Highways and Byways in Sussex Part 9

A local proverb says that if you eat winkles in March it is as good as a dose of medicine; which reminds me that Suss.e.x has many wise sayings of its own. Here is a piece of Suss.e.x counsel in connection with the roaring month:--

If from fleas you would be free, On the first of March let all your windows closed be.

I quote two other rhymes:--

If you would wish your bees to thrive Gold must be paid for every hive; For when they're bought with other money There will be neither swarm nor honey.

The first b.u.t.terfly you see, Cut off his head across your knee, Bury the head under a stone And a lot of money will be your own.

On Whit Sunday the devout Suss.e.x man eats roast veal and gooseberry pudding. A Suss.e.x child born on Sunday can neither be hanged nor drowned.

[Sidenote: "CLIMPING FOR PERFECTION"]

West of Littlehampton is an architectural treasure, in the shape of Climping church, which no one should miss. The way is over the ferry and along the road to the first signboard, when one strikes northward towards Ford, and comes suddenly upon this squat and solid fane. A Saxon church stood here, built by the Prioress of Leominster, before the Conquest: to Roger de Montgomerie was the manor given by the Conqueror, as part of the earldom of Arundel and Chichester, together with Atherington manor, much of which is now, like Selsey's park, under the Channel. De Montgomerie gave Climping manor to the nuns of Almanesches, by whom the present Norman fortress-tower (with walls 4-1/4 feet thick) was added, and in 1253 John de Climping, the vicar, rebuilt the remainder. The church is thus six and a half centuries old, and parts of it are older. "Bosham, for antiquity; Boxgrove, for beauty; and Climping, for perfection" is the dictum of an antiquary quoted by the present vicar in a little pamphlet-history of his parish. As regards the Norman doorway, at any rate, he is right: there is nothing in Suss.e.x to excel that; while in general architectural attraction the building is of the richest. It is also a curiously homely and ingratiating church.

One of the new windows, representing St. Paul, has a peculiar interest, as the vicar tells us:--"St. Paul was a prisoner at Rome shortly after Caractacus, the British Chief, whose daughter, Claudia, married Pudens, both friends of the Apostle (2 Tim. iv. 21). Pudens afterwards commanded the Roman soldiers stationed at Regnum (Chichester), and if St. Paul came to Britain, at Claudia's request (as ancient writers testify), he certainly would visit Suss.e.x. How close this brings us here in Suss.e.x to the Bible story!"

At Baylies Court, now a farmhouse, the Benedictine monks of Seez, also proteges of Robert de Montgomerie, had their chapel, remains of which are still to be seen.

Climping, which otherwise lives its own life, is the resort of golfers (who to the vicar's regret play all Sunday and turn Easter Day into "a Heathen Festival") and of the sportsmen of the Suss.e.x Coursing Club, who find that the terrified Climping hare gives satisfaction beyond most in the county.

Of Ford, north of Climping, there is nothing to say, except that popular rumour has it that its minute and uninteresting church (the ant.i.thesis of Climping) was found one day by accident in a bed of nettles.

[Sidenote: JEFFERIES IN SUSs.e.x]

A good eastern walk from Littlehampton takes one by the sea to Goring, and then inland over Highdown Hill to Angmering, and so to Littlehampton again or to Arundel, our present centre. Goring touches literature in two places. The great house was built by Sir Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley, grandfather of the poet; and in the village died, in 1887, Richard Jefferies, author of _The Story of My Heart_, after a life of ill-health spent in the service of nature. Many beautiful and sympathetic descriptions of Suss.e.x are scattered about in Jefferies' books of essays, notably, "To Brighton," "The South Down Shepherd," and "The Breeze on Beachy Head" in _Nature near London_; "Clematis Lane," "Nature near Brighton," "Sea, Sky and Down," and "January in the Suss.e.x Woods" in _The Life of the Fields_; "Sunny Brighton" in _The Open Air_, and "The Country-Side, Suss.e.x" and "Buckhurst Park" in _Field and Hedgerow_. Jefferies had a way of blending experiences and concealing the names of places, which makes it difficult to know exactly what part of Suss.e.x he is describing; but I think I could lead anyone to Clematis Lane. I might, by the way, have remarked of South Harting that the luxuriance of the clematis in its hedges is unsurpa.s.sed.

John Taylor, the water poet, has a doggerel narrative ent.i.tled "A New Discovery by Sea with a Wherry from London to Salisbury," 1623, wherein he mentions a woful night with fleas at Goring, and pens a couplet worthy to take a place with the famous description of a similar visitation in _Eothen_:--

Who in their fury nip'd and skip'd so hotly, That all our skins were almost turned to motley.

[Sidenote: JOHN TAYLOR AND THE CONSTABLE]

Taylor gives us in the same record a pleasant picture of the Suss.e.x constable in 1623:--

The night before a Constable there came, Who asked my trade, my dwelling, and my name, My businesse, and a troupe of questions more, And wherefore we did land vpon that sh.o.r.e?

To whom I fram'd my answers true and fit, (According to his plenteous want of wit) But were my words all true or if I ly'd With neither I could get him satisfi'd.

He ask'd if we were Pyrats? We said No, (_As if we had we would haue told him so_) He said that Lords sometimes would enterprise T' escape and leaue the Kingdome in disguise: But I a.s.sur'd him on my honest word That I was no disguised Knight or Lord.

He told me then that I must goe sixe miles T' a Justice there, Sir John or else Sir Giles: I told him I was lothe to goe so farre, And he told me he would my journey barre.

Thus what with Fleas and with the seuerall prates Of th' officer, and his _a.s.s_-sociats We arose to goe, but Fortune bade us stay: The Constable had stolne our oares away, And borne them thence a quarter of a mile Quite through a Lane beyond a gate and stile; And hid them there to hinder my depart, For which I wish'd him hang'd with all my heart.

A plowman (for us) found our Oares againe, Within a field well fil'd with Barley Graine.

Then madly, gladly, out to sea we thrust, 'Gainst windes and stormes, and many a churlish Gust, By _Kingston_ Chappelle and by _Rushington_, By _Little-Hampton_ and by _Middleton_.

[Sidenote: THE MILLER AND SWEET DEATH]

Highdown, above Goring, is a good hill in itself, conical in shape, as a hill should be according to the exacting ideas of childhood, with a sweeping view of the coast and the Channel; but its fame as a resort of holiday makers comes less from its position and height than from the circ.u.mstance that John Oliver is buried upon it. John Oliver was the miller of Highdown Hill. When not grinding corn he seems to have busied himself with thoughts upon the necessary end of all things, to such an extent that his meditations on the subject gradually became a mania.

His coffin was made while he was still a young man, and it remained under his bed until its time was ripe, fitted--to bring it to a point of preparedness unusual even with the Chinese, those masters of antic.i.p.atory obsequies--with wheels, which the miller, I doubt not, regularly oiled. John Oliver did not stop there. Having his coffin comfortably at hand, he proceeded to erect his tomb. This was built in 1766, with tedious verses upon it from the miller's pen; while in an alcove near the tomb was a mechanical arrangement of death's-heads which might keep the miller's thoughts from straying, when, as with Dr.

Johnson's philosopher, cheerfulness would creep in.

The miller lived in the company of his coffin, his tomb, and his _mementi mori_, until 1793, when at the age of eighty-four his hopes were realised. Those who love death die old.

Between two and three thousand persons attended the funeral; no one was permitted to wear any but gay clothes; and the funeral sermon was read by a little girl of twelve, from the text, Micah vii. 8, 9.

[Sidenote: A DIGRESSION ON MILLS]

The mill of John Oliver has vanished, nothing but a depression in the turf now indicating where its foundations stood. Too many Suss.e.x windmills have disappeared. Clayton still has her twain, landmarks for many miles--I have seen them on exceptionally clear days from the Kentish hills--and other windmills are scattered over the county; but many more than now exist have ceased to be, victims of the power of steam. There is probably no contrast aesthetically more to the disadvantage of the modern subst.i.tute than that of the steam mill of to-day with the windmill of yesterday. The steam mill is always ugly, always dusty, always noisy, usually in a town. The windmill stands high and white, a thing of life and radiance and delicate beauty, surrounded by gra.s.s, in communion with the heavens. Such noise as it has is elemental, justifiable, like a ship's cordage in a gale. No one would paint a steam mill; a picture with a windmill can hardly be a failure.

Constable, who knew everything about the magic of windmills, painted several in Suss.e.x--one even at Brighton.

Brighton now has but one mill. There used to be many: one in the West Hill road, a comelier landmark than the stucco Congregational tower that has taken its place close by and serves as the town's sentinel from almost every point of approach. In 1797 a miller near Brighton antic.i.p.ated American enterprise by moving his mill bodily to a place two miles distant by the help of eighty oxen.

Another weakness of steam mills is that they are apparently without millers--at least there is no unmistakable dominating presence in a white hat, to whom one can confidently apply the definite article, as in the mill on the hill. Millers' men there are in plenty, but the miller is lacking. This is because steam mills belong to companies. Thus, with the pa.s.sing of the windmill we lose also the miller, that notable figure in English life and tradition; always jolly, if the old songs are true; often eccentric, as the story of John Oliver has shown; and usually a character, as becomes one who lives by the four winds, or by water--for the miller of tradition was often found in a water-mill too. The water-miller's empire has been threatened less than that of the windmill, for there is no sudden cessation of water power as of wind power. Suss.e.x still has many water-mills--cool and splashing homes of peaceful bustle. Long may they endure.

Highdown Hill has other a.s.sociations. In 1812 the Gentlemen of the Weald met the Gentlemen of the Sea-coast at cricket on its dividing summit.

The game, which was for one hundred guineas, was a very close thing, the Gentlemen of the Weald winning by only seven runs. Among the Gentlemen of the Sea-coast was Mr. Osbaldeston, while the princ.i.p.al Gentleman of the Weald was Mr. E. H. Budd.

A mile north of Highdown Hill, in a thickly wooded country, are Patching and Clapham; Patching celebrated for its pond, which washes the high-road to Arundel, and Clapham for its woods. Three hundred and more years ago Patching Copse was the scene of a treasonable meeting between William Sh.e.l.ley, an ancestor of the poet, one branch of whose family long held Michelgrove (where Henry VIII. was entertained by our plotter's grandfather), and Charles Paget: st.u.r.dy Roman Catholics both, who thus sought each other out, on the night of September 16, 1583, to confer as to the possibility of invading England, deposing Elizabeth, and setting Mary Queen of Scots upon the throne. Nothing came of the plot save the imprisonment of Sh.e.l.ley (who was condemned to death but escaped the sentence) and the flight of Paget, to hatch further treason abroad.

[Sidenote: THE PERFECT WIFE]

The last Sh.e.l.ley to hold Michelgrove, now no more, was Sir John, who, after it had been in the family for three hundred and fifty years, sold it in 1800. This was the Sir John Sh.e.l.ley who composed the following epitaph in Clapham church (one of Sir Gilbert Scott's restorations) to commemorate the very remarkable virtues of his lady--untimely s.n.a.t.c.hed from his side:--

Here Lyeth the Body of Wilhelmina Sh.e.l.ley who departed this Life the 21st of March 1772 Aged Twenty three years.

She was a pattern for the World to follow: Such a being both in form and mind perhaps never existed before.

A most dutiful, affectionate, and Virtuous Wife, A most tender and Anxious parent, A most sincere and constant Friend, A most amiable and elegant companion; Universally Benevolent, generous, and humane; The Pride of her own s.e.x, The admiration of ours.

She lived universally belov'd, and admir'd She died as generally rever'd, and regretted, A loss felt by all who had the happiness of knowing Her, By none to be compar'd to _that_ of her disconsolate, affectionate, Loving, & in this World everlastingly Miserable Husband, Sir JOHN Sh.e.l.lEY, Who has caused this inscription to be Engrav'd.

Horsfield tells us that "the beechwoods in this parish [Patching] and its immediate neighbourhood are very productive of the Truffle (_Lycoperdon tuber_). About forty years ago William Leach came from the West Indies, with some hogs accustomed to hunt for truffles, and proceeding along the coast from the Land's End, in Cornwall, to the mouth of the River Thames, determined to fix on that spot where he found them most abundant. He took four years to try the experiment, and at length settled in this parish, where he carried on the business of truffle-hunter till his death."

Angmering, which we may take on our return to Arundel, is a typically dusty Suss.e.x village, with white houses and thatched roofs, and a rather finer church than most. On our way back to Arundel, in the middle of a wood, a little more than a mile from Angmering, to the west, we come upon an interesting relic of a day when tables bore n.o.bler loads than now they do: a decoy pond formed originally to supply wild duck to the kitchen of Arundel Castle, but now no longer used. The long tapering tunnels of wire netting, into which the tame ducks of the decoy lured their wild cousins, are still in place, although the wire has largely perished.

[Sidenote: THE PALMER TRIPLETS]

At an old house near the Decoy (now converted into cottages), which any native will gladly and amusedly point out, lived, in the reign of Henry VIII., Lady Palmer, the famous mother of the Palmer triplets, who were distinguished from other triplets, not only by being born each on a successive Sunday but by receiving each the honour of knighthood. The curious circ.u.mstances of their birth seem to be well attested.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Gateway, Amberley Castle._]