It is, upon the whole, a most magnificent
seat, and the Jews will not be able to get it from the _present_ owner,
though if he live many years they will give even him a _twist_."
The road now goes directly west and in a mile reaches Tillington, which
has a Transitional church modernized and practically rebuilt by the
Earl of Egremont; here are several interesting tombs and brasses. A
divergence two miles further will take us downhill across the Rother to
Selham (with a station close to the village). The Norman and Early
English church has a chancel arch with finely carved and ornamented
capitals. Proceeding westwards between high banks of red sandstone our
road soon approaches Cowdray Park, across which it runs without hedge
or fence.
[Illustration: COWDRAY.]
The park is a beautiful pleasaunce for the inhabitants of Midhurst;
thickly carpeted with bracken and heather and broken by many
picturesque knolls and hollows. The famous burned and ruined mansion
lies on the west, close to the town and river. This beautiful old house
was destroyed in 1793 through the carelessness of some workmen employed
in repairing the woodwork of some of the upper rooms. Within a month of
the calamity the last of the Montagues, a young man of 22, was drowned
while shooting the falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen.
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