GILBERT WHITE IN SUSSEX. 
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siderable antiquity, and, though not mentioned in Doomsday 
Book, was of sufficient size to have a fair granted to it in the 
thirteenth century. Lying near the northern slope of the South 
Down Hills, it has no doubt heard some echoes of the stirring 
events that have taken place in this historic county. Many are 
the antiquarian finds that have been made in its neighbourhood. 
On Glyndebourne Hill was unearthed, a few years ago, an ancient 
interment, attributed by authorities to Saxon times, wherein 
were found bronze and iron implements, earthenware vessels, 
the iron boss of a shield with several finger-bones attached to it 
by rust, and some Roman coins. These latter might, perhaps, 
be held to evidence an earlier sepulture. On the neighbouring 
hills many tumuli have been uncovered, the contents of which 
are mostly in the Lewes museum. In the village itself, a gold 
ring of mediaeval origin was found some years ago, while later, 
some gold posy rings of the last century, together with old naval 
and military medals, have been discovered. 
The parish church is a venerable structure, as guide-books 
say, standing among some fine old pollard elms, whose appear- 
ance suggests a far greater age than is presumably to be attri- 
buted to them by an entry in the registers of their planting in 
1607. The edifice is mainly of the Perpendicular period, though 
it is supposed to have been founded in Norman times. In 
support of this view may be adduced the occurrence of a stone 
slab of Norman intersecting arcading now forming the lintel 
of a cottage door, within a mile of the church, from which it 
may have been removed at some early period. Within the 
church itself are some Tudor monuments, tombs of the Snooke 
family, and an excellent specimen of a Westmacott monument. 
In the vestry are volumes of a Polyglot Bible (presented to the 
church in the seventeenth century by Dame Barbara Springett), 
containing illustrations of the Temple as a huge classic structure ; 
the ark carved with a renaissance panel, and other anachronisms. 
The church porch is in the main an ancient structure, but was 
refronted about forty years ago. Until quite recently, it was a 
most picturesque part of the church, but the hand of the Philis- 
tine has been upon it, and stripped away the ancient mantle of 
ivy which covered it. The tower is a modern erection, a very 
different affair from the unpretentious little bell turret, whose 
modest music called the parishioners to church in Gilbert 
White’s days. Now we have in the tower a mass of metal of 
that usual modern assertiveness which called forth Mr. Haweis’ 
description of English bell-ringing as “ the musician’s Inferno.” 
But then, as to bells, what can be more beautiful than the 
sweet pastoral sound of the sheep-bells on the hills ? These 
survivals from old times, like the teams of working oxen, which 
have not yet quite died out of use in this county, it is to be 
hoped may long remain to remind us of an age of agriculture 
more picturesque than this of steam ploughs and barbed wire 
fences. 
