A Corner in Newdigate Church.
But few go so far, and indeed the way by Ifield has its own interests and attractions. Here a primitive pavement or causeway is very noticeable, formed of a row of large flat blocks of stone, along the grassy margins of the ditches. This is a survival (not altogether without its uses, even now) of the time when
Essex full of good housewyfes,
Middlesex full of stryves,
Kentshire hoot as fire,
Sowseks full of dirt and mire
was a saying with plenty of current meaning to it. In those days the Wealden clay asserted itself so unpleasantly that stepping-stones for pedestrians were necessities.
The stones themselves have a particular interest, coming as they did from local quarries long since closed. They are of two varieties: one of a yellowish-grey; the other, greatly resembling Purbeck marble, fossiliferous and of a light bluish tint. Charlwood Church itself is built of Charlwood stone.
Ifield is just within the Sussex boundary. A beautiful way to it lies through the park, in whose woody drives the oak and holly most do grow. It has been remarked of this part of the Weald, that its soil is particularly favourable to the growth of the oak. Cobbett indeed says, “It is a county where, strictly speaking, only three things will grow well—grass, wheat, and oak-trees;” and it was long a belief that Sussex alone could furnish forth oak sufficient to build all the navies of Europe, notwithstanding the ravages among the forests made by the forges and furnaces.
IFIELD
In the church of St. Margaret, Ifield, whose somewhat unprepossessing exterior gives no hint of its inward beauty, is an oaken screen made from the wood of an old tree which stood for centuries on the Brighton Road at Lowfield Heath, where the boundary lines of Surrey and Sussex meet, and was cut down in the “forties.” The tree was known far and wide as “County Oak.”