270 Collections for a History of West Dean. 



James I., was a large square structure of the character of that 

 period, considerably altered at a later date. Closely adjoining the 

 parish Church it stood in a grove of elm trees, at the top of a 

 succession of terraces and formal gardens facing west, in which 

 direction lay the park, well timbered and adorned with canals in the 

 Dutch manner, fed from a large fishpond, which, with its over- 

 hanging bank of yews, formed a prominent feature of the ornamental 

 grounds. The ancient circular entrenchment, already noticed, 

 formed a convenient bowling-green. Extensive barns and out- 

 buildings adjoined the house on the south. After remaining 

 uninhabited for many years, it was last occupied by a religious 

 sisterhood — three members of which lie buried in the churchyard 

 hard by — and was subsequently pulled down, its materials sold, and 

 its offices and outbuildings converted into a farmhouse and homestead 

 by Charles Baring Wall, Esq., in 1819. 



The cottages in the village bear no particular marks of antiquity ; 

 but over the door of one of them is the date 1685, with the 

 initials g.^k. 



The only freehold property at West Dean (the rector's glebe 

 excepted) which does not belong to the lord of the manor is that 

 upon which a windmill, malthouse, and dwelling-house now stand, 

 adjoining the railway station. It was purchased in 1733 from Au- 

 gustine Cooper, and is now the property of Mr. George Beauchamp. 



At East Grimstead William Henry Baring, Richard Bingham, 

 and George Brown, Esquires, are landowners, and there are some 

 smaller proprietors, sharing the soil with the lord of the manor, the 

 Earl of Enniskillen, who derives from hence his English Barony of 

 Grimstead. 



The little stream which flows through both hamlets and becomes 

 afterwards a tributary of the Test, rising in Clarendon Park, is 

 interrupted in its course before reaching West Dean, and sinking 

 into the ground is lost sight of for some distance, re-appearing, 

 however, from beneath the western bank of the fishpond already 

 mentioned, which it supplies with water, and then continues its 

 course without further interruption. It is occasionally — but very 

 rarely — dry in summer. 



