The road over the Beacon and across the Common was little more than a bye-road, with scarcely enough traffic over it to keep the grass from growing upon it.

At Hurtis Hill there was an old farmhouse, and also one where the house now called Alice Bright stands. This was formerly known as Izzard's Farm, being the property of James Izzard, who was considered a well-to-do farmer, and was of some importance and notoriety, as he gave away annually on every S. Thomas's day forty sixpences to the poor.

There is a very old farmhouse at Stone Cross. It is perhaps the oldest of all immediately around Crowborough which have not been altogether renewed. The plan of the interior bespeaks its age. The chimney-place in the living-room extends the entire width of the room - the oven door is at one end of it, but the oven itself is built outside on to the wall of the house, and projects beyond it the whole length of the oven.

The ceilings are low, hardly six feet from the floor. The walls - those of them, at least, which have not been repaired - are made of blocks of sandstone. The rafters are visible, and the old beams run across the ceiling. The ceiling of the stairs is so low that you must bend as you go up them. The windows are narrow, and have small diamond-shaped panes of glass.

Outside it is like a venerable sturdy body, with a thatch which might be compared to a hoary head. Like a veteran, it waits calmly for the end; yet it battles with time and clings to life. Reluctantly it parts bit by bit with its crumbling materials. The walls which remain of the old building are timbered, having square frames of oak filled in with plaster, and below are built with sandstone to the depth of three feet. A small garden surrounds it, which is sheltered by trees. A little gate leads into a corner of the meadow outside it. Across this a paved footway extends to the larger gate opening into the. public road.

All its inmates are gone. It is deserted and left to decay, as an old nest is forsaken by birds. The dreary echo of your own footsteps is the only sound you hear in that old abode, which once resounded with happy, merry voices.