Were Charles and Mildred buried alive?
PRIOR to providing the recent guided tours of Alfriston I thought I had better do some background reading and was lucky to come across a guide to the village written by Florence Pagden, 110 years ago in 1899.
Florence lived at Frog Firle on the Seaford Road and wrote an informed but lively and humorous history of the village interspersed with many personal recollections.
The wonderful detail in the book however is the information about some of the old characters of the area – something that is usually missing from other historic works.
I loved reading about the postman, by the name of Old Sands who, six days a week for forty years brought the village post from Lewes by foot, a round trip of some twenty miles a day.
(I work that out at about 249,600 miles in his career – longer than the distance to the moon!) A photograph shows him wearing a smock coat, leather hat and thick shoes – possibly clogs. He is also carrying two leather postbags and a bugle.
Florence also wrote about Bob Hall the last surviving member of Stanton Collins smuggling gang which was based at the building which is now the Market Cross / Smugglers Inn in the centre of the village.
I wrote about this vicious gang earlier in the year but old Bob died penniless at the age of 94 in the Eastbourne workhouse in 1895.
Another old-timer was "Old Hilton" who died in 1924 at the age of 97 having been born in 1827.
"Old Richard", one of the workers on her father's farm told Florence about the unusually hard frost of 1838, when the Cuckmere River froze over and it was possible to walk across it.
A few days later a couple were walking across Litlington Bridge when they were horrified to see a huge iceberg floating down the fast flowing river towards them.
They ran for their lives and the block of ice, as wide as the river, got caught at the bridge, reared up and smashed down onto the bridge completely demolishing it!
I also enjoyed the description Miss Pagden gives to one of the lady bell-ringers at St. Andrews Church.
She is portrayed as masculine, tall and thin and her face was 'a perfect network of wrinkles' which was surrounded by a black silk bonnet. She wore an old dress made out of a green curtain and an apron of coarse sacking which was tied at the waist and at the knees.
When she rang the bells she was bodily lifted off the ground by the weight of the bell and displaying a beautifully clean pair of white stockings and men's huge hobnail boots.
I really wish I could have seen this amusing spectacle although, thanks to Florence's words this eccentric old lady will be remembered longer than many, more affluent villagers.
Just outside the church, near the south porch is the grave of one Charles Springate Brooker who had a real fear of being buried alive; so much so that he ordered that a hole be left in his coffin connected with a hole in his tombstone so he could call for help should he wake up!
This odd behaviour may have been the cause of a curious incident in 1816. Mildred Reed, aged just 24 was buried on 12th January that year, but a few days later an old man passing the spot said he had heard a noise coming from the newly dug grave.
Rumours started to go about the village that poor young Mildred had been buried alive so, as a result, on 23rd January her grave was opened and her body exhumed.
According to the parish registers this was done in the presence of the curate John Benn, a churchwarden, Mildred's doctor and a 'great multitude of people, all of whom inspected the body and were satisfied that the rumour was unfounded.'
It seems remarkable that the exhumation of a young girl was a public spectacle but I suppose that this was to ensure that the rumours did not continue. I feel sorry for her poor parents who must have had to endure this sorry episode.
But to end on a lighter note inside Alfriston church, I was amused by the story of one parishioner who walked out of the church after the organ was installed in 1859.
She declared that she could not stand the noise of the new instrument as it made her stomach ache. But, as she flounced out of the church she still stopped to curtsey to the altar, a tradition in those days. On another occasion, the parish clerk was fast asleep at his place under the pulpit during a long and particularly dull sermon.
To make a particular point, the preacher thumped the woodwork in front of him and the large heavy bible over-balanced and fell on the clerks head.
Awoken from his slumbers and thinking the sermon was over he jumped up and exclaimed "Amen" only for the heavy velvet cushion, which hold the bible to also drop on top of him, I am sure to the general amusement of the congregation.
I would like to wish the readers of this column a Merry Christmas and look forward to writing more about the history of the Seaford area in the New Year.
Source: History of Alfriston by Florence A Pagden - 1899.
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Weather for Lewes
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 13 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 23 mph
Wind direction: East
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Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 20 C
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