Court House

Around the time of his marriage in 1896, Powys moved to Court House, an ancient farmstead in the shadow of the downs and reputedly where Henry III held court at the Battle of Lewes in 1264.

' It lay in a fold of the high Downs, behind which the sun vanished early in the winter days, the hill just above it being called Mount Harry, after the father of Edward Longshanks...'

The photograph below shows Warningore wood (it seems to have had more than one 'n' even in JCP's day) seen from Mount Harry. Court House is just to the right of centre.

' Just below Court House, on the outskirts of the Weald, there was a wonderful wood, of oaks and hazels and elms and beeches, called by the Walter-de-la-Mare name of "Waringore". To this wood I would almost daily repair...'

Powys goes on to mention the crimson toadstools to be found in the wood in autumn and when in Mortal Strife he writes that capitalist democracy is 'as prolific of abuses as a Sussex beechwood of toadstools', it may be Warningore he has in mind.

 

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