A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



about 1530, and has many original and interesting features. Near to it is a 

 good half-timber building of about the same date. Parts of Bury Vicarage, 

 near Amberley, are mediaeval. 



A peculiarly interesting example of a timber-built and thatched clergy- 

 house, dating from the latter part of the fourteenth century, still survives at 

 Alfriston, in which there is a central hall with a fine open-timbered roof and 

 a hooded fireplace, having end wings of two stories, in which were the 

 parlour, buttery hatch, and sleeping rooms. Several original windows, and 

 some very pretty doorways with ogee-curved and pointed heads, remain. 

 Another timber house, known as the old parsonage, and probably of fifteenth- 

 century date at least, is to be seen at Coombes, now divided up into cottages. 



The ancient stone-vaulted crypts of Seaford, Eastbourne, Winchelsea, 

 and Rye, form a numerous group by themselves, ranging in date between the 

 thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. Those at the two last-named towns 

 were mostly intended as merchants' cellars. The crypt under the Lamb Inn, 

 Eastbourne, is a work of the thirteenth century ; its purpose is not clearly 

 proved. It has good vaulting and a carved central boss. The Seaford crypt, 

 in the garden of the ' Folly,' a house in Church Street, also has its vault ribs 

 gathered to a central boss : the date is about 1300. 



A gateway, dating from the first half of the fourteenth century, and a 

 beautiful piece of design, is the solitary relic of a great moated mansion at 

 Ewhiirst, in Shermanbury parish. Half-timber houses of fourteenth-century 

 date remain here and there, as at Lewes, in a corner house, where the wooden 

 tracery of a blocked window, a string-course, and corner-post in oak, are 

 rare features. But as a rule these distinctive features are wanting, so that it 

 is difficult to tell the age of the house with certainty. 



With the fifteenth century domestic buildings of all kinds become very 

 numerous, both in stone and half-timber. As prominent examples the 

 following may be cited. Stone houses : Ryman's Tower, at Appledram, a 

 good example of the smaller semi-fortified house of the early part of the 

 century, with many original windows ; Friston Place, with fine open roof 

 and minstrels' gallery in the hall ; Brede Place (parts) ; Horselunges, a house 

 in Hellingly parish ; Alciston Place, a grange of Battle Abbey ; Glottingham ; 

 Ratton, in Willingdon, the gatehouse, some walls, and other fragments of a 

 great mansion ; Langney, in the same locality, retains its fifteenth-century 

 chapel and parts of the domestic buildings ; a small house in the hamlet or 

 Toddington (Lyminster) has a good stone chimney ; Buckhurst Tower, 

 Withyham, almost a solitary relic, a battlemented tower of stately proportions 

 and refined design, dating from the close of the century ; near to it are some 

 out-buildings of herring-bone brickwork and timber, coeval ; Old Place, 

 Pulborough, the remains of a handsome stone mansion, with good door and 

 windows, c. 1450. Timber houses : Of rural examples there are fine 

 specimens at Udimore ('The Court House'), Bignor, Ditchling, and Stone- 

 hill Farm at Chiddingly ; while in the towns we have equally good examples 

 at Rye (The Old Flushing Inn with good panelling, doors, and timber 

 ceilings : houses in West Street one, lately pulled down, having a carved 

 door-head and other ornamental details) ; Hastings (a good gabled house, 

 with an original piece of window tracery in wood) ; Lindfield ; Steyning ; 

 West Tarring (with good traceried barge-boards ; also a mediaeval shop, in 



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