<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></SPAN>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2>
<h3>WINCHELSEA AND RYE</h3>
<blockquote><p>Medieval Sussex—The suddenness of Rye—The approach by
night—Cities of the plain—Old Winchelsea—The freakish sea—New
Winchelsea—The eternal French problem—Modern Winchelsea—The
Alard tombs—Denis Duval and the Westons—John Wesley—Old
Rye—John Fletcher—The Jeakes'—An unknown poet—Rye church—The
eight bells—Rye's streets—Rye ancient and modern—A Rye
ceramist—Pett—Icklesham's accounts—A complacent epitaph—Iden
and Playden—Udimore's church—Brede Place—The Oxenbridges—Dean
Swift as a baby.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the opinion of many good judges Sussex has nothing to offer so
fascinating as Winchelsea and Rye; and in certain reposeful moods, when
the past seems to be more than the present or future, I can agree with
them. We have seen many ancient towns in our progress through the
county—Chichester around her cathedral spire, Arundel beneath her grey
castle, Lewes among her hills—but all have modern blood in their veins.
Winchelsea and Rye seem wholly of the past. Nothing can modernise them.</p>
<p>Rye approached from the east is the suddenest thing in the world. The
traveller leaves Ashford, in a South Eastern train, amid all the
circumstances of ordinary travel; he passes through the ordinary scenery
of Kent; the porters call Rye, and in a moment he is in the middle ages.</p>
<p>Rye is only a few yards from its station: Winchelsea, on the other hand,
is a mile from the line, and one has time on the road to understand
one's surroundings. It is important<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_359" id="Page_359"></SPAN></span> that the traveller who wishes to
experience the right medieval thrill should come to Winchelsea either at
dusk or at night. To make acquaintance with any new town by night is to
double one's pleasure; for there is a first joy in the curious half-seen
strangeness of the streets and houses, and a further joy in correcting
by the morrow's light the distorted impressions gathered in the dark.</p>
<p class="center"><SPAN name="page359.png" id="page359.png"></SPAN><ANTIMG src="images/page359.png" width-obs='700' height-obs='615' alt="The Landgate, Rye" /></p>
<h4><i>The Landgate, Rye.</i></h4>
<div class="sidenote">APPROACH AT DUSK</div>
<p>To come for the first time upon Winchelsea at dusk, whether from the
station or from Rye, is to receive an impression almost if not quite
unique in England; since there is no other town throned like this upon a
green hill, to be gained only through massive gateways. From the station
one would enter at the Pipewell Gate; from Rye, by the Strand Gate. The<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_360" id="Page_360"></SPAN></span>
Strand approach is perhaps a shade finer and more romantically unreal.</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE FREAKISH SEA</div>
<p>Winchelsea and Rye are remarkable in being not only perched each upon a
solitary hillock in a vast level or marsh, but in being hillocks in
themselves. In the case of Winchelsea there are trees and green spaces
to boot, but Rye and its hillock are one; every inch is given over to
red brick and grey stone. They are true cities of the plain. Between
them are three miles of flat meadow, where, among thousands of sheep,
stands the grey rotundity of Camber Castle. All this land is <i>polder</i>,
as the Dutch call it, yet not reclaimed from the sea by any feat of
engineering, as about the Helder, but presented by Neptune as a free and
not too welcome gift to these ancient boroughs—possibly to equalise his
theft of acres of good park at Selsey. Once a Cinque Port of the first
magnitude, Winchelsea is now an inland resort of the antiquary and the
artist. Where fishermen once dropped their nets, shepherds now watch
their sheep; where the marauding French were wont to rush in with sword
and torch, tourists now toil with camera and guide-book.</p>
<p>The light above the sheep levels changes continually: at one hour Rye
seems but a stone's throw from Winchelsea; at another she is miles
distant; at a third she looms twice her size through the haze, and
Camber is seen as a fortress of old romance.</p>
<p>Rye stands where it always stood: but the original Winchelsea is no
more. It was built two miles south-south-east of Rye, on a spot since
covered by the sea but now again dry land. At Old Winchelsea William the
Conqueror landed in 1067 after a visit to Normandy; in 1138 Henry II.
landed there, while the French landed often, sometimes disastrously and
sometimes not. In those days Winchelsea had seven hundred householders
and fifty inns. In 1250, however, began her downfall. Holinshed
writes:—"On the first day of October (1250), the moon, upon her change,
appearing exceeding red and swelled,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_361" id="Page_361"></SPAN></span> began to show tokens of the great
tempest of wind that followed, which was so huge and mightie, both by
land and sea, that the like had not been lightlie knowne, and seldome,
or rather never heard of by men then alive. The sea forced contrarie to
his natural course, flowed twice without ebbing, yeelding such a rooring
that the same was heard (not without great woonder) a farre distance
from the shore. Moreover, the same sea appeared in the darke of the
night to burne, as it had been on fire, and the waves to strive and
fight togither after a marvellous sort, so that the mariners could not
devise how to save their ships where they laie at anchor, by no cunning
or shift which they could devise. At Hert-burne three tall-ships
perished without recoverie, besides other smaller vessels. At
Winchelsey, besides other hurte that was doone, in bridges, milles,
breakes, and banks, there were 300 houses and some churches drowned with
the high rising of the water course."</p>
<div class="sidenote">WINCHELSEA'S VICISSITUDES</div>
<p>The Winchelsea people, however, did not abandon their town. In 1264
Henry III. was there on his way to the Battle of Lewes, and later,
Eleanor, wife of Henry's conqueror, de Montfort, was there too, and
encouraged by her kindness to them the Winchelsea men took to active sea
piracy, which de Montfort encouraged. In 1266, however, Prince Edward,
who disliked piracy, descended upon the town and chastised it bloodily;
while on February 4, 1287, a greater punishment came, for during another
storm the town was practically drowned, all the flat land between Pett
and Hythe being inundated. New Winchelsea, the Winchelsea of to-day, was
forthwith begun under royal patronage on a rock near Icklesham, the
north and east sides of which were washed by the sea. A castle was set
there, and gates, of which three still stand—Pipewell, Strand and
New—rose from the earth. The Grey Friars monastery and other religious
houses were reproduced as at Old Winchelsea, and a prosperous town quickly existed.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_362" id="Page_362"></SPAN></span>New Winchelsea was soon busy. In 1350 a battle between the English and
Spanish fleets was waged off the town, an exciting spectacle for the
Court, who watched from the high ground. Edward III., the English king,
when victory was his, rode to Etchingham for the night. In 1359, 3,000
Frenchmen entered Winchelsea and set fire to it; while in 1360 the
Cinque Ports navy sailed from Winchelsea and burned Luce. Such were the
reprisals of those days. In 1376 the French came again and were repulsed
by the Abbot of Battle, but in 1378 the Abbot had to run. In 1448 the
French came for the last time, the sea having become very shallow; and a
little later the sea receded altogether, Henry VIII. suppressed the
religious houses, and Winchelsea's heyday was over.</p>
<p>She is now a quiet, aloof settlement of pleasant houses and gardens,
prosperous and idle. Rye might be called a city of trade, Winchelsea of
repose. She spreads her hands to the sun and is content.</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE ALARD TOMBS</div>
<p>Winchelsea's church stands, as a church should, in the midst of its
green acre, fully visible from every side—the very antipodes of Rye.
Large as it now is, it was once far larger, for only the chancel and
side aisles remain. The glory of the church is the canopied tomb of
Gervase Alard, Admiral of the Cinque Ports, and that of his grandson
Stephen Alard, also Admiral, both curiously carved with grotesque heads.
The roof beams of the church, timber from wrecked or broken ships, are
of an integrity so thorough that a village carpenter who recently
climbed up to test them blunted all his tools in the enterprise.</p>
<p class="center"><SPAN name="page363.png" id="page363.png"></SPAN><ANTIMG src="images/page363.png" width-obs='700' height-obs='474' alt="Sedilia and Tombs of Gervase and Stephen Alard, Winchelsea" /></p>
<h4><i>Sedilia and Tombs of Gervase and Stephen Alard, Winchelsea.</i></h4>
<div class="sidenote">THE WESTONS</div>
<p>All that remains of the Grey Friars monastery may now be seen (on
Mondays only) in the estate called The Friars: the shell of the chapel's
choir, prettily covered with ivy. Here once lived, in the odour of
perfect respectability, the brothers Weston, who, country gentlemen of
quiet habit at home, for several years ravaged the coach roads elsewhere
as highwaymen, and were eventually hanged at Tyburn. Their place in<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_363" id="Page_363"></SPAN></span>
literature is, of course, <i>Denis Duval</i>, which Thackeray wrote in a
house on the north of the churchyard, and which is all of Winchelsea and
Rye compact, as the author's letters to Mr. Greenwood, editor of
<i>Cornhill</i>, detailing the plot (in the person of Denis himself) go to
show. Thus:—</p>
<blockquote><p>"I was born in the year 1764, at Winchelsea, where my father was a
grocer and clerk of the church. Everybody in the place was a good
deal connected with smuggling.</p>
<p>"There used to come to our house a very noble French gentleman,
called the <span class="smcap">Count de la Motte</span>, and with him a German, the <span class="smcap">Baron de
Lütterloh</span>. My father used to take packages to Ostend and Calais for
these two gentlemen, and perhaps I went to Paris once, and saw the
French Queen.</p>
<p>"The squire of our town was <span class="smcap">Squire Weston</span> of the Priory, who, with
his brother, kept one of the genteelest houses in the country. He
was churchwarden of our church, and much respected. Yes, but if you
read the <i>Annual Register</i> of 1781, you will find that on the 13th
July the sheriffs attended at the <span class="smcap">Tower of London</span> to receive
custody of a De la Motte, a prisoner charged with high treason. The
fact is, this Alsatian nobleman being in difficulties in his own
country (where he had commanded the Regiment Soubise), came to
London, and under pretence of sending prints<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_364" id="Page_364"></SPAN></span> to France and Ostend,
supplied the French Ministers with accounts of the movements of the
English fleets and troops. His go-between was Lütterloh, a
Brunswicker, who had been a crimping-agent, then a servant, who was
a spy of France and Mr. Franklin, and who turned king's evidence on
La Motte, and hanged him.</p>
<p>"This Lütterloh, who had been a crimping-agent for German troops
during the American war, then a servant in London during the Gordon
riots, then an agent for a spy, then a spy over a spy, I suspect to
have been a consummate scoundrel, and doubly odious from speaking
English with a German accent.</p>
<p>"What if he wanted to marry <span class="smcap">that charming girl</span>, who lived with Mr.
Weston at Winchelsea? Ha! I see a mystery here.</p>
<p>"What if this scoundrel, going to receive his pay from the English
Admiral, with whom he was in communication at Portsmouth, happened
to go on board the <i>Royal George</i> the day she went down?</p>
<p>"As for George and Joseph Weston, of the Priory, I am sorry to say
they were rascals too. They were tried for robbing the Bristol mail
in 1780; and being acquitted for want of evidence, were tried
immediately after on another indictment for forgery—Joseph was
acquitted, but George was capitally convicted. But this did not
help poor Joseph. Before their trials, they and some others broke
out of Newgate, and Joseph fired at, and wounded, a porter who
tried to stop him, on Snow Hill. For this he was tried and found
guilty on the Black Act, and hung along with his brother.</p>
<p>"Now, if I was an innocent participator in De la Motte's treasons,
and the Westons' forgeries and robberies, what pretty scrapes I
must have been in.</p>
<p>"I married the young woman, whom the brutal Lütterloh would have
had for himself, and lived happy ever after."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And again:—</p>
<div class="sidenote">DENIS DUVAL'S BOYHOOD</div>
<blockquote><p>"My grandfather's name was Duval; he was a barber and perruquier by
trade, and elder of the French Protestant church at Winchelsea. I
was sent to board with his correspondent, a Methodist grocer, at
Rye.</p>
<p>"These two kept a fishing-boat, but the fish they caught was many
and many a barrel of Nantz brandy, which we landed—never mind
where—at a place to us well known. In the innocence of my heart,
I—a child—got leave to go out fishing. We used to go out at night
and meet ships from the French coast.</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div>"I learned to scuttle a marlinspike,</div>
<div class="i6">reef a lee-scupper,</div>
<div class="i6">keelhaul a bowsprit</div>
</div></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_365" id="Page_365"></SPAN></span>as well as the best of them. How well I remember the jabbering of
the Frenchmen the first night as they handed the kegs over to us!
One night we were fired into by his Majesty's revenue cutter
<i>Lynx</i>. I asked what those balls were fizzing in the water, etc.</p>
<p>"I wouldn't go on with the smuggling; being converted by Mr.
Wesley, who came to preach to us at Rye—but that is neither here
nor there...."</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="center"><SPAN name="page365.png" id="page365.png"></SPAN><ANTIMG src="images/page365.png" width-obs='684' height-obs='700' alt="The Ypres Tower, Rye" /></p>
<h4><i>The Ypres Tower, Rye.</i></h4>
<div class="sidenote">JOHN WESLEY</div>
<p>It was under the large tree of the west wall of the churchyard that in
1790 John Wesley preached his last outdoor sermon, afterwards walking
through "that poor skeleton of ancient Winchelsea," as he called it.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_366" id="Page_366"></SPAN></span>Rye, like Winchelsea, has had a richer history than I can cope with. She
was an important seaport from the earliest times; and among other of our
enemies who knew her value were the Danes, two hundred and fifty of
whose vessels entered the harbour in the year 893. Later the French
continually menaced her, hardly less than her sister Cinque Port, but
Rye bore so little malice that during the persecutions in France in the
sixteenth century she received hundreds of Huguenot refugees, whose
descendants still live in the town. Many monarchs have come hither,
among them Queen Elizabeth, in 1573, dubbing Rye "Rye Royal" and
Winchelsea "Little London."</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE THREE JEAKES</div>
<p>Rye has had at least one notable son, John Fletcher the dramatist,
associate of Francis Beaumont and perhaps of Shakespeare, and author of
"The Faithful Shepherdess." Fletcher's father was vicar of Rye. The town
also gave birth to a curious father, son, and grandson, all named Samuel
Jeake. The first, born in 1623, the author of "The Charters of the
Cinque Ports," 1728, was a lawyer, a bold Nonconformist, a preacher, an
astrologer and an alchemist, whose library contained works in fifteen
languages but no copy of Shakespeare or Milton. He left a treatise on
the Elixir of Life. The second, at the age of nineteen, was "somewhat
acquainted with the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, rhetoric, logic, poetry,
natural philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, cosmography, astronomy,
astrology, geography, theology, physics, dialling, navigation,
caligraphy, stenography, drawing, heraldry and history." He also drew
horoscopes, wrote treatises on astrology and other sciences, suffered,
like his father, for his religion, and when he was twenty-nine married
Elizabeth Hartshorne, aged thirteen and a half. They had six children.
The third Samuel Jeake was famous for constructing a flying machine,
which refused to fly, and nearly killed him.</p>
<p>Rye also possessed an unknown poet. On a blank leaf in an old book in
the town's archives is written this poem, in the hand of Henry VIII.'s time:—</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_367" id="Page_367"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div>What greater gryffe may hape</div>
<div>Trew lovers to anoye,</div>
<div>Then absente for to sepratte them</div>
<div>From ther desiered joye?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>What comforte reste them then</div>
<div>To ease them of ther smarte,</div>
<div>But for to thincke and myndful bee</div>
<div>Of them they love in harte?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>And eicke that they assured bee</div>
<div>Etche toe another in harte,</div>
<div>That nothinge shall them seperate</div>
<div>Untylle deathe doe them parte?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>And thoughe the dystance of the place</div>
<div>Doe severe us in twayne,</div>
<div>Yet shall my harte thy harte imbrace</div>
<div>Tyll we doe meete agayne.</div>
</div></div>
<div class="sidenote">THE SANGUINARY BUTCHER</div>
<p>The church, the largest in Sussex, dominates Rye from every point, and
so tightly are the houses compressed that from the plain the spire seems
to be the completion not only of the church but of the town too. The
building stands in what is perhaps the quietest and quaintest church
square in England, possessing beyond all question the discreetest of
pawnbroker's shops, marked by three brass balls that positively have
charm. The church is cool and spacious, with noble plain windows (and
one very pretty little one by Burne-Jones), and some very interesting
architectural features. Too little care seems, however, to have been
spent upon it at some previous time. The verger shows with a pride
little short of proprietary a mahogany altar said to have been taken
from one of the vessels of the Armada (and therefore oddly inappropriate
for a Church of England service), and the tomb of one Alan Grebell, who,
happening one night in 1742 to be wearing the cloak of his
brother-in-law the Mayor, was killed in mistake for him by a "sanguinary
butcher" named Breeds. Breeds, who was hanged in chains for his crime,
remains perhaps the most famous figure in the history of Rye.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_368" id="Page_368"></SPAN></span>Externally Rye church is magnificent, but the pity of it is that its
encroaching square deprives one of the power to study it as a whole.
Among the details, however, are two admirable flying buttresses. The
clock over the beautiful north window, which is said to have been given
to the town by Queen Elizabeth, is remarkable for the two golden cherubs
that strike the hours, and the pendulum that swings in the central tower
of the church, very nigh the preacher's head.</p>
<div class="sidenote">EIGHT BELLS</div>
<p>Rye's eight bells bear the following inscription:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div>To honour both of God and King</div>
<div>Our voices shall in concert ring.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>May heaven increase their bounteous store</div>
<div>And bless their souls for evermore.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Whilst thus we join in joyful sound</div>
<div>May love and loyalty abound.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Ye people all who hear me ring</div>
<div>Be faithful to your God and King.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Such wondrous power to music's given</div>
<div>It elevates the soul to heaven.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>If you have a judicious ear</div>
<div>You'll own my voice is sweet and clear.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Our voices shall with joyful sound</div>
<div>Make hills and valleys echo round.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>In wedlock bands all ye who join,</div>
<div>With hands your hearts unite;</div>
<div>So shall our tuneful tongues combine</div>
<div>To laud the nuptial rite.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Ye ringers, all who prize</div>
<div>Your health and happiness,</div>
<div>Be sober, merry, wise,</div>
<div>And you'll the same possess.</div>
</div></div>
<p>Hardly less interesting than the church are the by-streets of Rye, so
old and simple and quiet and right; particularly perhaps Mermaid Street,
with its beautiful hospital. In the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_369" id="Page_369"></SPAN></span> High Street, which is busier, is
the George Inn, the rare possessor of a large assembly room with a
musicians' gallery. One only of Rye's gates is standing—the Landgate;
but on the south rampart of the town is the Ypres Tower (called Wipers
by the prosaic inhabitants), a relic of the twelfth century, guarding
Rye once from perils by sea and now from perils by land. Standing by the
tower one may hear below shipbuilders busy at work and observe all the
low-pulsed life of the river. A mile or so away is Rye Harbour, and
beyond it the sea; across the intervening space runs a little train with
its freight of golf players. In the east stretches Romney Marsh to the
hills of Folkestone.</p>
<p>Extremes meet in Rye. When I was last there the passage of the Landgate
was made perilous by an approaching Panhard; the monastery of the
Augustine friars on Conduit Hill had become a Salvation Army barracks;
and in the doorway of the little fourteenth-century chapel of the
Carmelites, now a private house, in the church square, a perambulator
waited. Moreover, in the stately red house at the head of Mermaid Street
the author of <i>The Awkward Age</i> prosecutes his fascinating analyses of
twentieth-century temperaments.</p>
<div class="sidenote">RYE POTTERY</div>
<p>Among the industries of Rye is the production of an ingenious variety of
pottery achieved by affixing to ordinary vessels of earthenware a veneer
of broken pieces of china—usually fragments of cups and saucers—in
definite patterns that sometimes reach a magnificence almost Persian.
For the most part the result is not perhaps beautiful, but it is always
gay, and the Rye potter who practises the art deserves encouragement. I
saw last summer a piece of similar ware in a cottage on the banks of the
Ettrick, but whether it had travelled thither from Rye, or whether
Scotch artists work in the same medium, I do not know. Mr. Gasson, the
artificer (the dominating name of Gasson is to Rye what that of Seiler
is to Zermatt), charges a penny for the inspection of the four rooms of
his house in which his pottery, his stuffed birds and other curiosities
are<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_370" id="Page_370"></SPAN></span> collected. The visit must be epoch-making in any life. Never again
will a broken tea-cup be to any of Mr. Gasson's patrons merely a broken
tea-cup. Previously it may have been that and nothing more; henceforward
it is valuable material which, having completed one stage of existence,
is, like the good Buddhist, entering upon another of increased radiance.
More, broken china may even become the symbol of Rye.</p>
<p class="center"><SPAN name="page370.png" id="page370.png"></SPAN><ANTIMG src="images/page370.png" width-obs='700' height-obs='481' alt="Court Lodge, Udimore" /></p>
<h4><i>Court Lodge, Udimore.</i></h4>
<div class="sidenote">PETT AND ICKLESHAM</div>
<p>Between Hastings and Winchelsea are the villages of Guestling, Pett, and
Icklesham, the last two on the edge of the Level. Of these, Icklesham is
the most interesting, Guestling having recently lost its church by fire,
and Pett church being new. Pett stands in a pleasant position at the end
of the high ground, with nothing in the east but Pett Level, and the sea
only a mile away. At very low tide the remains of a submerged forest
were once discernible, and may still be.</p>
<p>Icklesham also stands on the ridge further north, overlooking the Level
and the sea, with Winchelsea not two miles<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_371" id="Page_371"></SPAN></span> distant in the east. The
church is a very fine one, with a most interesting Norman tower in its
midst. The churchwardens accounts contain some quaint entries:</p>
<div class="sidenote">CHURCHWARDENS' ACCOUNTS</div>
<blockquote><p>1732. Paid for y<sup>e</sup> Stokes [stocks] <i>£</i>4 10<i>s.</i> 8¾<i>d.</i></p>
<p>1735. January y<sup>e</sup> 13 p<sup>d</sup> for a pint of wine and for eight pound of
mutton for Good[man] Row and Good[man] Winch and Goody Sutors for their
being with Goody in her fitts 3<i>s.</i></p>
<p>1744. Fevery y<sup>e</sup> 29 paid Gudy Tayler for going to Winshelse for to give
her Arthor Davy [affidavit] 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
<p>1746. April 26 gave the Ringers for Rejoycing when y<sup>e</sup> Rebels was beat
15<i>s.</i> (This refers to Culloden. There are two sides in every battle;
how do Burns's lines run?—</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div>Drumossie moor—Drumossie day—</div>
<div>A waefu' day it was to me!</div>
<div>For there I lost my father dear,</div>
<div>My father dear, and brethren three.)</div>
</div></div>
<p>One of the Icklesham gravestones, standing over the grave of James King,
who died aged seventeen, has this complacent couplet:</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div>God takes the good—too good on earth to stay,</div>
<div>And leaves the bad—too bad to take away.</div>
</div></div>
<p>Two miles to the west of Icklesham, at Snaylham, close to the present
railway, once stood the home of the Cheyneys, a family that maintained
for many years a fierce feud with the Oxenbridges of Brede, whither we
soon shall come. A party of Cheyneys once succeeded in catching an
Oxenbridge asleep in his bed, and killed him. Old Place farm, a little
north of Icklesham, between the village and the line, marks the site of
Old Place, the mansion of the Fynches, earls of Winchelsea.</p>
<div class="sidenote">PLAYDEN AND IDEN</div>
<p>The mainland proper begins hard by Rye, on the other side of the
railway, where Rye Hill carries the London road out of sight. This way
lie Playden, Iden, and Peasmarsh: Playden, with a slender spire, of a
grace not excelled in a county notable, as we have seen, for graceful
spires, but a little <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_372" id="Page_372"></SPAN></span>overweighted perhaps by its cross, within whose
church is the tomb of a Flemish brewer, named Zoctmanns, calling for
prayers for his soul; Iden, with a square tower and a stair turret, a
village taking its name from that family of which Alexander Iden, slayer
of Jack Cade, was a member, its home being at Mote, now non-existent;
and Peasmarsh, whose long modest church, crowned by a squat spire, may
be again seen, like the swan upon St. Mary's Lake, in the water at the
foot of the churchyard. At Peasmarsh was born a poor artificial poet<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_373" id="Page_373"></SPAN></span><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</SPAN></span>
named William Pattison, in whose works I have failed to find anything of
interest.</p>
<p class="center"><SPAN name="page372.png" id="page372.png"></SPAN><ANTIMG src="images/page372.png" width-obs='651' height-obs='700' alt="Udimore Church" /></p>
<h4><i>Udimore Church.</i></h4>
<p>The two most interesting spots in the hilly country immediately north of
the Brede valley (north of Winchelsea) are Udimore and Brede. Concerning
Udimore church, which externally has a family resemblance to that of
Steyning, it is told that it was originally planned to rise on the other
side of the little river Ree. The builders began their work, but every
night saw the supernatural removal of the stones to the present site,
while a mysterious voice uttered the words "O'er the mere! O'er the
mere!" Hence, says the legend, the present position of the fane, and the
beautiful name Udimore, or "O'er the mere," which, of course, becomes
Uddymer among the villagers.</p>
<p class="center"><SPAN name="page373.png" id="page373.png"></SPAN><ANTIMG src="images/page373.png" width-obs='700' height-obs='481' alt="Brede Place" /></p>
<h4><i>Brede Place.</i></h4>
<div class="sidenote">BREDE PLACE</div>
<p>From Udimore one reaches Brede by turning off the high road about two
miles to the east. But it is worth while to keep to the road a little
longer, and entering Gilly Wood (on the right) explore as wild and
beautiful a ravine as any in the county. And, on the Brede by-road, it
is worth while also to turn aside again in order to see Brede Place.
This house, like all the old mansions (it is of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries), is set in a hollow, and is sufficiently gloomy in
appearance and surroundings to lend colour to the rumour that would have
it haunted—a rumour originally spread by the smugglers who for some
years made the house their headquarters. An underground passage is said
to lead from Brede Place to the church, a good part of a mile distant;
but as is usual with underground passages, the legend has been held so
dear that no one seems to have ventured upon the risk of disproving it.
Amid these medieval surroundings the late Stephen Crane, the American
writer, conceived some of his curiously modern stories.</p>
<p>One of the original owners (the Oxenbridges) like Col. Lunsford of East
Hoathly was credited by the country people with an appetite for
children. Nothing could compass<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_375" id="Page_375"></SPAN></span> his death but a wooden saw, with which
after a drunken bout the villagers severed him in Stubb's Lane, by
Groaning Bridge. Not all the family, however, were bloodthirsty, for at
least two John Oxenbridges of the sixteenth century were divines, one a
Canon of Windsor, the other a "grave and reverent preacher."</p>
<div class="sidenote">DEAN SWIFT'S CRADLE</div>
<p>The present vicar of Brede, the village on the hill above Brede Place,
has added to the natural antiquities of his church several alien
curiosities, chief among them being the cradle in which Dean Swift was
rocked. It is worth a visit to Brede church to be persuaded that that
matured Irishman ever was a baby.</p>
<p class="center"><SPAN name="page375.png" id="page375.png"></SPAN><ANTIMG src="images/page375.png" width-obs='700' height-obs='539' alt="Brede Place, from the South" /></p>
<h4><i>Brede Place, from the South.</i></h4>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_376" id="Page_376"></SPAN></span></p>
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