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HERSTMONCEUX AND BEXHILL 329
about the building of Carthage, obviously an extremely uncritical effort to account for the name. Most of it is now under the sea, but there are ruins of the late Norman church. Between the two places rises Galley Hill, with low sandstone cliffs where there is a golf-course overlooking the sea. The chief feature of the front of Bexhill itself is a delightful cycle track close to the waters of the Channel. At low tide may be explored extensive reefs of sea-worn and weed-covered sandrock, while in places all along this shore are fossilised remains of trees, the so-called submarine forest which grew when the land was much more extensive than now. A fine old trunk of oak is preserved in the Alexandra Park at Hastings ; it was found during the building of one of the piers. About 1864 was discovered on the beach at Bexhill an oak boat midway between the coracle and the type of vessel represented in the Bayeux Tapestry. The keel was a flat 2-inch board; planks of naturally bending boughs were neatly fastened to stem and stern-posts by means of wooden rivets.
Where the stream of Asten has cut a deep valley among the hills of the Forest Ridge, a mile or two inland stands Crowhurst, famous for its magnificent old yew-tree, perhaps the finest in Sussex, which appears as the chapter-heading ; its branches rest on props where necessary, an iron band prevents it from splitting, the greatest diameter of its trunk is about thirteen feet. It entirely dwarfs two other large yews in the churchyard. The tower is rather late Perpendicular and displays the Pelham buckle as corbel to the dripstone on each side of the west door and also in the tracery of the window above. There are diagonally placed buttresses, square- |
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