BRAMBER, Sussex (Fig. 10).--Of the manor of Washington, in which Bramber is situated, the Survey says that it formerly paid geld for fifty-nine hides; and in one of these hides sits the castle of Bramber.[295] It must not be imagined that the castle _occupied_ a whole hide, which according to the latest computations would average about 120 acres. It is evident that there had been some special arrangement between the King and William de Braose, the Norman tenant-in-chief, by which the whole geld of the manor had been remitted. The Domesday scribe waxes almost pathetic over the loss to the fisc of this valuable prey. "It used to be ad firmam for 100_l._," he says. The manor of Washington belonged to Gurth, the brother of Harold, before the Conquest, but it is clear that Bramber was not the _caput_ of the manor in Saxon times; nor was Washington the centre of a large soke. Bramber Castle was constructed to defend the estuary of the river, now known as the Adur, one of the waterways to Normandy already alluded to. The castle occupies a natural hill which forms on the top a pear-shaped area of 3 acres. Towards the middle rises an artificial motte about 30 feet high; there is no sign of a special ditch around it, except that the ground sinks slightly at its base. The bailey is surrounded by a very neatly built wall of pebbles and flints, laid herring-bone-wise in places, which does not stand on an earthen bank. The absence of this bank makes it likely, though of course not certain, that this wall was the original work of De Braose; the stones of which it is composed would be almost as easily obtained as the earth for a bank. On the line of the wall, just east of the entrance, stands a tall fragment of an early Norman tower. The workmanship of this tower, which is also of flints laid herring-bone-wise, with quoins of ashlar, so strongly resembles that of the neighbouring church that it seems obvious that both were built at about the same time.[296] The church is dedicated to St Nicholas, who was worshipped in Normandy as early as 1067;[297] it was probably the Normans who introduced his worship into England. Both church and tower are undoubtedly early Norman. The motte shows no sign of masonry. The value of the manor of Washington had slightly risen since the Conquest.