248 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



himself, it now fulfils the twin offices of a studio and 

 a lumber room. The parish church of Twineham, 

 little more than a mile away, is of the same period, 

 and built of similar materials. Hicks tead Place has 

 been in the same family for close upon four hundred 

 years, and as an old house without much in the way 

 of a history, and with its ancient features largely 

 retained and adapted to modern domestic needs, is a 

 striking example both of the continuity and the 

 placidity of English life. The staircase walls are 

 frescoed in a blue monochrome with sixteenth-century 

 representations of field-sports and hunting scenes, very 

 curious and interesting. The roof is covered with 

 slabs of Horsham stone, and the oak entrance is 

 original. Ancient yews, among them one clipped to 

 resemble a bear sitting on his rump, give an air of 

 distinction to the lawn, completed by a pair of 

 eighteenth-century wrought-iron gates between red 

 brick pillars. 



Sayers Common is a modern hamlet, of a few 

 scattered houses. Albourne lies away to the right. 

 From here the Vale of Newtimber opens out and the 

 South Downs rise grandly ahead. Noble trees, singly 

 and in groups, grow plentiful ; and where they are at 

 their thickest, in the sheltered hollow of the hills, 

 stands Newtimber Place, belonging to Viscount Buxton, 

 a noble mansion with Queen Anne front of red brick 

 and flint, and an Elizabethan back, surrounded by a 

 broad moat of clear water, formed by embanking the 

 beginnings of a little stream that comes welling out of 

 the chalky bosom of the hills. It is a rarely complete 

 and beautiful scene. 



Beyond it, above the woods where in spring the 

 fluting blackbird sings of love and the delights of a 

 mossy nest in the sheltered vale, rises Dale Hill, with 

 its old toll-house. It was in the neighbouring Dale 

 Vale that Tom Sayers, afterwards the unconquered 

 champion of England, fought his first fight. 



He was not, as often stated, an Irishman, but the 

 son of a man descended from a thoroughly Sussexian 



