The remains of Mayfield Palace, the old abode of the Archbishops of Canterbury, join the church. After it had passed into the hands of the crown--for Cranmer made a bargain with the King by which Mayfield was exchanged for other property--Sir Thomas Gresham lived here, and Queen Elizabeth has dined under its roof. The Palace is to be seen only occasionally, for it is now a convent, Mayfield being another of the county's many Roman Catholic outposts. In the great dining-room are the tongs which St. Dunstan used. The church, dedicated to Mayfield's heroic saint, has one of the broader shingled spires of Sussex, as distinguished from the slender spires of which Rotherfield is a good example. Standing high, it may be seen from long distances. The tower is the original Early English structure. Four more of the old Sussex iron tomb slabs may be seen at Mayfield. In the churchyard, says Mr. Lower, was once an inscription with this uncomplimentary first line:-- O reader, if that thou canst read, It continued:-- Look down upon this stone; Death is the man, do you what you can, That never spareth none! In Mayfield's street even the new houses have caught comeliness from their venerable neighbours. It undulates from gable to gable, and has two good inns. The old timbered house in the middle of the east side is that to which Richard Jefferies refers without enthusiasm in the passage which I quote in a later chapter from his essay on Buckhurst Park. In Louis Jennings' _Field Paths and Green Lanes_ the house comes in for eulogy. Vicar of Mayfield in 1361 and following years was John Wickliffe, who has too often been confused with his great contemporary and namesake, the reformer. And the village claims as a son Thomas May (1595-1650), playwright, translator of Lucan's "Pharsalia," secretary to Parliament and friend of Ben Jonson. In the Sussex Archæological Collections is printed the journal of Walter Gale, schoolmaster at Mayfield in the latter half of the eighteenth century, from which a few extracts may be given: "1750. I found the greatest part of the school in a flow, by reason of the snow and rain coming through the leads. The following extempore verse I set for a copy:-- Abandon every evil thought For they to judgment will be brought. In passing the Star I met with Mr. Eastwood; we went in and spent 2_d._ apiece. [Sidenote: PRESAGES OF DEATH]