Relics of those days are plentiful, even now, in the ancient farmhouses; relics in the shape of cast-iron chimney-backs and andirons, or “fire-dogs,” many of them very effectively designed; but, of course, in these days of appreciation of the antique, numbers of them have been sold and removed.
The water-power required by the ironworks was obtained by embanking small streams, to form ponds; as here at Ifield, where a fine head of water is still existing. Very many of these “Hammer Ponds” remain in Sussex and Surrey, and were long so called by the rustics, whose unlettered and traditional memories were tenacious, and preserved local history much better than does the less intimate book-learning of the reading classes. But now that every ploughboy reads his “penny horrible,” and every gaffer devours his Sunday paper, they have no memories for “such truck,” and local traditions are fading.
Ifield ironworks became extinct at an early date, but from a very arbitrary cause. During the conflicts of the Civil War the property of Royalists was destroyed by the Puritan soldiery wherever possible; and after the taking of Arundel Castle in 1643, a detachment of troops under Sir William Waller wantonly wrecked the works then situated here, since when they do not appear to have been at any time revived.
It is a pretty spot to-day, and extremely quiet.
From here Crawley is reached through Gossop’s Green.
XXII
CRAWLEY
The way into Crawley along the main road, passing the modern hamlet of Lowfield Heath, is uneventful. The church, the “White Lion,” and a few attendant houses stand on one side of the road, and on the other, by the farm or mansion styled Heath House, a sedgy piece of ground alone remains to show what the heath was like before enclosure. Much of the land is now under cultivation as a nursery for shrubs, and a bee-farm attracts the wayfarers’ attention nearer Crawley, where another hamlet has sprung up. A mean little house called “Casa querca”—by which I suppose the author means Oak House—is “refinement,” as imagined in the suburbs, and excites the passing sneer, “Is not the English language good enough?” If the Italians will only oblige, and call their own “Bella Vistas” “Pretty View,” and so forth, while we continue the reverse process here, we shall effect a fair exchange, and find at last an Old England over-sea.