Fletching, Sussex

Description
Fletching, a village and a parish in Sussex. The village stands on the river Ouse, 2 1/4 miles from Sheffield Park station on the L.B. & S.C.R. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Uckfield. Acreage of the civil parish, 8522; population, 2245 ; of ecclesiastical, 1171. The manor belonged to Earl Godwin ; passed to the Delawarres, the Nevilles, the Sackvilles, and others, and belongs now to the Earl of Sheffield. Sheffield Park, the seat of the Earl, includes some ancient portions, and has been at various times enlarged and altered. It stands in a beautiful park embellished with noble trees. It presents Gothic features, but scarcely in good taste; on its exterior are the shields of the several owners of the manor since the Conquest. It was the place where the historian Gibbon spent much of the latter part of his life, and it contains a portrait of Gibbon by Sir Joshua Reynolds. There is a number of mineral springs, almost all chalybeate. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Chi-chester; value, £180 with residence. Patron, the Earl of Sheffield. The church has Norman features, but is chiefly Early English, is cruciform, has a Norman tower with a spire; contains in the S transept an altar-tomb with very fine brass of a Dalyngrngge of 1395, and another altar-tomb with effigies of a Leche of 1596, and has, in connection with the N transept, the mausoleum of the Sheffield family, containing the grave of Gibbon, with a Latin inscription by Dr Parr. The church was beautifully restored in 1880. The vicarage of Dane Hill is a separate benefice. Reading and recreation rooms were erected in 1889.