The village is of little interest and has not the fine site of
the other. In the church is a font that is supposed to have once
served as a Roman altar.
Over the hills to the south-east is the little village of Wynford
Eagle, so called from the fact that it once belonged to that powerful
Norman family, the de Aquila, who held Pevensey Castle in Sussex after
the Conquest. The church is an exceedingly poor erection of 1842, but
preserves a Norman tympanum from the former building. The carving
represents two griffins or wyverns facing each other in an attitude of
defiance. Wynford Manor House is a beautiful building of the early
seventeenth century. Under the stone eagle that surmounts the centre
gable is the date 1630. This was the home of the great Thomas
Sydenham, the founder of modern medicine. He was wounded while serving
in the army of the Parliament at the battle of Worcester and, probably
in consequence of the ill success that followed the bungling treatment
he received, determined to practise himself and adopt rational methods
for the treatment of disease and injury.
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