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KIPLING'S SUSSEX |
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" In going up the stairs you come to these chambers— labyrinths of them. Most of them had been modernised, and the mullioned windows removed. Still here and there are secret places that you light upon—on the stairs and in the walls—suggesting grim possibilities—and bogey holes confront you—a terror to children : a lurking place for ghosts.
" An enormous oak beam runs athwart one of the attic stairways. There is a bedroom, which goes by the name of Queen Elizabeth's bedroom, overlooking the Downs.
" Excavations have been carried on in the garden towards the sunset. This magnificent square, or quadrangle, ramparted on two sides, is evidently an outline of what were once the cloisters of the monastery. Vaulted arcades, of course, ran all round, and in the centre was probably the garden, and perhaps the cemetery of the monks. If two diagonal lines were carried across the centre of the square, most likely masonry would be found where they met. Many of the old stones of the wall are still in situ, the ancient masonry intact."
Bunny Lewknor, a teamster mentioned in " Simple Simon," calls to mind an old Sussex family name. When the story first appeared in " Nash's Magazine," the name was spelt Lewkner, but it was altered into Lewknor when published in book form. In Westham Church this name appears on a monument to John Thatcher, Esq., who died 3rd September, 1649, without issue, and was the last of the once " noble family," as the inscription states, who were allied by marriage |
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