Piddingworth Greg Benton |
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| 'Piddingworth...where St. George's Cross is not yet banned.' --Mark Steyn |
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| Thank you very much for your support! |
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| Honour all men. Love the Brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the King. (1Peter 2) |
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| May God give you the strength & courage to do your Duty... Rose West Leonard |
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| THE HISTORY OF PIDDINGWORTH |
| PIDDINGWORTH has been pronounced in many different ways over the centuries: Pidelingeworth, Pedelyngworth/Pydelyngeworth (8th-15th c.); Pillingworth (17th-19th c.) It is a small estate on the Sussex Downs in the extreme south of the parish of Ditchling, and at one time was held of the Castle of Lewes for a third of a knight's fee. There is some mention of a Martin de Pidelingeworth in 1201 and 1204, and a Nicholas de Pydelyngworth who was living in 1283. In 1290 Joan, the widow of Nicholas, held a messuage and 60 acres of land in Ditchling as her dowry, a part of the inheritance of Robert le Causays and William, son of Robert de Mulstone (presumably her husband's heirs), who then sold the reversion to one Gilbert Sykelfot. About the same time, William de Mulstone sold most of his land at Pillingworth to Gilbert, who evidently became lord of the whole property. He and Joan de Pydelyngeworth were both living in 1296, but Gilbert's son John was in possession in 1327 and 1332. The subsequent history of Piddingworth is obscure. In 1421 a messuage and 200 acres of land in Ditchling, very probably Piddingworth, were claimed against a Robert Oxenbridge and others by Thomas Stonkylle and Alice, and John Yoo and Margaret, who were heirs of Gilbert Sykelfot, and their wives being descendants of Isabel, wife of John de Kyngstone, daughter of Gilbert; but the result is not recorded. Piddingworth is eventually to be found in the possession of the Earls of Arundel, the overlords, in 1425 and 1440. After the division of the rape what appears to have been Piddingworth manor descended with Ditchling manor to the Lords Bergavenny until 1523. It is then said to have been granted to John Alchorne the elder, with the remainder to John, his elder son, and all his male heirs, or failing them, to Thomas. the second son and all his male heirs.. The younger John died before his father, leaving two young daughters, Joan and Agnes. As they could not inherit the property, his brother Thomas took possession claiming that, in addition to the settlement above made, his father had actually willed the property to him! Thomas Alchorne died seised of it in 1559, leaving his widow Margaret, and the property was succeeded by his son Nicholas. He was followed by another Nicholas Alchorne, whose mother Alice was holding a third of 'Pillingeworth Farm' in dower in and about 1615. A man named Tuppin Scrase agreed to buy the property from the Alchornes in 1624, but the transfer was delayed because Nicholas did not or could not produce his mother's release of her share. Piddingworth then contained 600 acres. An owner by the name of Alderson is mentioned as succeeding Tuppin Scrase, but another fellow, John Wheeler, is recorded as having died seised of the estate in 1643, leaving it to his son John, a was just a boy of 10. It then came into the hands of John Westbrook, a grocer of London. He left the manor, with what was now 375 acres of land, to his son Durban. When he died, William, his brother, inherited Piddingworth. When he died in 1750, a younger John Westbrook, apparently William's son, held the estate until his death in 1788. In 1810 it was owned and then conveyed by George Nicholls and Philippa his wife to a Mr. John Hamshaw. Finally, and some time before 1843, it was acquired by the Pelham Family, Earls of Chichester, whose Park of Stanmer it adjoins, and with whose descendants it remained until, following the second world war, it was acquired by the National Trust and is now overseen by Brighton Council. The West family, George, Sarah Ann, and their children occupied the house at Piddingworth from the latter decade of the 19th c. until the end of the first world war. George Ambrose West, who was the 'Oxman' and 'stockman of cattle' for the Earls of Chichester, died in 1920. It was vacated sometime following and the house ruined when Piddingworth was shelled by artillery some twenty years later when the farm was used for exercises in preparation for the Normandy invasion. Source: British History Online |
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