Highways and Byways in SussexLucas, E. V. (Edward Verrall)
History
Highways and Byways in Sussex
Lucas, E. V. (Edward Verrall)
Sussex (England) -- Description and travel
A mile to the west, in a meadow by the Worthing road, stands the forlorn
fragment of the keep which is all that remains of the Norman stronghold
of Knepp. For its other stones you must seek the highways, the
road-menders having claimed them a hundred years ago. William de Braose,
whom we shall meet at Bramber, built it; King John more than once was
entertained in it; and now it is a ruin. Yet if Knepp no longer has its
castle, it has its lake--the largest in the county, a hundred acres in
extent, a beautiful sheet of water the overflow of which feeds the Adur.
Within a quarter of a mile of the ruin is the new Knepp Castle, which
was built by Sir Charles Merrik Burrell, son of Sir William Burrell, the
antiquary, whose materials for a history of Sussex on a grand scale,
collected by him for many years, are now in the British Museum. But
Knepp Castle, the new, with all its Holbeins, was destroyed by fire this
1904.
[Sidenote: THE NELOND BRASS]
[Sidenote: THE COWL IN SUSSEX]
To the east of the line lies Cowfold, balancing West Grinstead, a
village ranged on either side of a broad road. It is famous chiefly for
possessing, in its very pretty church, the Nelond brass, being the
effigy of Thomas Nelond, Prior of Lewes, who died in 1433. Few brasses
are finer or larger; in length it is nearly ten feet, its state is
practically perfect, and pilgrims come from all quarters to rub it. John
Nelond, in the dress of a Cluniac monk, stands with folded hands beneath
an arch, protected by the Virgin and Child, St. Pancras, and St. Thomas
à Becket. This splendid relic would, perhaps, were ours an ideal
community, be handed over to the keeping of the Carthusian monks near
by, in the Monastery of St. Hugh, the commanding building to the south
of Cowfold, whose spire is to the Weald what that of Chichester
Cathedral is to the plain between the Downs and the sea, and whose
Angelus may be heard, on favourable evenings, for many miles. The
Carthusian monks of St. Hugh's lend a very foreign air to the village
when they walk through it. Visitors are encouraged to call at the
porter's gate and explore this huge settlement--often in the very
competent care of an Irish brother; while to suffer an accident anywhere
in the neighbourhood is to be certain of a cordial glass of the
monastery's own Chartreuse.
It was at Brook Hill, just to the north of Cowfold, that William Borrer,
the ornithologist and the author of _The Birds of Sussex_, lived and
made many of his interesting observations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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