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Updated: May 7, 2025
Alfriston was noted as a great nest of smugglers, and the "Star" was often frequented by Stanton Collins and his gang, who struck terror into their neighbours, daringly carried on their trade, and drank deep at the inn when the kegs were safely housed. Only fourteen years ago the last of his gang died in Eastbourne Workhouse.
There is a Norman arch in the tower of the church and also several canopied tombs and some good stained glass. Here is another priest's house even older than the one we have seen at Alfriston. George Gissing well describes the village and the surrounding country in his novel Thyrza.
He had probably forgotten that ever he had been at Bellagio. She was glad the weather was fine. No doubt her sisters would soon be setting out for their morning stroll down the pier. Nan had taken her ticket for Newhaven Wharf, with a vague intention of walking from thence by the short cut to Seaford, and from Seaford to Alfriston, and so back to Lewes.
The marine smuggler was of course a separate breed whose adventures and danger were of a different sort and, despite the glamour of the sea, of much less interest and excitement; on the other hand most of the inhabitants of such places as Alfriston had one or more of the male members of the family engaged in the trade, and many are the houses which still have secret vaults and chambers for the reception of the goods, chiefly wine, brandy, silk and tea.
Wymondham, once famous for its abbey, is noted for its "Green Dragon," a beautiful half-timbered house with projecting storeys, and in our wanderings we must not forget to see along the Brighton road the picturesque "Star" at Alfriston with its three oriel windows, one of the oldest in Sussex. It was once a sanctuary within the jurisdiction of the Abbot of Battle for persons flying from justice.
But they're after bigger game, I allow." "What's that?" "Despatch-running for Little Boney, sir." The boy waited. There was more to come, he felt; and he was right. In a minute Diamond's old ship-mate resumed his tale. "Last July, I was on furlough at Alfriston. One evening I went for a bit of a stroll on the hill. Up there, under the sky, top o Snap Hill, was a look-out chap with a telescope.
To say nothing of the discoveries about Beachy Head, the earthworks there, and the neolithic implements and bronze weapons discovered about East Dean and Alfriston, we have in the Long Man of Wilmington, that gigantic figure cut out in the chalk of the hill-side, something comparable only with the Giant of Cerne Abbas in Dorset and the White Horses of Wiltshire.
Another old inn, once a noted house of call for smugglers, is Market Cross House, opposite all that remains of the Cross, a mutilated and battered stump, and the only example, except that at Chichester, in the county. Alfriston once had a race week, the course being on the side of Firle Beacon; in those days the resident population was probably greater than it is now.
Half a mile farther is a turning on the right that passes Winton Street, where, a few years ago, there was a rich find of Anglo-Saxon antiquities. In two miles this byway reaches Alfriston. It is a Perpendicular cruciform church and has an Easter sepulchre and three sedilia. The register is said to be the oldest in England, its first entry bearing the date of 1512.
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