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146 KIPLING'S SUSSEX
travelling to Chichester. Divers curious carvings decorate the house inside and out. At the corner next the lane is a large red wooden lion once the figure-head of a Dutch vessel, wrecked on the coast sometime during the last century. Over this is another wood carving of two animals supporting a staff. The dexter figure is thought by Mr. Lower to be intended for a bear and the sinister for a lion, the tail of the latter being passed between its legs and then over its back. The staff appears to be an official mace surmounted by a coronet. Note the large slabs of stone which do duty for tiles and prove how strong and enduring is a roof tree of Sussex oak. A full account of this house with a good engraving of it will be found in Suss. Arch. Coll., iv., 309-15.
Not far from " The Star " is what remains of a Village Cross. The portions that have disappeared are understood to have been employed in making drains and doorsteps! (Horsfield, " Hist. Suss.," i. 330).
Alfriston Church, dedicated to St. Andrew, lies a little out of the village towards the river. It is a large cruciform edifice of the fourteenth century, with a shingled spire. In the churchyard a simple headstone commemorates the fact that John Lower (born 1725) was the first to |
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