AN IRON TOMB-SLAB.
It will be noticed that many of the letters on the iron slab are either cast in reverse or upside down. Mrs. “Ane Forstr,” it can readily be seen, was exceedingly proud of her descent. A very odd fact is that exact replicas of this cast-iron slab are found distributed throughout Surrey, and even in some places in Sussex; not always in the most decorous positions. There is, for example, one used as a fire-back in the kitchen of a farm adjoining Crowhurst Church itself, and others have been noted at Ewhurst, Godstone, and Horley, where one formed part of the flooring of a baker’s oven, and occasionally produced breakfast-table terrors in the neighbourhood when the domestic loaf of bread was found to be impressed with “Her lieth,” “deceased,” and other portions of the design, including the shrouded body in the centre. The simple explanation of this odd distribution is that the iron-founding firm must have found the mould ready to their hands when cheap fire-backs were wanted, and so cast them in this guise. It mattered little when few people could read.
THE ANCIENT YEW, CROWHURST.
The great yew tree in Crowhurst churchyard is among the very largest in the land, measuring thirty-two feet nine inches round its immense trunk at a height of five feet from the ground. It is thought to be about twelve hundred years old, and although it was greatly mutilated over eighty years ago by some local vandals, who thought how fine a thing it would be to scoop out the interior and to fix table and benches inside, for the accommodation of some twenty persons, the tree still flourishes. When this wanton outrage was performed, an ancient cannon-ball was discovered in the very heart of the trunk.
Three miles more of country lanes, and our journey ends at Lingfield, a modern horse-racing centre. Here a train may be found for the return to town.