BRIGHTLING

Brightling is a tiny village in the Weald, surrounded by lovely countryside and other tiny villages. There are two reasons you might want to visit. Firstly, it has an attractive church, dedicated to St Thomas à Becket, which was actually mentioned in the Domesday survey.  So, given that Thomas was murdered in 1170, the church was obviously originally dedicated to someone else, possibly St Nicholas.  The current building dates from the 13th century and among its features are some good brasses, 17th century wall paintings (biblical texts) and a rare barrel organ.  The second reason to visit Brightling is to see the large stone pyramid in the churchyard.  This was built as a mausoleum for John ‘Mad Jack’ Fuller (1757-1834), the local squire.  Fuller was an eccentric, drunk, Member of Parliament, plantation and slave owner, philanthropist, patron of the arts and science (he supported JMW Turner and Michael Faraday) and builder of follies.  Local legend was that he had been buried in his pyramid seated at a table in full evening dress with a bottle of claret but, sadly, that was shown to be untrue.  Among his other structures are a ‘temple’ in the grounds of his house, Rosehill (now Brightling Park) next door to the church, an observatory (now a private residence), an obelisk on a local hilltop, ‘sugar loaf’ (no idea, sorry) and a tower – which is easily accessible a short walk across fields south-east of the church.