Its gradual revival did not re-enfranchise it; the Rape still remained the parliamentary unit to which it belonged, and the first member to sit for that division was a Burrell of Knepp Castle.
With this name we get not only one of the famous Sussex squires, whose position will be dealt with later, but the principal historian of the county residing in one of its most ancient centres. The Burrells were lawyers of Horsham who purchased Knepp in the second half of the eighteenth century, a true Sussex family growing upon Sussex soil. The founder of the present baronetcy collected all the new material which has been worked in by subsequent writers into the history of the county. Much of this is luckily preserved in the British Museum, but some parts, unless the present writer is misinformed, disappeared during the recent fire in the modern house of Knepp Castle.
Of the original fortification nothing remains but one little fragment in the south of the estate to the right of the Ashington road. The land has still one local distinction, however, in that it holds a sheet of water, Knepp mill-pond, which is said to be the largest unbroken area of water south of the Thames.
Next in order to the Rape of Bramber comes that of Arundel. Here again the typical upgrowth of a Sussex Rape is modified by local conditions, for the Weald at the northern end of this Rape has been traversed since the beginning of our history by the great line of the Roman road. Arundel Rape has therefore been always accessible from
ARUNDEL CASTLE
ARUNDEL RAPE
the Thames valley, and the Thames valley from it. On this account there occurs, as one might imagine, a very early and very thorough development of all its habitable portion. A mere list of the places mentioned in Doomsday in this Rape, places which are still most of them quite small, and have never supported any great number of inhabitants, is surprising. Some, such as Arundel itself, and Climping and Felpham, go back to Anglo-Saxon times. One, Amberley, counts as part of the original foundation of the Church at the close of the eighth century, and Lyminster had a convent before the arrival of the Normans, while Littlehampton was certainly a port before the same date. Meanwhile a rapid survey of the names appearing in Doomsday, all within a walk of the sea coast, are sufficient to show how thoroughly the Arun valley, the subsidiary valley of the Western Rother, and the coastal plain west of the mouth of the river, had developed before the close of the eleventh century.
Thus Barnham (to begin with the flat lands along the sea) is in Doomsday; so are Eastergate, Walberton, Tortington, where later was the famous priory which preserved the early records of the mayoralty of London, and in whose destruction the chief monuments of London history were lost. Binsted is in Doomsday. Turning to the slope of the Downs we find Goring is in Doomsday. Angmering below it, and on the belt of good loam land to the north of them Sutton, Barlavington, Duncton, Burton, Stopham, and Petworth are all to be found, as are Bury, Bignor, and Hardham, where later was to spring up the priory of the Hauterives. On the far side of the river Parham and Burpham are mentioned, so is Storrington, and on the river itself Pulborough; while even such lonely nooks of the Downs as Upper Waltham come into the Norman Survey.