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172 THE SUSSEX COAST
that was after Emperor of Rome, and King of England." But unfortunately the Merry Old Soul who would have made short work of Temperance reformers, had there been any in his day, is merely an eponymous hero invented to account for the name of Colchester, and Helen was in all probability born in Bithynia. The nave of the church is Early Norman with quoins of clunch or chalk, the walls are largely of big flints in herring-bone ; some original doors and windows remain. The chancel opens without an arch and contains a nameless Elizabethan monument; there is a little tower at the west. The interior, brick floored and white-washed over walls and roof, recalls the ideals of generations that have passed away.
In the churchyard is an ornate mosaic altar-tomb to Edward Vaughan Kenealy, the leading counsel for the Tichborne claimant, who was disbarred for his violent conduct of that famous case and afterwards elected to Parliament. He died in 1880.
Between this village and West Blatchington, close to the line of the old Roman road, were discovered in 1818, no rarity on the Sussex coast, foundations of a Roman villa. This district seems always to have been deemed to present eligible sites for such buildings, as indeed may be said of the whole shore line of the county. There are, however, excellent reasons why archaeologists fifteen centuries hence will not explore the remains of our villas. How that word has lowered its meaning! Through Hadrian's Villa at Tibur, ruins of mosaic and marble and concrete and brick covered with maiden-hair ferns, one wanders bewildered for miles and miles. It was deemed a great assumption of superiority when Captain |
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