I must not betray secrets, but it might be remarked that that kindly yet melancholy study of Wealden people and Wealden scenery, called Idlehurst—the best book, I think, that has come out of Sussex in recent years—may be read with some special appropriateness in this neighbourhood.
North of Lindfield is Ardingly, now known chiefly in connection with the large school which travellers on the line to Brighton see from the carriage windows as they cross the viaduct over the Ouse. The village, a mile north of the college, is famous as the birthplace of Thomas Box, the first of the great wicket-keepers, who disdained gloves even to the fastest bowling. The church has some very interesting brasses to members of the Wakehurst and Culpeper families, who long held Wakehurst Place, the Elizabethan mansion to the north of the village. Nicholas Culpeper of the Herbal was of the stock; but he must not be confounded with the Nicholas Culpeper whose brass, together with that of his wife, ten sons and eight daughters, is in the church, possibly the largest family on record depicted in that metal. The church also has a handsome canopied tomb, the occupant of which is unknown.
From Ardingly superb walks in the Sussex forest country may be taken.
CHAPTER XXIII
FOREST COUNTRY AGAIN
Balcombe—The iron furnace and the iron horse—Leonard Gale of Tinsloe Forge—Mr. Wilfred Scawen Blunt of Crabbet—"The Old Squire"—Frederick Locker-Lampson of Rowfant—The Rowfant books—"To F. L."—The Rowfant titmice.
On leaving the train at Balcombe, one is quickly on the densely wooded Forest Ridge of Sussex, here fenced and preserved, but farther east, when it becomes Ashdown Forest, consisting of vast tracts of open moorland and heather. Balcombe has a simple church, protected by a screen of Scotch firs; its great merit is its position as the key to a paradise for all who like woodland travel. From Balcombe to Worth is one vast pheasant run, with here and there a keeper's cottage or a farm: originally, of course, a series of plantations growing furnace wood for the ironmasters. In Tilgate Forest, to the west of Balcombe Forest, are two large sheets of water, once hammer-ponds, walking west from which, towards Horsham, one may be said to traverse the Lake Country of Sussex. A strange transformation, from Iron Black Country to Lake Country!—but nature quickly recovers herself, and were the true Black Country's furnaces extinguished, she would soon make even that grimy tract a haunt of loveliness once more.
No longer are heard the sounds of the hammers, but Balcombe Forest, Tilgate Forest, and Worth Forest have still a constant reminder of machinery, for very few minutes pass from morning to night without the rumble of a train on the main line to Brighton, which passes through the very midst of this wild game region, and plunges into the earth under the high ground of Balcombe Forest. I know of no place where the trains emit such a volume of sound as in the valley of the Stanford brook, just north of the tunnel.