A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



made of the unlawful removal of certain goods, 

 including ' syder frute ' and ' horde frute.' 1( 



Definite evidence touching the Sussex cider 

 industry during the seventeenth century is hard 

 to obtain, but occasional references point to its 

 being stW important, as the insertion in a lease 

 of lands at Horsham in 1628 of a clause by 

 which the tenant should plant six crab-stocks or 

 perry-stocks. 11 That it was still the common 

 drink of the country may be seen from an entry 

 made in Timothy Burrell's journal 13 in 1699 : 

 ' Paid to John Coachman in part of his wages, 

 to be fooled away in syder or lottery, 5*.' Much 

 more important, however, than these chance 

 notices is the fact that in February, 1684, 

 Richard Haines, of Sullington, took out a patent 

 for 



an art or method of preparing, improving, and 

 meliorating cyder, perry, and the juice or liquors of 

 wildings, crabbs, cherrys, gooseberrys, currants and 

 mulberrys so as to put the strength or goodness of 

 two or three hogsheads of any of the said liquors into 

 one, and render the same much more wholesome and 

 delightful. 



The method is further described as follows : 



Put one hogshead of cyder and some part of 

 the other into a copper still, and then put the 

 same into your other hogshead and fill it up, stirr it 

 about well and keep it close stopt, except one day in 

 ten or twenty let it lie open five or six hours. Within 

 three months this will be as strong as the best French 

 wines and as pleasing though different in taste. 

 Additional spirit and more sugar according to pleasure 



will make this cyder like canary, and one pint of good 

 spirit added to a gallon of the cyder will make it 

 equal to Spanish wines. So the juice of pears, cherries, 

 mulberries, currants, and especially gooseberries, by 

 the addition of their own spirits may be made equal 

 to canary. 13 



Cider continued to be made during the 

 eighteenth century, Alexander Freeman, ' cider 

 merchant,' occurring at Chichester in 1747," 

 and John Wilbar, 'cyder maker,' at Lewes in 

 1774 16 ; while about 1803 some poetic admirer 

 of the beverage wrote on the fly-leaf of a copy of 

 Phillip's poem on ' Cyder ' 



Some people give perry and call it champagne, 

 Not so gives of Petworth the rector ; 



'Tis cyder he tells us his vessels contain, 

 But on tasting it proves to be nectar. 16 



Marshall, also, writing as late as 1798," 

 says : 



The township of Bury abounds with orchard grounds. 

 In a bearing year, several hundred, even a thousand, 

 hogsheads of cider are said to have been made in this 

 parish only. 



By the middle of the nineteenth century, how- 

 ever, cider appears to have lost its popularity in 

 Sussex. In the census returns of 1841 no mention 

 is made of any cider maker, and although a num- 

 ber of farms continued for some time to press a 

 certain quantity, mostly coarse and rough, for 

 local consumption, and a few may possibly do so 

 still, cider-making as an industry has become 

 extinct. 



FISHERIES 



Sussex, with its extensive coast-line and 

 numerous small harbours, has always been a 

 centre of the fishing industry, the waters that 

 wash its coast being prolific alike of free- 

 swimming and shell fish. Of the popularity of 

 shell-fish as articles of diet amongst the early 

 inhabitants of this district abundant circum- 

 stantial evidence is to be found in such kitchen 

 middens as have been examined, and especially 

 during the recent excavations on the site of the 

 Roman settlement at Pevensey, in which place 

 have been found regular beds, many feet in area 

 and several inches in depth, of oyster, cockle, 

 and mussel shells. The first documentary refer- 

 ence to the Sussex fisheries is contained in the 

 story told by Bede that St. Wilfrid upon his 

 arrival in the South Saxon kingdom in 68 1 found 

 the natives ignorant of the art of fishing, and 

 taught them the use of nets. That these natives 

 of a sea-board district, descendants of a bold 

 and hardy sea-going race whose forefathers had 



10 Court of Requests, bdle. 1 8, No. 1 26. 



11 Sun. Arch. Coll. xxiii, 285. 

 "Ibid, iii, 135. 



crossed from the Continent scarcely a hundred 

 and fifty years before, should have been ignorant 

 of seamanship and fishing is incredible, but it is 

 not unlikely that Wilfrid was able to show them 

 certain improved methods which he had seen in 

 more advanced communities. From this time 

 for four hundred years no record of the industry 

 is found, but at the time of the Domesday Sur- 

 vey, in 1086, the herring fishery was evidently 

 well established round Brighton and the estuary 

 of the Ouse, renders of 4,000 herrings occurring 

 at Brighton and Rodmell, of 16,000 at Iford, 

 and 38,500 at Southease. 1 About the same 

 time Robert son of Ralf gave to the abbey of 

 St. Amand of Rouen a yearly render of 2,000 

 herrings at Hastings, 8 and the count of Eu 



11 C. R. Haines, Mem. of Richard Haines, 78. 

 14 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxix, 1 87. 

 14 Poll Book, Lewes. 



" C. W. RadclifFe Cooke, A Book about Cider and 

 Perry, 8. 



" Rural Economy of the Southern Counties, ii, 192. 

 1 V.C.H. Sussex, i, 366. 

 ' Cal. Doc. France, 26. 



264 



