NEWSLETTER NO. 13 - Jan 2007
This newsletter - unlucky 13 perhaps - is running late and is being produced in a different manner. Instead of copies being photocopied, address labels being stuck on and collection at a meeting - with uncollected copies being hand delivered or posted as appropriate, the printer of our books is doing the whole job, posting all copies to members; the cost of this is virtually the same as the previous method and has the added advantage of making far less work for the committee and the editor.
There has been some reaction to James Lees Milne’s description of his awful visit to Wadhurst, which featured on the front of the last newsletter. Many were puzzled, trying to work out exactly where he was; his description of his walk “down the long, straggly, dull village street to The Gatehouse” and his description of the house - “a genuine early Tudor - say late fifteenth century - yeoman's dwelling, typical of this region. It is of half-timber, with sloping roof; overhanging eaves and a central brick chimney stack. There is nothing fake about it.” could not be reconciled with anything in today’s High Street.
It seems clear that he got off the bus at the Castle junction and walked along Sparrows Green Road and then down Osmers Hill to The Gatehouse in Woods Green. His view that “the whole rickety old dump will have collapsed in a heap” by the time the old dame who lived there died has, fortunately, not been borne out by the passage of time; however, there is no doubt that it has needed massive expenditure to return the house to the condition its status deserves!
The illustration for 2007 is a view of the High Street, which few - if any - are likely to remember; the print is a quality photo enlargement of a postcard, produced for the Castertons - who ran the Post Office in what was Gobles and is now Jacqui Martel’s shop. The print was found in the basement of Lloyds Bank, which now occupies the haberdashery store on the left of the photo. There is plenty of interest here - the state of the road surface, the wall jutting across the pavement at the east end of what is now the Sonar Gaon, the size of the trees outside the butchers, the skirt lengths.
Another area of research has opened up in the last week or so. In preparing a catalogue of the library at Hole Place in Rolvenden, the owner Edward Barham [related to the earlier Barhams of Wadhurst - ironmongers and major land owners] came across the Wadhurst Rate Book for 1759 - 1772 [see p 99], which he has kindly loaned to the Society for three months. When collecting it, I was also lent several other interesting items - the sale catalogues for the Tappington Estate in 1952 and Snape earlier in the century. Edward Barham also showed me three large family history scrapbooks, containing much material of real relevance to the Estates and Buildings task group - photographs of local residents, farming and the interiors of many of the houses in which earlier generations of Barhams lived. He also, most generously, offered to let us work on these books at Hole Park - many happy hours could, and should, be spent on this task in the next year or two. But first I must finish this newsletter! MJH