CRAWLEY 187 



the ostlers, the chink and clashing of harness, and all 

 the tumults of travelling, when travelling was no light 

 affair of an hour and a fraction, railway time, but a 

 real journey, of five hours. 



Now there is little to stir the pulses or make the 

 heart leap. Occasionally some great cycle " scorch ' 

 is in progress, when whirling enthusiasts speed through 

 the village on winged wheels beneath the sign of the 

 " George " spanning the street and swinging in the 

 breeze ; a sign on which the saintly knight wages 

 eternal warfare with a blurred and very invertebrate 

 dragon. Sometimes a driving match brings down 

 sportsmen and bookmakers, and every now and again 

 some one has a record to cut, be it in cycling, coaching, 

 walking, or in wheelbarrow trundling ; and then the 

 roads are peopled again. 



There yet remain a few ancient cottages in Crawley, 

 and the grey, embattled church tower lends an assured 

 antiquity to the view ; but there is, in especial, one 

 sixteenth-century cottage worth} 7 notice. Its timbered 

 frame stands as securely, though not so erect, as ever, 

 and is eloquent of that spacious age when the Virgin 

 Queen (Heaven help those who named her so !) rules 

 the land. It is Sussex, realised at a glance. 



They are conservative folks at Crawley. When that 

 ancient elm of theirs that stood directly below this old 

 cottage had become decayed with lapse of years and 

 failure of sap, they did not, even though its vast 

 trunk obtrudes upon the roadway, cut it down and 

 scatter its remains abroad. Instead, they fenced it 

 around with as decorative a rustic railing as might 

 well be contrived out of cut boughs, all innocent of 

 the carpenter and still retaining their bark, and they 

 planted the enclosure with flowers and tender saplings, 

 so that this venerable ruin became a very attractive 

 ruin indeed. 



Rowlandson has preserved for us a view of Crawley 

 as it appeared in 1789, when he toured the road and 

 sketched, while his companion, Henry Wigstead, took 

 notes for his book, " An Excursion to Brighthelmstone." 



