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BRIGHTON, and FINDING FAMILY IN WADHURST - July 13

Today we found the Nightingale Theater in Brighton, and Thor’s friends (now ours, too) in Wadhurst. Outside the theater we saw a sight that made me (at least) think a little about the people within…...

July 13, 2006

We drove to (and through) Brighton on our way to Wadhurst today. We wanted very much to see the Nightingale Theater.

We sat in the car on the side street just outside the theater and scanned for a wireless network. Found one and used it to write to Thor and tell him where we were. Gail also e-mailed Stacy before calling her on the phone. I walked ‘round to take photos, and only just suppressed my desire to spit on the doorstep. Then we shook the dust from our tires and turned north to Wadhurst (Yes, there is a story behind all this, but it’s not being told here). The trip wasn’t long, but it was an adventure, as usual. However, we got there in mid-afternoon, and found ourselves (as if) with family. What a delight.

David and Stacy Mitchell have two kids, Claire (just turned 9) and James (6). They live in a converted barn (an old oast house) on the corner of a property that has been in David’s family since the 1890s.

At that time, an artist uncle bought a small farm (10-15 acres) and built a comfortable house on it.

David’s great-grandmother lived in the house, as did two of her daughters and a son – the ones who did not marry. David’s father remembers the house as the place he spent his summers – and as he got older it was finally only the aunts who lived in it. Before the war, they had four or five inside staff and three gardeners, two of them full-time. The place was landscaped and beautifully kept. I found a deep chasm cut through the “berm” behind the house, that took you out to the grassy area where there is an ancient bench overlooking the field. The remains of the supports for a bridge over this passage-way have fallen into the cut – but the path that ran from the house up onto the berm and around the property is still apparent, although now seriously overgrown. All of this would have had flowers, flowering shrubs, and other plants carefully tended to make a wonderful English garden…..

But, WWII changed it all – the men who were fit got called into the military, and everyone else found factory work paid more than service and it became nearly impossible to get help. The higher wages required meant that the two maids inside and the single gardener/chauffeur cost so much that the family ran a deficit to keep the place going. The last aunt passed on in 1962, and to keep the property, the house was converted to four flats for rental, plus the servants’ quarters for the family to stay in when they came down from London. The magnificence of the original building is still evident in the stairway hall, with enormous paintings by John Croft (the artist-uncle who built the house, I believe)

(at least two of the paintings are fully nine feet by three in [once] lovely frames). The rich red wallpaper and the thick and well-padded carpet, as well the incredible pieces of furniture (from the rooms that are now flats) that are now being stored in halls, landings, and anywhere else they will fit, give an idea of what the place might have been like for a child – a place of wonder. It has attics,

such as you read about in books, large storage cupboards, back stairs, and rooms everywhere. David remembers the house as the place where his family came for holidays, but the aunties were gone by the time he was born, so he never saw it as a complete house – only the family flat.

The oast house/barn was converted more recently – David and Stacy lived in the family flat for a year or so after they married, and then moved to the newly converted barn. It’s wonderful, with the ancient beams showing, and a lovely adaptation of the round tower of the oast house. Doors that curve to fit the walls, and a beautiful stairs climbing up to the second level. We were taken in and treated as part of the family (6-year old James toured me all around the property, including the “gardener’s cottage” where Uncle Terry stays when he’s in residence, the orchard, the field, the woods, and the pond), and it has felt very good indeed. David is a tech guy, and we used the family computer (with broadband) to post the latest information, e-mail family and communicate with people at Southern. Ate supper, planned the following day and then went off to bed.

Here is the entrance to the oast house….this is the barn end

Around the other end, you can see the two “towers” which is where the hops were put for drying….with a “furnace” below to provide the heat. That’s my friend James Mitchell standing by the pond.