of nave and chancel. STOPHAM. — Tower. STOUGHTON. — Transept arches, chancel, &c., c. 1 1 do- So. Banded shafts and inclined jambs to the single lancet in east wall. SUTTON. — Pillars in nave, unusually thin and tall, with square abaci and foliaged knops at angles. Cf. Ly- minster, c. \ \ 80. TARRINC NEVILLE. — Nave. TELSCOMBE. — Chancel and tower. Caps of chancel arcade as at Rodmell, c. 1 1 80. THAKEHAM. — Parts of chancel and north transept, c. 1190. THORNEY, WEST. — North and south doors, tower, blocked arches, small lancets in chancel, &c., c. 1 1 70-90. TILLINGTON. — Arcades, c. 1180. Font. UDIMORE. — Parts of nave, including blocked arcade, c. 1 1 90. WISBOROUGH GREEN. — Chancel arcade, nave arcade. WITTERING, WEST. — Arches on south of chancel, c. 1 200. Arcade in nave, c. 1180. YAPTON. — North and south arcades of nave, and south-west tower. Interesting early foliage in capitals. Tower has two-light belfry windows, with pointed inclosing and sub-arches, and central shaft. Cf. Rustington. FROM 1 200 TO c. 1220 Pointed arches are now the rule. Windows are usually narrow lancets with plain splays radiating equally round head. There is more work of this and the succeeding period (1220—60) — covering what is commonly called the Early English style — than of any other in Sussex. Some churches, such as Chidham, Clapham, and Appledram in this list, and a number in the succeeding, are entirely in this style, with simple lancet windows, the effect of which, inside and out, is solemn and stately. Some of the best work in Chichester Cathedral belongs to this period. The type of corbel to arches found at Slindon in the last list occurs also in churches included in this and the succeeding list. They are found at Slindon, North Bersted, Yapton, West Wittering, Patching, Climping, Oving, and Tangmere. Several of them are churches belonging to the archbishop of Canterbury. ALCISTON. — Chancel windows, &c. ALDINGBOURNE. — Tower on north, c. 1200. AMBERLEY. — Tower, c. 1210. APPLEDRAM. — Chancel, south aisle of nave, &c. ARLINGTON. — Tower, &c. BARNHAM. — Chancel, &c., c. 1220. BATTLE. — Parts of abbey buildings. Turrets and other features of parish church chancel : west door, f. 1 2 20 — a fine example. BAYHAM ABBEY. — Parts of nave and transepts, and buildings of abbey. BEDDINGHAM. — North aisle. BERSTED, SOUTH. — Entire building, with arches of wide span, and well-moulded capitals and corbels : e. 1 200—20. Cf. Climping. Fine coeval church chest. BERWICK. — Tower, &c. BILLINGSHURST. — South aisle of chancel, &c. BISHOPSTONE. — North arcade ; some windows — one with ' shouldered ' arch in west wall of south porch. Cf. Arlington, East Sussex, and Chichester Cathe- dral, Singleton, Midhurst, West Hampnett, West Wittering, and East Dean, West Sussex, c. 1220. BLATCHINGTON, EAST. — Chancel (sedilia, &c.). BODIAM. — Chancel, &c. BOSHAM. — Eastern part of church, with fine quintuplet of lancets in east wall and double lancets in side walls, having marble shafts, caps and bases ; double piscina. A remarkably fine piece of work. Good church chest of this period, c. 1210. BOTOLPHS. — Blocked arcade, north wall of nave and tower, c. i zoo. BOXGROVE. — Quire and its aisles, e. 1 200. The state- liest work of this period in Sussex. Caen stone and Purbeck marble are used, and the arcades have circular arches inclosing two pointed ones with a sunk quatrefoil in the solid tympanum. Note the carved corbel-heads, the piers — circular, octagonal, and grouped shafts — and the fine vaulting of quire and aisles. Cf. quire of St. Thomas of Canter- bury, Portsmouth, and West Wittering. BREDE. — Parts of nave and aisles. CATSFIELD. — Tower. CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL. — North and south porches, parts of clearstories in nave and quire, south-west tower, upper stages and buttresses, sacristy, south transept, chapels, parts of quire arches, vaulting, parts of buildings abutting on south walk of cloisters. All these furnish noteworthy examples of the period. Two wooden chests in chapter house. CHICHESTER, ALL SAINTS' CHURCH. — The whole church. CHICHESTER, BISHOP'S PALACE CHAPEL. — A small vaulted building, quite a gem, with singularly beautiful mouldings and carved vault corbels, and a remark- able coeval painting. The door has a richly moulded circular head, c. 1 200. 371 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX CHIDHAM. — The whole church, except north chapel, which is slightly later, c. 1210. CLAPHAM. — North and south arcades, aisles, chancel, and north-west tower. Cf. Ashurst, Findon, West Grinstead, &c. The north arcade has good foliaged capitals, c. I 200. CLAYTON. — Chancel, c. 1220. DEAN, EAST (West Sussex). — South doorway of nave, with early crochet capitals and good mouldings (cf. door of Palace Chapel, Chichester), c. 1 200. FELPHAM. — Trefoil-headed lancets in clearstory and south aisles, c. 1220. FINDON. — Tower, chancel, &c. HALNAKER. — Chapel, c. 1 200. Good west door and east triplet. HARDHAM. — Vesica window, west wall : east window, cf. Barnham. Lancet in nave, c. 1220. HARDHAM PRIORY. — Arcaded entrance to chapter house, c. 1210. An extremely beautiful piece of work, with much dog-tooth moulding. HARTING. — Dog-tooth arch to chancel, blocked, and lancets, east wall, c. 1220. HENFIELD. — Nave arcades and chancel arch, &c., c. l 200-20. HKYSHOTT.— Nave pillars, very squat. Cf. Wivels- field. c. i 2 10. IFIELD. — Tower and some lancets, font, piers, and piscina. ITCHENOR, WEST. — Walls, lancets, font, &c., c. I2IO. KINCSTON-BY-SEA. — Central tower, nave and chancel : note good crossing arches and vault, c. 1210. KIRDFORD. — Nave arches, c. 1220, some lancets, &c. LAVANT, MID. — Chancel, and lancets in nave, c. 1230. LEWES. — Arch from priory, c. 1210 (now rebuilt in Pelham Crescent). LULLINGTON. — Lancets (altered later), and fabric of church, c. 1220. LURGASHALL. — Chancel, with lancet windows, chancel arch, &c., c. 1210. LYMINSTER. — Lower part of tower, with fine but- tresses. Lancet and door, north wall chancel. Font, c. 1 200. MIDHURST. — Tower, c. 1 200. MUNDHAM, NORTH. — North and south arcades and some lancets, c. 1210. Cf. Sidlesham, Climping, and Bersted. NYTIMBER. — Remains of chapel at Barton — with good lancets and trefoil-headed piscina, c. 1220. OVING. — Chancel arch (with corbels of the Climping type), chancel transepts and tower, font, &c., c. 1 2 20. Good north door and priest's door. OVINGDEAN. — West tower, and blocked arches in south walls, nave and chancel, c. 1 200. PATCHAM. — Tower, &c., c. 1220. PATCHING. — Entire church, with north tower and south porch, c. 1210. This has corbels of the Climping pattern. PIDDINGHOE. — Chancel arch, some windows, &c., ('. I 2 10. PORTSLADE. — Tower, with good door. Chancel arch, with corbels somewhat resembling those at Yapton, sedilia, piscina, &c., c. 1200. ROBERTSBRIDCE. — Arches and columns, &c., of abbey. ROTTINGDEAN. — Central tower, south arcade, and some inserted lancets, buttresses of west wall, c.\z\o. Font. RUDGWICK. — Tower with corbel table and parts of church, c. 1220. RUSTINGTON. — North transept, and arches from same to nave and north aisle, c. 1 200. The lancets in lower part of transept are good typical examples, having the splays radiating round the head. SHOREHAM, NEW. — Parts of clearstory, triforium vault- ing, flying buttresses, and some windows, c. \ 200-20. SHULBRED PRIORY.— Parts, c. 1200—20. SIDLESHAM. — Blocked arches in transepts, font, &c., c. 1 200. STOKE, NORTH. — Nave, with small lancets. STOKE, SOUTH. — Lancet, door, &c., in nave, c. 1 200. TARRING NEVILLE. — Chancel, and building generally, with lancets, chancel arch, good double aumbry and piscina, c. 1200. TELSCOMBE. — Parts, including some lancet windows, c. 1 220. TORTINGTON. — Arches to south aisle, and some win- dows, f. I2IO. TORTINGTON PRIORY. — Vaulting and shafts, c. 1220. WALBERTON. — Chancel and north porch, c. 1200. The lancets of chancel are typical. The porch, originally longer, has peculiar trefoil-headed win- dows. WALTHAM, UP. — Chancel, arch, &c., c. 1210. WESTBOURNE. — Parts of fabric, blocked lancets in chancel ; formerly a group of five in east wall, C. 1220. WESTFIELD. — Chancel, &c. WILUNGDON. — South door, &c., c. 1220. This is note- worthy for its elaborate and beautiful mouldings. WISBOROUCH GREEN. — Chancel, nave, aisle, &c., altar recess, c. 1210. WITTERING, WEST.— -Chancel arch, with corbels of the Climping type, c. 1220. Chancel, generally, with good lancets (two in east wall), priest's door, low side window with shouldered arch, &c. WIVELSFIELD. — Arches to south aisle. Note diminu- tive column (cf. Heyshott and Jevington), and south chapel (altar recess arch), c. 1200—10. YAPTON. — Chancel, with good early lancets and priest's door. The chancel arch (four centred, and perhaps originally built so) has corbels of the Climping type, c. 1210. See illustration, p. 345. FROM c. 1 220 TO c. 1260 A large proportion of the churches in this list are entirely in the period, e.g. Climping and Preston. The lancet windows of this period are usually much longer in proportion to their width than in the preceding period. At Climping two are 10 ft. long, and at Fletching they actually measure about 1 2 feet, but these are exceptionally lengthy. 8 ft. by i ft. 2 in. would be a fair average for the larger churches. Instead of the plainly radiating splays to the heads, escoinson arches are used, and in some few cases, instead of being pointed, they are — as in Climping chancel and Sidlesham — segmental, or even elliptical, as at Tangmere. The openings are usually rebated (sometimes inter- 372 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE nally for a shutter, as well as externally for glazing), but also grooved. Low side windows are common in this period. The germ of tracery is found in two-light windows such as at Barnham and Hardham, where the lights are divided by a shallow mullion, and the tympanum above is pierced with a diamond- shaped opening ; or at a later stage in the plain circle over two lancets — the whole inclosed with a moulded hood — at Linchmere. At the Greyfriars' church, Chichester, the quatrefoil tracery is fully developed. Lurgashall used to have, and Burpham and North Stoke still possess, good examples of plate tracery. ALDINGBOURNE. — Sedilia (note good mouldings and carved bust) and lancet in chancel, c. 1220-30. AMBERLEY. — Chancel, with good lancets, built by Bishop Ralph Neville, in 1233. South aisle to nave probably of same date. Cf. Rustington chancel arch. BATTLE ABBEY. — Cloisters, rich panelled work,r. 1250; undercrofts, c. 1220. BICNOR. — Chancel, &c., c. 1230. BOSHAM. — Nave arcades, clearstory of circular windows, charnel-house, font, c. 1230. BURPHAM. — Plate tracery window, east wall of north transept, c. 1240. BUXTED. — North and south arcades, e. 1260, nave. CHAILEY. — Nave, chancel, tower, &c., c. 1260. CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL. — Outer aisles (or chapels) of nave, buttresses, &c., south transept of nave, central tower (rebuilt), west porch. The internal west door has very good mouldings, and the quatrefoil panelling in the inside of the porch is of great beauty. CHICHESTER, GREYFRIARS' CHURCH. — With grand group of five lancets in east wall, c. 1 260. Note the early tracery of side windows, and the range of fine buttresses. CLIMPING. — Entire church (cruciform, with a south aisle), except earlier tower at end of south transept, and later porch, c. 1230. Note the peculiar corbels to transept and other arches. (See p. 345.) The twenty-six original lancets and three circular win- dows in gables all remain, as also a good priest's door, aumbries and piscina, and a coeval chest richly ornamented. The arcade to aisle is well propor- tioned and of great beauty, as are also the chancel and transept arches. For plan see p. 341. COOMBES. — Trefoil-headed lancets, and low side win- dow in nave, c. 1250. CUCKFIELD. — Upper part of tower, with fine trifoliated corbel-table of Chichester Cathedral type (Bishop R. Neville), c. 1245 ; also Preston by Brighton, western bays of nave. Font, c. 1220 (cf. Rotting- dean and Iford). DITCHLING. — Chancel, chancel aisle, and central tower, c. 1 250-60. Very good work, with rich mouldings, corbel heads, and foliaged capitals. Cf. Athering- ton chapel. DONNINGTON. — Chancel, chancel arch, &c., c. 1230. DURRINGTON CHAPEL. — In ruins. EARTHAM. — Parts, including south aisle arcade, c. 1220. EDBURTON. — Chancel and part of nave, c. 1250. Cf. Preston. The wave moulding and other details in both are identical. ELSTED. — Chancel, c. 1230. Note graceful pair of lancets in east wall. Cf. Tangmere and West Wittering for this unusual arrangement. FISHBOURNE. — Parts of fabric and some windows. FITTLEWORTH. — Chancel, c. 1220-30. Good win- dows, piscina, string-course, &c. FLETCHING. — Chancel and parts of nave. Note long lancets, two western prolonged to form low side openings, c. 1230. FUNTINGTON. — Arcade in nave, tower, &c., c. 1230. GREATHAM. — The whole church, with lancet windows. GRINSTEAD, WEST. — Nave pillars and arches, and some lancets, one a low side window, c. 1220. HARDHAM. — Lancet and two-light cast window ; chancel roof with dog-tooth on beam. HARTING. — Arcades of nave without caps, c. 1260. Cf. Rustington, Slindon, and Coldwaltham ; also Fetcham and Alfold (Surrey). The piers at Cock- ing have similar stops, &c. HEATHFIELD. — Tower, nave with clearstory, aisles and chancel (altered), c. 1250-60. 373 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX HELUNGLY. — Chancel, east windows and windows south wall, and north transeptal chapel, c. 1250. HOATHLY, West. — Arcades of nave, piscina, and sedilia, &c., 1260. HORSHAM. — Arcades of nave and chancel, and clear- stories, turrets of east gable, e. 1230-40. This work is large and spacious, with good details. HORSTED KEYNES. —Parts of nave and chancel, tower, and spire ; lancet triplet east wall, c. 1220. HORSTED, LITTLE. — Trefoil-headed lancet north wall of chancel (cf. Coombes), and curious plate tracery windows of nave, c. 1260. HOUGHTON.— Characteristic east triplet, with mullions separating the lancets under one internal arch. This type of east window is found at Preston, Merston, and many other West Sussex churches, c. 1250. JEVINGTON. — Nave, chancel arch, &c. Note curious cross arch of north aisle, arcade, &c., c. 1220 LINDFIELD. — Tower. LURCASHALL. — Good plate-tracery window on north of nave, with cinque-foiled circle above two tre- foil-headed lights, c. 1250. LYMINSTER. — Lancets inserted in older nave and chancel south walls, c. 1230. LINCHMERE. — Chancel and some windows in nave, with plate-tracery east window, knee-stones, and coping of east wall, moulded beam, piscina, &c. Note broad squat form of lancets, c. 1250. MAYFIELD. — Tower and one lancet, c. 1230. MICHELHAM PRIORY. — Parts, c. 1220-60. MOUNTFIELD. — Lancets, &c., piscina. NORTHIAM. — Nave and chancel, c. 1240. PEASMARSH. — Chancel and other parts, low side win- dows, &c., c. 1230. PETWORTH. — Arches in nave. PEVENSEY. — Nave arcades and tower, some windows, &c., of I nave, chancel, and west tower, chancel, chancel (roof, c. 1250-60. Note clustered columns. jrc*. .— A trefoil-headed lancet is found here, and in several other churches of the neighbourhood, such as Bury and Felpham, c. 1240. PRESTON. — Entire church (all lancet windows). See /plan, p. 339. Note narrow lancets and mask cor- / bel-table of tower, good chancel arch, sedilia and , piscinae, c. 1250. ;PuLBORoucH. — Chancel and chancel arch, c. 1220. 'ROTHERFIELD. — Main structure, arcades, tower, &c. c. 1250. RUSTJNGTON. — Chancel, with chancel arch, low side window, c. 1230; window in transept gable, and clearstory windows of nave, c. 1250. RYE. — Windows in south wall of south chancel — two lancets with a circle over, under separate hood mouldings, c. 1240. SALEHURST. — Church generally, c. 1240. SELSEY. — Chancel of old church. SHOREHAM, OLD. — Chancel roof, with dog-tooth and carved paterae on beams ; low side window, &c< SIDLESHAM. — Nave and aisles, with five arches of wide span. Cf. Climping and North Mundham, c. 1230. Good corbels to arches between aisles and transepts. Cf. Rustington and Amberley. STOKE, NORTH. — Chancel, with sedilia and piscina and curiously moulded chancel arch, in hard chalk. STREET. — Tower, &c. TANGMERE. — Chancel and inserted lancets of nave. Remarkable chancel arch, with corbels of the Climping type ; two lancets east wall, c. 1230. TARRING, WEST. — Nave, aisles, and base of west tower (chancel reconstructed in fifteenth century), good arcades, buttresses, single and double piscinae, &c., f. 1230. THORNEY, WEST. — Lancets in chancel, two with tran- soms forming low side windows, c. 1 240. UDIMORE. — Chancel : good lancets, low side window, priest's door, and chancel arch. This is in the ex- treme east of the county, but is evidently by the same hand as several West Sussex churches. Cf. the chancel arch corbels with that to the sedilia in Aldingbourne church. WARBLETON. — Chancel with lancets, and wall tomb on outside, c. 1220. WHATLINGTON. — Chancel and other parts (low side window), c. 1220—40. YAPTON. — South aisle rebuilt c. 1230. Note rare quatrefoil and circular windows in south wall. This is perhaps the best illustration remaining of how these thirteenth-century low-walled aisles were lighted. 374 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE FROM c. 1260 TO c. 1300 Window tracery in this period develops from mere piercings into connected geometrical designs, with slender mullions, and although there is comparatively little work within these dates in Sussex, it is of the best. The Cathedral Lady chapel, the chancel of St. Mary's Hospital, Chichester, and the churches of Trotton and Chalvington (entirely of this period) are all excellent. The doorway at Amberley is quite a little gem, and the window tracery at Isfield and Harting is both original and excellent in design. AMBERLEY. — South door, one of the best examples of this period in Sussex. Note the finely carved natural foliage of the caps and the beautiful mould- ings of arch and jambs. Cf. the Lady chapel, Chichester Cathedral, c. 1290-1300. ATHERINGTON CHAPEL. — Cf. Ditchling, Chailey, &c., in last list. The beauti- ful windows, with capitals of natural foliage, date from c. 1270. BOTOLPHS. — Tower and chancel windows. Low side windows, one with a good ogee-trefoiled head. East window has early in- teresting tracery, c. 1290- 1300. BOXGROVE. — Windows of quire aisles, square-headed, with early tracery. BUXTED. — Chancel. Very rich work. Sedilia, piscina, and windows. It has been suggested, from the like- ness, that this is by the same architect as Solihull Church, Warw. CHALVINGTON. — Entire church, with good tracery windows. Note flat heads of chancel north and south windows, and coeval glass, c. 1290. CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL. — Lady chapel, c. 1290- i 300. Beautiful windows (geometrical tracery) and delicate natural foliage carving. Cf. the fine series of carved misericordes and canopies to quire with those at St. Mary's Hospital ; the dates are close together, c. 1290-1300. CHICHESTER, ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL. — Quire with win- dows, piscina, sedilia, screen, and stalls, c. \ 290-1 300. The screen is a magnificent piece of early wood- work— the finest of its kind in the south of England. The misericordes are also among the best of this date remaining. (Note elaborate geometrical tracery.) COCKING. — South aisle and chancel windows. Cf. similar work at Coldwaltham, c. 1 290. FELPHAM. — Side window of chancel, and priest's door : tall ogee trefoiled lights with quatrefoils over. Cf. Old Shoreham, c. 1 290. FLETCHING. — East window, transept windows and piscina, c. 1280 FRAMFIELD. — North chapel, with a good early tracery window, c. 1290. GUESTLING. — Windows in north and south walls of chancel, with trefoiled tracery, c. 1280. HARTING. — Good tracery windows in north transept, priest's door, sacristy, &c. ; nave arcades without. caps. Cf. south arcade, Cocking, c. 1290. HEATHFIELD. — South door and some windows, c . 1270. HELLINGLY. — Nave arcades, c. 1270. HOATHLY, WEST. — A good series of geometrical tracery windows, c. 1290—1300. HORSHAM. — Chapel on north of nave, c. 1280. Plate tracery windows, piscina, &c. HORSTED, LITTLE. — Windows in nave with early tracery of peculiar design (restored), c. 1290. IFIELD. — Nave arcades. ISFIELD. — Chancel, with unusual tracery to windows (one a low side window), priest's door, and good buttresses, c. 1290-1300. JEVINGTON. — Chancel, with ogee-trefoiled lancets. Cf. Lullington, c. 1280. 375 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX LANCING. — Central tower, trefoiled lancets, and early traceried windows, 1270. LAUGHTON. — Two-light windows with mask . . . corbels, square heads and trefoiled, c. 1270. LURCASHALL. — Plate-tracery window, north wall of chancel, r. 1270. (Good example.) NEWICK. — Chancel windows and font, c. 1300. ORE. — Parts of desecrated chapel, c. 1270. OTHAM. — Desecrated chapel, windows, piscina, sedilia, c. 1290. Very graceful work. RODMELL. — Screen between south aisle and south chapel, c. 1290. A rare piece of early woodwork. RUSPER. — Windows in rebuilt chancel, c. 1280. RUSTINGTON. — North arcade of nave (wave mouldings dying on to a splay, without caps), and font, c. 1260. SHOREHAM, OLD. — Geometrical traceried windows of chancel (beautiful design and proportions), chancel screen, a very fine piece of early woodwork, c. 1280. SOMPTING. — Piscina and arch (blocked) between tower and north chapel, f. 1260. Cf. work in Preston church. STOKE, NORTH. — Windows of transepts, c, 1270. That in north transept east wall is elaborate for tracery, with three trefoil-headed lights, and cinque- foil over, the interstices pierced to form a complete design. One in south transept has interesting tracery. TROTTON. — Church generally, with good windows and doors (old ironwork, see p. 357), piscina, &c., the ' wave ' and ' beaded scroll ' mouldings occur throughout, and the windows have quatrefoils of unequal lobes, c. 1290. WALDRON. — North aisle (plate tracery and arcade), c. 1280. WINCHELSEA. — Greyfriars' Church, c. 1290. Note straight-sided apse, window tracery, and wide chan- cel arch of peculiar graceful proportion and details. FROM c. 1300 TO c, 1350. The tracery of windows is now at its best, and in the earlier part of the period furnishes some extremely beautiful examples such as Winchelsea — where also is a series of magnificent tombs, all within the early part of the fourteenth century — Warbleton and Sutton. It soon becomes coarser and more commonplace, as in the churches of Etchingham and Lindfield, which are almost entirely in the one style. ARDINCLY. — Fabric generally, doors, windows (low side window), tomb, &c., c. 1300. Some of the chancel windows have hood mouldings of oak. ARLINGTON. — Chancel, with east and south windows, low side window, buttresses, gable, coping, &c., c. 1310. Piscina, arches to south chapel, east window north chapel (reticulated), c. 1320. Font, c. 1340, &c. BECKLEY. — Fabric of church, doors, windows, sedilia, piscina. BEDDINGHAM. — Chancel and nave clearstory windows, c. 1300. BEPTON. — Fine canopied tomb. Cf. Berwick and Westdean (East Sussex), c. I 300. The finials and crockets are of a local typ:. BERWICK. — Chancel and south aisle, &c., with fine window tracery and tomb canopies. BEXHILL. — Windows and door north aisle wall, c. 1 300. BIGNOR. — Chancel screen, c. 1310. A very beautiful piece of early woodwork. BIRDHAM. — Tower, c. 1330. BILSHAM CHAPEL. — (Yapton). A small building with one or two original features, c. 1340. BOSHAM. — Walls of north and south aisles, with battle- mcnti ig and windows (restored), wall tomb, &c., c. i 300-50. BOXGROVE. — East windows of quire aisles, reticulated south porch, with stoup and curious marble recess, c. 1320. BRIGHTLING. — Parts of fabric and many good windows, some square-headed, others with reticulated tracery, c. 1330. BRIGHTON. — Nave arcades (cf. arcade St. Michael's Lewes), some windows (square headed) and parts of south chapel, c. 1350 (all much 'restored'). BROADWATER. — North porch, and windows in aisles, c. 1320. BUNCTON — East window, of two lights with ogee- quatrefoil over, c. 1 300. A very beautiful example. The whole gable and buttresses are of the same date. BURPHAM. — Windows inserted in chancel, c. 1340. A window of nave (north wall), c. 1350. BURWASH — Inserted windows. BURY. — Chancel and window in nave, c. 1320-40 CATSFIELD. — Nave windows, c. 1340. CHICHESTER. — Window of south transept (of great size), c. 1330 ; window, chapel of St. Pantaleon, c. 1350 ; tombs of several dates. , CHICHESTER, ST. OLAVE'S CHURCH. — Elaborately carved piscina in nave, c. 1300. Cf. work in Cathedral Lady chapel. COMPTON. — Reticulated east window. DENTON. — Chancel, with five windows, sedilia, &c., c. 1310. DITCHUNG. — Windows in north wall of nave and transepts EARNLEY. — Windows, piscina with credence shelf, &c. in chancel, f. 1330. EASTBOURNE. — South porch, south aisle, windows in south chapel and screen-work in same and chancel, c. 1310; east window, north chapel and window in north aisle, north porch, west bays nave, font, doors, corbels, c. 1 340 ; the font is typical of a group in the locality. ETCHINGHAM. — Entire church, c. 1340-50; a very noteworthy example. The east window has tracery of the ' flamboyant ' type. Note coeval copper vane. EWHURST. — Inserted windows (good tracery in side and east windows), piscina, priest's door, &c., c. 1 300. FINDON. — East window (reticulated) and others in chancel, c. 1300. FIRLE. — Local type of window tracery in south chapel, c. 1340. Cf. Eastbourne. FORD. — East window of reticulated tracery and single light window in south wall of nave, c. 1330. Cf. Littlehampton, now destroyed. FRISTON. — Windows and roof of chancel. 376 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE GRINSTEAD, WEST. — North wooden porch, c. 1340. HARTFIELD. — Windows in nave, c. 1340. Cf. Hooe. HOOE. — Windows in chancel and nave, c. 1340; a local type of square-headed window, of which there are numerous examples. KINGSTON (near Lewes). — The entire church, with good tracery, c. 1 300. LEWES, ST. MICHAEL'S. — Nave arcade, c. 1350. LINDFIELD. — Fabric generally, except tower, &c., fine east window, c. 1330-50. MARESFIELD. — Nave windows, &c., c. 1350. MUNDHAM, NORTH. — Upper part of tower and some ogee- headed windows of aisles, c. I33°- NUTHURST. — East window (reti- culated), &c. c. 1330 ; fabric generally. PATCHAM. — Windows in nave and chancel. PYECOMBE. — Double piscina and windows of nave and tower, c. 1340. RUDCWICK. — Parts of nave and chancel windows, piscina, &c., c. 1300. RYE. — Some windows, &c. RYE, AUGUSTINIAN FRIARY. — A fine range of ' flamboyant ' windows, south wall and other features, c. 1350. Win- dows of a small monastic building near parish church, c. 1310. SKLMESTON. — Timber arcade and some windows, c. 1320. SUTTON. — Chancel with good east window, outside sepul- chral recess and fine coeval roof, f. 1330. SWANBOROUGH. — Roof and win- dows. TANGMERE. — South door (beau- tiful mouldings). THORNEY. — Screens (now at west end), having ' flamboy- ant' tracery, c. 1340. WARBLETON. — Window, south wall of chancel, c. 1310. Windows of nave, c. 1 340. WESTDEAN (East Sussex). — Windows and fine tomb canopies. WINCHELSEA. — The entire church (chancel and aisles and transepts), beautiful windows, tombs, piscina, sedilia (2), &c., c. 1300-10; note open tracery parapets and flying buttress. WORTH. — West window. Cf. others in Chichester Cathedral, Ardingly, Eastbourne, Firle, &c. of the same design, ' flamboyant ' in character, c. 1350. FROM c. 1350 TO e. 1400 The window tracery now begins to stiffen into straight lines ; nevertheless there is much beauty in the larger churches, such as Alfriston, Poynings, Arundel, and Pulborough, rebuilt during this period. Occasionally traces of the older style of flowing and geometrical forms are found as in the remarkable group of east windows at Alfriston, Poynings, and West Tarring, and in smaller windows at Eastergate, Arundel, and Waldron. The scroll and wave mouldings, usually associated with earlier periods, continued to be used during this time in windows and other features, because of their suitability to the coarse sandstones of East Sussex. ALFRISTON. — The fine cruciform church, c. 1360. Cf. the east windows of Poynings and West Tarring. ARUNDEL. — The entire church, with some coeval paintings. The Fitzalan chancel is probably the oldest part, 1380, but the rest is only a few years later. The windows are an interesting series. The canopied stone pulpit is an especially fine feature. CHICHESTER. — Window in close. Bishop Stratford's tomb and sacellum of St. Richard, c. 1350. 377 48 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX DENTON. — Rood turret, c. 1360. EASTERGATE. — Two-light window, south wall of nave, with coeval heraldic glass, c, 1350. EASTBOURNE. — Tower, Easter sepulchre, piscina, sedilia and stone tabernacle and image-niche in east wall and niche in nave pier, c. 1350-70. HAILSHAM. — Some windows and parts of fabric, c. 1380-90. MAYFIELD. — Church rebuilt after fire in 1389 ; two- storied porch, stalls, &c. POYNINGS. — Fine cruciform church, with excellent squared and coursed black flint-work, and good window tracery, &c. in local sandstone. Cf. east windows of Alfriston and West Tarring. All have sexfoil figures in the head, c. 1360-70. PULBOROUGH. — A fine west tower, nave and aisles, built in local sandstone and flints. Note lofty arcades and the recurrence of a local type of seg- mental headed window. Cf. Arundel, c. 1380-90. RUSTINGTON. — Window in transept and west door, c. 1390. SOMPTING. — Large and handsome windows in chancel, c. 1380. TARRING, WEST. — Chancel; cf. Alfriston and Poynings ; with screen and returned stalls, c. 1360—70. THAKEHAM. — Tower of the Pulborough type, c. 1390. FROM c. 1400 TO c. 1500 Most Sussex churches show inserted windows, doors, tombs, or other features in this period. Some few were practically rebuilt therein, and a large number had towers added towards the close of the century. Of the last, a group in East Sussex is identified with the Pelham family, whose cognizance — the Buckle — is carved in the stonework or worked into the window tracery. It is difficult to date these exactly, and possibly some belong to the succeeding period. Ancient seating, stalls, and screen-work of this period remain in a few churches. BATTLE. — West tower, aisle windows, south porch &c., c. 1400. BATTLE ABBEY. — Parts of cloisters. BEDDINGHAM. — Tower and font. BREDE. — Tower, font, &c. BRIGHTON.— South chapel, some windows. Fine rood screen, all ' restored.' BURPHAM. — Fine tower (with curious termination to stair-turret), c. 1460. CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL. — North transept window and other inserted windows, chiefly in the north quire aisle, bell tower, cloisters, chapter-house (wide newel stair, wooden seat and secret panel, covering Treasury), tomb of Bishop Arundel (died 1478). The Arundel screen, now in bell tower. Tomb of Bishop de Moleyns (died 1449). CROWHURST. — Tower, c. 1490. Pelham buckle in tracery of west window. CUCKFIELD. — Greater part of church, including win- dows, south porch, and roofs (cf. Horsham). DALLINGTON. — Tower and spire (with Pelham buckle), c. 1470. FIRLE. — Tower and some windows, &c. GULDEFORD. — Fabric, with some windows. HARTFIELD. — Tower and nave, with several windows, c. 1450. HASTINGS, ALL SAINTS'. — c. 1480-1500. Note the tower vaulting, the four-centred arches of nave, windows, doors, stoup, and font. HASTINGS, ST. CLEMENT'S. — c. 1400. Fine western tower, with good windows, door, stoup, and vault- ing. The nave, arcades, windows, doors, piscinae, sedilia, and font are excellent of their date. HENFIELD. — Tower, c. 1500. HOATHLY, EAST. — Tower (Pelham buckle), c. I 500 HORSHAM. — Great east window of seven lights, font, roof (cf. Cuckfield), south chantry, c. 1420. Sacristy, c. 1460. Tomb of Lord Hoo (c. 1403) and of Thomas Lord Braose (died c. 1396). HORSTED, LITTLE. — Tower, c. 1500. LEWES, ST. THOMAS AT CLIFFE. — Tower and other parts. LEWE*. — ST. JOHN'S, SOUTHOVER. — A good door in tower, c. 1500. LEWES. — Remains of ST. JAMES'S HOSPITAL CHAPEL, c. 1400. MIDHURST. — Church generally, except tower. MUNDHAM, NORTH. — West window, tower, c. 1420. NEWICK. — TOWER, c. 1420. PARHAM. — Tower, &c. RINGMER. —Church generally, of various dates. RIPE. — Tower, of graceful design, and some inserted windows. ROTHERFIELD. — Chancel arch, east window, and parts of tower, fine-moulded roof to nave, inserted win- dows, c. 1400. RUSPER. — Tower, c. 1500. RYE. — Inserted windows, arches in quire, east win- dow, transept windows, &c., screens, central tower, c. 1420 to 1500. SEDLESCOMBE. — Tower, c. 1500. SINGLETON. — Windows and roofs, north porch, font, canopied tombs, rood stair, seating, &c., c. 1400. Note. — The thirteenth-century arcades were rebuilt and heightened and new bases added in this period. SOMPTING. — Square-headed windows in nave, and S. transept — a local type, found also at Clapham and East Preston, c. 1430. STEYNING. — Windows in aisles, south porch, with good doorway, &c., c. 1440. STORRINGTON. — Arcades, with lofty columns, c. 1500. WALDRON. — Tower, c. 1 500. WARBLETON. — Tower and inserted windows of nave, e. 1400. WARNHAM. — Tower, east window, &c. WASHINGTON. — Tower, a fine well-proportioned structure, with pierced stone shutters to bell- chamber windows, c. 1 500. WESTBOURNE. — Tower and inserted windows, c. 1400 WESTHAM. — Chancel, east window, with coeval glass roofs (wide span), north porch, &c. Some remains of old screen-work. WIVELSFIELD. — A good south door, stoup, and some windows. 378 ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE FROM c. 1500 TO c. 1560 Besides some interesting towers, this period gives us a series of late altar-tombs of Sussex marble and Caen stone, many of them curiously carved with a singular blending of Gothic and Renaissance detail. As a series they are unrivalled in England. See above, p. 361. ANCMERING. — Tower, with dated inscription, showing that it was built by the monastery of Sion (Middle- sex), in 1 507. ASHBURNHAM. ToWCT. BARNHAM. — West window and door, rich work of c. 1500. SEEDING. — Chancel reconstructed, c. 1535, of older materials. BOLNEY. — The fine massive western tower is exactly dated by entries in the churchwardens' accounts. It was built at the cost of one John Bolney in 1536-7-8." BOXGROVE. — la Warr chantry chapel, e. 1530. A truly gorgeous piece of work, with a profusion of panelled work, niches, cherubs, grotesques, &c. BRKDB. — Oxenbridgc chantry chapel. BURY. — South porch and stoup, c. 1 500. FRAM FIELD. — Church rebuilt, except north chapel, after fire in 1500. MILLAND CHAPEL. — c. 1500, with earlier features. RINGMER. — Parts of chapels. STEYNINC. — Tower, in flint and stone chequer work, c. 1555. TWINEHAM. — Entire church rebuilt in brick, c. 1540. It has perhaps the latest instance of a low side window, with four-centred head, in brick. WINCHELSEA. — West porch, c. 1500. WITTERING, WEST. — Chapel in Cakeham (Bishop's Palace — built by Bishop Sherborn), f. 1510. The tombs in the parish church are remarkable for the bas-reliefs and images of patron saints that have escaped destruction. FROM IT. 1560 TO c. 1700 In a number of churches additions to existing buildings, or rebuildings after fires, took place in this period, and in most cases a very creditable imitation of msdiaeval work resulted. This is notably so at Slaugham, Ashburnham, and Withyham. ASHBURNHAM. — Rebuilt (except tower), 1660. BERWICK. — Tower and spire, 1603. COOMBES. — East window, c. 1600. COWDRAY. — Chapel — sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies. EGDEAN. — Rebuilt 1623. ELSTED. — Porch, dated 1622. FORD. — South porch (brick), c. 1635. HARTING, SOUTH. — Chancel roof, £c., c. 1598. LINCHMERE. — Tower, 1656. MALLING. — Erected between 1626 and 1628, and consecrated 1632. SIDLESHAM. — East window, c. 1630. SLAUGHAM. — The south chapel, dated 1613, was erected by the Covert family. Its style is singularly good ' Gothic ' for the date. STEDHAM. — Upper part of tower rebuilt in 1670. Elliptical-headed windows. Goblet-shaped font of same date. TROTTON. — Porch, 1612. Altar ('dog') rails and font cover, c. 1630. WARNHAM. — Screen (gallery), &c., c. 1625. WITHYHAM. — Chancel, chapels, and nave, rebuilt after a fire, 1666. WOOLBEDING. — Tower, c. 1680. WORTH. — Pulpit and gallery, &c., 1663-72. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY GRINSTEAD, EAST. — Rebuilt in 1785, after a fire. GLYNDI. — Rebuilt 1760. LAUGHTON. — Chancel, c. 1760 — a curious piece of ' Strawberry Hill ' Gothic. LEWKS. — St. Michael's, south wall rebuilt, 1748. 17 Suss. Arch. Coll. vi, 244. 379 CIVIL AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE Under this heading are comprised not only the old houses ot every degree, but the few ancient public buildings of secular character which Sussex can boast, and of which some collective notice is required. The remarks as to materials and construction found under the heading of Ecclesias- tical Architecture have a general application to this section. The material readiest to hand was used: oak timber and clay plaster (or 'wattle and daub') for the lesser houses and cottages, except where flints, chalk, and sandstone could be easily obtained. Horsham slabs were used for the ' healing ' of roofs, equally with reed thatch, in Western Sussex. Tiles were mostly of later introduction. Caen stone was a luxury reserved for the churches and a few of the larger houses near the sea or the rivers. Bricks were strangely little used, as compared with other counties. Down to the sixteenth century window glass was seldom employed, except in the great houses. Sussex is fortunate in possessing a very early example of a manor-house, now called Barton or Manor Farm, Nytimber, in Pagham parish.1 This rare survival has only lately been made known through some extensive alterations having been carried out in the group of farm buildings in which the primitive aula of the manor and a later chapel were buried. The tiny aula was found to be a small rectangular building, lying north and south, with walls 2 ft. 10 in. thick, and measuring internally 18 ft. roj in. by 1 7 ft. 6 in. The walls are built of water-worn pieces of milliolite limestone from the Mixen rocks at Selsey Bill, used in their natural state and regularly disposed in herring-bone work. It still retains a doorway in the north and another in the south wall, and the latter opening has a circular arch, very regularly built of neatly dressed and accurately gauged voussoirs, in a fresh- water Chara Limestone, probably brought from the Isle of Wight. A few of these stones appear in most of the old buildings in this district of south-west Sussex (notably in such undisputed pre-Conquest churches as Bosham, Singleton, Sompting, &c.), where their position and character give reasons for supposing that they had been employed in yet older buildings. The fact of the doorways being pierced straight through without a rebate suggests possibly a pre-Conquest date.2 The foundations of a larger building abutting upon the northern end of this were lately uncovered, and at the same time the remains of an early thirteenth-century chapel (46 ft. by 20 ft. 3 in. internally), lying to the west, were disinterred from the farmhouse of which they formed a part. At South Mailing, near Lewes, a wall of the manor-house belonging to the archbishop of Canterbury, now a garden wall, remains, and is probably of eleventh-century date. Old Erringham, a manor-house near Coombes and 1 See the detailed account of this discovery, by the writer and Mr. H. L. F. Guermonprez, A.R.I. B.A., inStus. Arch. Coll. xlvi, 14.5-54., where the possibility is discussed of this building actually dating from the granting of Pagham to Wilfrid in A.D. 687. 1 Cf. south door at Lyminster church and north door at Selham. 380 CIVIL AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE Old Shoreham, has parts of early twelfth-century dates, including a building that was probably a chapel, which still retains some of its original windows and other features. In several cases near the sea-coast, such as at Preston Portslade, Ferring, and Goring, the remains of early stone and flint manor- houses abut upon the churchyards. The former, a manor of the bishop of Chichester, probably had a stone house, dating from at least the middle of the thirteenth century : large quantities of Caen stone ashlaring appear in the out-buildings of the present manor-house, and the stump of a tower or other building adjoins the churchyard on the north-east. At Portslade the ruins of a tower and other walls occupy a similar position, and a perfect two-light window of the late twelfth century and other features of mediaeval date in and around this building are still to be seen. At Goring are the remains of a mediaeval manor-house of early date abutting upon the south-east corner of the churchyard. One narrow window and some foundations give an indication of its character and extent. Much more complete than the foregoing is the very interesting house at Charleston in the parish of Westdean, near Seaford. This is on the estate granted by William the Conqueror to Alured, cupbearer to the count of Mortain, and the house must have been built by one of his immediate descendants. It contains a handsome circular-headed window of two lights, divided by an octa- gonal shaft, with capital and base of late twelfth-century character, and there is a small single opening in one of the gable-ends. Hindall, near Buxted, has on its east side a circular arch of about the same date as the last. The manor-house at Hangleton shows a lancet window in the stable, and other indications of thirteenth-century date, together with a chapel, now the kitchen. The priory buildings at Shulbred contain, in the prior's lodging, work that is virtually domestic in character, the date of which cannot be after c. 1 190, with later additions. This includes a hooded stone fireplace, in a vaulted apartment on the ground floor, having an external buttress projection of good ashlar work, and one or two original windows and doors. .The windows are square-headed oblongs, in pairs, bordered by a good moulding, which continues down the narrow centre pier — the whole of unusual character for so early a date. Bailie's Court, Atherington — a moated house on the sea-coast, near Littlehampton, has much twelfth- and thirteenth-century stonework in its walls, besides the interesting chapel noticed elsewhere. Swanborough, a grange of Lewes Priory, has slight remains of late twelfth-century date (chiefly richly carved and moulded fragments), and a good deal more of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, including several lancet windows, a circular one, and others with traceried heads, some doors, and a beautiful roof of arched timbers and moulded purlins, with battlemented wall-plates of late fourteenth-century character. The spaces between the arched ribs were filled with thin curved boards. The palace of the archbishops of Canterbury at West Tarring (now used as a school) contains a great deal of interesting mediaeval work, in- cluding some very good large windows, with later tracery inserted, and one or two doors of late thirteenth-century date. The moulded and carved capitals, escoinson arches, &c., are of excellent design. Parts of the walls of this group of buildings are probably even older. A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Halnaker House, near Goodwood, now a ruin, has an early thirteenth- century chapel, with good plain details, and parts of the house and its offices are of that and the three succeeding centuries. Plates in Rouse's Beauties and Antiquities of Sussex, and Grose's Antiquities of Sussex, give a good idea of its many interesting features before dismantlement.8 A gateway, some doors, &c., remain fairly perfect. At Crowhurst, near Hastings, there is the shell of a late thirteenth- century manor-house, with its chapel ; and a good traceried window still remains in the east gable of the hall — a fine room 40 ft. by 23ft. This window, which must have been singularly beautiful, is now bereft of its centre mullion and most of the early geometrical tracery, but the shafted and moulded jambs are nearly perfect and very richly treated. To the south and the east of the hall (which was vaulted at its eastern end below the before- mentioned window) was a vaulted porch having a well-moulded inner arch, and above this again was apparently a small oratory approached by a corbelled- out wall-passage from the vaulted gallery of the hall. Other buildings exist in a fragmentary state or are indicated by foundations ; and the whole, even in ruin, forms a valuable example of the small stone manor-house of this early period.* Birling, a hamlet near Eastdean (East Sussex), has a group of ancient buildings, much modernized — the remains of the mediaeval manor-house and its offices. One of these, now used as a barn, has walls of considerable height, with lofty windows, having stone seats ; this may have been the hall, and it would appear to have been of the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. Westdean, in the same locality, possesses some traces of a similar range of buildings, including a ruined stone pigeon-cote. These stone pigeon-cotes, or culver-houses, abound, both in East and West Sussex, in connexion with the great house of the parish, and are a visible token of Norman influence : some are doubtless of very early date, possibly twelfth or thirteenth century, such as those at South Mundham (circular, to the south of the church), and the East Sussex group. They occur, inter alia, at Trimmins, near Pax Hill, Pett, Berwick, Alciston, West- dean, and Charleston, East Sussex ; and Treyford (with a good ogee-arched door), and Trotton (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), Mundham, Burton Mill, Petworth (wooden), Patcham, Clapham, Yapton, Walberton, and Atherington — octagonal — (the last three flint and brick rebuildings of the Georgian period), West Sussex. Lewes Priory had a large transeptal pigeon- house, now destroyed, and Swanborough has the remains of one of ordinary size. Battle Abbey has a great deal of work remaining in its various buildings of domestic character, and of all dates, from fragments of the original foundation (late eleventh century) to the post-suppression period — some gaunt brick octagonal turrets being a relic of the middle sixteenth century. The refectory at Boxgrove, a two-storied gabled building, has many features in common with the houses of the period — the early fourteenth century. The Knights Hospitallers' house at Poling has parts dating between late twelfth and late fourteenth century, in stone and flint work and half-timber, * See a paper in Suss. Arch. Coll. xliii, 201, by the late J. Lewis Andre, F.S.A. Parts of the stonework and some handsome oak panelling of the reign of Hen. VIII now adorn houses in Chichester. 4 See an illustrated paper in Sius. Arch. Coll. vii, 44. 382 CIVIL AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE with two very perfect early windows, the chapel forming the eastern block, with a fine roof of curved ribs, a good doorway, and a piscina of the latter period. A building, traditionally called ' the Knights' Stables,' lies about a quarter of a mile to the south, and some timber and flint cottages may have served for the servitors or tenants. Michelham Priory has considerable remains of buildings of a domestic type, dating from the latter part of the thirteenth century (in which period are included two fine vaulted apartments and a good hooded stone fireplace) to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when it was transformed into a dwelling-house. The fine early fifteenth-century gatehouse contains a good fireplace in its upper story. The hall at the Vicars' College at Chichester (thirteenth century) is noteworthy as retaining some of its original features. Besides West Tarring and South Mailing, the archbishops of Canterbury had a house at Slindon (which shows a few traces of fourteenth-century work underneath an Elizabethan remodelling),6 and a palace at Mayfield, one of the most important examples of its class and period in England. It is famous for the great hall or refectory (now used as a nunnery chapel), which has a remarkable roof, with stone-arched principals of early fourteenth-century date, some fine traceried windows and doors, and a stone seat with diapered back.6 Sussex possesses a great rarity in the late thirteenth-century town-hall, or court house, at Winchelsea. It was probably one of the first buildings to be erected in the new town. Among its curious features are a fine fireplace, a panelled chimney, a ' lock-up,' and traces of an external wooden gallery. In a building attached to the Plough Inn, Seaford, is, or was, a fine hooded stone fireplace, of late thirteenth or early fourteenth-century date, the hood projecting and carried on corbels, and having angle brackets to support a candlestick or vessel. This resembles a fireplace at Michelham Priory. There are several exceptionally perfect mediaeval parsonages or clergy houses in Sussex. That at Westdean, near Seaford, is a valuable exam- ple, dating from c. 1280, built of stone, chalk, and flints. It is double storied, with a 'Jakes' at the south-west corner, and a newel stair turret at the north-east angle of the simple parallelogram plan, the interior measure- ments being about 30 ft. by 14 ft. loin., with walls aft. 6 in. thick. There is a stone fireplace on both floors, with one original chimney rising from the northern gable end, and on both floors the original doorways, doors, and windows remain in very perfect condition. Two of the windows consist of two lights with trefoiled heads, and these retain the original oak hinged shutters. There are also several single-light openings with a peculiar shoulder- arched head, in which the ' shoulder ' is convex, instead of concave. Under one corner is a small crypt, perhaps intended as an oratory. Remains of another stone parsonage of about the same date are to be found at Denton, in the same neighbourhood, and on the north side of the church at Eastbourne is a long building, of stone, divided into cottages, which was, in all probability, the mediaeval clergy house. It appears to date from 6 A beautiful little window which came from this house, exhibiting tracery of c. 1350, is now built into a school. 6 Grose's Antiquities of Sussex has an engraving of the interior. For drawings of the beautiful details, see Dolman's Analysis of Ancient Domestic Architecture in Great Britain, vol. i. 383 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX about 1530, and has many original and interesting features. Near to it is a good half-timber building of about the same date. Parts of Bury Vicarage, near Amberley, are mediaeval. A peculiarly interesting example of a timber-built and thatched clergy- house, dating from the latter part of the fourteenth century, still survives at Alfriston, in which there is a central hall with a fine open-timbered roof and a hooded fireplace, having end wings of two stories, in which were the parlour, buttery hatch, and sleeping rooms. Several original windows, and some very pretty doorways with ogee-curved and pointed heads, remain. Another timber house, known as the old parsonage, and probably of fifteenth- century date at least, is to be seen at Coombes, now divided up into cottages. The ancient stone-vaulted crypts of Seaford, Eastbourne, Winchelsea, and Rye, form a numerous group by themselves, ranging in date between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. Those at the two last-named towns were mostly intended as merchants' cellars. The crypt under the Lamb Inn, Eastbourne, is a work of the thirteenth century ; its purpose is not clearly proved. It has good vaulting and a carved central boss. The Seaford crypt, in the garden of the ' Folly,' a house in Church Street, also has its vault ribs gathered to a central boss : the date is about 1300. A gateway, dating from the first half of the fourteenth century, and a beautiful piece of design, is the solitary relic of a great moated mansion at Ewhiirst, in Shermanbury parish. Half-timber houses of fourteenth-century date remain here and there, as at Lewes, in a corner house, where the wooden tracery of a blocked window, a string-course, and corner-post in oak, are rare features. But as a rule these distinctive features are wanting, so that it is difficult to tell the age of the house with certainty. With the fifteenth century domestic buildings of all kinds become very numerous, both in stone and half-timber. As prominent examples the following may be cited. Stone houses : — Ryman's Tower, at Appledram, a good example of the smaller semi-fortified house of the early part of the century, with many original windows ; Friston Place, with fine open roof and minstrels' gallery in the hall ; Brede Place (parts) ; Horselunges, a house in Hellingly parish ; Alciston Place, a grange of Battle Abbey ; Glottingham ; Ratton, in Willingdon, the gatehouse, some walls, and other fragments of a great mansion ; Langney, in the same locality, retains its fifteenth-century chapel and parts of the domestic buildings ; a small house in the hamlet or Toddington (Lyminster) has a good stone chimney ; Buckhurst Tower, Withyham, almost a solitary relic, a battlemented tower of stately proportions and refined design, dating from the close of the century ; near to it are some out-buildings of herring-bone brickwork and timber, coeval ; Old Place, Pulborough, the remains of a handsome stone mansion, with good door and windows, c. 1450. Timber houses : — Of rural examples there are fine specimens at Udimore ('The Court House'), Bignor, Ditchling, and Stone- hill Farm at Chiddingly ; while in the towns we have equally good examples at Rye (The Old Flushing Inn — with good panelling, doors, and timber ceilings : houses in West Street — one, lately pulled down, having a carved door-head and other ornamental details) ; Hastings (a good gabled house, with an original piece of window tracery in wood) ; Lindfield ; Steyning ; West Tarring (with good traceried barge-boards ; also a mediaeval shop, in 384 5 h 385 49 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX timber and flint) ; Horsham, near the church ; and Midhurst, near the church. One or two of the Lewes houses are probably as old, such as 'Anne of ClevesV house (the porch, dated 1599, is a later addition), a half- timber house hard by, and a gabled building in the High Street. Fifteenth- century inns remain at Alfriston (the 'Star'), Ticehurst, and the 'Mermaid,' Rye. Doubtless many others are as old, or older. Houses of the larger type of early sixteenth-century date are well represented by such fine examples as, — Brede Place, a brick, stone, and half- timber house of very picturesque appearance, retaining its chapel and many original fittings, largely of early sixteenth-century date ; Cakeham Tower, West Wittering, a lofty embattled structure of brick, built by Bishop Sher- born, c. 1510, for the sea view. A ground apartment is supposed to have been the chapel, otherwise the rest of the palace has disappeared ; Laughton Place, the ancient seat of the Pelhams (built 1534), a fine piece of brickwork, with a rich machicolated cornice and other ornaments to the tower in terra- cotta ; and another ancient building called the granary at an angle of the surrounding moat ; Halland Park, in the same neighbourhood ; Isfield Place, the house of the Shurleys, inclosed with a stone wall, having a tower at each end ; Firle Place (rear portion) ; Frog Firle, near Alfriston ; Chiddingly Place, of various dates in the sixteenth century ; New Place, Pulborough ; Hangleton Manor House ; New Place, Angmering, the house of the Palmers (slight remains) ; Boreham Street, remains of a mansion of the Colbrands ; Haremere, near Etchingham; and last, but by no means least, the famous Cowdray, half castle, half manor-house, originally the seat of the Bohuns, and rebuilt about 1530 by the earl of Southampton, who, however, probably incorporated parts of the late fifteenth-century house (such as the kitchen tower) in his scheme. The semi-fortified gate-tower (the house is moated), the double-storied bay window of sixty lights in the banqueting hall, and the traceried windows adjoining (of similar character to those in the octagon-ended chapel), the chimneys, and the porch, with its elaborately carved fan-vaulting, are some of the most noteworthy features. A detached building called the guard-house has a fine piece of brick vaulting with stone ribs. Of half-timbered houses of the early part of the sixteenth century a good number remain in the towns and dotted about the country lanes and villages, as at Rye, Winchelsea, Hastings, Pevensey, Lewes, Cuckfield, Lindfield, Ditchling, Horsham ('North Chapel' and other examples), Steyning, Bramber, Midhurst, Byworth, and Petworth. Hartfield has a church-house, with a lych-gate under it, dated 1520. Dallington has a typical timber-framed cottage, having wattle and daub filling between the timbers, with a good corner post, overhang- ing upper story, and thatched roof. Sedlescombe, Shoyswell, near Ticehurst, Robertsbridge, Lancing, Easebourne, Albourne (with herring-bone brickwork), Wannock, near Eastbourne, Goring, Climping, Poling, Burpham, Amberley, Thakeham, Pulborough, and Hardham, all present good manor-houses, farm- houses, and cottages of this period and character. An interesting feature of the last half-dozen is that they display a flint and timber construction of a dis- tinctly local character. Fine brick chimneys are found at East Grinstead. Late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century stone architecture is well represented in the eastern part of the county in houses of all sizes. It may suffice here to mention Wakehurst Place, in Ardingly parish, the seat of the 386 CIVIL AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE Wakehursts and Colepepers. It was rebuilt on a large scale by Sir E. Cole- peper in 1590, and is, although shorn of its original proportions, the best example of its period in Sussex. Its most noteworthy features are the many gables and dormers, bristling with pinnacles, of the south front, the double-storied bay windows with canted angles, the elaborate system of stone- vaulted drains, a fine chimney-piece, richly carved in chalk (like one at Loseley, Surrey), a handsome staircase, some good ceilings, a plaster frieze with mermaids, and some carved panelling. The work has, externally, a very Gothic look for so late a date. Gravetye, West Hoathly, has a much smaller stone house, bearing considerable resemblance to Wakehurst Place, which is explained by the fact that it was built (about the end of the sixteenth century) by Richard Infield, who married Catherine Colepeper, of Wakehurst. In the hall is a richly ornamented plaster ceiling. The ruins of the great house of the Coverts at Slaugham show, among other things, a richly ornamented open arcade, of late sixteenth-century date, on the north front. The ruined house at Brambletye retains a picturesque brick tower with a lead cupola. The following great houses, most of them much modernized, are valuable examples of this class and period : — Parham (with a long gallery and double- storied bay windows), Wiston, Newtimber (with moat and bridges), Danny, 1595, Glynde, built 1567, Plumpton Place, Cuckfield Place, the adjoining picturesque turreted ' Gatehouse ' in brick, and Ockenden House and Borde Hill, Cuckfield, Southover House, Lewes, 1572 (with good brick chimneys, stone gables, and mullioned windows). The fine carved oak staircases at Lewes Town-hall (brought from Slaugham) and Racton House, Lordington (with monsters on the newels) should be mentioned here as perhaps the best of their class in the county. The latter house is of plain early seventeenth-cen- tury character, and has the remains of a fine gateway. Houses of a smaller type, and generally less altered, are found at Brickwall near Northiam (largely half timber), Carter's Corner in Hellingly, Chiddingly Place, Penhurst manor- house, Streat Place, Up Park, near Harting, Bolebrook, near Hartfield (a fine brick gabled house, with a massive turreted gateway, very ' early ' in character for its date, c. 1600), and an interesting group in the neighbourhood of Wal- dron and Burwash comprising Bateman's (1634), Tanners, Possingworth, Heringdales (with fine chimney), Shoesmiths, Friths, and Horeham, and Homestall, near Ashurst Wood. They are mostly built of the pleasant-toned sandstone dug in the hills of this wealden county, with brick chimneys and stone-healed roofs, and have many gables and mullioned windows, handsome stone fireplaces, panelling, massive doors, and solidly-built oak staircases. One (Possingworth) bears the late date of 1657. The Feldwickes' mansion at West Hoathly, Halland House in East Hoathly, Boarzell (moated), Short- ridges and Pashley in Ticehurst, Hog House, Buxted, 1581, and Wigzell, a stone-gabled house, with many chimneys, in Salehurst, all belong to the same type ; as do the picturesque Deanery at Battle, of stone, battlemented, Sack- ville College, East Grinstead, c. 1619, and other buildings in the town ; to which group also Hammond's Place, Clayton (dated 1566), and Hangleton House, near Portslade, the home of the Bellinghams, may be added. The latter, which bears date 1 594, has some good mullioned windows ; and Benfield, in the same parish, a small house of the Covert family, built of flint, brick, and stone, also has many mullioned windows and a double- 387 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX storied porch, with a number of shields of arms, a good panelled door, and the date 1611. In western Sussex a similar type of small stone house is found, usually the manor-house, in the neighbourhood of Petworth and Horsham, and along the Arun, as at Tillington, Bean Lodge, Petworth, Coates, and Chithurst (mullioned windows, gables, and brick chimneys). The almshouses at Pet- worth, a particularly picturesque building, and some of the Midhurst houses are of the same date and character. The Eagle Inn, Midhurst, has good seventeenth-century stone details. In the sea-coast villages, as at Westergate, Eastergate, Climping, Tod- dington, Rustington, Warningcamp, Poling, and East Preston, an interesting local brick and flint style was evolved in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both for the smaller manor-house or farm-house and the cottage. Brick-mullioned windows, crow-stepped gables, and well-designed chimneys, as e.g. at Rustington, Toddington, East Preston, Moor Farm, near Petworth, Thakeham, and Ew- hurst, are among their interesting features. Brick stringcourses, gable copings, and four-centred arches to doors, with excellent squared flint-work, are found, as at Climping and Toddington. This style of house con- tinued in use through- out the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies, only with a plainer treatment, and often a date-tablet gives the year of erection, as on a Rustington farmhouse (1696). These date-tablets are common, even on cottages. A small house at Crossbush, Arundel, has a pretty plaster shell- hood over the porch. Chalk was in general use as a walling material, but usually faced with flints or sandstone. The old house called Nineveh, in Arundel, was so constructed, and even Parham House is of chalk, faced with stone. In the north-west of the county chalk -rag is used as a facing with brick dressings, for houses of this period. There is a good example of this treatment in the manor-house of the Aylwyns, at Treyford, dated 1612, the cut brickwork in which is very well executed. At Barnham Court there is a good brick house, having curved gables, of about the middle of the seventeenth century. Another of simpler character is found at Rogate. Many of the smaller houses near Midhurst (as at Stedham) are of coursed local sandstone, * galleted ' with flint chips. Half-timber work continued to be used throughout the county during the latter part of the sixteenth and the early half of the seventeenth centuries, and numerous farmhouses and cottages, as well as a few mansions, remain. 388 CIVIL AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE The following are exceptionally good examples : — East Mascalls, near Lind- field, rebuilt c. 1580, with very rich details ; Broadhurst, in the same neigh- bourhood ; Otehall, Wivelsfield ; Pax Hill, near Lindfield, a large house, dated 1595; Horseshoe Farm, Beckley ; Shoyswell, near Ticehurst ; 'The Well House;' ' Little Dixter '; ' Brickwall ' — all in Northiam, of various dates, but chiefly late sixteenth century, the last a very fine large timber house, with an ancient garden of clipped yews ; Strawberry Hole, Northiam ; Yew Tree Farm, Beckley ; Walshes, near Rotherfield ; Mayfield village — especially the 'Middle House,' dated 1575, with a highly ornamented gabled front and richly carved barge boards ; Lye Green, Withyham, a good farmhouse ; Rye, a very architectural building known as ' The Hospital,' with good details in doors and windows, and other houses ; Hastings, houses in All Saints' Street^ &c. ; farmhouses in and near Sedlescombe, one dated 1604, with a fine brick chimney ; East Grinstead, the Judges house and others, with good gables, windows, chimneys, &c. ; Kenwards, near Lindfield, the residence of the Chaloners ; Horsham, North Street, and houses on the Causeway (note gable- ends purposely tilted out of the perpendicular) ; near Horsham, Hickstead (the manor-house of the Stapleys), and Chesworth, with moat and chapel ; Midhurst — the central streets have many fine old houses and shops of timber and brick of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century dates, some of them dated ; a pent-roof to shelter the ground story shop is quite a local feature ; Moor Farm, near Petworth, 1580, with fine panelled rooms and fire-places ; Petworth, many old buildings. Besides these, a very interesting group around Warnham and Horsham deserve special mention : — Bailing Hill, Hill Farm, 1578 (with good oriel windows), Hookers, Randals, Stone Farm, End's Place, Westons, Lenaways Farm, the Town House, Slinfold (with good early sixteenth-century mullioned windows), Friday Street, Warnham, and Groomhall, near Broadbridge Heath. These are all good examples of timber construction, with many interesting details. Hooker's Farm retains the typical |Bf shaped plan, having a central body or hall, and double-storied wings. The space in the centre is arched over with curved braces, so as to give deep overhanging eaves. This plan of the smaller timber-built country-side house, which unites the picturesque with the practical, seems to have originated at an earlier date than any of the surviving examples. Perhaps the oldest instance we can point to in Sussex is the fourteenth-century clergy-house at Alfriston, referred to above, and the type continued in use throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Originally, and in most cases during the earlier part of this period, there was no wall fire-place and chimney, but a central open hearth in the body of the hall, which, it should be remembered, was open to the ridge of the roof ; the wood smoke finding its way out at the eaves, or through crevices in the roof. To facilitate its egress the windows were un- glazed and shuttered openings. The floor was of lime, or stone slabs, covered with straw. Access to the upper stories of the flanking wings was at first obtained by a mere ladder. External staircases were also used, and still remain in a few instances, as at Friday Street, Rusper, and 'The King's Farm,' Roffey, near Horsham. The floor of the upper story in the end wings was constructed of heavy oak joists, 6 in. or 7 in. wide, by about 4 in. in depth, with rounded ends externally, framed into a diagonal beam, 389 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX which jutted out at the external angle and was supported by the curved corner post and bracket, worked out of the butt end of a large tree, as at Stonehill Farm, Chiddingly, the Star Inn, Alfriston, Stream Farm, Sedlescombe, &c. The upper story of one end wing, or both, was thus made to overhang the lcwer — an excellent arrangement constructionally and aesthetically, as, besides giving shelter and shade to the lower story, the floor and wall weights were nicely adjusted, on the principle of the cantilever, and additional space was obtained in the upper room. This construction produced the recessed centre part occupied by the hall or common room, and the roof being carried over in an even line with curved brackets, forming a sort of arch, a very picturesque effect was obtained, together with shelter from rain and sun. The tops of all walls were well protected by the deep overhanging eaves. Brackets, or 'jutty ' pieces, were also used to support the overhanging floors, as at Rye. The earlier window openings were usually very narrow, 8 in. to a foot in width, and were commonly in groups of two, three, four or more, with slender moulded mullions. In the simplest form these mullions are merely square uprights set diagonally (the openings being, of course, unglazed), thus on plan— j O O C' as m a cottage at Poling. The width of opening in later work, when glazing began to be generally used, is often increased to 1 5 in. or 1 8 in., and the windows were often made to project as oriels on wooden brackets. These are occasionally found in the earlier houses, as in the clergy- house and the Star Inn at Alfriston. There are many excellent examples of later date in houses at or near Warnham, Horsham, Petworth, and Midhurst. Manor Farm, Lindfield, has a double-storied bay window. Iron casements, often with scrolled cockspur fastenings, were in use with the later windows, and the lead glazing, usually of diamond, but sometimes of square oblong pattern, was secured to iron stanchions, set diamond-wise. The older external doors of wood had arched heads (as at Alfriston clergy-house), each half of the arch out of a solid piece of tree-spur. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the flat four-centred arch was very commonly used, and lent itself well to the material. The ogee heads to internal doorways at Alfriston are a rare exception. The actual doors in most cases are of vertical planks nailed to broad ledges, and hung with strap-hinges to iron hooks let into the solid frames, but in later work (as at Rye Grammar School, Great Wigzell, Sale- hurst, and the Middle House, Mayfield), they are frequently — especially the outer doors — of panelled construction, or else of boarding laid upon a panelled frame and having moulded fillets superimposed to cover the joints of the boards, as at the hospital, Rye, the Brotherhood Hall, Steyning, &c. The projecting ends of the upper story floor-joists were in some cases — especially in the earlier examples — covered with a thick moulded oak fascia, as in houses at Rye, Udimore, and West Tarring. Sometimes a moulding is tacked across a half-timber front. A wooden moulding, in section much like the stone string courses then in use, runs beneath the oak-traceried window of the early fourteenth-century timber house at Lewes. (See illustration, P- 385.) In yet smaller houses and cottages the plan was usually a plain oblong, the middle portion of which was occupied by the chimney corner, flanked by the entrance lobby on one side and the stairs to the upper floor on the other. The stairs are generally planned to wind round the chimney, and are closed in 39° CIVIL AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE by a door on the ground floor. In western Sussex, near the sea, such cottages often consist only of two timber-framed gable-ends, hipped, and dwarf front and back walls, so arranged as to afford the best shelter from the south- westerly rains. The long thatched roofs, as in Climping village, often run down to within 3 ft. of the ground. The timbers forming the wall framing are usually horizontal and vertical: in the oldest work the uprights are very broad, and the plastered interspaces proportionately narrow, as at Stonehill Farm, Chiddingly ; occasionally — but chiefly in later work — curved braces are introduced, and at East Mascalls these are treated in a very decorative fashion. Four small curved braces cutting off the corners of a square panel is an ornamental treatment found in half-timber houses at Rye, Sedlescombe, Lye Green, Withyham, Stonehill Farm, Chiddingly, Ditchling, the Brotherhood Hall, Steyning, and the Middle House, Mayfield — in the last this forms a pattern over most of the front. The hipped end to roofs is very common in Sussex, probably for the practical reason of weather. Where gables are found they are occasionally furnished with plain or ornamental barge boards, and of the latter those at West Tarring, having elegant cusped tracery, are the oldest. Several of the Sedlescombe houses have later examples, while the very rich timber barge- boards of the Middle House at Mayfield are ornamented with scroll-work of Renaissance character. The face of the plaster between the timbers was often ' combed,' or stamped with patterns while wet, and many instances of this treatment survive, as at Amberley, Hardham, Fittleworth, Pulborough, &c. Weather- boarding on houses is usually not very ancient. Good examples of its use are found at Hurst Green, Horsham, and the Queen's Head Inn, Sedlescombe. There are a number of fine brick or brick-and-flint houses of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century dates all over the county. With them may be included for architectural purposes the Moated House, Groom- bridge (on the Sussex border, but actually in Kent), a large brick house of the latter part of the seventeenth century, with high-pitched tiled roofs, a graceful stone portico, bridges, gate-piers, niches, and other details of great value to the student. This house has been ascribed to Sir Christopher Wren, who undoubtedly influenced its design. Of the same period is some fine stabling, in brickwork with tiled roofs, near All Saints' Church, Hastings, and there are several brick or brick- and-flint houses, later in date, in the older parts of the town, such as John Collier's house. Burwash and neighbourhood are rich in stately old houses of this period — one with a finely designed canopied doorway ; so also is the town of Rye, and most prominent among its architectural treasures of this class is the beautiful red-brick front of the Grammar School, dating from about 1660. All the cornices, pediments, pilasters, and elaborate doors and windows are in that material. There is also a house with a richly carved door canopy in West Street. Battle has some good but plain work of the early part of the eighteenth century. The manor-house at Eastbourne and the vicarage are other good examples of this date, chiefly brick built ; and a stone-fronted house in the narrow street hard by, together with the old manor- house, also of stone, are excellent earlier examples (c. 1650-80). Compton Place, in the same neighbourhood, is of the early part of the eighteenth A HISTORY OF SUSSEX century. At Seaford and Lewes we have examples of stone and flint-cobble building, and others at Steyning and Horsham, well deserving careful study. The great house at Petworth has a long stone front of heavy and monotonous design, built in the early part of the eighteenth century, but retaining in its cellars and chapel some fourteenth-century features. Trotton Place has some good late seventeenth-century brickwork. Arundel furnishes a good type of the simple brick house of this date (in red and blue bricks), with a well designed cornice, bay windows, and porch. In the same locality, at Ford, is a large brick-and-flint house, built by William Garway, M.P. (c. 1670). It has a good brick chimney, with recessed panels, much squared black flint-work (which contrasts admirably with the narrow red bricks), rooms panelled in cedar and oak, and a handsome staircase with dog-gates. The out-buildings and barns are in the same style. On a much larger scale are the two fine brick houses in Chichester — that in West Street erected (probably by Wren) in 1696, and 'Swan House,' in the Pallant, so called after the curious heraldic birds carved in stone and standing on the gate piers. Both houses show much first-class work, internally and externally, especially the former, which has a pedimented central bay, pilasters, and plinth of stone, a rich modillion cornice and very handsome gate-piers.7 Swan House has good iron gates and railings and a fine screen and staircase. Wool- beding, Bosham, West Hampnett (workhouse, formerly a mansion), Warming- hurst (fine stabling), Steyning, and other West Sussex villages show good examples of this period ; Hailsham vicarage is an excellent brick house, with a good portico ; and Hellingly, also in the eastern division, has a good early eighteenth-century brick house called ' The Broad.' Quite excellent work continued to be done throughout the county during the latter half of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, and many of the unpretentious village and small town houses of this period are well worthy of study. Red and blue-grey or black-glazed bricks were used, together with cobble-flints in places near the sea, and there is often a quiet bit of design in a door-head or cornice. The older parts of Chichester, Brighton, Lewes, and Hastings, and villages such as Felpham, Yapton, and Slindon, are storehouses for this kind of work. Lewes has one or two good shop-fronts and house doors of this period. Besides thatch, which is used for roofs all over the county, Horsham slabs are employed in West Sussex in houses of every class, together with ordinary tiles. Tiles, plain and variously shaped, were also a good deal used as a hanging for walls, and many old timber-framed houses have been so covered at a date subsequent to the original construction. The ruined rectory house at Treyford is a good example of this treatment. The old thick greenish window glass made in the county is occasionally met with in the diamond-paned casements of cottages. It remains to mention a few characteristic instances of internal decoration and fittings ; and first the dining room of the bishop's palace, Chichester, the panelled compartments of which were painted by one of the Bernardis. In the ' Queen's Room ' at Amberley Castle is some panelling, finely painted with the queens of antiquity by Theodore Bernardi, c. 1520. Tempera paintings must have been fairly common in houses of the 1 Its sash-windows have unfortunately been replaced by modern mullioned ones. 392 CIVIL AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE yeoman and merchant class, as well as in those belonging to the squire and parson. Many of these have come to light in recent years, of which the following may be instanced : — i. The remarkable painting in the house known as the Old Flushing Inn, Rye, date c. 1547, size about 17 ft. by 8ft. This has the royal arms, and badges, and the Magnificat in English — black- letter type — on scrolls upheld by cherubs, as a frieze ; the ' filling ' being a sage-green ground, covered with foliage, birds and beasts in various colours, and intersected by three diagonal bands, bearing the motto SOLI DEO HONOR ET [GLORIA] — the last word, running along the plinth, being destroyed. A painting almost precisely similar exists in a house at Halifax, and both are evident imitations of the tapestries in use at the period. 2. In the ' Mint ' House, Pevensey, is a running pattern of Tudor roses, with a motto or text in black letter. 3. A section of the wall of a half-timber house at South Harting, now in the museum at Lewes Castle, shows arabesque patterns in red, blue-grey, black, and white, dating from the early part of the sixteenth century. 4. In a house in the same village is a curious landscape, with a man in late seventeenth-century costume, rabbits, a stag and other animals, and chestnut-trees in blossom. 5. In what was the old rectory house at Cocking, texts in black letter were found painted upon the walls, taken from the Bishops' Bible. In this connexion may be instanced Standard Hill, a fine old farmhouse, at Ninfield, which has scriptural mottoes carved upon the front, such as ' God's providence is mine inheritance,' and ' Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Here we have (1659) no abidence ' ; also Hangleton House, which has, in what is now the kitchen, an arched screen, over which are three oak panels having the Ten Commandments carved thereon, and beneath them the distich — a play upon the letter E — Persevere ye perfect Men, Ever keep these Precepts ten. The dog-gates of the staircase at Ford House have been mentioned above : many other curious features remain in a group of farmhouses round Warnham, such as an elaborate door-bolt of wood at Westons, and nicely moulded spit-racks over the great chimney at Stone Farm, and at Mockfords, near Henfield. The key-plates, latches, and other door furniture are worthy of close study. There is a fine chiselled iron lock-plate in a house at Portslade. Throughout the eastern part of the county cast-iron fire-backs and andirons are commonly met with.8 A word is due to the picturesque farm-buildings of West Sussex especially. With thatched or tiled roofs, weather-boarded barns, and cobble-flint yard-walls coped with the picturesque Pulborough sandstone, they are well worth study. The barns are often excellently built, as at Ford Place, where they are constructed of narrow red bricks and squared black flints. At Eastergate is a very pretty granary of half-timber construction. The numerous wind- mills form quite a study by themselves. Many of them occupy very ancient sites ; as do also the water-mills, most of which are mentioned in Domesday. 8 These and many other details of finishings and old domestic implements in use in Sussex farm- houses are described and illustrated in papers by the late J. Lewis Andre, F.S.A., in vols. xxxiv and xlii of the Suss. Arch. Coll. and in vol. xxxiv of The Antiquary ; also in Mr. Charles Dawson's paper in Suss. Arch. Coll. vol. xlvi. 2 393 50 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX That at Wannock has a carved figure of a woman on it. Several water-mills of ancient date remain in Western Sussex, as at Bosham, Cocking, Stedham, Cowdray, and Iping. There are many ancient stone bridges in the western part of the county such as at Stopham, Pulborough, Houghton, Fittleworth, Midhurst, Rogate, Iping, Woolbeding, and Trotton. The last named, a very good example, was built by Baron de Camoys early in the fifteenth century. A very long bridge, of which traces have been found, once existed at Bramber ; as it gave a name to the neighbourhood in Domesday, a Roman origin has been ascribed to it. Village- and market-crosses are scarce. The stump of one remains at Alfriston ; and Chichester possesses in its large octagonal market-cross, built by Bishop Story c. 1510, the most important of a series which includes the crosses of Salisbury, Malmesbury, &c. MILITARY ARCHITECTURE Few counties can show a more numerous and important series of castles and defensive works, proportionately to its area, than Sussex. Beginning with Roman Pevensey and ending with sixteenth-century Camber or Cowdray, we are furnished with examples representative of almost every period. There are or were seventeen — or if we include the Ypres / Tower, Rye, and the forti- ' fied house of the Bohuns at Ford on the Arun, nine- / teen — castles in Sussex ; viz. those at Pevensey, Hastings, Lewes, Bramber, Arundel, and Chichester of the first rank, and Haben Bridge (the castle of the Camoys family on the western Rother), Verdley, Knepp, Amberley, Sedg- wick, Burlow, Scotney, Bodiam, Herstmonceux, Camber, and the half castle, half manor-house, at Cowdray. Little but the sites of some of them is left to us, but sufficient still exists to show the plans and designs of the majority, and these, with the historical details, will be given in the histories of the parishes in which they severally lie. The object of this article is to 394 MILITARY ARCHITECTURE point out in the following list a few of the more remarkable architectural features. PEVENSEY. — Roman brickwork and masonry in the outer walls and bastions — the bricks in lacing courses — in an exceptionally perfect state. Inner castle of twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, with some fine ashlar facing to one of the towers. Plan of chapel traceable, with font still in situ.1 HASTINGS. — Square tower with window of eleventh or twelfth century. Pointed chancel arch of chapel, with good mouldings and carving of late twelfth century. Recess under a circular arch. Some early thirteenth-century windows and a door, and remarkable prison cells. LEWES. — Inner gateway of Earl Warenne's original castle, with good plain circular arches. The keep has some late thirteenth-century masonry, loop-holes and remains of hooded fireplaces. The barbican (c. 1330) is a particularly fine piece of design. Note the facing of coursed flint- work, the dressings of Eastbourne Rock and the machicolations. The archways, 'pommeV loop- holes, and corbellings are very good. BRAMBER. — Window in upper part of the barbican, early twelfth century. ARUNDEL. — Clock tower, with good plain gateway, late eleventh century. Double-storied circular keep, with good ashlar facing in Caen stone, several windows, a hooded fireplace, and a fine doorway with ornamental mouldings (see illustration) ; double windows in curtain wall, richly moulded, all c. 1120-40. Note long stone stair of approach to keep, and later tower. The outer tower has a drawbridge and portcullis, flint and stone chequer-work and shoulder-arched windows of early fourteenth-century date. Bevis's Tower and Hiorne's Tower have later features. CHICHESTER. — Mediaeval town walls. Early fourteenth-century gateway to bishop's palace — a well-proportioned design — and one of late fifteenth-century date to cathedral close. The materials of the demolished castle were re-used in the Greyfriars' church. AMBERLEY. — Rebuilt and extended by Bishop Reade, 1379. Good curtain wall, towers, buttresses, garderobes, and machicolated gateway, with a handsome pointed segmental arch. Later house of Bishop Sherborn's within the castle, with a fine chimney stack. SCOTNEY. — Circular tower, of ashlar work, rising from the moat, with a fine machicolated parapet. BODIAM. — Valuable as dating entirely from 1386, and as a very complete example of the type of castle intermediate between those of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the fortified manor houses of Herstmonceux and Cowdray. The points specially noteworthy are its plan and the fine entrance gateway, flanked by towers and grooved for three portcullises. The arrangements of the hall, kitchen, buttery, chapel and other offices are very perfect. Among details, the machicolations, battlementing, loopholes, and windows (some with mullions and transoms of very domestic character), doors, fireplaces, and handsome octagonal stone chimneys are specially noteworthy. The garderobes and spiral stairs are numerous. HERSTMONCEUX. — A fine brick castle, built in 1440, on a large hollow square plan, with many octagonal towers, two united to inclose the stately gateways. Note the machicolations, battlements, heraldic panel, brick vaulting and pattern work, string-courses, windows, doors, fireplaces, chimneys, and other details. Stone is very sparingly used.8 CAMBER. — Built by Henry VIII, 1531, to defend the coast. An interesting reversion to the purely military type (cf. Deal, Walmer, and Sandown castles). Note the remarkable plan, in which defence with and against cannon has been provided for ; also the conspicuous string-course, ornamented with shields and royal badges, round the circular keep, and the elliptical or four- centred arches. COWDRAY belongs rather to domestic than military architecture. The moat, battlements, and the gateway with cross-bow oylets illustrate its defensive side. Besides the castle gateways and those of Battle Abbey, Wilmington Priory, Michelham Priory, Ewhurst (Shermanbury), and the gateways of the cathedral precincts, Chichester, there are the three town gates of Winchelsea, of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century dates, and the very fine 1 See for documentary evidence of dates of the later work a valuable paper by Mr. L. F. Salzmann in Sun. Arch. Coll. xlix. ' See the paper on Herstmonceux and its lords, by the late Precentor Venables, Suss. Arch. Coll. iv, 125-202. 395 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Landgate at Rye, dating from the latter half of the fourteenth century* which has a bold machicolated parapet and handsome arches. The Ypres Tower at Rye, a plain square building, dating originally from about the middle of the twelfth century, has some original doors and windows, and machicolation of a later period. The late sixteenth and early seventeenth- century gateways at Bolebrook, Cuckfield, and Racton form an interesting conclusion to the series. The writer desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to Mr. G. C. Druce for the photograph of a capital at Rodmell. 396 SCHOOLS THE history of the schools in Sussex is a remarkable illustration of the truth that educa- tion and culture vary directly with the development of wealth and industry. While the land-locked ports on the coast were frequented by the small ships of early days, which conducted the carrying trade with Normandy and France and the Netherlands, and while inland the Sussex ironworks, supplied with fuel by the charcoal burners of the forests, were the great staple of the iron trade in England, population and industry flourished and the schools flourished with them. Chichester, Hastings, Arundel, Shoreham, Lewes, Cuckfield, Horsham, Steyning, Billingshurst were all seats of ancient pre-Reformation grammar schools, most of which disappeared or fell into desuetude in the eighteenth century, and have left but scant traces of their history. When in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries commerce deserted the petty ports, silted up by the shingle banks and encroachments of the sea, and the ironworks followed the coal to the midlands and the north, the schools decayed with the decay of wealth and population. When from 1825 onwards the improvement of the means of locomotion began to make the coast of Sussex one large watering-place and health resort, and the Weald of Sussex became a suburb of London, the return of population and of wealth, without industry, threw up new schools, and Brighton and Eastbourne, Worthing and Hastings, flooded with private and preparatory schools for the upper classes, have also developed public schools for the resident population which caters for their wants and thrives on the spilth of the wealth of the metropolis. Thus at Battle we find the schoolmaster appearing casually, not as a new creation, in the middle of the thirteenth century. Among the Battle Abbey charters1 is one of I April, 1251, by which Richard, dean of Battle, in the presence of his son's wife conveyed a messuage in Battle to Nicholas de Sarcrino (probably a misreading for Sacraria, meaning the sacristan of the monastery). The first witness was Henry, schoolmaster, born 2 in Cornwall (Henrico, magistro sco/arum, oriundo de Cornubid). It is illustrative of the schoolmaster's position as a secular and not a monk of the abbey that he should be the first witness of the deed of the dean, the principal secular priest of the exempt jurisdiction of Battle. Henry, schoolmaster,3 witnesses another and undated deed of a little later date by which Reginald, abbot (1261-81), and the convent of Battle leased land to Denise Palmer. By 13 December, 1277,* the master was dead, as on that day Gilbert Rudefin made a feoffment to Alice daughter of Henry, master of the school at Battle, of a croft of land lying near St. Mary's Church ; and in 1279 Stephen Sprot of Hastings and Mary his wife concurred in a feoffment relating to the same land to the same Alice daughter of Henry, master of the school at Battle. It is difficult to refer to the originals to see whether 'school' is in the singular or the plural, or to ascertain from the contemporary and later almoners and other obedientiaries' accounts its exact relation, if any, to the abbey. But it is clear from schoolmaster Henry of Cornwall having a daughter that he was neither a monk nor a priest, but a secular clerk and, we may conjecture, appointed by the dean of Battle, as in a similar case in the eleventh century we find the dean of Thetford appointing the schoolmaster of Thetford. Whether this school was endowed, and if so how long it went on, and what became of it, we do not know. But Battle still possessed in the reign of Elizabeth a school and a schoolmaster, who was a personage and had strong, if not wise, opinions. There be schoolmasters who teach without licence and be not of a sound and good religion, a.; the schoolmaster in the town of Battell, the vicar of Findon, and the schoolmaster that teaches in the Lodge at Stansted who teacheth Mr. Stoughton's children, being comptroller of my Lord of Arundel's house. In the town of Battell when a preacher doth come and speak anything against the Pope's doctrine they will not abide but get them out of the church. They say that they are of no juris- diction but free from any bishop's authority. The Schoolmaster is the cause of their going out, who after- wards in corners among the people doth gainsay the preachers. It is the most popish town in all Sussex. 1 Descriptive Catalogue of Battle Abbey Charters, on sale by Robert Thorpe (London, 1835), 46. 1 In the catalogue ' Oriundo de Cornubia ' is printed as if it was the name of a different witness. ! Not as in the catalogue, p. 47, ' master of the Scholars,' but ' magister scolar,' i.e. scolarum, or school- master. * Ibid. 49. 4 S.P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 60, No. 71. Visitation of Chichester Diocese, 1569. 397 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX At Arundel also, once a thriving port, now superseded by Littlehampton at the mouth of its river Arun, as on a greater scale Winchester has been by Southampton, there was, as might be expected, a very ancient school. In the thirteenth century we find a deed of covenant (convencio) between Denis, prior of Arundel, and Master William of Wedon, by which Master William seems to have surrendered his birthright as schoolmaster for something like a mess of pottage. The prior with the assent of the convent conferred * on Mr. William his table viz. the monks' table in eatables and drinkables as well when sound as when sick for the term of his life, and the Prior granted to the same William to find him a fitting inn (hosficium) to keep school in and a chamber in the Priory at the Prior's cost. In return Master William of Wedon granted in perpetuity to the prior and monks of St. Nicholas of Arundel a messuage and appurtenances in the High Street (magno vico), which was Simon Cole's, with a courtyard under the castle extending along its whole front (?) ; and for nine years a messuage in the same street with a hand-mill and all its possessions held of the hospital of St. John the Baptist; with an acre in the [open] fields of Arundel and [the copy is here very corrupt] the tithe of all his temporal possessions, receiving, however, a mark of silver while he is able efficiently to teach the school (dum idem Willelmui scolas regere possit suffidenter). There was clearly something irregular about this arrangement, as it was provided that if the prior should die before William, and his successor should refuse to ratify the deed, the premises should be dissolved from the priory and fully resumed by the said William. The deed is not dated, but is apparently of the reign of Henry III. It was witnessed by five monks. Now it is quite clear that to that time the school had been independent of the priory, was not within its precinct, and was taught by a secular clerk, not a monk. Indeed the school was no doubt a great deal older than the priory. For it appears from a petition to the pope in 1380 7 that Roger de Montgomery, called the founder of the priory, ' obtained the appropriation to it (the abbey of Sdez) of the said priory, in which were previously 1 2 secular canons of the English nation.' The priory, in fact, had been a large collegiate church before the Conquest, and as such had necessarily maintained the grammar school as an integral part of itself, as the collegiate church of Hastings did, and as York, Beverley, Warwick, and the rest of the pre-Norman collegiate churches did. Now it is to be feared Mr. William of Wedon was giving up the ancient and independent possessions of the school in return for a new schoolhouse, no doubt more modern and commodious, to be found by the priory, and giving up his then independent position as the master to become the kept dependant of the priory. The monks, however, were not destined to endure. A hundred years later, as an alien priory, it was seized by the crown during the French wars. The alien monks were extruded, and had even to go a-begging, says the papal petition in 1380. The convent of S6ez obtained leave to sell it, as the earl of Arundel ' desired to bring it back to its pristine state and to institute anew and endow therein a chanter with 1 1 secular canons.' The collegiate church was after some difficulties refounded as a college of the Holy Trinity for a master, a warden, 1 2 canons, 7 deacons, sub-deacons, and acolytes, 7 choristers, and other officers. Among these was included no doubt the grammar schoolmaster. The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 mentions, however, only 'a master of the choristers,' who was 'paid yearly for his teaching (erudicione) of the choristers according to the statutes of the foundation 201. a year.' The college was dissolved by surrender on 12 December, 1544, and the school disappeared. At Seaford again, in 1320,* we find Mr. William, schoolmaster ('magistro Willelmo, magistro scolarum de Sefford '), witnessing a deed, and a casual reference to ' Richard le Scolemaister ' of New Shoreham occurs in 1302.' Many more such schools we may suspect to have existed, in Rye and Winchelsea, in Bosham and East Grinstead, and the like, and it is only the lack of documents and research, eyes to see them and note them when seen, that prevents our knowing of them. Of a later development of school foundations was the school contemplated, if not founded, at Billingshurst in connexion with the gild there by John Hall ' of the parishe of Cullington,' who by will, 13 October, 1521, gave to his son Thomas all his ' morgage ' lands and his leasehold farm held for thirty years called Strowde and Penysfold, ' except 6s. %d. deducted out of the said morgage lands at Warnam, the which I bequeth to the brotherhede of Byllingshurst for the terme of 20 yeres, yf the said free Schole precede and be kept, or ells not.' The will was proved 29 January, 1522. « «i ' Prior . . . contulit dicto Willelmo mensam suam, viz. monachorum, in esculentis et poculentis, tam infirmo quam sano ad vite Willelmi terminum, et Prior dicto Willelmo fit competens hospicium ad scolas honeste regendas, et cameram in prioratu de sumptu proprio concessit invenire.' B.M. Add. MS. 5701, fol. 18. The deed only exists in a rather imperfect eighteenth-century copy in the Burrell Collection, with no indica- tion of whence the copy was taken, or where the original is or was. ' Cal. Papal Let. iv, 239. For this, as for the references to the school in Battle charters, I am indebted to Mr. Salzmann. ' Assize R. 1329, m. 31. 398 SCHOOLS We may suspect that a school was already being maintained by the brotherhood or the brotherhood priest, and that this gift was in furtherance of a design to establish it as an independent foundation, free of fees. But as we hear no more of it, perhaps the design failed. But like the foundations of Cuckfield and Horsham, it shows how the erection of schools was in the air then, very much as it is now. CHICHESTER PREBENDAL SCHOOL The oldest school of Sussex is found, as might have been safely predicted, in the seat of the greatest population and commerce, and therefore of the chief church, in the cathedral city of Chichester. When, in accordance with the decrees of the synod of London in 1075, that episcopal sees should be placed in the great towns and moved from deserted villages, the cathedral establish- ment was moved to Chichester, the grammar school, which must have formed an integral part of that establishment, was no doubt moved with it. Chichester was organized like other cathedrals of the old foundation ; that is the normal foundation, with a body or college of secular canons, ordinary secular priests like the clergy of to-day, as distinguished from the regular orders. Among its thirty canons were four principal persons, dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer. The dean performed the functions of a dean of the present day ; the treasurer was not bursar, but sacrist, and had the care of the sacred vessels, the jewels, plate, and other treasures used in divine service. The chancellor and the precentor both had educational functions, and the chancellor was par excellence the minister of education of the cathedral church, the cathedral city, and the diocese. In some other churches, e.g. York and St. Paul's, it is on record that the original title of the chancellor was schoolmaster. At Chichester, on the morrow of St. Mary Magdalen, 23 July, 1247, at a full chapter, all the ancient customs of the cathedral approved [by general usage] were ordered to be reduced into writing and published along with certain statutes then made. The ancient and approved customs, which from the simplicity of their language and the terseness of their terms must date back to the earliest foundation of the cathedral in the eleventh century, are thus set out under the heading Ancient customs of various offices The Dean presides over all the canons and vicars [choral] as to cure of souls and correction of morals. The Singer * {Cantor, i.e. Precentor) ought to rule [or teach] the choir as regards singing, and can raise or lower the chant ; place readers and singers both for night and day on the table, admit the inferior clerks to the choir ; when orders are being conferred read out the names of those admitted. The Chancellor* ought to rule [or teach] school or present to it, to hear lessons and determine them ; to keep, with the assistance of a faithful brother, the seal of the chapter, and compose letters and deeds. Here, as elsewhere therefore, the precentor had charge of the choir, taught as well as ' ruled ' it — the regent masters at Paris and Oxford in the Middle Ages were those who actually taught in the schools — and managed the singers, including of course choristers. The chancellor, on the other hand, was the legal and educational officer of the chapter. It is a little difficult to say what exactly is meant by ' hearing and determining the lessons.' If the phrase was found in relation to a university functionary one would say that it exactly described the functions of the regent master, who in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries presided at the disputations between a candidate for the bachelor's degree and another student, and determined or summed it up ; while the 'lectiones' or readings was the appropriate word for a lecture. Remembering that the universities really sprang out of the cathedral or collegiate schools, and that the chancellor of the University of Paris was originally the chancellor of Notre Dame, there can be little doubt that in 1114 the 'lectiones' which the chancellor had to hear and determine were lectures in grammar, logic, theology, or law. He was then really a schoolmaster. But the universities both of Paris and Oxford were fully developed in the twelfth century and the early part of the thirteenth, and that of Cambridge was something more than an embryo. Grammar had become a subordinate faculty and study, and with rhetoric and the beginning of logic was restricted to grammar schools, while philosophy and theology were the pursuits of grown men at the universities. Hence in statutes made for Chichester Cathedral by Bishop Ralph II, with the assent and consent of the dean and chapter, 26 October, 1232, we find 1 ' Cantor debet chorum regere quoad cantum, et potest extollere atque deprimere ; lectores et cantores nocturnos in tabula notare, inferiores clericos in chorum introducare ; in celebracione ordinum clericorum admissorum nomina recitare.' 1 ' Cancellarius debet scolas regere vel dare, lecciones auscultare et terminare, sigillum ecclesie, adhibito sibi fratre fideli, custodire, litteras et cartas componere.' 399 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX the chancellor's duties defined. 'Since difficult questions have often arisen on the office and duties of the Chancellor and Treasurer we have sanctioned a statute (constttucione) to be perpetually binding that they may know that the underwritten duties (onera) belonged to them. Of the Office of Chancellor ' The Chancellor by the ancient custom of the church must hear the lessons assigned for the night services in person, or by a fit person of competent experience, well learned in the method of pronun- ciation customary in the church. This he must do immediately after vespers. He can, however, if he wishes to lighten his labours, call the juniors of the second form and the boys of the third form and hear their lessons before that office. But whoever is going to read must present himself to be heard at a convenient time, otherwise if through mispronunciation or absurdity or otherwise he offend against the rule of the church, let him incur the penalty decreed below ' against those who commit default in duties assigned to them by the daily table, which in the church are commonly called marances. It is part of his office that he should properly maintain a notary and letter writer and otherwise fit person sworn not to reveal the secrets of the chapter, to write the letters of the Dean and chapter ; and shall without grudging or waste of time supply him with all things necessary for writing. Also he shall himself, or through some other fit corrector, correct the books of the church which need correction. In these statutes it is the legal and literary duties of the chancellor that are insisted on. But his educational duties as regards seeing to the proper reading of what had to be read, as distinct from sung, in the services are still prominent. The ' lessons ' here mentioned are undoubtedly the lessons in the modern ecclesiastical sense ; the portions of the Bible and other books appointed to be read at services, which were three on ordinary days, six on feast days, and nine on the greater feasts. They were not as a rule anything like as long as those read in our reformed churches, being little more than scraps of Scripture, or short summaries or extracts from the ' legends ' (another word for lessons) of the saint who was being commemorated ; and they tended to become little more than tags on which to hang ' responds ' or ' verses,' pious exclamations or comments, or echoes of the lesson itself elaborately sung by the choir, which played very much the part of the chorus in a Greek drama, as the ideal spectator giving vent to the reflections provoked by the incidents recited in the text. On the highest festivals the chancellor himself was bound to read the lessons. As the lessons were in Latin, it required of course a sound classical education to do justice to them. One would rather gather from this passage that there were local usages as to the pronunciation of the Latin ; the southerner perhaps giving his without the burr which the northerner introduced, or it is even possible that the accent imported into the Sussex cathedral by the northern Wilfrid differed from that practised in Canterbury and Salisbury, or London, introduced from France and Normandy. The statutes of 1232 further show us that the schoolmaster was now separate from the chancellor. For in a statute about the election of the choir boys we have the following : — Of the boys of the Third Form 5 We decree also that ten fit boys be elected from the third form by the Schoolmaster and the Precentor's vicar and their names written in the upper part of the Table near the margin, and when any one of them fails new ones are to be put in their place, and no one not in that number is to be entitled to any office in the inscriptions of the table, unless he is one of the household or family of a canon. The schoolmaster is here clearly a person distinct from the chancellor and on a par with the precentor's deputy, the succentor, who was a vicar choral or canon's deputy, not a canon. He is in fact the grammar schoolmaster, the fit deputy learned in the proper pronunciation, who instead of the master is to hear the boys read and teach them, and also to beat them. From the statutes of Lincoln Cathedral we know that the grammar schoolmaster tested the candidates for choristership in grammar and reading, as the precentor's deputy, the succentor, did in singing. The table mentioned was the orders for the day which were inscribed on a tablet and hung up for every one to see what his part in the next day, or next week's, services was. It was this to which the onerous 'serving of tables ' characteristic of an elaborate ritual, reprehended in the preface to the Book of Common Prayer, refers. * Arch, xlv, 165. Statutes and Constitutions of the Cathedral Church, ed. by F. G. Bennett, R. H. Codrington, and C. Deedes (1904.). 4 This penalty was, if a vicar, the loss of id. or id. ; if not a vicar, chastisement by the precentor or his deputy ; ' but if of the third form,' i.e. a boy, ' let him be turned out of the choir, or receive from his master or the precentor's deputy seven strokes, or if he has committed a grave offence, fourteen.' * ' De pueris de tercia forma. Statuimus eciam ut per magistrum scholarum et vicarium cantoris decem pueri eligantur ydonei in tercia forma, et eorum nomina in superiore parte tabule juxta marginem scribantur." In the Statutes 'magistrum scolarum,' the regular title of ' schoolmaster,' is printed ' magistrum scolarium,' or master of the scholars. Canon Deedes kindly verified the original MS. for me and says it is undoubtedly ' scolarum.' 400 SCHOOLS In the absence of the chapter muniments there is little more to be found bearing on the early history of this grammar school. There are no episcopal registers before 1397, and no chapter act books before the sixteenth century. But from the will of one of the chancellors of the cathedral, John Bishopston, or Busshopeston as it is spelt, made 16 November, 1384,* we get the name, and a very famous name it happens to be, of the grammar schoolmaster at that time. After giving 2Os. to the church of Bishopstone, in which he was baptized, and from which he took his name, and handsome presents of 6s. Sd. to each canon, 6*. to each vicar choral being a priest, is. 8d. to each vicar of less rank, is. to each chorister, and 3^. to each holy water carrier (aque bajulo) present at his funeral, he gave to Master Richard le Scrope, dean, the prayer book he had lent him, to his vicar choral a long gown furred with beaver (bevere). ' Item to Master Thomas Romesey, rector of the Grammar School of Chichester, my green robe with taffity covered with moons to pray for me as above.' After providing for the saying of 1,000 masses and 1,000 psalters for his soul, his residue he gave to youths of the first tonsure, acolytes, sub-deacons, and deacons. Now the bequest to Thomas Romsey is very interesting, in the first place because Bishopston uses the old term, still or lately prevalent in Scotland, of rector of the school for master ; and in the second place, because this Thomas Romsey is almost certainly the person of the same name some- times called Magister Thomas de Romsey, sometimes Romsey simply, who at Michaelmas, 1395, became the head master (magister Informator) of Winchester College,7 on the retirement of the master who had been teaching between the date of the charter, 1382, and the entry of the college into the existing buildings. Previously to the discovery of this will, the provenance of Romsey was unknown to the historians of Winchester College. Romsey held office for ten years, till Easter, 1407. Then, after an interval of seven years of another master, he returned to office again in 1414, and held until 1418, and frequently afterwards up to 1425 appeared as an honoured guest in hall at Winchester. The college library long preserved a grammatical work given by him,8 ' a certain treatise of grammar on phrases, called "Iron,"' a thirteenth-century production, so called because it began with saying that as iron rusted by disuse, so did learning without practice. It is interesting to note that the master of the ancient Chichester Cathedral school thought it promotion to go to the mushroom school of Winchester College, as it must then have seemed, though undoubtedly a mushroom of a very fine growth, the appearance of which made no small stir in educational circles. But the next time we find a connexion between the two, it was a master of Winchester College who found it promotion to go to Chichester, which had then acquired a new and important endowment. In 1402, at Bishop Robert Reade's visitation of Chichester Cathedral, among the complaints, detecta et comperta, things revealed and proved, was one that ' the Chancellor does not find a master diligent in teaching the choristers grammar ' (non invenit magistrum diligentem ad instruendum choristas in gramatica). The chancellor, appearing in person, protests that he is prepared 'to do his duty in the premisses as he ought and is bound to do.' In other words, probably, he meant that he appointed a master, and if he did not teach the choristers grammar he ought to do so. But the teaching of choristers was always a difficulty, their choral duties preventing them from keeping the same hours as and doing work regularly with the other boys. The next appearance of a schoolmaster does not suggest that the school was in a very high state of efficiency. Between 1460 and 1466 a petition was presented in Chancery by9 'Thomas Gyldesburgh, parson of St. Olavys in Chechester, whyche hath be scole master there 30 yeres and more, beyng of the age of 80 yeres and more and now right corpolent and hathe a maladie in hys legge that he may neyther well ryde ne goe.' The petition throws no light on the school. The matter was purely personal. Gyldesburgh had gone bail for one John Stephens to William Stele, bailiff of Chichester, giving a bond for 2O marks for Stephens's appearance in the Exchequer. Stephens had failed to appear, and Stele was fined 6s. 8d. and had to pay costs. So he sued Gyldesburgh for 10 marks in the mayor's court at Chichester, and after Gyldesburgh had kept indoors for a long time to avoid process, he was told by his counsel he could go abroad. He went to say mass in his church, and was then arrested by the mayor's Serjeant and put in prison. There he remained, and petitioned the chancellor for a ' supersedeas,' or a writ of ' corpus cum causa,' or a ' certiorari,' or ' other remede that your lordshipp shall think convenient.' What the boys did under ' a right corpolent ' master of over eighty years, who had been master for over thirty years, and also held a living and was now in the mayor's prison, one shudders to think. The next reference to the master shows one in better repute. Some twenty years later, 26 October, 1479, William Jacob, ' mair of the cite of Chichester,' who was apparently tenant of * P. C. C. Rouse, 5 d. In the text the will is dated 1 6 Nov. 1374, but 'J 's sa'd to have been proved II Dec. 1384, and as it was very unusual, if not unknown, for a will in those days to be made long before death, it is practically certain that the true date is 1384. 7 Leach, Hist, of Winchester Coll. 153, 156, 197. ' V.C.H. Hants, ii, 283-4. 9 Early Chanc. Proc. bdle. 29, No. 59. 2 401 5! A HISTORY OF SUSSEX the sub-deanery, or perhaps merely lived in the sub-dean's parish, as he gave ' to my curate the subdean 40*.,' made his will, proved on 1 5 November following, and made very elaborate arrange- ments for his funeral.10 The dean and every canon present was to have a shilling. Also I will that the morrow masse preste and the Scoolemaster of the Gramer Scole, if it please them to be present at my dirge and say masses for me the day of my burying, that ayther of them have 6d. for their labour, and ayther of them to have ^s. for saying of Davied sauter, if it please them. Also I will that every vicary aforesaid, the morrowe masse preste and Scolemaister, beyng present at my dirige, at my moncthe mynde, and att my masse at morrowe, have every of thaim 8tf. and the Decon and every chanon lod. The morrow-mass priest was the priest who said mass at dawn, and in many places, as e.g. at Wotton under Edge in Gloucestershire, was himself the schoolmaster. We may perhaps conjecture that Mayor Jacob particularly invited the schoolmaster's presence, because he had himself been at the grammar school. At all events, he was regarded as an important person, whose assistance was worth paying for at a rate exceeding that of a canon. A generation later the school received a new endowment and status which lifted it into a much greater position and formed a precedent for the new foundations of Henry VIII. There seems reason to believe that the old endowment of the school was only a sum of £2 a year or £2 13*. 4^., an amount settled perhaps in the twelfth century, when it would have been a considerable endowment. In 1498 the bishop, Edward Story, a Cambridge man who had been fellow of Pembroke College there and afterwards master of Michaelhouse, soon to be swallowed up in Trinity College, appears to have been so much exercised either at the ignorance of the Chichester clergy or at the neglect of the school that he determined to put it on a new and better basis by following the precedent then established, and afterwards to be improved upon by Wolsey and Henry VIII and succeeding kings, of applying to education other endowments which were abused or not doing such useful work. It was quite a common proceeding to attach a chantry to a school as an endowment to a schoolmaster or even a vicar-choralship, and we have instances at York, Southwell, Lincoln, and Beverley. The attachment of a canonry for this purpose is quite exceptional and shows a remarkable zeal for educa- tion on the part of the learned Cantabrigian. By statutes made 1 8 February, 1497-8, he, with the assent and consent of the dean and chapter, converted into an endowment of the grammar school the prebend of Highley, getting the then canon or prebendary to resign, and appointing a new pre- bendary who, being expressly described as B.A., was no doubt a schoolmaster. The bishop fulminates at considerable length on the causes which induced him to found the school, namely the wickedness of the clergy due to their ignorance, which he speaks of in almost as strong terms as did Alfred the Great in his day, showing that it was perhaps somewhat of a common form. Having not seldom before our eyes the immeasurable ignorance 01 our subject priests, and the excessive promotion of wicked priests too often made heretofore in our diocese of Chichester through the scarcity of good ones, since daily many evils arise therefrom, because as the holy page bears witness (Luke vi) If the blind lead the blind both fall into the ditch ; wherefore the Canon Law (textus Jecrett) under the heading Ignorance (Distinction 38) says 'Ignorance the mother of all errors is especially to be avoided in the priests of God who have taken on themselves the office of teaching among the people of God.' . . . Thinking how to meet the evils recited, since by the office imposed on us we are bound to provide for the health of our subjects as far as possible, at length we have come to the conclusion that an increase of the knowledge of grammar would be the best remedy for the evils aforesaid. For grammar, which hath but little flourished hitherto in these shores, as Peronius bears witness, is profitable for eternal salvation as in the Canon law ' If anyone grammar' (Distinction 37), where the text ends ' But the teaching of Grammarians is able also to profit for life eternal if it be taken up for the best purposes.' Therefore we have thought well for the purpose of constituting a perpetual Grammar School in this city of Chichester invoking first the name of Christ to proceed in manner following. After this highly rhetorical preamble he goes on to make his statutes ' for us and our suc- cessors with the express assent and consent of the Dean and Chapter and of Sir Nicholas Taverner now canon and prebendary of Highley in our cathedral church of Chichester.' Whenever after this our ordinance the canonry and prebend of Highley fall vacant . . the Dean and Chapter or the majority of them shall nominate to us or our successors for the said canonry and prebend a priest well and sufficiently instructed in grammar and other good literature and fit to teach and experienced in fulfilling the duty of teaching ; and on him shall without any inconvenient delay be conferred the canonry and prebend of Highley with the charge as aforesaid of teaching in our Grammar School of Chichester according to our ordinance and statutes hereunder written. The bishop might refuse their nominee, but he was obliged to appoint some one named by them, and if any other appointment was made it was to be void. If the bishop failed to collate the "P.C.C. Logge,fbl. 93. 402 SCHOOLS canonry to the chapter's nominee in sixty days he was to be fined £5 and the collation for that turn was to pass to the archbishop of Canterbury. If the canon of Highley fell ill or was absent with the dean's leave (which was not to be for more than thirty days in any year) he was to find a substitute ' who well and sufficiently and gratis shall instruct and inform the grammar scholars (gramaticoi) and others coming to our school of Chichester for the sake of learning.' If the pre- bendary 'ceased to teach and inform boys and grammar scholars' for forty days he was to be fined ^2, and if he ceased for three months the canonry and prebend were to become ipso facto vacant. The prebendary was to celebrate the bishop's obit on the anniversary of his death, paying to the dean and chapter by 9 a.m. on that day 2is. 8d. to be distributed, 2dd. to the dean, a shilling to every canon residentiary, a shilling to the prebendary himself, 8d. to each vicar of the higher grade, 6d. to each priest-vicar of the lower grade, and to other secular clerks in that grade 4^., a penny to each of the eight choristers, and so on, ' and for wax burning round the tomb 2s.' The prebendary was also to say a requiem mass for the bishop every Friday, unless it happened to be Good Friday or Christmas Day. The school hours were severe. Also we will decree and ordain that in summer time the grammar scholars and others coming to our Grammar School for the sake of learning be every week day (diebus profestis) in our Grammar School aforesaid at 5 o'clock or a little after, in winter before 6 o'clock, and afterwards when peal has gone for the morrow mass in St. George's chapel in the cathedral we will that all and singular the grammar and other scholars be present at the same morrow mass, or at least at the elevation of the body of Christ, and then quietly and orderly (pacifice bonesteque) return to the Grammar School, and when they have all re-entered the school the canon and prebendary shall immediately begin and with all the scholars in turn fully say the Psalm ' God have mercy on us ' with ' Glory be to the Father ' ' Kyrie Eleison ' ' Our Father ' ' Hail Mary ' ' And lead us not ' etc. the scholars answering ' But deliver us from evil ' ' Rise, Lord and help us ' and the prayer ' Lord, holy father almighty, everlasting God ' and ' Bless we the Lord.' Every night before the departure of the scholars from the school after singing an anthem of the most blessed Virgin Mary they shall say either side by turns the psalm ' De profundis ' and the canon is to say ' And lead us not ' with the prayer ; and at the end, while we are alive, ' Direct we beseech thee Lord, thy servant ' and when we have paid the debt of nature the prayer ' God who amongst the successors of the apostles ' with our proper name inserted. The scholars were to be present at his obit and requiem mass and ' those having knowledge for the purpose to say two and two the " exequias " for our soul and the souls of our father and mother and all our benefactors, and all the faithful departed, the rest saying the Lord's Prayer, the Angelic Salutation and the De Profundis.' When mass was finished the master was to enter the chapel and the scholars ranged in twos outside it on either side were to begin the De Profundis and finish the psalm with the prayers ' God who amongst the successors of the apostles ' and ' God of the faithful.' The school was to be a free grammar school. The canon and prebendary on the days seasons and hours convenient opportune customary and fitting shall diligently sufficiently well and eloquently freely and gratis teach instruct inform and chastise grammarians and others whomsoever coming to our school for the sake of learning, on no account by reason thereof or in any other way taking from the same scholars or their parents or friends any sums of money or accepting gifts or other offerings, except thanks given and bestowed on him. If he was negligent or took any gifts he was after a second warning by the dean and chapter to be fined lOf., and on a third warning to be deprived by the dean and chapter and another appointed in his place. The prebendary was to keep the school building in repair. He was on no account to let or set to farm or grant gratis ' our grammar school or any chambers or any part of the same to laymen or secular persons, except the great cellar if that can be done without scandal or inconvenience to the scholars of our grammar school.' This last proviso is interesting, as it shows that the school then was the same as the school now, situate at the corner of the bishop's garden. It is a stone building with a great cellar underneath it, above which is the schoolhouse, with a fourteenth-century arch in it, showing that it was much older than Story's time, and was no doubt the schoolhouse in which Thomas Romsey taught. About 1830 Prebendary Webber gutted the whole building, which originally consisted of the great cellar and one story over it. In carrying out this work the turret vaulting of the cellar was destroyed, and, by raising the roof, in place of one story three were made. All the northern part towards West Street was rebuilt, and this portion was cut off from the rest of the building by a brick wall which extends from the basement to the roof. The topmost story was used by Mr. Webber as the schoolroom, the next was a dormitory, and below this was a washing room. The great cellar was lengthened 20 ft. After Mr. Webber's resignation of the prebend in 1840, the next prebendary 4°3 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX (Rev. P. Brown) ceased to use the topmost story, and turned the washing room into a schoolroom, as it still remains. Adjoining the school on the east is the prebendary's house, and east again the sub-dean's residence. Both houses were rebuilt in the latter part of the eighteenth century at the cost of the prebendary of Highley and the sub-dean respectively. The bequest of the sub-dean's tenant to the schoolmaster in 1479 therefore strongly supports the theory that the school was on the same spot before Story's gift. Lastly, the bishop gave to the bishopric all the tenements and lands in the town ot Amberley and in the fields of the episcopal manor of Amberley which he had bought of John and William Symonds. The grant was on condition that every bishop will well and inviolably observe and keep as far as in them lies, and will cause to be observed and kept by others as far as possible, the ordinance and statutes concerning the canonry and prebend and our grammar school ; and if our successors have not done or observed the premises but break or impugn or change or contravene them in part or in whole then the lands were to go over to the dean and chapter to hold to themselves 'in pure and per- petual alms.' It is difficult to see how in view of this clause Bishop Day in 1550 and Bishop Carr in 1828 or Bishop Durnford in 1880 could validly make any change, as they purported to do, in these statutes ; especially in the direction of imposing restrictions on the openness of the school or in limiting the number of free scholars, confining them to churchmen or imposing fees on them. Nothing but an overriding power derived from an Act of Parliament could do it, or can do it now. It was stated by Mackenzie Walcott, and has been repeated by Dr. Swainson and others, that the effect of the annexation of the prebend to the school was ' to relieve ' the chancellor ' from his duty' of teaching. But it is quite clear from the facts quoted that already in 1232 the chancellor had relieved himself of this duty, by devolving it on a deputy, just as the precentor had relieved him- self of the duty of teaching singing by devolving it on his deputy the master of the choristers. In the absence of documents we cannot ascertain what the chancellor paid his deputy the grammar schoolmaster ; but no doubt it was a sum settled at the latter part of the twelfth century or begin- ning of the thirteenth century which had become quite inadequate by lapse of time and change in the value of money. If a guess may be hazarded, it was somewhere about £2 a year. In other secular cathedrals and colleges, as Lincoln and York, Southwell and Beverley, the difficulty of lack of endowment was met by the grammar schoolmaster being also a chantry priest or vicar choral ; while he also charged fees. Story met it more efficiently, and in a way more in accord with the dignity of the office of schoolmaster, not by making an inferior officer of the cathedral master ad hoc, but by permanently making the master one of its governing body, a canon and prebendary himself, and making the school free, forbidding him to take tuition fees. At St. Paul's, London, twelve years later, Colet took the more revolutionary course of severing the school from the cathedral body altogether, and with papal, episcopal, and capitular sanction giving it over with a new endowment to an outside body, the Mercers' Company. In the result that has proved the more excellent way. But Story's was probably the more effective at the time. It has been questioned whether Bishop Story and his chapter had power to annex a prebend to the school, but there seems to be no doubt about it. Similar statutes so made by Bishop Ralph in 1224-44 had annexed the prebend of Wittering to a theological lectureship, directing that it should always be given to an actually teaching theologian (theologo actualiter /(genii), and it was conferred on Mr. William Ruffus, theologian (i.e. D.D.), with the duty of lecturing (cum onere /egendi), and these statutes were, on appeal to the archbishop of Canterbury in 1259, confirmed as binding, and again by Pope Gregory XI in 1373. Story was a learned canonist, and no doubt was well acquainted with the canon of the Lateran Council in 1275, which directed that in every cathedral and col- legiate church of sufficient means a prebend should be assigned to a grammar schoolmaster ; and in this case he carried it out literally. At all events, for 400 years since that date it has been a school endowment in virtue of these statutes, and it is too late to say they were invalid. The first schoolmaster-prebendary was Nicholas Wykley, B.A., whose nomination by the chapter on 14 December, 1497, 's contained in the statutes. He may perhaps be identified with Master Wakle,11 who paid 2cW. on incepting in Arts at Cambridge in January, 1481-2, as the Cambridge bishop is pretty sure to have selected his first nominee from his own university. He does not seem to have stayed long. In 1500 John Holt was appointed. There is good reason to think that this John Holt was the well-known author of the first Latin grammar in English. The dates fit, as he was John Holt of the county of Sussex, B.A., admitted probationer fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, 27 July, 1490, actual fellow 26 July, 1491. About 1494 he was usher of Magdalen College School, but he is said to have resigned about 1495. As a dis- 11 Camb. Grace Bk. A. i6z. He is printed Walle in the text, but starred in the index as being properly read Wakle. 404 SCHOOLS tinguished schoolmaster he might therefore have been asked in 1500 to his native county to teach the prebendal school. Possibly it was there he composed his book Lac Puerorum ; Mri. Holt Mylke for Children^ first published by Wynkyn de Worde (c. 1500), and then by Richard Pynson in 1520. With so rare a name, William Hoone can hardly fail to be Mr. Hoone who paid 20d. on being incorporated at Cambridge in 1 506-7 .13 By an amending statute 23 January, 1502, made under the power of amendment reserved by Story to himself during his life in the statutes of 1497—8, the schoolmaster-prebendary was relieved of the payment for the bishop's obit, and he was also allowed to take and canonically hold one ecclesiastical benefice only, with or without cure of souls, on this con- dition : that the canon prebendary and master of the school . . . shall . . . provide and keep an usher fit to teach under him in our said Grammar School for the relief of and to share the anxiety of the master of the above mentioned school and for the benefit of the scholars flocking to the said school. Of all the amending statutes which have been made to the statutes of 18 February, 1497-8, this is the only one which appears to have any validity. Nicholas Bradbrigge, appointed in 1504, is a remarkable proof of the high status of this school, for he had been head master of Eton in 1494; John Goldyff, 1521, is not traceable. The reign of a Wykehamist bishop, Robert Sherborn, who had spent 6 years at Winchester and 14 at New College, Oxford, with 3 Wykehamist deans in succession from 1504 to 1546, was marked by the appointment in 1524 of William Freind, scholar of Winchester, 1495, whence he went to New College in 1501, being fellow there 1503-16, B.C.L. 26 April, 1510. On 13 May, i53O,12a Sir Geoffrey Poole wrote ' To my hearty beloved Master Freynd, scolemaister at Chichester,' begging for a loan of j£6 till Michaelmas, and tending a ' gage ' as security by Anthony Bramshott. This man of substance was succeeded by another of the same school and college, John Tychenor, Tuechener, Touchenor, or Twychener, as he is variously called. He is a well-known person, having become head master at Winchester at Michaelmas, 1525," at the age of twenty-four, and having in that capacity put on record almost the only known pre-Reformation time table, after the ' use ' of Winchester, for the benefit of Saffron Walden School, Essex, then being started. After six years he resigned the head-mastership of Winchester to become head master of Chichester Grammar School, and was admitted to the prebend of Highley on 5 October, 1531. No doubt this was due to the pressure of the Wykehamist dean William Fleshmonger, and of Edward More, head master and then warden of Winchester, who was then archdeacon of Lewes and canon of Chichester. But still, it is rather amazing. Nominally the post was financially better, as the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 taken while John Tychenour was master and prebendary of High- ley shows that the prebend was worth ^13 6;. 8^. after deducting ^2 which the prebendary con- tributed ' for the yearly and perpetual stipend of the usher of the Grammar School of Chichester.' The same valuation shows the schoolmastership of Winchester as worth only £11 18;. $d. a year, £10 salary and the rest apparently estimated value of allowances for gown and so forth. But as board was provided as well, worth is. a week, what little difference there was between the two was perhaps rather in favour of Winchester. The Elizabethan poet head master of Winchester, Christopher Johnson, seems to account for the change by saying Grammaticam, Twichenere, licet docuisse feraris Summa tamen studii pagina sacra fuit. Tho' Twychener taught grammar as 'tis said, Yet 'twas theology he chiefly read. He may therefore have taken the prebend of Highley with the promise of the better canonry he afterwards obtained of Wittering, to which was attached the theological lectureship. Perhaps, too, as his brother Richard succeeded him in the head-mastership of Winchester, there may have been some family financial arrangement. But it must be remembered also, and this is a salient instance of it, that there was not then the great difference in pay and prestige between the head-masterships of the so-called public schools and of the grammar schools that has since arisen. Each grammar school was the public school of its own district, to which the golden youth flocked instead of being accumulated in a few distant centres. We may presume that the 'use' of Winchester transmitted to Saffron Walden was also brought to Chichester. Unfortunately the document at Saffron Walden has lost its beginning, and so the work of the VII and VI forms is unknown. But in the V and IV forms they read Sulpicius, a 11 Camb. Grace Bk. B. 222. lfl L. and P. Hen. Vlll, iv (3), 6384. 11 V.C.H. Hants, ii, 296-300. 405 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Roman schoolmaster's grammatical works, published 1487-1506, Sallust, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Virgil's Eclogues, Cicero's Letters. They did Latin verses and wrote Latin epistles and Latin prose. Form III read Aesop's Fables and Lucian's Dialogues in Latin. Forms II and I did the Babies' Book or Parvulorum, and Vocabula or Word Book of John Stanbridge, a Wykehamist predecessor of Twychener's, head master first of Magdalen College School at Oxford and then of Banbury. The Babees" Book was a humane production, being a first Latin book in English, instead of in Latin, as had previously been the case. Twychener gave up the school and prebend of Highley for the prebend of Wittering and its theological lectureship in 1538. The next master we hear of was Anthony Clarke, B.D., in 1541. Clarke in his Oxford days was a Cistercian monk at St. Bernard's College. At the dissolution of the monasteries he became a secular priest. The Certificate of the Chantry Commissioners in 1548 returned 14 in the cathedrall churche in Chichester, Anthony Clarke, scholemaister prebendarie in the said churche of the prebend called Vyley impropried [i.e. impropriated] for a gramer schole for ever £13 whereof the said prebendary of his benevolens alloweth towarde the fyndyng of an usher yerely £4. Also the Deane and Chapter have graunted and paid syns Michaelmas 'anno primo Regis Edwardi Sexti ' to the finding of the said usher 5 3/. i^d., and have graunted to continewe the same accordinglie out of the lyving of the said Deane and Chapiter for ever. For ever, however, is a long day ; and the dean and chapter have not thought fit to make this pay- ment for many years. In this, as in so many other cases, the deans and chapters of the Reformation era showed a zeal for higher education which their modern successors have by no means imitated. Anthony Clarke retired to the prebend of Firle in 1550. His successor, Thomas Garbard, admitted to the prebend 26 July, 1550, bore a name which had many variants at the hands of the scribes, occurring as Harbarde and Jarbarde. He was an Oxford man, B.A. 16 May, 1526, M.A. 26 March, 1533-4. It was, no doubt, in view of the approaching retirement of Anthony Clarke, and the intention to appoint Garbard, who was not a priest, as his successor, that on 26 July, 1550, the then bishop, George Day, in due form, with the consent of the dean and chapter and the then prebendary, made an amending statute abolishing the requirement of priesthood and mass-saying. ' We George the bishop aforesaid,' says the statute, in words which the governing bodies of the public schools would do well to ponder, greatly desiring . . . that a devout honest and learned man should be from time to time preferred to the prebend with the duty of teaching the said school . . . considering that this duty can fitly enough belong not only to priests but also to other educated men (litteratii) sufficiently instructed and fit to teach, and that ... a worthier and fitter person may be elected and the election can be from a larger number than if it was only from the order of the priesthood and considering also that the masses specified are no longer performed, therefore the dean and chapter might nominate and present ' a priest or any other man whomsoever honest discreet and learned in grammar sufficiently instructed and fitted for teaching and willing to teach.' This one and only lay prebendary, however, only held office for four years, when, probably because of the Marian reaction, he left to become head master of Guildford Grammar School, then lately" re-established with a new endowment under a charter of Edward VI, 27 January, 1553, with £20 a year and a new school building, which he held for ten years. One unfortunate result of the schoolmaster being a canon and a member of the chapter was that the chapter had nothing to do with paying him and nothing to do with the management of the school ; as even in case of neglect of duty on his part it was hardly to be expected that they would interfere with their own colleague. Consequently the usual reservoir of the history of a cathedral grammar school, the Chapter Act Books, even when they begin to be extant, afford us no information. The Chapter Accounts16 which begin in 1555 show us that here as elsewhere there is not the smallest foundation for the convenient theory advanced by deans and chapters and their advocates that the grammar school was a choristers' school. In 1554 the accountant credits himself with « payment to Richard Basse, vicar choral but a layman, together with the rest of the sums usually allowed him every term, viz. for nine stalls and for the teaching of the choristers, for the anthem of Our Lady and for keeping the library, 231. 5• d. 1. From Lord Chichcster's steward. . . . . . 53 5 ° 2. „ Mr. Guy of Hammessey, tenant of Sir Charles Burrell 20 o o 3. „ Mr. Verral, solicitor, of Lewes . . . . 300 4. Interest on £497 os. iod. consols . . 14 7 4 £90 12 4 Items 2 and 4 represented the original endowment of Agnes Morley, the consols representing the proceeds of sale of the old school. Item i represented Mrs. Jenkins's endowment, £1,725 con- sols ; item 3 the rent-charge on a house in Lewes given by Barber Blunt. The school consisted of 25 boys, 9 free boys nominated by Lord Chichester and Lord Hampden (the full number mentioned to him on appointment being 12) and 15 boarders. They were all taught classics as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic, by the writing master, the ' usher ' having ceased to exist. One of the free boys was head of the school, and going to the university. In 1864 the Schools Inquiry Commission found the school in a very bad way. The trustees, nine in number, noblemen and county gentlemen, limited their functions to appointing the master and nominally the 12 foundation scholars. They had held no meeting for seven years. Two of them had shown ' occasional . . . interest ' in the school. The Rev. Frederick Woolley, M.A. Cambridge, was head master, appointed in 1 859. He found 39 boys, and raised the number to 5 1 in the summer term of 1861. Then his health failed. In 1865 there were only 23 boys, of whom 10 were boarders, 8 day boys paying 15 guineas a year, and the rest free scholars. A day boy, if he was 'a nice lad,' was allowed to play with the boarders in the playground, which, having been the garden given for the exclusive use of the master, was entirely under his control. In 1885 the master was the Rev. Charles Kevern Williams, M.A., late fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. Instead of the school being revivified, the coup de grace was finally given to this ancient founda- tion by a scheme made under the Endowed Schools Act, 12 August, 1885, which converted the school and the George Steere Exhibition, with Blunt's educational charity, into exhibitions of £5 to £20, tenable at any place of higher education approved by the governors to boys or girls, chil- dren of residents in Lewes or within five miles of the county hall there. 16 Char. Com. Rep. i, App. 396. 415 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX CUCKFIELD GRAMMAR SCHOOL In his will1 II July, 1521, Edmund Flower, 'citizein and marchaunt tailor,' of London, says, « I for certeine years past at my costs and charge have caused a free Cramer Scole to be mainteined and kepte at Cukfelde for the erudicion and lernyng of pore scolers thedur resortyng to the honour of God in that behalf.' How long he had maintained the school Flower does not tell us, but he was warden of the Merchant Taylors Company1 in 1498-9, and was the first master under their new charter in I5°3-4>* and ** suc'1» m consideration of the new charter, made an elaborate agreement, 3 Decem- ber, 1503, with Henry VII for the company to celebrate an obit for him in St. Martin's Outwich. In an inventory of the company's plate in 1512* appeared among 'Standing coppes ' 'Of the gift of Maister Flower I gilt cup with a cover, with a columbyne, weiyng 28 oz.' Flower, therefore, had made his fortune by 1504, and probably began the school not long after that date. For it was in 1 502 that Sir John Percyvale, a member of his company, had founded Macclesfield Grammar School,5 and in 1 508 that Sir Stephyn Jenyns endowed Wolverhampton Grammar School. At whatever date he started the school, Flower determined to endow it at his death : For a perpetuall contynuaunce whereof and that a graduate beyng a secular prest and sufficient man to teche Gramer maye be alway resident there to teche gramer and for the yerely mayntenance and sustentacion of the same maister and his successors beyng Scole maister there for ever, and to thintent that I may be reputed and named the first founder of the same, and that I and my wifis may be perpetually prayed fore there : I woll that the maister and wardeins of oure blessid Ladye nowe holden and kepte in the parishe churche of Cuckfeld aforesaid for the tyme beyng and theire suc- cessoures shall yerely apply the income of his lands in Westerham, Kent, which he directed his feoffees to convey to nominees of the fraternity ; and also of other lands worth £5 a year for the purchase of which he had given them j£iOO to 'the contynuall and perpetuall mayntenaunce of the said Gramer Scole.' When the ' rome of the said Scolemaister ' was void, the master and wardens of the fraternity were to choose 'a new able Scolemaister ... by the advice of the Vicar there and by suche 3 or 4 honest men of the said parishe ... as the Master and Wardeins shalle calle unto them." If they ' necgligently doo suffre the said scole to be unkept by the space of one yere,' and do not provide for its maintenance within half a year ' after monycion or warnyng ' by the mystery or craft of Merchant Taylors then the endowment was to be sold and the proceeds applied by the Merchant Taylors Com- pany in farthing bread to the prisoners in various city prisons. The will was proved 13 August, 1521. It was very promptly carried out by the purchase for £66 1 3*. \d. of 1 12 acres of land in Laughton, East Hoathly, and Chiddingly, conveyed by Emelyn Watreman by deed of 20 November, 1521. By a 'tripartite Indenture' of I October, 1528,° made between Mr. William Spicer, parson of Balcombe, the master and fellows of ' the Colledge of St. Catherin called St. Catherin's Hall ' in Cambridge, and the vicar Ninian Burrell, and twelve parishioners of Cuckfield, the endowment was considerably increased. William Spicer may perhaps be the Spicer who entered at Cambridge as a ' questionist ' 7 in 1485-6, and was granted in 1494 his doctorate in canon law.8 He was no doubt a member of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, in favour of which in certain events there was a gift out of his endowment. That he might be 'named, taken and reputed the second founder of the said Grammar School,' Spicer added to Flower's endowment, worth ^6 ioj. a year, the manor and lands of Red- stone in Reigate, worth £5 a year clear, which he had bought of Thomas Mitchell ' for the continuance of the said Free Grammar School and for the establishment and making of good rules and ordinances to be had, taught, used and kept in the said school for ever.' It shows how already coming events were casting their shadows before them, that he directed in case the fraternity should be dissolved the master should be nominated by the rectors of 1 P.C.C. 8 Maynwaryng. ' Charles M. Clode, Early Hist, of the Merchant Tayhrs Company, ii, 41, 42. 1 Ibid, i, 347. < Ibid, i, 96. 'Not as stated in Clode, op. cit. ii, 17, the 291)1 earliest school in England, as it is more like the 290* ; but still, a fairly early specimen of a foundation by a city merchant. ' A copy of this indenture made in or about 1626 by the then vicar of Cuckfield, Thomas Vickers, who was also a non-residentiary canon of Chichester, and died in 1638, is preserved in a small quarto paper book, the bulk of which was apparently written by him, in a parchment binding, in the possession of the vicars of Cuckfield for the time being, called the Vicar's Book, p. 22. The spelling is not of the original date, but of that of the copy, and is therefore not worth reproducing. For the loan of the Vicar's Book the writer is indebted to Canon Cooper. ' Camb. Grace Book A. 200. 8 Ibid. B. 71. 416 SCHOOLS Cuckfield and Balcombe and three or four honest and substantial inhabitants selected by them. The deed was in effect only a mortgage, and included an unfortunate provision that if Thomas Mitchell, from whom the manor of Redstone had been bought, should within eight years buy other lands worth ^5 a year and convey them to the trustees, he should have the manor of Redstone back. It was expressly provided that the schoolmaster shall teach the scholars in the said school grammar after the form order and usage used and taught in the Grammar School at Eton near Windsor from form to form according to the acts and rules there made kept and used, and to keep the houres of learning in the said school as near as he can that is to say from Lady Day to Michaelmas from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Michaelmas to Lady Day from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. He was to say mass three times a week at the least, one mass of the Holy Ghost, two of the Trinity, and three of the Name of Jesus, and 'at each mass before the lavatory to say De profundis and to pray for the souls of Mr. William Spicer and of the founders their father and mother souls . . . and the souls of all the helpers and benefactors of the said school,' and to find bread, wine and wax at his own cost. At evening before departing the scholars were to say De Profundis for the same souls. It was expressly enjoined that the master was not to be compelled ' to go in visitation neither to do any other cure or business belonging to the vicar or curate of Cuckfield for the dangers and let that may thereof happen to ensue to him and to the said scholars.' If plague came he might remove to another place within ten miles of Cuckfield. On Monday in Easter week ids. was to be paid to him to keep a solemn obit for the founder in the parish church, ' Dirige by note,' i.e. a dirge with singing, over night and on the morrow a requiem mass 'by note' ; 3*. to be given to the priests, clerks and sexton, 4^. to be offered at the mass, 3;. 4*/. in alms to the poor, and \id. among the scholars, with 2s. 4^. to himself for singing the Requiem Mass and reading tne Indenture and Ordinances. If the feoffees or the vicars failed on a vacancy to appoint a master within half a year, St. Catharine's College was to take the rents and profits of the endowment, and therewith receive into their house a young man disposed virtuously to learn, to be a fellow and to pray for Spicer's and his friends' souls. Finally, 2Os. undisposed of was to be paid to a scholar of the school nominated by the parson of Balcombe, who in the absence of the master should teach the scholars, ' and see good order in the school under the master,' a sort of cross between an usher, a pupil teacher, and a prefect. Annexed to the deed were two documents both of great interest. Here followeth the Bead roll that the Schoolmaster must use at his masses and especially at the masses assigned in the Indentures ; item, his scholars by the discretion of the master to use the same. He shall pray for the good estate of Mr. William Spicer, parson of Balcomb, and for the souls of John Spicer, Joan his wife, and for all the souls that the foresaid William is bound to pray for, and for the soul of Mr. Edmund Flower and for all the souls the which the said Edmund is bound to pray for and for all Christian souls and for the good estate of all the helpers and maintainers of the said Grammar School. Item, the Schoolmaster shall take good heed that his scholars keep good order in the church and serve God. Then follows, in seven items, 'the Oath that shall be given to the Schoolmaster at his admission.' He was to keep the indenture and read it at the stated times, and so forth. The last is ' Item, the said schoolmaster shall teach the scholars in the said school after the form and usuage taught in the Grammar School of Eton, the which form for this time is as it followeth : ' then the time-table of every form is set out in detail. So that we here get a curriculum of Eton in the year 1528, some two years earlier than that sent by Richard Cox, then head master of Eton, to Saffron Walden Grammar School,9 which was to be conducted 'after the use of Winchester and Eton.' It shows how artificial and modern is the distinction between grammar and public schools, that this small foundation of a merchant tailor and a rector was to be conducted on the same lines and with the same curriculum as the great foundation of kings and bishops. Nor was it only at starting that the Eton model was to be followed. ' These acts and orders ' were only to continue until such time as the Controlers be certified of others being used and taught in Eton more profitable to scholars ; then it is lawful to the Controlers to add to the forms that be more profitable and to leave what are not profitable at their discretion. There was a preparatory class below the regular forms. First, it is ordained that ' the children first beginning the Grammar ' were ' to read the Accidence of Mr. Stanbridge, and diligently exercised ' V.C.H. Essex, ii, 5x1. 2 4i/ 53 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX in the same every working day.' On Saturday morning they were to « rehearse and render by heart all the lessons they have learnt all the week.' But if Saturday were a holy-day, then the said render be made the working day before.' It is ordained also that every working-day, Friday and Saturday except, one of the 8 parts of Reason, [now called parts of speech] with the verb according to the same, that is to say, Nomen with Amo, Pronomen with Amor, and so forth, be said by heart by all the learners of the accidence, if they have learnt that part, and of all the First, Second and Third Forms. This was to be ' by and by after 6 of the clock ' in summer and seven in winter. ' After the part done the learners of the accidence shall labour their lessons, which lesson the Master shall hear more often or more seldom after his discretion and to the more profit of the scholars.' Form I were to learn Stanbridge's English Rules called the ' Parvula.' These rules shall be said by and by after the Part done, and upon repeating the rules the Master shall cause them to make small and easy Latins, proper and such as the children may understand and have a delight in. Form II the same c except that the Master may by his discretion add more matter to the Latin for the Second Form.' These Latins must be so given that the children may write 10 them before breakfast. After their breakfast one of the next Form above by the Master's assigning shall read to them one Rule for the next day and in the Master's presence ; upon which the scholars of this Form shall apply them- selves to the understanding construing saying and answering to the parts of their Latins under the dinner-hour [which was 1 1 a.m.]. If the Master's discretion shall think the babies able easily to overcome it, he may give them also some Latin words from Stanbridge's Collection, or small and light matter in Latin to be rendered by the B.ibies by and by after one of the clock ; which done, after a convenient pause, the said babies shall render their Latins by heart, construe them and answer to the part of them. This applied to the first four days of the week. On Friday they were to say Sum, «,_/»*, or some other verb out of rule. Then they were to be examined in the understanding of the rules learned in the week and say them by heart in the afternoon. If the master " have time sufficient before the time of breakfast the Master, or some Scholar of an higher form in the presence of the Master, shall declare to them one little piece of the Pater Noster, or the Ave Maria, the Credo or the Treatise of the Manners called " Quos decet in mensa, or the Ten Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins, or the Five Witts, '3 or some other proper saying in Latin meet for the Babies, and especially such as is meet for Christian People to learn, as the Articles of Our Belief or anything like. On Saturday before breakfast Form I ' rendered ' their ' one little piece ' of religious instruction, ' construed it and answered to parts of it.' After breakfast they rendered their Latins learnt in the week. ' At afternoon they shall learn to write or read Legends, or the Psalter, to become more prompt in reading.' Not, be it observed, for the sake of religious instruction, but for the enunciation. In the second form the scholars shall read the genders I4 of Whittington and after them done the Heteroclites of Whittington. These rules shall be said in the morning and by and by one lesson shall be read unto them for next day and they shall learn Latins with the First Form. After their break- fast a lecture of Cato after the new interpretation shall be read unto them, which they shall construe again at afternoon and answer to the parts of it, which done they shall say their Latins by heart, construe them and parse them. On Friday after breakfast ' they render their rules ; and at afternoon their constructions.' On Saturday they say and render all things with the first form. In the third form the rules shall be the Pretertenses 16 and Supines of Whittington, and after these done the Defectives of the said Whittington, they shall have Latins. Their constructions 10 Not as in Carlisle, Endowed Grammar Schools, ' recite.' " Not as in Carlisle, 'If they may have sufficient time before breakfast.' " Not as in Carlisle, 'verses for the Mariners, called Quos dicet in mensa.' The Treatise in question was a Latin poem by Sulpicius, a fifteenth-century schoolmaster at Rome, on how to behave at table ; a most interesting work. 13 i.e. the five senses. " Not as m Carlisle, ' gradus.' 14 Sic. It was probably Preterites in the original, but the copyist of 1626 could not read the writing of 100 years before. 4I8 SCHOOLS shall be of Terence or of Erasmus's Similitudes or of his familiar communication called Colloquia Erasmi.' Form IV had for rules the Regiments of Whittington which he calleth Concinnitates Grammatices. They shall have Latin constructions and other things except rules with the third form to the intent that the better learned may instruct the less learned. In the fifth form they shall read the Versifying Rules. They shall have 16 or Ovid's Epistles. In the stead of Latins they shall construe Virgil, Sallust or Horace or any other meet for them ; and for their better exercise they shall make every week verses and epistles. It is remarkable that the latest thing in classical schools to-day is to return to this practice of remit- ting verse-making and original Latin prose to Form V. Form VI ' have for their rules Copiam Erasmi,' i.e. Erasmus's book on copiousness of diction, ' wherein it is taught to make l; ; all other things they shall read with the fifth form.' In every form the Rules shall be said in the morning, and by and by more rules given unto them ; after 9 of the clock the constructions shall be given them ; after I of the clock the constructions shall be heard ; about 3 of the clock the Latins shall be rendered. The master may begin to hear the First Form if it pleaseth him, so that the tender babes and young scholars be not forslowed,13 but ever taught plainly and substantially, soberly and discreetly entreated, and handled without rigour or hastiness in deed word and countenance. The Master also must attend that his scholars keep a due and whole pronunciation of their words without precipitation, and that they speak Latin in every place. Considering the way that pronunciation and enunciation are now almost wholly neglected in schools, which to make up for the neglect have to start Debating Societies and Shakespeare Read- ings, and these only attended by a select few, it is by no means clear that we have not something to learn in the way of school teaching from the much decried scholars of pre-Reformation times. Lastly comes the usual fulmination against holidays : The Scholars shall have no Remedy but once in the week, and that shall never be on the Friday ; and also after 2 of the clock, because they may render most of their learning, or they depart the school, without 19 the assent of one of the Controllers. The Vicar's Book gives ' Mr. Mollineux ' as the first master. He is probably Edmund Molyneux, who matriculated at Oxford in 1510, one of the great Lancashire family already settled at Sefton, from whom the present earls of Sefton are descended. In 1 545 we find among those assessed for a Lay Subsidy ~() ' The Scolemaster of Cookfeld takyng stypend of temporall londs by the yere j£iO.' In 1548 the Chantry Commissioners report : 21 The Grammer Scole in Cuckfeilde The Grammer scole in Cuckfeilde Robert Hedon, preiste, of the age of 32, is Scholemaister there to teache the children and to pray and say masse for the founders and so is appointed by the founda- cion. There is landes tenementes and hereditaments appoynted therefor of the clere yerelie value of £11 Si. whereof to the Scholemaister £10, usher zo/. and the rest for reparacions and other charges and is enfeoffed to certain persons named in the said foundacion, the Founders name Edmund Flower and William Spyser, £ 1 1 8*. Continuatur schola quousque. Robert Hedon can hardly fail to be Dominus Hedon who determined in arts, i.e. went through an examination for the B.A. degree, at Cambridge in 1537-8." He appears as Eden in the Vicar's Book. How or why this school escaped confiscation under the Chantries Act is not clear, seeing that the schoolmaster, though assessed to lay subsidies in virtue of his temporal endowment, was to be a priest and say masses for the founders' and others' souls. But it did. It was reserved for its own trustees to strike a blow at it which eventually resulted in its ruin and degradation. Thomas Mitchell, in virtue of the covenant contained in Spicer's endowment deed, conveyed to the trustees lands in West Hoathly and Hurstpierpoint and got back his manor of Redstone. These lands had been given for a chantry in Cuckfield church before they were bought by Mitchell, and as such should have come to the crown. Being 'concealed' from the crown, no doubt "This blank is another proof that the copyist of 1626 could not read the older writing properly. 17 Again the copyist could not read the old writing. 18 Sic. Not as in Carlisle, ' forestowed.' But it is possible that the seventeenth-century copyist has mis- read the word, as ' forslowed ' does not seem to have much more meaning than ' forestowed.' 19 Not as in Carlisle, 'with.' "> P.R.O. Lay Subs. }f°. 41 A. F. Leach, Bug/. ScL at the Reformation, 225, from Chan. Cert. 50, No. 33. " Camb. Grace Bk. B. ii, 214. 419 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Mitchell got them cheap. The inevitable informer, in this case Nicholas Jeff, ferreted them out, got a grant from the crown as ' concealed lands,' and sold them to the lessees. After legal pro- ceedings, eventually the lessees compromised with the trustees for perpetual rent-charges at the rate of the then rents, ,£8 8s. a year, and this is still the rent paid for these lands, whereas the manor of Reigate and lands there are probably worth as many thousands or tens of thousands of pounds. Worse was to follow. The original Flower lands were let for the ancient and accustomed rents of /6 13*. \d. In 1588 they were on lease for 33 years. The feoffees, to increase the school income, sold the lands to Thomas Pelham for £80 down, at a perpetual rent-charge of £20 a year. That sum was, and is still, paid by the earl of Chichester, the descendant of this Thomas Pelham. So the income of the school was irrevocably fixed at £28 8*. a year. The endowment was sufficient at that time, but disastrously insufficient by the beginning of the eigh- teenth century, and was the direct cause of its decay and conversion to lower uses. In the Vicar's Book 23 is a list of masters, Pye, Corbett, Muckligtone, Owen, Killingbeck, Jones, Wildman 1580, Coachman, Smart, Kendall 1606; but no details about them. Corbett was no doubt Thomas Corbett, B. A. Oxon. 17 April, 1559, M.A. 1563^5 he is found later holding benefices in Sussex. Muckligtone was probably Richard Muckleston who took his B.A. degree at Oxford 1 1 February 1563-4. As for Owen, without a Christian name to help, it is impossible to identify him among the scores of Welshmen of the name who crowded to Oxford in Tudor times and, as they do now, stocked the country grammar schools. John Owen of Anglesey, entered at Hart Hall in 1568, is among the multitude of Owens the most likely identification. Killingbeck is undoubtedly Francis Killingbeck, B.A. Oxon. 1 8 November, 1569, and afterwards rector of Poynings, near Brighton and Heathfield. To try to identify his successor Jones, without even a Christian name, is to look for a needle in a bottle of hay. Wildman and Coachman must be attributed to Cambridge. Smart is almost certainly William Smarte of Dorset 'plebeian,' who matriculated at Magdalen Hall 27 April 1598, aged 16, B.A. at Magdalen College 1602, and passed on to the vicarage of Wilmington, Sussex, in 1616. Kendall was Francis Kendall of Derbyshire, 'gentleman ' who matriculated at University College at the age of 19 on 24 November, 1587. On 29 May,24 1626, Edward Francis, M.A., was elected master. But on 5 July, 1627, he was admonished by way of a first warning by the rector of Balcombe and vicar of Cuckfield 'for his savage behaviour to the boys and errors in governing the school (pro sevitia sua in pueros et erroribus in gubernando scholam).'' On 22 August he was a second time admonished. On 15 October 'a third admonition was given him, now he was ipso facto expelled (exclusui) and the school was pronounced void, and we the undersigned thought that we should proceed to a new election.' The signatures of Thomas Vicars, vicar of Cuckfield, Daniel Routhe, rector of Balcombe, Richard Chaloner and John Warden follow. The same day James Sicklecroft, B.A., was elected ' Schoolmaster of the Free Grammar School of Cuckfield ' and signed a promise that I will pcrforme the office of a good schoolmaster, that is, that I will with such judgement and fittness teach the schollcrs grammar, that they shall be found ready and expert to answer questions in those authors which they read, according to the rules of grammer ; and also I do promise all such diligence to attend the place that I will increase this present number that is left to the number of 20 schollers within the time of two yeares from my election, or els I will peaceably surrender my place and leave it in the hands of the overseers. Sicklecroft presumably performed his promise and reached the prescribed tale of one score boys, as he stayed for ten years. On 13 July, 1637, ' Mr. Browne ' was admitted schoolmaster and was followed at unknown dates by James Rouse and Samuel Creed. Then came John Taylor. He was probably son of Richard Taylor, incumbent of Maresfield, Sussex, and perhaps an 'old boy.' He had matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, 15 October, 1624, aged 17, and became M.A. from Hart Hall, 7 July, 1631, and vicar of Sidlesham, Sussex, in 1635. In 1675 the name of Hulton is recorded as master. In September, 1682, came Thomas Bysshe, undoubtedly an 'old boy,' son of Christopher Bysshe of Cuckfield, 'plebeian,' who matriculated at St. John's College, Oxford, 9 July, 1677, and took his B.A. from Oriel in 1681. He was rector of Tarring in 1698, and vicar of Eastbourne in 1704, when he retired from the mastership and for some obscure reason took his M.A. degree at Christ's College, Cambridge, in the same year. On 1 6 October, 1 704, Philip Shore, son of John Shore of Hamsey, clerk, was appointed master. He had matriculated at Merton at the age of 16, 21 March, 1693-4, B.A. 1697, M.A. 1701. He was also vicar of Worthing from 1705, and on retirement in 1711 became vicar of Woodmancote. "Fol. 42-6. " Vicar's Bk. 42. 420 SCHOOLS John Willis, probably from Hincksey near Oxford, matriculated at St. Mary's Hall, 1703, B.C.L. Oriel, 1710, held office from 14 November, 1711, to 13 October, 1712, when he resigned, and John Tattersall succeeded him. On 10 March, 1718, the vicar of Cuckfield nominated as electors Robert Norden, Thomas Yates, and Thomas Ins, and they chose James Ingram, B.A. An entry of 12 April, 1742, says that Ingram had resigned, and the vicar appointed electors; but this is the last page in the Vicar's Book, and ends in the middle of a sentence, the next page having disappeared. So we do not learn who came in as master, and know no more until the end of the eighteenth century, when Francis Joseph Fearon, of Peasmarsh, Sussex, became master in 1786. He appears to have matriculated at St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, the same year at the age of twenty-three, B.A. 1791, M.A. 1792, merely to get the statutory qualification of a graduate. In 1800 he became vicar of Cuckfield. In i8i825 the Rev. Robert Prosser, of All Souls College, Oxford, still carried on the school as a grammai school. He had about forty-five boarders. He was ready to instruct in the classics any of the parishioners' children gratis who applied to him. He had sometimes received a few boys and taught them English and accounts ; but excepting these few he had never had any applications even for such instruction, nor any at all for instruction in the ' classics.' An elementary school had been founded by a vicar in 1716. In 1 846,26 by a scheme of the Court of Chancery, the endowment of the Grammar School, which was to be conducted 'after the form and usage of the Grammar School of Eton,' was applied, to save the pockets of the vicar and the landowners and richer inhabitants, to the * National ' School. The old school building still stands in the north-west corner of the churchyard. It is not apparently the original one of the sixteenth century, but a later edition of the time of the indefati- gable Thomas Vickers about 1626. HORSHAM GRAMMAR SCHOOL The latter half of the fifteenth and the first part of the sixteenth century are marked in the annals of educational foundations by the increasing proportion of such foundations by laymen of the mercantile classes. It had now become almost as much a custom for the successful man of business to found a grammar school in his native place, if it had not one before, as it was for the successful cleric. The Wykehams, the Waynfletes, and the Colets now found their example followed by the Shaas, the Jenyns, and the Collyers. Richard Collyer, citizen and mercer of London, made his will1 23 January, 1532-3. In the event, which happened, of the decease of his son George and daughter Dorothie without issue, he directed his lands to be sold. In particular, he said : — I will that my mesuage called the Sonne with the appurtenaunces in the parishe of our Lady at Bowe in London, be by them solde to the moost advauntage, and the money receyved thereof to be bestowed in bying and buylding of a howse to kepe a free scole in Horsham in the countie of Sussex, where I was borne, by thadvise of myn executors and the vicar of the said parishe church of Horsham, and the church wardeyns of the same and 4 of the moost honest men of the same parishe, indifferently to be chosen by the inhabitaunts of the same parishe. In which house to be the number of threscore scolars. And the master of the said scole to have for his wagis or salary £10 a yere, and the Ussher 10 marks a yere ; and they to be admitted by the vicar, church wardeyns and 8 of the moost honest men of the said parishe and moo [more] as they thinke best, but not fewer in number. He was careful to insist that the school should be a free school, free from tuition fees, and, unlike his contemporary Sir John Percival, Lord Mayor, in founding Macclesfield Grammar School, who was thinking chiefly of 'gentlemen's sons and other good men thereabouts,' Collver gave a preference for the poor, and the parish of Horsham and the immediate neighbourhood ; though gentlemen's sons were not to be excluded, none who wished to learn were to be shut out. And the said scolars to be at noo charge of their scole hire, but freely without any money paying therfor but to pray for the soule of me the said Richard Colyer and Kateryn my wife, and all Christian soules, with De profundis every day at the departing of the said scole. The said scolars to be admitted by the vicar or churchwardeyns of the said church and 2 honest men of the same parishe, such as the said parisshoners shall thinke moost indifferent ; the said 2 men to be admitted yerely, whan the churchwardeyns be admitted and chosen. And I will that the pore people in especiall of the same parishe and they next about the same parishe shalbe preferred to the said scole afore any other, for consideracion gentilmen and other men be in better habilitie then poore men be ; that notwithstanding, of the said parisshe of Horsham oonly, noon to be refused likely to lerne as by the discrecion of them abovesaid therefor lymyted for the admytaunce of the same. 15 Carlisle, Endowed Grammar Schools, ii, 598 1 P.C.C. 24, Thonder, 9. Char. Com. Rep., ii, 162. 42I 16 Sch. Inj. Rep. A HISTORY OF SUSSEX The local historians 2 have asserted that it was expressly ordered in the will that ' the children elected should be the offspring of poor people ... to be educated in reading, writing, and arithmetic and the principles of the Christian religion.' As a matter of fact, Collyer said nothing at^ all as to what the scholars were to be taught, but the reference to the admission of gentlemen's sons shows plainly that it was to be, as every free school then founded without express terms was intended to be, a grammar school. These words, in fact, occur not in Collyer's will but in a scheme of 1815, which while degrading the school into an elementary school, yet had the grace to preserve, ' at the discretion of the Schoolwardens, the Latin language.' Up to the point we have now reached in his will, Collyer trusted to the local powers to see his school go right ; but then, following the example of Colet, who was a member of the same company, the Mercers', he, unfortunately for the school, brought in the company as its governing body. Though the vicar and honest Horshamers were to appoint the master and scholars, they were not to manage the estates or pay the master. Also I wille that the said vicar and churchwardyns aforesaid present the said scole maister and Ussher to the wardeyns of the mistere of the Mercers of the citie of London, and they to admitte him yf he be habill to occupie the same rome orells another be chosen by the said vicar and churchwardeyns and other above said. And the said wardene of the mercers to paye the yerely salary of the said scole maister and Ussher. And the said wardens and feliship of the said mistere of mercers to have for the perfourmaunce of the same the howse called the Key with thappurtenaunces in Chepe sett and being in the parishe of St. Pancras in the warde of Chepe to be made sure to the said felisship and their successours for ever- more, paying that afore is resited. And the wardeyns of the said felishipp yerely to have owt of the same 20;. yerely for their payne taking, and more to be taken owt of the same when it shalbe nedefull to see such reparacions as shalbe mete forto be doon to the mayntenance of the same scole house. And if the same wardeyn and felishipp refuse the said house for the premisses afore made Than I will that the vicar and churchwardeyns of the parishe church of Horsham aforesaid receyve the rents that the wardeynes of the mercers afore rehersed shulde have doon. And the residue and overplus of the same more than the charge of the Scolehouse by them to be receyved yerely to be bestowed on the reparacions of the said mesuage on the mayntenance of high wayes abowte the said towne and parishe of Horsham. The residue of his lands he gave to the Mercers Company, one quarter for the charity box and three-quarters for the repair of highways within 8 miles of London. Collyer died very shortly after making his will, which was proved 12 March, I532.3 On 15 August, 1540, the company4 had conveyed to them the schoolhouse near St. Mary's Church, which was bought for £8 6s. 8d. from Henry Pulford, husbandman. The company say that until 1546 only a quit-rent of 6s. 8d. was paid to them out of the house in Cheapside called the Key. But in 1547 they received ' Of Lady Dormar for the Key in Chepe £22.' From this they paid Nicholas Haynes, the schoolmaster, jTio ; Nicholas Levee- kenhee, usher, £6 13$. \d. ; the four wardens £i ; leaving a surplus of £4. The fact that there was a schoolmaster and usher is sufficient proof that the school was a grammar school. Nicholas Haynes has not been traced to his university or college, nor Nicholas Leveekenhee, whose name suggests a misreading by the person who supplied it. But in this and all other respects, for the further history of Horsham School we are dependent entirely on what the Mercers' Company chose to state to the Livery Companies' Commission, as they refuse to allow access to their records. They state that in 1596 they increased the master's salary to £ 16 131. 4<£, and the usher's to £6 13*. ifd. In this year they became possessed by a bequest of Andrew Mallory, a mercer, of the house next to the Key, and the properties in the Mercers' books are thenceforth merged. These houses were burnt in the Great Fire of London, and when rebuilt were not distinguished from each other. But the company have always treated the income from them as being in the proportion of four-fifths Collyer's and one-fifth Mallory's. They are now known as 3 and 5 Queen Street and 68 Cheap- side, and produced in i86o6 £720 a year, and in 1884 £2,300. The company vouchsafed no further information about the school till the middle of the eighteenth century. From the register of St. John's College, Cambridge, however, we learn that at least as late as 1695 the school was still a public school sending boys to the universities, under a master who bore the famous name of John Wiclif or Wickliffe. Of five boys who went from the school to this * Howard Dudley, Hist, and Antiq. of Horsham (1836) ; Anon, (but by Miss D. Hurot). Hist, and Antiq. of Horsham (1868). * The Mercers Company in their return to the City Livery Companies Com. Rep, 1854, i, 104, say that he died in 1 546. Probably it was the son or daughter of the founder who then died. 4 So say the Company in the Commission's Report, but Dallaway says the executors did so. Dallaway is probably wrong. 5 City Livery Companies Com. Rep. 1884, iv ; Mr. Hare's Reports, 9. 422 SCHOOLS single college between 9 June, 1687, and 24 April, 1695, all recorded to have been under Mr. Wickliffe, one, Nicholas Gilbert son of Thomas Gilbert of Eastbourne, was admitted a fellow ( commoner ; three were admitted as pensioners, or ordinary paying undergraduates, of whom one came from Petworth and the others from Horsham itself; and only one, who was the son of a turner at Horsham, was admitted as sizar. This shows that the school held the status of a public school, attracting boys of good station from the county, and at the same time served as the ' ladder of education to take the poor boy from the shop to the University.' In 1734 the Rev. Robert Atkins was master, with Mr. Charles Hunt as usher. But whether it was then carried on as a grammar school is not ascertained. In August, 1749, the school was put in repair by the company. Dr. Hutchinson, the vicar of Horsham, took the opportunity of urging the claims of Horsham to the surplus income, and the surveyor of highways of Horsham made a formal claim to it for the highways under the residuary gift. The company obtained opinions from the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, William Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, in favour of themselves ; but as they went chiefly on usage as alleged by the Mercers, to take the whole surplus for their own purposes, which usage was in fact contradicted by the increase of salaries in 1596, they are not of great value. An information was filed in Chancery against the company, but a decree made by Lord Keeper Henley dismissed it. But the decree seems to have gone on the residuary gift for highways being construed only to take effect on the gift over to the vicar and churchwardens of Horsham if the Mercers did not pay the salaries ordered to the school. It did not touch the real issue whether the school or the company took the surplus, which in the light of later cases would probably now be decided against the company. Moreover, whatever might have been the strict legal construction of the will, there was no doubt of the real meaning of the testator to establish and maintain a free grammar school for 60 boys at least, and that could not be done in 1750 by payments of £16 ly. ^d. However, the company remained masters of the situation. After fifty years of Mr. Atkins, he was succeeded in 1786 by the Rev. W. Jamieson with Mr. R. Collins as usher. Jamieson held for twenty years. In 1802, the company, out of a rental of £438, spent £50 on the school, £30 on the master, and ,£20 on the usher, and kept the rest themselves. In 1806 the Rev. Thomas Williams became master, and two years later his salary was raised to £110, and that of the usher to £66 135. 4^. He informed the historian Carlisle6 that ' when he came there was not a single boy on the foundation, but ever since his accession . . . there have been 60 boys in regular attendance and not one private boy in the school.' But, reading between the lines, as we find the same master 'takes pupils but never more than 2 at once whom he fits for the Universities, his terms being 200 guineas per annum for each,' and as ' Greek was not taught to the free boys,' we may conclude that he had degraded the school to an elementary school. In 1 8 1 o the company promoted an information in Chancery, which by a decree of 15 April, 1813, gave legal sanction to this degradation. By it boys were to be allowed to remain only till the age of fourteen and taught the three R's, ' and sent to be catechized in church.' It was also provided that ' any number of boys at the discretion of the schoolmaster be also taught the Latin language.' So the school continued till 1822 under Mr. Williams, and from 1822 to 1868 under an elementary schoolmaster, Mr. Price. His salary was in 1836 £120, and the usher's £80. In 1840 the school was rebuilt at a cost of some £3,000. In 1857 the number of boys was raised to 80. Mr. H. A. Giffard reported on the school 7 in 1867 as being a rather inferior kind of national school. In 1868 Mr. Price died, and a ' temporary master,' Mr. James Williams, received £104, but ' does not reside at the school,' which was seemingly carried on by Mr. R. Cragg, the usher, who received £125 a year. In 1876 the Charity Commissioners, acting under the Endowed Schools Acts, began to agitate the question of the right to the endowment and the proper conduct of the school. But it was not till 15 October, 1889, that a scheme made under the Endowed Schools Acts was approved by Queen Victoria in Council. This constituted a governing body of 17, of whom 5 were to be appointed by the Mercers' Company, 6 by the Urban District Council of Horsham, with 4 co-optative governors and the vicar of Horsham ex officio. The Mercers were induced to contribute £3,000 towards building, and the endowment to be assured by them for the school was settled at £700 a year. The school was to be an ordinary grammar school, at tuition fees of £4 to £15 a year, except that Greek was to be an extra subject at £3 a year. Twenty foundation scholarships and a leaving exhibition of £50 a year were provided for. The Rev. George Alfred Thompson was appointed head master in 1890. He was an exhibitioner of St. John's College, Cambridge, junior optime 1885, LL.D. Dublin, and had been for 3 years head master of Hipperholme Grammar School, Yorkshire. He has now 6 resident masters and 130 boys, of whom 24 are boarders in the schoolhouse. 8 Endowed Grammar Schools, ii, 602. * Sch. Inj. Rep. xi, 237. 423 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX STEYNING GRAMMAR SCHOOL William Holland, an alderman of Chichester, by deed dated 16 June, 1614, directed that a free grammar school should be kept and maintained in Steyning, and that a sufficient, learned school- . master should be elected, chosen, appointed, and maintained for the advancement of learning and the ; instruction of youth in the town of Steyning. For this purpose he gave to ten trustees a house called Brotherhood Hall, to be used as a schoolhouse, in which the master should live, with a gar- den, and also some 25 acres of land, from the profits of which the trustees were to keep the house in repair, and with the residue pay the schoolmaster £20 a year.1 The feoffees, with the consent of the founder during his life and of his heirs after his decease, were to appoint the schoolmaster, and if the heirs would not join with the feoffees in the election, the consent of the bishop of Chichester was to be obtained. The founder himself made statutes for the school dated the same day as the foundation deed. He directed that the whole number of scholars should not be above 50, lest the schoolmaster ' be oppressed with multitude and thereby not able to set forward and further the charge to his credit, and profit of his scholars, provided no child or youth living within the liberty and duly qualified be refused.' The master was allowed to take not more than 6 boarders. None were to be admitted who could not read English distinctly. Every scholar on his first admittance was to pay is. to the schoolmaster, or if a 'foreigner,' 2s. Holland also ordained That every Scholar shall pay 8. lay. Rep. xi, 266. 1 Suss. Arch. Coll. xliii, 64. • Wood, Fasti Oxon. i, 461. 4 Lower, Worthies of Suss. (1865), 177. « Gent. Mag. (Sept. 1804), Ixxiv, 806. 424 SCHOOLS ments as Master, but why the DUTY is NOT performed, I am not acquainted.' This state of affairs must have continued for some years, as Carlisle says in 1 8 1 8, ' The affairs of this school are in the Court of Chancery.' 6 In 1 8 1 9 the court made new ordinances for the school. These provided that writing, arithmetic, and the elements of mathematics might be taught if they did not interfere with the working of the school as a classical school. The master's salary was raised to £60 a year if there was enough, after paying expenses.7 From this time the school ceased to be entirely classical. When visited for the Charity Commissioners in 1867, out of 48 boys only one was learning Greek ; most were learning Latin grammar, but their prepared translation was inaccurate. The head master, George Airey, was not a graduate of any university, but had the reputation of being a good scholar and excellent teacher. He had 1 8 boarders.8 He was appointed in 1839, and remained till his death in 1877, when the school was closed. A scheme was made under the Endowed Schools Acts, 6 September, 1880, which established a governing body of eleven : one appointed by the bishop of Chichester, two by the justices of the Steyning division, and three by the vestry, now parish council, and five co-optatives. By them the school was revived. The ancient hall of the Brotherhood of Steyning, which Holland bought for the school, is a timber fifteenth- century building, and although various alterations have been made, remains much in its original condition. The Jacobean porch, showing traces of the brick label over the entrance door, was apparently added at the time of the foundation of the school.9 In 1867 Brotherhood Hall is re- ported 10 to be a crazy wooden building, which has been kept from falling by well-timed repairs. — No amount of money, however, spent on mere repairs would make it fit for its purpose. The dwelling-house is cramped and ill-adapted for the reception of boarders. . . . The question of rebuilding the school was raised at a meeting of the trustees in 1864, but was dropped. We may be thankful for that, as some fourteen or fifteen years later it was found that repairs were possible, and in 1883 the school was reopened in the old house, with the buildings restored and con- siderably enlarged but not outwardly very different. A new head master's house was added, and in 1897 another class-room. On the reopening of the school in 1883 the Rev. Alfred Harre, B.A. of London University, head master of Spalding Grammar School, was appointed head master. He has a staff of three assistant masters, besides two visiting, and there are about 40 boys in the school, the annual fees for day boys being £8, and for boarders 40 to 42 guineas. Boys from the school have been successful in the London Matriculation, University Local and kindred examinations. RYE GRAMMAR SCHOOL It cannot be doubted that a place of the commercial and maritime importance of Rye had its grammar school in mediaeval times, but its mighty mass of municipal records remains, from the scholastic point of view, unsearched. The accepted origin of the grammar school is the foundation by Thomas Peacock by will dated 10 September, 1638. He was a jurat of the corporation in 1636 l and built a house on the south side of the High Street, consisting of two large rooms one above the other, and with a yard and fair-sized garden behind. By his will he gave these premises in trust to nine persons, one the mayor, seven other jurats and one inhabitant of Rye, together with ,£910 to be expended in lands to create a rent-charge of ^32 a year and another rent-charge of £4 out of a tenement in Rye. Having recited that his intention was to found a free school for the better educating and breeding up of youth in good literature, he directed that the house should be for ever kept for a free grammar school ; and the whole ^36 be paid to a schoolmaster and for repairs.2 These directions were complied with soon after Peacock's death. The mayor and jurats made orders for the school, providing that no boys should be admitted till they could read the Old and New Testament, and that when admitted they should be instructed in grammar and other good Latin and Greek authors.3 The first master appointed was Mr. Hartshorn, who, according to Holloway, qualified several pupils for the University.4 The rent-charge of ^4 was redeemed in 1758 for the sum of £50, which was lent to the trustees of Saunders' charity at 5 per cent, a good bargain for the grammar school. The management 6 Carlisle, Endowed Grammar Sch. ii, 614. ' Char. Com. Rep. ii, 178. 8 Sch. Inq. Rep. xi, 265. ' Suss. Arch. Coll. xliii, 64. I0 Sch. Inq. Rep. xi, 265. 1 Holloway, Hist, of Rye (1847), 401. ' Char. Com. Rep. iii, 424. 8 Char. Com. Rep. iii, 424. ' Holloway, Hist, of Rye (1847). 2 425 54 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX seems to have been unsuccessful, as on the death of the Rev. Mr. Collett in 1790 it was decided to amalgamate the school with Saunders' charity, and the Rev. William Jackson was appointed to the joint mastership of both. James Saunders, of Winchelsea, yeoman, by will 7 January, 1708, bequeathed to his executors all his personal estate and the rent of all his lands in trust to accumulate the interest and rents for ten years, and then to buy land in Kent and Sussex to be settled upon the mayor, jurats, and town council of Rye, that they should provide a good convenient school in the town and appoint a good schoolmaster, who should teach the poor children of the town to read in English, and write and cast up accounts, and should teach them the art of navigation gratis. They were not to exceed 70 in number at one time, and were to be nominated by the mayor and jurats. Saunders died in 1709, and, following his directions, his executors waited till 1719, when they bought an estate at Udimore for £720 and conveyed it to the mayor and jurats. In March of the following year the mayor and jurats drew up orders for the school, that the trustees should provide a convenient schoolroom and appoint a master from Lady Day for three years, to be continued, if satisfactory, at £20 a year, and at the end of three years to be paid as much as the estate would allow. The second article declared — That the founder of the said school being a dissenter, and no person or persons, either of the Church of England or of the Protestant dissenters, being excluded by the founder's will from the same privilege with those of his own persuasion, no schooler or schoolers shall be required by the master to goe to any place of worship or to learn any catechism without the consent and approbation of his or their parents or guardians, soe as they goe to some place of worship on every Lord's Day. Having settled the regulations for the school, the trustees chose a master, William Hawney. One of the articles was that no freeman of the borough should be schoolmaster, but when in 1760 the master was made a freeman the rule was repealed on the ground that it might ' tend to discourage persons of ability from offering themselves as candidates for the mastership upon any future vacancy." The amalgamation of the two schools seems to have been a failure, as in 1803 there were only 1 6 boys in the school. This state of things continuing, an application was made to the Court of Chancery in 1812. The result of it was a judgement by the Master of the Rolls in 1820, which ordered that the schools should be separated and a master appointed to each. The master of Peacock's School was to educate 50, and the master of Saunders' 70 boys. The orders were not to be carried into effect till after the payment of the costs, which were £900, ordered to be liquidated at the rate of £30 a year. On the death of Mr. Jackson in 1828, however, the trustees separated the schools and appointed the Rev. Robert Rowe Knott, of St. John's College, Cambridge, master of Peacock's, and Mr. William Stone Stocks, master of Saunders' School.5 Horsfield, whose history was published in 1835, says that under Mr. Knott the grammar school was much improved.6 He left in 1835, and Mr. George Easton was appointed. He was required to teach 40 boys, ' to whom he does ample justice, instructing those in Latin whose parents require it and each scholar in all useful branches of learning.' If one man could ever have performed this task, he had failed to do so by the time of the assistant commissioner's visit in 1867. He reported that the instruction was of a purely elementary kind. ' The master,' still Mr. G. Easton, ' told me he had not time to teach any grammar, and declined to have the boys examined in it .... Neither navigation, which is required by Saunders' statutes, nor Latin, which is required by Peacock's, is taught in the school.' 7 By this time the schools were once more combined by a later order of the Court of Chancery, and the unfortunate master had to teach 70 boys unaided. At length a scheme was made under the Endowed Schools Acts, approved by Queen Victoria in Council, 9 September, 1884, which again amalgamated the two schools under the name of Rye Grammar Schools. A governing body of 1 2 governors was created, headed by the mayor, and comprising, now that school boards are amalgamated in the town councils, 6 representatives of the council with 5 co-optatives. The school was to be a ' third grade,' the boys paying fees of £2 to £6 a year and leaving at the age of 16. A new site and buildings have been provided. Now under Mr. John Molyneux Jenkins and three assistant masters there is a grammar school of 53 boys, of whom 10 are boarders, at tuition fees of £5 12*. 6d. 1 Holloway, Hist, of Rye (1847). In a list of masters of Saunders' School he gives the Rev. John Simpson Myers in 1828, and Mr. Stocks in 1832. 6 Horsfield, Hist, of Suss. i. 1 Sch. Inj. Rep. xi, 258. Mr. Giffard had not studied the history of the school, as he says the schools were combined by an order of the Court of Chancery in 1820, which was not carried into effect till 1856. 426 SCHOOLS HARTFIELD SCHOOL By an inquisition 1 taken at Lewes, 24 December, 1667, it appears that Richard Rands, rector and vicar of Hartfield, by will 30 June, 1640, bequeathed all his lands to trustees to provide one able, learned, discreet, and sufficient schoolmaster, being then a graduate in one of the universities of Oxford or Cambridge, to teach all such children of the parish of Hartfield as shall repair to the said schoolmaster, freely without requireing anything for the same of the said children or any other that have the governance or custodie of the said children, soe as all and every such children shall be able to read English before they shall come to the said schoolmaster to be taught as aforesaid. They were to pay the ' schoolmaster for the time being for his pains therein to be taken £20 of lawfull money of England.' According to the interrogatories it seems that Nehemiah Smyth was the first master appointed, who was a duly qualified graduate, and that he was succeeded by Edward Oliver, also a graduate. The reason for the inquisition was that the bishop of Chichester had, on 12 August, 1662, licensed and the trustees had put in William Weston to be schoolmaster, who was not a graduate, but ' had procured the then incumbent minister to bear the -name of the graduate, that so the words of the will might be satisfied, but the said William Weston was to have the benefit ' ; in other words the vicar, George Shaw, was to be called schoolmaster and William Weston to be his usher, but the latter was to do the duty and receive the pay of master. The bishop as ordinary had sanctioned this breach of trust and insidious evasion of the founder's intention. The trustees had taken advantage apparently of Weston's insecure position to withhold £2 ioj. a year out of the full sum of £20, and get him to accept certain lands in lieu of the money, the tenants of which had then withheld the rent. It was also found that the rents of the Rands lands amounted to £54 a year and the trustees had wasted the balance in unnecessary lawsuits. The commissioners ordered that all arrears should be paid over to William Weston and also £20 ' for damages which he had sustained by reason of the deteining the said stipend and the suites against him prosecuted and putting and keeping him out of the possession of the said lands.' Three of the trustees took exception to this decree, and alleged that the commissioners had browbeat them and refused to hear their evidence or look at their accounts. From the interroga- tories administered to the witnesses and the answers, it appears that Weston had originally been appointed usher in 1659 under the former master, Oliver, but after ' His Majesty's happy restora- tion' Oliver was ejected and Weston, though unqualified, was put in under the new vicar, Shaw. The excepting trustees had put in Mr. Robert Sparke as master, who was an undergraduate of Cambridge, and turned Weston out. But the exceptants were ' disaffected to the present govern- ment.' So apparently the fraud on the foundation was allowed to stand. From that time the school has never been anything but elementary. MIDHURST GRAMMAR SCHOOL At an inquisition la taken at Midhurst, 26 September, 1679, it was proved that on 15 November, 1672, Gilbert Hannam, 'coverlett maker' in Midhurst, 'out of meere charity to the poore children of the towne of Midhurst,' signed a deed, by which he granted out of his real and personal estate in Midhurst to Stephen Ellis, of Newport, in the Isle of Wight, the schoolemaster by my election and his successors, the full summe of £20 per annum for his well teeching and instructing from time to time of 12 boyes, at my election and at the election of my trustees after my death, in Midhurst aforesaid, in Lattin and Greeke and writing and Arithmetrike if they bee capable to learne. The inhabitants at the same time undertook to make ' in the loft of the markett house of Midhurst aforesaid a convenient schooleroome for the said boyes and for many others that shall bee taught there at the choice of the said Mr. Ellis and his successors.' The payment to Mr. Ellis was to begin from the ' ist Monday of the twelvth month next, at which time hee is to begin teaching of schoole.' The jurors at the same inquisition further found that Gilbert Hannam duly paid the £20 a year to Mr. Ellis till his resignation, when he appointed Peregrine Pieram to be schoolmaster. This was before n April, 1674, the date of Hannam's will, in which he confirmed his grant of £20 a year ' to the use and behoofe of the said Peregrine Pieram, schoolemaster by my owne election, 1 Petty Bag. Inq. 19 Chas. II, No. 15. la Petty Bag Inq. No. 38. 427 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX during his natural! life if so long time hee shall remaine Schoolemaster.' Peregrine Pieram was also minister of Midhurst, and as such was to receive 205. a year for preaching a sermon on the anni- versary of Hannam's death. On the death of Mr. Pieram or on his refusal or neglect to teach the school Hannam ordered his trustees to choose a new schoolmaster. The rent-charge of £20 on his real and personal estate was confirmed by Hannam in another deed dated 3 August, 1674. On 12 January, 1677, he made statutes for the governance of the school : Imprimis whereas the No. of my free schollars is 1 2 I doe ordaine that the Schoolemaster doth in a booke bought for that purpose att the cost of my trustees register the names of all such as bee successively admitted under him. Which booke shall bee kept by the Schoolemasters successively. I doe ordaine that noe ladd bee chosen into my free schoole on my foundation but such who have been inhabitants of Midhurst or the liberty of St. Johns 7 yrs. before, because my charity was intended chiefly for this place. That noe ladd shall bee of my foundation but such whose parents or guardians are content they shall bee brought upp in the protestant religion. That such children whose parents declare that theire desire and designe is to continue them soe longe at schoole till they understand the Latine and Greeke tongue and bee fitt for the university bee first chosen and in choice preferred before others. No trustee or schoolmaster was to be — a professed Papist, or popishly enclined or a dissenter from the protestant faith as itt is professed and by lawe established. The Schoolemaster shall instruct my scholars in the protestant religion duely and faithfully and take care for their sober and civill conversation and that prayers bee used once a day at least in the Schoole. Because I think youth very unfitt to teach youth, I ordaine that noe man shall bee capable of teaching my schoole who is under the age of 23 unlesse he hath taken some degree in one of the universities. If hereafter any who have been formerly scholars in my schoole shall become capable of teachinge my schoole that such bee chosen Schoolemaster before others. That noe man be chosen to bee Schoolemaster but hee bee knowne to bee of a sober conversa- tion or if hee bee a stranger that hee bring a certificate from the place he last lived in, or the college of which hee was, or teach my Schoole 6 moneths as a probationer. Gilbert Hannam died two months later, 17 March, 1677, and his will was proved 10 June, 1678. Shortly afterwards a commission of charitable uses was obtained and the inquisition quoted held ; and a decree was made 17 January, 1679, ordering the £20 a year to be paid to the school- master so long as he continued to teach, and if he ' at any tyme or tymes hereafter shall mislike or refuse to teach the said boyes in the Town house, that then the said Schoolemaster soe mislikeing or refuseing shall at his owne proper coste and charges finde and procure a convenient house or roome in Midhurst aforesaid ' ; and it was also ordered that all the orders and statutes ' mentioned and sett forth in the said inquisition ' should be observed and kept by the trustees as well as by the school- master and scholars. Peregrine Pieram was succeeded by Richard Oliver, who had been at Merchant Taylors School and St. John's College Oxford,2 from which he had taken his B.A. degree 1673, M.A. 1677. He became canon of Wells, 1684, rector of Chilbolton, Hampshire, 1685, and archdeacon of Win- chester, 1686, so that he could not have remained long at Midhurst. Henry Levitt became schoolmaster in 1710. He was a chorister3 at Winchester College from 1696 to 1700, when he became a scholar at the age of eleven4 and went on to New College in 1706. He kept his fellowship there till 1722, when he became vicar of Hornchurch. Whether he gave up the mastership then is riot clear, but he may have held it while putting in his younger brother to do the work, the next master known 6 being Everard Levitt, with no date. There was a Levitt junior, Henry Levitt being Levitt senior, among the choristers at Winchester College from 1699 to 1704. Carlisle gives Serenus Barratt as the next master in 1735, and if the date is correct he must have been the son of Serenus Barret,6 who was a curate of Midhurst, having been at Lincoln College, Oxford, and taken his B.A. in 1697, and became rector of New Fishbourne, Sussex, 1713. After him came three masters who have not been traced. From 1799 there was a succession of Wykehamist head masters, under whom the school stood high as one of the principal schools of West Sussex. John Wooll 7 entered college at Winchester in 1779 and New College in 1785. He took his B.A. degree 1790, M.A. 1794, and B.D. and D.D. 1807, in which year he left Midhurst to become head master of Rugby School. He was succeeded by William Bayly, scholar of Winchester 1792 and of New College 1796, who had been vicar of Hartpury, Gloucestershire, since 1803. ' Foster> Jbmni. » C. W. Holgate, Winch. Long Rolls, 1653-1721. Kirby, much. Scholars, 217. » Carlisle, Endowed Grammar Schools, ii, 607. ' Ft»«r, Alumni. ' Kirby, Winchester Scholars, 272. 428 SCHOOLS In 1 8 1 8, when he was head master, Carlisle 8 speaks in high terms of the school : — This institution has, for some years past, been a Classical School of very great Eminence, — annually sending Students to the Universities, and ranking among its Pupils, besides many independent Members, several lately admitted upon the Foundation of the most respectable Colleges in each. At that time, ' the School-House, originally the Residence of the Founder, having been much improved and enlarged by several successive Masters, has lately been augmented by a considerable addition to the premises.' Dr. Bayly had two assistant masters, both graduates, and he had 60 boarders in his house, who paid 50 guineas. The report of Lord Brougham's Commission of Inquiry on the Education of the Poor in 1 8 1 9 9 shows that the school was entirely the creation of the masters, the endowment being only £32 a year, out of which £20 was the master's salary, while Dr. Bayly alone had spent £2,000 upon the buildings and paid an annuity of £4.0 a year to the widow of a former master. There were 6 boys on the foundation ; whereas there had been 1 2 ; but they had disappeared partly through the competition of a cheaper private ' grammar ' school kept by a former assistant master, partly through a new national school. It is pleasing to note that the foundation boys were not, as in some other schools at this date, treated as an inferior class and kept apart, but on the same footing as the boarders and paying day-boys, of whom there were several. One of the free boys was in the highest class. Among Dr. Bayly's pupils was Field-Marshal Sir Frederick Haines, G.C.B. When he was at school in 1828 10 ' the School consisted of one immense room,' which was built in 1821." It was not partitioned off as it is now into three separate apartments. The elder Dr. Bailey was nearing the end of his reign then. He was a little man, but a very strong one and his effective rule had given the School its high standing. The young men of the senior class generally qualified for a University career direct from the School. They were also his first aids in disciplinary matters, — the Winchester Prefect system. The younger Dr. Bailey was taller in figure and an equally good classic, but not nearly so good as a disciplinarian. The gradual reduction of the age of the head pupils was one of the main causes of the School's decline, for these younger boys never had the influence and control of their older pre- decessors. Thus in the time of the younger Dr. Bailey the School fell on evil days, and a report, probably calumnious, states that the numbers dwindled to one boy, who ran away. . . . A feature of the curriculum that would not appeal to the present age was the prominence given to Latin and Greek and the almost total neglect of everything else. . . . The School walls in those days were absolutely bare and there was no such thing as a blackboard on the premises. Each pupil had one or two desks called 'Xobs' and pronounced ' Scobs ' "a and when the lids of these were erected the owner thereof was nicely entrenched in his own castle. . . . The lavatory was a pump in the open air. The last two items proclaim the Wykehamist head master, the desks copied from the ' Scobs ' in ' School,' and the pump out of doors like ' Conduit ' in ' Chamber Court ' at Winchester. The younger Dr. Bayly had become a scholar at Winchester in 1818 12 and New College in 1822. The decline of the school continued. The Schools Inquiry Commissioner13 who visited in 1866 reported that it had been in abeyance for eight years. The master's house had then gone completely to decay. In February, 1860, the trustees resolved to take steps for restoring the school and the Charity Commissioners prepared a scheme, but it was not carried into execution in con- sequence of the opposition raised by Lord Egmont, the principal trustee. The school remained in abeyance until a scheme, made under the Endowed Schools Acts, constituted a governing body of eleven persons, consisting of the queen's bailiff of Midhurst, and the vicar ex qfficio, with four representatives of the vestry (now the parish council), and five co-optatives, headed by the seventh Earl of Egmont, and directed it to be carried on as a second-grade grammar school at fees of £4 to £8 a year. The school was reopened in 1882 under Mr. Horace Byatt, M.A., of London University. The numbers were fairly steady under him at between 40 and 50, about 12 being boarders. In 1888 the income from endowment was only £41 a year, charged with the replacement of £1,200 spent in buildings. To this £80 a year was added out of the income of George Ognell's charity, founded in 1596 for the poor and 'other good and charitable uses,' by a scheme made under the Charitable Trusts Acts, 20 February, 1880. The present head master is Mr. Thomas Hay. He was educated at Newcastle Grammar School and was an exhibitioner at St. John's College, Cambridge, and a senior optime in 1895, and B.Sc. of 8 Carlisle, Endowed Grammar Schools, 607. * Char. Com. Rep. i, 175. 10 Midhurst School Mag. No. 4, Dec. 1904, p. 10. " Sch. Inj. Rep. xi, 255. "a This word is still in use at Winchester. It has been shown to be a corruption of scabellum, a stool or form, the name being transferred from the form to the chest which rested on it. " Kirby, Winchester Scholars, 302. " Sch. Inj. Rep. xi, 255. 429 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX London in 1897. He came to Midhurst in 1903 from an assistant-mastership at Chelmsford Grammar School. There are 7 1 boys in the school at tuition fees of 7 guineas a year. The standard aimed at is that of the Oxford Local Examinations. In 1888 four scholarships of £$ each were founded, and three Smith scholarships for boys on admission to the school, and one lord of the manor scholarship for the boy who does best in the annual examination. In 1900 science buildings were added with the aid of a contribution of ^400 from the county council. A new scheme was sealed by the Board of Education on 26 April, 1905, which created a new governing body of 14 persons : the vicar ex qfficio, 3 representatives of the West Sussex county council, 4 of the Midhurst parish council, one of the university of Oxford, and 5 co-optatives. By this scheme instruction is to be given ' in such subjects proper to be taught in a Public Secondary School for boys as the governors, in consultation with the head master, shall from time to time determine,' and boys are allowed to stay to 1 7 years of age and in special cases to 1 9. The scheme also provided for six Hannam scholarships for boys from public elementary schools. In 1879 to the old schoolroom, 33 ft. by 32 ft. 2 in. and 21 ft. high, were added two class-rooms, 23 ft. by 15 ft. I O in., at a cost of £450. The playground is some two acres. A new master's house with accommodation for 15 boarders was built at a cost of £2,100, of which £1,315 was raised by subscriptions. EAST GRINSTEAD SCHOOL The free grammar school at East Grinstead was endowed by Robert Payne, of Newick, by will dated 1 6 August, 1708, with the rent of a farm called ' Serreys Farm ' in East Grinstead, under the management of seven trustees. They were to appoint boys of the parish only, in number according to the value of the rent. A schoolhouse was in existence before 1708, but that had fallen into decay before I775,1 and after that the school was held in a room lent by Lord De La Warr, who was one of the trustees. In 1818 there were 25 free boys, who were admitted from six to eleven years of age, and could stay till their twelfth birthday, and about 40 other boys attended the school, paying a small weekly fee, 6d. to i s. Latin and Greek had not then been taught for at least forty-five years, and the boys were only learning the three Rs.2 The average number of boys in 1835 is said to have been 80, of whom 25 were free,3 but the master, Mr. C. R. Duplex, was constantly engaged in litigation with the trustees, which caused the school to be shut up from 1839 to 1847, when a new scheme was made by the Court of Chancery. The expenses of it amounted to ^261 9*. 6d. which were defrayed by the sale of timber on the farm. By this scheme, the English language, reading, writing and arithmetic, the Church Catechism and the Holy Scriptures were substituted for Latin and Greek. There were 25 free boys, and 15 paying ^d. to 6d. a week in 1867, under the same master, C. Duplex, who had been there in 1835, and the instruction was said to be far below that of a good national school.4 By a scheme under the Endowed Schools Act of 29 June, 1888, the endowment was reclaimed for secondary education in the form of exhibitions of £ i o to £30 a year, open to boys and girls of East Grinstead, between twelve and fourteen years old, and for evening classes in scientific, technical, or literary subjects. BRIGHTON COLLEGE41 The establishment ot Brighton College was due to a public meeting held on 27 October, 1845. At a second meeting, on 15 December, a council was appointed to carry out the design, the president being the then earl of Chichester, who held the office till his death in 1886. In May, 1 846, the council hired Portland House, at the top of Portland Place, at the east end of Brighton, for three years at a rent of 120 guineas. On 10 August they appointed the Rev. Arthur John Macleane, B.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, principal. The first vice-principal was the Rev. Henry Cotterill, M.A. late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, senior wrangler, first Smith's prizeman, and in the first class of the classical tripos, 1835. 1 Char. Com. Rep. ii, 165. * Carlisle, Endowed Grammar Schools, ii, 601. 1 Horsfield, Hist, of Sussex, i, 387. * Scb. Inf. Rep. xi, 226. 1 The facts for this article are taken from the Brighton College Reg. pt. i, 1847-63 and from articles in the Ludgate Illustrated Mag. August, 1894, and the Public School Mag. April, 1899. 43° SCHOOLS The college was opened 26 January, 1847, with 47 pupils. Among them was the present Chichele Professor of International Law at Oxford, Thomas Erskine Holland, who was six years in the school. In the beginning of 1848 land in Eastern Road was bought on a ninety-nine years' lease, and the design of Mr. (afterwards Sir) Gilbert Scott chosen for the building, the foundation stone of which was laid on 27 June, 1848. The removal from Portland House to the new building took place on 24 January, 1849. Only the principal front, containing the class-rooms, was then ready. The principal's house was finished in 1854, the chapel in 1859, the dining-hall in 1863, and six boarding houses, the entrance tower (in 1886-7), an^ big schoolroom have been later additions. Mr. Macleane left in 1851 to become head master of King Edward's Grammar School, Bath. He was succeeded by Mr. Cotterill, the vice-principal, who after five years' head-mastership was appointed to the bishopric of Grahamstown, which he gave up in 1871 to become bishop of Edinburgh. For forty years continuously his family was represented in the school. One of his pupils was the distinguished architect Mr. J. G. Jackson, who won a scholarship and afterwards a fellowship at Wadham College, Oxford. He was architect of the examination schools at Oxford, and built the entrance tower and big school at Brighton College in 1882-6. The Rev. John Griffith, LL.D. St. John's College, Cambridge, was appointed in 1856 and remained till 1871, when he retired to the living of Sandridge, Hertfordshire, and was succeeded by the Rev. Charles Bigg, D.D., sometime tutor of Christ Church, who in 1881 was appointed rector of Fenny Compton, Warwick- shire. His successor was the Rev. Thomas Hayes Belcher, in whose time the misleading title principal was exchanged for that of head master. He retired to the rectory of Bramley in 1892, and the Rev. R. Halley Chambers of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, became head master, but only stayed three years, being then appointed head master of Christ's College, Brecon. The Rev. Arthur Fluitt Titherington of Queen's College, Oxford, who was stroke of the Oxford boat in 1887, and had been for six years an assistant master at Radley, was appointed in 1895. He left in 1906 to become rector of Bramshott, Hampshire, and the Rev. William Rodgers Dawson, M.A., Trinity College, Dublin, and a very successful head master of Grantham Grammar School, was appointed. The school has its paper, the Brighton College Magazine, started in 1855, to which Mr. Grant Allen, when a master in the early 'seventies, often contributed, and which numbers among its past editors a grandson of Charles Dickens and a son of G. P. R. James. There are now 180 boys, of whom about 90 are day boys, who are organized into a regular house, and have their own rooms and play as a house in all the competitions. The boarders are divided into six boarding houses, of which one is for the junior school, which feeds the college. All the learned societies and games clubs common to all public schools flourish here also. BRIGHTON GRAMMAR SCHOOL This school was started in 1859 by a body of proprietors for the benefit of their own sons primarily, to provide them with a ' liberal and complete education at a moderate cost, without necessity of sending them from under supporters' own domestic care.' The course of instruction was to include superior English education, Greek, German, Latin, French, arithmetic, book-keeping, merchants' accounts, mathematics, algebra, natural philosophy, mensuration, drawing, perspective, mapping, navigation, history, geography, chronology, astronomy, use of the globes, composition, elocution, &c. The religious instruction was to be strictly unsectarian. The whole control of the school, appointment and dismissal of masters, was vested in the proprietors, who were to appoint a committee of eight every six months. The original home of the school was Lancaster House, No. 47, Grand Parade, but new premises were built. In 1865 there were about 170 boys, of whom 15 were boarders. Most of them learnt Latin and French, besides English subjects, but the average age of the highest form was not above fourteen. There are now 350 boys, 50 of them being boarders in the head master's house. He is Mr. T. Read, B.A., B.Sc., and was himself educated at the school. He had been for six years a master at the City of London School, and for ten years second master before being appointed to the head-mastership in 1899. He has a staff of 18 assistant masters. THE WOODARD SCHOOLS1 In 1848 the Rev. Nathaniel, afterwards Canon, Woodard, then curate of New Shoreham, issued a pamphlet called A Plea for the Middle Classes, in which he propounded a scheme for 1 The history of these foundations is taken from a pamphlet called St. Nicholas College and its Schools, by Edward C. Lowe, D.D., provost of Denstone, canon of Ely. (James Parker & Co., 1878.) 43 ! A HISTORY OF SUSSEX providing a public school education for the classes between the rich and the poor. His plan was to found a society of men who should combine, like fellows of a college, to build, endow, and govern schools for the benefit of the middle class. With the consent of the bishop of Chichester, Mr. Woodard set to work to constitute this society under the name of ' the provost and fellows of St. Nicholas College,' he himself taking the office of provost. The society was not incorporated under royal charter, nor by Act of Parliament, but the trust deed was enrolled in Chancery. It states that the society was formed 2 for the purpose of promoting and extending education among the middle classes in her Majesty's dominions, and especially among the poorer members of those classes in the doctrines and principles of the Church now established as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies of the said Church ; and it is intended that the operations of the said society shall be carried on by means of colleges and schools established, and to be established, in various places : no such college or school to be founded or opened without the permission of the Bishop of the diocese within which the same may be situate ; the education in such colleges and schools to be conducted by clergymen and laymen in communion with the said church. And ... it has been determined that such colleges or schools shall be of three distinct grades or classes — the first for the sons of clergymen and other gentlemen ; the second for the sons of substantial tradesmen, farmers, clerks and others of similar station ; and the third for the sons of petty shopkeepers, skilled mechanics and other persons of very small means, who have at present no opportunity of procuring better instruc- tion than is given in parochial and other primary schools, and that the charges in all the schools shall be on as moderate a scale as the means of the society will allow. St. Nicholas College was at first confined to Sussex, but in 1866 an invitation from the diocese of Lichfield led to a plan of general organization for the whole country. There were to be five centres, for the east, west, north, south, and midland counties. Each centre was to have a provost and 12 fellows, sufficiently endowed to enable them to devote their whole time to the work of education in their district, and they were to be helped by 12 non-resident fellows, elected from gentlemen in the district. Besides the provost and these 24 fellows there were to be (i) 24 actual fellows ; (2) 24 probationary fellows, all engaged in the work of education and sharing the net profits of the school ; and (3) a body of associates. This organization was only carried out in Sussex, where the three schools for the three grades were started, and in Staffordshire, where only one school, St. Chad's, Denstone, has come into being. The Sussex schools consisted of a grammar school at Lancing, a middle school at Hurstpierpoint, and a lower middle school at Ardingly. LANCING COLLEGE The school began in 1847 in Mr. Woodard's own house in Shoreham, and other houses were taken as the number of boys increased. The building of the college, on a site of 230 acres, began ini854,when there were 60 boys ; and in 1857 was sufficiently advanced for the school to be removed to Lancing. The buildings are on a magnificent scale. It was not till 1899, when the college celebrated its jubilee, that the chapel could be used, though then not nearly finished. There is a large schoolroom ; twelve classrooms with 30 boys' studies, which were the gift of Mr. Henry Martin Gibbs, who had been in the school from 1866 to 1870 ; two dining-halls, library, museum, science laboratories and all the necessary modern additions, carpenter's shop, gymnasium, fives court, armoury, &c. The head and second masters have separate boarding houses. The first head masters were shortlived in their office : the Rev. Henry Jacobs, D.D., fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, only staying a few months ; and the Rev. Charles Edward Moberly, scholar of Balliol, afterwards assistant master at Rugby, for two years, 1849-51. One of the earliest scholars was Henry Nettleship, who entered 1849 an(l left 1852. He was Corpus Professor of Latin at Oxford, 1848, editor of Virgil and Persius, and author of many works on scholar- ship. Lancing can only claim a third part of his distinction, as he was afterwards at school at Dur- ham and Charterhouse before getting a scholarship at Corpus, Oxford, in 1856. The head master at the time of the removal was the Rev. John Branthwaite, fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, but he was obliged by ill-health to resign very shortly after, and was succeeded by the Rev. Henry Walford, who only stayed two years ; his successor, the Rev. Robert Edward Sanderson, D.D., of Lincoln College, Oxford, reigned for thirty years, from 1859 to l889> when he became canon of Chichester. He had previously been head master at Bradfield College for eight years. One of his earliest pupils, Henry George Woods, gained a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1 86 1, and after being fellow and tutor of Trinity College, was elected president in 1887. In the same year the senior wrangler at Cambridge was John Cyril lies, who had been in the school 1877-84. On Canon Sanderson's resignation the Rev. Harry Ward McKenzie, of Keble College, ' Trust Deed of St. Nicholas College, enrolled in Chancery. 432 \ SCHOOLS Oxford, who had been assistant master at Wellington, was appointed. During his time Canon Woodard died, at the age of eighty, in 1891, and was buried beneath the Founder's Chapel, which is at the east end of the south aisle of the chapel, and the Rev. Edward Clarke Lowe, canon of Ely, formerly head master of Hurstpierpoint, became provost. Mr. Mackenzie left in 1895 to become second master at Durham School, and the Rev. Ambrose John Wilson, D.D., fellow of Queen's and tutor of St. John's College, Oxford, was chosen to fill his place. He had previously been head master of Melbourne Grammar School. He left in 1901, and was' succeeded by the present head master, Bernard Henry Tower, the first layman, who was an old boy, having entered in 1869 and left 1878, with a scholarship at Pembroke College, Oxford. He obtained first classes in moderations and the final schools, and was for nineteen years assistant master at Sedbergh School. He has a staff of 1 1 assistant masters, all graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, as well as music and drawing teachers. The office of chaplain is now combined with that of second master, and is filled by a Lancing old boy, the Rev. Thomas William Cook, who obtained an exhibition at Hertford College, Oxford, in 1889. There are now 163 boys in the school. HURSTPIERPOINT COLLEGE A year after the opening ot his first school Canon Woodard started his middle school, in August, 1849, m a small cottage at Shoreham. It was moved in January, 1850, to the 'Mansion House,' in the village of Hurstpierpoint, and took over other houses and cottages as they became available. Meanwhile a site had been bought and buildings erected for the accommodation of 300 scholars with masters and servants, into which the school was moved in 1853. It was called the College of St. John before the Latin Gate. The buildings were on a generous scale, a dining hall 78 ft. by 32 ft., upper and lower schoolrooms each more than 70 ft. long, classrooms, dormitories for 50 boys, all on a proportionate scale. The chapel was opened later, in October, 1865, the head master's house in 1873, and later still the infirmary and gymnasium, the whole costing more than £70,000. They were all designed by Mr. R. C. Carpenter. The highest charge for boys with all fees included amounted to less than £40 a year, and they received an ordinary classical education, the first head master, the Rev. E. C. Lowe, D.D., greatly insisting on the utility of Latin as a training for the mind, even for those who were to follow commercial pursuits. There was also a special school for boys who had the means, but were not intended for the learned professions. They had their own study, attended the classes of the school when they fitted in, but received private tuition in other subjects, tor which they paid a higher fee than the other boys. There were never more than 1 6 in this school. Another department was the training school for schoolmasters. Youths entered at sixteen on a three years' course of study, at the end of which they could by examination obtain a certificate which enabled them to get a post as assistant in any school of St. Nicholas College. In many cases they went to the universities after their three years' training. A fourth division of the school was for servitors. These were 1 6 poor boys who did house- hold work in the morning, and had three hours' teaching in English subjects in the afternoon and evening. Eight of them paid £5 a year, and received part of their clothing from the college, and the other 8 paid j£iO, succeeding to vacancies at the cheaper rate as they occurred. There was a scholarship from this school to the school at Ardingly, from which a boy might win a scholarship to the grammar school at Hurstpierpoint, and from there to the university, but the boys seldom went to the universities, though in May, 1867, there were 6 at Oxford and Cambridge.1 When Dr. Lowe left in 1873 to become provost of Denstone, there were 347 boys, which meant a terrible state of overcrowding. The first novelty having worn off and many other cheap schools having sprung up, the numbers began to decline in spite of all the efforts of the head masters who succeeded him. They were the Rev. W. Awdry, now bishop of South Tokio, who came from Winchester College, where he had been second master, and stayed till 1880 ; the Rev. C. E. Cooper, who took his place and stayed till 1902, when he took the living of Portslade. The present head master is the Rev. A. H. Coombes, of St. John's College, Oxford, late an assistant master at Clifton College. He has a staff of 9 assistant masters, 5 of whom are university graduates, and the school now aims at being a public school like the rest, of a strong Church of England cast. The training college and servitors have been done away with, and all ideas of class swept away, the school being simply for those who desire a public school education for their sons at a cost of from £40 to £60 a year. The head and second masters receive boarders in their houses at a rather higher rate than is paid for boys in the college, and there are now 122 boys. A school magazine was started in 1858, which has been continuous to the present day. The college is surrounded by 24 acres of its own land, most of which is laid out in playing fields and a swimming bath was built in 1900. 1 Sri. Inj. Ref. xi, 241. 2 433 55 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX ST. SAVIOUR'S SCHOOL, ARDINGLY The lower middle school was opened in 1858 in a house at Shoreham, and at first the terms were only 14 guineas a year. The first head master was the Rev. F. M. D. Mertens, M.A., and the whole teaching staff for some years was formed of men who had grown up in one or other of St. Nicholas Schools. It was soon found out that the school was a success, and the numbers increased so rapidly that a site of about 200 acres was bought at Ardingly, near Hayward's Heath, on which buildings were erected, designed to accommodate not less than 1,000 boys when completed. But when the school was removed there in 1870 schoolroom and dormitory accommodation for only 400 was finished. There were then about 300 boys. The terms were raised to 1 5 guineas, and 1 8 guineas in the head master's house. There was a plan of appointing four boys exhibitioners who were in the position of pupil teachers, receiving a small salary till they were sixteen, when they went to the training college at Hurstpierpoint, from which they could pass an examination for the associateship of St. Nicholas College, which enabled them to become assistant masters in the schools of this foundation. There was no qualification for admission at first, but the want of accommodation necessitated a change, and a boy had to be able to read before admission. The lowest forms learnt reading and writing and other elementary subjects, but Latin was taught to about half the school, and the elder boys learnt Euclid and algebra. A good cricket field was laid out, and a fine swimming bath formed from a stream running through the grounds. The school was self-supporting, the only endowment being a foundation fellowship of £45 held by the head master. Canon Lowe, writing in 1878, said : 'If the school should cease to be self-supporting at present charges these would have to be raised.' It was found that the low terms were not sufficient to meet expenses, and they are now from £23 to £27 per annum. The curriculum is chiefly commercial, but the boys learn Latin or German, French, Greek or drawing in the ordinary school course, and special opportunities are given to those who wish to take orders. There have only been three head masters. Mr. Mertens stayed till 1894, when he was suc- ceeded by the Rev. G. T. Hilton, and he by the present head master, the Rev. H. A. Rhodes, who had been at Shrewsbury School, exhibitioner of Christ Church, Oxford, and assistant master at Christ's Hospital for two years before coming to Ardingly in September, 1904. EASTBOURNE COLLEGE The college was founded in 1867 by the Duke of Devonshire and others, who are nominally shareholders, as a limited company on the Company's Acts. But it is governed by a council of eight members of which the duke is chairman. No dividend has ever been paid, and all the profits have been used in the improvement of the buildings and for the good of the school. The school was started in a small building close to St. Saviour's church and removed in 1869 to the present site close to the golf links, but it stands in its own grounds of 8 acres and consists of class rooms, chapel, Cavendish library, laboratory, drawing-school, workshop, gymnasium and fives courts. There are five boarding houses, one the head master's, known as the schoolhouse. Unfortunately too little surrounding ground was bought at the first, and houses have since been built, so that half the school has to play on a ground five minutes' walk away. The first head master was the Rev. James Russell Wood, who only stayed two years. He was succeeded in 1871 by the Rev. Thompson Podmore, scholar and fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, 1842-51, who had been for 8 years master of Elstree Hill School, Hertfordshire. He began so well that there were soon more than 100 boys, but before he left the numbers had begun to go down. In 1886 the Rev. George Robert Green, scholar of Lincoln College, Oxford, B.A. in 1854, M.A. 1856, was promoted from the second mastership, in which he had been very successful. Unfortunately his health gave way and in two years he had to leave. In 1888 the Rev. Charles Crowden, D.D. was appointed. He was also a scholar of Lincoln, who had been 22 years head master of Cranbrook Grammar School, Kent, and brought 40 or 50 boys with him from there. During his reign of 7 years, the numbers reached nearly 200. Ill-health was the cause of his retirement also. His successor in 1895 was the Rev. Matthew Albert Bayfield, scholar of Clare College, Cambridge, who had been head master of Christ's College, Brecon, from 1890 to 1895. On his retirement in 1 900, Mr. Harry Redmond Thomson, the first lay head master, was appointed. He had been scholar of University College, Oxford, B.A. 1883, and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple 1887. He seems to have found his true vocation in school-mastering and his resignation on account of his wife's ill-health in 1 905 was accepted with general regret. 434 \ SCHOOLS His successor was the present head master, the Rev. F. S. Williams, of Jesus College, Cam- bridge, formerly assistant master at Rugby School. He has a staff of 1 2 assistant masters, graduates of the universities. There are now some 180 boys, of whom about 150 are boarders. A great feature of the school is its rifle corps, which is the largest of any public school in proportion to its numbers. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL, WEST HORSHAM On 29 May, 1902, the schools of Sussex were reinforced by the greatest of them all, through the removal from its narrow precincts in the Grey Friars, London, of the essentially civic institution of Christ's Hospital to the spacious area of 1,181 acres, of which the school grounds occupy 125 acres, lately the property of the Aylesbury Dairy Company, at West Horsham. The story of Christ's Hospital in its former abode is part of the story of London, not of Sussex ; and must be reserved for the London volumes of this history. Suffice it here to correct the tradition that has been for long current and which was emphasized in the speech at the laying of the foundation stone of the present buildings by the Prince of Wales in 1898, wherein it was stated that the hospital was founded by the saintly King Edward VI who besides assigning it a site in the city of London . . . with his own hands inserted in the charter power to take lands in mortmain, which has enabled the munificence of subsequent benefactors to provide for nearly three and a half centuries for the nurture and education of children. The historian of Cambridge University, Mr. J. Bass Mullinger,1 included Christ's Hospital among the ' upwards of 30 Free Grammar Schools founded at this time ' which ' have permanently associated the name of Edward VI with popular education.' In point of fact, in no real sense did Edward VI found Christ's Hospital, he did not write the licence in mortmain with his own hand, and it was certainly not founded as a free grammar school. On the contrary, Christ's Hospital is a unique foundation in origin and history. Almost alone among the ancient public schools of England it was the product not of any single benefactor's benefaction, but the result of an organized public subscription and more or less voluntary rate ; and that not for a grammar school at all, but for a foundling hospital and ragged school for gutter children of both sexes. The contribution of Edward VI to it consisted of an impression of the great seal attached to a piece of parchment, some confiscated church linen and his name. Its very site and buildings were not the gift of Edward VI but a purchase from Henry VIII, and it never derived a penny of income from the property comprised in the charter of Edward VI, which went entirely to the other ' Royal Hospitals ' included in it. The site and buildings, the dissolved monastery of the Grey Friars was, in fact, granted to the city of London by Henry VIII by deed and charter of foundation of 27 December, 1547, with licence in mortmain up to 1,000 marks, or £666 13*. ifd. a year, to be a collegiate church consisting of a vicar, a 'visitor of Newgate' or prison chaplain, and five curates or chantry priests. The city getting the Grey Friars gutted the church and leased the buildings. In 1551 Lord Mayor Dobbs and a committee devised a plan ' to take out of the streets all the fatherless children and other poor men's children that were not able to help them, and bring them to the late dissolved house of the Grey Friars, which they devised to be a hospital .... but lest the children being taken from the dunghill might infect one another. . . . Finsbury Court was to be a refuge in time of sickness' while 'the sucking children .... should be kept in the country.' At that time the Grey Friars ' stood empty, only a number of hores and rogues harbored therein at night, saving the vicar of Christ Church.' Repairs were begun 26 July, 1552, and it was furnished. The king by warrant directed that ' all the linen belonging to the churches of London should be delivered .... for the use of the poor, reserving sufficient for the communion table, with towels and surplices for the ministers,' but even this was mostly used for St. Thomas's Hospital, which the city bought for the good round sum of £2,461 2s. 6d. or some £50,000 of our money. In November, 1552, 380 children taken out of the streets were put into Christ's Hospital, and this was the real foundation of it. The charter was not granted till 26 June, 1553- Its main purpose was to give the city corporation a separate incorporation as ' the Governors of the possessions, revenues and goods of the Hospitals of King Edward the Sixth, King of England, of Christ, Bride- well and St. Thomas the Apostle,' with a licence to hold lands up to the yearly value of 4,000 marks for the use of these hospitals. The truth is that the whole institution from beginning to end was entirely the conception and execution of the citizens of London themselves, who found £2,479 (£5°>00°) to start tne hospitals. 1 Social England, iii, 229. 435 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX In a contemporary MS. the 'sum total of all the chardges of Christ's Hospital sythen the tyme of the ereccion thereof unto the last day of June 1554 as well as in buyldinge, beddes and other furnyture' was £4,610 os. k\d. This last sum, equivalent to about £100,000, was provided by gifts of the mayor and aldermen, £143 ; governors, £140 ; collections from the city wards, £847 ; collections from parishes, £240 ; gifts of individuals, £90 ; collecting boxes, £153 ; council receipts, including two fines of £100 each for refusing to serve as sheriffs, £254 ; legacies, £259 ; and monthly collections ranging from £111 on 27 November, 1552, to £205 on 13 May, 1554. All these sums must be multiplied by 25 to give any idea of their relative value nowadays. St. Thomas's Hospital endowment brought in £346 in two years. The first endowment of Christ's Hospital was a house opposite the hospital bought from Laurence Warren, goldsmith, on 7 December, 1553, for £157 by a loan from some of the governors. As it brought in £32 a year it was a good bargain. In 1558-9 the same system was maintained. Out of a total receipt of £2,532, monthly col- lections brought in £1,059 an(^ legacies £221. To show the class of children admitted it may be noted that the contemporary historian, John Howes, first clerk of the hospital, records how ' a number of children, being taken from the dunghill, when they came to swete and cleane keping and to a pure dyett dyed downe righte.' In 1564 a general account showed that ' since the first ereccion ' there had been admitted in all 1,916, of whom no less than 733 had died, 866 had been discharged, and there were then 'in the house 317.' Yet a school was set up at once, 'a Grammer Schoolemayster ' at £15 a year, a very good salary for those days, a Cramer usher at £10, a ' teacher to wrighte ' at £3 6s. Sd., < schoolmaisters for the Petties ABC ' at £2 13*. ^d., and ' a Teacher of pricksonge ' or ' scoolemaister of muisicke ' at £2 ly. i^d. a year, which was the same salary as the tailor of the establishment received. Whether co-education of the sexes was practised we do not know. By what steps this foundling hospital and ragged school of 317, part of a vast scheme of poor relief, supported by voluntary contributions, grew into three different schools, of which the boys' school in the city contained 800, all of the upper and lower middle class, wholly separated in government from the other hospitals, and almost wholly supported by vast endowments bringing in some £85,000 a year, is a most interesting story, which cannot be told here. By a scheme made, after some twenty years' struggle, by the Charity Commissioners acting under the Endowed Schools Acts and approved by Queen Victoria in Council 15 August, 1890, it was provided that there should be three ' Hospital schools,' one for boys, one for girls, and a pre- paratory school for boys ; a ' Day ' science school for boys, and a day school for girls, within 3 miles of the Royal Exchange. The governors, called 'the Council of Almoners,' were directed to provide proper site and buildings ' within a convenient distance of the city of London ' for 700 boarders, and a preparatory school for 1 20 boarders, and to use the old buildings ' until other suitable buildings are provided and no longer.' After a prolonged 'battle of the sites' the new buildings were begun on plans of Mr., now Sir, Aston Webb, R.A., and Mr. Ingress Bell in 1893, in red brick with white stone quoins and facings. They cost upwards of £423,460, exclusive of water and electric supply, fittings, and furniture. There is a fine chapel, 158 ft. long, and a hall 152 ft., where the whole 700 boys of the upper school have all their meals together. But they sleep and live in seven blocks, each con- taining 2 houses of 50 boys, called after the names of distinguished alumni, Peele, Thornton, Middleton, Coleridge, Lamb, Barnes, and Maine. East of them stands the preparatory block, where 120 boys from ten to thirteen live apart from the upper school. There are 34 class rooms, 4 science rooms, and an art school. The boys still wait at table, clean their own boots, and make their own beds. The main difference is that the controlling matrons have been superseded by house masters, and the discipline is no longer in the hands of a warden, but rests with the head master. The old dress, long blue coat to the heels, with brown leather girdle and yellow hose, unsuited perhaps to the country and the century, is retained. Though now established in Sussex, the school has no local connexion with the county, but is recruited from England at large, and, as is historically right, predominantly from London. Owing to the circumstance that by the Endowed Schools Acts a large number of the later endowments were excluded from the scheme of 1890, the nominations by so-called donation governors, which the reformers aimed at abolishing, and had reduced to a minimum of 300 boys, were by an unfortunate decision and scheme of Mr. Justice Chitty increased to 450, or considerably more than a third of the whole foundation. For a payment of £500 down, each donation governor is allowed always to have in the school a nominee, who receives education and maintenance worth £80 a year at least. These donation governors are, however, now expressly forbidden to sell the right of nomination. Donation governors have also the right of nominating competitors for 1 50 places in the three schools together. Besides these the Council of Almoners, who are nearly half donation governors, nominate competitors for another 150 places. About a seventh of the 436 SCHOOLS boys may be drawn, if not from the class originally contemplated by the founders, at least from the working, and not from the middle, class; through a provision that 105 places in the school are to be filled by competition from the public elementary schools of London. The rest, if any, of the boys are to be elected by competition from schools higher than elementary which are subject to schemes made under the Endowed Schools Acts. In March, 1907, there were 325 presentees of donation governors, 109 nominees by them (selected out of 10 nominations for each vacancy), 134 from elementary schools, 116 from secondary schools, and 55 under special charities. On the removal a new head master was appointed, the Rev. Arthur William Upcott, now D.D. He was a Sherborne boy, scholar of Exeter College, first class in Moderations and second class in 'Greats' at Oxford. He had been head master of St. Mark's School, Windsor, 1886-91, and then of St. Edmund's School, Canterbury, otherwise the Clergy Orphan School. There are 17 assistant masters on the classical side; 8 on the modern side; 5 science masters ; 2 commer- cial ; 2 for drawing ; and 6 in the preparatory school : 40 in all. Of the total income of about j£8o,OOO, the school at Horsham receives, besides Exhibition funds, ^47,000 a year. The upper school is divided into the Latin School, or classical side ; and the Mathematical School, or modern side — the difference on paper being mainly that in the modern side German takes the place of Latin and Greek. The old Royal Mathematical School, founded by Charles II, for those who are going into the navy or the merchant service, is maintained as part of the Mathematical School, but entrance is now only allowed to promising boys. In 1907 there are 393 boys in the Latin School, 287 in the Mathematical School, 20 in the Royal Mathematical School. The old distinction of ' Grecians ' and deputy Grecians is still preserved, and soon there will be science as well as classical and mathematical Grecians. The bulk of the boys leave at the age of sixteen. The school has done remarkably well of late in the way of scholarships and exhibitions at the universities. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS, FOUNDED BEFORE 1800' NORTHIAM. — By deed dated 20 September, 1614, Robert Iden conveyed a messuage and 2 acres of land in Northiam in trust, to apply the rents and profits for a schoolmaster to teach children of the parish. George Barnsley left £$OO by will 7 September, 1723, for educating poor children in the principles of the Church of England. His executors in 1727 purchased a rent-charge of ^3 IDJ. as the right proportion to appropriate to this parish. A schoolhouse was built on the premises left by Robert Iden, and 19 boys were in the school in 1867. WEST CHILTINGTON. — William Smyth in 1634 bequeathed ,£250 to be laid out in the purchase of lands from the rent of which ^5 or more was to be paid to maintain a licensed school- master, for the breeding and education of all youth, as well poor as rich, either male or female, then born or to be born in Chiltington for ever. The schoolhouse at West Chiltington, in which the master resides, appears to have been built in 1635. HARTFIELD. — The Rev. Richard Rands, 30 June, 1640, devised by will all his lands in Hart- field to 4 trustees to appoint a schoolmaster, being a graduate of one of the universities, to teach all such children of the parish freely as should come to him, provided that they could read English. j£2O per annum was to be paid to the schoolmaster. Thomas earl of Thanet granted a rent-charge, II November, 1725, of £10 to increase the salary. A schoolroom was built by subscription about 1812, and in 1867 there were 43 boys and 34 girls in the school. ANGMERING. — William Older by will, 16 March, 1679, gave j£ioo to Thomas Oliver in trust, to purchase a piece of land on which a house might be built for a schoolmaster to teach poor children within the parishes of East and West Angmering, and, after the death of his wife, the schoolmaster was to receive all the rents and profits of all his lands. A schoolhouse was built soon after the testator's death, and about 1815 William Oliver, heir of Thomas mentioned in the will, built additions to it. The income in 1819 was ^104 los. all paid to the schoolmaster, who taught about 60 children of both sexes. This number was doubled in 1867. CHICHESTER, WHITBY'S SCHOOL. — Oliver Whitby by will, 16 February, 1702, gave to trustees lands and the rectory of West Wittering that they might purchase a house for a schoolhouse and dwelling for a master and 1 2 poor scholars ; the boys to be the sons of parents not dissenters, in Chichester, Harting, and West Wittering. He willed the boys should have all their diet in the schoolhouse, and a convenient servant, and that the master should have j£2O a year as well as 1 The information is derived from the Reports of the Charity Commissioners and Sch. Inj. Commissioners. 437 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX lodging and diet, for which he should teach the boys writing, arithmetic, and the mathematics. The boys were to wear blue gowns, with his coat of arms on a badge, and quilt caps, and each boy to have 201. a year to buy the clothes. In 1720 the trustees bought premises for the use of the school for £300. By an order of the Master of the Rolls, 25 May, 1828, the trustees were empowered to increase the number of the boys from time to time as funds permitted. The number was gradually increased to 46 by 1867. CHICHESTER, GIRLS' BLUE COAT SCHOOL. — This school was established in 1710 by private subscription, and with the addition of bequests from Bishop Manningham and George Sedgwick 22 poor girls were instructed at the National School for girls. CHICHESTER, BOYS' GREY COAT SCHOOL. — Thomas Manningham, bishop of Chichester, who died in 1722, gave £ 100 to be applied equally to the use of this school and the girls' blue coat school. George Sedgwick by will gave £400 in trust to apply the interest of one-fourth part equally to the two schools. This legacy was invested in 1785. From these bequests 20 poor boys were clothed and educated at the National School. The Charity Commissioners gave their assent to this plan by letter 9 March, 1861. HORSTED KEYNES FREE SCHOOL. — Edward Lightmaker, of Broadhurst, Horsted Keynes, by will 2 April, 1708, bequeathed a house near the church which he had built, and also a sum of £400 to purchase an annuity of £20 for the maintenance of a free school. For this the schoolmaster was to teach 20 children of the parish, and he might take 21 paying scholars. No annuity seems to have been bought, but the lord of the manor paid £20 a year to the schoolmaster till 1737, since which time no payment has been made. The schoolmaster taught 12 poor boys and girls freely in return for the use of the school premises. UCKFIELD, SAUNDERS' CHARITY. — Anthony Saunders, D.D.,by will 31 October, 1718, devised lands to 4 trustees, the rents and profits to be applied in teaching 6 poor boys of Uckfield and 6 of Buxted to read and write and the Church Catechism. He also devised his library of books to be kept at the schoolhouse, for the benefit of the master and scholars. He left other lands to provide £10 a year for the schoolmaster and the residue to be applied for apprenticing poor boys. In 1819 there was a schoolmaster in possession of the schoolhouse and land mentioned in the will, and of the library, consisting of about 200 volumes, who also received jCio from the trustees, but he kept a private school and paid £20 a year to the master of the National School to teach the 12 boys freely. UCKFIELD, DOROTHY ELLIS'S CHARITY. — Dorothy Ellis, of Lewes, spinster, by will dated 1 2 June, 1728, gave to trustees £300, out of the rents and profits of which £5 yearly was to be paid to a woman living in Uckfield for teaching 10 poor children to spell and read English well. BURWASH. — In 1731 a farm in the parish of Wadhurst was conveyed to trustees to pay the rent to a person appointed by the trustees to teach the poor children of Burwash to read and the principles of the Church of England. The farm was bought for £220 arising from a legacy left by the Rev. George Barnsley by will in 1723. There was also a sum of £350 arising from the sale of timber on the estate, and a legacy of £50 left by William Constable in 1811. The whole income was applied to the support of the National School. SEDLESCOMBE. — An estate and premises containing 2 acres called Darbeys, in the parish of Westfield, were conveyed in 1729 to trustees for a charity school in Sedlescombe. This estate was purchased for £184, part of a sum left by the Rev. George Barnsley in 1723 for the education of poor children. A schoolmaster was paid a salary of £20 a year from the rents of the estate, and he taught the three R's and the principles of the Church of England to 20 boys. In 1866 the income had risen to £30 a year. BRIGHTLING. — Mary Herbert, by will 4 April, 1728, gave to the minister and churchwardens of Brightling £200 to be laid out in the purchase of lands, the rents thereof to be applied for teaching poor girls reading, writing, casting accounts, and plain work. Each girl at the age of 1 5 to have a Prayer Book, Bible, and Whole Duty of Man. The income of this endowment was paid to the master of the National School in 1867. ROTHERFIELD. — Sir Henry Fermor, bart., by will 21 January, 1732, directed trustees to lay out £1,500 in building a church and charity school in or near Crowborough for the use of the parishioners of Rotherfield and Buxted, and £4,000 to be spent in purchasing lands, one-fourth part of the rents to be applied for the maintenance of a schoolmaster and another £500 in lands, the rents to be used for repairs of the church and schoolhouse, and a further £3,000 for the benefit of the scholars. The children were to be taught the three R's and not to exceed 40 in number. Sir Henry Fermor died in 1734, and the school and chapel were soon after built at Crowborough. Till 1796 his affairs were before the Court of Chancery. An order was then made to regulate the charity. Thirty boys were sent to school from Rotherfield and 10 from Buxted. They received clothing once a year and were supplied with books. 438 SCHOOLS WALBERTON. — John Nash by will 24 May, 1732, gave to the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the parish of Walberton a newly built house and garden in Walberton for the use of a schoolmaster, and also an annuity of £12 payable out of his manors, lands, and tenements in Walberton for the education of the poor children of the parish. The house was pulled down about 1780 by the owner of the estate, and another house was appropriated to the school. The aid of Chancery had to be invoked in 1816 to make the owner give up possession of the house and pay the annuity. GUESTLING, BRADSHAW'S CHARITY. — The Rev. Robert Bradshaw by will 20 November, 1734, directed his executors after the death of his wife to sell his property in Sussex and lay out £500 in the purchase of property to be settled for the maintenance of a schoolmaster in Guestling to teach 20 poor children of the parish. This property was continually before the Court of Chancery, and there was only a schoolmaster at fitful intervals. A scheme was finally settled in 1835 by which schools for boys and girls were to be built, and a schoolmaster and schoolmistress to be appointed. In 1867 there were about 60 boys and girls in equal proportion. BOXGROVE. — On 13 February, 1 740, the countess dowager of Derby by deed granted lands to be sold for the purpose of building almshouses, part of which was to be for a schoolmaster to teach 1 2 poor boys and girls 'the three R's. A schoolhouse was built in her lifetime. The master had j£2O, the mistress £2 Ss. a year in 1819. Mrs. Elizabeth Nash by deed i o November, 1716, granted lands from the rents and profits of which one-third part was to be spent in schooling and clothing for two poor children of Boxgrove. In 1819, the master and mistress received 241. each from this fund. By will 6 March, 1740, Barnard Frederick devised lands of the yearly value of £6 for teaching two or more children of Boxgrove reading, writing, and needlework, and clothing them. The schoolmaster received all the dividend from the fund at first, but in 1819 it was decided to allow j£i iSs. a year for their clothing, and to make up the master's salary by voluntary contributions. The boys from all these charities were taught in Lady Derby's schoolhouse, and all the girls in a school built on the duke of Richmond's land. There were 44 boys and no girls in the school in 1867. MAYFIELD. — In 1749, £480 was subscribed by the inhabitants of Mayfield for establishing a school there. By deed of 17 May, 1750, Michael Baker in consideration of £450, part of the sum subscribed, granted a rent-charge of j£i8 a year and many acres of land in trust, that the trustees and the vicar of Mayfield should be manager of the school, to appoint a schoolmaster to teach 24 children gratis. He bequeathed a house for the schoolmaster by will, 28 May, 1750. A nephew, another Michael Baker, by will 2 March, 1771, and Thomas Baker, by will in January, 1781, bequeathed each £100 to the trustees for the benefit of the school. This was represented in 1867 by 39 boys taught free in the National School. BRIGHTON, GRIMMETT'S CHARITY. — William Grimmett by will dated 14 March, 1749, gave five twenty-fourths of his estate after the death of his widow, and £20 a year after the death of his brother, to be applied in clothing 20 poor boys, sons of parishioners of Brighthelmston, and educating them in the principles of the Church of England, the three R's, merchants' accounts, and navigation. The school thus founded first came into operation in 1768, when the total capital was £2,330 us. 6d. It was first conducted in premises provided at the expense of the schoolmaster, who was allowed to take 10 paying scholars. In 1801 the master of Springett's School was appointed master of this school also, and he removed the boys to Springett's schoolhouse. In 1 8 1 8 this house was turned into a strictly national school, and for the next ten years the master again provided the house, taking 2O paying scholars. In 1828 the trustees of Grimmett's Charity made an arrangement with the trustees of the Central National School by which Grimmett's boys were to be received into the National School and educated free of expense, so that all the funds were applied to clothing ; by this arrangement 40 poor boys instead of 20 were annually clothed. SPRINGETT'S CHARITY. — About 1740 Anthony Springett gave a house and garden in Narrow Lanes, Brighton, upon trust for a charity school. In 1829 this school was merged in the Central National School, the house was sold for £400 and the money applied to the National School as well as £284 12s. three per cent, reduced annuities given by Lady Gower in 1771 in aid of Springett's School. PETWORTH, TAYLOR'S SCHOOL. — The Rev. John Taylor, late fellow of Winchester College, by will 20 March, 1753, gave £2,400 to the warden and scholars of Winton College in trust to pay £56 IDS. yearly out of the interest to the rectors of Petworth, Tillington, and Duncton, who were made trustees, and who were to appoint a schoolmaster to teach 10 poor boys and 10 poor girls of the parish of Petworth. By a codicil of 10 April, 1775, he bequeathed a further sum of £800 on the same trusts to provide clothing for the children. An arrangement was made with the trustees of the earl of Egremont's Schools, founded in 1833 and 1834, whereby all these children were taught together, the boys by a master, and the girls by a mistress. 439 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX NEWICK, VERNON'S SCHOOL. — George Venables Vernon and Louisa Barbara his wife granted to trustees in 1771 a rent-charge of £$° issuing out of the manor of Newick, and the messuage called Newick Place, to pay ^15 a year to a schoolmistress who was to live in a house lately built for that purpose, to instruct 1 2 poor girls of the parish of Newick in reading, writing, and needlework, and another £15 a year for clothing the girls, and j£iO a year more to the mistress to board and lodge and teach one other poor girl to assist the mistress, and £$ * year for clothing the said girl. The remaining £5 was to be used for fuel and repairs. The trustees and the owners of Newick Place were to have the management of the school and to appoint the mistress and children. No children were to be admitted under six, or continue beyond fourteen years of age. Thirteen girls were in the school in 1867. BATTLE. — Elizabeth Langton by will 8 December, 1791, bequeathed to the dean, church- wardens and overseers of the parish of Battle, ^1,500 four per cent, consols, the interest to be paid to a man and his wife to teach 15 boys reading, and 15 girls reading, sewing, and knitting, and she gave £200 four per cent, consols, the interest to be spent in spelling-books, Bibles, Testaments, and Prayer Books, the children to be given their books on leaving school. SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN HUNTING H UNTING in Sussex might be traced to very early times. Robert, Earl de Moreton, half brother of the Conqueror, who was lord ofPevensey, was an ar- dent sportsman and hunted over the wide country of which he was owner. The early Percys, who lived at Petworth in Plantagenet times, before they migrated to the north, were sportsmen as well as warriors, and many other great families kept hounds, as was the custom of the county magnates of those days. The dukes of Somerset succeeded to the Percys in the Petworth estates, and the sixth, known as ' the proud Duke,' un- doubtedly kept hounds there in the seventeenth century. At Dainley, on the verge of Charlton Forest, behind the present estate of Goodwood, the Fitzalans, earls of Arundel, had a hunting seat. Two of them, indeed, died at Dainley : Earl Thomas in 1525, and Earl William in 1544. In 1591 Queen Elizabeth came to visit Anthony Browne, first Viscount Montagu, at Cowdray, where she was entertained with great splendour. On 17 August the queen rode to a bower prepared for her in the park, and there with her crossbow shot three or four deer as they were driven past her. It is not until more recent times, after the larger beasts of chase had become exterminated, that we find records of hunting in the modern sense. The earliest reference to fox-hunting occurs in the time of Charles II. Sir William Thomas, of Folkington, member for the county, writes to his friend Sir William Wilson of Bourne Place (now Compton Place, Eastbourne) as follows : — Sir, I designe to hunt the fox at Bourne tomorrow ; but if there be not people to watch the cliffs, and to be there about three o'clock in the morninge to prevent their going downe I can doe no good with them. I desire, therefore, that you would be pleased to order some persons to watch the cliffs and to stop the earths that are nere you. I will be there, God willing, by 6 o'clock in the morninge, when I should be glad to have the happiness of your good company. This comes from, Sir, your faithfull friende and humble servant, WILLIAM THOMAS. FOX HUNTING THE CHARLTON HUNT Charlton, which was a very fashionable hunting centre in the eighteenth century, seems to have become famous soon after this period. The Duke of Monmouth was extremely fond of this place, and in his earlier days spent much of his time there. He said jestingly that ' when he was King, he would come and keep his Court there.' In the days of its pride, 1720-40, every house in the neighbourhood was full, and even the cottages were filled with lodgers. It is said that Monmouth owed his knowledge of the place to his friend, Ford, Lord Grey of Wark, who was afterwards to become his evil genius and to command his cavalry on the field of Sedgemoor. Grey had a seat at Up Park in that neighbourhood. Two packs of hounds were kept at Charlton at this period, one be- longing to Monmouth, the other to Lord Grey. The field-master or ' manager ' of both packs was Mr. Roper, a Kentish gentleman, who was credited with a most intimate knowledge of hounds and hunting. During Monmouth's re- bellion, in 1685, Roper felt it necessary for his safety to quit Sussex and take refuge in France. When William III became king, he returned to England and resumed the management of the hounds, which had then become the property of the Duke of Bolton. At this time the Marquis of Hartington, afterwards Duke of Devonshire, was a familiar figure with the Charlton Hunt. A daring exploit of his was to ride down Seven Down, one of the steepest descents in the county, and leap a five-barred gate at the foot. At this period there were hunting at Charlton the Dukes of Bolton, Grafton, and Montrose, the Earl of Halifax, Lord Nassau Powlett, Lords William and Henry Beauclerk, Lords Forester, Hervey and Harcourt, General Compton and others. The Earl of Burlington, ' the Vitru- vius of his day,' built a banqueting chamber, which was called Foxhall, after a gilt figure of a fox which surmounted a tall flagstaff in front of the building. This was the gift of Henrietta, Duchess of Bolton. 441 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Charlton was now famous. St. Victor and other visitors came over from France and Ger- many to partake of the sport. Squire Roper, who had been so long connected with the hounds, died suddenly in 1715. In April of that year he rode to the meet at Findon, but just as the fox was found he dropped dead from his saddle ; he had attained the ripe age of eighty-four years. The Duke of Bolton now became sole owner and master of the pack, a few years later handing them over to the second Duke of Richmond, who then assumed sole management, assisted by Lord De La Warr. From this period dates the heyday of the Charl- ton Hunt. Tom Johnson, one of the famous hunt servants of the eighteenth century, was the duke's huntsman. Johnson died in 1774 and is buried at Singleton, where the following eulogy may be found on his monument : — From his early inclination to foxhounds, 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 par- ticular, recommended him to the service and gained him the approbation of several of the nobility and gentry. Among these were Lord Conway, the Earl of Cardigan, the Lord Gower, the Duke of Marl- borough, 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 cheered the hills around. Unpleasing truth : Death hunts us from our birth In view, and men, like foxes, take to earth.' During the great days of the second Duke of Richmond at Charlton a hundred horses were led out every morning from the stables, each with its attendant groom in the Charlton livery of blue, with gold-corded and be-tasselled caps. In 1732 the duke built a hunting house at Charlton, where he and his duchess lay over- night, ready for the early meets of those vigorous days (8 a.m.). In 1863, says a writer to whom I am indebted for many of these particulars,1 ' the walls of the principal room were decorated with paintings of the chase, almost sole relics of the Charlton Hunt.' This house is still standing and is (1907) known in the neigh- bourhood as Foxhall, having apparently suc- ceeded to the name of the older building. It was during these days that the most famous run ever known with the Charlton Hunt took place. A spirited description of it has survived. It was 1 Sussex Archaeological Coll. 1863. Article by T. J. Bennett from the MS. of Charles Dorrien of Ash- dean House. copied from an old MS., nearly illegible from age, which hung framed in an ancient farm- house at Funtington, a village in the neigh- bourhood of Goodwood. Its author is unknown, but the account is well worth reproduction. A FULL AND IMPARTIAL ACCOUNT OF THE REMARKABLE CHASE AT CHARLTON, ON FRIDAY, z6TH JANUARY, I738- 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 par- tiality 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 z6th 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 Jenison, master of His Majesty's Buck Hounds, Edward Pauncefort, Esq., William Farquhar, Esq., Cornet Philip Honeywood, Richard Biddulph, Esq., Charles Biddulph, Esq., Mr. St. Paul, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Peermon, 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 morn- ing the fox was found in Eastdean Wood, and ran an hour in that cover ; then in to 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 Hering- dean, 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 442 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN horse for a trueblue that staid up the hills. Billy Ives likewise took a horse of Sir Harry Liddell's), went quite through the Forest and ran the foil through Nightingale Bottom to Cobden at Draught, up his Pine Pit Hanger to My Lady Lewknor's Put- tocks, 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 Honeywood, Tom Johnson, and Nim Ives were thoroughly satis- fied), 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 a way 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 Hough- ton 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 Ia were the only persons in at the death, to the immortal honour of 1 7 stone, and at least as many campaigns. Among those who hunted with the Charlton Hunt during its great days were the Dukes of Richmond, Devonshire, Kingston, Montagu ; the Earls of | Pembroke, Lincoln, Sunderland, Kildare, Dalkeith, Halifax, De La Warr ; Viscounts Downe, Dursley, and Harcourt ; Lords Ossulston, Hervey, Walpole, Ravensworth, Robert Manners, Lifford, Cowper, Bury, and John Cavendish ; Count La Lippe, Baron Hardenburg ; Mr. Watson Wentworth, after- wards Marquis of Rockingham; Generals Honey- wood, Churchill, and the Hon. — Brudenell ; the Hon. C. Bentinck, Hon. John Boscawen. One other distinguished personage hunting in another part of Sussex at this time was Holies Pelham, duke of Newcastle, the well-known statesman of the reigns of George I and George II. His principal seat was then at Halland, near East la General Hawley, who made so great a figure in this historic run, was the soldier who commanded King George's troops at Falkirk, eight years later (1746), when they were defeated by Prince Charles and his Highlanders. Hoathly, but he seems to have hunted in a more distant part of Sussex, in the neighbour- hood of Bishopstone, near Seaford, where he had a house. He writes thus to his duchess : — a Bishopstone, Nov. z8th, 1738. I have just time to tell my Dearest that we have this day had the finest chase that ever was seen. Nobody was properly in but the two huntsmen, Lord Lincoln, Tom Chambers, Tommy Cook, and myself. I rode Badger, which carried me charm- ingly. Poor Whitefoot is lame and I have Brown Jack well. I am very much obliged to you for your most kind letter. We expect Jimmy every moment and wonder he is not yet come. To-day being Public Day we have a good deal of company. Our other Days are very quiet, except now and then when they come overnight from distant parts of ye County. Lord Lincoln gives a Ball on Thursday next to ye Ladies of Seaford. My Dearest has a charming day for Claremont. I hope you will find everything, pond etc. in a good forwardness. Our provisions can't go from here till Monday next, but I hope you don't think ' la petite ' can ever be forgot. All here send their compliments — pray mine to Mrs. Spence. I am, Ever most affectionately and sincerely yours (signed) J. HOLLIS NEWCASTLE. P.S. Jimmy is just this moment arrived. THE GOODWOOD HOUNDS In 1750 the second Duke of Richmond died. His successor, the third duke, in 1789 built spacious kennels at Goodwood, and took the hounds thither, and thenceforth Goodwood glories eclipsed the splendours of the old Charlton Hunt. This Duke of Richmond was one of the keen- est sportsmen of his time. In his day hounds met at 8 a.m. He spared neither trouble nor expense to make his hounds the finest in the kingdom, and his kennels have been cited as the perfection of cleanliness and order. He was a great stickler for fair sport, and would never allow his hounds to be assisted by a view halloa. If any one outside the covert was heard to view away or seen to head the fox, the duke would ride up, smartly cracking his whip, and cry, ' Hark to covert ! Hark to covert ! ' The cry of the hounds and the sound of the horn alone notified the field that hounds were away. Under this system the Goodwood Hounds were drilled into a pack perfect for the work they had to do. Tom Grant, a famous huntsman of this duke and his two successors, who died so late as 1839, at the age of eighty-eight, had many amusing anecdotes to tell of this period. If he (Grant) was hunting a sinking fox late in the afternoon, the duke would say to him, ' Sir, whip off hounds immediately, or I must send for a candle for you.' The duke was extremely fair to his ' From the original letter in the possession of Major H. P. Molineui. 443 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX quarry ; he would never allow a fox to be dug out, and more than once spared a much-pressed fox, when hounds would otherwise have caught and killed it. The fourth Duke of Richmond, on becoming Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1814, presented his hounds to the Prince Regent. Rabies soon after appeared in the kennel, and the pack had to be destroyed. For many years thereafter no hounds were kept at Goodwood ; but in 1883 the late Lord Leconfield having relinquished a large portion of the Goodwood country, which he had long hunted, the late Duke of Richmond and Gordon revived the Goodwood Hunt. The nucleus of the new pack was formed from the then Lord Radnor's pack and from drafts from Lord Zetland's and the Belvoir. The Belvoir draft was secured for a year or two, after which time all the hounds were bred at the Goodwood kennels. At this time practically new kennels were built, and the whole establishment was modelled on a liberal scale. The old Charlton livery of blue coats with buff waistcoats was revived, and the hunt servants were clad in the yellow coats with red collars and cuffs of the famous old hunt. First-rate sport was shown by the new Goodwood hounds during twelve seasons, until the pack was once more given up in 1895. George Champion, for many years with the South Down, was the first huntsman to the pack. At first the Goodwood hunted three days a week. This was subsequently increased to four days a week, and at this time about fifty couple of hounds were maintained. The pre- sent Duke of Richmond and Gordon, then Earl of March, acted as master, and was extremely popular in all parts of the country hunted. THE PETWORTH HOUNDS The pack of hounds now maintained by the third Lord Leconfield at Petworth has one of the most ancient pedigrees of any in England, dating back as it does to the days of the ' proud Duke of Somerset,' who kept hounds there in the time of William III. The present Lord Leconfield, a descendant of this Duke of Somer- set, expresses the opinion that there has been no actual break in the history of the Petworth Hounds since that date. Lord Leconfield has, indeed, a hunting ancestry on both sides. Sir William Wyndham, who married the daughter and heiress of the Duke of Somerset, and thus became progenitor of the Earls of Egremont and Lords Leconfield of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was himself a great sportsman as well as a notable politician. He became Master of the Buckhounds, under Queen Anne, in 1710. The third Earl of Egremont (Sir George O'Brien Wyndham) (1751-1837), was one of the greatest sportsmen of his day. He owned many Derby and Oaks winners, and kept hounds at Petworth for forty or fifty years. He improved his hounds by purchasing the pack of Sir Thomas Gascoigne, in 1773. These hounds showed very fine sport over a large extent of the Weald country. Lord Gage, Lord Robert Spencer, Mr. Poyntz, Mr. Bigg Withers, and many other notabilities of the time, including Mrs. Dorrien (formerly Miss Le Clerc), a famous lady rider, who it is said never refused a fence in her life, hunted with the Petworth Hounds. Lord Egremont had a celebrated huntsman, Luke Freeman, a Yorkshireman, who served him for many years. About the year 1800 he reduced his hunting establishment, and gave a portion of his pack to the Duke of Richmond, who was to choose whatever hounds he wanted. A writer in the Sporting Magazine of October, 1821, gives the following account of what happened on this occasion : — The pack was sent to the seat of the Noble Duke, at Goodwood, where Freeman attended by the special invitation of His Grace. The dogs were hunted and examined, but the Duke could not decide the question which were the best. Perhaps Luke was not very communicative on the subject, and preferred leaving matters in abler hands. It was in vain that he went to bed comfortable every night : he knew but little of the merits of the dogs in the morning. The old huntsman continued at Good- wood for a fortnight, at the expiration of which time the Duke said to him : ' Well, Mr. Freeman, I have tried the hounds, and you may select the youngest and the best of them and leave me the rest.' This was just what the old boy wanted ; so he lost no time in making the necessary selection and prepared to leave Goodwood. Meanwhile the Duke had ridden round to the park gate, through which Freeman was to pass, and meeting him as he ap- proached towards it, observed — ' So, Mr. Freeman, you have got all the youngest and the best dogs ? ' 'Yes, please your Grace, all the youngest and the best.' ' Then you'll just be good enough ' rejoined the Duke, ' to conduct them back to my kennel, and you can take the remainder.' Luke felt that he was done, but good-humouredly turned about. The old huntsman had charge of the remain- der at Petworth, and kept them going until a young kinsman of the earl, afterwards Colonel George Wyndham, was of an age to hunt the pack himself. In 1817 the hounds were still called Lord Egremont's, but from 1819, after Colonel George Wyndham had assumed the management, the pack was known as his. ' Nimrod,' in one of his celebrated sporting tours, paid a visit to Sussex in January, 1824, and speaks in very high terms of Colonel Wyndham and his hounds. He thus describes a day with them from the meet at Newtimber House, six miles from Brighton, on the London Road : — Colonel Wyndham's fixture was for eleven ; and about twenty minutes before our grandfather's dinner hour, the hounds arrived, and by the time they were in their second bottle, we found our fox. They 444 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN came up at a brisk trot, and appeared by the horses as if they had not let the grass grow under their feet, in their road from the kennel — the distance from which was about nine miles. They retired into a small field by the side of the road, whilst Colonel Wyndham changed his horse and then proceeded to draw. The Colonel was mounted on a very clever Octavius mare, and his two whippers-in rode two thoroughbred ones. In short, if I may be allowed the expression, all looked well bred together. There was one of the largest fields ever known in Sussex, upwards of two hundred horsemen being present. From the great reputation this pack of hounds has acquired — from the pace they carry a scent over a light country, and the great pains they have taken in breeding them — I was very anxious to have a sight of them. On this day, however, I had little time to look them over, but I saw they were formed for sport, not deficient in power, and abounding in good form and symmetry, though not exceeding (generally) twenty-two inches in height. There was one hound which instantly caught my eye as above their standard, and on asking the whipper-in his name he told me it was Conqueror. I afterwards found it was no mis- nomer, for when he had killed his fox, he carried home his head as a trophy, in spite of all attempts to make him drop it. I afterwards saw a brother to him (Caliban), a very fine hound, but I understood not quite so true on his line. It has not always been supposed that gentlemen huntsmen are the best. Perhaps it may be on the principle that those are not fit to command who have not been accustomed to obey. Having heard much of Colonel Wyndham's performance, I was anxious to witness it, so followed him, in drawing, through many rough coverts. I was much pleased with the quiet manner of himself and his men, and his hounds were particularly steady and drew as if they meant to find When we did find, only seven or eight out of this large field got away with the hounds, and from the severity of the pace and the extreme depth of the country — some of it approaching to bog — catching them was out of the question. They, however, caught their fox at the end of an hour and twenty minutes, just as he had reached an earth and was on the point of creeping up the bank to enter it, when he fell back among the pack and was killed. ... I thought Colonel Wynd- ham rode very well to his hounds, and his cheering halloo to them, in chase, would make an old man's heart feel glad. Speaking of the hounds, ' Nimrod ' says : — ' I thought there was a beautiful pack out, and having had an easier week, they looked very bright and well.' A brother of Colonel Wyndham, Colonel Henry Wyndham (afterwards General Wynd- ham), was at this time, and for long after, also hunting a pack of foxhounds in the western part of Sussex. Nimrod speaks thus of this remarkable fact : — I have reason to believe the County of Sussex produces the only instance in the sporting world of two brothers, each keeping a pack of foxhounds, but so it is. In 1837 Colonel George Wyndham succeeded Lord Egremont in the Petworth estates.3 In 1839 there seems to have been a dispute between the two brothers, Colonel, and General Wyndham, as to part of the Petworth country, and General Wyndham thereafter gave up his hounds. At one time Lord Leconfield kept his hounds at Drove, near Chichester, but subse- quently moved them again to Petworth, where they have ever since remained. He had kennels also at Findon. During a great part of his long career — he maintained hounds from somewhere about 1819 to his death in 1869, during which time he showed some of the finest sport in Sussex — Lord Leconfield hunted the Goodwood country together with the Findon country, which is now hunted by the Crawley and Horsham. The second Lord Leconfield con- tinued to hunt a very large area in the Weald and West Sussex, together with the old Good- wood territory and part of the present Chidding- fold and Crawley and Horsham country. In 1883, on the re-establishment of the Goodwood Hounds, the hill country was handed over by Lord Leconfield to the Duke of Richmond. Since the abandonment of the Goodwood Hounds in 1895 some part of that region has been unhunted. The present (third) Lord Leconfield still hunts the western half of the Goodwood territory, with the Hambledon to help, the latter taking the southern portion and Lord Leconfield the northern. The Crawley and Horsham now hunt some part of the southern country, near Findon and Worthing, which the first and second Lords Leconfield used to hunt. The River Arun here separates the Leconfield country from the Crawley and Horsham. The Leconfield is still a large coun- try, extending from near Haslemere (Surrey), in the north, to the sea at Bognor. The northern neighbours of this hunt are the Hants and the Chiddingfold ; on the east lies the Crawley and Horsham territory, while the western neighbours of Lord Leconfield are the Hants and the Hambledon. Much of the country hunted is downland, some of it arable, other portions being grass and woodland. There is a fair amount of grass. The vale country is strongly fenced. A famous huntsman of this pack was Charles Shepherd, who was in service from 1862 to 1895, and only relinquished the horn in his eightieth year. He was a first-rate huntsman, hard, keen, and with an excellent voice, which was familiar throughout the length and breadth of West Sussex. Shepherd maintained his hunting qualities to the last, and died in 1903 at the age of eighty-six. Lord Leconfield hunts four days a week and maintains 50 couple of hounds at Petworth Park. His huntsman is John Olding, the * In 1859 he was created Lord Leconfield. 445 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX whippcrs-in being T. Percy and T. Sheffield. The establishment is handsomely kept up, and is at the present day notable as being one of the difficulties became serious, and the old East Sussex seem finally to have come to an end in 1843, m wn'cn year were held the last East very last of the 'packs of hounds — formerly Sussex Hunt races, a meeting which had been in numerous in England — which are maintained at existence since 1829. the sole charge and expense of a territorial magnate. THE FIRST EAST SUSSEX HUNT This hunt is described in Baily's Hunting Directory as dating from 1853. But the old Sporting Magazines and other records show that a pack of hounds of that name was hunting in Sussex as far back as 1823. 'Nimrod,' in his ' Hunting Tours,' writes thus in the Sporting Magazine of that year. ' On the following day (2 6th Feb.) I met the East Sussex Subscription Pack at Clayton Cross, six miles from Brighton.' He had a fair day with them and saw a fox killed. The hounds were, in his opinion, not nearly so smart a pack as Colonel Wyndham's, with which he had hunted the day before. Still (he says) handsome is that handsome does. They found their foxes where there were any to be found, and killed the one they settled to in a gallant manner. In drawing, they were certainly unsteady ; but they are a young pack, of only three years' standing, and perfection in hounds is allowed to be a plant of very slow growth. The kennels of the East Sussex pack were then at Ringmer Barracks, not far from the existing kennels of the South Down pack, and the hounds were under the management of one O of their 'contributory masters' (the term is Nimrod's), Major Cator, R.A. Lord Gage was a principal subscriber and supporter, and hunted pretty regularly with the pack. ' Nim- rod ' complains that the hound language of the East Sussex huntsman (one Perkins) at this time was poor, and not to be compared with that of Colonel Wyndham. He was ' very lavish of his lingo, but it was Greek to me. His " Halloo-away " is a complete view halloo.' At this time the old East Sussex, which, as a matter of fact, were the forerunners of the South Down pack, seem to have hunted near New- haven, Ashcombe Park, Stanmer Park, Glynde- bourne, Laughton, Firle, and other places now in the South Down country. The War Office seems to have heard of hounds being kept at Ringmer Barracks, and orders were sent for their removal. They were then taken tem- porarily to Broyle Gate. Lord Gage, who took a keen interest in the welfare of the pack, kennelled them for a time at his own place, Firle Park, and afterwards, in 1827, built new kennels at Rushy Green, Ringmer. Mr. C. J. Craven followed Major Cator as master, having Press as huntsman. To him succeeded Captain Green, a hard man to hounds and a good sportsman. Under the Captain's regime financial 446 THE SOUTH DOWN FOXHOUNDS In 1843 was inaugurated the South Down Hunt, which evidently was started with the object of continuing to hunt the country of the defunct East Sussex pack. Mr. Freeman Thomas, of Ration, was the first master, and the kennels were removed to Gildridge Farm, Eastbourne. Mr. Freeman Thomas continued at the head of affairs till 1851, when, after a very successful mastership, he was succeeded by Mr. Donovan, of Framfield Place. At this time the kennels were removed to Ringmer, where they have remained ever since. Mr. Donovan held the mastership from 1851 to 1862, during which period some first-rate sport was shown with these hounds. In 1862—3 a committee held sway, and from 1863 to 1871 Mr. W. L. Christie was master. To him suc- ceeded Mr. R. J. Streatfield, who held office until 1 88 1, when he was succeeded by the Hon. Charles Brand, a son of Speaker Brand, created Lord Hampden. The South Down has always been fortunate in long and successful masterships, and Mr. Brand proved no exception to this rule, remaining in office from 1881 to 1898. He hunted the pack himself and showed first-rate sport. In 1898-9 a committee held office, but in the following season Mr. Brand and Mr. H. E. Courage were joint masters till 1901, when Mr. Brand again took sole charge. This gentle- man remained master until 1903, when he was succeeded by Mr. R. W. McKergow, who re- mains at the head of affairs. Up till 1891 the South Down hunted as far eastward as Eastbourne and the edge of Pevensey Marsh, but in that year a portion of the country was handed over to the Eastbourne Hunt, and the eastern boundary of the South Down now stops at the Cuckmere River. On the north the hunt is bounded by the territories of the Burstow and Bridge hunts ; on the west, near Cuckfield and New Shoreham, by the Crawley and Hor- sham. The sea forms the southern boundary. The country extends some twenty-five miles from east to west by twenty miles north to south. The South Down country consists of large tracts of down and weald, the latter com- prising about equal areas of grass and arable land. The fences here consist mostly of banks with a ditch and a low fence on top. The Sussex ' bar-ways ' or ' heave-gates ' are common, but they are always jumpable. On the downs there is practically no fencing, and foxes and hounds run very fast. On the whole the South Down may be described as a good scenting country. SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN There are plenty of excellent coverts in the low country, and the down gorses afford natural shelter to strong wild foxes. Until a few years ago, when mange devastated the country, foxes were numerous everywhere. The disease has now disappeared, and the stock of healthy foxes is increasing again. The Hunt subscription is j£iO ids., with j£i if. to the Poultry Fund. Those members hunting regularly three or four days a week subscribe usually £21 and upwards. A 'cap' of £ I is now taken from occasional strangers wishing to hunt with this pack. THE PRESENT EAST SUSSEX HUNT The modern hunt dates from April, 1853, and the country, as then demarcated, has existed ever since, with the exception of a small portion in the western part of the territory which has been lent to the Eastbourne Hunt. It extends some thirty miles from east to west by fifteen miles north to south. On the north it is bounded by the Eridge country. North-east- ward Romney Marsh separates the country from that of the Tickham, in Kent. On the west the Eastbourne boundary meets that of the East Sussex in the neighbourhood of Pevensey Level and the woodlands about Horeham Road and Heathfield. The sea is the southern boundary. The East Sussex is a very heavily wooded country, much broken by hills and deep valleys ; in the open parts there is a fair proportion of grass, which carries a good scent. At the present time foxes are, unfortunately, somewhat scarce, owing partly to mange, which ravaged the country for several seasons after 1901. The minimum subscription — for one horse — to these hounds is £5. Capping is not practised. The first master of the resuscitated East Sussex Hunt was Sir Augustus Webster, who held office for one season, 1853-4. To him succeeded Mr. Herbert Mascall Curteis, of Windmill Hill Place, Herstmonceux, who was master from 1854 to 1868. During this period some very excellent sport was shown. Bob Child was huntsman for nine seasons, and John Harrison for the other five. During Mr. Curteis's reign the hounds were kennelled at Windmill Hill Place and Peasmarsh Place, near Rye, for alternate fortnights. To Mr. Curteis succeeded Mr. Leonard Lywood, during whose short mastership, 1868—70, the pack were kennelled at Black Friars Farm, Battle. Mr. Lywood was his own huntsman. Messrs. W. E. M. Watts and C. A. Egerton were joint masters from 1870 to 1872, and from the latter year Mr. Egerton carried on the hounds alone till 1875, when Mr. Edward Frewen succeeded him. During this period Thomas Hastings and Fred Gosden were huntsmen. Mr. Frewen, who remained in office till 1882 and showed excellent sport, hunted the pack himself, with RofFey and George Morgan as kennel huntsmen. From 1870 to 1882 the hounds were kennelled at North Trade, Battle. Since that time they have been maintained at Catsfield, near Battle, in kennels built for them by Lord Brassey, who succeeded Mr. Frewen in the mastership in 1882, having as his field-master Sir Anchitel Ashburnham. During Lord Brassey's term of office the East Sussex hunting days were in- creased from two to three days a week, George Morgan acting as huntsman. In 1884 Mr. C. A. Egerton succeeded Lord Brassey as master, remaining at the head of affairs until 1893. At this time George Morgan was suc- ceeded as huntsman by C. Orvis, formerly with the Warwickshire and Holderness packs, who carried the horn until his retirement in 1892, when he was followed for one season by R. Yeo. To Mr. C. A. Egerton, after a very successful mastership, succeeded Mr. P. G. Barthropp, who, however, only carried on the hounds one season. From 1894 to 1899 Mr. J. C. Munro, a good sportsman, afterwards very successful in the Atherstone country, was master of the East Sussex, hunting the pack himself with much ability. The Hon. T. A. Brassey and Mr. C. A. Egerton were joint masters from 1899 to 1902 ; while from 1902 to 1906 Mr. Brassey carried on the mastership alone. During this period George Morgan once more filled the post of huntsman. In 1906 Mr. Brassey, who had been hunting the country five days a fortnight since 1902, resigned, and was succeeded by Mr. A. Neven Du Mont, who engaged Fred Reeves as huntsman. In recent years, owing to the ravages of mange and the difficulties of main- taining foxes in a country which contains a large proportion of woodland and shooting coverts, sport has not been so good as formerly. The pack now consists of thirty couple of hounds, and hunting days have been reduced to two days a week. THE CRAWLEY AND HORSHAM HUNT The early history of this pack is obscure. The first known master was Mr. Stanford, who began hunting the country in or about the year 1847 and continued to do so with great success until 1867. From 1867 to 1869 Mr. R. Loder and Colonel Calvert were joint masters, and from 1869 to 1887 Colonel Calvert alone remained at the head of affairs. During this period excellent sport was shown and the master was exceedingly popular. The Crawley and Horsham have, indeed, always been singularly fortunate in their masters. Lieut.-Colonel C. B. Godman succeeded Colonel Calvert and has ever since remained in control of the country, to the complete satisfaction of the hunt as well as of landowners and farmers. From 1847 to 1867 the kennels were at Warninglid ; after- wards they were removed to Staplefield. Since 447 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 1877 the pack has been kennelled at West THE BURSTOW HUNT • • The country hunted by these hounds lies The Crawley and Horsham is a big country, . . ,. } [ . c j- r /-k 1 1 • e lu partly in this county. Their Sussex territory extending from Ockley in Surrey to the sea at f ,. a f ,J *"/ Worthing a distance of nearly twenty-five miles. ?mis» chlefly of the rough moorlands of Ash- From eas to west, from East Pulborough to dow" Forest4' runnmS UP to St. Leonard's Forest '. on the west.4 Haywards Heath, it measures some twenty miles. Northward it is bounded by the Chid- THE EASTBOURNE HUNT dingfold and Surrey Union, eastward by the South Down, and on the west by Lord Lecon- For man7 7ears prior to 1891, when this field's country. The sea forms the southern limit. Pack was instituted, the country in the neigh- Until the year 1872 the southern part of the bourhood of Eastbourne had been hunted by country, about Worthing and Findon, was harriers. In 1891 it was decided to start a pack hunted by Lord Leconfield. In that year his of foxhounds, and the South Down and East lordship, having more country than he could Sussex Hunts each handed over a portion of well manage, relinquished this portion to the their territory to the new hunt. Mr. F. Free- Crawley and Horsham, who have hunted it man Thomas, of Ratton, grandson of the first ever since. The country includes a large pro- master of the South Down, was elected master, portion of plough and a considerable area of an^ kennels woodland. There is, however, more grass than , kennels were built near the old town, East- bourne, in an excellent situation under the R. Kingsland. THE ERIDGE HUNT wooan. ere s, owever, more grass an , er e there used to be. During the hunting season downs. Mr. Freeman Thomas showed ex- much of the wire is now removed. The pack cellent sport until 1895, when he resigned, and is maintained by subscription, £15 1 5*. qualifying Colonel W. A. Cardwell, who remains at the for membership of the hunt. The huntsman is bead of affairs to the present time (1907), was elected master. Colonel Cardwell has a very smart pack of foxhounds, all bitches, numbering twenty-four couples. HishuntsmanisE.Brooker, grandson of an early huntsman of the South Between 1870 and 1879 the country now Down pack. The southern part of the East- hunted by the Eridge was known as the West bourne country consists of open downs, on which e.xist excellent gorse coverts; to the eastward 'Ies t^le marsh country of Pevensey Levels. There is a good vale country, having as obstacles banks, ditches, and timber. To the north, in the neighbourhood of Horeham Road and Heath- ^e'^' heavy woodlands are hunted. On the whole, foxes are fairly plentiful in the Eastbourne country, but a few years since the down coverts were visited by a severe epidemic of mange, and Kent Woodland; it had before 1870 been part of the West Kent country. The first master — in 1880 — was Lord George Nevill, who carried on the hounds with much success until the year 1887. The Marquis of Abergavenny has always been the chief supporter of the hunt, and the pack, at present consisting of thirty couples of hounds, is kennelled at his seat, Eridge Park, The Eridge country lies in North Sussex, ex- , - tending from the neighbourhood of Tunbridge the foxes are on'7 ju*1 recovering in that neigh- Wells nearly as far south as the River Rother. bourhood. The country is somewhat limited in Eastward it borders close upon Cranbrook in area> but very fair sport is shown. One of th Kent, while in the west it extends to Ashdown Forest. In the north its neighbours are the West Kent ; to the east the country is unhunted by foxhounds ; while in the west and south it marches with the countries of the Burstow South Down, Eastbourne, and East Sussex. In best mns recorded with this pack took place in Janual7> I9°7> when hounds ran a fox from Abbots Wood, near Hailsham, to within half a m''e or" the town of Newhaven, a distance of about eleven miles, without touching a covert. The subscription is £10 ids. per horse, and the , , ex. n . , the vale there is a fair amount of grass, which master is guaranteed a sum of j£6oo annually. carries a good scent; other portions comprise ^ 'cap' of los. 6d. is taken from strangers. plough, moorland, and a considerable extent of The country is bounded west, north, and east , , woodland. The Eridge is a subscription pack, by the South Down and East Sussex territories, the hunt guaranteeing the master a sum of £750. tne sea forming the southern limit. The minimum subscription is £10 iox. Cap- ping is not at present in vogue, but strangers are expected to contribute to the damage fund. On STAG HUNTING Lord George Nevill's resignation in 1887 Mr. c. F. V. Williams accepted the mastership and , e Wlld deer disaPPeared from Sussex this carried on the hunt until 1893, when he was Sp°rt has had little vo§ue in the , succeeded by Lord Henry Nevill, who remains at the head of aflairs. His huntsman is Fred Bounty. In J7S8 a pack of hounds existed at Bnghton to hunt ca«ed deer, and in the Lewes 448 4 See V.C.H. Surrey, ii, 487. SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN Journal of March, 1759, appears the following advertisement : — NOTICE is HEREBY GIVEN — to all Gentlemen and Sportsmen — that there is to be a Hind turned out at Stanmer, on Friday, the 9th of this instant March, at nine o'clock in the morning, by their humble servant, JOHN MOCKFORD. Brighthelmston, March 5, 1759. N.B. — The Hind is to be hunted by Brighthelm- ston and Henfield Hounds. This style of hunting, 'for the diversion of the gentry who frequent Brighthelmston,' seems to have been pursued at intervals until the end of the 1 8th century. The Rev. Mr. Wenham, of Hamsey, near Lewes, a great hunting parson, who kept a pack of hounds, often ran a deer. In May, 1770, he had one turned out at Stan- mer, which afforded a great run of 30 miles. Towards the end of the i8th century Brighton was becoming a highly fashionable resort and frequent attempts were made to amuse the visitors by tame deer hunting. It cannot be said that these chases were often successful. In February, 1779, Sir John Lade, a notorious sporting per- sonage of that time, and a friend of the Prince of Wales, turned out a hind on Newmarket Hill, The deer quickly took to the sea at Newhaven and swam out a mile, and, though she was eventually recaptured the day's sport came to an untimely end. In 1780 the Duke of Cumber- land had a stag turned out on the Steine, at Brighton. There was an immense gathering of spectators, but the stag jumping over the cliff at Rottingdean was killed on the spot. Another deer turned out before the duke's hounds a few days later, near Patcham, made for a sewer at Lewes, and subsequently, after soiling in various brooks, was taken at Chinton, where she died next day. Lord Barrymore, another notorious character of the period, turned out a stag on 'Brighthelmston' race-course in 1788. The whole proceeding was a fiasco. The stag began by grazing, and then, after the application of whips, knocked down a shepherd, ran into a house at Patcham and was taken in the pantry. THE SOUTH COAST STAGHOUNDS This pack, established by Mr. H. G. Kay, in 1895, with kennels at Bedhampton, near Havant, showed fair sport for several seasons. They consisted of 15 couples of hounds, and hunted two days a week. In the following season, 1896-7, they hunted deer one day a week and hare the other. Mr. Kay hunted his own hounds. After a lamentable accident, in which the deer, leaping into a chalk quarry, was killed, with several couple of hounds, the pack was given up at the conclusion of the season 1901-2. THE WARNHAM STAGHOUNDS These hounds, of which Mr. H. C. Lee Steere, of Jayes Park, Ockley, Surrey, is master, belong to Surrey, but they hunt in the Crawley and Horsham and the northern portion of Lord Leconfield's country. Pulborough and Henfield are the meets at which they penetrate farthest into Sussex. The hunt possesses 22 couples of hounds and 22 deer. The minimum subscrip- tion is j£25, and casual strangers are capped a sovereign. The Surrey Staghounds also make occasional incursions into Sussex. HARRIERS Hare hunting in Sussex boasts very high anti- quity. The gentry and yeomen hunted the hare with established packs long before fox-hunt- ing proper came into existence. In the Weald and marshes, where the old-fashioned, deep- toned southern hound was in use centuries ago, great sport was enjoyed, and upon the downs somewhat lighter hounds were in use. Sussex, especially in the Weald country, was long famous for its breed of heavy, deep-flewed, long-eared harriers, of the now rare blue-mottled colour, and strong traces of this excellent hound are to be found in the present Hailsham pack, as well as among the Sandhurst harriers, hunting in the south-west of the adjacent county of Kent. In the Weald these hounds were often hunted on foot, and as it was termed ' under the pole.' Our ancestors enjoyed a long spun-out chase, and the huntsman in this district often had his hounds under such control, that by throwing down his hunting pole in front of them he would bring them to a check, until the hare having gained a fresh start, the chase was allowed to continue. On this leisurely system the hunt was often protracted to four or five hours, or even more, and the close of a short winter's afternoon saw the big 26 in. harriers still in pursuit. Daniel, in his Rural Sports, quoting from an earlier writer, thus speaks of the deep-tongued, thick-lipped, broad, and low-hung southern hounds : He that delights in a six hours' chase, and to be up with the Dogs all the time, should breed from the Southern Hound first mentioned, or from that heavy sort which Gentlemen use in the Weald of Sussex ; their cry is a good and deep base music, and, con- sidering how dirty the country is, the diversion they afford for those who are on foot for a day together, renders them in high estimation ; they generally pack well from their quality of speed, and at the least Default, every nose is upon the ground in an instant to recover the scent. Towards the end of the eighteenth century these old-fashioned hounds were falling out of 449 57 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX favour with many sportsmen, who preferred a brisker chase and a fleeter hound. It would seem that in many parts of Sussex owners of hounds, up to the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and a little later, used to hunt both hare and fox with the same pack. Thus Mr. King Sampson, who had kennels at Hailsham, and may be looked upon as the fore- runner of the Hailsham Harriers, hunted over a great part of the surrounding country, and ran fox as often as he did hare. The Sporting Magazine of February, 1818, has the following note : — 20 February. The hounds of Richard King Samp- son, Esq., threw off at Hindover earths (High and Over, near Alfriston), Sussex, and soon afterwards un- kennelled a fox that led them a most excellent chase to Norton Top, Firle Beacon, Heighton, back again to Norton Top, and Blatchington Down, where rey- nard took a circuitous turn to Bishopstone and the sea, pursuing his course along the beach towards Sea- ford until he was headed, and pressed so hard by the dogs that he turned and sought refuge in Blatchington Barracks, passing through the coal yard into an out- house, where he cunningly leaped into a copper. Unluckily for him it contained water, which prevented his escape, and he was in consequence taken alive, and immediately liberated for his gallantry. But the generosity he experienced from those nearest his brush availed him not, as the dogs soon ran into him and showed him no quarter ; he, however, fell gal- lantly and to the admiration of the whole field. This very excellent and health-giving chase was run with- out a check, with the scent breast high, nearly the whole of the time, in an hour and a half. There are many anecdotes still extant con- cerning Mr. King Sampson and his huntsman, John Press, of whom his master often said that there was scarce a bone in his body which he had not broken. Mr. King Sampson himself seems to have been a very ' go as you please ' kind of sportsman. His harriers drew over a very wide country, and where permission was not extended to him, he would, if he knew the owner of the covert was away, take French leave and put his hounds through. Nevertheless he showed excellent sport, and was held in high estimation by the sportsmen and farmers of the surrounding country-side. Another old-fashioned pack of Sussex harriers was that of Mr. Standen, of Silver Hill Farm, near Hastings. ' These hounds," says the Sporting Magazine of 1822, ' are the old Southern sort of hound, very bony and strong, and short in the legs, but very slow ; they have a peculiar deep tongue, and will hunt a very cold scent. The pack consists of twelve couple and a dog. Many old-fashioned packs of harriers existed in Sussex during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it would be impossible to trace their history and achievements here. The Brighton and Brookside. — These packs were amalgamated in the year 1 903 ; each had had a long and interesting career. There was hare hunting near Brighton long before the Brighton Harriers came into existence. There is evidence that the great Dr. Johnson enjoyed a run with harriers near 'Brighthelmston,' as it was then called, in the winter of 1782. He was staying with the Thrales, and it is recorded by a competent witness that Thrale, who was the kindest creature on earth to Johnson, and wishing, perhaps, to fortify his health by the pure air of the South Downs, or to present his friends with the view of an anomaly, viz. a poet on horseback, took him with him hare-hunting. The hounds threw off, up started a hare and the sportsmen galloped helter-skelter, ding-dong, after it. Johnson was not the last. Somebody rode up to Thrale and said, ' I'm astonished ! Johnson rides like a young sportsman of twenty.' The philosopher told Thrale ' that he was better pleased with that compliment than any he had ever received.' It is uncertain at what date exactly the Brighton Harriers were established, but they were certainly hunting as an organized pack in 1823. The Sporting Magazine for January, 1824, speaks of a meet of the Brighton Subscription Harriers on the preceding 9 December, when ' a brilliant field, including upwards of eighty sports- men, attended.' A hare, found near Stanmer, after a long draw, ran eight miles to Blatchington, and Hangleton, and was run into in the middle of a deep pond near the latter place. The time is given at twenty-eight minutes, which is, of course, far too good to be true. Again, in January, 1824, these harriers had a great run of one hour and forty-five minutes without a check. ' The stoutness of the hare may be imagined,' says the chronicler, when it is stated that she is computed to have crossed full twenty miles of ground. Sir Robert Wilson, Mr. George Blaker, of Patcham, the huntsman and two or three other sportsmen were the only parties out of a field of seventy, that could get in at the death. One horse was killed. In those days the kennels were near the town, on the London Road. The hounds were subse- quently moved to Hove, afterwards to Holling- dean Road. In 1875, during Mr. Dewe's mastership, new kennels at Pyecombe, still used, were built. Among earlier masters, the first known name is that of Mr. Chapman, who had much to do with the establishment of the pack. Mr. Brooke Vallance was master in 1839. Mr. Willard was master of, and hunted, the pack for many years, and at his death Mr. E. H. Hudson took office. To Mr. Hudson succeeded Mr. Bridger Stent, who died in 1870. , Following that gentleman were Mr. Dew6, 1870-83; Sir Francis Ford, 1883-7; Mr. Hugh Gorringe — a most popular and efficient master — 1887-95. Mr. Gorringe bred exten- sively from the neighbouring Brookside kennels. In 1895-6 a committee carried on the hounds. 450 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN In 1896 Major H. Vyse Welch became master, and except for the season 1900-1, when he was absent on service in South Africa, he has re- mained at the head of affairs. Major Welch, who hunts his own hounds, is a good horseman, and has a long and intimate knowledge of hare hunting, and under his management very excel- lent sport is shown. The Brookside. — This old-fashioned pack, long maintained by the Beard family, were kennelled at Rottingdean, their last master being Mr. Steyning Beard, who hunted them for many years. His harriers were 21 in. hounds, mainly of true harrier blood, with a touch of the foxhound to give them the speed necessary for the strong and extraordinarily fleet Down hares. Mr. Beard, who hunted the country on the Seaford side of Brighton, gave up hunting in 1 903, and the pack were dispersed. The pick of the hounds were acquired by Major Welch on behalf of the Brighton pack, and the Brook- side country being taken over, the name of the Brighton Harriers was changed to that of ' The Brighton and Brookside.' This pack, consisting of twenty couples of 20 in. hounds, is a very smart one. The territory hunted by the Brighton and Brookside is a large one, extending westward as far as the River Adur, and north-west to Stanmer Park ; while to the eastward hounds hunt to Newhaven, Telscombe, and Kingston, near Lewes. The minimum subscription is j£iO I Os. ; a cap of 5*. is taken from non-sub- scribers. The Bexhill. — These hounds have a history of nearly a hundred years. In the early part of last century they were started by ' Squire' Brook, of the Manor House, Bexhill, who got together a pack of real old-fashioned English harriers, which showed strong traces of the Southern Hound. Squire Brook hunted them with great success for many years, and after his death they were continued for a short time by his son and successor, Mr. A. J. Brook. Upon the decease of the last-named gentleman, the pack was ac- quired by Lord Cantelupe. His lordship found that owing to in-and-in breeding, which had been persisted in with the idea of preserving their ancient characteristics, the hounds had lost much of their former dash and energy. He therefore introduced a strain of the bloodhound, with the result that in a few years' time he formed an extremely fine pack of harriers, in colour all black and tan, having great pace, a fine deep note, and good hunting qualities. These hounds aver- age from 21 to 22 in. They are kennelled at Cooden Down, Little Common, near Bexhill. They hunt a good country in East Sussex, in- cluding a considerable portion of Pevensey Marsh, the remainder comprising plough, grass, and woodland. The farmers are excellent friends to the pack, and there is very little wire. The Bexhill, which hunt two days a week, show fine sport and kill a large number of hares. Lord Cantelupe's rule was followed by that of a committee for a short time. His lordship resumed the mastership in 1895-6. In the following year, having succeeded to the title of Earl De La Warr, he resigned office, and was succeeded by Mr. P. H. Trew, who carried on the hunt with much success till 1905, when he was followed by Mr. R. Guy Everard. Mr. Everard only remained for one season and was succeeded by Mr. C. Ward Jackson, of Woodside, Hailsham. Mr. Ward Jackson hunts the pack himself. His whipper-in and kennel huntsman is Carey Witherden, who has been with these harriers for 21 years, during great part of which period he has acted as huntsman. The minimum subscrip- tion to the Bexhill Harriers is £5 5*. Capping has been practised since 1898. The Hailsham. — The forerunner of this old established pack was, as has been said, that of Mr. King Sampson, who kennelled his hounds at Hailsham in the early part of the last century, and thence hunted hare and fox over a wide extent of country. Some time after Mr. King Sampson gave up hounds, Mr. Algernon Pitcher, of The Dicker, near Hailsham, got together a pack of old-fashioned harriers, and for many years hunted the country surrounding Hailsham with great success. To Mr. Pitcher succeeded Mr. R. Overy, a well known yeoman farmer, of Hailsham, who showed excellent sport until 1893. Until this time the harriers had been hunted on horseback. On Mr. Overy's resigna- tion, which was due to his advancing years, Mr. Holland Southerden, of Hailsham, who suc- ceeded him, began hunting the country on foot. His huntsman was W. Bridger. Mr. Southerden was at great pains to improve his pack ; he re- duced the size from the 22-24 m- °f tne Old Southern Harriers used by Mr. Overy and his predecessors, and got his hounds down to the 19-20 in. standard of the present day. It has been the constant care of Hailsham masters, from early times, to retain as far as possible the purity of the old English harrier strain. Mr. Southerden got fresh blood from the Sandhurst and Guestling and other neighbouring packs, and purchased some old-fashioned blue-mottled bitches from Essex. The present pack now consists of typical old English harriers, showing much blue-mottle colour and strong traces of the old Southern hound. They have grand voices, great scenting qualities, and possess good pace, killing, as a rule, about sixty hares in the season. In 1898 Mr. Southerden was joined in the mastership by Mr. Rupert Williams, who hunted the pack himself. Mr. Williams resigned in 1901 and Mr. Southerden carried on the pack during the following season, 1901-2, having as his huntsman and kennel huntsman James Holmwood. In 1902-3 Mr. Alexander B. 451 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Campbell, of Priesthaus, Hankham, succeeded Mr. Southerden as master, and hunting the hounds himself, has shown first rate sport ever since. In Mr. Williams' time hounds were hunted in the Down country on horseback ; in the marsh and Weald country on foot. This arrangement has been continued by Mr. Camp- bell. The Hailsham country is a large one, comprising the western portion of Pevensey Marsh and running westward to the Downs above Eastbourne. Yet further west in the Down and Weald country, the limits of the hunt extend close up to Seaford and Laughton. Wartling hill and Boreham Street are the eastern boundaries. Mr. Southerden built new kennels for the pack. These were afterwards acquired by Mr. Camp- bell, and removed to the Battle Road, Hailsham, where various improvements have been effected. The country is well stocked with hares — in some places, indeed, hares are too numerous. One of the greatest runs ever known with this pack occurred on November 24, 1900, when a hare, starting near the sea, east of Pevensey, made a point of seven miles straight inland, and was killed at Foul Mile, beyond Cowbeech. This run lasted 2f hours ; as hounds ran they must have covered 14 or 15 miles. Only four members of the hunt were anywhere near the finish, and they were a long way behind, the hare being saved from the pack by two country- men. On 1 8 February, 1904, a hare, which had been hunted steadily over the downs for close on two hours, led the Hailsham pack from the Golf Links at Eastbourne to the down be- yond Lullington, in the Cuckmere Valley, where they killed her after a hunt of three hours' dura- tion. Mr. Campbell, the master, who was mounted, was the only one up at the kill. The point from Eastbourne Golf Links to the place where the hare was pulled down was 5^ miles. As hounds ran it was some 16 miles. The first part of this hunt was slow, with frequent checks ; the last portion straight and very fast. On foot Mr. Campbell is a brilliant performer. Over the well dyked marsh country, where his running and leaping powers serve him well, few men in England can live with him. The Hailsham pack now number 25 couples. They hunt three days a week and have as kennel huntsman and first whip James Holmwood. The hunt subscription for foot members is ^2 2s. ; for mounted members, ^5 5*. per horse. The Iping. — This is a private pack, owned by Sir Edward Hamilton ; it was established in 1893. The kennels are at Iping, near Midhurst, and the pack, consisting of 20 couples of 20 in. pure bred foxhound bitches, hunt a portion of the country formerly occupied by the Goodwood foxhounds. They hunt westward into the H. H. territory. Mr. Archibald Hamilton is the master, his huntsman being Fred Jarvis. The pack hunts on Tuesdays and Fridays. Good sport is shown by these hounds, but there is a considerable amount of wire in the country. Lady Gifford's. — These harriers were first established by Lady Giffbrd, in Northumberland, in the year 1895. In 1898 they were brought south and established at Old Park, Chichester. The country is a varied one, consisting of grass, plough, woodland, and downs. To the west the country is well grassed and open, with flying fences ; in some places there are wide dykes. Lady GifFord herself hunts the pack, which con- sists of 24 couples of 19 in. harriers, and shows excellent sport. Her whippers-in are E. Dudley (kennel huntsman) and G. Stokes. The pack is a private one, owned and maintained by the master, who accepts no subscription. The days of hunting are Tuesday and Saturday. The Fordcomhe. — This pack consists of IO couples of 1 8 in. pure harriers, which hunt in Kent and North Sussex, in the neighbourhood of Tunbridge Wells. They were established in 1870 and are a subscription pack. The kennels are at Fordcombe. The master is Mr. W. Hollomby of Hickman's Farm, Fordcombe, and the hounds are hunted by Mr. C. J. Hollomby. They are followed on foot. The Romney Marsh. — These make occasional incursions over the border into Eastern Sussex ; but as they are strictly a Kentish pack, they do not claim notice here. POINT-TO-POINT RACES Point-to-point steeplechases, which have so much developed in the last score of years, are popular among Sussex sportsmen, and for some years the South Down, East Sussex, and East- bourne Hunts have held meetings which have all been extremely successful. Lady Giffbrd's Harriers have held point-to-point races for some few seasons. In 1906 the Bexhill Harriers for the first time held a point-to-point meeting, which is now an annual fixture. BEAGLES The Brighton. — Numbering 17 couples of in. hounds, hunt the country about the town and show very good sport. The master is Mr. Delamere B. Roffey ; and the huntsman, Mr. C. W. Nye. Mr. L. L. Constable's. — A 13 in. pack, ken- nelled at Ifold, Billingshurst, number 8 couples, and hunt the neighbourhood. The master carries the horn. The Shopwyke. — A private pack, kennelled at Shopwyke, Chichester, the residence of the master, Mr. T. Guy Paget, Scots Guards. It con- sists of 1 5 couples of 1 2 in. Stud Book Beagles. The pack was established in 1903 to hunt the country round Bognor and Barham Junction, in 452 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN the old Goodwood territory. The master carries the horn. The Wooddale. — Established in 1900, have quickly developed into one of the smartest packs in England, and have established a great reputa- tion. They consist of 16 couples of 15 in. Stud Book Beagles, are kennelled at Wooddale, Billings- hurst, and hunt an excellent country, part of it occupied formerly by the Storrington Beagles. In 1902 they took over the country between Arundel and Worthing, previously hunted by the South Coast Harriers. The master, Mr. Ewen C. R. GofF, of Wooddale, is his own huntsman and kills a large number of hares during the season. He receives a subscription and is well supported. OTTER HUNTING Otter hunting, under modern conditions, is of quite recent growth in Sussex. The only pack at present existing in the county is Crowhurst, established in 1903, with kennels at Edenbridge. The pack, which consists of 15 couples, is supported by subscription, but the hounds are the property of Mrs. Walter Cheeseman, who lends them to the hunt. The first master was Mr. H. K. Mantell. For two seasons Mrs. Cheeseman officiated in that capacity, with Mr. S. W. Varndell (now master) as acting master and huntsman, Fred Theobald being kennel huntsman. The Crowhurst hunt two days a week, usually on Wednesday and Saturday. The rivers hunted lie in Kent as well as Sussex, and include the Rother in east and west Sussex, the Cuckmere, Ouse, Adur, Arun, Medway, Eden, Darenth, Stour, Rover, Rudwell, and various tributaries. Although these rivers are hardly to be compared for hunting purposes with the clearer streams of the west of England, Wales, and the North Country, the sport shown has, on the whole, been very good. Otters are plentiful and the pack is extremely popular with the inhabitants of the districts hunted. COURSING A great portion of the county is well adapted for coursing, although much of the land is agri- cultural, and the going somewhat heavy. Many greyhounds are now kept in the county, more particularly in the neighbourhoods of Brighton, Worthing, Bognor, Lewes, &c., and the most flourishing of the clubs is the Sussex County, organized in March, 1899, and affiliated to the National Coursing Club. Some years before this, and previous to the passing of the Ground Game Act in 1880, meetings were held in the neighbourhood of Ford, Arundel, and Little- hampton, being supported principally by local coursers. When the club was originally estab- lished membership was open only to residents in the county ; but in 1905 the privilege was extended to' coursers residing in the adjoining counties of Surrey, Kent, and Hants. The first president was Mr. H. J. Infield, J.P. of Brighton, who held office until 1906. At the present time Mr. W. H. Smith, of Walton-on- Thames, is president, and Captain A. B. S. Fraser is deputy president. The head quarters of the club is at the William IV Hotel, Church Street, Brighton, and the honorary secretary, to whom the writer is indebted for the above infor- mation, is Mr. W. M. Tebbs. There are now about 200 members, and the meetings average about twelve in the season, aggregating about sixteen days. The coursing takes place either at Ford and Climping, or at Barnham, all being within a short distance of Littlehampton and Arundel. The ground is all flat and open ; hares are always found in abundance, thanks to the owners and occupiers of the soil, who do all in their power to preserve them, and forward the interest of the sport. The hares are famed for their stoutness. Owing to the absence of any covert or wood which would enable the coursed hares to escape, some of the trials were very severe ; the exe- cutive have therefore made several 'escapes' where the hares may find safety from the grey- hounds after a course sufficiently long for a legiti- mate trial. The coursing at Ford and Climping is by permission of Messrs. C. H. Boniface, J. Loveys, A. Collyer, I. and R. Coote, and John and Walter Langmead ; at Ford the owners or occupiers over whose land sport is enjoyed are Messrs. Joseph Harrison, A. E. Woodbridge, C. F. Lanaway, R. Sadler, and W. Harrison. In 1877, about three years before the passing of the Ground Game Act which brought about the abandonment of so many meetings owing to the scarcity of hares, Mr. T. K. Case organized the Plumpton meeting on the inclosed system,1 1 For an ' inclosed ' meeting in the early morning the hares which have been kept on the 150 or 200 acres of the inclosure and taught to find safety through the escape are driven into a small covert at the lower end of the ground. When the coursing begins they are driven out one at a time through a trap door : the hare faces a screen which conceals the slipper, and having been given plenty of law, the greyhounds are slipped : as often as not the hare eludes her pursuers at the top of the ground, the escape being so con- structed that she can run underneath the fence which is too high for the greyhounds to jump. This must not be confused with trapped hare coursing, which is 453 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX the first fixture being on 26 October. It was well patronized by owners of greyhounds and the general public, being very convenient for spectators, who could view all the running from the stands (the inclosure being also a race-course). After a time interest in inclosed coursing gradually died away, and although a number of valuable stakes were offered, attendances fell off, until eventually coursing was abandoned at Plumpton in 1889. After a lapse of thirteen years it was re-estab- lished, a meeting being held on 3 January, 1902. The ground is the property of Mr. W. Hodgkin- son, of Ashurst, Plumpton. The extent of the inclosure is about 150 acres, and the Station field, in which the coursing takes place, is 55 acres. About half of the number of the hares coursed are bred on the estate, the others coming from Norfolk ; these are crossed with Hungarian hares every two years. The club consists of about fifty members, and is governed by a committee. There are usually about three meetings in the season, the first being early in September, when the Produce Stakes are run, one in December, one in March or April, when stakes for saplings are added to the programme. In the season 1906-7, the Sussex County Club held their Boxing Day meeting, by permission, on this ground. Great attention is paid to the ground, which always carries good herbage, con- sequently coursing can be held as early as Sep- tember, and as late as April, even in frosty weather, without ill effects to the dogs. The facilities for coursing when other lands are frost- bound renders Plumpton a very popular place for running trials ; many Waterloo Cup candi- dates are put through their facings here. At the last club meeting for saplings when only buck hares were run, out of thirty courses only two hares were killed. The ground is on a gentle upward slope from the slipper's screen to the escape ; this gives the hares an advantage, and also tries the speed and stamina of the grey- hounds. Mr. Hodgkinson writes : I renewed coursing at Plumpton on the proposition of the late Mr. T. Graham, the celebrated and suc- cessful Cumberland courser, who always said it was the best trial ground in England, the trials always being of a uniform character without unduly distress- ing the dogs. There is no doubt the sport is gaining ground in this county ; there are more owners of grey- hounds than in previous years, and their number continues to increase. RACING Racing has been popular in Sussex since the early days of George II, and although few if any records exist earlier than 1727, there can be little doubt that race meetings of a kind were held here and there in the county as far back as the reign of Queen Anne, or even earlier. Lewes is the first Sussex meeting of which the old Racing Calendars contain mention. In 1727 Lord Halifax's Sampson walked over for His Majesty's Plate of 100 guineas at Lewes. Races for King's Plate in those days were run in four-mile heats, the weight carried being 12 St. There were three days' racing at Lewes in I729-1 On 7 August Mr. Henley's Thunder- bolt walked over for the King's Plate. On the 8th a £20 plate for Galloways was won by Mr. Trower's Sweetlips. On 9 Au- gust a plate of 50 guineas was won by Mr. Fleetwood's Fair Play, with Sir Robert Fagg's Alexander second and Sir William Gage's Plow- man third. For many years Lewes races under- went little alteration in value of stakes or character not sport, the hares having no chance to save their lives. On the inclosed system she has the run of a hundred or two of acres, and has learned the way to safety. The proportion of kills in a day's inclosed coursing is often less than at an open meeting. 1 John Cheny, Historical List of 'Horse Matches run, and of all Plates and Prizes in England and IV ales. of sport. The King's Guineas sometimes pro- duced a contest, sometimes only a ' walk over.' Usually a race for a ^50 plate was the only other event at the meeting. Occasionally a match took place. Thus in 1760 the Duke of Richmond's Muley Ishmael, carrying 8 St., beat Sir M. Fether- ston's Sally, carrying 8 St. 7 lb., for 200 guineas, while the duke paid forfeit in another match to the same owner. In 1765 the meeting, which had long been a two-day fixture, was extended to three days again, the events consisting of the King's Guineas on the first day, and a £50 plate on each of the other days of racing. In 1770 the Duke of Richmond gave a £50 plate for horses bred in Sussex, weight for age. There were seven starters, and Sir Frederick Poole's Sharpshins was the winner. The races attracted many of the prominent racing men of the period, 1727-75. Among those who ran horses were the Dukes of Richmond and Bolton, the Earl of Essex, Lords Craven, Portmore, and Ossory, Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, Sir John Shelley, Sir Michael Newton, and Messrs. Cowper, Martindale, Holbech, Curzon, and Vernon. As Brighton became fashionable, there was a great exodus of visitors and townsfolk from that place to Lewes on race days. This was especially noticeable from about the year 1760. Local interest is evidenced by the fact that in 1774 a ' Brighthelmstone 454 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN Plate of j£5o' was raised by subscription and run for on the last day of the meeting. The winner was Sir John Shelley's Fantail, who beat five others. This plate was given by the Brighton folk down to the year 1783, when ' Brighthelmstone ' had become of sufficient importance to support a race meeting of its own. In 1775 the meeting was flourishing. In ad- dition to the King's Plate, run on the first day (3 August), there was a sweepstake of 15 guineas each and the Lewes Plate of ^50. Onthesecond day no fewer than five races were contested, the Member's Plate of £5 o, a sweepstake of 2 5 guineas each, the Duke of Richmond's Plate of £50, the aforesaid ' Brighthelmstone' Plate of ^50, and an- other sweepstake of 25 guineas each. In 1780 famous owners like Mr. O'Kelly, owner of Eclipse, and Sir Charles Bunbury were running horses. In 1790 the Prince of Wales, who at that time owned a large racing stable, won a sweepstake of 25 guineas with Smoker, while his Pegasus walked over for the King's Plate. In 1800 the Prince again won the King's Guineas with Knowsley, by Sir Peter. In 1810 Lewes had two days' racing and was well patronized. The Earl of Egremont, then at the zenith of his racing career, won the King's Plate with Election, as well as a sweep- stake of 10 guineas with £20 added, and the Ladies' Plate of 60 guineas. In 1816 there were three days' racing. Lord Egremont gave two prizes of 50 guineas each, and was himself among the winning owners, carrying off the King's Plate with Wanderer, a sweepstake with the three-year- old Scarecrow, and a 6o-guinea cup, given by the town and vicinity, with the same horse. While various race meetings sprang up like mushrooms in Sussex during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, only to die away after a more or less brief career, Lewes, with one short period of depression, was always maintained ; and formed, with the more important meetings of Goodwood and Brighton, the backbone of the county racing. In 1830 there was little change in the nature of the sport, or the value of the stakes. Lord Jersey's Glenartney, ridden by J. Robinson, was an important winner and carried off the Ladies' Plate of £50. During the 'forties, Lewes declined ; and the racing in the year 1842 was reduced to the Queen's Plate ; while in 1 844 the Queen's Guineas was the only race, the winner beingthe Duke of Richmond's well-known horse, Red Deer. By 1850 the meeting was re- viving again, and in its one day offered three races, a sweepstake of £5 with £50 added, the Queen's Plate won by the Duke of Bedford's St. Rosalia, and a sweepstake of £3 with £40 added. In 1855 Lewes was distinctly recover- ing, and again supported two days' racing, with five events on each day. The Queen's Plate was won by Mr. Pattison's Joshua (ridden by Wells) from four other horses. In 1864 a spring meeting was held as well as the August fixture. There seems to have been fair racing at the new meeting, the principal event being the Spring Subscription Handicap of j£iO with ,£100 added, which was won by Mr. Samuel's Fontenoy. These two meetings have been held regularly ever since. In 1874 Lewes advanced further and held three race meetings in the year. After 1877, when the Jockey Club made the rule that ^300 must be given on each day and not less than j£ioo to any one race, Brighton, Goodwood, and Lewes were the only meetings under Racing rules which survived. In 1880 there were still three meetings at Lewes, the principal one being the old summer gathering, held in August. By this time the value of racing stakes was rising in all parts of the country, and Lewes had considerably increased its prizes. At the summer meeting the more important stakes included the De Warenne Handicap, sweepstake of £20 each with £,200 added, won by Donate ; the Astley Stakes, £25 and £500, won by Prince SoltykofPs Scobell ; the South Down Club Welter, £15 and £250, won by Mr. R. S. Evans' Mr. Dodd, ridden by the famous gentleman rider Mr. W. Bevill ; the Lewes Plate of £350, won by Montrose ; the Priory Stakes, ^15 and ^300, won by Althotas ; the County Cup of ^200, won by Essayez; and the Lewes Handicap, ^15 and j£2oo, won by Mr. Dodd. Lewes at this period attracted a fair class of horse, and its position has been ever since maintained. In igoo the Lewes Handicap, run for at the summer meet- ing, of the value of £439, was won by Mr. G. Edwardes' Santoi. In 1 906, still following the modern tendency, a further addition was made to the value of stakes. At the summer meeting the Lewes Stakes were worth to the winner j£ 2,245, while owners of the second and third horses took ^450 and ^2OO each. In addition, the nominators of first and second horses received £150 and ^70 respectively. The race was won by Mr. Arthur James's Gorgos, a prominent Derby horse of the year, which beat Prince William and six others. At the same meeting the Astley Stakes, worth to the winner ^640, was won by Mr. W. Hall Walker's Polar Star. The race-course, which lies on the down, above the town, is open to the public, and ranks, with Epsom and a few others, among the old uninclosed meetings. Brighton racing dates from the year 1783, when, on 26 and 27 August, three events were contested, one being a pony race. A £50 plate for four-year-olds — two-mile heats — was won by Mr. Adams' Puff, with Mr. O'Kelly's Adjutant second, and the Duke of Richmond's Trentham third. A sweepstake of 5 guineas, with an added purse of 30 guineas, for ponies, wound up the first day's sport. On the second day a ^50 plate, for horses of all ages, 'the best 455 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX of three four mile heats,' was won by Sir C. Bunbury's Eliza. At this period there was no permanent race-stand. The gentry attended and watched the races from horseback or their carriages. Among those who took an interest in early Brighton racing were the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Queensberry, Lord Egremont, Lord George Cavendish, Sir Charles Bunbury, and Sir H. Fetherston. The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland were present at this meeting. In the next year, 1 784, ' Brighthelmston ' races were held on 2 and 3 August. On the first day a plate of £50 and two sweepstakes of 50 guineas and 30 guineas respectively were run for. On the second day a sweepstakes of 30 guineas, a plate of j£so, won by Lord Egremont's Trentham, and a match for £50 between the horses of Sir Harry Fetherston and Mr. Vegierski, formed the programme. The racing was not good, but the large company included the Prince of Wales, who had made his first appear- ance at Brighton in the previous September, and who was accompanied by the Due de Chartres, Due d'Orleans, and many of the nobility and gentry. The Duke of Queensberry (' old Q '), Sir F. Evelyn, Sir C. Bunbury, and other well- known owners ran horses. From this time dates the heyday of early Brighton racing. In 1785 a series of matches took place, as well as other events. There were four days' racing, and among prominent owners running horses were the Due de Chartres, Due de Lauzun, the Duke of Queensberry, Lords Grosvenor, Egremont and Clermont, Sir C. Bunbury, Sir F. Poole, Lord G. Cavendish, Sir F. Evelyn, and Sir H. Fetherston. On the first day's racing were two matches. On the second day a £50 plate, the Constans Stakes of 50 guineas, a sweepstakes of 50 guineas, another of 25 guineas, and two matches. On the third day a £50 plate, a sweep- stake of 25 guineas, and four matches ranging in value from 120 to 25 guineas a side. On the fourth day two matches of 50 guineas each were decided. In this year took place the first of a long series of Brighton race balls, one being held on each of the four nights of racing. In 1786 the Prince of Wales was again present, and thenceforth was a familiar figure on this race-course. The Due d'Orleans accom- panied him, as did Charles James Fox, who, it is stated, ' was a heavy loser by several races.' In 1788 a new stand was used for the first time. In 1790 the Prince of Wales was on the hill in an open landau, drawn by six black horses, Sir John Lade driving. The prince, we read, was splendidly attired in the uniform of the loth Light Dragoons. On this occasion His Royal Highness gave a plate of 50 guineas, which was won by Mr. Hyde's Goliah, and himself won the. Constans Stakes with his famous horse Smoker. In 1790 and 1791 the Due d'Orleans gave a stake of 50 guineas to be run for. In 456 1795 Lord Egremont, who was one of the most successful owners of racehorses of his time and maintained a huge stud, won no less than seven races and matches at Brighton meeting ; the victories of so popular a Sussex notable could scarcely fail to be well received. In 1798 Brighton races narrowly escaped temporary extinction by a somewhat ludicrous omission. The farmer who was in possession of the race- course was entitled to receive each quarter, by way of rent, a pipe of wine. Not having received his dues, he attended the Race Com- mittee, then sitting at the Castle Inn, and informed them that unless they paid him 100 guineas, he should plough up the course. No satisfactory reply having been received by the next morning, he actually started his men with their ploughs. The committee, however, were equal to the occasion. Scarcely had the plough- men begun their labours, when a press-gang appeared ; whereupon the yokels incontinently fled. Matters were subsequently arranged, and the race-meeting took place. In 1803 the original race-stand, a very humble structure, was destroyed by fire. Another modest building erected in its place stood till 1851, when the modern grand stand was built at a cost of £6,000. To this two wings have been sub- sequently added, at a total cost, with other improvements, of £15,000. These improve- ments were made by the race-stand trustees, to whose energy and foresight the present satisfactory position of Brighton Races is almost entirely due. In 1 8 10 Brighton supported three days' racing, which took place in July. On the first day the principal event was the Pavilion Stakes of 100 guineas each. A £100 plate was postponed, owing to the very high wind and heavy rain. On the second day, in addition to this plate, there were the Petworth Stakes, and a sweep- stakes of 10 guineas each with 25 guineas added. On the third day were run a match for 100 guineas, a £100 plate, and a Ladies' Plate of 60 guineas. In 1820 the races were held on 3, 4 and 5 August. On the first day the Gold Cup, value 100 guineas, presented by King George IV, a two-mile race in one heat, was won by Mr. Bouverie's Zadig. The Brighton Club Plate (2^ miles) was won by Lord Egremont's Caroline, and the Town Plate of 70 guineas by Mr. King's Philip. On the second day a sweepstake of 50 guineas (half a mile) was taken by Lord Egremont's Octavius ; the Brighton Stakes, a sweepstakes of 10 guineas with 60 guineas added, by the same owner's Robin Hood, and the Ladies' Plate by his same lordship's Little John. On the third day Lord Egremont won a sweepstakes of 25 guineas with his good mare Caroline. The Waterloo Stakes (60 guineas with a 5-guinea sweepstakes) was won by Mr. King's Wouvermans, while a sweepstakes of SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 5 guineas with £50 added was carried off by the Duke of Richmond's Roncevalles. From this time forward the Brighton Meeting usually provided three days of fair racing. In 1840 it was again reckoned a fashionable gather- ing, and some well-known owners ran horses. Lord Chesterfield's Gambia, for example, won the Brighton Stakes, Her Majesty's Plate was taken by the Duke of Richmond's Mus, while Captain Rous, afterwards the famous ' Admiral ' of the Jockey Club, won the Old Steine Club Plate with Nicholas. The prizes at this time were of no great value, the Brighton Stakes, a sweep- stakes of 25 guineas with j£iOO added, being the most important. By the year 1850 two meet- ings were held ; one of three days in August, the other, a two-day affair, in October. The stakes were of no great importance. The Brighton Cup now appears for the first time ; it was worth £100, with a sweepstakes of ^10 each, and was won by the Duke of Bedford's St. Rosalia. The third day of the August Meeting was now de- voted to the racing of the Brighton Club, which took over the sport on the last day of the summer meeting for many years to come. In 1860 Brighton had declined again to one meeting, the old summer fixture with the club racing on the last day. By the 'seventies the lost ground had been recovered and two meetings were again held. In 1876 the last races of the Brighton Club, which had existed and shown good sport during a quarter of a century, were held. The last Brighton Club Stakes were won by Sir George Chetwynd's Chypre, a useful horse, ridden by Mr. Crawshaw, an experienced gentleman jockey. In the following year, 1877, the American horse, Preakness, by Lexington, walked over for the Brighton Cup. The Marine Stakes were won by Lord Rosebery's Bras de Fer, ridden by Constable, who died not long afterwards. By 1880 the value of the stakes showed an increase, as at other meetings. The Brighton Stakes, won this year by Mr. R. Jardine's Humbert, was worth £500, with a sweepstakes of £10. The cup, won by Mr. W. S. Crawfurd's Bay Archer, was worth £300, with £100 to the second, and j£5O to the third horse. The Stewards' Cup, won by Prince Batthyany's Cannie Chief, was of the value of ^300, with a sweepstakes of jTiO added. Three days' racingcontinued to be provided at the summer meeting, notwithstanding that the club races were defunct. In 1890 a spring meeting was substituted for the autumn fixture, and thenceforth Brighton racing has consisted of six days in each year, di- vided between the spring and summer meetings. The summer meeting, as of old, has always been the more important and attractive gathering. At the August meeting in 1900 the Brighton Stakes, worth £4.37 to the winner, were taken by Lord Farquhar's Japonica ; the Brighton 'Cup, of the value of £485, by Mr. G. S. Edwardes's Santoi ; while the Brighton High Weight Welter, worth ^442, was won by Mr. A. Stedall's La Lune. In 1906 the Brighton Stakes, worth ^437, fell to Mr. L. de Rothschild's Chicot ; the Brighton Cup, value ,£485 (the actual trophy being reckoned at j^ioo) was won by Lord Howard de Walden's His Eminence, a good horse, ridden by M. Cannon. The Sussex Plate, of £374 value, was taken by Major J. D. Edwards' Shy Lord ; and the Brighton High Weight Handicap, worth ,£442, by Lord Derby's Glucose. The meeting was a good one, and fair fields were attracted. The Goodwood Meeting is, and has been foi the better part of a century, the best in the county. Though not so ancient as the Lewes gathering nor that of Brighton, it quickly attracted the attention of the racing public, and thanks to its aristocratic support, magnificent local advantages, and the generosity with which it has always been supported by the Dukes of Richmond, it has long taken its place as one of the most important meetings of the racing year. The history of Good- wood begins with the year 1802, when, on 28, 29 and 30 April, three days' racing took place in the ducal park. The meeting, however, at this time, partook more of the character of hunt races than a purely flat-racing affair. It was organized for the recreation of neighbouring landowners and hunting folk. The first event consisted of a Hunting Club subscription of 20 guineas each, two-mile heats, the horses to be ' rode by sub- scribers'; it was won by Mr. Newbury's Panta- gruel. Then followed a sweepstakes of 10 guineas each, for maiden horses carrying 10 st. gentlemen riders, the distance two miles. This was won by the Duke of Richmond's Cedar, with Mr. Byndloss's Bread second, and Lord Egremont's Jess third. A Hunters' Plate of ^50 was won by Mr. Gage's Elevator. On the second day the principal events were the City of Chichester Plate of £50, for three-year-olds, two-mile heats ; a sweepstakes of IO guineas, another of 2O guineas, and the Ladies' Plate of IO guineas. On the third day were contested another City of Chichester Plate of ,£50, and a Hunters' Plate of £50, won by the Duke of Richmond's curiously-named ' You Know Me.' Then followed a match for 100 guineas, in which the Prince of Wales's Rebel beat the Duke of Richmond's Cedar. Another match and a maiden plate wound up what seems altogether to have been a most successful meeting. The Sporting Magazine of 1801 has a brief notice of ' the New Racecourse on the Harrow- way, near Goodwood, the seat of His Grace the Duke of Richmond, which,' it remarks ' is now completely formed for sport and much admired by the Amateurs of the Turf.' The third Duke of Richmond, though nearly seventy years of age, was apparently determined to establish Goodwood racing on a firm basis. He built a wooden stand, which was placed not far from 457 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX where the half-mile starting-post now stands. The duke, who died four years after having successfully inaugurated the meeting which was destined to become so famous, inherited his love of racing from his Stuart ancestry ; his great- grandfather, Charles II, having always been keenly interested in the turf and blood horses. In 1805 Goodwood was a two days' meeting, with three races a day, mostly of a hunt character. The Duke of Richmond won two events, and Miss Le Clerc, a famous Sussex sportswoman of that period, ran a couple of horses. All the events were two-mile races. In 1810 affairs looked scarcely so prosperous as in former years. Of five events no less than three produced 'walked over.' In July, 1816, Goodwood offered for the first time a gold cup, 'value 100 guineas.' This was provided by ten subscriptions of 10 guineas each. It was a three- mile race, and the winner was to be sold, if demanded, for 400 guineas. Lord Egremont was the winner with his horse Scarecrow. A maiden sweepstakes of 10 guineas each followed. Then came three matches, and the Goodwood Club Stakes of 10 guineas each, and 25 guineas added by the club, gentlemen riders. On the second day's racing (27 July) a sweepstakes of 50 guineas each, another of 10 guineas each, and the Ladies' Plate of £50 wound up the meeting. Henceforward Goodwood continued as an annual fixture, and gradually assumed a leading, it may almost be said a unique, position in British racing. In 1820 there were two days' racing, but only five events were on the programme. By 1830 the meeting began to assume a more business-like aspect. The old hunt races had been abolished, and the list of events is as follows : — The St. Leger, Cowdray, Drawing Room, Lavant, and Goodwood Stakes ; a Sweep- stakes ; the Ladies' Plate ; the Gold Cup ; the Produce and a Handicap Sweepstakes ; the Waterloo Plate ; Molecomb Stakes ; Duke of Richmond's Plate, and a Handicap Sweepstakes. It will be noticed that a considerable number of races are identical with those of the present day. The Gold Cup, value £300, with surplus in specie, by subscription of 20 sovereigns each, with 100 added by the City of Chichester, was won by His Majesty's Fleur-de-Lis, ridden by Nelson. Zinganee and the Colonel, the second and third horses, were also owned by the king. Six other horses ran. George IV, it is to be noted, died on 26 June in this year. From about this period date the palmy days of the Goodwood Cup, when in addition to that good mare, Fleur-de-Lis, such giants as Priam, Glencoe, Hornsea, Harkaway, Charles XII, Alice Hawthorn, the Hero, Van Tromp, and Canezou, carried off this coveted trophy. In 1835 there were four days' racing. The Good- wood Stakes were won by Lord Chesterfield's Glaucus, with Mr. Greville's Preserve and Dacre second and third. Mr. Greville's Elis (the ' beautiful Elis ') took the Molecomb Stakes for two-year-olds, and Mr. Theobald's Rock- ingham, ridden by Robinson, won the cup. At this time there were racing at Goodwood the Duke of Richmond, Marquis of Tavistock, Lords Jersey, Eglinton, Uxbridge, Chesterfield, Egre- mont, and Exeter ; Colonel Peel, and Messrs. Greville, Gratwicke, Gully, Goring, Shelley, Theobald, Rush, Kent, Forth, Chifney, John Day and many other well-known owners. The fifth Duke of Richmond had for a time as racing confederate, Mr. Gratwicke, a shrewd and famous owner of the period ; the horses owned by them being trained by Kent at Goodwood ; but some dispute arose and by the duke's request Mr. Gratwicke's horses were removed and the confederacy terminated. In 1840 there were no less than forty-four subscribers to the Goodwood Cup, which fell to the Duke of Orleans' Beggar- man, with Robinson up, such great horses as Lanercost and Hetman Platoff being second and third. It is curious to notice that the cup of 1839, which had been won by Mr. Ferguson's Harkaway, was also run for this year and won by Lord Eglinton's Potentate. The stakes were won by Mr. Allen's Orelia, 4 years 6 stone, who defeated the favourite, Hetman Platoff, also a four year, when endeavouring to concede her 3 st. 7 Ib. ! This year appears the Stewards' Cup, worth £300, with a sweepstakes of £5 added. It was won by Mr. Bowes' Epirus, which beat Mr. Thornhill's Euclid and a big field. In this year (1840) the Nassau Stakes, a new event, was won by Lord George Bentinck's Rosa Bianca. Lord George Bentinck's connexion with Goodwood is so famous that it deserves some mention. In 1841 he removed his horses from Danebury, and, by arrangement with the Duke of Richmond, had them trained at Goodwood by the duke's trainer, John Kent, senior. Lord George had an immense affection for Goodwood, and spent a great deal of his time there. Largely owing to his influence, the Duke of Richmond was induced to make great improvements in the course during this period. The value of the stakes was also very largely augmented, and the quality of the racing proportionately improved. During this period, in fact, Goodwood Races may be said to have reached the zenith of their prosperity. The increase in the value of the stakes was enormous. In 1832 the total value was £4,275 5 in 1839 £10,295. In 1841 the amount rose at a bound to £18,270 ; while in 1844 and 1846 the values of the stakes were, respectively, £23,949 and £24,109. These are enormous figures, if we remember the period and the value of stakes at other meetings. In 1851, after the death of Lord George Bentinck, the amount fell to £13,215. Lord George himself conducted his racing on a Napoleonic scale. 458 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN In 1844 he ran no fewer than forty-nine horses at Goodwood meeting ; while for the week his stakes and forfeits amounted to no less than £6,155, a sum said to be unparalleled in the case of any single owner. Lord George's influence may have pushed Goodwood to a point of im- portance at which it was impossible to remain ; yet to him is undoubtedly due much of the general improvement in racing, and in racing morality, not only at Goodwood but throughout the country. Lord George gave up racing for politics in 1846. He had known Goodwood intimately since 1824, when he rode and won his first match there on Mr. Poyntz's Olive, after two dead heats and a severe struggle in the deciding heat. In 1844 — one of Goodwood's greatest years — Lord George Bentinck won the Craven Stakes, with Discord ; the Innkeepers' Plate, with Farthing Candle ; the Goodwood Stakes and Goodwood Cup with Miss Elis, a sweepstakes of 20O sovereigns with Princess Alice, the Anglesey Stakes with Coal Black Rose, the challenge for the March Stakes with Naworth, and the Bentinck Stakes with Best Bower — in all eight races — a good haul for one owner. But then, as we have said, Lord George ran forty-nine horses that year. The Duke of Richmond's Red Deer, a famous stayer of that period, won the Queen's Plate and the Maidstone Stakes. The Sussex Stakes and the Chesterfield Cup appear in the programme for this memorable year. In 1850 some famous horses ran at this meeting. Lord Eglinton's The Flying Dutchman, then a four-year-old, starting at 1 2 to I on, won a 3OO-sovereign sweepstakes ; Sir Joseph Hawley's Teddington (winner of the Derby in the following year) took the Molecomb Stakes ; and Lord Stanley's Canezou beat seven others for the cup. In 1855 Baron Rothschild's Baroncino, ridden by Fordham, carried off the cup, beating a field which included such good horses as Oulston, Rataplan, Lord of the Isles, Neville, and Homily. The Stakes were won by Mr. Greville's Quince, ridden by Ashmall ; while Lord Wilton's Pumice-stone, steered by Flatman, took the Chesterfield Cup. It would be impossible, within the limits of this chapter, to trace the history of Goodwood, inter- esting though it is, step by step to the present day. The 'sixties saw plenty of good sport, though the value of the stakes had declined con- siderably since the 'forties. In 1871 the meet- ing was an excellent one. The Stewards' Cup, of the value of £300, was won by Mr. T. E. Case's Anton, from a large field. The Goodwood Derby and the Twentieth Bentinck Memorial both fell to Mr. Merry's King of the Forest. The Stakes were won by Mr. Bowes's Taraban, a good stayer, who had to be fortified before his races with a bottle of port. In the Goodwood Cup a great surprise took place, Favonius, win- ner of the Derby of that year, being defeated by Shannon, with Mortemer, a great French cup horse, third. The Chesterfield Cup was taken by Mr. F. Pryor's Botheration, which defeated a field of twenty-six horses. In 1880 we may glance at the value of the stakes and the quality of the winners. The Goodwood Stakes of that year, worth £685, were taken by Mr. Jardine's Reveller, a fair racehorse. The Richmond Stakes, of the value of £i 5 8, for two-year-olds, were won by Lord Falmouth's Bal Gal, a very smart filly, which also won the Rous Memorial, worth £1,207. The Gratwicke Stakes, value £650, were taken by Prince Soltykoff's colt Mask. The Ham Produce Stakes (£1,000) fell to Mr. Crawfurd's grand mare, Thebais. The Lennox Stakes were worth no more than £315. The Sussex Stakes, value £1,572, were won by Mask, while the Lavant Stakes, worth £860, were won by the American colt, Iroquois. The Stewards' Cup (£782) was won by Mr. Crawfurd's Elf King ; and the Findon Stakes (£390) fell to Mr. Chaplin's filly, Wandering Nun. In the Draw- ing Room Stakes (£260) Mask was for the third time victorious. The Racing Stakes were worth £260, and the Singleton, won by Peter, £577. The Goodwood Cup (£470) was taken by a moderate mare in Mr. Perkins's Dresden China. The Chichester Stakes were worth £497. The Prince of Wales' Stakes (£1,000) fell to Lord Bradford's Limestone. In the Molecomb (£975) another American horse, Paw Paw, was victo- rious. The Chesterfield Cup, worth £682, was carried off by Mr. Bragg's Victor Emanuel, a fair performer. The Goodwood Corinthian Plate (£457) was won by Lord Bradford's Grey Hen, and the Nassau Stakes (£670) by Lord Falmouth's Muriel, neither of them being of much account. Finally the Queen's Plate of 200 guineas, was taken by Prince SoltykofPs Thurio, a winner of the Grand Prix de Paris. The total value of the principal races, thus set down, was £ 1 3,549. A few other races of small value were also run. In 1890 a new race was introduced, after- wards omitted from the programme, viz. the Arundel Cup, worth £300 in specie. This was taken by Mr. A. James's Dog Rose. The Goodwood Cup this year (worth £357) was won by Colonel North's Philomel, a moderate performer. In 1897 the Gold Cup was worth altogether £625, the trophy itself being valued at £ 1 5 1 5*. The winner was Mr. R. Lebaudy's Count Schomberg, a good racehorse. In 1900 the Cup had been considerably advanced in value, and was worth to the winner £1,570 ; the trophy itself being put down at £132 15*. The second and third horses also took £300 and £100 respectively. Mr. D. Baird's Mazagan, a four-year-old, carrying 9 stone 3 lb., won the race from seven other starters. The Goodwood Plate, a new race, inaugurated in 1898, of the value of £710, was won by Jiffy II, while the 459 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Rous Memorial fell to Lord W. Beresford's well known Volodyovski, then a two-year-old. In 1906 some fair racing was witnessed. The Gratwicke Produce Stakes (£800), for three-year- olds, went to the Duke of Portland's Greendale, with Gorges second ; the Stewards' Cup (M57) to Captain Greer's Rocketer ; the Ham Produce Stakes to Sir E. Vincent's Amber. Lord Ellesmere's Winwick won the Goodwood Plate, value £825. The Sussex Stakes were taken by the Duke of Westminster's Troutbeck, a sterling horse, third for the Derby and winner of the St. Leger in that year. For the Good- wood Cup (£1,570) Plum Tree beat Plum Centre, with Gorgos third. The Prince of Wales' Stakes, a two-year-old race, worth £3,000 to the winner, were taken by Lord Wolverton's colt by Florizel out of Marsh Marigold, with Lord Rosebery's Traquair second. The Drayton Handicap (£576) fell to Brother Bill, and the Rous Memorial (£1,105) to Bellavista. The Gordon Stakes, for three-year-olds, was won by Lord Derby's Victorious ; the Chesterfield Cup (£522) by Mr. Bass's Gold Riach. In the Molecomb Stakes, worth £805, Mr. Raphael's My Pet II was the winner. On the whole the meeting was a good one ; fair fields contested the events and the sport was above the average. It has been said that Goodwood of late years has shown symptoms of decline. It is true that the meeting has been affected by certain developments of modern racing; but the fixture is unique in the sporting world ; and the lovely surroundings of the place, the fine air, and the freedom of the Down country are and will be always things of real delight to all classes of race-goers. The public spirit and generosity of successive Dukes of Richmond during a hundred years have placed all these good things freely at the pleasure of the public ; and to these noblemen a deep debt of gratitude is due, not only from all Sussex, but from all England. In addition to the three principal Sussex race meetings — Lewes, Brighton, and Goodwood — with which we have thus dealt, various small gatherings have, from time to time, been held in different parts of the county. There were races at Midhurst as far back as 1729. They were of but small account and came to an end after the meeting of 1738 ; ' East Bourn ' had also a meeting in 1729^1 which plates of £10 and £25 were contended for. In 1730 the £10 Plate was won by Mr. Gilbert's Hobler from Mr. Bruce's grey gelding ' after a dispute.' A purse of £25 at the same meeting was won by Sir Walter Parker's Silver Tail, which defeated Mr. Lidgiter's 'Sweep Chimley' (sic). In 1737 the old Eastbourne meeting was held for the last time until 1866, when a temporary revival took place ; from that year the Eastbourne Hunt Flat and Hurdle Races were held until 1875, after which they ceased. 46 In 1735 there were races at Chichester and Steyning. These seem to have been of very small importance ; the Chichester meeting was again held in 1740 and Steyning in 1745. Shoreham had a two-day meeting in 1760 ; on the first day a silver cup was run for in heats, a heat being 'three times round the Sheep Field.' In 1785 an aristocratic, but short-lived, meet- ing was held at Up-park, a private estate near Goodwood. The Prince of Wales, Lord Grosvenor, Sir H. Fetherston, Mr. Delme, and other owners ran horses in various matches. The principal event was a cup, value 120 guineas, which was won by Sir H. Fetherston's Epaminondas, 'rode by himself.' Up-park racing actually commenced with a few matches in 1782. It was held again in 1784, but ceased in 1786. In 1787, at Alfriston, a silver bowl and a subscription purse of £50 were offered. Mr. Bird's Highflyer won both events. This was the solitary adventure of this quiet village in the world of racing. In 1 8 1 6 a meeting was also held at Michel Grove. This seems to have been got up mainly by a Mr. R. W. Walker, master of a pack of hounds, and every race was won by him or by his relations. There was, it is true, a race for 100 guineas, the gift of this gentleman, ' for horses that had taken seven tickets with his hounds.' 2 This was won by Mr. Gilbert's Omphale, which however, with the second horse, was disqualified for not being able to produce the necessary certificates. Mr. Walker's own horse, Ippogriffo, was eventually awarded the prize. As a racing curiosity, this meeting of Michel Grove — never again repeated — is worthy of note. In 1826 Hastings and St. Leonards held a small meeting, which had increased in 1830 to two days' racing, with five events. Hastings races never attained to any importance, and, after a chequered career, were dropped in 1846, to be revived in 1849; afi*r tnat vear tney ceased till 1865, when they were revived for two seasons. In 1829 the old East Sussex Hunt, the forerunners of the present South Down Hunt, held a meet- ing which continued until 1844, when they were discontinued, the hunt having come to an end. Worthing was another small meeting, which began in 1860 and was last held in 1864. From 1870 to 1872 Rotherfield held a minor meeting, which, however, is not of sufficient im- portance to demand notice in detail. In 1871 the Honourable Artillery Company brought off a meeting on Brighton Race-course, in which a flat race and some hurdle races were contested. This meeting ceased after 1873. The legislation of 'Tickets entitling the purchaser to hunt with a pack of hounds formed a method of collecting subscriptions to hounds in those days in a manner similar to the modern ' cap.' SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN the Jockey Club in 1877 made an end of small race gatherings, and henceforth, in Sussex only Lewes, Brighton, and Goodwood held the field. In cross-country racing Plumpton Steeplechases have, in more recent years, attracted fair fields and attendances, and have been productive of fairly good racing. The Eridge Hunt Races have for some years enjoyed deserved support from hunt- ing people. Among Sussex training grounds, some of which have been in use for many years, the best known are Lewes, Alfriston, Jevington, Findon, and Michel Grove. The later Dukes of Rich- mond have given up racing, and the famous Goodwood training-grounds are no longer used. One of the principal establishments in Sussex for the breeding of thorough-bred stock is that of the Duke of Devonshire at Polegate, where a very complete stud farm was laid out and opened about eight years since. Other breeding studs in Sussex are those of Mr. Buchanan, at Pet- worth ; of Mr. Bass, at Rotherfield ; and of Mr. H. Bottomley, at Dicker. The most celebrated Sussex owner and breeder of thorough-bred stock was the third Earl of Egremont, whose esta- blishment at Petworth included at one time close on seventy brood mares. Lord Egremont, who died in 1837 at the age of eighty-six, was for fifty years an owner of racehorses. He won the Derby in 1782, 1804, 1805, 1807, and 1826 with Assassin, Hannibal, Cardinal Beaufort, Election, and Lapdog ; and the Oaks in 1788, 1789, 1795, 1800, and 1820 with Nightshade, Tag, Platina, Ephemera, and Caroline. His stock were renowned for their stoutness, and he was extremely partial to the blood of his favour- ite sire Gohanna. POLO The Sussex Club was founded about 1875 or 1876 ; and during the days of its prosperity the team representing this club carried all before it. Captain Philip Green, the Earl of Lewes, and the Messrs. Murietta were instrumental in establishing it, and the ground was at Bayham Abbey, on the borders of Sussex and Kent, the property of the Lady Camden, wife of Captain Green. There were about fifty playing mem- bers on the club books, and these included some of the finest players of their time in England. They were among the earliest to recognize the supreme importance of combined play, and for many years the Sussex team was the most for- midable in the Hurlingham tournaments. The Hurlingham Champion Cup was first won by the club team in 1880, when five men formed the team. The Earl of Lewes, Messrs. A. Peyton, J. E. Peat, A. E. Peat, and A. Peat repre- sented Sussex on this occasion, and the same team was successful in the following year. In 1882 Messrs. J. Peat, Kenyon Stow, A. Peyton, A. Peat, and J. Babington formed the winning team in the championship tournament. In 1883 the new rules had come into force, and the Sussex team of four, Messrs. Phipps Hornby and the three brothers Peat, found none to dispute their possession of the cup. In 1885 Mr. F. Mildmay and the three brothers were again suc- cessful, and three years later these four players won the first of the remarkable series of victories at Hurlingham which gave Sussex the foremost place among the clubs of the kingdom. Four years consecutively — 1888-1891 — the same team carried off the championship. In 1892, Lord Harrington taking the place of Mr. A. Peat, Sussex was again successful, and in 1893 the team, consisting as in the years 1888-91 in- clusive, once more ' walked over ' for this the chief event of the polo year. With the retire- ment of the invincible brothers Peat from active part in the game the prowess of the Sussex club waned ; it ceased to be represented in the great tournaments, and was soon afterwards dissolved. In the spring of 1 907 the Brighton and County Club was formed, the ground on which it plays is that in Preston Park, placed at its disposal by the mayor and corporation. The Inniskilling Dragoons and 2Oth Hussars played polo on this ground. SHOOTING No counties can compare with Norfolk and Suffolk for shooting, but probably no county can command the rent for shooting which is obtain- able in Sussex, namely from y. to 51. per acre. This is a result not only of the great improve- ments that have been made in the shootings themselves, but because of the accessibility of the country from London. It is quite an easy matter for a dweller in the metropolis to break- fast in London at eight o'clock, look through his letters, and begin shooting on his Sussex ground at 10.30. Shooting in this county was held of little value one hundred years ago. There is an authentic anecdote of two sportsmen from the neighbour- hood of Horsham who, wanting to do some business in Chichester, shot their way to that town, taking two days over the journey. After 461 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX staying one day at Chichester they shot their way home again without interference. There do not appear to be many records of bygone sport in Sussex. It has always been a county where nearly every sort of game was found, especially wild fowl. It is recorded that six brace of black game were killed on one day in St. Leonard's Forest as recently as 1 840, but since that date they have died out. Several attempts have also been made to introduce grouse on certain estates where there is a large quantity of heather, but the birds have always disappeared after about the second year. Sussex is no doubt well adapted for pheasant and partridge shooting. In the olden days there was always a certain amount of game over the whole of the county, but when, some fifty years ago, it became the fashion to rear tame pheasants, advantage was taken of the system to stock a great many of the large woodland tracts. There were practically no wild pheasants in the middle of these coverts, but if the owner is willing to spend money he can rear as many as he pleases. The writer knows of one estate of about four thousand acres where, previous to 1840, it was thought a good year if they killed 500 pheasants; whereas about 1900 the bag was about ten thousand for the season. This is representative of the case on many estates, but whereas pheasants have increased, hares generally seem to have decreased, not solely owing to the Ground Game Act, but also, in this county, because the farms have been divided up into so many small holdings. A little combination amongst landlords and tenants is the only essen- tial to the preservation of hares on the scale of olden times. This has been proved where the combination has taken place, and there are in three or four districts certainly as many hares to-day as there were fifty years ago. In some parts of the county partridges have greatly in- creased in numbers, especially where the owners or shooting tenants have insisted on the sys- tematic destruction of the bird's great enemy — the rat. The following facts show what the killing of this vermin means in preservation work. Some three thousand acres were rented princi- pally for the pheasant shooting, and there being some good open land the tenant was surprised to find that the average bag of partridges was only ten or twelve brace a day. Having an old spare keeper he commissioned this man to kill down the rats, with the result that the next year the average bag was about twenty-five brace a day. The following year and for many years it was fifty brace a day, some walking and some driving. After the tenancy ended the old ratcatcher was not thought necessary. In two years the bag fell to twelve brace. The estate was shot for partridges about six days each season. Quite two-thirds of the partridges killed in Sussex to-day are driven ; and although at first 462 sight such a wooded county does not appear very suitable for driving, on some of the large estates some splendid bags have been made. Many species of wild fowl are to be found on the rivers and marshes near the sea, and for several years past large numbers of so-called wild duck have been hand-reared, but as the latter afford very indifferent sport the quantity reared is being gradually reduced. In the marshes and brooks at certain times of the year snipe are numerous. Woodcock are common all over the county, but of course they have their favourite localities. On one shoot near Lewes forty-four were killed in 1906, twelve in one day. There is no doubt that the birds breed in several places in the county. Young cock have been seen in St. Leonard's Forest, and in woods on the sides of the Downs. There are always thousands of wood pigeons in the many localities suitable to them. Although the Hares and Rabbits Act and the small holdings have apparently reduced the hares, rabbits are as plentiful as ever they have been within living memory. The greatest advance in the system of shoot- ing has been in the way in which the coverts have been altered and arranged so as to encourage the rocketing pheasant ; and, owing to the un- dulating character of the ground on a great many of the best shooting estates, a good keeper can now show birds as ' tall ' as those in any county in England. In fact, the writer has occasionally seen the birds shown out too high, even for the best guns of the time. As regards bags the largest are made by shooting tenants renting parts of different estates, but the following refer to estates where owners shoot over their own property : — At Petworth Park the shooting in hand com- prises some 10,000 acres; pheasants are not ex- tensively reared by hand, the average bag being about 3,000 pheasants and 500 partridges ; very- few hares. On West Dean Park, where there are 1,000 acres of woodland, the average bag is about 4,000 pheasants, and 1,000 partridges (always driven). In October, 1906, seven guns killed 442 part- ridges in one day's driving. At Paddockhurst, 1,000 acres of covert land, the average bag is 3,000 pheasants. At Knepp Castle there are 180 acres of covert, and 3,500 acres of partridge ground. The aver- age bag is 1,600 pheasants, and 1,000 partridges. On this estate in 1906 a party of seven guns killed (driving) 385 partridges in a day. At Buchan Hill, which is purely a forest shoot with very little arable land, the average bag has been about 2,000 pheasants from about 2,000 acres of covert. Thirty years ago fifty hares a day were often killed on this estate. Now a hare is rarely seen. SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN West Broyle, about 1,000 acres ; bag 700 pheasants, 170 partridges, 35 hares ; a great home for wood pigeons, over 200 having been killed in a few days last year. At Danehurst, where there are 800 acres of covert and 1,200 acres of partridge ground, the average bag is 2,400 pheasants and 700 part- ridges. Since driving has been introduced on this estate, the owner has greatly increased his bags. On the Worth Park estate, Crawley, which consists of about 1,000 acres of covert, 700 acres of partridge ground, and a couple of hundred acres rough land, the average bag is 5,000 pheasants and 300 partridges. The pheasants are hand- reared ; the partridges are driven. About 2,000 rabbits and hares are killed each season. Wood- cock are comparatively rare. About 400 wild duck and snipe are shot, and as many wood pigeons and other ' sundries.' On the Searles' estate Hungarian partridges have been turned down with very good results. The writer has shot from east to west Sussex on a great many estates during the last forty years, and although the head of game reared and killed has increased enormously during that time, there is no doubt that in recent years vermin generally have also greatly increased. The art of trapping appears to be dying out, and nowhere is this art — for it is a very real one — of more vital importance than in such a wooded county as this. The head of game killed has actually decreased to some extent during the last few years owing to the neglect of trapping. There are now many small properties where the vermin have got the upper hand, and on these shoots practically no wild pheasants or partridges survive the season ; and, were it not for the hand-reared birds a good many parts of the county would be very bare of game. ANGLING Possessing few rivers of any size Sussex abounds with streams and estuaries containing trout and coarse fish of every description. Not many years ago all forms of poaching were carried on with impunity ; tons of fish were netted out to supply bait for the lobster and crab pots and many waters were almost decimated. Of late years, thanks to the Boards of Conservation, river preservation societies and angling associations, the majority of our rivers are well stocked and afford sport to the ever-increasing body of anglers. There are also in Sussex many lakes and ponds that hold monster pike, with big carp and tench. The harbours and estuaries afford good sport with rod and line or hand lines — almost every description of sea fish is to be caught in its season from the banks or piers. The principal rivers are the Arun and the Ouse, but taking the country from east to west the Medway first comes under notice. Rising at Turners Hill it flows on to near Groombridge where it passes into Kent. It holds a few trout, roach, bream, and other coarse fish, but the river here has small angling importance. The Grand Military Canal, which traverses the marshy low land of East Sussex, holds pike and coarse fish generally. The Rother (eastern), rising in the forest ridge near Rotherfield, holds in its upper waters a few trout and coarse fish ; but the stream is a succession of pools and shallows with thick underwood on the bank, and fly fishing is out of the question ; dapping with natural or artificial fly and fishing with worm or minnow are the usual methods of taking trout. From Roberts- bridge downwards the water, a succession of round or long pools and quick-running shallows, can be fished and is well worth fishing, for the pools hold big chub and roach ; there are also eels. Near the first main bridge is Udium which has some fine large pools connected by reaches less rapid. Here large trout are occasionally killed ; good pike also occur, but roach, bream, and chub are the principal fish frequenting this portion of the water. Small trout are taken in the tributaries. After leaving Udium there is some likely water, but in the summer months weeds block the river. There is good depth of water at the bridge to permit the barge-traffic to Bodiam wharf, and coarse fish of all kinds are caught in this portion ; the best pike-fishing is above Knelle Dam — below bridge the influx of salt water forbids the presence of pike, but bream, roach, and eels are numerous. At Northiam Station, close to Newenden, large carp haunt the deep holes below the bridge. The smaller waters, the Tillingham and Brede, hold trout and coarse fish. Sea trout, so called,1 ascend both these tributaries, and at spawning time come right up the estuaries ; these waters join the Rother at Rye, flowing into Rye harbour. It was in 1871 that a meeting of the riparian owners and occupiers was held at Bodiam to consider means whereby the netting and other 1 There is much diversity of opinion concerning the identity of the large trout which occur in the rivers of the south and east coast. They are not true sea-trout ; many good authorities hold the view that they are ordinary brown or river trout (salmo fario) which have developed with unusual rapidity and have acquired the habit of haunting estuarine waters. The colouring of the trout varies very widely in accordance with the nature of the water and perhaps in some degree also with the nature of its food. The variety referred to in this chapter is frequently called /. eituarius. 463 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX poaching in these waters could be put down. Lord Ashcombe, then Mr. George Cubitt, was the moving spirit, and his endeavours resulted in the formation of the Rother Fishery Associa- tion, acting under the Board of Conservancy of the Rother fishery district. The association has done excellent work ; the Rother, Tillingham, and Brede are now well watched and protected, and anglers obtain fair sport. A small stream, the Asten (or Arton) which rises near Battle, holds a few trout and coarse fish and once formed the port of Hastings. The Ashburn (or Ashbourne), rising at Ashburnham, contains trout and coarse fish, including a few pike. The Ashburn enters the sea without visible outlet near Pevensey. Travelling west- ward we come to the Cuckmere, rising near Heathfield. Several miles of fishing are available with the exception of portions reserved by the landowners, who as a rule grant permission when applied for. Licences are required only for trout fishing. Trout occur in the upper waters but the principal fish are rudd, dace, bream, roach, pike, and eels. The best angling reaches are Michelham Priory, Chilver Bridge, High Corner, near the railway bridge, Lock Hole and Road Hole. Heavy bream are occasionally taken, but sport has fallen off considerably of late years. The water is tidal to Alfriston. The Ouse is a more important river, and by reason of its proximity to Brighton is much fished. It rises at Ardingly and is fed by several small streams. Between Lindfield and Fletching Mill some good trout are caught ; trout up to 3 Ib. have been taken from the Black Brook stream ; the Black Brook has a number of good pools, but is thickly wooded on both banks. The angler must use a short stiff rod, running tackle and strong gut, the line wound up to the rod point, pushed through a gap and paid out with fly, worm or minnow. When a good fish is hooked it must be lifted bodily through the gap ; thus many heavy fish are lost. The river, which is somewhat narrow in this reach, holds some good chub, dace, roach, trout, and pike. It receives the stream from the lakes at Sheffield Park. The lowest lake was formerly noted for the size of its pike ; some years since the writer in an hour and a-half spinning from the iron bridge with small trout, landed three, weighing respectively i8£, 17^, and i6£ Ib. One fish when hooked took the line round a sunken pile and broke away, to be captured an hour later with the tackle in its mouth. The streams lead- ing to the lakes hold some good trout. One of the best waters for big river trout is Ruston Brook, a stream running from Mr. Wilson's water at Searles and joining the river just above Gold Bridge, Newick. It is a succession of pools and shallows. Trout up to i£ Ib. and river trout of 9 Ib. have been killed in this water. A good plan adopted when the mill at Searles was 464 not running was to get a small boy with a pole to stir the top pool, when the gentle stream soon clouded the water downwards. Fishing with well scoured brandling on Stewart tackle and the boy stirring up each pool in turn, many a good trout was killed. The trout are partial to this stream, entering it for spawning purposes, but the presence of perch considerably retards their increase. Chub up to over I Ib. are taken here. Hearing Fletching Mill heavy chub abound ; there is also a fair quantity of good roach and pike ; dace often give good sport with fly, and have been taken even on bare hooks when the angler was wetting a cast. The sunken timber is a drawback when chub fishing, which must be fine and far off; strong tackle and a short shrift are necessary both with chub and pike. Some heavy roach up to 2 £ Ib. are to be found just above the mill. At Fletching Mill Pool Sir Spencer Maryon Wilson a few years since experimented with a small hatchery, hoping to improve the breed of trout and introduce, or rather re-introduce, salmon to the Ouse. There is great diversity of opinion as to whether salmon ever used the river for spawning purposes. Yet the weirs which have been done away with for many years now gave a more rapid stream, and with its pools and shallows the river is materially improved from an angler's point of view. The salmon were hatched and turned out, but not one has been seen since, and as there is no evidence of their reappearance, or that they ever survived the polluted water near Lewes, the experiment must be considered unsuccessful. The pool at Fletching Mill looks a likely spot for trout or pike, but there is nothing noteworthy recorded from this water. From the river, in its course towards Uckfield, trout up to 2 Ib. have been taken, and river trout up to 9^ Ib. A famous poacher of trout and chub, now dead, has often boasted that with his retriever he would take more of these fish in an hour than an angler would catch in a day. His appliances were a short blow tube and some pellets made with an infusion of cocculus indicus (' indiberry,' he termed it), and with his dog he would walk down stream. Noting a good trout or chub he blew a few pellets behind the fish, which generally devoured them : then on the return journey the intoxicated and floundering trout was an easy prey to the retriever. Many a brace of good fish were thus taken by this poacher with the blow tube or by tickling. From Uckfield to Isfield about four miles of water is rented by the Sussex Piscatorial Society. Brown trout are to be found, as well as a few rainbow, placed in the water by the Ouse Pre- servation Society, whose head quarters are at Lewes. Several roach of over 2 Ib., bream weighing 4 Ib. 14^02., and carp of 8 Jib. have been killed in this reach. Much heavier fish are to be seen, especially SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN chub, which have been estimated at 8 Ib. Pike play havoc with the trout, and all up the river otters are numerous. The Ouse Preservation Society control the river from the old Hamsey Lock, just above Lewes, to beyond Isfield. The portion from Hamsey Lock to Cooksbridge Stream (below Barcombe Mills) is reserved for season-ticket holders, the remainder being fish- able on payment of is. per diem. From Isfield to Barcombe Mills there is good fishing, roach of over 2 Ib. are not uncommon. Barcombe Mills is a favourite resort. A fine roach of 3 Ib. way recently taken (out of season) and returned to the water. A trout of over 6 Ib. caught by spinning, was in poor condition. Good bags of roach are taken, also trout, dace, and heavy pike. There are locks at both the flour and oil mills, and at each lock is a salmon ladder. The stream that runs from Plumpton Mill to the Barcombe Oil Mill is a favourite for river and big brook trout, this and the Ruston brook being considered the best on the river. The water as far as Barcombe Mills is tidal and holds good roach, but as we approach Lewes the river is too often scarcely pure enough to contain fish. A few good roach are taken below Lewes, and nearing Newhaven codling, flat fish, smelt, and eels afford sport. In the winter months heavy floods occur, and in the Fletching district eels have been caught by the score while crossing the turnpike road. In this district are a number of lakes and ponds under the control of the Sussex Piscatorial Society, established in 1891, to pro- mote legitimate freshwater and sea angling and kindred objects, including natural history, fish culture, aquarium keeping, &c. The Marquis of Abergavenny is the president. The society rents and stocks suitable waters, and purposes to estab- lish fish hatcheries, &c. There are now over one hundred members. In addition to the reach on the Ouse the society rents Horsted Keynes stream and lake of about 1 1 acres stocked with brook trout ; also Horsted Keynes, Broadhurst Manor Farm, Brewhouse and Stockyard ponds, containing pike, carp, tench, roach, and perch. Brewhouse pond is stocked with rainbow trout. At Cuckfield there are about 27 acres of water and a mill stream, holding pike, perch, bream, tench, carp, roach, black bass, and gudgeon. There are also a few trout in the mill stream. Hillyfield pond at Uckfield contains carp, tench, and other coarse fish. At Lye Farm there are five ponds with king carp, pike, black bass, perch, carp, tench, rudd, and eels ; the stream, i ^ mile of fishing, contains trout. Members of the society have access to a pond at Cuckfield holding carp and roach, also to two lakes at Cuckfield Park containing carp and king carp, bream, tench, roach, pike, and eels, where are about 6 acres of water and nearly a mile of stream holding trout ; to Knepp Castle lake containing carp, tench, pike, perch, roach, &c. ; to Glyndebourne lake with perch, tench, and roach ; to three lakes at Plashet Park near Is- field, holding pike, tench, roach, and perch ; to the mill stream at Lindfield, with perch, chub, pike, carp, roach, and a few trout ; to Piltdown pond, near Uckfield, holding pike, perch, carp, tench, and dace ; and to Slaugham Mill pond, containing pike, carp, roach, tench, and eels. Three brace of trout is the limit per rod per day, all trout under 8 oz. must be returned to the water. Thanks to the kindness of Herr Jaft'e, of Osnabruck, the society has raised from the egg numbers of rainbows, steelheads, and black bass, and is now experimenting with pike-perch in the water at Pond Lye. The rainbows in their second year rose so freely (at Horsted Keynes) at any and every fly, that few were left at the end of the season. The steelheads were most difficult to confine, escaping from the water if given the slightest opportunity, but the few that were hooked gave very fine sport ; they may be regarded as having ceased to exist in Sussex. There are a few black bass left in one of the ponds, but none have been caught for some time past. The pike-perch are scarcely large enough to identify or to take with hook and line, so that at present there is no proof among the host of small fry in the water of successful re- sults with these fish. The best Sussex pike was taken from a pond by Mr. Gillam, the secretary, and weighed 32jlb. Mr. W. Booth, the trea- surer, hooked and lost a big fish in the adjoining water ; it was picked up dead a few hours later and weighed 30^ Ib. The best carp taken from the society's water with rod and line weighed 1 2 Ib. Five tench were taken at Pond Lye, weighing 24 Ib., and pike of 22 and 23 Ib. The Ouse Preservation Society have also done good work on the river. The Adur, within easy distance of Brighton, consists of a number of streams which unite near Henfield. It is for the most part preserved by the Adur Preservation Society and Henfield Anglers' Association. It holds a few trout and all kinds of coarse fish. The principal angling resorts are the Fork at Henfield, Mockbridge, Bines Bridge, Streatham Bridge, Horton Gravell, Steyning Sluice, and Church Hole. Steyning Sluice is noted for good dace and roach, and above Steyning good sport may be obtained among the carp. From some of the culverts in the vicinity of Shoreham trout have been taken up to 3 Ib. ; mullet come up in quantities, but few are taken with rod and line. Roach of I Ib. I oz. and I Ib. were taken recently, but these are exceptionally heavy for the water. The canal running from the harbour to Aldrington holds some good mullet, small bass,, and other salt-water fish ; mullet up to 1 0 Ib. may be seen among the floating timbers : not to be caught with hook and line they are 465 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX occasionally shot ; fish up to 9^ Ib. in weight have been killed in this way. The Arun, the principal river of the county, rises near Horsham in St. Leonard's Forest. It was formerly connected by canal with Chichester ' Harbour, and by the Guildford Canal with the Thames ; also through the Rother with the Wye. The railways have made an end of the barge traffic and the Portsmouth and the Guild- ford canals are closed and filled in. Some portions of the old Guildford Canal on the Lee Farm fisheries hold coarse fish, and in the portions not filled in carp and tench are taken. A few trout are to be found in the upper waters, and the river is noted for good roach and bream. Tench are seldom taken, but a few good pike are recorded. This season at Timberley, near Pulborough, pike of 22 Ib. 8 oz. and iglb. at Amberley were killed. Pulborough is a noted angling resort ; carp of 1 1 Ib., bream 6 Ib. 8 oz., roach of over 2 Ib. are numerous. The river near Pulborough is joined by the Western Rother, and flows on through Hard ham. Salmon trout and bass up to 8 Ib. ascend the river and have been captured with dace. Roach of 2 Ib. are frequently taken at Amberley, and pike up to 19 Ib. have been killed in the present season (1907). Running on through Stoke, noted for good roach, the river passes the west and south of Arundel Park. The Blackrabbit is a favourite swim for big roach. Passing through Arundel, with the cnstle, lordly in its magnificence dwarfing the red tiled houses at its base, the Arundel Bridge is passed, and flowing on through Ford the river enters the harbour at Littlehampton. From these four miles of water heavy roach are taken near the culverts, which discharge refuse into the river ; flat fish, codling, and bass are numerous in the season ; mullet, for which Arundel is famous, are taken by the netsmen in great numbers. Heavy bass ascend the river as far as Pulborough and are taken with rod and line, nets hand-lines, and trimmers. Sea trout are to be found at Amberley and Pulborough. A few mullet are captured with rod and line under the railway bridge at Ford, but the pier at the harbour affords the best sport, baiting with boiled cabbage, silk weed, or ragworm. Experts make good bags on the morning tide, but the landing is difficult, fish of over 3 Ib. invariably breaking away. We now come to Chichester Canal, a branch of the old Portsmouth connexion with the Arun. The greater portion from Hunston Bridge to the Arun at Ford has been filled in, but the branch from Chichester Harbour at Birdham Locks to the Basin, within a few yards of the Chichester railway station, is still open for barges. The four miles of its course is considered one of the best stocked waters in the county. The basin is fed by a number of springs and culverts running from the Lavant stream. It has wharves on all 466 sides, with a depth of from 6 to 8 ft., and in the later months is a resort of the heaviest fish ; carp up to 14 Ib., bream up to 4^ Ib., some fine perch and roach, a few tench and eels up to 4 Ib. are to be caught. A pike of i8£ Ib. was taken here some years since while roach fishing, on single gut and a roach hook, having taken the captured roach ; and after a long struggle the angler took a boat and the fish was netted out. The canal is fishable from the basin on the towpath side and is free to all. There are swims innumerable all down the water, the banks are fringed with rushes and reeds, and with the even current a swim cleared and baited will provide sport for several days. A few years since when carp were feeding ravenously heavy takes of fish weighing from 4 to 5 Ib. were made. Then bream came on ; eleven fish taken before breakfast weighed 34 Ib. ; takes of 45 Ib. have been secured, the fish weighing 3 to 5^ Ib. each. The heaviest perch from this water weighed 4^ Ib. Tench up to 3 Jib. have been taken in the Donnington stretch. Over 200 pike, varying from 2 to 1 1 £ Ib. in weight were taken three years since. Lower down the canal is the celebrated Ash-tree swim, which holds good bream and roach. Further on is Hunston Bridge, and in the bend heavy carp, bream, roach, and pike are caught. On the eastern side across the bridge beyond numerous beds of reeds, rushes, and water lilies, is Donnington. There are good swims all down the reach, indicated as a rule by the parted and trampled rushes. At Donnington heavy tench are to be found as well as pike and bream. The roach in this water have deteriorated in weight ; a fish of 14 oz. is now a rarity, but smaller fish are taken in scores. From Birdham Bridge on the opposite bank to the first locks is a nice stretch of water with a broad bed of rushes on the south side ; the holes under the banks on the towing path are noted as the haunts of pike ; four brace have been taken in a few hours by dropping the bait over the bank or spinning alongside the rushes. At the lock gate there is a deep hole with from 12 to 14 ft. of water where lie big carp and bream. The perch here are large and numerous, and in this reach between locks good tench occur. Pike up to i y£ Ib. have been captured. Down the four miles of water, when clear, myriads of fish of all sizes and descriptions may be seen. In fact, it is over- stocked. The city council hold the right over the water-way, but little is done to improve the water for the benefit of anglers. The West Rother rises in the parish of Priors Dean in Hampshire, and enters Sussex at West Harting. Down to Midhurst the angling is not particularly good excepting in private water. Trout and coarse fish are to be found, but below Midhurst on to Selham good trout are more numerous. A nice fish of 5 Ib. was taken a few years since on roach tackle just above the SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN picturesque Selham water-mill. Good roach, carp, and pike frequent the water, and in the straight stretch by the old lock gudgeon give sport, being utilized as live bait. Fittleworth is a favourite angling station. Trout and coarse fish are taken in this reach. The streams in West Sussex are numerous, are all strictly preserved and well stocked, notably the canal on the Stanstead estate, from which trout up to 4 Ib. are taken. A pool above Stan- stead in a few hours' trouting produced 1 1^ brace of from fib. to 3 Ib., taken by the writer principally with Black Palmer, and on netting the pool later on ninety brace were taken out and transferred to other water. The streams from Stanstead run through Emsworth to Chichester Harbour. Pike of over 20 Ib. have been taken from a small lake on the estate. During the close season Chichester Harbour is a favourite resort of anglers, and can be fished in many places from the bank, but in some parts a boat is necessary. Heavy fish are taken with rod and line, on hand lines, and bass up to 14 Ib. are killed. Bass come all up the water ; soft crab or rag worm are favourite baits. The ' school bass,' as they are termed, can be taken the season round, but the heavier fish come up later in the year. Mullet are taken at Pilsea piles, cod and pollock at harbour's mouth or Pilsea piles, plaice and dabs at harbour's mouth and Stocker sands. For conger eels the upper Pilsea piles are a favourite spot. Smelt visit the harbour in myriads, and in a warm April or May give ex- cellent sport to anglers using ragworm as bait, as many as 15 dozen having been taken per rod per tide. Herrings are caught at Appledram sluice in February and March. For flounders and eels the best water is the Chichester branch of the canal from Bird-ham to Dell Quay. In the summer months the harbour's mouth is noted for mackerel. Sea trout and salmon ascend the water, but are usually netted. Salmon computed at 2O Ib. have been seen leaping between Dell Quay and Appledram sluice. Whiting and pout are taken at the mouth of the harbour and at Pil- sea, and turbot, soles, and skate by long lining in Bracklesham Bay. For fresh- and salt-water fishing in close proximity Chichester canal and harbour are considered the best waters in the county. On the coast a bass of over 16 Ib. was caught at Beachy Head in September, 1906, and one of 13 Ib. 8 oz. at Newhaven ; another of 13 Ib. 7 oz. at the Royal Crescent Groyne, Brighton, and one of 10 Ib. from Brighton beach. A cod of I 7 Ib. was taken off Brighton with a long line, a conger eel weighing 37 Ib. was killed off Eastbourne, also a skate of 66 Ib. A turbot ot 8 Ib. I oz. off Hastings may be added to the list of fair takes by sea anglers. CRICKET The earliest allusion to an important cricket match in the county appears to be in 1730, when a game at Lewes between sides organized by the second Duke of Richmond and Sir William Gage was abandoned owing to the illness of Way- mark. The earliest recorded meetings between Kent and Sussex, in 1734 and 1735, were due to the efforts of Sir William Gage. In the former match Kent was victorious ; next year Sussex, having won at Lewes, lost at Sevenoaks. Richard Newland was the chief bat, and the earliest of the really celebrated cricketers of Sussex.1 He and his two brothers played for England v. Kent on the Artillery Ground in July, 1745. On the same field — then the head quarters of cricket — in 1847, the Maids of Charlton and Singleton twice met the Maids of Westdean and Chilgrove, one of the earliest in- stances of a ladies' cricket match. In 1752 Surrey beat Sussex at Longdown by 80 runs. Sixteen years later, the third Duke of Richmond captained Sussex against the historic Hambledon Club, losing by seven wickets. John Small had ' above four score notches in this match and was not out when the game was finished.' The return match was a victory for the shire, and the duke won ' near a thousand pounds beside.' The residence of the Prince of Wales at Brighton proved a boon to Sussex cricket. He was a great patron of the game, and it is stated that ' He was esteemed a very excellent player, with great condescension and affability.' The prince snowed his interest in the game by presenting the town, in 1791, with the cricket ground subsequently known as Ireland's Garden. One of the earliest matches there played was between Middlesex and Brighton. W. Fennex made 90 for the visitors, who won by 21 runs, J. Hammond with 50 being chief scorer for the home side. Next year Brighton beat Maryle- bone by three wickets, and won the supple- mentary match 3 by an innings and 44 runs, whilst the town defeated Middlesex by five wickets. One match between Middlesex and Brighton, begun in September 1792, was finished in May 1793. In July of the same year a combined eleven of Surrey and Sussex defeated England by an innings and 277 runs, 1 He subsequently became a surgeon in Chichester, * Sir John Shelley, Hon. H. Fitzroy, and Lord and died at Bath in 1791. Winchilsea were among the players. 467 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX scoring 483, the bulk of the runs being credited to representatives of Surrey. It may be added that the earliest county match in which these counties met was on Micklam Downs in 1730, when each side had three players. The score is missing, as also are the scores of the three matches between Surrey and Sussex in 1745. A few early local matches may be cited. In 1738 a match was played at the seat of the Earl of Wilmington between Eastbourne, captained by Lord John Sackville, and an eleven of the parish of Battle. At Alfriston, on 17 May, 1787, four men, whose united ages came to 297 years, played a cricket match with great spirit. At Esburn Park, in 1802, North Sussex beat South Sussex by eight wickets, all the runs scored, except one 3, being made by singles. In 1818 Brighton played Waldron for eleven new bats, and won. Far more important was the five-day match between Sussex and Epsom, played at Lord's in July and August 1816, when 625 runs were scored for thirty-eight wickets. In the return match, in which Mr. W. Ward, Mr. E. H. Budd, and Mr. Howard were among the bowlers, 1,047 runs were compiled for thirty-eight wickets, this being the first re- corded match in which 1,000 runs were scored. For Sussex, who won by 427 runs, Mr. Osbal- deston made 106, and W. Lambert made 107 not out and I 57, a feat long unrivalled. Lambert was a great hitter who always raised his bat over his shoulders, and he used to bowl high under- hand twisting in from leg. His career was closed for matches of importance in 1817, when he was accused of having sold the England v. Nottingham match. By profession he was a miller and bell-ringer, and there is a tradition O 7 that he had the largest hands of any cricketer of that day. William Broadbridge who played for Sussex, scoring 6 1, was a hard hitter and the earliest of the first-class stumpers of the county. In 1826, for Sussex v. Hants and Surrey, he actually stumped seven and caught two. His brother Jem for some seasons in the twenties was the best all-round cricketer in England, and often walked from Duncton to Brighton — 25 miles — to play in a match. The year 1827 was momentous for Sussex and for cricket generally. At Darnall near Sheffield, Sussex for the first time played Eng- land, and actually obtained the first five national wickets for two runs, eventually winning by seven wickets. This was the earliest of the three trial matches designed to test the relative merits of underhand bowling and the new-fashioned round-arm bowling which Sussex desired to in- troduce. The second match, at Lord's, was won by the county by three wickets. After this, a manifesto was issued by nine of the England players declaring they would not play the third match unless ' the Sussex men bowl fair — that is, abstain from throwing.' The objection was subsequently withdrawn, and England won the third match at Brighton by 24 runs, after being dismissed for 27. It is recorded that in this match James Broadbridge threw his bat at a wide ball and was caught at point. In this year F. W. Lillywhite made his first appearance. He did not play at Lord's until he was five-and-thirty, and he bowled finely for England v. Kent when sixty. A short stout man, he bowled with machine-like precision, slow round-arm, and was called 'the Nonpareil.' He eventually migrated to London where he died in 1884. On 20 August 1827, for Sussex against Kent, T. Pierpoint is said to have been seven and a half hours batting for 31 runs. Wides were first scored as such in the return match. In 1828 there were fourteen ducks' eggs in the Sussex match with Kent. After the contest, drawn through rain, between Sussex and Surrey at Midhurst in 1830, there was no match between these neighbours until 1849. At Lord's in 1833 Morley, batting for Sussex against England, took three hours in making 9 runs. Curiously enough in each of the two following matches under this title six Sussex players were dismissed without scoring, each time in the second innings. In 1836 Sussex beat M.C.C. and Ground by five wickets, the first occasion when the bowler's name was inserted in the score after a catch, ' stumped, l.b.w.,' or ' hit wkt.' The earliest fixture between Sussex and M.C.C. had been on 9 June 1823, when Sussex won by eight wickets. The first match with Nottinghamshire was in 1835. After the victory in 1836 over Kent, who were without Mr. Alfred Mynn, Sussex lost ten matches in succession to their neighbours. In 1837 the vicar of Town Mailing denounced all who attended the Kent and Sussex match from the pulpit. In this year Sussex with Fuller Pilch beat England by 79 runs. At about this period Mr. E. Napper3 came into the county eleven, and played for some twenty vears, being a free left-handed hitter. At Lord's, in the match against M.C.C. on 1 1 June 1839, there was a noteworthy no-balling incident. James Hodson, who made his first appearance for the county at Lord's, was six times no-balled by Caldecourt ' for being too high,' though in the first innings Good, the other umpire, had taken no notice. Mr. Kynaston was bowled by one of these no-balls. Another odd circumstance in the same match was that Lord Winterton came to assist Sussex, but had to play against them and made top score, the only incident of this nature in the history of the M.C.C. For Kent v. Sussex in the same year Fuller Pilch hit nine successive threes in as many balls. At this time T. Box, a commanding batsman, was the county wicket-keeper. Kent did not s A professional of the same name used to play for Sussex at the same period. 468 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN again meet Sussex until 1841, when the hop county won both matches with great ease. In the two second innings of Sussex there were only two contributions of double figures, G. Mill- yard on both occasions scoring 10. In 1843, at Brighton, Sussex turned the tide of defeat and beat Kent, who were without Mr. Felix, by 20 runs. Mr. W. Ward played for England at the same town, aged fifty-six, having appeared in big fixtures as far back as 1 8 1 o. In August of this year Sussex beat M.C.C. by 86 runs in a match yielding 830 runs, the largest aggregate since the introduction of round-arm bowling. Of this total, Mr. C. G. Taylor, with 100 not out, scored his only century for Sussex. He was a finished and brilliant bat, quick on his legs with a remarkable variety of strokes, and bowled slow round-arm with effect. Box in this match con- tributed 60 not out and 65. For some seasons, though the county team met with success, there were very few notable features in the Sussex matches. Scoring was generally low as a result of the marked superiority of the ball to the bat. Two keen amateurs, the brothers Napper, received invaluable support from Wisden and Dean, who were the backbone of the eleven ; while Picknell and Hammond were also prominent as batsmen. 1$ the match against England in 1 849 Box was put on and obtained five wickets for 45 runs by slow lobs of the worst description, pitched anywhere and high in the air. He clean bowled George Parr when he had made 85. The encounter between England and XVI of Sussex in 1851 was somewhat of a scratch affair, and was played on 13, 14, and 15 October, being unfinished. In 1852 Sussex and Surrey at Lord's beat England by 5 1 runs ; 4 the first innings were respectively 34 and 48. G. Brown's score of 86 v. Surrey at the Oval in July 1852, was the largest for the southern shire for some seasons, but next year John Lillywhite, in the match against M.C.C. com- piled 95, while the county took the last six club wickets for 4 runs. John Lillywhite, nick- named the ' mud-bowler,' played for seventeen years in most of the big matches, and was the chief cover-point of his day. ' Tiny ' Wells, a diminutive but very useful cricketer, came into the side soon after. Sussex played England for the last time in 1853, wnen, helped by Clarke and Parr, the county won by 68 runs, Wisden taking eight wickets for 41 in the first innings. By a strange coincidence Sussex in 1855 beat both Kent and Surrey by the narrow margin of 2 runs, and had now beaten the former county on seven successive occasions. Sussex also won ' The match against England was for the benefit of William Lillywhite, who took part at the age of 61. Mr. C. G. Taylor re-appeared for this game, having been out of good cricket for seven seasons. the inaugural match on the Bramhall Lane ground at Sheffield, defeating Yorkshire by an innings and 117 runs, Wisden compiling 148. In the second effort of Sussex v. M.C.C. in 1856, the last five wickets fell for 6 runs, the aggregate being 23. England beat Kent and Sussex by 4 runs owing to the terrific bowling of Bickley, who took eight wickets for 7 runs. It was a curious coincidence that in each of the first two engagements of 1857, against M.C.C. and Surrey respectively, Sussex scored totals of 227 for twice out. Ellis now succeeded the veteran Box as wicket- keeper. The county had a bad experience at the Oval, the two Surrey bowlers, Caffyn, nine for 28, and Griffith, ten for 34, sending the men of Sussex back for 35 and 31. Mr. F. P. Miller made more runs than either of these poor efforts in his solitary contribution of 64 for Surrey. Griffith and Wisden playing for the combined counties at Brighton, however, dismissed England for 33 and 51, the last match under this title for ten years. The season of 1858 saw Surrey opposing Kent and Sussex, and winning by 24 runs after being in a minority of 116 on the first innings, with Messrs. Lane and Burbrid^e unable to play. Southerton, a player long associated with Hampshire and Surrey, began his career in the Sussex eleven in this season. Assisting twenty-two Gentlemen of Sussex at St. Leonards, Hooker took sixteen wickets of the United England Eleven, a rare proportion. The county in September met Manchester and won by an innings and 41 runs, Ellis scoring 71 not out. A big victory by 169 runs in 1859 over Kent was notable for only one bye in a match of 539 runs, in which Stubberfield, with 7 for 10, was mainly responsible for dismissing the losers for 23. In 1860 the match with M.C.C. at head quarters was played practically on mud. Wells scored 55 out of 70 from the bat, and 1 1 out of 38. He was oddly out in the match against Surrey, breaking the handle of his bat, and the pod flying over his shoulders hit the bails. In 1866 in the Kent match he hit his wicket as the bowler was in the act of delivering his ball, and in 1865 he trod on the stumps; the only three occasions on which he ever was given out ' hit wicket.' Against M.C.C. at Lewes seven of the county team were run out. The next year showed nothing of note; but 1862 in the match with M.C.C. at Lord's, which Sussex won by four wickets, there was no change of bowling on either side, Stubberfield for the county sharing the attack with James Lillywhite, junior. This useful left-handed bat and slow bowler was wonderfully trustworthy during the low ebb to which the county sank. For North v. South in 1872 at Canterbury he took all ten wickets. When Kent beat Sussex by ten wickets at Brighton in June 1862 the honours went to Joseph Wells, who clean bowled Dean, 469 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Leigh, Ellis, and Fillery, with four successive balls. The encounter with Surrey on 13 July 1863 was the earliest occasion in which 1,000 runs were obtained in an unfinished match. Ellis with slow lobs bowled eight for 96 and seven for 201, and made 83, and John Lillywhite scored 91. Griffith compiled 89 and 142, his first innings being made in about an hour, while Mr. Bur- bridge scored 101. Wootton for M.C.C. v. Sussex took eight wickets for 9 runs. In 1 864 the county declined to come to Lord's owing to the roughness of the ground and because M.C.C. always sent 'a tail ' down to Brighton. In 1863 Wootton and Mr. R. S. Foster added 106 for the last wicket. Scoring about this period became notably bigger. Between 1886 and 1889 Sussex won seven con- secutive matches against Hampshire, and from 1851 to 1855 the same number against Kent. The southern county suffered nineteen successive defeats from Nottinghamshire between 1884 and 1893, and between 1881 and 1893 lost twenty- four and drew one match. Sussex lost ten suc- cessive matches with Kent from 1837 to 1842, and with Yorkshire from 1873 to 1882. It may be noted that in 1901 Mr. C. B. Fry scored six consecutive centuries, and four in 1900, in which year K. S. Ranjitsinhji just failed to perform the feat. The latter, however, twice scored three consecutive centuries for Sussex in 1900 and once in 1896. The following are the four principal scorers for Sussex up to 1907 : — Matches In- Not Runs Most Average nings out in an innings K. S. Ranjitsinhji 184 299 40 17,062 285 65-227 C. B. Fry . . 212 347 21 16,962 244 52-10 G. Brann . . 278 464 38 11,458 219 26-382 W. Newham . 347 602 46 14,249 201 25-349 The following are the principal bowlers for Sussex : — Matches Balls Runs Wickets Average J.Lilly white, jun. 16343,72913,534 91714-696 F. W. Tate . 313 66,537 27,994 l>23* 22712 James Broadbridge and H. Morley represented Sussex during four successive reigns, namely those of George III, George IV, William IV, and Victoria. T. Box assisted Sussex for twenty-four successive seasons without missing a match, and James Lillywhite, junior, for twenty. A SHORT HISTORY OF CRICKET AT HASTINGS AND ST. LEONARDS A map in the possession of the Rev. W. C. Sayer-Milward of Old Hastings House, dated 1760, shows that cricket was played in Hastings about the middle of the eighteenth century, a piece of ground on the West Hill being marked as the 'Cricket Field.' It was not, however, till 1825 that Hastings may be said to have commenced its con- nexion with first-class cricket. That year saw the birth in the premier Cinque Port of Mr. Arthur Hogarth, the well-known cricketer who continued Frederick Lillywhite 's Scores and Biographies ; in the same year also Edward Thwaites, a tallow-chandler of Hastings, assisted England at Lord's. In the next year a single- wicket match was played at Benenden in Kent between E. Thwaites, Fielder, and Sawyer, of Hastings, and three of Benenden for ^40, when J. G. Wenman, one of the Benenden three, was in nearly two days, scoring close on zoo runs. The first Hastings Cricket Club was formed in 1840, having amongst its members E. Thwaites, G. Standen, Sawyer, Baxter, Burchell, and Tutt, and in this, the first year of its forma- tion, the club played two important matches with Tunbridge Wells. The home match was played on the West Hill at Hastings, in the field then known as Thwaites's (now Breeds's) field, when the Hastings club, with Fuller Pilch and Lillywhite, defeated the visitors, who had Mr. Alfred Mynn and Box to assist them. The return match was played on the common at Tunbridge Wells, when Hastings again proved victorious. In both matches George Standen assisted his town eleven; he was a good cricketer, who played regularly in matches in the eastern division of Sussex. On 1 8 and 19 July 1848 Hastings, with J. Lillywhite, Adams and Barton, played Brighton with G. Picknell on the East Hill at Hastings. In the visiting team is the name of C. H. Gausden,5 founder of the ground of that name at Hove. About this time Hastings used to play out and home matches with Battle, Bexhill, Eastbourne, Robertsbridge, Westfield, Northiam, and other places in the neighbourhood, the home matches usually coming off either on the old race-course at Bopeep, on St. Leonards Green, or on the East Hill at Hastings. In 1857 the first East Sussex Club,6 composed of residents at St. Leonards, and of gentlemen living in the neighbourhood, was started, having for its ground the old race-course at St. Leonards, and for professional George Hooker of East Grinstead. No name was for many years better 6 He afterwards went to live at Hastings, and served his adopted town as mayor. 6 Among the members of the club at that time well known in Hastings and St. Leonards and the neighbourhood were : Sir Anchitel Ashburnham, Mr. L. Ashburnham, Mr. H. M. Curteis, Sir Augus- tus Webster, Mr. V. B. Crake, Mr. D. Papillon, Mr. A. R. W. Day, Mr. W. M. St. Aubyn, Mr. C. T. Lawrence, Mr. W. E. M. Watts, Mr. C. Musgrove, Mr. C. Farncombe, Mr. E. Farncombe, Mr. R. C. Stileman, Mr. E. Hume, Mr. W. P. Beecham, Capt. Parish, Mr. W. D. Parish, Mr. W. Shadforth-Boger, Mr. H. Bally, and Mr. E. T. Booth. 470 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN Icnown in Hastings cricket than that of Mr. Herbert Mascall Curteis of Windmill Hill Place, Herstmonceux, and Peasmarsh Place, near Rye. * The Squire,' as he was generally called, was in his school eleven at Westminster, and also gained a place in his University team, playing for Oxford against Cambridge in 1840-1 ; he also for many years assisted his county in their matches. It was in 1857 that Sussex met M.C.C. and Ground at St. Leonards on the new East Sussex Club ground, Mr. H. M. Curteis and Mr. W. P. Beecham assisting Sussex in this, the first county match played at Hastings. On 1 9 and 20 August 1858, a United England Eleven contended at Bopeep against twenty-two of the East Sussex Club, with James Lillywhite and George Hooker. On this occasion Hooker greatly distinguished himself by obtaining as many as sixteen wickets in the two innings of the England eleven. United England appeared at St. Leonards again the next year, contending this time against twenty-two of East Sussex, with Stubberfield and Hooker. In this match Mr. Edward Hume formed one of the East Sussex team. He was at that time in the Marlborough College eleven, and proceeding to Oxford in October of that year, played the next season for his university against Cambridge. He for some years rendered most signal service to the Hastings United Club. The East Sussex Club was dissolved at the end of the season of 1860, and a town club,7 generally known as the Hastings United, was formed under the presidency of Mr. Edward Hewitt, the club ground being on the East Hill at Hastings. E. Foster of Hastings was en- gaged as professional bowler, in which capacity he served the club for many years. Long scores will be found against the name of Mr. A. J. Brook as far back as 1860, and he was still playing in 1902. The steadiest of batsmen, but with great hitting powers, many a century has he made and many a match has he won for the Hastings and Bexhill clubs. It was in con- nexion with this new Hastings club that the remarkable cricketing family of Phillips came into notice, and the help they have given to their native town cannot be over-estimated. The five brothers, Messrs. Albert, William, Henry, James, and Peter, were all good exponents of the game, and on two occasions all five brothers were found playing on the same side. In the first match in 1874, for Hastings against the East Sussex Club at St. Leonards, the brothers scored 174 out of a total of 241 runs. 7 The best known members of the club were : Mr. E. Hume, Mr. C. J. Coventry, Mr. T. Harris, Mr. J. S. Parkin, Mr. E. L. Owen, Mr. J. E. Raven, Mr. W. G. Custard, Dr. T. Trollope, Mr. W. Burfield, Messrs. Albert, William, and Henry Phillips ; Russell Hood, and A. J. Brook. In August of 1860 twenty-two of Sussex, with G. Wells and Hooker, played the United England Eleven at Bopeep. Two years later twenty-two of the Hastings United metF. Caesar's All England Eleven on the East Hill. Mr. H. M. Curteis was captain of the local team, which had the assistance of two professional bowlers, viz. E. Foster of Hastings, and N. Dunk of Hawkhurst, and the next year a match took place on the East Hill between twenty-two of the Hastings United, with J. Lillywhite and Foster, and a United England Eleven. In a match played at Northiam on 9 June 1864 between an eleven of that place and Hastings United, Albert Phillips carried his bat through the second innings of the visiting team for a score of 127 runs, and in the return match on the East Hill at Hastings he went in first wicket down for the home team, and was not out with a score of 104 runs. These, the first two centuries scored in the Hastings neighbour- hood, are notable feats when the rough state of the cricket grounds of those days is taken into account. Albert Phillips subsequently scored many three-figure innings for his native town. A right-handed batsman, he was a left-handed bowler of much ability, and exceedingly good in the field at ' point.' In 1864 the new Central Recreation Ground was opened, and in the month of September the first grand match was played on the new ground, when a United England Eleven contended against twenty-two of Hastings and St. Leonards with George Bennett. This match is memorable for the feat performed by George (' Ben ') Griffith of Surrey, who hit four consecutive balls out of the ground in one over off ' Farmer ' Bennett, the Kent professional, scoring 6 for each hit. In this match Henry Phillips assisted the home team ; as a wicket-keeper he was one of the best that the southern counties have ever produced, playing in that capacity for Sussex through a long series of years, and in 1886 receiving a 'benefit match" after twenty years of continuous service. He was also a really good bat, as his century against the Australians at Brighton showed. In the match, Sussex v. Surrey, on 27 June 1872, he stumped 5 and caught 5, securing no less than half the wickets of his opponents. He is said to have been the first stumper who in first-class cricket stood up behind the sticks without the aid of a longstop. Early in September 1865 Sussex met Kent at Hastings, this being the first county match ever played on the Central Ground. In 1867 twenty-two of Hastings and St. Leonards, with Stubberfield and Wootton, played the United South of England Eleven, Mr. E. L. Owen assisting the home team. He made many long scores for the Hastings club and in matches in the neighbourhood, and his younger brother, Mr. H. G. Owen, acted for some years as captain of the Essex County team. On 471 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 22 June and following days the Aboriginal Blacks of Australia, with Mr. W. S. Norton as captain, played Hastings on the Central Ground.8 In 1872 the dissolution of the Hastings United Club caused the Hastings Central Club to come to the fore, and in the next year this club, now the principal one, changed its name to that of the Hastings and St. Leonards Cricket Club, the first president being Mr. A. J. Brook. He was followed by Mr. F. Ransom, and Mr. S. T. Weston, and for the last ten years of the club's existence the office was filled by Mr. T. Parkin. James, the third brother of that great cricketing family of Phillips, was the most useful player in the new Hastings and St. Leonards C.C. A most brilliant field at cover-point, he was also a safe and stylish bat, and he headed the club bat- ting averages nearly every season. A county player, too, of note, he stood in 1878 at the top of the batting averages for Sussex. In conjunc- tion with his brother Henry, the Sussex wicket- keeper, he played on many occasions with the South of England Eleven. After the dissolution of the Hastings and St. Leonards C.C. in 1893, he brought out a most excellent little ' record ' of the doings of the club. In September 1873 the United South of England Eleven again visited Hastings, playing twenty-two of the town and neighbourhood with R. Fillery. The first East Sussex Club, as we have seen, ended its existence in 1857; in 1874 another East Sussex Club was formed with its ground at Bopcep, St. Leonards, having Mr. T. (now Lord) Brassey for its patron, and Mr. H. M. Curteis as president. In 1878 this club was dissolved, and a year or two afterwards a new club was formed, called the South Saxons, with its ground at Bopeep. This club, still in exist- ence, has had a most successful career.9 8 The writer of this article played for his native town, and when in Australia in 1891, he saw re- corded in the Melbourne Press the death of Mullagh, the best player by far in the Aboriginal team, and for many years the sole survivor of those who visited England. ' Among those who have greatly contributed to the success of the South Saxons C.C. may be mentioned • Mr. W. H. Benthall, Mr. A. H. Trevor, Mr. Her- bert Pigg, Mr. A. M. Sutthery, Mr. C. J. M. God- frey, Col. W. A. Hankey, Mr. A. W. Soames, Mr. C. J. Ebden, Rev. H. Von E. Scott, Mr. H. Curteis, Mr. R. M. Curteis, Mr. W. A. Young, Mr. A. E. Tillard, Rev. H. C. L. Tindall, Mr. G. G. Grundy, Mr. S. P. Bucknill, Mr. J. W. Knapp, Mr. R. W. Adamson, Mr. C. J. Smith, Mr. A. F. Smith, Mr. W. F. Langley, Mr. C. H. Von Roemer, Mr. C. H. Young, Mr. F. G. Chichester, Mr. A. R. Cowper- Coles, Mr. A. L. Sayer, Mr. W. Leigh-Smith, jnr., Mr. E. T. Lambert, Mr. G. H. Bryce, Mr. G. K. Papillon, Mr. H. G. Papillon, Mr. W. Carless, Mr. H. L. Dunn, Mr. W. Leetham, Mr. J. E. C. Leslie Mr. G. R. Murray, Mr. W. C. T. Beasley, Mr. W. Rogers, and Mr. T. Parkin. One of the best known members is Mr. W. H. Benthall, who was in the Marlborough College and Cambridge University Elevens, and was for some years one of the finest bats of the day, taking part for many years in the annual contest between the Gentlemen and the Players. He was president of the Civil Service C.C., and has played for Devonshire, Buckinghamshire, and Middlesex. Another notable South Saxon is Mr. A. H. Trevor, who was in the Winchester and Oxford University Elevens. He has been very successful in the few matches in which he assisted Sussex, scoring over a hundred runs for Sussex against Kent in the first match in which he played for his county. He is, however, best known for his great batting feat for the Orleans Club against Rickling Green in 1882, on which occasion, in conjunction with the late Mr. G. F. Vernon, he helped to put on 603 runs for the second wicket (his individual score being 338 runs) which stood as a record partnership for thirty years, until beaten by that of Captain Oates and Private Fitzgerald of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, which realized 20 runs more. It was in 1875 that Dr. W. G. Grace made his long score of 210 runs in the Central Ground when playing for the South of England against eighteen of Hastings and District. In his great innings ' W.G.' made a huge drive out of the ground which landed 118 yds. from the wicket. This was the first score on the Central Ground of over 200 runs made by any batsman. The ' record score' is the 234 not out by K. S. Ran- jitsinhji, made in 1892 in the memorable match between Sussex and Surrey played on the Central Ground, when Sussex piled up the enormous score of 704 for eight wickets. Next comes the score of 227 not out by Mr. H. S. Johnstone, Mr. E. J. McCormick following with 212 runs to his credit. In August 1878 the Australians played their first match at Hastings against eighteen of Hastings and District. In the following year the United North of England Eleven played eighteen of Hastings and District, and Sussex played Leicestershire, both matches on the Central Ground. In the county match Mr. E. J. McCormick made a successful ' first appearance ' ; he afterwards played for some ten years for Sussex, and in 1882 headed the batting averages for his county. He was a fine free bat, hitting well all round, and is one of the few cricketers who have scored over 200 runs in a single innings at Hastings. In 1880 the Australians again visited the town ; and in the same year a remarkable per- formance was accomplished by R. Standen of Hastings, who when keeping wicket for the local club in a match against the South Saxons, stumped 2 and caught 5, thus having a hand in securing seven wickets out of ten. In August 1886 the Surrey Club and Ground 472 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN met a Hastings and District team, E. Mills scor'ng 165 for the visitors, and James Phillips Hi for the home team ; and in the month of Sep ;ember the Australians met a South of Ei gland Eleven in the Central Ground. On 28-29 Ju'v J887 Yorkshire played eigh- t< en of Hastings and District, when Mr. Her- tert Pigg for the latter played a grand innings of 1 80, without giving a chance. August 1888 was notable for a fine bowling performance by Messrs. A. Clark and R. Baker, who, playing for the Alexandra Club against Lydd, dismissed their opponents for 7 runs (6 from the bat) — Clark obtaining 5 wickets for 2 runs, and Baker 4 wickets for 4 runs. This year the South Saxons at St. Leonards were able to put very strong teams into the field, and won nearly every match, the two old Cambridge ' blues,' A. M. Sutthery and Herbert Pigg, scor- ing consistently well throughout the season. A total of 414 was piled up by the club against Edmonton, A. M. Sutthery scoring 206, and A. H. Trevor 132, and a short time afterwards another score of over 400 was made, this time against Brighton College, when for the South Saxons H. Pigg made 159 and A. M. Sutthery 105. About this time the Hastings Alexandra Club — formed out of the Caxton Club, with Mr. C. Eaton as president — was doing most excellent service in bringing out young players. H. R. Butt, the present Sussex county wicket-keeper, who succeeded H. Phillips in that position, first played for the Alexandra C.C. in 1889. His career has been one of great success. In 1890, his first year of county cricket, he only gave one ' bye ' in an innings of 703 runs hit against Sussex. In 1895 he did a remarkable feat when keeping wicket for the county against Middlesex, Gloucestershire, and Somerset ; in these three matches as many as 1,445 runs were scored against Sussex, and of this large total Butt, be- hind the 'sticks,' allowed only 2 ' byes.' He has also acted as 'stumper' to totals of 505 and 503 runs without allowing a single 'bye.' Butt is a good bat as well, often getting runs at a critical period of the game. He has been on the ground-staff at Lord's since 1894, and in the winter of 1894—5 he made one of Lord Hawke's team which visited South Africa. The Alex- andra Club has been the means of bringing out such players as A. Clark, H. Love, T. C. Brown, H. Mawle, and H. Owen, all of whom have represented Sussex in a county match ; while W. J. Ransom, R. Baker, and C. Lavender have played in the Colts' matches at Brighton. There was also a Silverhill Club playing many matches annually on its ground, and en- gaging many of the best players of the town and neighbourhood. The first president was Captain G. H. Moore, R.N., and among the vice-presidents were found the names of Mr. C. J. M. Godfrey and Mr. C. J. Oakeley. Mr. Ber- nard Ellis acted as honorary secretary, Mr. G. Roberts being the treasurer ; and Mr. H. G. Phillips, Mr. R. H. Nuttall, Mr. A. E. Young, Mr. H. F. Lott, Mr. A. E. Knight, and Mr. J. W. Rome were the greatest supporters of the club through a long series of years. There was also at this time at Hastings a Rovers' Club, which annually played many matches. With all these clubs in Hastings and St. Leon- ards it was found impossible for the premier club to put anything like representative teams into the field; and in 1894 (after a run of twenty years) it was determined to dissolve the town club and form a new club by an amalgamation of the old members with those of the Alexandra and Rovers' Clubs, under the name of the Hastings and St. Leonards Club and Ground, engaging two professional bowlers, and playing both first and second eleven matches. In 1896 Sussex played Kent in the Central Ground, and a little later in the year a South of England Eleven competed against a Hastings team ; this was a local benefit match for the old Sussex wicket-keeper, H. Phillips. In Sep- tember of that year during the annual cricket festival a testimonial was presented to Mr. William Carless. No one more deserved the honour, for Mr. Carless was the originator of the Hastings Cricket Festival, and through his instrumentality the town has the advantage of having a county match played annually in the Central Ground. In 1897 the county match set aside for Hastings was that between Sussex and Notts. In the following year on their own ground against the South Saxons, the Silverhill Club made the large score of 496 runs for 4 wickets, Mr. J. W. Ashby scoring 195, and Mr. H. S. Johnstone no, both of them being ' not out.' The year 1900 saw Sussex contending against Lancashire on the Central Ground. In the same year Mr. H. S. Johnstone made 227 not out, the record highest individual score ever played at Hastings ; and in the next year Mr. Johnstone established a second record by being the first cricketer at Hastings to score a century in each innings of a match. This feat he performed for the Hastings Club and Ground against Old Car- thusians, scoring 131 in the first innings, and 103 not out in the second. The Sussex county match at Hastings next year was between that county and Leicestershire. On 12 September a match, 'Over 35' against 'Under 35,' was played for the benefit of G. McCormick, who had been for close on a quarter of a century the gate-keeper at the Central Ground. The veterans' team had in its ranks Messrs. G. Roberts (aged 64), Albert Phillips (61), Henry Phillips (56), Alder- man Weston (58), Mr. T. Parkin (56), Mr. W. Carless (50), and Mr. F. Freeman Thomas, 473 60 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX who completed his 35th year on the day of the match, played in the veterans' eleven. Sussex against Surrey at Hastings in 1902 was a memorable and record-breaking match : no less than 1,427 runs were scored for twenty- one wickets, the home county piling up the huge total of 725 runs for eight wickets — Mr. C. B. Fry scoring 159, and K. S. Ranjitsinhji 234 not out, the Indian prince thus lowering Mr. H. S. Johnstone's record score of 227 not out, com- piled in 1900. An easy victory over Somerset next year preluded a wet festival only notable for a fine bowling performance, thirteen wickets for 9 runs apiece, by Rhodes. Rain ruined the match v. Kent in 1904, as well as the festival ; Mr. G. L. Jessop scored 159 not out against the South Africans in two hours, Braund, King, Llewellyn, and Rhodes also making large scores. In 1905 a one inning's victory by Sussex over Hampshire in scant measure compensated for a further aquatic festival. The brace of county matches in 1906 presented some heavy scoring resulting in a draw and a defeat. We cannot conclude this article without mentioning the names of some to whom these towns owe a debt of gratitude for their prowess displayed with bat and ball, or their work as secretaries. These are Messrs. C. C. Bethune, W. A. S. Sparling, Rev. H. C. Lenox-Tindall, H. G. Papillon, G. K. Papillon, J. W. Ashby, F. G. Langham, A. E. Howes, E. O. Howis, W. H. Ball, R. J. Wilson, J. W. Rome, W. Ray, A. H. Richardson, H. J. King, H. Hemmings, F. J. Winter, J. W. Marsh, W. A. Lewis, J. T. Piper, G. H. Brown, and those truly hard hitters Messrs. R. H. Nuttall, J.J.Oliver, and T. Kennard ; but especially must a word of thanks be given to Messrs. C. H. Ball and E. H. U. Pickering (this latter one of a great cricketing family) for the help and assistance they have always given through the medium of the Press in forwarding in every way the interests of cricket in Hastings and St. Leonards. EASTBOURNE CRICKET In the early days when Eastbourne was a small fishing village, the game was played at a spot called 'Paradise' cradled at the foot of Beachy Head, and at this rural place by the Down on occasions the whole village assembled to support their side. As the village grew so did its cricket club, and a field called ' Elphies,' being nearer home, was requisitioned. This was used for a few years, until the village began to develop into a seaside town, when, in the year 1858, it was arranged to move to a field in what was called the Marsh, and the club soon increased in numbers .and popularity. At this period some of the most prominent players were Messrs. Thomas Morris, C. Haines, James Towner, Charles Simmons, and O. Wenham, to mention only a few names. Under the careful treatment and hard work of Harry Gardener, the ground man, the field was converted into a cricket ground second to none in England. Two first-class county players, by name Reed and Shoesmith, both Sussex men bred and born, helped the club with their services. William Oscroft, the noted Notts cricketer, was also introduced into the club, and under the tuition of these three fine players many young men who later on made names for themselves were in- structed in the rudiments of the game. But soon again another change was to take place, for Eastbourne was now rapidly growing and developing, and the Duke of Devonshire (the ground landlord) was advised to cut up the ground for building purposes. The splendid old turf was relaid on land afterwards called the Devonshire Park, nearer the sea, and a limited liability company was formed to carry on the club, which was converted into a fashionable athletic and cricket club, under a paid secretary. All went well for a few years ; but soon the cricket dropped from good to bad, and from bad to worse; until in 1903, when no matches were arranged, it received its coup de grdce so far as Devonshire Park is concerned. In the year 1878, some two or three seasons after the transfer of the Eastbourne Club from the ground in the Marsh to Devonshire Park, another club came into existence, the playing ground being one of the south fields called 'The Gildridge,' nearer the old town. Mr. Thomas Cooper was the originator of the Gildridge Club, and a good working committee was formed with Mr. A. S. Hurst as the hon. secretary. The club grew and cricket throve, and as a result it was most successful for some ten years. The ground was however required in 1888 for other purposes, and under the supervision and superintendence of professional cricketers, imported from Lord's Ground, the old Saffrons farm field was rapidly converted into an up-to- date cricket ground. The Saffrons ground is some 13 acres in extent, and surrounded by beautiful large elm trees, and is practically in the centre of the town. Before closing this brief account of the start and growth of cricket in Eastbourne we may perhaps mention just one peculiar cricket incident out of many that have happened during recent years. In a match at the Devonshire Park between a visiting club and the home team, one of the opposing batsmen hit a ball to square-leg which smashed the globe at the top of one of the high electric lamps. The following year the same match was in progress, when the same visiting batsman hit another ball to square-leg, bowled by the same home member who had 474 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN bowled the previous year, and smashed a globe on the same lamp ! BRIGHTON AND DISTRICT Cricket has long flourished at Brighton. The old Brighton Club, which enjoyed royal patron- age, was formed in 1791. In the following year Brighton played the M.C.C. at Lord's and won by nine wickets, the totals being Brighton 155, 131 (for one wicket) ; M.C.C. 180, 105. In July the same season Brighton tried con- clusions with Hampshire at Windmill Down but suffered defeat, the once invincible Hampshire team claiming the victory by six wickets. The actual scores were: Brighton 71, 77; Hants 71, 78 (for four wickets). In the return fixture at Brighton the tables were turned, the home side proving victorious for seven wickets. The Hants team, however, was far from being strongly represented, inasmuch as the two Smalls, Scott, Purchase, Taylor, Harris, and Freemantle were absent. The return match against M.C.C. was played on the Prince of Wales's Ground at North Brighton. Brighton won this contest by three wickets, the following being the totals : Brighton 51, 80 (for seven wickets) ; M.C.C. 68, 62. The present Brighton Club was established in 1848 by the late Mr. G. W. King, who for many years acted as hon. secretary for the Sussex County Club. In 1887, in order to celebrate the opening of the Preston Park cricket ground, the late Mr. Alderman Saunders successfully organized the Brighton Cricket Association, and to encourage and improve local cricket he presented to the association a handsome silver cup for competition among clubs in the borough. The following year (1888) the proprietors of the Argus newspaper presented a challenge cup to be competed for among junior cricket clubs. Two matches were played against Middlesex in September 1792, Brighton winning the first engagement at home by five wickets, while in the return at Lord's the match, owing to bad weather, was unfinished. Cricket was flourishing very considerably in the early years of the nineteenth century in many parts of Sussex. Storrington with the assistance of the Hammonds was particularly strong, in fact the village actually challenged and played with success the Rest of Sussex. In 1816 Lewes Priory Club boasted a strong combination. The club had in its ranks several local celebrities, notably the two Baxters, Raynes, Martin, Verrall, Rider, Green, and Lambert. An engraving of the famous Priory cricket ground is given in the first edition of Lambert's Cricket Guide, issued in 1816. Chichester, too, has ever been a cricketing centre. In the early days the cathedral city had the assistance of the redoubtable Daniel King and William Ayling. The present Priory Park Club was organized in 1830 and is one of the best clubs in the county. Two of the most prominent players in connexion with Chichester cricket are James Lilly white and Charlie Howard. Petworth and North Chapel were alike famous for cricket talent, playing matches against the M.C.C. and other strong clubs. Midhurst too could lay claim to a powerful side. William Hooker was the Midhurst crack player in the days of old. Although not quite so flourishing at the present time the Midhurst Club is still an institution. It is interesting to re- cord that in the long period of eighteen years during which Mr. John Packham was connected with Midhurst cricket, the club played 213 matches, in all but one of which Mr. Packham took part. He commenced batting in 270 innings and obtained 5,563 runs, having an aver- age of just over 23. The Henfield Cricket Club was established 3 May, 1837. One of the original rules of the club states : In all practice matches every Member not fetching five runs each innings, should forfeit one penny, and the same in missing a fair catch, these fines all to be paid to the general fund. Rule XIII is explicit : That any Member degrading himself and party by getting in liquor before the match is played out he is under the forfeit of two shillings and sixpence. Henfield was the home of Mr. Alfred Smith, a great supporter of the game. Subsequently Mr. Charles H. Smith of Whaphams became captain of the Sussex County Eleven in the sixties, while of late years Mr. C. L. A. Smith, his son, has represented his county. Henfield too claimed Richard Fillery, one of the best all-round players in the Sussex eleven. The little village of Chalvington to the east of Lewes was a famous nursery of county cricket fifty to sixty years ago. The brothers Picknell, the Greys and other prominent Sussex players came from this district ; in fact Chalvington was one of the strongest local clubs in Sussex. The renowned Fuller Pilch, of Norfolk and Kent county fame, assisted Chalvington in a few matches, one of his best batting feats being a three-figure innings of 114 for Chalvington against Brighton in 1839. SCHOOL CRICKET Sussex has always been a cricketing county, and it is not surprising to find that so many boys from Sussex schools have become great men in the cricket-field in after life. Brighton College must feel proud of having educated such men as S. M. J. Woods, captain and secretary of 475 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX Somerset County Cricket Club ; G. L. Wilson, G. H. Cotterill, N. C. Cooper, L. H. Gay, and C. L. A. Smith. Of old Lancing College boys the most notable are O. P. Lancashire, who played for Cambridge in 1880, and afterwards did good service for Lancashire ; E. D. Comp- ton, of Oxford University and Somerset ; F. W. Stocks, of Oxford University and Leices- tershire ; and T. H. Fowler, the Gloucester- shire cricketer. The best cricketer educated at St. John's College, Hurstpierpoint, was un- doubtedly F. F. J. Greenfield. After a long career at school, in which he was also distinguished as a footballer and an actor, he went up to Cambridge and played three years in the University Eleven, being captain in 1878. He was afterwards very well known with Sussex county. W. L. Knowles was also an excellent cric- keter, who has played for Kent. The best- known men at Eastbourne College were E. O. Ormerod, T. P. Hilder, H. E. Bouch, J. E. Adamson, and H. S. Poyntz, but none of them have played first-class cricket since they left school. The history of cricket at St. Saviour's School, Ardingly, is somewhat nebulous until the year 1868, when can first be found an official record of the doings of the eleven, which, under the captaincy of F. K. Hilton, played ten matches ; of those seven were won, two lost, and one drawn. The first eleven at Ardingly has always consisted of masters and boys. Among notable cricketers educated at Ardingly we may mention : W. A. Bettesworth, who played for Sussex from 1878 to 1882. A fine all-round player, he was in 1881 one of the two most successful bowlers for his county, and in the same year headed the Sussex batting averages. W. Newham, the present secretary for Sussex County Cricket Club is an old Ardingly boy. In 1882 he came out at the top of the Sussex batting averages with 30-4. Perhaps his best year was in 1885 when he averaged 46-9 with the bat, and represented the Gentlemen of England. W. Blackman, who was also educated at Ardingly, made his entry into Sussex cricket in 1 88 1, in which season he was particularly useful as a bowler. In 1884 he was second in the county batting averages with 28-6, and also took 40 wickets for 1 7. He died in Australia in 1 885 at the early age of twenty-two. G. Brann, another Ardingly boy, first played for Sussex in 1885, in which year he had a batting average of 207, with a highest score of 99. His subsequent career in county cricket is too well known to need repetition. Cricket at Eastbourne College was a thing of small beginnings ; it started with the brothers Podmore, Jesse Hide as coach, and a very few blades of grass. Shortly it became formidable, at least two of the Podmores showing strength and being backed up by W. E. and C. H. Pedley, the brothers Omerod, and others. Then came also a good keeper, E. J. Game, brother to the better-known W. H. During this period the M.C.C. match was arranged, which is still an annual fixture. The best performances in this, the test match of the season, have been by H. E. Bouch, F. M. B. Browne, and J. V. Young. For many years the matches with New College were regarded as the most important on the card, but for one reason or another they came to be discarded, and finally dropped out of the list of fixtures. While Dr. Crowden was head master the school field was found to be altogether unequal to the demand on it, and a spacious new ground was made on the Links faced by a serviceable pavilion. Later on it was found to be advisable to play a certain number of matches on the Saffrons, the magnificent ground of the Eastbourne Club. Till about eight years ago the ground used for both cricket and football was at Lancing College on a level with the road going towards Bramber. The ground was generally considered a good one, but was hardly large enough or fast enough, and it certainly seems surprising that it answered its purpose for so long. Some time ago it was decided to lay out the ground just below the chapel as a cricket ground, and also for the use of the first football club, but at the same time to keep on the old field for foot- ball. The present ground is a very fine one, and it is hoped that it may be enlarged sometime in the future. Cricket at Lancing, as at most other public schools, is compulsory. When all clubs are playing the centre of the ground is set apart for the use of the first club ; sufficient accommodation is also found for the lower clubs. One of the most excellent institutions in the in- terests of cricket is the Under Fifteen Club for those under fifteen years of age. The M.C.C. have for the last twenty years arranged matches with all the Sussex schools, under the name of the M.C.C. Sussex College Tour. These tours do a lot of good from an educational point of view, and the boys enjoy the matches greatly. True, the club is generally successful, but not always; Ardingly College won for several years, and Brighton and Lancing have also been successful. Many other clubs make a tour among the Sussex colleges — the Stoics have done so for the last eighteen years — with much pleasure to themselves and the school boys. 476 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN GOLF The soil and the natural configuration of the land in Sussex lend themselves perhaps more favourably to the game than is the case with any other southern county. The chalky soil, the rich downland, the fine close turf, the swelling undulations of the ground, and the large areas of heath are just those natural features which the golfer seeks. Hence it is that golf has taken a very firm hold in Sussex. At the present time there are between thirty and forty clubs established, and new ones are being projected. The number of seaside courses in Sussex, however, is relatively small in com- parison with the extent and variety of its coast- line. One of the most beautiful is that of the Littlehampton Club, which was instituted in March, 1889, by Messrs. A. J. Constable, H. E. Harris, Upperton Lear, R. A. Blagden, J. Horn, and J. Osborne. The number of playing members is 250, and there are 26 lady members. The links are half a mile from the Littlehampton railway station, and the eigh- teen holes of which it consists are laid out at the mouth of the River Arun, on the old Delta of the river, and along the sand hills bounding the sea. The holes vary in length from 135 to 500 yards, and the soil is sandy and composed partly of old river beds. The natural bunkers consist of water, ditches, sand hills, rushes, whins, cart tracks, and gravel pits, and though the general lie of the course is somewhat flat, each hole has some characteristic feature to punish loose or bad play. James Beveridge, professional at Bembridge, laid out the original nine-hole course, which was extended later to eighteen holes. In October, 1899, the late Tom Dunn was consulted as to the possibility of utilizing some fresh ground, and he planned the course practically as it exists to-day. Owing to the character of the soil play is practicable all the year round, though the best golf is obtained in the winter, spring, and autumn months. Sunday play is allowed, but the club house is not open. The Royal Ashdown Forest Club, instituted in 1889, has a membership of 427. The links are situated i mile from Forest Row, 3^ miles from East Grinstead, and 12 miles from Tun- bridge Wells. The course of eighteen holes, varying in length from 120 to 400 yards, is one of the most charmingly situated inland courses in the country. The holes are laid out over undulating ground situated about 400 ft. above sea level, in one of the most beautiful districts of Sussex. The soil is light, is never heavy even after prolonged rain, and the lies are in every respect excellent. The course abounds in natural hazards, which consist of brooks, disused sand pits, and heathery hillocks. The turf has all the fine texture of superior downland, and one of the characteristic features of the golf here is the rich variety of lie and sporting situation to test the skill of the player. There is no monotony about any of the holes. By the general con- census of opinion from far and near the ' Island ' hole is one of the very best short holes on any course. It has the distinction of having been selected by an old golfer, impressed with its natural charms and playing difficulties, for en- dowment with a capital sum of £5, the accumulated interest of the money to become the property of the player who is fortunate enough to hole out in one stroke at either the Easter, Whitsuntide, or Autumn competition meetings of the club. This endowment scheme has been in force for many years, and the interest still awaits a claimant. J. Rowe is the professional of the club ; Sunday play, without caddies, is allowed. The Ashdown Forest Ladies' Club, organized in 1889, is a branch of the men's club, but the ladies have a separate nine-hole course of their own. The length between the holes varies from 100 to 350 yards. The Cantelupe Club has also been organized in the district, but the membership is confined to working men. The Battle Club, instituted in 1893, has a course of nine holes beautifully natural in char- acter, and surrounded by very pretty scenery, situated in the Park. The links are about ten minutes' walk from Battle Abbey, and 6 miles from Hastings. The number of members is between forty and fifty. The eighteen-hole course of the Bexhill Club, founded in 1890, is finely situated close to the sea, about half a mile distant from Bexhill. Six holes have been laid out on the sea side of the L. B. and S. C. Railway, and twelve holes on the north side of the railway. The course is a very sporting one, and the hazards are a com- bination of artificial and natural bunkers, wherein sand-pits and ditches lend variety to the play. Earl De La Warr, who owns the ground, is pre- sident of the club, and Douglas Rolland, one of the leading professional players before severe illness handicapped him in competitions, is the profes- sional and green-keeper. There is a ladies' club, with ninety-five members, as a branch of the men's club. The Crowborough Beacon Club, which was instituted in June, 1895, mainly through the efforts of Mr. G. T. Langridge, Mr. H. H. Goldfinch, J.P., Dr. Mackintosh, Mr. L. Dennis and Dr. Watson Griffin, has now a membership of 360. The course of eighteen holes was originally laid out by Mr. G. T. Langridge, 477 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX first honorary secretary and treasurer of the club, the expert professional advice of Taylor, Braid, Rowe, and Rawlings being subsequently taken for alterations and improvements. One in- teresting feature of this club is that the ex- cellent club-house, with its four or five bedrooms, and the links themselves, are the freehold property of the members. The holes, which vary in length from 93 to 500 yards, are laid out on forest land, belonging to the Manor of Alchornes, the property of Earl De La Warr. The numerous hazards, which are natural, are varied. The turf is always in fine condition, and as the course is situated on high ground, with an admirable light sandy soil, the game is playable all the year round, even after the heaviest rains. The links are situated on Crow- borough Beacon, 600 to 700 ft. above sea-level. There is also a ladies' club as a branch of the men's club, and the ladies use the same course. In 1897 the De La Warr Club was founded ; its membership is confined mainly to the local community in the village. Sunday play is allowed at Crowborough Beacon. The Worthing Club, founded in 1905 by the efforts of Messrs. W. Field, F. C. Gates, E. C. Patching, and W. S. Simpson, has a membership of 210 gentlemen and 150 lady associates. The courses of eighteen holes for men, and nine holes for the ladies, are situated on the Downs, Broad- water. The round of holes was originally planned by H. Vardon, but a great many im- provements were grafted on the scheme of the professional by Dr. O. Gethin-Jones, one of the local hon. secretaries. The course is laid out over downland, presenting a fine variety of hill and valley. One of the charms of this course is the picturesqueness of the views obtainable from almost every hole in the round, including glimpses of the Channel and the Isle of Wight. As the subsoil is of chalk the course is never heavy, even in rainy weather, and it is therefore essentially a winter as well as a summer course. house. The Royal Eastbourne Ladies' Club, instituted in 1888, has a membership of 250. The ladies play over a course of nine holes, the lengths of which vary from 105 to 310 yards. The restricted character of the ladies' course is found by the players to be a great drawback, but ladies with handicaps of ten or under are allowed to play on the men's links on certain days. The Willingdon Club, instituted in 1897, play over a very interesting eighteen-hole course, on the Ration Park estate at Willingdon, 2 miles from Eastbourne. The number of members is 250 gentlemen and 75 ladies, and those members who were mainly instrumental in establishing the club were Mr. A. G. Paterson, the first honorary secretary, and Mr. Freeman Thomas, M.P., president and landlord of the ground. The links consist of undulating chalky land close under the Downs, and there are plenty of natural hazards. The principal natural bunkers are a chalk pit and a plantation, but a good deal of diversity has been imported into the play by the construction of artificial hazards. Though the spring and the autumn are the best seasons for the game here, golf is perfectly feasible all the year round. When the club was originally started the round consisted of nine holes, and these were designed by J. H. Taylor, the subsequent nine holes being added by him several years later. The honorary secre- tary is Mr. John Cuming, M.A. A good new club-house has been built. The club-house and links are open on Sundays. A ladies' club was instituted in 1897. The Brighton and Hove Club was instituted in 1888, and has now its full limit of playing members, namely, 375. The eighteen holes are laid out upon the Hangleton Downs, and the club has a private platform on the Dyke Rail- way close to the club-house. It has a course which has all the varied characteristics of the Sussex Downs ; the quality of the turf is very The holes vary in length from 106 to 530 yards, fine, and the greens are excellently kept. The the total length being 6,136 yards, or very nearly 3^ miles round. The hazards are both natural and artificial, and in addition to cut bunkers there are whins and bushes, a ravine, and pit-like hollows. Douglas McEwan, late of Musselburgh, is the club professional. The Royal Eastbourne Club, founded in 1887, is one of the most important golfing organizations in the county. It has a member- ship of 450, and its links are leased from the Duke of Devonshire. The holes vary in length from 120 to 488 yards. The round has lately second hole, nearly 500 yards in length, is a very interesting one to play, the approach being over a pond on to the putting green, which is well guarded by whins. The hazards are both natural and artificial, consisting mainly of whins, ponds, banks, and sand ditches. The natural undulations of the ground, notably at the ' Down the hill ' hole, whose putting green, 323 yards away, may be reached in one shot, afford severe tests of skill. The Brighton and Hove Ladies' Club, instituted in 1892, plays over a course of nine holes, varying from 92 to 352 yards. L >j i • « • J — y "fe **v"i y^ *.\j Si-* yciius. been considerably lengthened by the inclusion These links are near the Devil's Dyke The some 25 acres. A new club-house, costing Southdown and Brighton Ladies' Club, formed it /, 4,000, has lately been erected, and from in 1891, plays over a course at Burgess Hill can be had a commanding view of the about 9 miles from Brighton, icturesque undulations of the course. The The course of the East Brighton (late Kemp hole is immed,ately in front of the club- Town) Club, which was instituted in October, 478 SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 1893, consists of eighteen holes, on the road to Rottingdean. The down land has been utilized to form an interesting course, and though the soil is clay, play is feasible all the year round. The bunkers are a combination of natural and artificial, but the prominent features are grass- grown pits, a pond, and whin bushes. The mem- bership is 400. A ladies' club, forming a branch of the men's, plays over the same course. The professional attached to the club is S. Peck. It is a good sporting course. In 1904 the Pilt Down Club was formed, with the Master of Rollo as the captain. The membership is 115, and the course of eighteen holes is on Pilt Down Common, three miles from Uckfield railway station. The course has the fine natural characteristics of the Sussex Down land, and the golf is in all respects varied in character. The Rye Club, founded in January, 1894, has now a membership of 470, with sixty lady associates. It is one of the best and most inter- esting golf courses, not only from the playing point of view, but from the natural beauty of its situation, on the south coast. It is essenti- ally a seaside course laid out among the Camber sand hills on the north side of Rye Harbour, and about two miles from the town. The sand hills and dunes make capital hazards. The majority of the tee shots are beset with many difficulties, and the intermediate play towards the green involves surmounting natural and arti- ficial bunkers. It is without doubt a course that rewards sound and accurate play, while punish- ing the loose and erratic driver. The soil being sand, the short crisp turf does not suffer in any degree from the heaviest rainfall. The Hastings and St. Leonard's Club, founded in 1893, has a picturesque course of eighteen holes situated on the East Cliff, overlooking the town. The links overlook the sea, and fine views can be obtained of Fairlight and Eccles- bourne Glens. The course is a thoroughly sporting one, and the natural features of the ground have been used in connexion with a judicious combination of artificial bunkers to make the play a really good test of golf. The number of members is 183. The ladies' club, formed in 1895, has sixty members, and as a branch of the men's club the ladies play on the same course. The Newhaven Club, founded in 1894, plays over a nine-hole course, about fifteen minutes' walk from the town. The turf of the links is excellent, and the natural hazards consist of sand pits, whins, and rough grass. Among the charms of golf at Newhaven are the magni- ficent views to be obtained of the English Channel on two sides of the course. Sunday play, with caddies, is allowed here. The St. Leonard's and East Sussex Club, founded in 1903, has a membership of 250. Its course of eighteen holes lies not far from the Marina and West St. Leonard's. Here, too, Sunday play is allowed. There is a ladies' club as a branch. With its natural and artificial bunkers, the course is very interesting and sporting. The eighteen-hole course of the Seaford Club, founded in 1887, is over three miles in length. The hilly nature of the course, which is situated largely on the clifF and the neighbouring slopes overlooking the Channel, involves a good deal of hill climbing. There is a variety of natural and artificial hazards which makes the round extremely interesting, and the fine close turf forms admir- able putting greens. There is a membership of 300. The ladies' club, founded in 1895, is a branch of the men's, and plays on the same ground. The course consists of nine holes, varying from 100 to 231 yards. The number of lady members is 135. The Lewes Club, which was instituted in November, 1896, has 190 members and sixty- three lady associates. The course of eighteen holes is well laid out on the South Downs at Cliffe Hill, one mile from the town, and com- mands an extensive view over the greater por- tion of East Sussex. The round is nearly three miles, and the holes vary in length from 95 to 500 yards. The turf is good, the greens are well kept, and the hazards are both natural and artificial, the clumps of whins lending diversity and interest to the play. All the bunkers are well placed, and the chalky soil admits of play throughout the year, for the lies both in dry and wet weather are invariably good. The amateur record for the course is held by Mr. Spencer Gollan, with 74, and the professional record by F. E. Penfold, with 69. There is no Sunday play. The Pyecombe Club, which was instituted on 7 August, 1894, owes its existence mainly to Mr. W. H. Campion, C.B., the Rev. F. H. Campion, and Mr. A. J. Bridge. Its membership numbers 150, and the links are situated 2 miles from Pyecombe, and 5 miles from Brighton. The course consists of eighteen holes for men, and nine holes for ladies. It was originally laid out by the Rev. F. H. Campion in 1902, but a year or two afterwards the advice of Braid was taken as to whether any alterations could be made. Braid suggested several al- terations, and advised an extension of some of the holes, with the result that the course has been considerably improved. It lies upon a por- tion of the South Downs, and is suitable for play all the year round, the soil being porous chalk. The hazards, which are partly natural and partly artificial, include whins, roads, and a sand pit. The twelve-hole course of the West Park Club is at Handcross, within 4^ miles of Crawley railway station. The club was instituted at the close of 479 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 1896, mainly through the efforts of General Maxwell Campbell, Major Bigg, and Messrs. L. Messel, S. A. Hermon, V. L. Tapling, and H. Gibbs, and now numbers about sixty players. The holes are laid out on the southern slope of Handcross Hill. The round is about aj miles, and to complete a full round of eighteen holes the first six holes are very conveniently played over again. The hazards are both natural and artificial. The soil is sandy loam over sand rock, and though it is quite possible to play all the year round, the course plays best in spring and autumn. In laying out the course the com- mittee were advised by J. Rowe, the professional attached to the Royal Ashdown and Forest Row Club. The amateur record for the round of eighteen holes is held by Mr. Norman Loder, with a score of 73. There is a nine-hole course situated on Sharpen- hurst Hill belonging to the staff of the Christ's Hospital Club. This was instituted in 1902, and the playing members number 32. The course is within the Christ's Hospital grounds, 2 miles from Horsham. The holes are laid out over hill land on a clay soil, and the hazards are both natural and artificial ; play is feasible all the year. The Cuckfield Club owed its foundation, in October, 1906, to Captain Sergison, Mr. J. Cow, and the Rev. Lewis Evans. The membership consists of 100 gentlemen and 75 ladies. The eighteen-hole course, one mile from the station of that name, and one mile from Hayward's Heath, was laid out by Willie Park in 1905, is situated on high ground sloping south, affording grand views of the South Downs and the Weald of Sussex. The holes are laid out over rough and pasture land, whose subsoil consists of a mixture of sand, sandstone, clay, and loam. The hazards include pits, ravines, hedges, and artificial bunkers, and though the best periods for play are the spring, summer, and autumn months the course is generally in excellent play- ing condition, except during very wet winters. Bernard Sayers, junior, from North Berwick, is the club professional. The Horsham Club, which was founded in April, 1906, has 160 members. Mr. E. J. Bostock, Mr. P. Chasemore, Mr. C. J. Lucas, and Mr. F. A. Juckes, were principally instru- mental in establishing the club. At present the round is nine holes, and James Braid, who laid out the course, took full advantage of the natural features of the ground. A large proportion of the hazards consist of trees, and natural features have been supplemented by the cutting of bun- kers to guard the holes. The course is on pasture land, which belongs to Mr. C. J. Lucas, of Warnham, president of the club. The soil is light clay, which dries quickly even after continued wet weather. In September, 1 902, J. H. Taylor laid out the eighteen-hole course of the Southdown Club, whose institution was largely due to the initia- tive of Mr. R. B. Dell, junior. The club had been started in the previous June, and now there is a playing membership of 220 gentlemen and 75 ladies. The holes have been laid out over chalky down land, and the hazards consist of rough grass, chalk pits, and artificial bunkers. The course, which is situated i mile from Shore- ham, and 5 miles from Brighton, is playable at any time of the year, and is almost equally good in summer and winter. At Chichester there are two clubs, the first founded in 1892, and the Summersdale Club, with a membership of 130, founded in 1905. The Chichester Club has its course of eighteen holes on the property of the Duke of Richmond at Goodwood, and only members are allowed to play, except by special permission. The Sum- mersdale Club has a nine-hole course about a mile from the Market Cross on the road to Lavant. It was laid out by James Braid. The Copthorne Club was founded in 1903, and a course of fourteen holes, which will eventu- ally be extended to eighteen, has been laid out on the Common, with the consent of the Com- missioners and Lord Abergavenny, the lord of the manor. The course is a mixture of heather and grass, and the natural hazards con- sist of old pits, a brook, and ditches, while some artificial hazards have been cut to guard the holes and the line of play. The holes vary in length from 140 to 444 yards. In 1904 a working men's club was formed. The Selsey-on-Sea Club, founded in 1904, plays over a nine-hole course lying close to the sea. The length of the holes varies between 200 and 530 yards. ATHLETICS Although Sussex does not rank so high in the Athletic world as some other counties in Eng- land, yet there are several athletic clubs in the county which hold athletic meetings annually and cater generally for the wants of the athlete. Among the chief of those holding open meet- ings may be mentioned the Horsham Athletic 480 Club, dating from 1871, which has a meeting every year on the August bank-holiday. The Chichester Athletic Club, dates from 1879 and holds a meeting every Whit Monday. The Eastbourne Rovers have held an annual meeting since 1895, but the running section of this club have, since 1905, left the Rovers and, under the SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN title of the Eastbourne Athletic Club, hold a meeting annually in August. The Crawley Athletic Club dating from 1897, the Hay ward's Heath Athletic Club dating from 1888, the Worthing, Hastings, Littlehampton, Bexhill, and Cuckfield Athletic Clubs also hold annual meetings. All the above clubs include events in their programmes which are open to all amateurs and attract numerous runners from various parts of the country. Among cross-country clubs the Brighton and County Harriers is the oldest. This club was formed from the Brighton Athletic Club, which was founded in 1877, and it assumed its present title in 1894, and holds a prominent position among cross-country clubs in the south of England. The Eastbourne Athletic Club and the Craw- ley Athletic Club are also cross-country clubs, and the same applies to the Horsham Blue Star Athletic Club, which deserves mention in any notes on athletics in Sussex if only for the fact that this club was instrumental in bringing to the fore one of its members, the celebrated run- ner Alfred Shrubb, who, after a remarkably suc- cessful career as an amateur, became a professional runner in 1906. As an amateur he won several of the championships held by the Amateur Ath- letic Association from 1901 to 1904, and beat all records for distances varying from 2,000 yards to 1 1 miles, as well as winning the National and Southern Counties Cross-Country Champion- ships for several years. Shrubb also won several races and championships in Australia and New Zealand. Brighton has seen the finish of many interest- ing walking races, the walk from Westminster Bridge, London, to Brighton Aquarium, about 52 miles, having been a popular test of endurance amongst athletes for many years past. In the olden days many a wager has been lost and won over this route, and during later years it has been the custom for athletic clubs to manage walking races from London to Brighton. In 1903 the London Stock Exchange held a race over this distance, open to its members, and which attracted widespread attention, the winner E. F. Broad, and those behind him having to literally force their way through the crowd on their arrival at Brighton. The winner's time in this race was 9 hours 30 minutes I second. A second race promoted by the Stock Exchange was held in 1905. At present the record from London to Brighton, made by J. Butler on 22 September, 1906, is 8 hours 23 minutes 27 seconds. 481 6l The Victoria history of the county of Sussex PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY