SUSSEX ROAD-LORE 105 



Uckfield, formerly a residence of the Lords 

 Liverpool, and I should say — this being so 

 handy — their actual iron milestones were cast 

 hard by Uckfield, handy to Buxted probably. 

 Sussex iron was, you know, about the best in 

 England, as it ought to be, because it was 

 smelted with charcoal, a circumstance this last to 

 make the district lament loss of any quantity of 

 timber from the semi-common forests. Pro- 

 prietors were not going to cut their own fuel or 

 buy in the regular way when they might collar it 

 at first hand or be cheap receivers to inferior- 

 grade thieves. Very dreadful such depredations 

 were and are ; but, after all, sneaking other folks' 

 wood is not so bad as laying felonious hands on 

 the land where the timber grows, and keeping 

 the lot, stock, lock, and barrel. 



Miles rather than acres of Sussex forests 

 went in the not long ago, and I can see plenty 

 more being put in trim to be swallowed up. A 

 nice ingenious dodge to this end is in vogue, and 

 easy as anything if worked skilfully. All you 

 have to do is to encourage gorse to grow right 

 on the edges of the lands over which are certain 

 rights for copyholders, etc. Its growth is care- 

 fully tended and directed till at last what were 

 odd bushes scattered about irregularly take 

 formal order, and presently constitute a remark- 

 ably compact, complete, well-trimmed hedge, to 

 be judiciously strengthened by and by with posts 

 and wire, and there you are, with the job done. 

 I could show you hundreds to thousands of acres 

 being so transmogrified from common to freehold, 

 and so I could whole parishes dominated by a 

 big proprietor who pushes his hedges out so as 

 to mop up all the strips of green lining the high- 



