Highways and Byways in Sussex Part 43

[Sidenote: A WAGER]

Sir John Lade, diminutive a.s.sociate of George IV. in his young days (and afterwards, coming upon disaster, coachman to the Earl of Anglesey), once lived at Haremere Hall, near by. As we have seen, the First Gentleman in Europe visited him there, and it was there one day, that, in default of other quarry, Sir John's gamekeeper only being able to produce a solitary pheasant, the Prince and his host shot ten geese as they swam across a pond, and laid them at the feet of Lady Lade. Sir John was the hero of the following exploit, recorded in the press in October, 1795:--"A curious circ.u.mstance occurred at Brighton on Monday se'nnight. Sir John Lade, for a trifling wager, undertook to carry Lord Cholmondeley on his back, from opposite the Pavilion twice round the Steine. Several ladies attended to be spectators of this extraordinary feat of the dwarf carrying the giant. When His Lordship declared himself ready, Sir John desired him to strip. 'Strip!' exclaimed the other; 'why surely you promised to carry me in my clothes!' 'By no means,' replied the Baronet; 'I engaged to carry _you_, but not an inch of clothes. So, therefore, My Lord, make ready, and let us not disappoint the ladies.'

After much laughable altercation, it was at length decided that Sir John had won his wager, the Peer declining to exhibit _in puris naturalibus_."

[Sidenote: THE HAWKHURST GANG]

Ticehurst and Wadhurst, which may be reached either by road or rail from Robertsbridge or Etchingham, both stand high, very near the Kentish border. To the east of Hurst Green on the road thither (a hamlet disproportionate and imposing, possessing, in the George Inn, a relic of the days when the coaches came this way), is Seac.o.x Heath, now the residence of Lord Goschen, but once the home of George Gray, a member of the terrible Hawkhurst gang of smugglers. Ticehurst has a n.o.ble church, very ingeniously restored, with a square tower, some fine windows, old gla.s.s, a vestry curiously situated over the porch, and an interesting bra.s.s.

The Bell Inn, in the village, is said to date from the fifteenth century.

At Wadhurst are many iron grave slabs and a graceful slender spire. The ma.s.sive door bears the date 1682. A high village, in good accessible country, discovery seems to be upon it. London is not so near as at Crowborough; but one may almost hear the jingling of the cabs.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] Weever's _Funeral Monuments_.

CHAPTER XL

TUNBRIDGE WELLS

Over the border--The beginnings of the wells--Tunbridge Wells to-day--Mr. George Meredith--The Toad and other rocks--Eridge--Trespa.s.sing in Suss.e.x--Saxonbury--Bayham Abbey--Lamberhurst--Withyham--The Sackvilles--A domestic autocrat--"To all you ladies now on land"--Withyham church--The Sackville monument--John Waylett--Beer and bells--Parish expenses--Buckhurst and Old Buckhurst--Ashdown Forest--Hartfield and Bolebroke--A wild region.

I have made Tunbridge Wells our last centre, because it is convenient; yet as a matter of strict topography, the town is not in Suss.e.x at all, but in Kent.

In that it is builded upon hills, Tunbridge Wells is like Rome, and in that its fashionable promenade is under the limes, like Berlin; but in other respects it is merely a provincial English inland pleasure town with a past: rather arid, and except under the bracing conditions of cold weather, very tiring in its steepnesses. No wonder the small victoria and smaller pony carriage so flourish there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells._]

The healthful properties of Tunbridge Wells were discovered, as I record a little later, in 1606; but it was not until Henrietta Maria brought her suite hither in 1630 that the success of the new cure was a.s.sured.

Afterwards came Charles II. and his Court, and Tunbridge Wells was made; and thenceforward to fail to visit the town at the proper time each year (although one had the poorest hut to live in the while) was to write one's self down a boor. A more sympathetic patron was Anne, who gave the first stone basin for the spring--hence "Queen's Well"--and whose subscription of __100 led to the purchase of the pantiles that paved the walk now bearing that name. Subsequently it was called the Parade, but to the older style everyone has very sensibly reverted.

Tunbridge Wells is still a health resort, but the waters no longer const.i.tute a part of the hygienic routine. Their companion element, air, is the new recuperative. Not that the spring at the foot of the Pantiles is wholly deserted: on the contrary, the presiding old lady does quite a business in filling and cleaning the little gla.s.ses; but those visitors that descend her steps are impelled rather by curiosity than ritual, and many never try again. Nor is the trade in Tunbridge ware, inlaid work in coloured woods, what it was. A hundred years ago there was hardly a girl of any pretensions to good form but kept her pins in a Tunbridge box.

The Pantiles are still the resort of the idle, but of the anonymous rather than famous variety. Our men of mark and great Chams of Literature, who once flourished here in the season, go elsewhere for their recreation and renovation--abroad for choice. Tunbridge Wells now draws them no more than Bath. But in the eighteenth century a large print was popular containing the portraits of all the ill.u.s.trious intellectuals as they lounged on the Pantiles, with Dr. Johnson and Mr.

Samuel Richardson among the chief lions.

[Sidenote: THE DUVIDNEY LADIES]

The residential districts of Tunbridge Wells--its Mounts, Pleasant, Zion and Ephraim, with their discreet and prosperous villas--suggest to me only Mr. Meredith's irreproachable Duvidney ladies. In one of these well-ordered houses must they have lived and sighed over Victor's tangled life--surrounded by laurels and laburnum; the lawn either cut yesterday or to be cut to-day; the semicircular drive a miracle of gravel unalloyed; a pan of water for Ta.s.so beside the dazzling step.

Receding a hundred years, the same author peoples Tunbridge Wells again, for it was here, in its heyday, that Chloe suffered.

[Sidenote: ROCKS]

On Rusthall Common is the famous Toad Rock, which is to Tunbridge Wells what Thorwaldsen's lion is to Lucerne, and the Leaning Tower to Pisa.

Lucerne's lion emerged from the stone under the sculptor's mallet and chisel, but the Rusthall monster was evolved by natural processes, and it is a toad only by courtesy. An inland rock is, however, to most English people so rare an object that Rusthall has almost as many pilgrims as Stonehenge. The Toad is free; the High Rocks, however, which are a mile distant, cannot be inspected by the curious for less than sixpence. One must pa.s.s through a turnstile before these wonders are accessible. Rocks in themselves having insufficient drawing power, as the dramatic critics say, a maze has been added, together with swings, a seesaw, arbours, a croquet lawn, and all the proper adjuncts of a natural phenomenon. The effect is to make the rocks appear more unreal than any rocks ever seen upon the stage. Freed from their pleasure-garden surroundings they would become beautifully wild and romantic and tropically un-English; but as it is, with their notice boards and bridges, they are disappointing, except of course to children. They are no disappointment to children; indeed, they go far to make Tunbridge Wells a children's wonderland. There is no kind of dramatic game to which the High Rocks would not make the best background. Finer rocks, because more remote and free from labels and tea rooms, are those known as Penn's Rocks, three miles in the south-west, in a beautiful valley.

[Sidenote: SAXONBURY]

Eridge, whither all visitors to Tunbridge Wells must at one time or another drive, is the seat of the Marquis of Abergavenny, whose imposing A, tied, like a dressing gown, with heavy ta.s.sels, is embossed on every cottage for miles around. In character the park resembles Ashburnham, while in extent it vies with the great parks of the south-west, Arundel, Goodwood and Petworth; but it has none of their s.p.a.cious coolnesses. Yet Eridge Park has joys that these others know not of--brake fern four feet high, and the conical hill on which stands Saxonbury Tower, jealously guarded from the intruding traveller by the stern fiat of "Mr. Macbean, steward." Suss.e.x is a paradise of notice boards (there is a little district near Forest Row where the staple industry must be the prosecuting of trespa.s.sers), and one has come ordinarily to look upon these monitions without active resentment; but when the Caledonian descends from his native heath to warn the Suss.e.x man off Suss.e.x ground--more, to warn the Saxon from his own bury--the situation becomes acute. By taking, however, the precaution of asking at a not too adjacent cottage for permission to ascend the hill, one may circ.u.mvent the Scottish prosecutor.

The hill is very important ground in English history, as the following pa.s.sage from Sir William Burrell's MSS. in the British Museum testifies:--"In Eridge Park are the remains of a military station of the Saxon invaders of the country, which still retains the name of Saxonbury Hill. It is on the high ground to the right, as the traveller pa.s.ses from Frant to Mayfield. On the summit of this hill (from whence the cliffs of Dover may be seen) are to be traced the remains of an ancient fortification; the fosse is still plainly discernible, enclosing an area of about two acres, from whence there is but one outlet. The apex of the hill within is formed of a strong compact body of stone, brought hither from a distance, on which doubtless was erected some strong military edifice. This was probably one of the stations occupied by the Saxons under Ella, their famous chief, who, at the instance of Hengist, King of Kent, invaded England towards the close of the fifth century. It is said that they settled in Suss.e.x, whence they issued in force to attack the important British station of Anderida or Andredceaster. Antiquaries are not agreed as to the precise situation of this military station; some imagining it to have been at Newenden, on the borders of Kent; others at Pevensey, or Hastings, in Suss.e.x. The country, from the borders of Kent to those of Hampshire, comprises what was called the Forest of Andredsweald, now commonly called the Weald, was formerly full of strong holds and fastnesses, and was consequently well calculated for the retreat of the ancient Britons from before the regular armies of the Romans, as well as for the establishment of points of attack by the succeeding invaders who coped with them on terms somewhat reversed. The attack of the Saxons on Anderida was successful, and the consequence was their permanent establishment in Suss.e.x and Surrey, from which time they probably retained a military station on this hill.

"There is likewise within the park a place called Danes Gate. This was doubtless a part of a military way; and as it would happen that the last successful invaders would occupy the same strong posts which had been formed by their predecessors, this Danes Gate was probably the military communication between Crowborough, undoubtedly a Danish station, and Saxonbury Hill."

The view from Saxonbury extends far in each quarter, embracing both lines of Downs, North and South. The long low irregular front of Eridge Castle is two or three miles to the north-west, with its lake before it.

[Sidenote: LORD NORTH'S DISCOVERY]

Queen Elizabeth stayed at Eridge for six days in 1573, on her progress to Northiam, where we saw her dining and changing her shoes. Lord Burleigh, who accompanied her, found the country hereabouts dangerous, and "worse than in the Peak." It was another of the guests at Eridge that made Tunbridge Wells; for had not Dudley, Lord North, when recuperating there in 1606, discovered that the (Devil-flavoured) chalybeate water of the neighbourhood was beneficial, the spring would not have been enclosed nor would other of London's fatigued young bloods have drunk of it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Bayham Abbey._]

[Sidenote: BAYHAM ABBEY]

Enough remains of Bayham Abbey, five miles south-east of Tunbridge Wells, to show that it was once a very considerable monastery. The founder was Sir Robert de Turneham, one of the knights of Richard Coeur de Lion, famous for cracking many crowns with his "fauchion,"

and the founder also of Combwell Abbey at Goudhurst, not far distant.

Edward I. and Edward II. were both entertained at Bayham, while a fortunate visit from St. Richard, Bishop of Chichester, put the Abbey in possession of a bed (on which he had slept) which cured all them that afterwards lay in it. Between Bayham and Goudhurst is Lamberhurst, on the boundary. (The church and part of the street are indeed in Kent.) Lamberhurst's boast is that its furnaces were larger than any in Suss.e.x; and that they made the biggest guns. The old iron railings around St.

Paul's are said to have come from the Lamberhurst iron works--2,500 in all, each five feet six inches in height, with seven gates. The Lamberhurst cannon not only served England, but some, it is whispered, found their way to French privateers and were turned against their native land.

Sweetest of spots in the neighbourhood of Tunbridge Wells is Withyham, in the west, lying to the north of Ashdown Forest, a small and retired village, with a charming church, a good inn (the Dorset Arms), Duckings, a superb piece of old Suss.e.x architecture, Old Buckhurst, an interesting ruin, new Buckhurst's magnificent park, and some of the best country in the county. Once the South Down district is left behind I think that Withyham is the jewel of Suss.e.x. Moreover, the proximity of the wide high s.p.a.ces of Ashdown Forest seems to have cleared the air; no longer is one conscious of the fatigue that appertains to the triangular hill district between Tunbridge Wells, Robertsbridge and Uckfield.

[Sidenote: THE SPLENDID SACKVILLES]

Withyham is notable historically for its a.s.sociation with the great and sumptuous Sackville family, which has held Buckhurst since Henry II., and of which the princ.i.p.al figure is Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, first Earl of Dorset, who was born here in 1536, Queen Elizabeth's Lord Treasurer and part author of _Gorboduc_. After him came Robert Sackville, second earl, who founded Sackville College at East Grinstead; and then Richard, the third earl, famous for the luxury in which he lived at Knole in Kent and Dorset House in London. Among this n.o.bleman's retinue was a first footman rejoicing (I hope) in the superlatively suitable name of Acton Curvette: a name to write a comedy around.

Richard Sackville, the fifth earl, was a more domestic peer, of whom we have some intimate and amusing glimpses in the memorandum books and diaries which he kept at Knole. Thus:--

"Hy. Mattock for scolding to extremity on Sunday 12th October 1661 without cause 0 0 3

"Hy. Mattock for disposing of my Cast linnen without my order 0 0 3

"Robert Verrell for giving away my money 0 0 6"

[Sidenote: "TO ALL YOU LADIES"]

Lastly we come to Charles Sackville, sixth earl, that Admirable Crichton, the friend of Charles II. and the patron of poets, who spent the night before an engagement in the Dutch war in writing the sprightly verses, "To all you ladies now on land," wherein occurs this agreeable fancy:--

Then, if we write not by each post, Think not we are unkind; Nor yet conclude our ships are lost By Dutchmen or by wind; Our tears we'll send a speedier way: The tide shall bring them twice a day.

The king with wonder and surprise, Will swear the seas grow bold; Because the tides will higher rise Than e'er they did of old: But let him know it is our tears Bring floods of grief to Whitehall-stairs.