A visit to Brambletye was the immediate object of our journey, and
though a distance of thirty-three miles, we considered ourselves amply
requited by the pensive interest of the scene and its crowded
associations. In our childhood we had been accustomed to clamber its
ruins and tottering staircases with delight, not to say triumph;
heedless as we then were of the historical interest attached to them.
After a lapse of a score and ---- years, the whole scene had become
doubly attractive. A new road had been formed from East Grinstead to
Forest Row, from which a pleasant lane wound off to Brambletye. We are
at a loss to describe our emotions as we approached the ruin. It was
altogether a little struggle of human suffering. Within two hundred
years the mansion had been erected, and by turns became the seat of
baronial splendour and of civil feuds,--of the best and basest feelings
of mankind;--the loyalty and hospitality of cavaliers; the fanatic
outrages of Roundheads; and ultimately of wanton desolation! The gate
through which Colonel Lilburne and his men entered, was blocked up with
a hurdle; and the yard where his forces were marshalled was covered with
high flourishing grass; the towers had almost become mere shells, but
the vaulted passages, once stored with luxuries and weapons, still
retained much of their original freshness. What a contrast did these few
wrecks of turbulent times present with the peaceful scene by which they
were surrounded, viz. a farm and two water-mills--on one side displaying
the stormy conflict of man's passion and petty desolation--and on the
other, the humble attributes of cheerful industry. We strove to repress
our feelings as we entered the principal porch, where by an assemblage
of names of visiters scribbled on the walls, and not unknown to us, we
learnt that, we were not the first to sympathize with the fate of
Brambletye!

Within these few years, through a sort of barbarous disregard for their
associations, the lodge and the greater part of the wall represented in
our engraving, has been pulled down! and the moated house has lately
shared the same fate--for the sake of their materials--cupidity in which
we rejoiced to hear the destroyers were disappointed--their intrinsic
worth not being equal to the labour of removing them: the work of
destruction would, however, have extended to the whole of the ruins had
not some guardian hand interfered. It will be seen that the moated house
was