HISTORY OF HARTING. 223 



Red sea :"* in the immediate East, "Turkey island." 

 This dry island is a triangle or delta, formed by the 

 sections of the East Harting Roads, and owes its 

 name to the Turk's head of thorn or yew, anciently 

 trimmed in its frontage. Similarly in Milton, a village 

 in Oxfordshire, an old Turk's head of yew once 

 matched the name of the neighbouring tavern, which 

 still survives as the " Black Boy." There is a good 

 example of a thorn "Turk's Head," opposite the 

 pretty seat of J. V. Harting, Esq., at East Harting, 

 to which he has given the revived name of Ladymead. 

 On the southern hills there is a field, next to 

 Maindown, and north of it called " Cessan Beech 

 Field." There was once a clump of trees here, visible 

 in a remarkable picture at Uppark, by Tilleman, of 

 the date of 1720. Here, says Mr. Weaver, was one 

 beech under which the Lord of the Manor was in the 

 habit of receiving petitions or applications or com- 

 plaints from his Tenants, on his road from Lady Holt 

 to Harting. It is quite possible that this venerable 

 tree, now long gone, was a representative of the old 

 moot-hill and sacred tree, round which, in the first 

 English villages, the whole community met to ad- 

 minister its justice and to frame its laws ; where 

 the field was passed from man to man by the delivery 

 of a turf cut from its soil, and the strife of farmer 

 with farmer was settled according to custom. f The 

 field is still called in the Tithe Map "The Beech 

 Field" (No. 799 about sixteen acres), though no 

 Beech is there, and was just on the borders of the 

 Caryll's property, as Maindown belonged to the Fords. 

 Mr. Weaver would derive "Cessan Beech" from 

 " Session ;" but I think it more likely to be a Sussex 

 slip for " Procession Beech," in connection with the 

 Procession on Rogation days which walked the 

 boundaries of the various Lordships. J- 



Near Sandhill, G. H. Seward, Esq. 

 t Green History of English People, page 4. 

 \ "... a long spongge or p'cell of Mr. Cooper's land, lyinge 



