--must have been islands, forming a
miniature archipelago. As all these are of Saxon meaning, it may be
presumed that, at the time of the Saxon colonization, they were
frequently or constantly insulated."
[Illustration: OLD PARSONAGE, EASTBOURNE.]
(Lower.)
Five miles from Eastbourne across the dreary flats of Pevensey Level
lies all that remains of the city of Anderida, the headquarters of the
Roman "Count of the Saxon Shore" and one of the last strongholds of
Rome in Britain. The melancholy tale of the overthrow of ancient
civilization in this corner of England by the barbarous Saxon invaders
is summed up in the terse words of their own chronicle--"They slew all
that dwelt therein, nor was there henceforth one Briton left." The name
"Andredes Weald" is derived from the British--An tred--"No houses," and
it correctly described the surrounding country at the time of the Roman
occupation. The great Weald or forest actually extended from the coast
to the Thames valley, broken only by the "Old Road" along the side of
the North Downs, traversed by far-off ancestors of ours whose feelings
as they gazed fearfully down into the depths of the primeval wood must
have been on a plane with those of the earliest African explorers in
the land of Pygmies.
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