Publications
Charles Dawson's rare essay on the hermitage at Buxted, by Peter Miles, published 2007 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 145, article, pp.195-209) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15980] & The Keep [LIB/500363] & S.A.S. library View Online
Abstract:The Sussex antiquarian Charles Dawson, notorious for his involvement in the Piltdown Man fraud, wrote an essay on the rock hermitage at Buxted which has yet to figure in direct discussion of Dawson's life, work and forgeries. The essay was printed in limited numbers early in the twentieth century as the introduction to photograph albums commissioned by Cecil De M. Caulfeild Pratt of High Hurstwood, Buxted. Particularly in context with the photographs, Dawson's essay throws further light on his interests, motivations, scholarly methods and on previously unrecorded social and professional contacts. Internal evidence from Dawson's essay, together with the present author's family history, is used to suggest a window of dating for the essay and for the photographs (by Towner of Uckfield). It is further suggested how one of Dawson's footnotes to the essay relates to the forging of inscribed Roman tiles allegedly found at Pevensey Castle. Dawson's essay is then reproduced as an appendix, with some annotations.