1?8 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



pavement or causeway is very noticeable, formed of 

 a row of large flat blocks of stone, along the grassy 

 margins of the ditches. This is a survival (not 

 altogether without its uses, even now) of the time 

 when 



Essex full of good housewyfes, 

 Middlesex full of stryves, 

 Kentshire hoot as fire, 

 Sowseks full of dirt and mire 



was a saying with plenty of current meaning to it. 

 In those days the Wealden clay asserted itself so 

 unpleasantly that stepping-stones for pedestrians were 

 necessities. 



The stones themselves have a particular interest, 

 coming as they did from local quarries long since 

 closed. They are of two varieties : one of a yellowish- 

 grey ; the other, greatly resembling Purbeck marble, 

 f ossiferous and of a light bluish tint. Charlwood 

 Church itself is built of Charlwood stone. 



Ifield is just within the Sussex boundary. A 

 beautiful way to it lies through the park, in whose 

 woody drives the oak and holly most do grow. It 

 has been remarked of this part of the Weald, that its 

 soil is particularly favourable to the growth of the oak. 

 Cobbett indeed says, "It is a county where, strictly 

 speaking, only three things will grow well — grass, 

 wheat, and oak-trees ; " and it was long a belief 

 that Sussex alone could furnish forth oak sufficient 

 to build all the navies of Europe, notwithstanding the 

 ravages among the forests made by the forges and 

 furnaces. 



In the church of St. Margaret, Ifield, whose 

 somewhat unprepossessing exterior gives no hint 

 of its inward beauty, is an oaken screen made from 

 the wood of an old tree which stood for centuries 

 on the Brighton Road at Lowfield Heath, where 

 the boundary lines of Surrey and Sussex meet, and 

 was cut down in the " forties." The tree was known 

 far and wide as " County Oak." 



For the rest, the church is interesting enough by 

 reason of its architecture to warrant some lingering 



