6O HISTORY OF HARTING. 



in the days when the deep tenor bell of Durford 

 Abbey boomed its curfew over the waters of West 

 Harting pond, and the long low meadows of Downe 

 Park and the black forest of Nyewood, and sent home 

 the swarm of tired sons of Vulcan to Rogate, Terwick 

 and Trotton ; for these operatives seem to have settled 

 near the course of the Rother. Rogate seems to have 

 owed its growth almost entirely to the iron-factory 

 hands. 



In the Registers of Harting, which commence in 

 1567, we have not a single entry of a worker in iron, 

 though there are several trades the mercers, shoe- 

 makers, mynstrels and withal several resident gentry. 

 The last " mynstrell " was John Smith of East Har- 

 ting, who was buried 2/th Oct., 1583.* The first 



that in 1604 there " had been a cow left time out of mind by some 

 well disposed person to maintain (i.e. by sale of milk) a bridge 

 called Rother Bridge in East Harting Tithing" (Query Haben 

 bridge). At the date of the document, 1604, there are four bridges 

 in Harting parish, and probably in East Harting alone, which the 

 said cow is to bear on her back so far as the " overplus of the said 

 cow will stretcheunto," viz. : Wix bridge, Elvers bridge (Elsted 

 sheepwash), and Eastbrook bridge. This is clear evidence that 

 the roads of Harting were much extended, in fact, four-fold, since 

 the useful bequest was made, a sure sign of increasing cultivation 

 and prosperity. Latimer names the building of bridges as one of 

 the seven works of mercy, and the tradition is that at Trotton 

 one sister built the church and the other the bridge. 



" Mynstrells." One or two Welsh names in our early registers, 

 such as Davie Joanes (Oct. 22, 1 592), and " Christ 1 "- Gowdridge, 

 or Cowbridge, Mynstrell," 1580, may possibly have come to us 

 as those of minstrels. There is a very interesting letter, con- 

 taining the earliest notice of any music meeting in England, in 

 which a Welsh harper and player upon a dulcimer is com- 

 mended to Sir Philip Sidney : London, 7th Feb., 1583. Sir 

 Arthur Basset writes to Sir Edward Stradling of St. Donat's 

 Castle, near Cowbridge, Glamorgan, on whom, according to 

 Camden, he attended, asking for Sir Edward Stradling's " ser- 

 vante Thos. Richards .... and to cause him to bringe with 

 him bothe his instruments, as well that w clj ys stringed w'h 

 wyar stringes as his harpe, both those which he had when he 

 was last in Devon. " I have given commendacions of the man 



