Page:Highways and Byways in Sussex.djvu/96

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Arundel


CHAPTER VII


ARUNDEL AND NEIGHBOURHOOD


A feudal town—Castles ruined and habitable—The old religion and the new—Bevis of Southampton—Lord Thurlow lays an egg—A noble park—A song in praise of Sussex—The father of cricket.


Seen from the river or from the east side of the Arun valley, Arundel is the most imposing town in Sussex. Many are larger, many are equally old, or older; but none wears so unusual and interesting an air, not even Lewes among her Downs.

Arundel clings to the side of a shaggy hill above the Arun. Castle, cathedral, church—these are Arundel; the town itself is secondary, subordinate, feudal. The castle is what one likes a castle to be—a mass of battlemented stone, with a keep, a gateway, and a history, and yet more habitable than ever. So many of the rich make no effort to live in their ancestral halls; and what might be a home, carrying on the tradition of