Some three miles south of the road, reached by a turning below the "Seven Thorns" Inn, lies the little-visited village of Lynchmere, a rural parish, embowered in foliage and picturesquely situated amid hills; and in the immediate neighbourhood stand the remains of Shulbrede Priory, now chiefly incorporated with farm-buildings. The place is well worthy a visit, for the farm-house contains a room, called the Prior's Room, still decorated with monkish frescoes of a singular kind. These probably date almost as far back as the foundation of this Priory of Augustinian Canons, in the time of Henry III., and are unfortunately very much defaced. But sufficient can be discerned for the grasping of the idea, which seems to be a representation of the Nativity. The design introduces the inscription:--_Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium; et vocabitur nomen Jesus_; while a number of birds and animals, rudely drawn and crudely coloured, appear, with Latin legends issuing from their mouths. Uppermost stands the cock, as in the act of crowing, while from his beak proceeds the announcement, "_Christus natus est_." Next follows a duck, from whose bill issues another label, inscribed "_Quando, quando?_" a query answered appropriately by a raven, "_In hac nocte_." "_Ubi, ubi?_" asks a cow of a lamb, which rejoins, bleating "_In Bethlems_." [Sidenote: _PRIORS AND PORKERS_] But few other relics of this secluded priory are visible. Some arcading; a vaulted passage; fragments of Early English mouldings: these are all. Somewhere underneath the pig-sties, cow-houses, and rick-yards of the farm rest the forgotten priors and the nameless monks of that old foundation. Haply this worn slab of stone has covered the remains of some jolly Friar Tuck or ascetic Augustine; this battered crocket, maybe, belonged to the tomb of some pious benefactor for whose benefit masses were enjoined to be said or sung for ever and a day; and I dare swear this obscure stone trough, filled with hog-wash, at which fat swine are greedily drinking, was once a coffin. Imperial Cæsar's remains had never so foul an insult offered them. I lean across the fence and moralize; a most unpardonable waste of time at this _fin de siècle_, and I regret those old fellows whom Harry the Eighth in his reforming zeal sent a-packing, to beg their bread from door to door. I regret them, that is to say, from purely sentimental reasons, being, all the while, ready to allow the policy and the state-craft that drove them hence, and willing to acknowledge that the greasy cassocks and filthy hair-shirts of the ultimate occupants of these cloistral shades covered a multitude of sins.