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Photo By Michael Botten of Hastings

A man who was such a colourful character as Jack could not face death in a conventional grave either, and he now lies buried under a 20 foot pyramid in Brightling church. The original tale attached to this was that he was buried wearing a top hat, sat at a table laid out for a feast complete with a bottle of port. The floor was also supposed to have been covered in broken glass, so the devil would cut his feet if he entered the tomb. The question that comes to mind here, is why did he expect the devil to come looking for him and not St Peter ?
Sadly, for it is a good yarn, it was all found to be untrue, when during restoration in 1983 the tomb had to be entered with, I would imagine, some trepidation.
On an inside wall were found some lines from Thomas Gray's (1716-1771) 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard'

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour,
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. "
Another myth is that running backwards around the pyramid 7 times will conjure up the Devil, the success rate of this is not recorded, but I prefer the good old tried and tested method, of just plain bad living.
The construction of the tomb was finished in 1811, 23 years before his death. As a condition for its construction it is said either Jack agreed to provide a new church organ or a new ale house to be built further away from the present one that was near to the church.
A church parish record entry at the time the proposed building was first mentioned to the church casts doubt on both of these theories however. In Headley and Meulenkamp's book, 'Follies', they state that a new wall with stone pillars and an iron gateway was provided in recompense.


Visiting:-
The tomb is found in the graveyard of St Thomas a Becket church in Brightling, this is 6 miles north-west of Battle.

Go here for a listing of Mad Jack's Follies  

Co-Ords: 568380 120980 / TQ 683209  

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