Robertsbridge is a long, long village of old-fashioned houses huddled together on either side of a narrow street in the flats that form the valley of the Rother. Although Robertsbridge is so undeniably old it is not an independent village, being in the parish of the much smaller Salehurst, seen across the levels, a mile away.
It has never been determined whether Robertsbridge acquired its name from Robert de Saint Martin, who founded the Cistercian Abbey “de Ponte Roberti” here in 1176, or from a corrupted version of “Rotherbridge.” “Much,” as Sir Roger de Coverley says in The Spectator, “might be said on both sides.”
At any rate, it is unquestionably a place of bridges. There are seven in all, in a line along the road; but no one of them is at all considerable, and only three span any water, save in seasons of flood.
The beginning of the village, officially styled “Northbridge Street,” is generally styled “the Bridges”; but was in turnpike days, when a gate existed here, “the Clapper.”
The Abbey, long since demolished, lay one mile from the village, beside the Rother. Fragments of it are picturesquely built into the Abbey Farm, and serve as substantial walls for oast-houses. The most perfect relic is the crypt, inside the house, forming an ideally cool dairy.
To this has come the Abbey that gave hospitality to Edward the First and his successor; whose Abbot in 1193, in company with the Abbot of Boxley, was of sufficient importance to be entrusted with the mission of discovering the whereabouts on the Continent of the imprisoned Richard Cœur de Lion. All that is left of it, beside these fragments, is a manuscript volume in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, inscribed: “This book belongs to St. Mary of Robertsbridge: whosoever shall steal it or sell it, or in any way alienate it from this house, let him be Anathema Maranatha.”
THE ABBEY FARM.
Notwithstanding this comprehensive curse, some one did steal it. A further inscription, written, it is thought, by John Grandison, Bishop of Exeter, 1327-1369, declares: “I, John, Bishop of Exeter, know not where the aforesaid house is; nor did I steal this book, but acquired it in a lawful way.” It is quite surprising to find the old Churchmen believing in the efficacy of their curses, and thus seeking to turn them aside.
The site of the Abbey was granted by Henry the Eighth to Sir William Sidney, and there are those who like to think that his grandson, Sir Philip, would not have been killed at Zutphen, nor Algernon Sidney beheaded, had it not been for the curse upon sacrilege, sleeping in one generation to work woe in another.