CHAPTER IX

AMBERLEY AND PARHAM

Sussex fish--A straw-blown village--A painter of Sussex light--A castle only in name--Parham's treasures--The Parham heronry--Storrington and the sagacious Jack Pudding--A Sussex audience.

[Sidenote: SUSSEX FISH]

Five miles to the north of Arundel by road (over the Arun at Houghton's ancient bridge, restored by the bishops of Chichester in the fifteenth century), and a few minutes by rail, is Amberley, the fishing metropolis of Sussex, where, every Sunday in the season, London anglers meet to drop their lines in friendly rivalry. "Amerley trout" (as Walton calls them) and Arundel mullet are the best of the Arun's treasures; and this reminds me of Fuller's tribute to Sussex fish, which may well be quoted in this watery neighbourhood: "Now, as this County is eminent for both _Sea_ and _River-_fish, namely, an _Arundel Mullet_, a _Chichester Lobster_, a _Shelsey Cockle_, and an _Amerly Trout_; so _Sussex_ aboundeth with more _Carpes_ than any other of this Nation. And though not so great as _Jovius_ reporteth to be found in the _Lurian Lake_ in _Italy_, weighing more than fifty pounds, yet those generally of great and goodly proportion. I need not adde, that _Physicians_ account the galls of _Carpes_, as also a stone in their heads, to be _Medicinable_; only I will observe that, because _Jews_ will not eat _Caviare_ made of _Sturgeon_ (because coming from a fish wanting Scales, and therefore forbidden in the _Levitical Law_); therefore the _Italians_ make greater profit of the _Spaun_ of _Carps_, whereof they make a _Red Caviare_, well pleasing the _Jews_ both in _Palate_ and _Conscience_. All I will adde of _Carps_ is this, that _Ramus_ himself doth not so much redound in _Dichotomies_ as they do; seeing no one bone is to be found in their body, which is not _forked_ or divided into two parts at the end thereof."

Amberley proper, as distinguished from Amberley of the anglers, is a mile from the station and is built on a ridge. The castle is the extreme western end of this ridge, the north side of which descends precipitously to the marshy plain that extends as far as Pulborough. Standing on the castle one sees Pulborough church due north--height calling unto height. The castle is now a farm; indeed, all Amberley is a huge stockyard, smelling of straw and cattle. It is sheer Sussex--chalky soil, whitewashed cottages, huge waggons; and one of the best of Sussex painters, and, in his exquisite modest way, of all painters living, dwells in the heart of it--Edward Stott, who year after year shows London connoisseurs how the clear skin of the Sussex boy takes the evening light; and how the Southdown sheep drink at hill ponds beneath a violet sky; and that there is nothing more beautiful under the stars than a whitewashed cottage just when the lamp is lit.

[Sidenote: AMBERLEY AND PARHAM]

Amberley has no right to lay claim to a castle, for the old ruins are not truly, as they seem, the remains of a castellated stronghold, but of a crenellated mansion. John Langton, Bishop of Chichester in the fourteenth century, was the first builder. Previously the Church lands here had been held very jealously, and in 1200 we find Bishop Gilbert de Leofard twice excommunicating, and as often absolving, the Earl of Arundel for poaching (as he termed it) in Houghton Forest. The Church lost Amberley in the sixteenth century. William Rede, who succeeded Langton to both house and see, wishing to feel secure in his home, craved permission to dig a moat around it and to render it both hostile and defensive. Hence its lion-like mien; but it has known no warfare, and the castle's mouldering walls now give what assistance they can in harbouring live stock. Twentieth-century sheds lean against fourteenth-century masonry; faggots are stored in the moat; lawn tennis is played in the courtyard; and black pigeons peep from the slits cut for arquebusiers.

[Illustration: _Amberley Castle._]

Amberley Castle only once intrudes itself in history: Charles II., during his flight in 1651, spent a night there under the protection of Sir John Briscoe, as we saw in