The Pyramid, designed and constructed by BISC student Sarah Jane Meharg. The plaque that was later installed alongside it was erroneous, and has since been removed.

The Pyramid is a stone monument on the Herstmonceux Castle Estate, designed and constructed by Sarah Jane Meharg, a student here in the early years of the Bader International Study Centre. According to some Castle staff of the era, her work was inspired by the much larger pyramid-shaped mausoleum in memory of John "Mad Jack" Fuller, which was built prior to his death in a churchyard at Brightling, and which later served as his interment site.

A plaque to this effect - since removed - was made by a third party who had never met Sarah, and was placed alongside this pyramid several years after she had left the Castle.

As it turns out, that explanation was inaccurate. Sarah Meharg's pyramid is a solid structure comprised of stacked rectangular concrete blocks, many of which bear engraved plates with the names of schools and universities associated with the Bader International Study Centre.

In an online interview in 2023, Sarah denied that the pyramid was ever intended as a tribute to Mad Jack. Instead, its form was meant to be a strong architectural statement, symbolizing the combined collective strength, of the institutions participating in the Bader International Study Centre's international education experiment.

John "Mad Jack" Fuller (20 February 1757 – 11 April 1834) was Squire of the hamlet of Brightling, in Sussex, and a politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1780 and 1812. A polarizing figure today, he was quite popular in his own time. He built several follies on his estate lands, which can still be seen scattered through the East Sussex landscape. He purchased and commissioned many paintings from the renowned English landscape artist J.M.W. Turner, and was a sponsor and mentor to the pioneering physicist and electrochemist, Michael Faraday.

But though he was a philanthropist, and a patron of the arts and sciences, he was also - despicably - a slave owner, and a firm supporter of the institution of slavery. He was heir to a large family fortune which had two main sources: slave-ownership in a plantation in Jamaica, and a gun foundry business in Sussex. The unforgiveable economic source of his philanthropy, casts an indelible and perpetual shadow over any of the benevolent deeds he enabled.

Consistent with the philosophy of 'retain and explain', the Herstmonceux pyramid still remains in place on the Castle estate - but the story of its origins and intent have been clarified, to make the public aware that any structural similarity to the Fuller pyramid is coincidental, and no tributes to him were ever intended.

This pyramid is a positive testament to international education, collaboration, and scholarship.

Fuller's Follies - Visit 1066 Country. https://www.visit1066country.com/things-to-do/fullers-follies-p650821

John Fuller 'Mad Jack' - Profile & Legacies Summary. Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/-1047169191

Mad Jack Fuller. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Jack_Fuller.