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A VISIT TO LEWES 173
Lewes brings the reader to Uckfield. The town mainly consists of one long street, lining the high road to Tunbridge Wells. The neighbourhood is rich in attractive landscapes—woodland and meadow, and cornfield and brown ridges of heathy hills—combining in pictorial effects of great interest and beauty. But the Kiplingite will make Buxted the Mecca of this jaunt, which village can be gained by taking a footpath out of the High Street at Uckfield which leads through Buxted Park. The old house at the beginning of the footpath, and near the church,* with a hog and 1581 carved over the facade in bas-relief, was the residence of Ralph Hogge. Ralph Hogge brings to mind Rudyard Kipling's story of the Sussex ironworks—" Hal o' the Draft "—for the first cannons cast in England were manufactured at his forge near Buxted. Hogge was assisted by Peter Baude, a Frenchman, and Peter Van Collet, a Flemish gunsmith. Bombs, fawconets, faw-sons, nimions and sakers, and other kinds of |
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♦Buxted old church is one of the finest in East Sussex. Notice the splendid brass of Rector Avenel on the chancel floor, and the curious muniment chest in the north aisle— this is thirteenth century. Richard Woodman, the martyr, and great ironmaster of Warbleton, is believed to have been a native of Buxted. |
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