The Brighton road : the classic highway to the south . lthe stink, and are choked with the dust of them, andlandlords and every one else concerned would be onlytoo glad if the project for building a road betweenLondon and Brighton, exclusively for motor traffic,were likelv to be realised. Then ordinarv users of thehighway might once more be able to discern thenatural scenery of the road, at- present obscured withdust-elouds. The text for these remarks is furnished by therecent closing, after a hundred and fifty years or more,of the once chief inn of Cuckfield : the fine and stately Talbot, now
The Brighton road : the classic highway to the south . lthe stink, and are choked with the dust of them, andlandlords and every one else concerned would be onlytoo glad if the project for building a road betweenLondon and Brighton, exclusively for motor traffic,were likelv to be realised. Then ordinarv users of thehighway might once more be able to discern thenatural scenery of the road, at- present obscured withdust-elouds. The text for these remarks is furnished by therecent closing, after a hundred and fifty years or more,of the once chief inn of Cuckfield : the fine and stately Talbot, now empty and To Let ; the hospitablequotation Youre welcome, whats your will, fromThe Merry Wives of Windsor on its fanlight, readinglike a bitter mockery. The interior of Cuckfield Church is crowded withmonuments of the Sergisons and the Burrells. Prideof place is given in the chancel to the monument ofCharles Sergison, who died in 1732, aged 78. It is avery fine white marble monument, with a figure ofTruth gazing into her mirror, and holding with one. m MD O oao w 208 THE BRIGHTON ROAD hand a medallion partly supported by a Cupid,displaying a portrait of the lamented Sergison, who,we learn from a sub-acid inscription, was Commissioner of the Navy forty-eight years, till1719, to the entire satisfaction of the King and hisMinisters. The civil government of the Navy thenbeing put into military hands, he was esteemed bythem not a fit person to serve any longer. He was,in short, like those rulers of the Queens (or Kings)Navee satirised by Sir W. S. Gilbert in moderntimes, and never went to sea. At the period of hiscompulsory retirement it seems to have rather belatedlyoccurred to the authorities that such an one could notbe well acquainted with the needs of the Navy ; sothe Capacity, Penetration, exact Judgment of this true patriot were shelved ; but, at any rate, he hadhad his whack, and it was surely high time for theexact judgment, true patriotism, capacity andpenetration of othe
Size: 1196px × 2089px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjecthorses, bookyear1922
