"The area around Brightling, east of Heathfield, is famous for a number of follies built in the early 19th century by John ‘Mad Jack’ Fuller (1757-1834), an eccentric local squire and ironmaster who lived a the Rose Hill estate, now Brightling Park. These include the Obelisk (or Brightling Needle) on Brightling Down, built to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, and the cone-shaped Sugar Loaf (or Fuller’s Point) that stands in a field north of the B2056 just east of Woods Corner, south-west of Brightling, which Fuller is said to have built to win a bet. The story goes that he made a wager with a friend in London that he could see the spire of St Giles Church at Dallington from his house, but when he got home he found the view of the spire was blocked by a hill. Nothing daunted, in order to win the bet he had the Sugar Loaf folly built as a spire look-alike on high ground between his home and Dallington, which accurately resembled a distant view of the church’s distinctive spire when seen from his house. He was delighted with his ploy, and claimed that ‘no one can tell one from t’other’."
The authors do not provide any references so it is not known where either their assertion that the Obelisk was built in 1815 to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo or the quote attributed to Fuller originate.
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