Category Archives: Listed Building

Two primary roles: (i) local history posts that have a listed building as their topic; and (ii) local planning issues as they relate to a listed building.

Woodmancote Place — still available

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Woodmancote Place
Country Life does the history:

Set in 149 acres of lakeside gardens and grounds, pasture, deer park and woodland, the house, first mentioned in records of 1339 and 1434, has evolved over time around the core of a late-medieval stone building, of which only one storey survives, with an early-17th-century, timber-framed first floor above it.

According to its listing, the south parlour was rebuilt in the early 1700s as part of a new five-bay range running eastwards, and the entire house was refaced in about 1920, and extended to the east, west and north, in the revived Sussex Vernacular style, par timber-framed and part tile-hung. The park, restocked with deer by the current owners, who bought Woodmancote Place in 2002, was established in the late 19th century; the gardens around the house were laid out by Cheals of Crawley in 1923. As the chief manor house of the village, Woodmancote Place has had its share of famous-and infamous-owners.

In 1530, Woodmancote passed to Catherine, wife of Sir Edward Seymour, later Earl of Hertford and 1st Duke of Somerset, who was executed for treason in 1552. In 1531, Seymour sold the manor to Richard Bellingham, whose widow married George Goring, described as lord of the manor in 1560. For 200 years from 1693, the estate was owned by the industrious Dennett family, who extended the house and increased the farmland to 402 acres by 1840.

Septima Cottages

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Septima Cottages is a Grade II listed building on the corner of The Street in Fulking as it turns south down to the Shepherd and Dog. During its long history it has, at times, comprised one dwelling or two (as it is now). The listing details are terse, as usual:

C17 or earlier timber-framed building refaced with red brick on ground floor and tile-hung above. Tiled roof. Horizontally-sliding sash windows. Two storeys. Three windows.

Howe (1958, page 32) refers to “an outshut wall built in masonry which may be mediaeval” and provides a much more informative description written by Albert Paulin who was living in Septima during the 1950s:

Date uncertain but said to have been in existence in 1643: first recorded date 1812 (Conveyance: purchase from H.M. Commissioners of Woods and Forests at price of about £60): Original brick floors on ground floor, apparently laid on some such base as puddled clay. They are very dry. Upper floors, original wide board, approximately 18 inches wide: appear to be mixture of oak and chesnut. Roofing tiles mainly original, pegged to oak battens with oak pegs. Two windows have original leaded lights with flint glass. Bread baking ovens well preserved. One original staircase still in use. Much of the brickwork up to first floor level appears to be original. Inside partitions plaster and lath between original oak vertical puncheons. Roof carried by heavy oak tie-beams, curved to give headroom over door openings, but even so, a bare five feet headroom. [Howe 1958, pages 36-37.]

Septima Cottage, Fulking
The building was sold as two tenanted cottages in 1914. The auction particulars showed Number 1 as having two bedrooms, a living room with an oak timbered ceiling and chimney corner fireplace, a washroom with a copper and a pantry. Number 2 was described as a creeper-clad cottage with one bedroom, a living room with an oak timbered ceiling and open fireplace, a small sitting room, a washhouse and a privy shared by the two cottages (the creeper was still thriving in 1999). Primrose Cottage, which is next door, was sold at the same auction and there was a covenant to ensure that the occupants of Septima would have continued access to its well. The Septima cottages were let at the time of the auction for between two and three shillings a week each, around 10% of the then current wage for an agricultural worker.

The building owes its name to Ann Septima Cuttress who was born around 1839 and who lived in the cottage for most of a long life. The name probably originated as the simple description “Septima’s cottage”. Ann’s father James had been born in Fulking in 1797. In 1841 he was working as a market gardener and living with his wife Mary and eight daughters in what the census calls ‘Lower Paythorn’. Mary died in 1846. After his wife died, James moved to Septima. In 1851, he was living there with his two youngest daughters, Ann and Barbara. He was still working as a market gardener. In 1858, Ann married Benjamin Baldey, a farm worker originally from Falmer, and he moved into the cottage. Ann was a minor (under 21) at the time of her wedding and thus required her father’s permission to marry. Benjamin was ten years her senior. The 1861 census shows them with two daughters and with James, now in his sixties and working as a shepherd, living with them as a lodger. He was still there in 1871, retired from shepherding but surrounded by half a dozen grandchildren. He died a couple of years later at the age of 76. Ann was to have a total of fifteen children, at least three of whom died in infancy. One of her sons, Charles, became the publican at the Shepherd and Dog and one of her grandsons, also called Charles, is commemorated on the 1914-1918 war memorial in Edburton churchyard.

In 1914, Ann and Benjamin were living in Number 2 and their son Percy was living in Number 1 with Nanny, his wife, and their children. Although they were tenants, the building had remained in the ownership of the Cuttress family until the auction in that year. Benjamin Baldey died in 1915 at the age of 87. Ann remained in residence and, when the war ended, she converted the small dining room of Number 2 into the village sweet shop. The entrance was via a stable door situated where the oriel (bay) window is now located. Ann also served teas in the garden and took in lodgers, some of whom were artists. She died in 1925 at the age of 86 — she had lived in Septima for nearly eighty years.

The Purdew wedding, 1 Septima Cottages, 1920s
In the 1920s, a Mr and Mrs Purdew were photographed outside their new home, Number 1, on their wedding day. Mr Purdew was probably a descendant of the Purden/Purdew family that lived adjacent to the Baldey family in the 1870s. However, the Purdews had moved to Perching Sands by the 1880s.

In the 1940s, two sisters, Charlotte (‘Lottie’) and Marjorie Clark, lived in Number 1 and they went on to purchase Number 2. In her youth, Lottie had been a milliner and sometimes modelled fur coats complete with one of her hats for a London fashion house. During this time she was required to live in a staff dormitory, supervised by a matron who carried out daily inspections to ensure that all the girls looked their best and that no unauthorised changes were made to their appearance. Marjorie was musical and played the organ for the church and the piano for village concerts. She went on to marry Albert Paulin, a magistrate and an important figure in 1950s village life. They lived in Number 1 and Lottie moved into Number 2 where she lived until her death in 1976, aged 96. In due course, Albert and Marjorie Paulin moved to Thatchly, a distinctive 1930s house that is at the other end of The Street from Septima. Marjorie died in 1972, aged 76.

Photo of Septima by Albert Paulin from F.A. Howe's 1958 book on Fulking.

A photograph of Septima Cottages taken by Albert Paulin in the 1950s and printed on page 96 of F.A. Howe’s 1958 book on Fulking.

In the 1980s, Emile Curtis bought both cottages and set about supervising their renovation. Part of the garden of the Old Bakehouse had been purchased in 1981 and used to increase the size of Number 2’s garden. All the work undertaken on the cottages had to meet the strict criteria required for altering a listed building: the roof tiles were removed and refitted with new oak pegs and a damp-proof course was added by injecting a silicon solution into the solid exterior walls. The timbers were treated throughout with wood preservative, the cottage was completely rewired, new drains were constructed and the plumbing was replaced and updated. A hot water system and night storage heaters were installed. Finally, insulation boards were fitted to an extension and the front elevation and finished with hanging tiles. While work was in progress Emile discovered an interesting feature: back-to-back cupboards had been built between the two cottages that gave access to the next-door cottage. Further extension and refurbishment took place in 2005.

Septima Cottages in 2007

Septima Cottages in 2007

Tony Brooks

Reference

  • F.A. Howe (1958) A Chronicle of Edburton and Fulking in the County of Sussex. Crawley: Hubners Ltd.

[Copyright © 2013, Anthony R. Brooks. Adapted from Anthony R. Brooks (2008) The Changing Times of Fulking & Edburton. Chichester: RPM Print & Design, pages 172-175.]

“Old red telephone box .. converted into tourist information kiosk”

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Fulking telephone box and bus stop

[A slightly misleading illustration]

The Argus reports:

This former BT telephone kiosk was installed decades ago in .. a hamlet nestling in the South Downs .. For years it remained unused, .. It has now undergone months of restoration work and now displays a large-scale map of the area with details of local places of interest and local amenities. It would also dispense leaflets and brochures provided by the South Downs National Park Authority, various institutions and by businesses in the vicinity.

The Old Bakehouse

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The Old Bakehouse viewed from the north

The Old Bakehouse viewed from the north, around 1900: the white rendered building with the sign above the door is the bake house, corn store, shop, and post office. It was demolished in the mid twentieth century. The flint-faced building to its immediate right is the cottage that one sees today. The Shepherd and Dog public house can be seen behind the horses and the Downs loom beyond that.

The Old Bakehouse is a Grade II listed cottage dating from the early nineteenth century. It has a slate roof and is faced with flints. It is believed to stand on the site of an earlier building, one that would have been built at around the same the same time as its immediate neighbour, the Shepherd and Dog public house (the earlier building may be the one whose roof can be seen behind the pub in this lithograph).

For most of the nineteenth century the building provided both a home and a workplace for members of the Willett family. Edward (born in Ditchling, c1796) and his wife Elizabeth (born in Hurstpierpoint, c1796) had moved to Fulking from Beeding some time between 1824 and 1831. They were living in the house in 1841 with their seven children and a male relative of Edward’s, probably his twin brother. Edward worked as a shoemaker with the assistance of his eldest son, also called Edward. By 1851, Edward Snr. had added grocery to his shoemaking business and now had the assistance of three of his sons. One of his daughters, Margaret, had become a school mistress at the local school, and his youngest daughter, Sarah, had gone to work as a servant for the Blaker family in Perching Manor. At some point Edward Snr. excavated the rock face on the west side of the house and built a wood fired oven, which became the basis of the bakery. Dough was prepared with yeast obtained from the brewery in Poynings and mixed with water that potatoes had been cooked in.

In 1853, Edward Jnr. married Ann Burtenshaw, a shoe binder from Edburton. They were to have four children. By 1861, they had moved out of the Old Bakehouse and were living elsewhere in the village. But both Edward and Ann continued to work in the family shoemaking business, as did Edward’s younger brother Joseph who was still living with his parents. The shop now included a corn store and the local post office franchise. Edward Snr. died in 1863 and his widow took over the shop. Joseph got married in 1866 and moved to another house in the village with his wife before moving to Poynings. Edward Jnr. had added market gardening to his portfolio of activities by 1866, perhaps to supply the family grocery.

The Old Bakehouse family group

The Old Bakehouse in a photograph that was probably taken by an itinerant commercial photographer in the mid 1860s[1]: the sign above the shop reads “O.Lucas & E.Willett Bake house & Corn Store [illegible] POST OFFICE”. Standing in the centre, immediately behind the wall, is Edward Willett with his wife Ann. Below them is his recently widowed mother, Elizabeth, with her five grandchildren Edward, Percy, Rhoda, Abby, and Fanny. The woman standing behind Edward and Ann Willett may be Edward’s sister Sarah, the mother of Percy.

At the time the photograph above was taken, O[badiah] Lucas worked in the shop as an assistant, probably in connection the post office side of the business. He did not live in Fulking or Edburton. His son, also called Obadiah, was to marry Edward Willett’s youngest daughter, Rhoda, in 1891.

Some time after the death of his father and prior to 1871, Edward and his family moved back into the Old Bakehouse. His mother had moved to Cuckfield and died there in 1873. In 1871 Edward’s son was working as an agricultural labourer whilst his eldest daughter, following the precedent set by her aunt Margaret, had become a school teacher. By 1881, the household had shrunk to four with Fanny and Rhoda still living with their parents. The census lists Edward as a shoemaker and general dealer, his wife Ann as a baker, Fanny as a dressmaker and Rhoda as shopwoman. With the exception of the addition of a young female servant, the household was just the same a decade later. The 1891 census now lists Edward as a baker and grocer, Rhoda as a bakery and grocery assistant, and Fanny as a dressmaker. The Kelly’s Directory for 1891 continues to list shoe making as one of Edward’s activities. Rhoda married Obadiah Lucas Jnr. in December that year and left Fulking for some years.

At some point between 1891 and 1899, Edward took over the other shop in the village and moved his business there. The Old Bakehouse was sold with a covenant that prevented it being reopened as a shop. Edward died in 1905, the year after his wife. His new shop passed into the hands of Rhoda and Obadiah.

The Old Bakehouse seen from the south

The Old Bakehouse viewed from the south, around 1900

In 1949 the property was sold to John Franks who submitted plans for demolition of the former shop and conversion of the 19th century cottage to form the dwelling that stands on the site today. One of the features removed was an outside staircase that gave access to a bedroom — not very pleasant on a winter’s night. He also cut away the rock in the area where a large garage stands today, to provide a level piece of ground for his pig and chicken pens. A quarry tile floor and a flight of worn steps was discovered in this area when the footings for the present day garage were excavated. What could be salvaged of these was incorporated into the top garden of the cottage. John Franks sold the property in 1952 and the new owners then rented it out. In 1981 part of the grounds was sold to the owners of 2 Septima Cottages to increase the size of their garden. The present owners purchased The Old Bakehouse in 1986. Like many other houses in Fulking, the cottage has been carefully restored and still retains certain original features, including wide, polished, floorboards and some internal doors.

The Old Bakehouse in 2007

The Old Bakehouse in 2007


Tony Brooks

Listing details:

Early C19. Two storeys. Two windows. Faced with flints, now painted. Slate roof. Casement windows. Trellised wooden porch with pediment.

Footnote

[1] Photography was a complicated and labour-intensive activity in the 1860s. Commercial photographers toured rural areas with large plate cameras and mobile darkrooms. Sunday was a favoured day since potential customers were already dressed for church. Note how the youngest boy (Percy) moved his head during the long exposure.

[Copyright © 2013, Anthony R. Brooks. Adapted and revised from Anthony R. Brooks (2008) The Changing Times of Fulking & Edburton. Chichester: RPM Print & Design, pages 175-177, 249-250.]

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Fulking Post Office

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Fulking Post Office E Willett

Fulking Post Office as it was around 1900 soon after the proprietor, Edward Willett, had moved the franchise there from its previous location adjacent to the Shepherd & Dog. The sign above the door describes the shop as a “family grocer, draper and baker”. Note the Nestle’s Milk hoarding to the left of the door and the brick pillar Post Office letter box to the immediate right. The building to the right is the Old Farmhouse.

The Old Post Office, as it is now known, is a Grade II listed house in the centre of Fulking. The current house comprises two cottages. The newer cottage was built straight on to the front of the older cottage and is thus the part that one sees from the road today. The cottage at the rear is much older and may date back four centuries. In the garden behind the house are the ruins of a third old cottage which was destroyed by fire in the 1920s. Also behind the house is an old bakehouse together with a large, brick built, underground water tank. The latter was used to store water for the bakery. It was filled from the village water supply system and the supply valve is still situated in the tank. The house shares a wall with its neighbour, the Old Farmhouse. The two houses were originally separate but, at some point, the roof of the Old Farmhouse was extended west and thus the two houses became attached. There was once even a communicating door between the two houses. These changes presumably date from the period in the nineteenth century when both buildings were occupied by the Stevens family (see below).

In 1851 and 1861, the shop was run as a grocers by the Welling family (William Welling was also a builder). By 1871 the shop had passed into the hands of Charles and Orpha Mitchell, a young couple who ran it as a grocers and drapers with the aid of an assistant. Throughout this entire period, the Old Farmhouse had been in the hands of the Stevens family. In 1881, Emily Graimes (née Stevens), a widow, and her sister Susannah Stevens, were running a grocery, bakery and drapers shop in the adjacent building. By 1891, the shop had passed into the hands of young siblings Joseph and Elizabeth Newman. During all of this period since 1851, there had been two shops in Fulking, the other one being the Bake House, Corn Store & Post Office owned by Edward Willett and located next to the Shepherd and Dog in a house that is now called the Old Bakehouse. Some time after 1891, Edward Willett closed his own premises and took over his competitor’s. The new Willett enterprise combined the roles of grocer, draper, baker and post office in a single shop.

Fulking Post Office

A postcard showing Fulking Post Office in the very early years of the twentieth century. Note the addition of the bay display window. It is likely that Obadiah and Rhoda Lucas are the couple in the photograph, together with their son James who was born in 1892. James was to die in France in 1916 and his name is recorded on the war memorial in the church in Edburton.

Edward Willett died in 1905, aged 81, the year after his wife. By then Fulking Post Office, as the shop was known, had passed into the hands of his daughter Rhoda and her husband Obadiah Lucas. They had married in 1891 when Rhoda was 30 and Obadiah 22. Obadiah’s father, also called Obadiah, had worked for Edward Willett when the latter’s shop had been in its original location, as had Rhoda herself. Rhoda’s husband was also a shop assistant by trade but he had been working in Brighton at least until the time of his marriage.

Delivery Van 2

A Lucas Stores, Fulking & Beeding delivery van from the early 1900s, probably an Albion. Albion vans were built in Scotland and had a reputation for reliability. Harrods ran a fleet of them.

Frank Lucas, a relative of Obadiah’s, was the proprietor of a grocery and provisions store in Upper Beeding. The Fulking and Upper Beeding shops adopted the name ‘Lucas Stores’ and operated in tandem with shared delivery vans. The vans were garaged one behind the other, in a long narrow building that is still situated beside Jasmin Cottage on the opposite side of the road to the shop. A bulk paraffin tank, used to fill up customers’ containers, was installed at the back of this garage.

Beeding Grocery and Provision Stores

Beeding Grocery & Provision Stores, proprietor F.H. (Frank) Lucas

As time went on Lucas Stores expanded to include Lucas General Stores at the Post House in Small Dole and a branch in Bolney run by Fred Lucas (also a relative). Since the Fulking store included a bakery, it supplied bread to the other shops. The shops prospered. Obadiah himself died in 1930 aged 61. It is possible that Rhoda ran the Fulking store by herself for a time but, by some time in the mid-1930s, Obadiah’s younger son Percy had taken over.

Delivery Van 1

A Lucas Stores, Grocer & Baker Model T Ford delivery van c1920, outside the Fulking shop. The man on the right is Obadiah’s younger son, Percy.

Ken Browne, who was born at the Dyke Hotel and later lived in Yew Tree Cottage, recalled working for Percy at the shop between 1937 and 1939. His duties included serving in the shop, delivering bread, and collecting orders. Percy inspected his staff every morning before they started work, to check that they had clean, white aprons on and that their hands and fingernails were well scrubbed. Two men worked in the bakery, two more in the shop and two drove the vans – one for the area north of the village and the other for the south – delivering bread and groceries and collecting orders that Percy would then deliver personally the following day. In addition to this, other local deliveries were made on a bicycle.

In their heyday, probably during the 1930s, the Fulking and Small Dole shops employed nine men full-time and sold almost everything that local people needed. During the Second World War, business was sustained by the government rationing programme. Because there were relatively few cars and petrol was strictly rationed, people shopped locally and village shops thrived.

In addition to being a shrewd businessman, Percy was popular and well respected and those who knew him spoke highly of him. Whenever possible he was prepared to help his customers by allowing them credit until pay-day, cooking special cakes (including Christmas cakes) in the bread oven when it was not in use, and even cooking turkeys and puddings for customers at Christmas.

Inside Fulking Post Office Stores

A crude but informative drawing by George Ridge showing the interior of the shop in the Percy Lucas era

During the 1950s, the development of large grocery chains, such as Sainsbury’s, Home and Colonial and International Stores began to have an impact on village shops. Running a car was becoming more affordable and people were thus able to shop further afield. Percy recognised this and sold the shop in the 1960s.

Ownership then passed through several hands until Robin and Marlene Howarth purchased the premises in 1972. They made some major changes, including demolishing a flint stable in the back garden and replacing it with a tearoom. However they were refused planning permission for a two-storey guest accommodation extension. Nevertheless, the tearoom was a great success. The profits were augmented by a modest income from the shop and post office and the business as a whole provided seasonal employment for several people from the village. In the 1980s the shop passed into the hands of Ted Croxton and his wife but business had started to decline and the property was once again put on the market.

In 1985 Gill and Stuart Milner purchased the shop. The tearoom was closed and the shop concentrated on running the small post office and selling mainly local Sussex produce including fresh baked bread, honey, vegetables, free range eggs and Horton’s ice cream as well as sweets, groceries and frozen food. Later a range of art, crafts, aerial photographs taken by a local pilot, clocks repaired by a local resident, small antiques and antique books was added to the stock, along with a selection of maps and postcards. Also on sale, of special interest for visitors to the village, was a small guide, entitled A Walk Down The Street, written and published by Stuart Milner.

Fulking Post Office Stores

Fulking Post Office Stores as it was in the early 1990s shortly before it closed and returned to being a private house after well over a century as a shop. It looks very little different today but a red Post Office letter box outside on the garden wall by the road serves as a reminder of the role that it once played in village life.

The severe winter of 1987 brought a heavy snowfall to Fulking and the village was cut off for 3 days. The shop suddenly became alive with eager customers. Eventually, however, it was no longer economic to keep the village shop open and it closed in 1995. The building was converted to residential use and renamed “The Old Post Office”. The area that was the original shop floor has been retained as one large, long room and the tea room and original 1900s bakery areas also remain largely unchanged. The exterior façade of the building has been preserved and still appears much as it does on old postcards of Fulking.

Tony Brooks

Listing details:

The Post Office Stores and house attached to the east. One building. Early Clg. Two storeys. Three windows. Faced with cobbles on first brick dressings, quoins and stringcourse. Slate roof. Glazing bars intact on first floor. Projecting shop window on west half of ground floor.

[Copyright © 2013, Anthony R. Brooks. Adapted from Anthony R. Brooks (2008) The Changing Times of Fulking & Edburton. Chichester: RPM Print & Design, pages 38-46, 159-159, 420.]

Updated with corrections in June 2015.

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Perching Barn

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Perching Farm as it was in 1842

Perching Farm as it was in 1842 — Perching Manor is the building shown in red, the duck pond is shown in blue and the farmyard is to the right. The large T-shaped building is Perching Barn with stables immediately due north and the grain store/cattle shed to the north east.

Until relatively recently, Perching Manor was a farmhouse and the area to its immediate east was the farmyard. There had been a farmyard in that location for hundreds of years. Farm buildings come and go, of course, but the largest building dates back to the eighteenth century. Houses have human residents who leave a history. We know quite a bit about the history of Perching Manor itself and even of the fortified building that preceded it and of the manor more generally. But farm buildings give rise to few records. The owls, rodents and feral cats who take up residence pass through anonymously, untroubled by police, lawyers, census takers and registrars of birth, death and marriage. Thus most of what is known about the history of this now former farmyard is of recent vintage — the last eighty years or so.

The largest, and most distinguished, component of the farmyard is Perching Barn. This is a Grade II listed eighteenth century building with weather-boarding on a flint base. The roof is slate, hipped at the north and half-hipped at the south. A large building today, the map shown above suggests that it was quite a bit larger still in the mid-nineteenth century.

Perching Barn was a fine example of a Sussex threshing barn. It had a wide entrance in the centre of the (long) side that faced west and was high enough to allow a threshing machine to be positioned and operated in the centre of the building. Sheaves of corn were loaded from both sides of the machine and the grain was then stored on either side of the building. Once threshed, the straw was ejected from the back of the thresher to the outside of the building. When not in use during harvest it was available for other uses — such as village barn dances and parties.

Perching Barn as it was in 1934

Perching Barn as it was in 1934 — the duck pond was much larger then than it had been in the mid-nineteenth century (or is today). In cold winters, it froze and was used for skating and ice hockey. The last time it froze hard enough to permit skating was in 1983. Part of the stable can be seen on the left behind the barn.

To the immediate north of the barn stood a stable for the farm horses. In later years, as tractors replaced horses, it was used as a storage shed and workshop. To the north east, there was a two-storey building, with cattle pens at ground level and a grain and cattle feed store above. Feed was delivered to the cattle as required, via a chute. Calf pens and a storage shed were situated at the south end of the building.

Some time during the 1930s or 1940s, a man known only as Martin lived in the lower half of a two-storey barn situated behind this building, on ground that fell away sharply towards the stream to the north east. It seems that he was ex-army and well educated, but chose to live there on an earthen floor, using old sacks as bedding. From time to time he became very ill and was moved to the workhouse at Chailey, but as soon as he recovered he would walk back to his simple home in Fulking. It is thought that his income was mainly from an army pension, but he supplemented this by chopping wood and doing odd jobs at Perching Manor for which Henry Harris is thought to have paid him 10 shillings a week.

George Greenfield was the local tramp. He may have been the George Greenfield who was born in Steyning around 1884. He lived rent-free in the ‘duck hut’, an open fronted, lean-to shed located at the southern edge of the farmyard. The shed had an open front and faced Perching Drove and the pond. George walked with a stick and had a dog. He was well known around the village and on most evenings could be found sitting in the same place at the Shepherd and Dog. He was known as the ‘threshing machine feeder man’ as this was his job when the contractor arrived in the district for the autumn/winter threshing period. In summer he did no work at all. Like Martin, his bedding was sacking and he hung sacks across the front of his hut to keep out the wind and rain. He cooked on a brazier and in winter he moved this inside the hut to provide heat. However, this meant that the hut filled with smoke, as there was only a small gap just below the roof for it to escape through. When he became ill, George was also taken to the workhouse at Chailey, but once recovered, he too always walked back to his shed, where he eventually died.

As farming became more mechanised, the barn was divided up. Half was used as a grain store, whilst the other half became a milking parlour and dairy. Later, Brian Harris, who was the farmer at the time, switched to arable production only. This decision was brought about partly because it was becoming impossible to find a cowman prepared to work the unsocial hours associated with livestock production and partly because of changes entailed by European Union farming policies. As a consequence, the barn became largely redundant.

Perching Barn in 1987 after the great storm

Perching Barn in 1987 after the great storm — the ducks may not have noticed, but the storm did serious damage to the barn.

In 1984 the Crown sold Perching Manor Farm to the National Freight Corporation. The latter sold it to Brian Harris in 1986. In the same year, Terry Willis, a developer trading as Sussex District Estates, came to Fulking and started buying redundant farm buildings for conversion to private dwellings. This was not straightforward as most had agricultural restrictions attached to them, but once these were lifted and planning permission had been obtained, the development programme began. In 1987, Brian Harris sold his redundant and derelict farm buildings to Willis. The sale included the barn, the stable and the grain store/cattle shed. Terry Willis, with the aid of an imaginative architect and some competent builders, converted these dilapidated buildings into attractive private residences during the 1990s (see the appendix below).

Perching Barn in 2007

Perching Barn in 2007 — to the left, Stable Cottage; to the right, The Granary.

Tony Brooks

[Copyright © 2013, Anthony R. Brooks. Adapted from Anthony R. Brooks (2008) The Changing Times of Fulking & Edburton. Chichester: RPM Print & Design, pages 182-185.]

Appendix

The 1990s Willis development process in pictures:

Perching Barn -- the skeleton

Perching Barn — the skeleton


The Granary

The building that was to become The Granary


Stable Cottage

The building that was to become Stable Cottage


Perching Barn

Perching Barn — the skeleton restored


The modern ground plan

The modern ground plan

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Churches Conservation Trust takes over St. Botolph’s

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St. Botolph's Church
The West Sussex Gazette reports:

A committee has been set up to oversee St Botolph’s Church, on the South Downs Way.

The meeting organised last Wednesday by the Churches Conservation Trust, which took over the Annington Road church’s care the same day, was attended by 12 people from Botolphs and the surrounding area. ..

The church, a perfect refuge for passers by, will be closed for major repairs this autumn, so those who would like to should visit the church over the next few months, the trust advises. It is currently open daily.