Hurst Green is a large hamlet, and an offshoot of Etchingham; created by the road travel of the last hundred years. It is in two most distinct parts: one unmistakably Georgian, the other just as distinctly Late Victorian, shading off into Early Edwardian. Although one continuous street, divided only by a cross-road, the two parts of Hurst Green are very different in appearance, and look so antagonistic that it would not be surprising to learn that the inhabitants of either will have no dealings with those of the other. The traveller comes first to the more recent portion: very red and raw, and there he finds a reason for much of these developments, in a large and highly ornate Police-station, which is not merely that, but a Court-house as well. Hurst Green, it seems, is the headquarters of a Petty Sessional division of the county of Sussex: much to the advantage of the great neighbouring “George” inn and its rival over the way, the “Queen’s Head.” When the railway came, and the custom fell off and the great stables were deserted, the two old inns were in grave danger of extinction. Only the Petty Sessions saved the situation. To-day, when the awful majesty of the Bench has dealt with the crimes and misdemeanours of the district—awarding fine or imprisonment for poaching or the juvenile rifling of orchards—the upholders of law and order and the rights of property in ground-game adjourn for refreshment, and in the “George” drink confusion to the illegal midnight sportsman and the youthful apple-stealers, while the friends and relations of those hardened criminals drown their sorrows at the “Queen’s Head.” [Illustration: ETCHINGHAM CHURCH.] Although the call of nature may be attended to, and thirst and hunger handsomely appeased at Hurst Green, the æsthetic sense is unlikely to be full fed. Satisfaction of that kind—but none of the other—is amply obtained at Etchingham, one mile distant, down a bye-road. Travellers to and from Hastings by South Eastern Railway are familiar with Etchingham, as a place with a station where no train appears ever to stop; and indeed to the ordinary mind there seems, not merely no reason for stopping, but none for a station at all. For Etchingham is just what you see from the passing train: a great, impressive church, and one or two ancient farmsteads. There was no village when the station was built, in 1847, and the place was, except for that beautiful church and those farms, a solitude. A solitude, too, it remained until 1904, when an entirely new village was begun. There it blooms to-day, in red brick, like a scarlet geranium, and the South Eastern Railway is at last, after close upon two generations, justified of its prescience.