SOUTH SUSSEX.

109 ruin was standing in 1754. The church of St. Nicholas is built just without the castle walls, and was originally cruciform, with a low central tower, but it suffered much during the siege of the castle, when it lost its chancel, the ruins of which may still be traced. The whole building was extensively repaired towards the close of the eighteenth century, with a result that can be easily imagined!

As a port Bramber must have lost its importance at a very early

date, and, as the mouth of the Adur became choked up, was probably replaced by Old Shoreham, just as, somewhat later, this last-named port was replaced by that formed at New Shoreham. Yet up to Camden's time fairly large vessels sailed up the Adur as far as Bramber Bridge. In the days of Bramber's prosperity this must have been a very picturesque structure, with its chapel, and quaint buildings on either side of the causeway over it. The utility of the bridge to the country round, as a crossing place of the Adur, was very great, and in 1386 the

Bishop of Chichester granted an indulgence of forty days to anyone who would contribute to the repair of the bridge or its up-keep. It was on passing over Bramber Bridge that Charles II., when a fugitive from Worcester, had such a narrow escape from capture by the Parliament's soldiers, as he was on his way to the seacoast.

SECTION VIII.

MID SUSSEX.

WAKEHURST: CROWBOROUGH ROTHERFIELD: MAYFIELD: BAYHAM GROOMBRIDGE: ASHDOWN FOREST: BRAMBLETYE: EAST GRINSTEAD.

EXTREMELY rural and picturesque is the country that one passes after leaving Bramber and on the way to Horsham. This latter town is a convenient stoppingplace, and though somewhat modernized under the influence of a train service that puts it in convenient touch with London, it yet retains, in parts, the old - world aspect

which it wore fifty years ago. Almost every part of the county is in railway communication with Horsham; but the line along which we propose to take the visitor is the old route to London by way of Three Bridges, which skirts St. Leonard's Forest. From Three Bridges, Wakehurst Place can easily be reached by road.

Even as we see it to-day, Wakehurst is a remarkably fine Elizabethan mansion, built entirely of stone, and three storeys in

I