Both Alfriston and Heathfield are in hilly country. By contrast Chiddingly is largely low-lying, in the vale between the sandstone and chalk ranges. Its clay soil is heavy and often damp, and whilst the parish boasts seven places call “Something-hill”, none of these has the height to justify such a description. Did the change in the scenic environment bother Richard and Mary, or is concern for scenery a 20^th-century preoccupation? Whether they liked the Chiddingly countryside or not, they had made their choice and must live with it.

Their new parish eyed them with suspicion. All 18^th and early 19^th century Sussex parishes eyed strangers with suspicion. The enquiries of well-dressed strangers were likely to be met with a long, cool stare followed by a turned back. Poor and walking strangers were likely to be physically assaulted and hurried over the parish boundaries. Such an attitude was not confined to Sussex, although the traditional isolation of that county by poor roads and dense forests possibly made distrust of “outlanders” more forcible.

C.P. Moritz, the German traveller in 1782 who had wanted to explore England on foot, was surprised and startled by the underlying hostility with which he was frequently greeted, especially in the counties south of Oxfordshire. In one village, women at their doors hissed at him as he passed. At last he realized why: he was walking. Only the poor walked. And as most parishes already had more than enough paupers of their own to support, their attitude to a walking stranger was to hurry him on his way in case he, too, became a burden on the parish. Nowhere was this more so than in Sussex which, proportionally, had more paupers than almost any other county.

The Act of 1601, passed in Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, had made it “compulsory for each parish to provide for the poor by levying a rate on all occupiers of property within its bounds. An unpaid parish officer, the overseer of the poor, was to be appointed. His duties were to levy and collect the rate and to see that it was extended to the relief of the aged and infirm poor, apprenticing to a trade the children of paupers, and the ‘setting on work’ of the able-bodied poor.”[3]  The later Act of Settlement, 1662, gave “powers to the parish overseers, on complaint to justices, to return to their parishes of settlement any newcomers to the parish who had no legal settlement within it.” The Lowers were newcomers. Clearly they were not paupers – yet. What, though would happen if Richard should die? Would Mary and the children-to-be become paupers? Chiddingly preferred to reserve judgment.