The Brighton Road: The Classic Highway to the SouthHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
The Brighton Road: The Classic Highway to the South
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
Brighton Road (London, England); England -- Description and travel; England -- Social life and customs
A few monuments are hidden behind the organ, among them one to Guy
Carleton, "son of George, Lord Bishop of Chichester." He, it seems, "died
of a consumption, cl=c=l=c=cxxiv," which appears to be the highly esoteric
way of writing 1624. "_Mors vitæ initium_" he tells us, and illustrates it
with the pleasing fancy of a skull mounted on an hour-glass, with ears of
wheat sprouting from the eyeless sockets. Other equally pleasant devices,
encircled with fragments of Greek, are plentiful, the whole concluding
with the announcement that "The end of all things is at hand." Holding
that opinion, it would seem to have been hardly worth while to erect the
monument, but in the result it survives to show what a very gross mistake
he made.
Two illustrations of the quiet annals of Cuckfield, widely different in
point of time, are the old clock and the wall-plate memorial to one Frank
Bleach of the Royal Sussex Volunteer Company, who died at Bloemfontein in
1901. The ancient hand-wrought clock, made in 1667 by Isaac Leney,
probably of Cuckfield, finally stopped in 1867, and was taken down in
1873. After lying as lumber in the belfry for many years, it was in 1904
fixed on the interior wall of the tower.
XXVII
[Sidenote: "ROOKWOOD"]
Cuckfield Place, acknowledged by Harrison Ainsworth to be the original of
his "Rookwood," stands immediately outside the town, and is visible, in
midst of the park, from the road. That romantic home of ghostly tradition
is fittingly approached by a long and lofty avenue of limes, where stands
the clock-tower entrance-gate, removed from Slaugham Place.
Beyond it the picturesquely broken surface of the park stretches,
beautifully wooded and populated with herds of deer, the grey, many-gabled
mansion looking down upon the whole.
[Sidenote: AINSWORTH]
"Rookwood," the fantastic and gory tale that first gave Harrison Ainsworth
a vogue, was commenced in 1831, but not completed until 1834. Ainsworth
died at Reigate, January 3, 1882. Thus in his preface he acknowledges his
model:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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