Mad Jack Fuller

Brightling lies amid lovely hills and glorious landscapes near and far. Its beeches are superb. For miles round it is a splendid place for those who have a day to spend in Sussex.

Perhaps because of this it was the home of one of the rich and pompous Nobodies of Sussex, Jack Fuller. He was rude and blunt and blatant, but he loved a lovely place and set his mark on many noble views, We come upon him all round, for this parson's son, left without parents to grow up without manners, Tory squire of Rose Hill, was determined not to be forgotten. He will not be, for he raised to his memory two Domes, two Needles, and a Pyramid.

The Domes covered his telescopes. One is on a small house by the highroad not far from Brightling Needle; the other is the domed observatory in the park, magnificently set in trees. The Needles are purposeless but curious. One is a plain obelisk on Brightling Down, 646 feet high. It is 40 feet round the base, and the lights of Eastbourne pier can be seen from it at night. It stands on the spot where the beacon was ready for lighting if Napoleon came.

The other Needle is a mile or two away on the road to Dallington, and is called the Sugar Loaf, an odd stone structure in a field which puzzles every passer-by. There was an old man who used to live in it and brought up a family there, and the cramping in this queer house seems to have done him little harm.

The Pyramid, rather like that by which Keats sleeps at the gate of Rome, is over Fuller's grave. It was built by Sir Robert Smirke, who built the British Museum. It is about 80 feet round and has perhaps a thousand stones in it, dominating one of the most charming church corners in Sussex, by the lower gate of Brightling churchyard. Behind it is the village school with surely one of the best views from any playground.

Two yews arch the churchyard gate, and 'raised above the wall is an elegant peace column "to keep in mind those who fell." Just behind it is John Fuller's pyramid, modesty and vanity together.

 

 

 

 

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