| Share page |
|
RAMBLES ABOUT BURWASH 33
In the wall, at the end of the south aisle, may be seen the iron slab of the fourteenth century, mentioned in Kipling's story, " The Conversion of St. Wilfrid." Here Dan and Una met the saint of Sussex. The children called this part of the church Panama Corner, because of the long-tailed Longobardic characters on the cast-iron slab which read: Orate p{ro) annema J hone Coline. The inscription is much injured by long exposure to the tread of feet.
The present Vicar of Burwash believes the slab records the death of a priest. In any case it is an interesting relic of Sussex iron manufacture, and it is quite possible that it might commemorate the death of an ancestor of the Collinses, ironmasters here and in the adjoining parishes.
Members of this family, Master John Collins, and his brother Tom, master at Stocken's Forge, are mentioned by Kipling in " Hal o' the Draft," as being concerned in gun-founding and gun-running.
Pook's Hill, called Puck Hill by the people of the village, is in Burwash Weald. The word Puck belongs to the same series as the Irish Phooka, German Spuk, and our modern words spook, bogie, and bugbear. Bayle in his dictionary dated 1755, tells us that " A bug " is an
c |
||
|
o /
: J |
||