Chapter 7
chapter seven of highways and byways in sussex this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by peter yearsley highways and byways in sussex by e v lucas chapter seven arundel and neighbourhood seen from the river or from the east side of the arun valley arundel is the most imposing town in sussex many are larger many are equally old or older but none wears so unusual and interesting an air not even lewis among her downs arundel clings to the side of a shaggy hill above the arun castle cathedral church these are arundel the town itself is secondary subordinate feudal the castle is what one likes a castle to be a mass of battlemented stone, with a keep, a gateway, and a history, and yet more habitable than ever.
So many of the rich make no effort to live in their ancestral halls, and what might be a home carrying on the tradition of ages is so often a mere show, that to find an historic castle like Arundel still lived in is very gratifying. In Sussex alone are several half-ruined houses that the builders could quickly make habitable once more.
Arundel Castle, in spite of time and the sieges of 1102, 1139, and 1643, is both comfortable and modern. Arundel still depends for her life upon the complaisance of her overlord. I know of no town with so low a pulse as this precipitous little settlement, under the shadow of Rome and the Duke.
In spite of picnic parties in the park, in spite of anglers from London, in spite of the railway in the valley, Arundel is still medieval and curiously foreign. On a very hot day, as one climbs the hill to the cathedral, one might be in old France and certainly in the Middle Ages. Times revenges have had their play in this town, although the church is still bravely
of the establishment, half of it is closed to the Anglican visitor, the chancel having been adjudged the private property of the Dukes of Norfolk, and the once dominating position of the edifice has been impaired by the proximity of the new Roman Catholic Church of St. Philip Nerai, which the present Duke has been building these many years. Within it is finished a very charming and delicate feat in stone, but the spire has
yet to come. The old Irish soldier, humorous and be-meddled, who keeps watch and ward over the fane, is not the least of its merits. Although the chancel of the parish church has been closed, permission to enter may occasionally be obtained.
It is rich in family tombs of great interest and beauty, including that of the nineteenth Earl of Arundel, the patron of William Caxton. In the siege of Arundel Castle in 1643 the soldiers of the Parliamentarians under Sir William Waller fired their cannon from the church tower. They also turned the church into a barracks, and injured much stonework beyond repair.
A fire-beacon blazed of old on the spire to serve as a mark for vessels entering Little Hampton Harbour. Bevis of Southampton, the giant who, when he visited the Isle of Wight, waded thither, was a warder at Arundel Castle, where he ate a whole ox every week with bread and mustard, and drank two hogsheads of beer, hence Bevis Tower.
His sword Morglae is still to be seen in the armory of the castle, his bones lie beneath a mound in the park, and the town was named after his horse. So runs a pretty story which is, however, demolished with the ruthlessness that comes so easily to the antiquary and philologist.
Bevis Tower, science declares, was named probably after another Bevis. There was one at the Battle of Lewis, who took prisoner Richard King of the Romans, and was knighted for it, while Arundel is a corruption of Irundel, a swallow. Mr. Lower mentions that in recent times in Sussex swallow was a common name in stables, even for heavy dray-horses.
But before accepting finally the swallow theory, we ought to hear what Fuller has to say. Some will have it so named from Arundel, the horse of Beauvois, the great champion. I confess it is not without precedence in antiquity for places to take names from horses, meeting with the promontory Bucephalus in Peloponnesus, where some report the horse of Alexander buried, and Belonius will have it for the same cause called Cavala at this
day. But this castle was so called long before that imaginary horse was foaled, who cannot to be fancied elder than his master Beauvois, flourishing after the conquest, long before which Arundel was so called from the river Arund, running hard by it. The owls that once multiplied in the keep have now disappeared.
They were established there a hundred years or so ago by the eleventh duke, and certain of them were known by the names of public men. "'Please, Your Grace, Lord Thurlow has laid an egg,' is an historic speech handed down by tradition. Lord Thurlow, the owl in question, died at a great age in 1859.
To walk through Arundel Park is to receive a vivid impression of the size and richness of our little isolated England. Two or three great towns could be hidden in it unknown to each other. Valley succeeds to valley. New herds of deer come into sight at almost every turn.
As far as the eye can see The grass hills roll away. Those accustomed to parks Whose deer are always huddled close, And whose wall is never distant, Are bewildered by the vastness Of this enclosure. Yet one has also the feeling That such magnificence is right
To so lovely a word as Arundel, to the premier, duke, And hereditary earl-marshal of England, Should fittingly fall this far-spreading and comely pleasance. Had Arundel Park been small and empty of deer, what a blunder it would be! Walking west of Arundel through the vast rural wood, we come suddenly upon Punchbowl Green,
and open a great green valley dominated by the white façade of Dale Park House, below Maidhurst, one of the most remote of Sussex villages. By keeping due west for another mile, Slindon is reached. This village is one of the Sussex backwaters, as one might say. It lies on no road that anyone ever travels except for the purpose of going to Slindon,
or coming from it, and those that perform either of these actions are few. Yet all who have not seen Slindon are by so much the poorer, for Slindon House is nobly Elizabethan, with fine pictures and hiding-places, and Slindon beaches are among the aristocracy of trees. And here I should like to quote a Sussex poem of haunting wistfulness and charm, which was
written by Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who once walked to Rome, and is an old dweller at Slindon. The South Country When I am living in the Midlands that are Sodden and unkind, I light my lamp in the evening, My work is left behind, And the great hills of the South Country Come back into my mind.
The great hills of the South Country, They stand along the sea, And it's there, walking in the high woods, That I could wish to be, And the men that were boys when I was a boy, Walking along with me. The men that live in North England, I saw them for a day, Their hearts are set upon the waste fells, Their skies are fast and gray,
From their castle walls a man may see The mountains far away. The men that live in West England They see the severn strong, A-rolling on rough water brown Light aspen leaves along, They have the secret of the rocks And the oldest kind of song. But the men that live in the South Country Are the kindest and most wise.
They get their laughter from the loud surf, And the faith in their happy eyes Comes surely from our sister the spring When over the sea she flies. The violets suddenly bloom at her feet, She blesses us with surprise. I never get between the pines, But I smell the Sussex air, Nor I never come on a belt of sand,
But my home is there, And along the sky the line of the downs, So noble and so bare. A lost thing could I never find, Nor a broken thing mend,
And I fear I shall be all alone When I get towards the end. Who will be there to comfort me, Or who will be my friend? I will gather and carefully make my friends
Of the men of the Sussex Weald. They watch the stars from silent folds, They stiffly plough the field, By them and the God of the South Country My poor soul shall be healed.
If I ever become a rich man, Or if ever I grow to be old, I will build a house with deep thatch To shelter me from the cold, And there shall the Sussex songs be sung,
and the story of sussex told i will hold my house in the high wood within a walk of the sea and the men who were boys when i was a boy shall sit and drink with me richard newland the father of serious cricket came from this parish he was born in seventeen eighteen or thereabouts and in seventeen forty five he made eighty eight for england against kent he was left-handed and the finest bat ever seen in those days he taught richard nyeron of hambledon all the skill and judgment that that noble general possessed nyeron communicated his knowledge to the hambledon eleven and the game was made an interest in historical veracity compels me to add that william beldham silver billy talking to mr pycroft discounted some of nyeron's praise cricket he said was played in sussex very early before my day at least he was born in seventeen sixty six but that there was no good play i know by this that richard newland of slindon in sussex as you say sir taught old richard nyeron and that no sussex man could be found to play newland
now a second-rate man of our parish beat newland easily so you may judge what the rest of sussex then were but this is disregarding the characteristic uncertainty of the game if one would spend a day far from mankind on high ground there is no better way than to walk from arundel through houghton forest where as we have seen charles the second avoided the governor to cocking chapter seven
