With all our admiration of the amiable author of the “Natural History of Selborne,” we are not disposed to regard our South Downs in the light of vegetable productions or chemical fermentations; but we leave the solution of the question to the geologist.
And now let us descend to Ovingdean, which lies at our feet.
Clavering Setting Out to Join the King
II
OVINGDEAN GRANGE IN THE YEAR SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE
SINCE the year 1651 but slight change has taken place in the general aspect of the sequestered little village of Ovingdean (Offingas den, in Saxon), situated in a charming dene, or woody valley, amidst the South Downs, and within a mile of the coast.
During the two centuries that have elapsed since the date assigned to our story, the habitations of this secluded little village, which, notwithstanding its contiguity to the queen of watering-places, Brighton, seems still quite out of the world, have scarcely—with one important exception, namely, the modern mansion known as Ovingdean House—increased in number, or consequence. Indeed, the Grange, which, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was the principal residence of the place, is not only greatly reduced in size, but has entirely lost its original and distinctive character. Still, regarded without reference to the past, Ovingdean Grange, as it now appears, is a fair-proportioned, cheerful-looking domicile, and with its white walls and pleasant garden, full of arbutuses, laurestines, holms, and roses, offers a very favourable specimen of a Sussex farm-house. In one respect, and that by no means an immaterial one, the existing Grange far surpasses its predecessor; namely, in the magnitude and convenient arrangements of its farmyard, as well as in the number of its barns, cow-houses, and other outbuildings, all of which are upon a scale never dreamed of in the olden time.
But as it is with the ancient house that we have now to do, we must endeavour to give some notion of it. Even in 1651, Ovingdean Grange was old, having been built in the reign of Henry VIII. Constructed of red brick, chequered with diamonds, formed of other bricks, glazed, and of darker hue, mingled with flints, it seemed destined to endure for ages, and presented a very striking frontage, owing to the bold projections of its bay-windows with their stone posts and lintels, its deep arched portal with a stone escutcheon above it, emblazoned with the arms of the Maunsels, at that time its possessors, its stone quoins and cornices, its carved gables, its high roof, covered with tiles entrusted with orange-tawny mosses and lichens, and its triple clusters of tall and ornamented chimney-shafts.
Old Ovingdean Grange did not want a rookery. In a fine grove of elms, occupying part of the valley towards the south, a large colony of these aristocratic birds had taken up their quarters. Nor must we omit to mention that many of the trees, in the upper branches of which the rooks’ nests might be seen, had attained a girth and altitude not a little remarkable, considering their proximity to the sea. It has been already intimated that the ancient farm-yard was neither so extensive nor so well arranged as its successor, but it possessed one of those famous old circular dovecots, which used to be the pride of a Sussex country-house, and which, before pigeon-matches were introduced, never failed to supply the family table with a savoury pie or a roast. At the rear of the house was a garden, walled round, and laid out in the old-fashioned style, with parterres and terraces; and beyond it was an orchard full of fruit-trees. Higher up on the down was a straggling little holt, or thicket, the trees of which, by their stunted growth and distorted shapes, manifested the influence of the sea-breezes. When we have mentioned a large close, encompassed by a shaw, or fence of low trees, and displaying within its area a few venerable hawthorns, ancient denizens of the downs, we shall have particularized all the domains of old Ovingdean Grange.
The little village of Ovingdean, consisted then, as now, of a few neatly-kept cottages, clustered like beehives near the mansion, some three or four in the valley, but the most part amongst the trees on the side of the eastern down. These cottages were tenanted by the bailiff, the husbandmen, shepherds, and other hinds employed at the Grange.