Highways and Byways in Sussex - online book

An illustrated appreciation, of the most interesting districts in Sussex.

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XVI
WILLIAM PENN IN SUSSEX
151
he made in the outside wall. No interest in the progress of Queen Elizabeth prompted him: the register was taken during the hearing of a law suit in order that its damning evidence might not be forthcoming.
While at Ashington we ought to see Warminghurst, only a mile distant, once the abode of the Shelleys, and later of William Penn, who bought the great house in 1676. One of his infant children is buried at Coolham, close by, where he attended the Quakers' meeting and where services are still held. The meeting-house was built of timber from one of Penn's ships.
A later owner than Penn, James Butler, rebuilt Warming­hurst and converted a large portion of the estate into a deer park; but it was thrown back into farm land by one of the Dukes of Norfolk, while the house was destroyed, the deer exiled, and the lake drained. Perhaps it was time that the house came down, for in the interim it had been haunted; the ghost being that of the owner of the property, who one day, although far distant, was seen at Warminghurst by two persons and afterwards was found to have died at the time of his appear­ance. Warminghurst in those days of park and deer, lake and timber (it had a chestnut two hundred and seventy years old), might well be the first spot to which an enfranchised spirit winged its way.
From Warminghurst is a road due south, over high sandy heaths, to Washington, which, unassuming as it is, may be called the capital of a large district of West Sussex that is unprovided with a railway. Steyning, five miles to the east, Amberley, seven miles to the west, and West Worthing, eight miles to the south, on the other side of the Downs, are the nearest stations. In the midst of this thinly populated area stands Washington, at the foot of the mountain pass that leads to Findon, Worthing and the sea. It was once a Saxon settlement (Wasa inga tun, town of the sons of Wasa); it is now derelict, memorable only as a baiting place for man and beast. But there are few better
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