333

HURSTMONCEUX CASTLE 335

BATTLE ABBEY--THE GATEWAY 349

MOUNT STREET, BATTLE 352

BATTLE ABBEY, THE REFECTORY 355

THE LANDGATE, RYE 359

SEDILIA AND TOMBS OF GERVASE AND
STEPHEN ALARD, WINCHELSEA 363

THE YPRES TOWER, RYE 365

COURT LODGE, UDIMORE 370

UDIMORE CHURCH 372

BREDE PLACE 373

BREDE PLACE, FROM THE SOUTH 375

BODIAM CASTLE 377

SHOYSWELL, NEAR TICEHURST 388

THE PANTILES, TUNBRIDGE WELLS 391

BAYHAM ABBEY 396

ASHDOWN FOREST, FROM EAST GRINSTEAD 403

MAP OF THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX _End paper_

[Illustration]

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN SUSSEX

CHAPTER I

MIDHURST

The fitting order of a traveller's progress--The Downs the true
Sussex--Fashion at bay--Mr. Kipling's topographical
creed--Midhurst's advantages--Single railway lines--Queen Elizabeth
at Cowdray--Montagus domestic and homicidal--The curse of
Cowdray--Dr. Johnson at Midhurst--Cowdray Park.

If it is better, in exploring a county, to begin with its least
interesting districts and to end with the best, I have made a mistake in
the order of this book: I should rather have begun with the
comparatively dull hot inland hilly region of the north-east, and have
left it at the cool chalk Downs of the Hampshire border. But if one's
first impression of new country cannot be too favourable we have done
rightly in starting at Midhurst, even at the risk of a loss of
enthusiasm in the concluding chapters. For although historically,
socially, and architecturally north Sussex is as interesting as south
Sussex, the crown of the county's scenery is the Downs, and its most
fascinating districts are those which the Downs dominate. The farther we
travel from the Downs and the sea the less unique are our surroundings.
Many of the villages in the northern Weald, beautiful as they are, might
equally well be in Kent or Surrey: a visitor suddenly alighting in their
midst, say from a balloon, would be puzzled to name the county he was
in; but the Downs and their dependencies are essential Sussex. Hence a
Sussex man in love with the Downs becomes less