Three miles north of Lingfield is Crowhurst, one of a noble pair of names. Crowhurst in Sussex and Crowhurst in Surrey each has its immemorial yew, a tree of trees. But the yew of the Surrey churchyard--is there no better way of honouring a tree than the Crowhurst way? Who is to look at a tree like this without unhappiness? From the road the first impression to be had of it is nothing very imposing; a mass of deep and shining green, of no great stature, with strong, springy branches brushing the church walls--that is all. But the nearer view! You expect, and find, an enormous gnarled trunk, and then--Your first idea is that someone has thrown a rubbish-heap at the tree, and that most of the rubbish has stuck--old tea-trays, broken kettles, saucepan-lids, the sides of tin trunks. You then perceive that over gaps and wounds in the vast and writhen shell there have been bound, or nailed, or otherwise fastened a number of patches of thin sheet iron, painted a peculiarly ugly red. These patches of paint shriek with the names of a thousand cockneys, and the names suit the method of mending the broken tree. Gus should be the name of the man who fixed that patch; Erb, surely, daubed on that paint; Alf, I think, drove in that nail. Could none of the foresters of the weald have helped a great tree better in its old age? There should be methods of preserving a tree which are not of necessity hideous; else, it would be better for the giant to die as it pleased. The church stands commandingly on a hill, overlooking level pastures and woodlands. But the view to the west, with all its breadth and quiet, is not more happy than the nearer picture to the east. Church gates stand opposite few more charming medleys than the multiplied gables, tumbled triangles, and oblongs of red tiles belonging to the roofs of the house on the other side of the road. This fine old brick building, with its formal garden path and clipped yews is now, like the Gainsfords' manor-house a mile away, merely a farmhouse. But it was once the family residence of the Angells, the other great family of Crowhurst after the Gainsfords. Like the Gainsfords, the Angell family has disappeared. The last John Angell died in 1784, and left a very curious will. His property was to go to anyone who could prove _himself_ (not herself) descended from an ancestor of his who lived in the reign of Henry VI. Many claims followed; none were proved. [Illustration: _Crowhurst Church and the old Yew._] The house has one record at least of unrequited hospitality. This is an extract from the parish registers:--