The bridge at Arundel, which one may believe, though one cannot prove, to be Roman in its origin, used to cross the river somewhat farther down the stream. The line of the modern High Street points directly to that part of the town which now looks very like a continuation of the market-place, and has become a sort of backwater in the traffic of the place. It was originally the direct line to the old bridge. Those acquainted with Arundel will best appreciate the site of the old crossing of the river when they learn that the modern Bridge Hotel lies exactly between the ancient and the modern bridges, and the line of the causeway eastward can further be traced by the existence at the farther end of it, up against the high land, of the old building which is seen from the station between the railway and the rising ground. Amberley Castle, which lay at the north end of Arundel gap, is not preserved in its entirety, but is still a fine ruin, and occupies, as Arundel did, a position of great military strength, though it does not dominate the landscape as does the larger fortress. The strength of Amberley lay in this, that from the north and west it was quite unattainable. If the culture of those fields now known by the highly descriptive name of “Amberley Wildbrook” were to cease for a generation, the old conditions would be reproduced; the floods would soon turn them into marsh again. From the east the approach is not easy: it lies over the rolling spurs of the Downs. From the south there is only one narrow passage on the shelf of the Downs as they slope down to the Arun. It is a tradition in the county that the two castles of Arundel and Amberley were linked together in their system of fortification by an underground passage, and stories are told--with what authority the present writer cannot say--of men who have attempted to explore either end of this passage and succeeded for a certain distance. The thing is possible enough. [Illustration: AMBERLEY CHURCH] [Sidenote: HOUGHTON BRIDGE] Amberley is at any rate one of the very, very old sites of human habitation in Sussex. It is the fashion to decry monastic charters, and it would be difficult to prove, though it was for centuries constantly asserted, that Amberley was part of the original foundation of the Church of Selsea. We have regarded it as sufficiently historical to be included in former pages of this book, but whether the monastic traditional charter be true or false, its very existence proves that the popular legend attributed to the place the highest antiquity.