Kirsty Warren
Lindfield history pages
Lindfield history pages

Lindfield history pages

Articles published in:

2023

  • Lindfield History Project Group received a parcel containing hundreds of invoices dated between 1834 and 1835, for shopping and services supplied to the Tuppen household. Click here to learn about shopping in Lindfield’s history.

  • What is the connection between a car company, the theory of flight, an English university, the laws of combat, the concept of quality management and Walstead Burial Ground? The answer is Frederick William Lanchester. Click here to read more.

  • On Lindfield High Street in 1914, there were five public houses all selling beer obtained from commercial breweries, mostly in Brighton and Lewes. But one hundred years earlier, the village’s pubs were either brewing their own beer or being supplied by The Lindfield Brewery. Click here to read more.

  • The 3rd June 1953 was declared Coronation Day. To organise the celebrations in Lindfield, an Executive Committee with eight members was established. Click here to read all about the celebrations around Lindfield.

  • How much has the High Street changed in 100 years? This article compares the High Street in 1923 with today.

  • The previous article compared the west side of the High Street in 1923 with 2023; in this article we journey down the eastern side. Click here to read on.

  • Read here, all about the WWII submarine that disappeared without a trace and its connection to Lindfield.


2022

  • Click here to find out all about when, In 1899, the Lindfield Parish Council decided to form a volunteer fire brigade to provide fire cover for the parish.

  • To help the poor, between 1563 and 1601 the Government enacted legislation that provided a framework for the provision of poor relief by parishes. Click here to find out how Lindfield helped its poorer residents.

  • How has Lindfield celebrated royal events in the past? Click here to learn all about them.

  • Click here to read a continuation of the history of Lindfield’s royal celebrations.

  • In late 1921, an enterprising woman, Gladys Van Weede established - as sole proprietor - The Rainbow Pottery Company, trading from an outbuilding behind Abbotts Pharmacy on the High Street. Click here to read all about it.

  • From 1680 or earlier, three generations of the Neale family were innkeepers of the White Lion inn in Lindfield; later renamed the Bent Arms. Click here to read more.

  • Click here to find out all about Lindfield’s almost railway station.

  • If you or a family member have lived in Lindfield for many years, it would not be surprising if tucked away at the bottom of a drawer, or in an old album, there is a photograph by William Marchant. Click here to learn all about him.


2021

  • Ever wondered what Lindfield pond looked like in 1865? Click here to see and learn a little about the photo.

  • Click here to find out all about when the censuses started and what can they tell us about our village in years past.

  • Click here to find out all about the piano factory that was thriving in Victorian Lindfield.

  • This article looks at Lindfield fair through history.

  • Where have the Lindfield clergy resided in centuries past? Click here to find out.

  • Click here to find out all about Lindfield’s connection to Friar Tuck of Robin Hood fame and how John Bent gave his name to The Bent Arms.

  • This article explores another of Lindfield’s black history connections. The story begins with Francis Smith senior in Nevis, an island in the Eastern Caribbean. Click here to read more.

2020

  • The war had a dramatic effect on every aspect of life on the Home Front, to learn about Lindfield during this time, click here.

  • It is said that a village pub is the heart of the community. Click here to learn all about the pubs of Lindfield.

  • Here is part two of an in depth look at the pubs of Lindfield and their history.

  • Lindfield has often been described as possessing an ‘historic High Street’, due to the attractive and varied architectural styles of buildings lining the road, but what is the history of the road itself? Find out more here.

  • In the first days of May 1945, there was great expectation that the war would soon be over. Click here to find out more.

  • Although Lindfield School was established in 1881, its lineage can be traced back to William Allen in 1825. Click here to read all about it.

  • This article looks at Lindfield School between 1900 and 2000.

  • Residents have shared their memories with us from their time at Lindfield Primary School. Click here to read all about them.

  • The meeting place is stated as, ‘Society shall meet at the House of Thomas Finch, at the sign of the Tiger in Lindfield Town’. To learn all about the society and The Tiger click here.

2019

  • Did you know Lindfield had a castle? This was surrounded by a broad moat which joined to the river through gaps in the outer earthworks. Outside a ditch linked to a stream entirely surrounded the castle. Click here to read more.

  • In common with much of Lindfield, its origins can be traced back to Saxon times, when the lands are first mentioned in the copy charter dated 765. Learn more here.

  • All Saints Church at the top of the High Street was built in the 1300s in the Perpendicular style. Click here to learn all about it.

  • Lindfield was once little more than a high street with a few roads. Read here, the amazing transformation over the years.

  • A grand house with its origins in Elizabethan times, is perhaps an unlikely location for the founding of a revolution in education. Read Bedales history here.

  • During the first three quarters of the last century horticultural businesses thrived in and around Lindfield providing much employment. Read all about it here.

  • Until the early part of the 19th century, burial facilities were mainly provided by the Church of England in parish churchyards. Click here to find out why Walstead has its own burial ground.

  • It could be said that Lindfield is defined by the Common and Pond. To learn about their history, click here.

  • In 1938, Cuckfield Urban District Council, the local authority responsible for Lindfield, commenced planning for an evacuation. Click here to learn all about the children and the local families that took them in.

  • Does any other community have a bakery that traded continuously from the same premises for 223 years? Click here to learn all about the history of Lindfield’s oldest bakery.

  • Learn all about the history of Christmas traditions and how they’ve changed by clicking here.

2018

  • For eight hundred years much of the land in and around Lindfield formed the Manor of South Malling. Read more to find out how King Henry VIII changed all this.

  • Today nothing exists of the West Common and you would be forgiven for thinking the area completely lacks historical interest. However, there is always more to the story…

  • The land east of the High Street demonstrates the change and growth over 120 years which has helped to create today’s thriving community. Click here for more information.

  • Gravelye Lane for centuries was merely a track providing access to a couple of farmsteads and Northlands Wood. Find out what changed here.

  • At the top of the village, stands the grandiose and private Old Place that is largely obscured from view. Perhaps in a strange way, the property goes almost unnoticed when passing by. Learn here what it’s all about.

  • From the mid 1800s until about 60 years ago Lindfield was virtually encircled by big houses and their grounds. This article looks at two of these houses.

  • Mention ‘The Bent’ in Lindfield and one immediately thinks of The Bent Arms, but who was Bent and where did he live? Find out more here.

  • Lindfield’s The Old Forge is today, the home of Happy Feet Boutique children’s shoe shop, but how old is old? Click here to find out.

  • Lindfield Women’s Institute was established in June 1917. Activities included instruction in cooking, food economy, growing food crops, sewing and renovating old clothes. All that and more made these lovely ladies a beacon in struggling times. Read on to remember them.

  • News of the Armistice, bringing to an end the fighting, took time to spread and was not widely received until the following day. People needed to read it to believe it was true. Read here to see how locals celebrated.

  • Initial thoughts on a memorial for the village, as a permanent testament to the sacrifice made by local men, were first expressed in early 1919. Click here to learn more.

  • When did you last stand on Lindfield Bridge and look at the river? The dark, slow flowing water passes through private land with no public access, perhaps making it Lindfield’s hidden and forgotten river. Click here for more.

2017

  • Long before our smooth roads, horses had the hard job of pulling heavy carriages over all sorts of surfaces. Julius Guy, a Lindfield carriage builder, set about finding a way to improve the suspension and so much more. Read about this local hero today.

  • Worcester Sauce became popular in the 1840/50s and is still widely used. Today, instead of asking for Worcester sauce, you could have been asking for Lindfield Sauce had its makers had the business acumen of Mr Lea and Mr Perrin. Click here for more.

  • In the Mid Sussex Times in 1913 was: ‘As the result of a public reading at the Haywards Heath Corn Exchange, Dickens was able to hand £100 to the then Vicar of Lindfield ‘. But who wrote to the Times and why was Dickens handing over so much cash? Click here to find out.

  • Lindfield parish church had been in a poor state of repair for years. The problems stemmed from the church receiving very little money. Find out how Reverend Francis Hill Sewell saved the church.

  • A newspaper report in August 1861 commented that the school was ‘among the finest educational structures in Sussex.’ To find out more click here.

  • There were very few days during The Great War that determined how future land battles across the world would be fought; a son of Lindfield played a leading role in one such day. Please read on to find out more about our local hero.

  • Mention The Welkin to Lindfield residents today and it conjures up images of the houses with their neat gardens and well maintained grounds in the area behind the High Street and north of Hickmans Lane. Find out more here.

  • The name Finches does not derive from a Victorian country mansion. It is much older in origin dating back to a farm that existed in medieval times, with perhaps the land being farmed a thousand years ago. Click here for more.

  • This article explores the early history of the area and how Lindfield as we know it today came about. The first recorded reference to Lindfield is in a Saxon charter dated 765! Click here for more.

An 81 year old mystery solved - HMS Triumph

By Richard Bryant, Lindfield History Project Group

You may have seen newspaper articles and television news pieces in mid-June, reporting a 25-year search has finally brought to the end an 81 year old World War II submarine mystery, without realising the story had a connection with Lindfield. In All Saints church, there is a brass plaque mounted on the southern wall that reads:
Remember in Love
JOHN SYMONS HUDDART LIEUTENANT ROYAL NAVY H.M. SUBMARINE TRIUMPH WHO WITH HIS OFFICERS AND MEN WAS KILLED IN ACTION JANUARY 1942
The Lord of Hosts is with us

HMS Triumph

Lt. John Symons Huddart, known as Tommy, was 31 years old, living with his parents George and Clare Huddart at Froyls in the High Street. He joined the Royal Navy, Submarine Service in January 1934, completing his Commanding Officers course in April 1940. The command of several submarines followed before joining HMS Triumph in November 1940; a T-class 1,300 tonne submarine, 275ft long with a company of about 60 men that had been in the Mediterranean for 12 months patrolling and undertaking special covert operations.

On 20th November 1940, the submarine departed from Alexandria, Egypt for her 20th war patrol in the Aegean, which included special operational executive missions, returning to port on 11th December 1941. The crew were greeted with the news that the Triumph was to return home for crew leave and a refit. Joy was short lived as Triumph, being the only available operational submarine, was ordered to undertake her 21st mission. She was tasked with urgently landing 5,000 kilos of supplies including radios, weapons and possibly money for the Greek Resistance. The drop was to be made at Antipros, an isolated location where the supplies could be rowed ashore in a small boat. The few remaining Commonwealth servicemen that had evaded capture and were waiting at Antipros had expected to be evacuated after the unloading.

Telegram Triumph

However, Triumph had only just started her patrol and it appears that this had not been advised to the servicemen. Lt. Huddart decided not to have a debate on the beach about air consumption and food and water supplies, all of which were limited and restricted operational capabilities. Instead he simply quoted a change of orders preventing him from taking on board passengers, but promised he would return in 10 days to pick them up on his return to Alexandria. Triumph signalled Naval Command confirming successful completion of the deliveries and this was the last communication.

Triumph departed and was not seen or heard from again. She failed to show up at the promised rendezvous at Antipros on 9th January. On 21st January 1942, C & C Mediterranean reported to the Admiralty ‘Regret in absence of further news HMS Triumph must now be considered lost’. The circumstances and location of the disappearance of the submarine and what happened to the crew have remained a mystery ever since, but it was assumed that all crew perished. There is no German record of a submarine having been engaged.

In June 2023, it was announced that following years of searching Triumph had now been found in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece, lying 660ft below the surface. Images from a remotely operated submersible show her hull almost intact, although some damage to the stern is visible, possibly caused by an underwater explosion. Importantly, the images reveal that all the escape hatches and gun hatches were sealed closed indicating the crew are entombed inside. In that depth of water, crew were doomed as escape would have been impossible. Triumph was probably at a deep dive depth when the disaster struck.
The exact location of the submarine has yet to be disclosed as it must be treated with the respect of a maritime war grave. Protected by the strict archaeology laws of Greece.

This discovery brings to a close the 81 year old mystery and the location of the men’s grave. You can see a video clip of the submarine lying on the seabed here.

Lindfield's changing High Street - Part 2

The Bent Arms & The Cot

By John Mills and Richard Bryant, Lindfield History Project Group

The previous article compared the west side of the High Street in 1923 with 2023; in this article we journey down the eastern side. Starting at the top of the High Street, from the ornate Lindfield sign down to All Saints Church is residential today, as it was in 1923. After the church, the Tiger had ceased being an Inn in 1916, becoming the parish church house and has continued to be ever since.

After the passageway, 1 Tiger Cottages – No 120 – was a sweet shop called The Little Shop. Evidence of this past use can be seen in the remains of a shop front. After these cottages, Tallow Cottage, built in 1975, is the newest house in the High Street. It stands on the site of a wide entrance to the backyard and slaughterhouse of Wickham’s butcher’s shop and family home, which was situated in Oakley House (No 112). From this point down to the corner of Brushes Lane today is all residential - the exception in 1923 being Spongs, on the corner, which was Alfred Carey’s house and had his ironmonger’s shop attached. The large shop window is still evident, as is the old forge to the rear.

Brushes Lane was little more than a bridleway until 1957, when it was widened to provide access to the Dukes Road development. This necessitated the demolition of a building known as The Cot (see photo above) that had been built in the 1860s adjacent to the Bent Arms. Over the years it had had many uses, from railway company offices to storage to a dwelling and even, it is said, the Musical and Literacy Institute. To the rear of the Bent Arms is 96 High Street.

Previously the coach house and stables of the inn, it is now in mixed use. Today, from this point down to Boarsland on the corner of Alma Road is all residential. This was not the case a hundred years ago. Priory Cottage, No 86 - which was originally a medieval hall house - Crosskeys, No 76, and Boarsland, No 72, all had shop extension build-outs in their front gardens out to the pavement. Priory Cottage was a stationers and newspaper shop run by Ernest Welfare. Crosskeys, 76 High Street, also dating from medieval times, was divided into two cottages with the southern part having the front extension, which was the fishmonger’s and poulterer’s shop of Jacob Driver. Boarsland was Thomas Charman’s baker’s shop with the bake house behind.

Crossing over Alma Road, South Down Cellars wine merchants was, in 1923, H P Martin’s corn and coal merchant. A short mid-Victorian terrace known as Albert Terrace follows, today containing Ounce, Jackson-Stops, Somers café and Mathilda Rose. Respectively these were Mrs Helen Hodson’s confectioners, Rice Brothers’ saddlery and harness makers, Herbert Caffyn’s tobacconist and confectioners and finally at 1 Albert Terrace, John Holman’s Cycle and Motor Cycle Depot; until December 1922 it had been a cycle and gramophone shop.

Below the Red Lion stands Porters, a residential property that was previously Dr Hay’s surgery and family home. The private housing continues down to the United Reformed Church, originally the Congregational Chapel.

The next area was devoted to the Box family businesses. They ran a nursery that stretched parallel with Lewes Road and up Luxford Road. Interestingly, one of only a few shops to have continued the same trade over the period is Paul’s greengrocer’s. This had been James Box’s greengrocer shop. Next door was their florists, today Mark Revill & Co. Again, continuing the same trade is Cottenham’s, which was the Box butcher’s shop. Behind was Box’s storage and preparation rooms, today occupied by Nova Medispa – which recently moved from beside the Co-op.

In competition with Lloyds Bank across the road, Barclays had a sub branch in the first cottage, No 38. The neighbouring cottage was the home of John Sharman, Assistant Clerk to the Parish Council. This was followed by the Post Office and its adjoining sorting room, later extended into the Post Office and now Truffles Bakery.

Crossing Lewes Road and after Pear Tree House and the King Edward Hall in 1923 (and until recent times) was the White Horse Inn, now converted into Tamasha Indian restaurant. Slake Coffee Shop is housed in the inn’s stables. The private house – No 18 – did not exist in 1923 as this was the site of Lindfield Motor Garage owned by Messrs Boggis & Franklin. At Nos 14 and 16, the front shop extension, which is today the home of the Lindfield Barbers, was, a hundred years ago, a fishmongers and fish and chip shop run by Hubert Ellis. In later years it became the Pond Shop. Beyond this point the High Street remains residential, with the last property on the east side being Pelham House.

The big question is how does the High Street today compare with 1923? The answer in a few words is very favourably, with both serving the needs, trends and their communities of the time. There were a few more shops a hundred years ago but several in the same trade and presumably in competition. Missing today are drapers and ironmongers, but this a national trend. That said, it is probably fair to say, today’s shops collectively have a far greater range of goods than their earlier counterparts. Lindfield is fortunate to have such a vibrant High Street and long may this continue.

Contact via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/ or 01444 482136.

Lindfield's changing High Street - Part 1

Simmonds & Pranklins

By John Mills and Richard Bryant

How much has the High Street, which runs from the Black Hill mini roundabout northwards to the top of Town Hill, just beyond All Saints Church, changed in 100 years? This article compares the High Street in 1923 with today.

Starting on the western side of the street, the section from Black Hill roundabout along to the pond is little changed. The exception being Pondcroft, on the corner of Pondcroft Road, which had at the front an ironmonger’s and office of Anscombe and Sons. Their builder’s yard and workshop, now a private house, was a short distance up Pondcroft Road. The houses around the pond are unchanged.

The section from the northern end of the pond to Denmans Lane has seen the most dramatic change. Whilst the townscape of the High Street has remained largely visually unchanged and immediately identifiable, this area has changed beyond recognition with No 31 not being built until 1924. All the original buildings were demolished in 1964 and eventually replaced by the shops seen today, Selbys, Co-op and Nova Medispa. In 1923, this area was the site of Masters grocery and drapers shop regarded locally as Lindfield’s ‘department store’, and next door was Downs House, the Masters family home.

Masters

Across Denmans Lane, the corner premises currently, Corner Hairdressing was Wood’s Cycle Store. Next door a confectioners and tobacconist shop, was run by George Mighall; soon to be the Black Duck coffee shop. Previously the neighbouring business was Capital and Counties Bank which had opened a branch in 1910. The bank became part of Lloyds Bank in 1918 and the branch remained open until 2000. The premises were then acquired by Stand Up Inn and became part of the inn. When occupied by the bank, Mary Newton, lived and had a dressmaker’s business on the premises.

Standing back from the pavement, The Old Brewery and Brewery Cottage, Nos 49 and 51, were once part of Lindfield Brewery that stopped brewing in 1906 and was subsequently used for storage in 1923.

The fine medieval building, today Lindfield Eye Care Practice and Mansell McTaggart, was in 1923 the longstanding location of Durrant’s grocers, china and drapers emporium. Nos 55-57 High Street, Lindfield Medical Centre, was the site of the former Assembly Rooms but used in 1923 as storage by Durrant’s shop.

Adjacent to the walkway was Miss Simmons, stationer and newsagent, now Tufnells Home. Mounted at first floor level and difficult to see on the neighbouring building, is a nameplate reading Prospect House, the home of Hamilton Stone Design, kitchen designers and installer. A hundred years ago it was the popular shoe and boot shop run by Joseph Pranklin.

The adjacent private house was the home of Richard Humphrey, who with his father ran the eponymous Humphrey’s bakery. In recent years it was Lindfield’s best-known shop, having been a bakers since 1796. Sadly, it closed a couple of years ago and awaits a new purpose. Behind stood the bake house now repurposed as the soon to be new home of Doodie Stark, a ladies fashionable boutique.

In the mid 1800s, a short terrace of three storey properties was built called 1 – 4 Victoria Terrace, but now formally numbered 67-73 High Street. The first property is currently the Limes Thai Kitchen, until the late 1920s it was a private residence, before becoming the Lindfield Telephone Exchange, following the electrification of the High Street. Alongside was the home and business of T W Heasman, a house, land and insurance agent. Today, it is Caragon Boutique, a ladies’ clothes shop. Wilfred Capon’s ladies’ and gentleman’s outfitters and general drapery shop traded next door, today the home and business premises of Peter Voigt, a violin restorer. Just as it was in 1923, No 4 remains a private residence.

Known as ‘Poplars’, Nos 75 and 77 High Street are today Tufnells, and Denziloe Hair Design was Joseph Whall’s hairdresser and Poplars Laundry run by Miss May Brown. Kieron James Toys next door was an annexe to the laundry.

In 1923, Wigelsworth Tailors had a branch under the management of George Blunt in the premises now occupied by Martins Newsagents and Lindfield Post Office. Pleasingly, Abbott’s name has remained unchanged serving as a chemists for Lindfield for well over a century, although the owners have changed. The outbuilding in the backyard was Rainbow Pottery.

The fine dwellings, Manor House and Nash House, have always been residential and whilst the adjoining timber framed Well House and Barnlands give a similar impression, they had previously been a poulterers and greengrocers shop. Maud Savill of Finches with her desire to beautify the High Street, purchased the property and converted the shop and cottages into the two houses as seen today.

Looking towards Wrattans

On the northern side of Hickmans Lane, stands a retail unit that, in many years past, was a Toll Cottage for the Newchapel to Brighton Turnpike Road. In 1923, it was the business of Clifford Featherstone, a watch and clock maker. Until recently the home to Doodie Stark, and the last retail unit before the street becomes wholly residential. This was not the case a century ago.

Adjoining was Wratten’s grocers and drapers shop; evidence of this past retail use can be seen by the blank plaque on the facade below the roof line, which once carried the shop’s name. At Doone House, No 111, David Davies ran a tailoring business and his wife, Helen a costumier’s. In the yard at No 115 was the coal and wood merchants owned by James Scutt - the family lived in the house. A little further up the street lived the Misses Wells who were milliners.

Evidence of past trade use can also be seen on the southern side wall of No 129. The now painted over trade sign read, ‘George Mason Fly and Cab Proprietor. Carriages of Every Description For Hire’. While in the right section of the property, Romany Cottage, a shop window still remains in the northern front corner. This part was occupied by Joseph ‘Daddy’ Clough, a boot and shoe maker.

The Bower House, built in medieval times and widely regarded as one of the three oldest surviving houses in Lindfield, surprisingly was in 1923 divided into two cottages. The southern end was home to John Wingham, a builder, and his family. The other half was the home of Herbert Scutt and family - his occupation was motor carman; a carrier of goods by motor van.

Beyond this point has always been residential with Lindfield Place providing the full stop to the High Street. This ends the journey up the western side of the High Street. Next month’s article will return down the east side.

Contact via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/ or 01444 482136.

Click here for Lindfield’s changing High Street - Part 2

The 1953 Coronation in Lindfield

By Richard Bryant, Lindfield History Project Group

Following Elizabeth’s accession to the throne on 6th February 1952, thoughts nationally turned to the Coronation and how it should be celebrated. The 3rd June 1953 was declared Coronation Day. To organise the celebrations in Lindfield, an Executive Committee with eight members was established supported by a 39 strong General Committee. A souvenir brochure was produced and sold for one shilling.

On Coronation morning, the Lindfield Coronation Committee sent the following telegram message to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace, ‘With humble respect, congratulations to Your Majesty, from your loyal subjects of Lindfield, Sussex’.

The Mid Sussex Times reported ‘Lindfield had put on its gayest attire’ with the main centre of the decorative scheme being the pond, with flags, banners and shields on poles along the water’s edge. An archway spanned the road at both ends. Contractors undertook the decorations and illuminations. All the shops decorated their windows. Many houses were also dressed for the occasion and numerous Union flags hung from windows and improvised flag poles. The Lindfield Horticultural Society gave a prize to the best decorated house; the winner being 35 Luxford Road.

Coronation Day celebrations started at 9am with the pealing of the church bells by the Lindfield Church Bell Ringing Society. Unfortunately the weather did not match the joyous pealing of the bells; it remained grey with showers and chilly all day.

For those able to afford a television, the ceremony was broadcast from Westminster Abbey. Fortunate owners invited family, friends and neighbours to watch the ceremony. Many more listened on the radio. Women and men over 60 and 65 respectively were invited to the King Edward Hall to watch a specially installed television rigged to project onto a large screen. About 260 attended, many seeing television for the first time. The sound broadcast was relayed to the Common.

The Firing of the Anvils at 2pm in the High Street, near the Lewes Road junction, heralded the start of the day’s events on the Common and pond. The first event was the Fancy Dress procession organised by the Lindfield Dramatic Club, with 60 entrants parading from Pondcroft Road to Lewes Road and onto the Common for judging. This was followed by an Empire Tableau arranged by Mr Porter and Miss Anscombe of Lindfield School. The children performed an explanation of the Royal Coat of Arms painted on shields.

A short open air inter-dominational religious service followed, conducted by the three village churches. On Coronation Sunday, 31st May, the churches had held a Special Order of Service.

At 3.20pm, the presentation of ‘awards to Our Birthday Guests’ was made to the eight residents of the parish whose birthdays fell on Coronation Day. Each received an iced birthday cake.

Amid much excitement, the focus then turned to ‘Aquatic Sports’ on the pond organised by Lindfield Men’s Club. These comprised of swimming races for men and women together with novelty events such as a beer barrel race, mop fight, greasy pole and a Miller v Sweep contest. The two contestants, one armed with a bag of soot and the other with flour, sat astride a pole over the pond, with the loser being the first to be knocked into the water.

There was also a demonstration by Horace Putman of his radio controlled model liner.

The watching crowds returned to the Common for the start of the sports organised by the village sports clubs, the majority of which were for children. In addition to running events, less serious races were held including a balloon race, dog and child race, slow bicycle race, skipping and obstacle races. Adults were not ignored with a variety of competitions such as, men and ladies’ tug-of-war, ladies’ over 50 years egg and spoon race and a ladies’ and gentlemen’s cigarette race.

While the sports were proceeding, an ‘Old Folks High Tea’ was served by the Women’s Institute with catering by the Bent Arms in the Social Centre, now part of Old School Court, Lewes Road. Children of all ages lined up to receive souvenir mugs, emblems and a packed tea. In the early evening the Lindfield Conservative Association organised a Treasure Hunt on the Common.

At 9pm, the Coronation Dance commenced in King Edward Hall with music by the Harmonists Band, the dancing continuing until after midnight. As darkness fell a torchlight procession from Pondcroft Road proceeded via Denmans Lane, Compton Road and High Street onto the Common for a giant bonfire and a spectacular firework display. Illuminations were turned on and the church steeple floodlit, bringing to a close this memorable day.

Contact via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/or 01444 482136.

The Lindfield Brewery

The Stand Up at 47 High Street

By John Mills, Lindfield History Project Group

On Lindfield High Street in 1914, there were five public houses: The Bent Arms, The Red Lion, The Stand Up Inn, The Tiger Inn and The White Horse, all selling beer obtained from commercial breweries, mostly in Brighton and Lewes. But one hundred years earlier, the village’s pubs were either brewing their own beer or being supplied by The Lindfield Brewery.

Beer was produced from barley, sugar, hops, yeast and water (known as ‘liquor’ in the industry). The barley was made into malt in a malthouse by soaking it, allowing the seeds to sprout, and then drying it in a kiln to stop the sprouting. The malt, once ground, was mixed with hot water to convert the starch to sugar, and the now-sweet liquid (the wort) was boiled with dried hops, cooled, and passed into a fermenting vessel. Yeast was added, which, feeding on the sugar as fermentation proceeded, converted the sugar to alcohol. After a few days, excess yeast was removed and the resulting beer was left to mature before being put into casks or bottles.

In the 1700s, Lindfield had a malthouse, where the United Reformed Church now stands, and at one time a hop kiln, much later replaced by the house at 78 High Street. Some houses had brewhouses (or brewing rooms), for home brewing from malt, but most brewing in Lindfield village would have been carried out in the outbuildings of its inns.

Wholesale commercial brewing arrived in Lindfield after 1784, when a Brighton brewer, Richard Lemmon Whichelo, bought Malling Priory, a private house. On part of its large garden, between The Bent Arms and the back of the house, he erected brewery buildings around three sides of a yard. The distinctive half-H-shaped configuration of the buildings appears on a map of 1792. Later, only part of Malling Priory was used by the brewery, and the remainder was let to other tenants. In the early 1800s it was known as the Brew House..

Whichelo’s main residence and brewery remained in Brighton. From 1800, he first tried to sell, then let his Lindfield brewery, with two pubs attached; he also owned The White Lion (now Bent Arms) and Ryecroft (52 High Street) – the first site of the Red Lion.

In 1801, the brewery was advertised as the only one within 12 miles of the village, “with a new-erected malthouse, convenient store-rooms, vault, stabling (and) large yard…..The business of the brewery is done with little expense; the work being done by a horse mill, where the malt is ground, the liquor is pumped up, and the worts into the copper (boiling vessel), all at one time.” In this mill, or ‘horse gin (engine)’, a horse walked in a circle, pulling a timber arm linked to gearing which operated the pumps and grindstones.

Henry Clerk, brewer, rented the brewery in 1803, in 1806 selling the remainder of his lease and the contents of the house and buildings, including ‘old beer, porter, malt, hops, vats and casks, two draught horses’.

Hughes and Co., partners in the Storrington Brewery, were the new tenants, and ran both breweries until 1815, when they went bankrupt. An Eastbourne coal merchant and brewer, Richard Buckley Stone, who lived for a time in Lindfield, became tenant from 1815, using the brewery also for his coal business. In 1819, he also went bankrupt.

Whichelo, still the owner, died in 1818, leaving The White Lion and brewery to his son Matthew, a wine merchant. He promptly, but unsuccessfully, put them on the market, then let them in 1819, advertising that ‘there are a great number of free Public Houses in the neighbourhood of Lindfield, with which considerable (brewery) business has been done’.

A new partnership, (William) Durrant and (Thomas) Wileman, then rented the brewery, both local men, ‘common- (commercial wholesale) brewers and maltsters’. Between 1824 and 1827,John Bent, a gentleman, bought several houses in Lindfield, the brewery and The White Lion, changing the pub’s name to The Bent Arms.

Wileman and another partner had left the partnership by 1825. William Durrant, who also had a High Street grocer’s and draper’s (cloth) shop, where the Co-op now stands, continued the brewery on his own. During his occupancy, part of the Brew House was let to his niece Miss Ann Baker for her boarding school for young ladies.

In 1833-34, William Durrant too went bankrupt, having to sell his properties, but kept the tenancy of his shop. Bent let the brewery to Gosling Philp and Richard Philp, common-brewers and partners, but when the first dropped out and the second was bankrupted in 1838, the brewery was again left untenanted.

From 1839, Henry Adolphus Baber briefly rented the brewery, he and all subsequent tenants until 1885 describing themselves as maltsters, rather than brewers. Apparently, brewing at the ‘Old Brewery’ had ended.

Baber was also a corn and coal merchant; the buildings and yard continued for coal merchant’s stores, and presumably the malthouse for malting. The Bent family properties were put up for sale in 1885, and the brewery demolished in 1886, to be replaced in 1890 by the present semi-detached houses, 92-94 High Street.

William Durrant may have seen a gap in the local brewing market appearing around 1839-40, buying a house and butcher’s shop (known as ‘Morlands’) at 53-55 High Street (Eye Care Practice and Mansell McTaggart). In 1840-41 he again described himself as a brewer, together with his son Edward, and by 1842 had built a small brick-built brewery behind Morlands (now converted into two cottages, Old Brewery and Old Brewery Cottage, 49-51 High Street). Morlands became William Durrant’s new grocer’s and linen draper’s shop.

William died in 1848. In 1845, Edward Durrant was running the ‘new’ Lindfield Brewery and did so until the end of his life (1902). After the redevelopment in 1854 of the corner of Denmans Lane with five terraced houses (41-47 High Street, pictured), Edward leased the northernmost house and opened it as the Brewery Tap beer shop, under William Barlow, also a boot and shoe maker. The beer shop proprietor was licensed to sell beer and cider only, for consumption on or off the premises.

The ground floor premises of the early beer shop were small (The Stand Up now occupies three of the five houses in the terrace). The story goes that Edward Durrant considered that if workmen had a glass of beer standing up, they returned to work, but if they sat down over it there was no knowing when they would return; and so the beerhouse, without chairs, became known as The Stand Up Inn.

In 1879, the brewery offered a Family Bitter Ale for one shilling (1s/ 5p) per gallon (8 pints), and in the 1880s home-brewed ale from eightpence (8d/ 3½p) to 1s 6d per gallon, a Light Dinner Ale and London porter, stout and double stout. Later, prices were 2d to 8d a quart (two pints), the cheaper beer being known familiarly as ‘apron washings’ (slang for porter).

Behind Morlands, where the Durrant family continued their grocery shop until the 1970s, there was another horse gin under an octagonal roof, which was used for the brewery’s pumping and machinery.

When Edward Durrant died, the Lindfield Brewery carried on under his widow and son, Fanny Sara and Bartley Durrant, until 1906, when it closed. Her name, and Licensed Brewer, can still be seen on a timber beam in The Stand Up. In 1909 Ballard & Co., of the Southover Brewery, Lewes, bought the brewery, but besides supplying the beerhouse with their 1910 Premier Ale and Coronation Ale, did not restart brewing there.

After being damaged in the 1987 great storm, the horse gin eventually collapsed, but thanks to the Durrant family and by dint of strong co-operative local efforts, the gin was re-erected behind The Red Lion in 1995.

Contact 01444 482136 or via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/

Frederick William Lanchester

By Richard Bryant, Lindfield History Project Group

What is the connection between a car company, the theory of flight, an English university, the laws of combat, the concept of quality management and Walstead Burial Ground? The answer is Frederick William Lanchester.

At Walstead Burial Ground, Frederick is commemorated on a stone tablet at the base of his parents’ - Henry Jones Lanchester and Octavia Lanchester - gravestone, along with his sister, Mary, and brother, Vaughan. The ashes of Frederick, together with those of his brother and sister, are buried in this grave.

Henry and Octavia Lanchester died in 1914 and 1916 respectively, having lived at ‘Southlea’, Sunte Avenue, Lindfield for a number of years. He was an architect, as was his son Henry (Vaughan) Lanchester, who was eminent in the profession.

Frederick William Lanchester was born in Lewisham on 23rd October 1868. He studied engineering and science and attended the Royal College of Science but did not graduate. However, in recognition of his contribution to aerodynamics and engineering, in 1920 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Birmingham. In the years that followed, he was accorded numerous other prestigious honours, including Fellowship of the Royal Society.

His early years were as an employed engineer at the Forward Gas Engine Company in Birmingham, developing gasoline engines. In 1893, Frederick set up his own workshop and built his first engine. The following year this was fitted to a boat, creating the first all-British powerboat. In 1895, he produced the first four-wheeled gasoline car in England. This led to the setting up of the Lanchester Engine Company and subsequently the Lanchester Car Company being established. The cars were highly regarded for the quality of their engineering. Frederick resigned from the company in 1910. Many years later, the business was acquired by Daimler.

Frederick, a visionary genius, was responsible for many significant inventions in automobile engineering, including disc type brakes, an ‘automatic’ transmission system, power steering, four-wheel drive, fuel injection, the dynamic balancing of engines and low voltage ignition. In his life, he filed 426 patents, ranging from components for reproducing music to a colour photographic process.

However, his overwhelming interest was aerodynamics and powered flights. He was the foremost proponent on the theory of flight based on the vortex theory. This remains the foundation for flight to this day, although he was initially persuaded to delay the publication of his theory, which was so advanced for its time that it might have damaged his reputation as an engineer.

Many other papers followed, culminating in his two-volume treatise in 1907 on aerodynamics, entitled ‘Aerial Flight’. This was followed by further valuable contributions to the literature on aeronautics such as ‘Flying Machine from an Engineering Standpoint’.

Upon the outbreak of the Great War, Frederick became convinced of the need for a mathematical analysis of the relative strengths of opposing battlefield forces to describe the effectiveness of aircraft. Resulting from quantitative studies of casualties in land, sea and air battles, he developed the two Lanchester Laws – the Linear Law of Combat and the N-Squared Law of Combat. These were published in 1916 as his seminal work, ‘Aircraft in Warfare – the Dawn of the Fourth Arm’.

His work in aeronautics continued into the 1920s and 1930s, with papers on the counter-rotating propellers, rocket-assisted flight and other technical topics. In 1931, Frederick received the Daniel Guggenheim Medal for his ‘Contribution to the Fundamental Theory of Aerodynamics’. Five years earlier, the Royal Aeronautical Society had bestowed its gold medal upon him.

However, at this time Frederick was becoming increasingly absorbed in musical reproduction, leading to many significant developments in the design and manufacture of advanced speakers, microphones and amplifiers.

Following the start of World War Two, the US military started to study the Lanchester Laws of Combat. These were successfully applied in US military strategy in the later stages of the war, including operations in the central Pacific. To this day the Lanchester principles are taught in military colleges. Frederick’s extensive writings on military subjects, including logistics, became a founding element in the science of Operational Research.

Frederick died on 8th March 1946 with little wealth. His life of invention and visionary theories had not translated into a personal fortune. He had spent most of his adult life in the Midlands.

Dr W Edward Deming, an American helping with the reconstruction of Japan, introduced Frederick’s work on Operational Research to that country in 1952. This resulted in Lanchester being regarded as one of the four founders of the concept of Quality Management, which became the cornerstone of Japanese industrial success. To this day, Kaisen continuous improvement is practiced by organisations across the world, from Toyota to the Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust.

Subsequent research by the Japanese produced a reworking of the Lanchester Laws of Combat into strategies for corporate competition. In 1962, the theories were further refined by Dr Taoko as the Lanchester Strategy of Sales and Marketing. Briefly this provides rules for selecting a strategy depending upon whether a company was attacking a new market or defending an existing market position. These have since been widely applied by Japanese corporations with over two million books on the subject sold in Japan.

Many regard the application of Lanchester’s theories as being, in part, responsible for the Japanese focus on competitive advantage and market share resulting in their county’s economic success. Arguably, his name is better known and more highly regarded in Japan than in Britain, particularly since the university named in his honour has been renamed the University of Coventry.

Lindfield should be proud to have an engineer and polymath of the eminence of Frederick William Lanchester resting in Walstead Burial Ground.

Shopping in Lindfield in 1834 and 1835

By Richard Bryant and Rosemary Davies, Lindfield History Project Group

A couple of years ago, a website message was received enquiring if the group would like some old documents relating to the village. It appeared a gentleman in Ewell, Surrey had purchased, at auction, a box of old documents relating to that area and, to his surprise, at the bottom were Lindfield papers. A parcel duly arrived containing hundreds of invoices dated between 1835 and 1845, for shopping and services supplied to the Tuppen household.

After extensive research a comprehensive analysis of purchases was completed and each trader identified. This gives an intriguing insight into shopping by a wellto-do household and the commercial life in Lindfield during the early to mid 1800s. In those days, virtually all needs were supplied by traders in Lindfield village and the wider parish. Unlike today, residents did not have the benefit of supermarkets in Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill nor online shopping. Neither was there refrigeration, frozen foods or canned goods. Also, if something was broken, repair took precedent over replacement. Life was much simpler.

Who were the Tuppens? – Dr Richard Stapley Tuppen lived with his sister, Sarah Tuppen, at Froyls in the High Street, having inherited the house from their father Dr Henry Tuppen, upon his death in 1814. Their mother Mrs Sarah Tuppen, nee Stapley, was a member of the wellconnected and wealthy Stapley family, whose seat was at Hickstead Place, Twineham. Dr Richard Tuppen died in 1840, aged 59. Froyls passed to his sister Sarah and she continued to live there as a spinster, until her death in 1857 aged 72 years.

Throughout the Tuppens’ time at Froyls, they maintained a household of three live-in servants and at least one outside staff. They were typical of the more comfortably off residents living in Lindfield at the time. Their spending power with local traders was therefore in excess of the working population and this is reflected in their purchases, which were all made ‘on account’.

The most perishable food purchased was raw meat, which was bought two or three times a week from either Comber Turner, butchers, who traded from an open fronted booth type shop where Tallow Cottage stands today or George Jenner, butchers, also in the High Street. In February 1834 the Tuppens purchased in total 28lb of beef including steak, 3lb mutton chops and a 7lb leg of mutton from the two butchers.

Pork does not appear to have been bought from the butchers but purchased direct from farmers as either a half fat pig or a whole hog. The former cost £2.15s.9d (£2.73). How such quantities of meat were kept edible is not known. It is also thought the Tuppens kept a pig or two in their back garden, as there is a reference to a repair of a ‘hog pound’ among the invoices. Similarly, chickens were kept for eggs. No invoices exist for vegetables and fruit so presumably these were also home grown by the gardener. Milk was delivered daily to the door.

Butter was bought direct from farmers in large quantities of at least 15 pounds in weight a month and on occasions 30 pounds with custom regularly given to Thomas Bannister, Beech Farm, Cuckfield. Additionally, on occasions two pound butter pats were purchased from village grocers.

A grocer favoured by the Tuppens was P. Caffyn, situated to the rear of the churchyard. Regular purchases included cheese, currants, peel, sugar and tea. Flour was purchased in bulk at one bushel every month or so, from John Coomber, farmer and miller at Cockhaise Farm and also Freshfield Mill and East Mascalls Mill. Similarly, sugar was purchased in bulk from grocers. More specialist provisions such as Souchong Chinese black tea, Green tea, Caraway seeds and surprisingly, yellow soap, were purchased from J. Collard, believed to have traded in Lewes.

Copious quantities of beer were purchased at the rate of six gallons every two or three weeks, from William and Edward Durrant, grocers, brewer and general store, at Morelands (today Lindfield Eye Centre and Mansell McTaggart). Intriguingly, gin was bought from Mr. B. Beckett, a brick maker and victualler, with two gallons being purchased in April 1834 and again in February 1835. In June 1834, Mr. Beckett supplied 200 bricks – an odd combination!

Throughout 1834 and 1835, one and a half bushels (90lbs) of malt (germinated grain) was purchased each month from Samuel Molineaux, a maltster at Boltro Farm, Haywards Heath. Hops were also bought suggesting beer was also being brewed.

Turning to household purchases and repairs local traders met most of the Tuppens needs. During 1834, Edward Batchelor, with a smithy in the High Street, provided a new rake, spade and shovel, a bell for the gate and fixed a plate to the fire range, all at a cost of 18 shillings. In the following year, a sewer grate, chimney bar and fastenings to the hog pound were made and fitted. Repairs to saddles, reins, bridle straps, dog chain and even a carpet broom, were provided by Abel Brown of Viking Cottage. Repairs to barrels with new hoops were undertaken by Edward Dann, Cooper, of Back Lane, Cuckfield.

John Harland, draper and tailor, at today’s 103-105 High Street, supplied 28 yards of sheeting and 27 yards of ‘homebid’ binding totalling £1.13s.5½d., suggesting that bed sheets were made and not purchased ready-made.

To fire the kitchen range and heat the house, hundreds of faggots (bunch of sticks tied for burning) and wood were purchased from Henry Morley at Nether Walstead. Henry Morley also provided stakes, bean sticks and pea boxes for the garden. Hedging plants were purchased from Henry Pierces, woodsman and plantsman of Bedales Hill. In later years, coal by the ton was supplied by George Saxby from his yard by the Ouse; however, coal invoices for 1834-35 appear to be missing.

Boot and shoe repairs, including servants’ shoes, were carried out by Henry Wells, a shoemaker, at Froyls Cottage, today Chantry Cottage. While Charles Bish, a fellmonger (dealer in hides) and breeches maker provided new gaiters and repairs to breeches for the Tuppens’ groom.

A significant number of invoices from local builders exist for building work, such as repairs to windows and doors in the house, stables and outbuildings plus household repairs ranging from tables and chairs, to beds and even tea caddies, presumably all carpentry tasks. Like with food, specialist items such as cut glass, fine china and Japanese lacquered waiter (small table) and tray were purchased from retailers in Lewes.

The Tuppen papers do not include any invoices for clothing but, as with other items, would mainly have been purchased from Lindfield’s tailors, dressmakers, glovers, milliners and shoemakers.

The invoices illustrate that life in the 1830s was much simpler than today. Even for the well-to-do, food shopping was largely limited to the basic ingredients from which a meal could be prepared. Lindfield village and its parish was a self-sustaining community. It had to be, and it was not until long after the coming of the railway in 1841 that Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill started to grow into towns. Although close by Cuckfield had similar facilities to Lindfield. The closest large town and easiest journey was Lewes, but this was only available to those fortunate residents with their own horses and carriage, and then for only occasional trips.

Contact https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/ or 01444 482136.

The Lindfield Photographer - William Marchant

By Richard Bryant & Janet Bishop, Lindfield History Project Group

If you or a family member have lived in Lindfield for many years, it would not be surprising if tucked away at the bottom of a drawer, or in an old album, there is a photograph by William Marchant. His photographs have provided a rich legacy of life, events and people in Lindfield during the first half of the last century. They are recognisable by his signature or embossed name.

By Richard Bryant & Janet Bishop, Lindfield History Project Group If you or a family member have lived in Lindfield for many years, it would not be surprising if tucked away at the bottom of a drawer, or in an old album, there is a photograph by William Marchant. His photographs have provided a rich legacy of life, events and people in Lindfield during the first half of the last century. They are recognisable by his signature or embossed name.

His work included studio portraiture, composed outdoor photographs and events. Generally, only limited numbers of scenic postcards were produced.

William Marchant started his business in 1911 and among his earliest work was a series of cards capturing the village celebrating the 1911 Coronation. He advertised in the Mid Sussex Times: “Have your decorations, your house, garden etc. photographed, for post cards on Coronation Day.” Perhaps his bestknown photo is his impressive image of the Army airship ‘Gamma’, which landed on the Common while on a training exercise in April 1912. Fifteen hundred photographs were sold, with cards at one penny each and mounted photographs at one shilling. The Great War provided a rich source for him, with postcards from the Royal Army Medical Corps billeted in the village to the Welcome Home celebrations and the unveiling of the War Memorial.

As his career progressed, the quality of his work was recognised with Marchant’s appointment as the Scientific Photographer to Sir Arthur Woodward, the eminent geologist who was famously fooled by the Piltdown Man ‘missing link’ fraud. William Marchant could also claim that he took one of the first photographs to appear in the Mid Sussex Times - that of Mrs Neville Chamberlain opening a hospital ward in Cuckfield.

The opening of his studio at 6 Luxford Road (old numbering) allowed portraiture of individuals and families. This line of work took off with the Great War, when every family and sweetheart wanted a picture of their ‘man in uniform’ before he left Lindfield for an uncertain future. Family celebrations, weddings and gatherings were also much in demand throughout his career. Also popular were photographs of cast members in productions at King Edward Hall, sports teams and posed outdoor subjects.

His later works included photos for the Haywards Heath, Cuckfield and Lindfield Guide, published by the local Chamber of Commerce and the All Saints Church Guide, written by Helena Hall.

Who was William Marchant? He was born on 21st August 1886 to his parents John and Elizabeth Marchant, who lived at Somerset Cottages, adjacent to the Common. William was one of six children. After leaving school, he trained and worked as a printer at Charles Clarke Ltd. William Marchant married Myra Hookway, a Lady’s Maid for the Sturdy family at Paxhill, in August 1912 at Lindfield Parish Church and they set up home at 6 Luxford Road, where he opened his first studio. He continued living at Luxford Road until moving to Sunte Avenue (today number 77) in 1924, where he built a studio and small printing works in the rear garden.
William Marchant worked until late in his life, dying aged 79 years in 1965.

Contact 01444 482136 or via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/

Lindfield almost had a railway station

By Richard Bryant and John Mills, Lindfield History Project Group

Lindfield nearly had a railway station north of the church - at the bottom of Town Hill (north of the High Street, close to Ardingly Road). It was planned to be the first stop on the Ouse Valley line. The proposed line ran from Skew Bridge, just north of Haywards Heath, and a little way south of the impressive Ouse Valley Viaduct on the main London to Brighton line. The line was to be built in sections, with the stretch from the Brighton line to Uckfield being called Ouse Valley No. 1 and that from Uckfield to Hailsham called Ouse Valley No. 2. A third section was planned to St Leonards.

There were to be further stations at Fletching, Newick, Uckfield junction, East Hoathly, Hailsham and ultimately additional stations to St Leonards. Stops serving Scaynes Hill, Framfield and Chiddingly were proposed.

The reason for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSC) wanting to build the line was not due to heavy passenger or freight demand from Haywards Heath to Hailsham and beyond. The origins of the desire to build the line were myriad in railway politics of the 1850s and early 1860s. The relationship between LBSC and the rival South Eastern Railway could briefly be described as competitive and far from harmonious.

The LBSC wanted to extend its routes and influence eastward from the Brighton line, while the South Eastern and the London, Chatham and Dover Railways were equally keen to expand westward into LBSC territory and even to Brighton itself. The Ouse Valley line was seen as a means of countering such moves and to create a shorter route to Eastbourne and Hastings. The first and second sections – No.1 and No.2 – were sanctioned by Parliament with the passing of the London Brighton South Coast Act on 23rd June 1864. Further sections were sanctioned the following year.

Construction work was put out to tender and the contract secured by W&J Pickering, railway contractors of Blackfriars, London, under the supervision of William Pickering. Preparatory work was put in hand and the Brighton Gazette reported: “Near the Ardingly Road a novelty has sprung up in a marvellously short time in the shape of a considerable village with ‘Tommy’ shops and workshops, stabling, offices and a complete street of neat and substantial dwellings for the workmen, erected by the contractors.”

The ‘first sod’ was cut on 17th May 1866 and celebrated with a dinner in the Bent Arms. The railway company had established a local office in a building (demolished c.1958) adjacent to the inn.

At its starting point at Skew Bridge, the brick abutments carrying the London to Brighton line were widened and this brickwork can still be seen today. From here the track bed travelled east along a large embankment, through a 57 foot deep cutting and across Copyhold Lane. It then skirted the northern edge of today’s Haywards Heath Golf Club, before entering a deep cutting to pass under High Beech Lane. A shallow cutting followed as it neared Kenwards farmhouse and continued with two cottages in its path being demolished. Spoil from cuttings was run out along trolley lines and tipped to create the embankments.

After Kenwards, a short tunnel was planned but never dug, emerging into another cutting before running onto an embankment and across Spring Lane. The track continued on an embankment crossing the B2028 Lindfield to Ardingly road on a bridge. This embankment and bridge abutments remain visible at the bottom of Town Hill.

The embankment continued for a short distance on the eastern side, requiring the demolition of two old cottages that LBSC had purchased in 1866. The railway company replaced these with two small semi-detached cottages, known as Town Hill Cottages, situated immediately downhill of the eastern bridge abutment. Perhaps they were intended to house LBSC workers? The railway company owned the cottages for many years before being sold and becoming part of the Old Place Estate; they were demolished around 1936. After this short embankment, the track bed runs into a cutting at Hangmans Acre.

The contractors were making good progress despite the difficulties caused by a hard winter, several fatal accidents and being successfully sued by the Newchapel to Brighton Turnpike Trust for damage to the road by carts.

Work was starting to head eastward out of Lindfield when construction stopped abruptly in February 1867. Building of Lindfield station had yet to start. The reason for stopping at this point will be explained shortly.

There has been much speculation as to the actual proposed site of Lindfield station; was it to be constructed to the east or west of the B2028? The topography and available space to the east would have been tight for platforms, station buildings, and forecourt and road entrance. Whereas the western side offered plenty of space with Spring Lane providing road access, but would require considerable earth works. This would probably have been the most likely location, although we will never know for certain as no plans appear to exist.

On 21st February 1867, the LBSC decided to suspend construction of the line and a telegram was sent to Pickering to halt all work. Some 500 men were ‘paid off’ and the many cart horses sold at auction. The work never resumed, leaving a partially completed track bed; no rails had been laid. The Ouse Valley line was formally abandoned by an Act in 1868.

The seeds for the cessation of work had been sown within days of the commencement of construction work when in May 1866, the London bill discounting and banking house, Overend, Gurney and Company Ltd, collapsed. The LBSC was not directly affected by the bank’s collapse but the London, Chatham & Dover Railway was greatly affected. This resulted in their withdrawal from planned lines to Brighton and the South Eastern railway could not continue with these alone and also withdrew. This removed the route threat to LBSC, who were also financially strained, and negated the need for their strategic Ouse Valley line. The banking credit problems signalled the end of the railway boom of the early 1860s.

The banking collapse brought to an end the competition and antagonism between LBSC and South Eastern, when it was realised by the former that the continued pursuance of strategic routes was placing strain on their own finances. Discussions with South Eastern commenced, resulting in a new agreement regarding territory and lines in September 1867.

Lindfield never obtained a rail connection nor a railway station, but could at least boast two ‘railway cottages’!

Contact via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/ or 01444 482136.

Please note the abandoned track is on private land and not accessible.

Tale of an innkeeper - Richard Gordon

By John Mills, Lindfield History Project Group

From 1680 or earlier, three generations of the Neale family were innkeepers of the White Lion inn in Lindfield; later renamed the Bent Arms.

In 1752, victualler (person licensed to sell alcohol) George Neale, aged 63, made his Will, leaving the freehold of the White Lion not to his relatives but to his ‘late servant, Sarah Bashford of Lindfield’. Sarah, who never married, remained owner and innkeeper, and died in April 1791, aged 60 or more. In her own Will - made in 1790 - she asked to be buried within the parish church of Lindfield, ‘in the same grave with my late Master George Neale which is properly prepared to the purpose’.

Sarah’s origins are not known; possibly she was one of the Bashfords who had settled in Cuckfield in the early 1700s. The White Lion that George Neale and Sarah knew no longer exists, replaced (or largely rebuilt) in Victorian times by the right-hand house of the two houses that make up today’s Bent Arms, 98 High Street.

Sarah the innkeeper was also a businesswoman, loaning money at interest as a mortgagee to several Lindfield house owners, and in the 1780s rebuilding two old houses on Lindfield High Street that she had bought, Tinkers and Brushes.

In 1783, Sarah pulled down Tinkers and replaced it. ‘Sarah Bashford for her new house’, as entered in local taxation records. The new house was not today’s Tinkers, High Street (built in 1933), but the front range of Wickham House and Romany Cottage, 129 and 131 High Street, under their distinctive new-style gambrel roof, designed as a cheap way to achieve good headroom in the attic

In 1785, Sarah demolished Brushes, building another new house on the corner of Brushes Lane, now the lefthand building of the Bent Arms. In addition, a cottage, named Pebble Cottage in the 1920s, behind the new house and with its roof gable end-on to the lane, was built around that time.

The first floor of the new house was a single spacious, high-ceilinged room with a fireplace, large front windows overlooking the High Street, and an elegant Venetian window overlooking the lane. It was opened by Sarah in January 1786 as an Assembly Room, with a notice in the Sussex Advertiser: ‘The LINDFIELD and CUCKFIELD ASSEMBLY, To be at the NEW-ROOM, WHITE-LION, LINDFIELD, on the 10th of January. There will be a Supper.’ Further monthly assemblies (by subscription) were to be held at the Ball Room or at the King’s Head, Cuckfield.

In the 18th century, assembly rooms were amongst the few public places where gentlemen and gentlewomen could meet respectably outside the home, to converse, drink tea, have supper, play cards or dance. The Lindfield Assembly Room became better known locally as the Ball Room.

In her Will, Sarah made only one brief reference to a deceased relative, instead bequeathing Wickham/Romany as a life ownership only to Joseph Muggeridge, an elderly man living with her, and the White Lion and the Ball Room to him outright. After Joseph’s decease, Sarah required that Wickham/ Romany should be bequeathed, in the language of her time, ‘unto Richard Gordon son of George Gordon, a Negro now living with me, his Heirs and Assigns for ever’.

Richard Gordon, probably in his teens, was also to have £20 to pay for a 7-year apprenticeship, in an occupation of his choice, within six months of her death, and £100 (at least £12,700 today). This sum was to be invested by trustees on his behalf until he had successfully finished his Apprenticeship, and then paid to him to set him up in trade. The interest from investing the £100 was to pay for his clothing.

Joseph Muggeridge and Richard Gordon, in Sarah’s household, may have been her servants at the inn, Richard perhaps a kitchen boy or pot boy (drinks waiter). Guardians were appointed for Richard until he was 21 years old: Sarah’s great friends Richard Harland, a tailor and shopkeeper, and Edward Colbran, a blacksmith - both Lindfield men, who were also to be Trustees of her Will. Joseph, her executor, was to pay the £20 and £100 to the Trustees.

Where was Richard from? There were hundreds of Afro-Caribbean Gordons on the British colonial slave plantations in the West Indies, especially in Jamaica. Neither Richard nor his father George are found in surviving Sussex parish registers, but a George Gordon, ‘a native of Jamaica said to be 18 years of age’ and conceivably Afro-Caribbean, was baptised at Holborn, next to the City of London, in 1773, and would have been old enough to have had an adolescent son Richard living in 1790.

In October 1791, just over the stipulated six months after Sarah’s death, a certain Richard Gordon was newly apprenticed for seven years and for £25 to John Middleton of St Sepulchre’s parish, London, pencil maker. Might he have been Richard Gordon of Lindfield? Turning to Joseph Muggeridge, when he died in 1803, Wickham/Romany was still in his possession. The property is not mentioned in Joseph’s own Will of 1802, but that would have been quite usual for a lifetime ownership only, as it was not his to bequeath. Besides money bequests to relatives, Joseph left all the residue of his estate to his nephew Richard Muggeridge, a carpenter in Sutton, Surrey.

Taxation and other records from the early 1800s show Richard Muggeridge to be the new owner of Wickham/ Romany, not Richard Gordon. When Richard Muggeridge died in 1817, by his Will he left Wickham/Romany to his wife; she died in 1836 and the property was then sold at public auction. No mention in available records is made of Richard Gordon having held ownership, as bequeathed by Sarah Bashford.

Edward Colbran, still living in 1803, might by then no longer have been Richard’s guardian, if Richard were now of age. He would still have been Trustee of Sarah’s Will, and responsible until the end of Richard’s apprenticeship for continued investment of the £100.

What happened to Richard Gordon in later life? Had he died before 1803? Whether he ever became owner of Wickham/Romany in 1803 as Sarah Bashford intended, remains a puzzle to be solved.

Returning to the White Lion and the Ball Room, these were inherited by Joseph Muggeridge on Sarah’s death in 1791. By 1793 he had sold them to a Brighton brewer, Richard Lemmon Whichelo. Visitor numbers may have declined after then, for in 1802 Whichelo decided to sell the Ball Room, whilst keeping the White Lion.

In 1805, John Shelley became the new owner of the Ball Room, letting the ground floor rooms as a shop to a chair maker, James Murrell. In 1810, Shelley obtained a certificate to use the Ball Room as a nonconformist Christian place of worship. For three years, the early flock of what was later the Lindfield Congregational church used the Ball Room as a meeting house, before moving to a newly converted chapel next to Ryecroft, High Street. This chapel was replaced in 1857 by today’s Congregational Church building.

The Ball Room was still used as a Meeting House in 1825, perhaps by another congregation, before it was bought by John Bent, new owner of the White Lion, and re-opened in 1829 as an Assembly Room, this time permanently, ‘having undergone very important and expensive alterations. The party assembled on the occasion were of the most genteel order, including several families from Brighton, among whom were noticed some French Ladies of most fashionable manners and appearance,’ as reported by the Sussex Advertiser.

Today the Ball Room remains a single large room, serving as the Bent Arms Function Room.

Contact via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/ or 01444 482136.

Rainbow Pottery

By Richard Bryant & Janet Bishop, Lindfield History Project Group

In late 1921, an enterprising woman, Gladys Van Weede established - as sole proprietor - The Rainbow Pottery Company, trading from an outbuilding behind Abbotts Pharmacy on the High Street. Born in Worthing in 1888, she married Rollo Van Weede in 1915. They lived at Pascotts Farm, Sluts Lane, where he ran a dairy farm. According to the 1921 census, prior to founding Rainbow Pottery, Gladys Van Weede worked as an artist for Margaret and Christine Warneford, both artists, at 13 Mill Green Road, Haywards Heath.

Within months, the business was flourishing and commercial travellers secured sales across the country. In April 1923, the Lindfield Women’s Institute held an exhibition of Rainbow Pottery products at the King Edward Hall. Intriguingly, the Mid Sussex Times reported ‘that members of the Institute are responsible for the work. What the ladies really do is to hand colour, by a secret process, Staffordshire Pottery, and the artistic blending of colours on powder bowls, vases and other articles on exhibition was delightful’. It further commented, ‘The fact that any colours can be blended onto any articles of pottery and glass suggests infinite possibilities’.

On 28th November 1923, the company held another exhibition at the King Edward Hall of their ‘Novel HandColoured Pottery, Glass-Ware, Trays, and Tables etc.’ Mrs. Van Weede was assisted at the exhibition by a number of ladies from the upper echelon of Lindfield’s social scene. The hall was decorated with plants and cut flowers and to make the exhibition a social and charitable event, afternoon tea was served and a musical programme performed by local musicians. Fifteen per cent of Rainbow Pottery sales and a share of other proceeds were divided between the Haywards Heath Hospital and the Lindfield Nursing Association.

In 1924, Rainbow Pottery took a major step forward, securing a stand in the palace of Industry Pottery and Glass Section, at the prestigious British Empire Exhibition at Wembley. It was quite remarkable that a small, three-yearold company trading from an outbuilding behind the High Street exhibited at such an event

As well as their hand-decorated products, the company also sold, both retail and wholesale, the Danesby Ware Electric Blue pottery range, manufactured by the well-known Denby Pottery Company.

The Rainbow Pottery Company was acquired by Mr. J.N. Carter, who is understood to have also run the Lindfield Steam Laundry. The date the business changed hands is not known. The company continued selling various pottery items, miniature china animals and also glass and chrome items, such as honey glass table condiment sets, serviette rings and cake stands. They were advertised as being of ‘Special Attraction for Bazaars, Fetes, sales of works, etc.’ A far cry from the British Empire Exhibition.

It is believed Rainbow Pottery ceased trading at the end of the 1930s.

Contact via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/ or 01444 482136.

Royal celebrations in Lindfield - Part 2

By Richard Bryant and Janet Bishop, Lindfield History Project Group

On Coronation morning the Lindfield Coronation Committee sent the following telegram message to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, ‘With humble respect, congratulations to Your Majesty, from your loyal subjects of Lindfield, Sussex’.

Following Elizabeth’s accession to the throne on 6th February 1952, thoughts nationally turned to the Coronation and how it should be celebrated. The 3rd June 1953 was declared Coronation Day. To organise the celebrations in Lindfield an Executive Committee with eight members was established supported by a 39 strong General Committee. A souvenir brochure was produced and sold for one shilling.

The Mid Sussex Times reported ‘Lindfield had put on its gayest attire’ with the main centre of the decorative scheme being the pond, with flags, banners and shields on poles along the water’s edge. An archway spanned the road at both ends. Contractors undertook the decorations and illuminations. All the shops decorated their windows. Many houses were also dressed for the occasion and numerous Union flags hung from windows and improvised flag poles. The Lindfield Horticultural Society gave a prize to the best decorated house; the winner being 35 Luxford Road.

Coronation Day celebrations started at 9am with the pealing of the church bells by the Lindfield Church Bell Ringing Society. Unfortunately the weather did not match the joyous pealing of the bells; it remained grey with showers and chilly all day.

For those able to afford a television the ceremony was broadcast from Westminster Abbey. Fortunate owners invited family, friends and neighbours to watch the ceremony. Many more listened on the radio. Women and men over 60 and 65 respectively were invited to the King Edward Hall to watch a specially installed television rigged to project onto a large screen. About 260 attended, many seeing television for the first time. The sound broadcast was relayed to the Common.

The Firing of the Anvils at 2pm in the High Street, near the Lewes Road junction, heralded the start of the day’s events on the Common and pond. The first event was the Fancy Dress procession organised by the Lindfield Dramatic Club, with 60 entrants parading from Pondcroft Road to Lewes Road and onto the Common for judging. Betty Billins fondly remembers dressing up as a princess. This was followed by an Empire Tableau arranged by Mr Porter and Miss Anscombe of Lindfield School. The children performed an explanation of the Royal Coat of Arms painted on shields.

A short open air interdominational religious service followed, conducted by the three village churches. On Coronation Sunday, 31st May, the churches had held a Special Order of Service.

At 3.20pm, the presentation of ‘awards to Our Birthday Guests’ was made to the eight residents of the parish whose birthdays fell on Coronation Day. Each received an iced birthday cake.

Amid much excitement, the focus then turned to‘Aquatic Sports’ on the pond organised by Lindfield Men’s Club. These comprised swimming races for men and women together with novelty events such as a beer barrel race, mop fight, greasy pole and a Miller v Sweep contest. There was also a demonstration by Horace Putman of his radio controlled model liner.

The watching crowds returned to the Common for the start of the sports organised by the village sports clubs, the majority of which were for children. In addition to running events, less serious races were held including a balloon race, dog and child race, slow bicycle race, skipping and obstacle races. Adults were not ignored with a variety of competitions such as men and ladies tug-of-war, ladies over 50 years egg and spoon race and a ladies and gentlemen’s cigarette race.

While the sports were proceeding, an ‘Old Folks High Tea’ was served by the Women’s Institute with catering by the Bent Arms in the Social Centre, now part of Old School Court. Children of all ages lined up to receive souvenir mugs, emblems and a packed tea. In the early evening the Lindfield Conservative Association organised a Treasure Hunt on the common.

At 9pm, the Coronation Dance commenced in King Edward Hall with music by the Harmonists Band, the dancing continuing until after midnight. As darkness fell a torchlight procession from Pondcroft Road proceeded via Denmans Lane, Compton Road and High Street onto the Common for a giant bonfire and a spectacular firework display. Illuminations were turned on and the church steeple floodlit, bringing to a close this memorable day.

The next major royal celebration was the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. There was considerable enthusiasm in the village that it should be marked by a major event on Jubilee Day 7th June 1977. A programme was devised incorporating all the features from previous royal occasions including water sports. To make the pond safe, the village turned out to remove tons of weeds and debris. They were thanked by receiving nasty bites and rashes! As with previous events there were extensive decoration.

‘Reveille’ started the day with the village crier, Brian Newcombe, escorted by a piper touring the village to proclaim Jubilee Day. A major innovation was a grand carnival procession from Hickmans Lane playing fields, down the High Street to the Common. Entertainments on the common included a physical exercise display and folk dancing by children from Lindfield and Blackthorns schools, figure marching by the Girls Brigade, It’s a Knock Out competition, junior 6-a-side football tournament, a comedy stoolball match and a barbeque. The stoolball match was between the respective clubs and the players were ‘helped’ by a pantomime horse! The Bowls club staged an ‘international’ match between England and Wales; more precisely Lindfield v Llanelli.

During the evening the Dramatic Club staged two performances of an Old Time Music Hall in King Edward Hall, with the audience invited to dress in Victorian or Edwardian costume. No celebrations in Lindfield would be complete without a torchlight procession, huge bonfire and an impressive firework display organised by the Bonfire Society. To close the day the parish church was floodlit and finally the Burgess Hill Scout Band performed the Ceremony of Sunset on the Common.

To provide a permanent commemoration of the Silver Jubilee the Preservation Society planted a lime tree and presented a village sign for the northern entrance to the High Street, similar in design to the 1935 jubilee sign.

The day was adjudged a great success in bringing the village together. It was felt the enthusiasm and community spirit engendered should be harnessed for an event in future years and hence Lindfield Village Day was born. It has been held ever since.

The traditions of celebrating royal events, over the past 125 years, were again in evidence at the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations on Monday 3rd June 2002. A committee with wide village representation was established, under the chairmanship of Brian Newcombe and Roy Billins, to develop the programme. To help fund the day, leather Lindfield bookmarks were produced and sold. Bell ringing, the village crier and firing the anvil all featured. In the morning, shops held a ‘Cuckoo – in – the Competition’, the aim being to spot unusual items in shop windows.

The cornerstone of the afternoon was again the Grand Carnival procession from Hickmans Lane playing fields to the Common, where judging and prize giving took place. Also on the Common during the afternoon was, a children’s pet show, boys’ and girls’ races, band displays, entertainments and stalls run by local businesses, clubs and charities. The evening brought more entertainment with a Knobbly Knee Competition, Line Dancing, Barn Dancing and Modern Dancing and closed with the usual firework display. A major omission from the programme was water sports on the pond, no doubt reflecting changing attitudes to health and safety.

The previous day, Jubilee Sunday, the three village churches had held ‘Songs of Praise’ and a family picnic. To permanently mark the Golden Jubilee, the Committee decided a mosaic was a fitting tribute. Ben Craven, a young Brighton mosaic artist, was commissioned to create the mosaic which was installed at the northern end of the pond, close to the Best Kept Village sign. It cost about £2,300 and was unveiled at 12noon on 2nd June 2003.

Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee was celebrated over the weekend of 2nd & 3rd June 2012 and broadly followed previous Jubilees and the format of Village Day. On the Saturday there was a carnival procession followed on the Common by a Children’s Pet Show and in the evening a Jubilee Barn Dance and Firework Display. The next day a ‘Lindfield Celebration Service’ was held on the Common and afterwards ‘The Big Picnic’, a part of the National Big Lunch initiative. In the afternoon there was entertainments ranging from magic shows to Rok Skool and sports competitions.

Contact Lindfield History Project Group via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/ or 01444 482136.

Royal celebrations in Lindfield - Part 1

Jubilee 1935

By Richard Bryant and Janet Bishop, Lindfield History Project Group

On 3rd June 2022 the nation celebrated the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. How has Lindfield celebrated royal events in the past?

The first major event to be celebrated was Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee on Tuesday 21st June 1887. In readiness for the celebrations the village was decorated with bunting and strings of flags strung across the High Street. A triumphal arch decorated with evergreens, flowers, mottoes and lamps was erected at the site of the Old Toll Gate. Specially planted fir trees graced each side of the road from Black Hill to the parish church. Flags and decorations adorned all the shops and houses. Masters store carried the motto ‘The Queen, 50 Not Out’. On the evening prior to Jubilee Day an ox, donated by Walter Sturdy of Paxhill, was paraded on a decorated cart drawn by two farm horses to the Common, where the carcass was mounted for roasting and the fire ceremonially lit.

Celebrations commenced the next morning at 5am with three ‘firings of the anvil’ and was repeated 15 minutes later ‘awakening those who had yet to rise to greet the glorious Jubilee Day’. At 10.30am the Fife and Trumpet Band of the 1st Sussex Artillery Volunteers assembled on the Common before proceeding to the parish church which was filled to overflowing. After a short service conducted by Reverend E. d’Auvergne, with a similar service being held at the Congregational Chapel, the congregations and awaiting crowds headed by the band made their way to the Common.

On the Common, three trees were planted with ceremonial spades and much formality. Firing the anvil was repeated at 1pm signalling time for 160 leading residents, tradesmen and farmers to assemble in a large marquee for lunch.

The afternoon events commenced with maypole dancing by village children. This was followed by ‘a long programme of athletic sports and games’. The events ranged from cross-country to 100 yard races, high jump to putting the weight, and tug-of-war, together with novelty events such as egg and spoon races, three legged races and climbing the slippery pole.

During the afternoon and evening over 800 free teas were served. Boxes of sweets and toys were provided by Mr Masters for children. At 9pm the Jubilee Ox, with a piece of bread, was served to all-comers and free liquid refreshment supplied by Mr Sturdy was distributed.

As darkness descended, the village was illuminated and particularly noteworthy were the triumphal arch and willow tree on the pond’s island. The day concluded at 10pm with a grand firework display and in the distance ‘beacon fires were flashing from point to point’.

Pleasingly, the parish poor were not forgotten in the commemoration. The Mid Sussex Times reported tickets for ‘the dole’ were distributed to about 120 recipients who received beef and groceries prior to Jubilee day. Additionally 32 poor persons received a large joint of the Jubilee Ox on the Wednesday morning.

The celebratory day was much enjoyed, and most importantly a lasting commemoration was ‘a new peal of eight bells’ given to the parish church. Four of the old bells were recast, a new tenor bell given by Walter Sturdy and three others funded by public subscription. The bells rang out during the big day and in the afternoon teams of ringers rang ‘Grandsire triples containing 5,040 changes in 3 hours 7 minutes’. Originally the proposed permanent memorial had been a Jubilee Hall but there was insufficient support.

The Mid Sussex Times commented that the Lindfield celebrations can ‘truthfully be said to have taken the premier position in Mid Sussex by its manner of commemorating the auspicious event’. This programme of events was to become the blueprint for royal celebrations in Lindfield for the next hundred years.

The next major royal event was on 20th June 1897, the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne, making her the country’s longest reigning monarch. The nation celebrated with a bank holiday on Tuesday 22nd June 1897. Jubilee Day in Lindfield commenced at 5 am with the neighbourhood ‘aroused by “salvoes of artillery” from the anvils of Mr Charles Wood’; the village blacksmith whose forge was in Denmans Lane, now Happy Feet shoe shop.

A full day of events followed, with the programme being similar to the Golden Jubilee Day’s celebrations. That is to say a decorated village, church services, military bands and procession, pealing of bells, sports on the common, free tea for 1,200 people in the Reading Room, illuminations and fireworks. Mr Sturdy of Paxhill again donated an ox for the celebrations. A pleasing addition was a large bonfire made of over 1,500 faggots (bundles of wood), and timber from Paxhill, Great Walstead and Buxshalls estates. Additions to the sports programme included a potato race and tent pegging on bicycles.

All Saints Church again benefitted from Jubilee subscriptions generously given, with sufficient money being collected to purchase and install an impressive new organ made by Forster and Andrews of Hull.

1911 Coronation in Lindfield

Lindfield’s way of celebrating royal events was beginning to evolve. This continued with the coronation of Edward VII following Queen Victoria’s death, and a few years later the crowning of King George V in 1911. The latter in addition to the services, events and sports on the common was permanently marked with the erection of a drinking-trough at the junction of Backwoods Lane and High Street.

The next royal event celebrated was the Silver Jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary on Monday 6th May 1935. On this occasion the firing of the anvils was at the more civilised time of 1.55pm with the day’s events having started at 11.30am when the service from St. Paul’s Cathedral was relayed by radio to the parish church. Many more listened at home.

This was followed two hours later by an assembly and procession from the church to the Common, where there was a ‘British Empire and English Period Costumes’ competition for ‘ladies and gentlemen’. Prior to the sports and events commencing on the common, Mrs Blanche Cumberlege of Walstead Place unveiled the permanent memorial, the Lindfield village sign decorated with a lime tree and the six martlets of Sussex, which stands to this day, close to the drinking-trough.

A major addition to this Jubilee Day’s events was ‘Sports on the Pond’ that comprised swimming races and dressed swimming races for men and women, mop fighting on raft, walking the greasy pole and ‘miller v sweeps’. The latter involved two contestants, one with a bag of flour, the other sat astride a horizontal pole with the aim being to knock your fellow combatant into the pond. Spectators five deep lined the pond. The day concluded with a torchlight procession, bonfire and fireworks. There was also dancing to The Silver Star Band at King Edward Hall.

On 12th May 1937, the coronation of George VI and Queen Elizabeth was celebrated in very similar fashion to the Silver Jubilee two years previously. The popular events at the pond were repeated and extended with a procession of decorated craft, beer barrel race, pirate’s race and model boat races. An addition to events on the Common was the ‘Empire Tableau presented by the Children of Lindfield Council School’.

The next event celebrated was Queen Elizabeth II coronation day and this will feature in the next article.

Contact 01444 482136 or via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/

Click here for Royal celebrations in Lindfield - Part 2

Workhouses and helping the poor in Lindfield

By Richard Bryant, Lindfield History Project Group

Country life in past centuries is often depicted as the idyll of ‘merry old England’. The reality was dramatically different, with rural parishes like Lindfield rife with poverty, hardship and pauperism.

To help the poor, between 1563 and 1601 the Government enacted legislation that provided a framework for the provision of poor relief by parishes. To pay for this relief, the parishes levied a poor rate according to needs. The Poor Law Act 1601 became the basis for administering relief for the next two centuries. Overseers of the Poor were elected by the Parish Vestry, an early forerunner of Parish Councils. The poor receiving relief were divided into three categories: the able-bodied (who were to be found work), those who were physically unable to work, and those unwilling to work. To keep the poor rate down to a minimum, the Overseers often made payments ‘in-kind’. Provision of a poor house for the destitute was permitted, although it is not thought Lindfield took such action at that time.

In 1723, parishes were empowered to establish workhouses in addition to the provision of poor relief. The first mention of a workhouse in Lindfield is around 1730 and the property was rented by the Parish Overseers, but so far the location has yet to be identified. The workhouse moved in 1740 to another rented property, today known as Firs Cottage, on the High Street near All Saints Church. The inmate numbers steadily increased from about ten in the beginning to approaching 30 by the late 1700s. To accommodate the increasing numbers, an ‘annexe’ was established in a neighbouring small cottage to the north, now long since demolished. Little is known about conditions in the workhouse, but it can be assumed they were not comfortable. The menu for inmates in autumn 1783 was:
Breakfast - Six days a week, pottage (a kind of thin stew) and on the seventh day (presumably Sunday) gruel (a thin porridge).
Lunch – beef or pork pudding and lard buttered pudding.
Supper – bread and cheese.
On Christmas Day 1782, it is recorded the inmates had plum pudding and perhaps this was a treat every Christmas.

In April 1788, trustees acting for Mrs Priscilla Merry purchased Firs Cottage from its then-owner Joseph Beard and the adjacent annexe. The new owner continued renting the property to the Parish Overseers. Around this time, Mr and Mrs Merry also purchased Old Place, today West Wing in Francis Road. Shortly after her husband’s death in 1793, Mrs Merry offered to sell Old Place and its acre of land to the parish, to replace the over-crowded Firs Cottage. This fine Elizabethan house, built by the Chaloner family in 1584 when they were Lords of the Manor of South Malling Lindfield, had subsequently passed through various owners.

The Overseers, on behalf of the parish, secured a large loan to purchase Old Place and the workhouse moved to its new location in 1794. The workhouse accommodated the elderly, disabled, able-bodied paupers and orphans. Expectant mothers were taken care of and their illegitimate children delivered at the workhouse. In exchange for their keep and accommodation, the able-bodied were expected to work and were usually hired out to farms and local businesses. Where possible, pauper children aged over seven were apprenticed in an effort to provide them with a skill and thus break the cycle of poverty.

Nationally, the early decades of the 1800s were the time when poor relief was at its height and the poor rate was creating an unacceptable burden on those required to pay. Poor harvests, the Napoleonic War and its aftermath, and an increasing population resulted in a dramatic rise in corn prices and, in turn, flour and bread, a staple of the diet. Farmers depressed labourers’ wages in the knowledge that the parish would address the resultant poverty from the poor relief, also most agricultural labourers were employed by the day so if no work meant no pay. This was a particular problem during winter. Being a rural parish, Lindfield was badly affected in this way.

The demand in Lindfield for relief in 1831, resulted in a poor rate of 2s 6d in the pound for the summer quarters and 5s in the pound (25%) for the winter quarters, charged on the value of property. In the year ending 25th March 1831, Lindfield parish provided assistance to 196 individuals, of which some 37 resided in the workhouse. Most of those receiving assistance and living outside the workhouse were able-bodied men, reflecting the reality of being an agricultural labourer.

The outside relief was the biggest burden. In addition to weekly fixed allowances paid to the aged, widows and orphans, relief was also given ‘in kind’, such as flour, clothes and shoes, wood for fuel, cottage repairs, coffins, medical treatments and bedding. Doctor Richard Tuppen, who lived at Froyls, was the medical officer for the workhouse and parish poor, for which he was paid £25 per year. The total cost of relief and the workhouse amounted to around £1,500 per year, with the cost during the winter being almost double that of the summer quarters.

The Government had to respond to this situation and the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 was passed. It minimised the amount of outdoor relief and made confinement in the workhouse the central element of poor relief for both the able-bodied and the helpless poor as their last resort. To minimise the number of people seeking accommodation, workhouses were encouraged to be as unpleasant as possible. Married couples were separated and children taken from their parents. Outworking was generally not permitted and workhouses required the able-bodied to undertake basic labour on the premises.

The 1834 Act required parishes to combine together to form a Union to build workhouses and administer the poor relief. This resulted in the Cuckfield Union being established on 26th March 1835 and taking responsibility for the destitute of Lindfield parish and 14 other parishes in the area, from Ardingly to Albourne and Cowfold to Horsted Keynes. For the first ten years, existing parish workhouses were utilised. In 1845, a new workhouse, designed to accommodate 450 inmates, was built in Ardingly Lane, Cuckfield – it later became Cuckfield Hospital and is now apartments. The Lindfield inmates were duly transferred to Cuckfield, with the Cuckfield Union not only taking the inmates from Lindfield’s workhouse, but taking ownership of the Old Place property, in effect stealing it from the parish without giving any compensation and leaving Lindfield to repay the outstanding purchase loan debt. The Cuckfield Union subsequently sold Old Place to Mr Noyes of East Mascalls. In 1875, he sold it to Charles Eamer Kempe, the renowned Victorian stained glass artist. Thus the property that had been the workhouse became the start point for Kempe’s grand country house, Old Place as we see today.

Lindfield's volunteer fire brigade

1910

By Richard Bryant and Janet Bishop, Lindfield History Project Group

Today, with the aid of telecommunications, prompt response to an emergency such as a fire is taken for granted. Things were a little different up to the end of the 19th century, as individuals had to deal with fires themselves and hopefully with the help of neighbours. In 1899, the Lindfield Parish Council decided to form a volunteer fire brigade to provide fire cover for the parish.

For the next ten years, the brigade had only basic equipment transported on a cart. This was stored in a lean-to against the wall of the old National School Room, now part of Old School Court, off Lewes Road. The Parish Council agreed to a significant upgrade in October 1909 and a Merryweather Greenwich Gem horse-drawn steam fire pump was purchased at a total cost of £276-15s-0d, with two thirds coming from public subscription. While delivery was awaited, the council searched for a suitable building to house the new equipment.

Fortuitously, at the same time a search was being undertaken to find a village centre site for the proposed village hall. Walter Sturdy of Paxhill owned Pear Tree House, on the corner of Lewes Road, and donated part of its garden for the hall. This included the redundant former stables at the rear of the King Edward Hall site: this was offered by the Hall committee to the council for use as a fire station. Following an inspection in July 1910, the Council agreed to lease the building at an annual rent of £5-0s-0d.

The interior of the building was fitted out with match boarding to a height of seven feet with a shelf above; it is believed this remains in place. The doors were duly painted bright red, and Lindfield became the proud owner of a new fire station.

The eagerly awaited fire engine arrived in March 1910 and on 19th March the Merryweather trainer arrived to instruct the firemen, and the first public display of the fire engine and its capabilities was given to a large crowd on the Common the following day. They were amazed a jet of water could be thrown to a height of 140 feet.

In 1910, having a modern fire engine did not mean a speedy turnout. On receipt of a message, call-out boys had to find and alert the firemen. On their arrival at the fire station, the fire engine had to be manhandled outside and the coal fire boiler lit to produce steam to work the water pump. It could be drawn at a gallop by a pair of horses and if necessary, the fire lit and stoked on the move. The horses had to be fetched from the livery stable. At that time, G T Ward of the Bent Arms was the council’s horsing contractor.

The services of the fire brigade were not free, and the parish council kept them under regular review. In 1914, the call-out charge for the fire engine and hose cart outside the parish boundary was £3-3s-0d and £1-1s-0d respectively for the first three hours. A reduced hourly rate applied after that period. There was no charge if the fire was within the parish boundary. Regardless of the fire’s location, a charge applied for each fireman attending, this ranged from 5s-0d an hour for the officers to 3s0d for the men; additional time was at a lower rate. A £1-10s-0d engine cleaning charge was payable, with horse hire and coal also to be paid. From this it would appear that horses were hired for each call-out and not owned by the Council.

In April 1912, the brigade was called to a house fire at Chailey Heritage School, and the charge was £16-8s-6d, of which £9-12s-6d was paid to the firemen. The fire caused damage estimated between £500 and £1,000. A major house fire was an unusual occurrence, although chimney fires happened from time to time; if not extinguished, they could result in a serious fire.

Following the outbreak of the Great War, conscription was introduced in 1916, and three Lindfield firemen received their call-up papers. John Sharman, Captain of the Lindfield Fire Brigade, applied to the local tribunal for their exemption. Their jobs did not warrant exemption, but John Sharman suggested their voluntary fire service was of national interest. Asked how many and types of fires attended, the answer was about two hay rick fires a year. Unsurprisingly, exemption was refused, with one tribunal member commenting ‘that the most useless thing in a country district was a Fire Brigade’. Nevertheless, hayrick fires could be difficult to extinguish; a 40-ton stack at Oathall Farm took over 30 hours to extinguish.

Undoubtedly the brigade’s finest hour came in late October 1920 with a major fire at the Bent Hotel. The Mid Sussex Times reported: ‘so alarming did the situation become that the fire brigades at Lindfield, Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath were summoned, and but for their persevering efforts the Hotel would undoubtedly have been burnt to the ground’. The roof and top floor bedrooms were extensively damaged. A report and photograph even made the national Sunday Pictorial newspaper.

By the 1930s, the horse-drawn steam pump was completely outdated and residents were putting pressure on the council to acquire a modern fire appliance. However, in 1934 the Lindfield Parish Council was stood down and replaced by Cuckfield Urban District Council. Fire cover for the parish was then provided by the Cuckfield Urban District Council from fire stations in South Road and New England Road, Haywards Heath. The Lindfield Fire Brigade was duly disbanded. In May 1934, the council sold the fire engine to the Wakehurst Estate for £32 10s 0d.

With the advent of World War II, additional wartime fire cover was required and the old fire station was pressed into service again as an auxiliary fire station. Electric lights and a heater were installed, and the building fitted out with sleeping quarters, so that the volunteer firemen could stay at the station overnight, the time when bombing was most likely to occur. A nameplate above the door humorously read ‘Ye Olde Lyndfielde Firemen’s Dugout’. The air raid warning siren for the village was mounted above the building. Lindfield AFS was equipped with a 1932 Chevrolet 30 cwt truck and two new trailer pumps. The fire station closed at the end of the war and is now the store for Lindfield Dramatic Club.

As an end note, until recent years a wall-mounted cabinet at Old Place contained fire hoses, standpipes and axes clearly stamped ‘Merryweather’. Could these have come from the old Lindfield Fire Brigade?

Contact Lindfield History Project Group via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/

The Smith family and Lindfield

By Richard Bryant and Janet Bishop, Lindfield History Project Group

This article explores another of Lindfield’s black history connections.

The story begins with Francis Smith senior in Nevis, an island in the Eastern Caribbean, one of the two islands which today form the Federation of St Kitts and Nevis. The islands were among the first in the Caribbean to be colonised by European settlers. English settlers arrived in Nevis in the 1620s, decimating the native population. By the 1640s, cane sugar became their main crop. Sugar and its by-product, rum, were profitable exports. The settlers at first worked with white indentured labourers from Britain but soon began to import enslaved Africans. By the late 1780s, the enslaved population was 8,420 while the whites numbered 1,510.

Among the white inhabitants were brothers Richard and Francis Smith. Richard managed sugar estates owned by the planter James Smith (the brothers may have been related to James). Francis Smith was a ship’s carpenter, building local craft and repairing vessels from England working the triangular slave trade route.

In 1789, Richard died and Francis became ill, prompting him to make his Will, and he died shortly afterwards. His possessions included two black boys, bequeathing one each to Francis and Jenny; children of Amelia Brodbelt, a free coloured woman (here the term ‘coloured’ is used to reflect its historic meaning). She was the daughter of an enslaved black woman and a white plantation owner and had been granted her freedom in 1765. The rest of his possessions were shared equally between her five children: Francis, Jenny, Amelia, Hetty and Christiana. Given the bequests and that her children had the surname Smith, Francis Smith was undoubtedly was their father. The offspring of a black mother and white father were known in the language of the time, as ‘mulattoes’. Although they weren’t married, Amelia Brodbelt was regarded as his surviving ‘spouse’.

Amelia inherited from her wider family a property on the edge of Charlestown. With business acumen she and her four daughters developed and ran some sort of hospitality and accommodation business, which initially perhaps included a brothel. The business increasingly prospered and, eventually renting properties that were occupied by the island’s Court, Council and Assembly, they became respected members of island society.

Turning to the Francis Smith born in 1787, the surviving son of Amelia Brodbelt and Francis Smith (the ship’s carpenter): little is known of this Francis’ early years in Nevis, but his working life may have started in London. Some prosperous, well-connected coloured people financed their sons’ work experience abroad. Amelia Brodbelt may well have wanted her son to become a ‘merchant of London’. However, by 1817, it is known he had settled in Haiti, working as a trader or merchant.

During his time in Haiti, Francis Smith met Josephine Villeneuve, who was to be his life partner and mother of his many children. She was clearly of African descent. Their first child was born in 1817, followed on 13th February 1819 by Francis Villeneuve Smith. His birth registration records his mother as a resident of Port-auPrince, Haiti and his father as a foreign merchant. From her signature she was an educated woman and perhaps from a well-to-do family.

As business opportunities in Haiti reduced, Francis Smith moved his family to London and in 1821 they were living at Brunswick Place, Shoreditch. After a couple of years, the family moved to ‘a more wholesome environment, settling in Lindfield’. Francis Smith purchased Townlands, opposite the parish church, and its farm from Captain Pilford R.N. Pilford was able to purchase and alter Townlands, following promotion after his success at the Battle of Trafalgar. In recognition, he renamed the house Nelson Hall. He sold due to money problems. The farmland today is the site of The Welkin development and part of Hickmans Lane Recreation Ground.

While Francis Smith turned to farming and was now regarded as an ‘Esquire’, Josephine was busy with their growing family, with William and Rosa being born in Lindfield and baptised in Lindfield Parish Church. At that time, it was quite common for parish registers to record people’s skin colour or foreign origin; the Lindfield register makes no such note, suggesting Francis Smith’s complexion must have been so light and his features so European that he passed as white.

Josephine now called herself Marie Josephine and as her skin colour portrayed her origin, she may not have been readily accepted into village society.

As an aside, Marie Josephine Villeneuve always claimed, but it was never proved, that her father was Pierre Charles Jean Baptiste Silvestre de Villeneuve, a French naval officer stationed in the Caribbean. Villeneuve commanded the French fleet defeated by Nelson at Trafalgar. How ironic if Villeneuve’s illegitimate daughter lived in a house with Trafalgar victory connections? Perhaps a fanciful thought.

The Smith family lived at Townlands for only a few years, leaving Lindfield for whatever reason and sailing to Australia in June 1828, before settling in Van Diemen’s Land, now called Tasmania.

Francis Smith bought two large tracts of partially developed land, and created an impressive cattle and sheep farming estate, he called ‘Campania’. To develop his property, a large workforce was required, and he employed convicts, both male and female. The estate house was impressive and well furnished. On a trip back to England in 1843 he lobbied government to end convict transportation.

However, everything was not well, as Marie Josephine was ostracised due to her colour, and, together with the children, suffered racial insults. In total she had 12 children but sadly six children died. Meanwhile, Francis, a domineering man, developed the farm and other business, and participated in local society, becoming a Justice of the Peace and leading citizen. He appears to have successfully hidden his mulattoe origins.

Francis Smith died on 8th September 1855 and was buried in a local cemetery in Richmond. Shortly afterwards, Marie Josephine Villeneuve and her three unmarried daughters returned to England, setting up home in London. She died in December 1893 while living with her son, Sir Francis Villeneuve Smith, at his grand residence in Kensington. The Sussex Express announced the death as the widow of Francis Smith ‘JP’, formerly of Lindfield.

The story continues with Francis Villeneuve Smith, one of the Smiths’ children who lived in Lindfield prior to growing up on his father’s estate in Tasmania; returning to England to further his education. In 1838, he began studying law at the Middle Temple, being called to the Bar in 1842. Returning to Tasmania, he was a successful barrister, becoming Solicitor General. In 1856, following election to the Tasmania House of Assembly, he served as Attorney General becoming Tasmania’s fourth Premier (1857-1860), a Supreme Court Judge (1860-70) and Chief Justice (1870-75). He received a Knighthood in 1862.

Francis, on 26th August 1851, married Sarah Giles born in the County of Mayo, Ireland, the only child of Reverend George Giles. Their marriage was blessed with two sons and two daughters. Interestingly, all were given Villeneuve as their second forename, which recognised his mother’s ancestry.

On retirement, he retired to England, purchasing a fine house in South Kensington and Heathside, Mount Ephraim, Tunbridge Wells, where he died on 17th January 1909, age 89. His widow died six months later.

Special thanks to Christine Eickelmann for permission to use her paper, ‘The Enigmatic Father of Tasmania’s fourth Premier’ published in the Tasmanian Historical Research Association’s journal, August 2021, as the base for this article.

Contact Lindfield History Project Group via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/

Did you know about Lindfield's connection to Friar Tuck and John Bent's association with The Bent Arms?

By Richard Bryant and Janet Bishop, Lindfield History Project Group

Did you know that Friar Tuck, of Robin Hood fame, was a priest at Lindfield Parish Church in the early 1400s?

The name Friar Tuck first appears as Frere Tuk in a Royal Writ issued for his arrest on 9th February 1417: it read ‘Commission to Thomas Camoys, Thomas Ponynges and John Pelham to arrest one assuming the name of Frere Tuk and other evildoers of his retinue who have committed divers murders, robberies, depredations, felonies, insurrections, trespasses, oppressions, extortions, offences and misprisions in the counties of Surrey and Sussex, and bring them before the King and Council’. A comprehensive list of crimes, giving the impression it was a ‘catch all’ warrant.

From the words ‘assuming the name of Frere Tuk’, it is reasonable to assume that the name was a nom de guerre. No connection was made with Robin Hood, as it would appear the Friar had not been subsumed into fables in the Robin Hood tradition at that time. The Robin Hood fables are set during the lives and reigns of Richard I and John, from the mid-1100s to early 1200s.

On 22nd May 1417, a further writ was issued commissioning ‘William Lasyngby and Robert Hull to enquire into the report that a certain person assuming the unusual name of Frere Tuk and other evildoers have entered parks, warrens and chases of divers lieges of the King in the counties of Surrey and Sussex at divers times, hunted therein and carried off deer, hares, rabbits, pheasants and partridges, burned the houses and lodges for the keeping of the parks, warrens and chases and threatened the keepers’. Regardless of other crimes, poaching on Royal land and that of his supporters was a serious offence in the 1400s. It is not clear whether this writ was clarification of the February 1417 writ or an additional indictment, probably the former.

The identity of Frere Tuk remained unknown and thus he escaped arrest. He next appeared in a writ of 12th November 1429, which stated ‘Robert Stafford, late of Lyndefeld in the County of Sussex, Chaplain, or Robert Stafford of Lyndefeld, Chaplain, alias ‘Frere Tuk’, for not appearing before the King to answer Richard Wakehurst touching pleas of trespass; or before Henry V to answer that King touching divers trespasses whereof he the said Robert Stafford was indicted’. It is to be assumed that a ‘hue and cry’ was raised and Robert Stafford went on the run as an outlaw.

There is no known record of Robert Stafford being arrested nor standing trial or of his death. Similarly, where he lived in Lindfield before going on the run is not known. In any event, the property most likely disappeared centuries ago. Looking at surviving houses from the 1400s, a possible contender could be Church Cottage.

His crimes and escape from arrest became a legend and passed into folklore, as poaching from the rich would have been admired by the poor, who had suffered grievously for committing such crimes.

Frere Tuk’s name next appears around 1475 in the first surviving Robin Hood play, Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham, with the words: ‘Be holde wele Frere Tuke Howe he dothe his bowe pluke’

It was at this time that Maid Marian also entered the Robin Hood fable. Nevertheless, it is possible that they were characters in earlier oral tales that were not recorded in writing. From this point to today Friar Tuck regularly appears in Robin Hood stories and songs. Academic studies consider Friar Tuck to be one of a few members, if not the only one, of Robin Hood’s band of outlaws that can be traced to a real person. Interestingly, in c.1590 a reference to Friar Tuck is also made in Shakespeare’s ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’, when the third outlaw exclaims: ‘By the Bare Scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar’.
This fellow were a King for our wild faction. Hence Robert Stafford, a Lindfield Priest, most likely a Chantry Priest, obtained immortality as Friar Tuck.

Did you know John Bent gave his name to the Bent Arms?

The Inn dating from the 17th century was originally called The White Lion, until being bought in about 1827 by John Bent. He changed the name of the Inn to reflect his ownership. At the time of the purchase, he was a local property and landowner who lived at Oat Hall, a large house that he had built between Lindfield and Haywards Heath.

Born on 27th March 1776, John Bent grew up in Devon. His mother’s family were tradesmen at Ashburton. In 1818, he became the Member of Parliament for Sligo, Ireland, until 1820, when for the next six years he represented the Totnes, Devon, constituency. According to History of Parliament, ‘He certainly had money, was known in the City and invested substantially in landed property in the Lindfield and Cuckfield area of Sussex, but no evidence has been found to corroborate an assertion of 1823 that he was “a West India Planter”’.

Whilst he may not have been a planter, the 1817 Slaves Register of the Slave Compensation Commission, a government body set up to pay compensation to slave owners, consequent upon the abolition of slavery, lists John Bent as the Proprietor of Plantation Vrouw Anna in British Guiana. He had sold this plantation and mortgaged it back to the new owner, putting in a claim for £14,000 compensation for slaves on the plantation. He did not receive the payment as they were part of the new owner’s property and mortgage security. Clearly John Bent was involved in the West Indies as he was described as being ‘a Commissioner in Demerara’ when being put forward for the Sligo seat in Parliament.

John Bent was also involved in an Irish Mining Company scandal in 1825 and 1826. The Arigna Iron and Coal Mining Company was established in 1825 as a joint stock company, to exploit iron, coal and other minerals in and around Arigna in the counties of Roscommon and Leitrim, Ireland. At the time it was considered beneficial to introduce English capital into Ireland.

The scandal concerned the alleged fraudulent appropriation of shareholders’ money by Bent and other directors of the company. A Parliamentary Select Committee investigated the scandal and cleared him of fraudulent activity but he was censored for imprudence. The other directors were found to have acted fraudulently. Following on from what might be described as a ‘colourful’ business life, on settling in Lindfield and investing in property in the area John Bent lived an uneventful life until his death in October 1848, aged 73.

Contact Lindfield History Project Group via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/

Lindfield vicarages

By Richard Bryant, John Mills and Janet Bishop

At the beginning of September, the Rev Dr Stephen Nichols takes up his duties as the vicar of All Saints church. He and his family will make their home at The Vicarage, situated behind Bower House, beside the lane and footpath leading from the High Street to Hickmans Lane. The house’s history will be explored later in the article, but first, where have the clergy resided in centuries past?

In medieval time, the Dean and Canons of the College of Canons, St. Michaels, South Malling held the parish and manors in Lindfield on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Dean was required to reside in Lindfield for 90 days a year and the Canons for 40 days. It has been suggested that four of the oldest surviving houses in the village were built by the Canons in the 14th and early 15th century. It is reputed that Bower House, built circa 1330, was the Dean’s residence, but evidence to support this assertion is lacking. Similarly, evidence that the Canons resided at Thatched Cottage and Clock House is difficult to find, consequently it is not possible to positively identify their residences. There is little doubt, however, that Church Cottage was the clergy’s dwelling in medieval times and is referred to in old records over the years as the Parsonage.

In the 1530s and 1540s, Henry VIII was on the throne and seeking a divorce, which led to the English Reformation, establishment of the Church of England and the dissolution of religious houses. In March 1545, an order for the dissolution of the College of Canons was issued and all their possessions, land and tithes were taken by the Crown before passing into lay ownership. Only a fraction of the tithes were given to the church. Tithe income was intended to fund the church. Lindfield parish became poor, unable to provide dwellings for incumbents, and the clergy had to fund housing from their own resources.

Rev Francis Killingbeck is recorded in 1580 as living at ‘Tyes’, where Martins and Abbots now stand. He appears to have preferred to buy his own house rather than pay rent to Church Cottage’s new owners. This marked the end of the use of Church Cottage.

During the next couple of centuries, the clergy lived at various properties in the village. Notable among these was Rev Humphrey Everynden, who, in the 1620s, built his ‘parsonage’, on the upper High Street, that carries his name today. Rev Henry Barwick also lived at Everyndens in the 1790s, before having to downsize to either 111 or 113 High Street.

Following his arrival, Rev Francis Sewell in 1841 leased Pear Tree House, junction of Lewes Road and High Street, until 1849 when he accepted a living in Lancashire, moving away from Lindfield for seven years. For Sewell’s return to Lindfield, he planned a grand mansion as his vicarage to be financed by a complex funding arrangement to which he would contribute £1,500 towards the £3,000 cost, the intention being that on receipt of the balance from parishioners and other subscribers, the property would be transferred into the ownership of the church for the benefit of future vicars. He returned in 1856 on completion of his mansion which he named The Welkin, meaning Vault of Heaven. On his death in 1862 insufficient money had been subscribed, no doubt due to being very grand in substantial grounds with two long drives. Ownership of The Welkin remained in Sewell’s estate before being sold. The church continued to remain without its own vicarage for future incumbents.

In contrast, Sewell’s replacement, Rev Frederick Mills, had to rent Townlands until circumstances required him to vacate the house. Unable to fund alternative accommodation, he and his family became homeless and had to ‘squat’ in the abandoned National School room on the Common until evicted. A parishioner took pity on him and provided a home.

Moving on from this low point, Miss A H Davis of Walstead Place bequeathed a £3,000 trust fund to the church for the sole purpose of providing a vicarage. This came to fruition in July 1902 with the completion of a vicarage house: Glebe House on Denmans Lane (shown on the previous page). It was built by Messrs Anscombe and Hedgecock to a design by Walter Millard of Grays Inn, London, on a two-acre site given by William Sturdy of Paxhill. The impressive house comprised an inner hall, three sitting rooms, a drawing room, six bedrooms and a dressing room, plus servants’ accommodation. Stone from the Paxhill quarry was used in the construction.

The first minister to reside at the new vicarage was Rev Edward d’Auvergne. On his retirement, Rev Arthur Mead took up residence for a short while. The high cost of living in and maintaining this large house was quickly realised, a parishioner commented: “It would take a rich man to continue living in the house”. The Parochial Church Council (PCC) decided it was no longer suitable accommodation for the clergy and in 1917 leased it to tenants to supplement the parish stipend; it was later sold. Rev Mead moved to Church Cottage, initially leased before being purchased in 1926 by the Church Council, from Walter Tower of Old Place. Thus reuniting Church Cottage with the church for the first time since medieval times. The cottage ceased being the vicarage in 1933 when the newly arrived Rev Sidney Swann and his wife Lady Theodosia Bagot wanted a house of their own and bought Bower House. At that time, it was two cottages which he reconverted to one house and extensively renovated.

Upon Rev Swann’s retirement, the PCC again faced having to acquire a suitable house for the new incumbent Rev Richard Daunton-Fear. In 1937, the Church Council bought the Mission Hall from the County Towns Mission following their move to Chaloner Road. The plan was to demolish the hall and build a new vicarage on the site. Due to problems in agreeing a suitable design and lack of money, the scheme was abandoned in August 1938 and the property sold to Miss Maud Savill.

Shortly afterwards, Little Townlands was acquired as the new vicarage and remains so to this day. The land on which the vicarage stands was just a field, belonging to Townlands, until the 1880s. Plans were drawn up for a cottage, stable and coach house to be constructed at the bottom, southern end, of the paddock. When built in 1888, the buildings had been realigned and moved towards the northern end. They are described in the 1910 property survey, commissioned by David Lloyd George for proposed tax purposes, as ‘brick and tile, 3 stall stable with loft, 4 horse coach house and a 4 roomed adjoining cottage’. The coachman initially occupied the cottage and later the head gardener at Townlands.

The property was purchased by Mr and Mrs Arthur Hooper (previously of Nash House, High Street) during the late 1920s, to create a ‘holiday home’. In February 1930, Cuckfield Rural District Council gave permission to alter and make additions to Little Townlands. These involved considerably altering the two-storey square cottage, at the back of today’s vicarage, altering the one-storey stable, adding a one-storey glazed passage along the north side of the stables and adding a new front section to create the property as seen today.

Contact Lindfield History Project Group via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/ or 01444 482136.

History of Lindfield fair

By Richard Bryant and John Mills

Each summer a fair arrives on Lindfield Common, reflecting a tradition that has featured in village life for centuries. In medieval times, Lindfield was a thriving small town. In 1343, to maintain its importance and prosperity, the Canons of South Malling, the Lords of the Manor, applied to Edward III for permission to hold fairs and a market. The King granted a Royal Charter allowing a market to be held every Thursday and two annual eight-day fairs to be held on 1st May, the Feast Day of Saint Philip and St James, and 25th July, the Feast Day of St James the Great. A charter for an eight-day fair was a significant privilege, as they were usually for three or five days.

The first Lindfield Fairs were held in 1344, the Spring Fair probably for sheep and cattle, with lambs featuring at the Summer Fair. The charter required them to be held ‘at the town’. Little is known of the fairs in medieval time but fairs across the country were similar events with records showing the trading of animals, the opportunity to buy a wide range of goods not available in the market or local shops. Itinerant traders travelled from fair to fair; less welcome were the rogue traders, pick-pockets and other ne’er-do-wells that such events attracted. Fairs also gave locals the chance to make merry with entertainment provided by travelling minstrels.

The Lindfield Fairs continued through the centuries but little information is known until the arrival of local newspapers in the early 1800s; by this time their duration was shorter and the July fair had moved to 5th August. Also, another fair was held in early April for the sale of tegs - two-year-old sheep - its origins are not known. The traditional ‘charter’ May Fair for sheep and cattle continued until the early 1850s, when it merged with the Summer Fair on the Common. The April Sheep Fair continued on the High Street; the wider roadway section below the Red Lion Inn being the traditional location of fairs since medieval times.

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The Sussex Advertiser in April 1828 reported, ‘The Lindfield Teg Fair was most amply supplied with stock and buyers. This Fair has of late years attained a degree of celebrity superior to any in the County; and this assertion will be borne out by the fact that more sheep have been penned and have fetched greater prices than any Fair in the County.’ Similarly, in 1882 the Mid Sussex Times commented that the April Sheep Fair ‘was somewhat numerously attended by cattle dealers and agriculturalists. The High Street presented quite an old-time picturesque appearance, so far as the cattle etc. were concerned’ but the confectionery stalls were limited ‘and confined to the north end of the town.’ Nevertheless, the fair was in decline, partly due to the opening of cattle markets.

The 1895 Clarke’s Directory noted ‘Two Fairs are held at Lindfield; one on 1st April for sheep and another on 8th August for lambs and cattle. That of 1st April seems doomed to die a natural death ere many more years pass, but the August Fair maintains its reputation as the largest in Sussex, whose flock masters and agriculturalists attend in great numbers’.

The April Fair limped on with increasing objections to its High Street location until 1901, when Cuckfield Rural District Council ordered the fair to be held on the Common. Subsequently the Sussex Express reported that this move ‘sounded the Fairs’ death knell’ and the last April Fair was held in 1903.

Turning to the Summer Fair in 1856, there were 28,000 lambs and sheep, together with nearly 800 cattle penned plus horses. The pens were located on uneven ground at the top of the Common furthest from the village, with the pleasure ground in the middle of the Common and the lower section reserved for the horse dealers. George Durrant, the Fair Manager, provided the wattles for the pens, which were stored in the wattle house opposite the Pond and in Denmans Lane. The animals were driven to Lindfield on foot, with journeys taking many days.

The pleasure fair featured penny rides on hand-driven roundabouts, swings, shows, a circus, various games and ‘Cheap Jack’ stalls such as Doctor Butler’s Pills to cure all ailments. It was reported: ‘The ground exhibited the usual quantity of victualling and liquor booths’ and the large size of the Tiger Inn’s tent was particularly noted. Drinking was a popular feature of the fairs, no doubt from their inception.

The layout of the fair changed in 1867 with the lambs, sheep and cattle moved to leveller ground lower down the Common, allowing more space for the pens and better grazing. The introduction of the August Bank Holiday made the 5th August date inconvenient and permission was sought to change to 8th August. This was granted ‘By Order of the Home Secretary,’ for 1889 and future fairs. Formal authority was necessary as it was deemed a charter fair.

During the next couple of decades the number of animals penned for sale gradually reduced but the pleasure fair grew larger. It is described in 1896 as having roundabouts, swings, coconuts shies, shooting galleries, wild beast shows, dog and monkey circus, a boxing women’s show, a men-only show that just conformed to the law, photographic studio offering ‘3 for a shilling’, try your weight machines, various games, many stalls and several steam organs.

The opening of the new cricket ground on the Common in 1907 resulted in the fair’s layout changing again. By this time, the sheep numbers grew smaller but it still ‘brings together one of the largest gatherings of landlords, farmers and dealers that takes place in the county and the amount of business transacted is considerable’.

The 1914 fair continued as usual despite the Great War commencing a few days earlier. It was visited by representatives of the Army Remount Department, looking to buy horses for the war. As soon as their presence was known to the gypsies, ‘they whipped up their horses, some of which were quietly grazing around the caravans and started them running in all directions. For the remainder of the day these horses were not to be seen’. The Army, however, succeeded in buying a few horses ‘which made their owners quite rich’. Gypsies with their caravans were a traditional sight at all the fairs. The pleasure part of the fair was suspended in 1915 for the duration of the war, but the sheep sales continued until 1916 and then ended permanently. The coming of peace saw the re-introduction of a small one-day pleasure fair and in the following years it grew in size and popularity.

The 1933 event, held over five days and run by Thomas Smith of Shoreham, featured dodgem cars, a miniature circus complete with clowns and performing ponies, tents displaying curious reptiles, Yorkshire’s fattiest lady weighing 40 stone, and the smallest lady in the world at 22½ inches. In the Adults Only tent, men viewed ‘Madam Lola and Hells Angels (dazzling Parisian beauties) in various poses’. There were the ever-popular rides, together with fortune tellers, shooting galleries, hoopla and similar games. No doubt to the annoyance of nearby residents, organ music played continuously.

Following suspension during WWII, the large pleasure fair continued for many years before a gradual decline to the much smaller visiting fair seen today.

Contact Lindfield History Project Group via https://lindfieldhistoryproject.group/ or 01444 482136.

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