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Brambletye Manor ruin

"The past of Forest Row that is buried in history lies in the story of Brambletye House, of which an impressive fragment remains. The tower that we see, by an old moat filled with the waters of the Medway, is on a farm near the railway, all that is left of the famous estate of Brambletye. It was one of the fine new houses of Elizabeth's England and there lived in it in 1683 Sir James Richards who, while hunting one day in Ashdown Forest, was warned that he was suspected of treason, and that his house was to be searched. He rode to the coast, took a boat to Spain, and came back to Brambletye no more. It is said that the house has never been tenanted since Sir James Richards passed through this gatehouse that day.

It was famous as a fine piece of 17th Century architecture, and comes into history also because Horace Smith wrote "Brambletye House" as one of the first historical romances - a very clever book, said Sir Walter Scott who read it on his way down to London in 1826."

From "The King's England. Sussex" by Arthur Mee, published in 1937.s