Before leaving Pevensey I must say a word of Westham, the village which adjoins it. Westham and Pevensey are practically one, the castle intervening. Westham has a vicar whose interest in his office might well be imitated by some of the other vicars of the county. His noble church, one of the finest in Sussex, with a tower of superb strength and dignity, is kept open, and just within is a table on which are a number of copies of a little penny history of Westham which he has prepared, and for the payment of which he is so eccentric as to trust to the stranger's honesty. The tower, which the vicar tells us is six hundred years old, he asks us to admire for its "utter carelessness and scorn of smoothness and finish, or any of the tricks of modern buildings." Westham church was one of the first that the Conqueror built, and remains of the original Norman structure are still serviceable. The vicar suggests that it may very possibly have stood a siege. In the jamb of the south door of the Norman wall is a sundial, without which, one might say, no church is completely perfect. In the tower dwell unmolested a colony of owls, six of whom once attended a "reading-in" service and, seated side by side on a beam, listened with unwavering attention to the Thirty-Nine Articles. They were absent on my visit, but a small starling, swift and elusive as a spirit, flitted hither and thither quite happily. [Illustration: _Westham._] [Sidenote: ALES CRESSEL] In the churchyard is the grave of one Ales Cressel (oddest of names), and among the epitaphs is this upon a Mr. Henty:-- Learn from this mistic sage to live or die. Well did he love at evening's social hour The Sacred Volume's treasure to apply. The remembrance of his excellent character alone reconciles his afflicted widow to her irreparable loss. The church contains a memorial to a young gentleman named Fagg who, "having lived to adorn Human Nature by his exemplary manners, was untimely snatched away, aged 24." In the neighbourhood of Westham is a large rambling building known as Priesthaus, which, once a monastery, is now a farm. Many curious relics of its earlier state have lately been unearthed. In Pevensey church, which has none of the interest of Westham, a little collection of curiosities relating to Pevensey--a constable's staff, old title deeds, seals, and so forth--is kept, in a glass case. [Illustration: _Hurstmonceux Castle._] [Sidenote: HURSTMONCEUX CASTLE]