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CHAPTER VIII.

OLD SOUTH DOWN HOUSES.

Attachment of Sussex People to their Homes.-Old Sussex Families. -Danny Park and House.-A "Carolina Poplar."-Wolstonbury Hill.-Old Houses near Plumpton.-A Cool Reception in Street. The Head Man of the Village.-Street Place and Church. The Soldiers' Graves.-" So it Goes."-The " Clerk " of Ditchling.-The "Connissoor " of Rum.-Queer Guide to a Church." No Sense in old Houses."-Wild Flowers.-Westmeston.-Plumpton Place.-A Dishonoured old House.

THERE are still many interesting old Sussex houses to be found, standing almost within the shadow of the Downs, some of them still reverently preserved as the homesteads of the families in whose possession they have been for generations past. The remains of ancient manor houses may occasionally be seen by the traveller as he wends his way along the crest of the hills, sometimes much shorn of their original state and splendour, but presenting even now an imposing appearance, or attracting the eye by their quaint gables and ivy-clad walls. Even the cottages are often found to retain uninjured the picturesque features which their builders gave them two or three centuries ago, for it must be remembered that Sussex people of all classes cling with

more than the ordinary fondness of Englishmen to the old home. It is not a roving population. As Mr. Lower has remarked, "It is a comparatively rare thing to find any family, gentle or simple, migrating from Sussex to other parts of England." The yeomanry have for the most part disappeared, but many of the rich or powerful families still exist. The Ashburnhams, as Mr. Shirley points out in his "Noble and Gentle Men of England," have held their estates between 700 and 800 years—from the reign of Henry the Second, "and probably from a much earlier period; "the Gorings have been landowners in Sussex since the time of Edward the Second; the Pelhams "have been a most important Sussex family" since the reign of Edward the Third; the Gages have been found at Firle ever since 1475; the Barttelots have lived at Stopham, near Pullborough, since 1420, and trace back their ancestry to Adam de Bartelott, "said to be of Norman origin." In regard to some of these families, Mr. Lower has pointed out that members of them are or were to be found in very humble circumstances. At Ringmer there used to live a rat-catcher named Thomas Pelham, said to be descended from the true stock, and the name of Shelley is still to be seen over many a shop door. Even servants, the most restless of beings, are supposed to stick longer to one place in Sussex than is commonly the case in other counties. The writer of an interesting paper in the Sussex Archæological Collections,* tells us

* Vol. XXIII., pp. 36—72.

that instances of thirty or forty years domestic service were not uncommon, and he says, "I have often visited at a house in the western division of the county where the cook of the family was nearly ninety, and had never lived as a servant in any other house. My estimable friend was her second master, she having lived with his uncle previously; and after he had passed his seventieth year she generally spoke of him as her young master."

One of the oldest houses in the county, still kept up in a becoming manner as a gentleman's residence, is Danny, about eight miles from Brighton and three from Hassock's Gate Station. It is not so beautiful a house as either Wiston or Parham, but its situation alone. would render it well worth a visit. From the town of Hurst-Pierpoint-a dull old town consisting of one street —a lane runs by the side of the church, to some fields entered by a gate on the left-hand side of the road. Through these fields there is a pleasant walk to Danny Park, and from thence to the Downs beyond. When I was there in the spring, the little patches of wood by the side of the fields, especially near the entrance to the park, were all covered with wild anemones, violets, primroses, and the cuckoo-flower. Some of the trees in the park are very old, and there is a fine collection of elms close to the house, several of them having grown to a great height. The day was gusty, and the tallest of the trees rocked to and fro like the mast-head of a ship in a storm, to the great danger of the rook's-nests which were built at the very top. To the south of the house it seemed to me that a large tree had fallen

during the night, but on going up to it I found that it had thrown out branches all along the ground, and that from these branches elbows had sprung out, rising in some instances into good-sized trees apart from the parent trunk-much as a banyan tree grows in India. The spreading branches extend for a considerable distance round the original trunk, and those which are on the ground are covered with moss, or buried partly beneath the soil. A man who was passing by told me that it was a Carolina poplar, and that the tree grew in this way in its native country. I am unable to say whether this account is accurate or not; I only know that I never saw any such poplar in either of the

Carolinas.

Nothing more noble can be wished for than the east front of the house, which apparently remains pretty much as it was built in 1595. The large window of the hall is wonderfully fine, and the entire façade is a beautiful example of Elizabethan work. On the south side an addition or alteration has been made in the Queen Anne style, and this ill-accords with the main front of the building. But let us not be too particular.

From the house a path leads through the park to Wolstonbury Hill, up the centre of which some steps have been cut or made in the turf. There are easier routes for ascending the hill, but this is the most direct. The views from the summit are superb in all directions, the line of the Surrey hills being within sight along the entire range, while westward the South Downs may be traced almost to Chichester.

This is, upon the whole, the grandest inland view to be obtained from any part of the South Downs, for nearly the whole of Sussex is commanded from it, and a large part of Surrey and Kent. From the top of the hill it is about four miles to the Devil's Dyke, and seven to Brighton. I struck off for Brighton through Piecomb, Pangdean, and Patcham, skirting the Clayton Tunnel, from the top of which there are broad chimneys at intervals for carrying off smoke. It is easy to trace the progress of a train underground by the steam which comes up through these chimneys. The road is dull and somewhat tedious, but the visitor may avoid it by going over the hills to Stanmer, and from thence to Falmer Station.

On a fine morning in March I started from Plumpton Station to visit two other old Sussex houses. At the end of the platform at the station there is a gate leading into a field, through which I went, keeping close to a wire fence, until the path came out upon a farm road. This also was shut off by a gate, with a sort of double ladder near it for the convenience of foot-passengers a queer-looking affair, all carefully fenced in. Just past the gate is a road running to the right and left, with an ancient oak tree, completely hollow, almost in the middle of it. I now turned to the right, past some more old trees and a barn, and then continued straight on, with a hedge on the right-hand, from which primroses were peeping out, and a wire fence on the left. A place so shut in with gates and wire fences it would be hard to find elsewhere. Here the

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