CIVIL AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE 



Wakehursts and Colepepers. It was rebuilt on a large scale by Sir E. Cole- 

 peper in 1590, and is, although shorn of its original proportions, the best 

 example of its period in Sussex. Its most noteworthy features are the 

 many gables and dormers, bristling with pinnacles, of the south front, the 

 double-storied bay windows with canted angles, the elaborate system of stone- 

 vaulted drains, a fine chimney-piece, richly carved in chalk (like one at 

 Loseley, Surrey), a handsome staircase, some good ceilings, a plaster frieze with 

 mermaids, and some carved panelling. The work has, externally, a very 

 Gothic look for so late a date. Gravetye, West Hoathly, has a much smaller 

 stone house, bearing considerable resemblance to Wakehurst Place, which is 

 explained by the fact that it was built (about the end of the sixteenth century) 

 by Richard Infield, who married Catherine Colepeper, of Wakehurst. In 

 the hall is a richly ornamented plaster ceiling. The ruins of the great house 

 of the Coverts at Slaugham show, among other things, a richly ornamented 

 open arcade, of late sixteenth-century date, on the north front. The ruined 

 house at Brambletye retains a picturesque brick tower with a lead cupola. 



The following great houses, most of them much modernized, are valuable 

 examples of this class and period : Parham (with a long gallery and double- 

 storied bay windows), Wiston, Newtimber (with moat and bridges), Danny, 

 1595, Glynde, built 1567, Plumpton Place, Cuckfield Place, the adjoining 

 picturesque turreted ' Gatehouse ' in brick, and Ockenden House and Borde 

 Hill, Cuckfield, Southover House, Lewes, 1572 (with good brick chimneys, 

 stone gables, and mullioned windows). The fine carved oak staircases at 

 Lewes Town-hall (brought from Slaugham) and Racton House, Lordington 

 (with monsters on the newels) should be mentioned here as perhaps the best of 

 their class in the county. The latter house is of plain early seventeenth-cen- 

 tury character, and has the remains of a fine gateway. Houses of a smaller 

 type, and generally less altered, are found at Brickwall near Northiam (largely 

 half timber), Carter's Corner in Hellingly, Chiddingly Place, Penhurst manor- 

 house, Streat Place, Up Park, near Harting, Bolebrook, near Hartfield (a fine 

 brick gabled house, with a massive turreted gateway, very ' early ' in character 

 for its date, c. 1600), and an interesting group in the neighbourhood of Wal- 

 dron and Burwash comprising Bateman's (1634), Tanners, Possingworth, 

 Heringdales (with fine chimney), Shoesmiths, Friths, and Horeham, and 

 Homestall, near Ashurst Wood. They are mostly built of the pleasant-toned 

 sandstone dug in the hills of this wealden county, with brick chimneys and 

 stone-healed roofs, and have many gables and mullioned windows, handsome 

 stone fireplaces, panelling, massive doors, and solidly-built oak staircases. 

 One (Possingworth) bears the late date of 1657. The Feldwickes' mansion 

 at West Hoathly, Halland House in East Hoathly, Boarzell (moated), Short- 

 ridges and Pashley in Ticehurst, Hog House, Buxted, 1581, and Wigzell, a 

 stone-gabled house, with many chimneys, in Salehurst, all belong to the same 

 type ; as do the picturesque Deanery at Battle, of stone, battlemented, Sack- 

 ville College, East Grinstead, c. 1619, and other buildings in the town ; to 

 which group also Hammond's Place, Clayton (dated 1566), and Hangleton 

 House, near Portslade, the home of the Bellinghams, may be added. The 

 latter, which bears date 1 594, has some good mullioned windows ; and 

 Benfield, in the same parish, a small house of the Covert family, built 

 of flint, brick, and stone, also has many mullioned windows and a double- 



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