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Old Books - Other Counties (London & Kent shown elsewhere)
Essentials for Local Historians, Genealogists & Family Historians
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Walks in West Sussex, 1876
AUTHOR: L. J. Jennings
FIRST PUB.: 1877
THIS EDITION: 2009
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Re-worked from the edition first published in 1877.
30 page book, supplied as a PDF document on CD-ROM.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Pulborough, Storrington, Devil’s Dyke, Washington, Chanctonbury Ring, Steyning & Bramber
CHAPTER II
Hayward's Heath, Cuckfield, Lindfield, Horsted Keynes & East Grinstead
CHAPTER III
Petworth, River, Lodsworth, Cowdray Park & Midhurst
EXTRACT: (Chap. 2, page 12)
As I have a fancy for starting out on my walks early in the morning, I went to Hayward's Heath overnight, intending to explore some of the country round about it before the main business of my journey began. I found an inn there almost adjoining the station; a good inn, for aught I know, in ordinary times, but it so chanced on this occasion that the best rooms were all engaged, as the waiter informed me, by a "London gent." These visitors from London, with their piles of money and unlimited orders for all the best rooms, are grievously in the way of the honest pedestrian, who can scarcely find rest for the soles of his feet where they are. They are worse than the Colorado beetle. You cannot compete for the favour of "mine host," still less for the smiles of his dame, with a gentleman who has a gold mine in the city, or who has just brought out a foreign loan for the benefit of his poorer countrymen and their widows and orphans.
Thus it turned out that my night at the hotel was passed in the most dismal manner. I had to dine on the crumbs which were brought down to me from Dives' table, and Dives with his friends caroused till a late hour, and I had scarcely sunk off into an uneasy slumber when a horrible groaning, puffing, and blowing brought me rudely from the land of dreams. I at first thought it was the " London gent " careering about in a fit, or dreaming of his bags of gold, and thinking he was being robbed thereof; but it was only a goods train blowing off or otherwise disposing of its steam—a process which lasted all the night long. I seldom go to the country for quiet; when I want that I come to London. The noises at Hayward's Heath that night would have shamed Piccadilly. I will say nothing of the big dog in the stables which barked all night, because he can be poisoned by the next traveller who passes that way. Take a piece of prepared meat with you, and throw it out of
window just before going to bed. The early village cock can ... |
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