A through Seven Centuries Danny House

Danny from the north-east, 2012. A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries

Colin and Judith Brent

Phillimore Contents

2013

Published by PHILLIMORE & CO. LTD List of Illustrations...... vii Andover, Hampshire, www.phillimore.co.uk acknowledgements...... ix Illustration Acknowledgements...... xi © Colin and Judith Brent, 2013 Preface...... xiii ISBN 978-1-86077-738-7 Introduction: Danny in Context...... xvii

1. Danny Lodge: The Pierpoints, the Dacres and their Great Deer Park, 1239-1582. . 1 2. George Goring: Courtier, Builder and Embezzler, 1582-94...... 13 3. Danny Saved and Lost: Three George Gorings, 1594-1653...... 27 4. Danny Truncated: Two Peter Courthopes, 1653-1725 ...... 37 5. Danny in Shadow: A ‘Sanguine’ Jacobite and his Depressive Son, 1725-78. . 47 6. Henry Courthope Campion: Arcadia and Affliction, 1778-1811 ...... 63 7. William and Jane: The Bountiful , 1811-55 ...... 75 8. William and Harriet: Castanets and Cottage Visits, 1855-69 ...... 83 9. William and Gertrude: Local and Imperial Service, 1869-1914 ...... 93 10. The Mansion, The Park and The Gardens, 1869-1914 ...... 105 11. The Great War, The PM and his ‘Darling Pussy’, 1914-18 ...... 123 12. sir William and Katherine: Gold Mines, Revels and World War, 1919-47 . . 131 13. Danny Transformed: Private Schools and Stylish Retirement, 1947-2004. . .141 14. Danny Relaunched, 2004-12 ...... 151

Endnotes ...... 155 Index ...... 163

v 1 Danny House amid its fields in 1666.

List of Illustrations

1. Danny House amid its fields in 1666...... vi 43. Peter Courthope by Cornelius Jansen ...... 37 2. The Danny Estate in 1939...... xv 44. a pedigree of the Courthopes of 3. Danny House below in 1888. .xvi Cranbrook and Danny...... 38 4. scouts guarding the pyre in 1935...... xvii 45. The mural tablet to Peter Courthope ...... 39 5. Roofscape below Wolstonbury...... xviii 46. John Ray by an unknown artist...... 40 6. Hamper’s plan of the Roundel...... xix 47. sketches of snails, caterpillars and 7. Wolstonbury and Wilcombe Farm in 1666. . . . xx wild flowers from Whitpaine’s map...... 41 8. Danny and its locality in the 1920s...... xxii 48. Peter Courthope’s achievement of arms...... 43 9. Danny residents on Wolstonbury in 2011. . . xxiii 49. Little Park Farm and carp pond ...... 44 10. The Great Park, Randalls and Hatches, 50. The cartouche and title plate from George Goring’s Little Park and the New Way . .xxiv the 1907 pedigree ...... 46 11. The pillow mound in Sandfield...... 2 51. a pedigree of the Campions of 12. an ancient oak in the former Great Park...... 2 Combwell and Danny...... 48 13. The ‘wood of Daneghithe’...... 3 52. Henry and Barbara Campion by unknown artist. . 49 14. The cross-legged knight in chain armour...... 4 53. Charles I on trial in Westminster ...... 50 15. The knight encased in defensive gear...... 5 54. The Apotheosis of Charles the Martyr...... 51 16. in 1776...... 5 55. The initials of Henry and 17. The double-portrait of Lady Dacre Barbara Campion ...... 52 and her son Gregory...... 6 56. The south elevation of the south wing...... 53 18. The survey of 1582 ...... 8 57. The south wing from the south-east about 1820. . 53 19. Brickwork adorned with a diaper pattern. . . . . 9 58. Capitals and pilasters on the south wing. . . . . 54 20. The north wing...... 9 59. The sundial in the south garden...... 54 21. The in the kitchen...... 10 60. The staircase installed in the later 1720s. . . . . 55 22. aerial view of Danny from the south-east . . . . 12 61. a ground-floor plan of Danny as 23. a pedigree of the Gorings of remodelled in the later 1720s...... 56 and Danny...... 14 62. Finely moulded roof-beams in the 24. The carved woodwork preserved south wing...... 57 at Pelham House Hotel...... 15 63. a barrel-vault in the cellar...... 57 25. eastern front of the mansion...... 15 64. The before 1871...... 58 26. elizabethan in Sussex ...... 16-17 65. The ‘chimney back’ in the Great Hall...... 59 27. Gables and busts...... 18 66. The coach house and the 28. Ground-floor plan of Danny in 1725...... 19 Bowerbank fountain...... 59 29. The three turrets of the north range ...... 20 67. The south screen and the fireplace 30. ‘The Great Entrance’ in 1780...... 20 in the Great Hall...... 61 31. Plaster work in the luxury suite...... 21 68. The estate map drawn by 32. The timber roof of the Great Hall...... 21 Richard Budgen in 1783...... 62 33. The mansion, its entrance courts 69. Henry Courthope Campion by John Hoppner. . 64 and gatehouse in 1666...... 23 70. a remnant of garden wall by 34. Danny Park on John Norden’s map Sandfield Pond...... 64 of Sussex...... 24 71. The sketch of the entrance court by 35. George Goring by Van Dyck ...... 26 S.H. Grimm drawn in 1780...... 65 36. Chimneypiece dated 1571...... 28 72. The ‘lawn’ and south wing sketched 37. The broken effigies at Lewes...... 28 by S.H. Grimm in 1782...... 65 38. a miniature of George Goring, 73. The estate map drawn by William Figg later Earl of Norwich ...... 29 in 1826...... 66 39. Louis XIII of France...... 29 74. Danny and Wolstonbury Hill by H.F. De Cort. . 68 40. Colonel Goring and the Earl of 75. The interior of the ‘plunge bath’...... 69 Newport by Van Dyck...... 32 76. The Carolina poplar in winter and summer . . . 69 41. sir William Campion by 77. William Campion attributed to Cornelius Jansen...... 33 Sir Thomas Lawrence...... 70 42. The armour of Sir William Campion ...... 34 78. The memorial to Priscilla Campion...... 70

vii viii Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries

79. Bridget Campion by John Hoppner...... 71 115. sentinel elms along the drive ...... 113 80. The memorial window to William 116. James and Caroline Bunney at their and Jane Campion...... 74 gardener’s cottage...... 114 81. The Gothick ceiling in the 117. The garden laid out by ‘the wise lady’...... 115 drawing room ...... 76 118. The east front by Thomas Cobb...... 116 82. archery in Danny Park about 1830 ...... 78 119. a new lawn mower proudly displayed. . . . . 118 Acknowledgements 83. The Georgian fittings of the church ...... 80 120. James Bunney and assistant...... 118 84. Memorial window to William Campion...... 82 121. The horse-drawn fire brigade at Danny. . . . . 119 85. a water-colour by Harriet Kemp of 122. The tulip tree and the west front...... 120-21 Dale Park near Arundel...... 84 123. Lloyd George and colleagues during 86. The Family dispersed across the east lawn . . . . 85 the Great War ...... 124 87. The ‘new’ dining room...... 85 124. edward Campion’s order to his 88. The dining room today ...... 85 Seaforth Highlanders ...... 124 89. The Victorian library...... 86 125. edward Campion’s trench map and case. . . . 124 90. The library today ...... 86 126. The Armistice plaque in the great hall. . . . . 127 The involvement of the authors with the fascinating history of Danny House stretches 91. The heraldic glass in the Great Hall ...... 87 127. signatures and a paw mark in the 92. William Bunney and two sons...... 88 visitors’ book ...... 128 back several decades. Indeed in 1966, before her marriage, while still languishing as J.A. 93. The altar piece in Hurst College chapel...... 91 128. Miss Frances Stevenson and Wooldridge, Judith compiled a catalogue of the Danny Archives, recently given to the 94. Colonel William Campion by Walter W. Ouless. .92 Lloyd George...... 129 95. Walter Campion by M.E. Miller...... 95 129. Four generations of Campions in the Record Office by Simon Campion. But for his generosity, the documents 96. Possibly Nanny Carter or the Great Hall...... 130 might well have been dispersed when the contents of the house were sold in 1984. Colin Honourable Gertrude ...... 95 130. The grave stone of Edward Campion ...... 132 97. The Honourable Gertrude by George Richmond . .96 131. William Campion by J. Henry...... 133 in turn used them when researching his Georgian Lewes, published in 1994. 98. Kodak photographs of the Sudanese campaign . . 98 132. Katherine Campion by P. Perrelet ...... 133 The authors would like to thank the many people who have helped to make this publication 99. The memorial window to Charles Campion. . . 99 133. William’s uniform as Governor ...... 134 100. William and his hounds...... 101 134. Government House at Perth in possible. Richard Burrows, the owner of Danny House since 2004, has given it resolute 101. a cage for hanging game...... 102 Western Australia...... 134 support, especially by seeking out expertise, illustrations and past inmates with stories 102. The Danny coach...... 103 135. an estate ball at Danny House in the 1930s. . 135 103. a water-colour of the north wing 136. The Danny Revels: the wedding to tell. Ivar Graham, archivist and librarian at Danny House, entrusted to us materials by Mary Campion...... 104 procession in the garden...... 137 104. The east front in the 1870s after the 137. The Danny Revels: wedding guests that he (and the late John Chidell) had garnered and arranged. Peter Campion loaned us removal of the oak...... 106 on the terrace...... 137 family photographs and papers, including a diary of the Omdurman campaign kept by 105. The grand central staircase...... 106 138. Westminster boys in the billiard room. . . . . 138 106. The three carved heads...... 107 139. simon Campion chatting with George Tupper. . 139 his great-uncle Edward. Juliet Clarke and Christopher Whittick researched documents 107. The oak chimneypiece and the 140. Helen Scott and her smiling staff ...... 140 for us at the National Archives. Paul Stamper of English Heritage elucidated the deer park Minton tiles...... 107 141. an auction in the Great Hall ...... 142 108. The Great Hall today ...... 108 142. Montpelier College football team ...... 143 and other landscape features. Ian Nelson and the Hurst History Study Group corrected 109. The east end of the Victorian drawing room. . 109 143. Bowerbank’s discrete annexe...... 146 errors and extracted data from the formidable Borrer diary. Martin Williams mined for 110. The north-west corner of the drawing room. . 109 144. Bowerbank’s ‘Jacobean’ dining-room...... 147 111. ‘The Danny Jewel’...... 110 145. ‘Tudor’ leather shoes...... 148 us the archives of College. Dr Florene Memegalos of the City University 112. Grace Campion attributed to Peter Lely. . . . 110 146. Richard Burrows and his of New York stiffened the story of the Earl of Norwich and his flamboyant son, Colonel 113. The rustic gabled lodge ...... 112 resident ram...... 150 114. The sombre approach to the pond...... 112 147. a garden party at Danny in 2007...... 152-53 George. Barbara and David Martin checked our interpretation of their building survey of Danny House. John Campbell supplied the framework for narrating the momentous stay of Lloyd George, his ministers and his mistress in 1918. For advice on specific points we are grateful to Stewart Angell (The Hurstpierpoint patrol), Molly Beswick (brickwork), Emma and Katherine Campion (family history), Jeremy Hodgkinson (Sussex iron masters), Dr Annabelle Hughes (Randalls), Brian Lodge (the Canadians), Professor Maurice Howard (plasterwork), T.J. McCann (Sussex ), Marjorie Penn (Francis Willughby), Sally Walker (Sussex Garden Trust), Roger White (architectural features). We have drawn too on memories of their time at Danny House recalled by John Duthie, John and Sally Grant, Anthony Harrison-Barbet, Audrey Holly, Michael Smale and William Thomas. For kindly supplying copies of documents, letters, maps, photographs, postcards, paintings and drawings, we must thank Esther Bertram, Matthew Bristow (Victoria County History/England’s Past For Everyone), the British Library, Jennie Burgess, Briony Dessoutter, the East Sussex Record Office, Ian Hewitt, Charles Willis Fleming, Carole

ix x Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries and Jon Lynskey, the National Archives, the National Monuments Record, the National Portrait Gallery, the : Petworth House, Colin Prickett, Edward Reeves photographers, John Sclater, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the Sussex Archaeological Society, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Record Illustration Acknowledgements Office and Rendel Williams. We acknowledge, too, the permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to quote from material in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle and from the Royal Collection Picture Library.

References to illustration numbers are in bold.

The authors and publishers wish to thank the following for permission to reproduce their material. Any infringement of copyright is entirely accidental: every care has been taken to contact or trace all copyright owners. We would be pleased to correct in future editions any errors or omissions brought to our attention.

Anon. [William Smith Ellis], A History of Hurstpierpoint (1837) opposite p.17, 20 Anon., A short history of Government House (1980s), 134 Esther Bertram, 39, 53, 65, 77, 79, 91, 118 & front cover, 126, 132, 133, 147 Robert Willis Blencowe, ‘Extracts from manuscripts … at Danny and … Charlton House’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 10 (1858), opposite p.1, 86 Anthony Bower, 49 Colin Brent, 24b British Library, 30, 71, 72, Addit. MS. 5672 ff. 31, 29, 30 Jennie Burgess, 116 Richard Burrows, 59, 66, 80, 88, 90, 93, 95, 99, 108, 125, 130 Peter Campion, 42, 98, 104, 109, 110 Country Style (the magazine of the Country House Association) number 2 (2000), 140 Danny House Collection (DHC), 4, 9, 22, 26a, 34, 39, 41, 53, 54, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70 (Frith HPP, 83), 76, 77, 79, 81, 87, 89, 94, 95, 96, 97, 100, 101, 102, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118 & front cover, 119, 120, 121, 125, 126, 127, 131 & front cover, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 141, 142, 145, 147 East Sussex Record Office, 1, 7, 33, 47, 48 DAN 2097, 2 ACC 8419/4, 16 ACC 9374, 18 DAN 1126 ff.192 -3, 28 DAN 2098, 50 DAN 6, 68 DAN 2103, 73 ADA 228/1, 85 AMS 6943/4/2, 124 DAN 488, 129 ACC 8419/13 William Smith Ellis, ‘Hurstpierpoint; its Lords and families’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 11 (1859), pp.76, 77, 14, 15 Charles Willis Fleming, 64 Walter Godfrey, ‘A carved figure from Lewes’,Sussex Notes & Queries volume 2, p.21 (1928), 24a William Hamper, Gentleman’s Magazine, October 1806, p.897, 6 Ian Hewitt, 103

xi xii Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries

T.W. Horsfield, The history and antiquities of Lewes and its vicinity( 1824), volume 1, plate 20, 37 T.W. Horsfield, The history, antiquities and topography of the county of Sussex (1835), volume 2, facing p.244, 82 Preface David and Barbara Martin, An Archaeological Interpretative Survey of Danny House, Hurstpierpoint, Updated Report, Project Ref 3118 (2010), 19, plate 59, p.55; 29, plate 7, p.19; 58, plate 9, p.20; 61, p.71 National Archives, 13 C66/242 National Portrait Gallery, 17 & front cover, 46, 123, 128 National Trust, Petworth House, 40 & front cover I was fortunate to be able to purchase Danny House in 2004 to provide a wonderful home J. Norris, Notes on the Church of the Holy Trinity, Hurstpierpoint, p.11, 83 for my children, to take on the responsibility of conserving a beautiful historic building Colin Prickett, 3 and its environment, and to sustain a special community with its unique lifestyle. Visitors Edward Reeves, 52, 30385-6 often tell me that Danny is an all too rare part of what still makes England special. The Royal Collection, 38 RCIN 420106 house breathes history, yet is comfortable, despite being about 420 years old. It is still John Sclater, 92 lived in and cherished by some 35 people and about 3,000 people each year come through Sotheby’s Catalogue (2010), 35 its doors to visit friends or to attend the many private parties and fund-raising events for Sussex Archaeological Society, 26 b c d e Baxter Collection 1063, LEWSA VR 1272, charity that the house hosts. Unlike other stately homes of England, you the reader could 1902, 1393; 57, Grangerised edition of T.W. Horsfield, The history, antiquities and one day make Danny your home, enjoy the benefits of having staff at your service, and topography of the county of Sussex (1835) find it less expensive than the true cost of living in your current home. And by choosing The Tatler, 138, 139, number 2035, 26 June 1940 to live at Danny you would be helping to conserve part of England’s heritage. Victoria & Albert Museum, 111 M.97-1917 Friend and archivist Heather Warne introduced me to Colin and Judith Brent in Victoria County History/England’s Past For Everyone (Matthew Bristow), 5, 11, 12, 21, 2004 and they generously volunteered to write a history of Danny. The project entailed 25, 27, 31, 32, 36, 45, 54, 55, 56, 60, 62, 63, 69, 75, 78, 80, 94, 97, 105, 106, 107, five years of wide-ranging research, which, remarkably, was completed without their 112, 127, 131 & front cover, 143, 144, 145 having access to the internet. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with them and learned Weiss Catalogue (2007), 43 much from the experience. I wish to thank them for what they have achieved – the first West Sussex Record Office, 74 MPD 264 comprehensive history of Danny. Nos 8 and 10, drawn by Esther Bertram, are based on Ordnance Survey Maps reproduced This book will not only enable those of us who already love Danny to appreciate it all by permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of HMSO. the more, but will make Danny and its secrets more accessible to everybody. Ownership of Danny carries a responsibility, and this book will help me and future custodians, stakeholders and fellow owners, best conserve it for posterity. Ian Nelson and the Hurst History Study Group have not only helped with the research of this book, but have also generously donated half the cost of its publication. These funds were raised from the sale of exemplary books which the Study Group itself compiled on the history of its village and parish. This contribution is much appreciated. Through revealing its history, I believe Danny can be best cared for and loved into the future. Richard Burrows Danny House

xiii 2 The Danny estate in 1939. Introduction: Danny in Context

The visitor to Danny House leaves New Way Lane to follow the drive laid out for the ‘delight’ of the Cavalier Lord Goring. His grandfather bought the capacious manor of Hurstpierpoint from Gregory Lord Dacre in 1582 and transformed its feudal hunting lodge at Danny into a stately E-shaped mansion. But the Civil War brought the Cavalier financial ruin. So in the early 1650s the manor was messily split up and sold. Peter Courthope, a Kentish entrepreneur, acquired the mansion, 262 acres of the former hunting park, and also adjacent Warren Farm in . The marriage of Peter’s great-granddaughter took the mansion and its truncated estate in 1725 to Henry Campion, a Kentish landowner, whose male descendants steadily expanded their landed acreage from 1778 till the 1870s and hung onto most of this enlarged estate till 1983. Lord Goring’s drive descends past ancient oaks and the site of the earliest known cricket pitch in Sussex, to ornamental woodland first planted in the 1780s. The trees shroud Sandfield Pond where clay for the now mellowed Elizabethan bricks of the mansion was dug. Beyond the woodland the mansion comes memorably into view, serenely set below Wolstonbury Hill with its twin copses long known as Campion’s Eyebrows. The topographerE .V. Lucas saluted the ‘bold eminence’ in 1921 as perhaps the noblest in the , by virtue of 3 Danny House below Wolstonbury Hill in 1888: water-colour, artist unknown. its isolation and conical shape. Generations of villagers in Hurst have admired it from their Wealden ridge and instinctively climbed it when inspired to kindle a Bonfire and Rejoice. After the Peace of in 1802 Henry Campion sent up faggots and ten cheeses. At the coronation of in 1911 the kindling was delayed till aged Colonel William Campion ambled up on his elderly hunter. At the Royal Jubilee in 1935 the pyre was closely guarded at night by the First Hurst Scout Troop. From 1850 High Church pupils from Nathaniel Woodard’s Hurst College also toiled up to sing a hymn of praise on Ascension Day. And most momentously, in October 1918, while assessing in Danny House President Wilson’s Fourteen Points for an Armistice with Germany, Prime Minister Lloyd George often ascended to drink in its ‘mountain air’.1 A century or so earlier an unidentified Georgian poet also extolled the view from the summit northward beyond Danny House [‘the lord’s hall’] and far across the :

4 Scouts guarding the pyre in 1935.

xvii xviii Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Introduction: Danny in Context xix

From whose fair brow and cold, whereas the woods and fields to the north, below the rampart, were already warm, The bursting prospect spreads immense around; soft, with primroses and fern, willows budding and birds already busy: he had admired And snatched o’er hill and dale, and wood, and lawn, And verdant field, and darkening heath between, them in the lanes about Danny, ‘that curious old mansion with its windows, reaching And villages embosomed soft in trees, from floor to roof’. Indeed he daringly compared the scramble from Wolstonbury to Your eye excursive roams; the scarp foot below with the descent from the Alps into Italy – ‘from harsh sea-slopes, Wide stretching from the lord’s hall, To where the broken landscape by degrees, made dry with salt as they sow salt on razed cities that naught may grow, to warm plains Ascending ends with ’s hills. rich in all things’. ‘Rich’, though, was a roseate view of the sullen sour Wealden clays that spread northward The panorama also impressed the pioneer botanist, John Ray, an honoured guest at beyond a very narrow strip of fertile upper greensand along the scarp foot. Indeed, till the Danny House in the 1660s, who cited it as evidence for the Wisdom of God embodied turnpike trusts set to work in the 18th century, the usually sodden state of these Wealden in his Works of Creation.2 fields reinforced the heavy use made of the great east-west ‘highway’ along the Southdown And one summer day in the 1880s the prospect from Wolstonbury delighted Richard rampart which skirted the summit of Wolstonbury. John Ray’s opinion of the view was Jefferies, the great prose-poet of the Sussex scene: recalled and endorsed by Gilbert White who admired it while riding from Selborne rectory in Hampshire to visit his Aunt Tooke and her tortoise Timothy at Ringmer near Lewes. And, You may lie on the grassy rampart, high up in the most delicate air – Grecian air, pellucid like Ray and Jefferies, he admired the abundant Natural History – the ring-ousels crowding – alone, among the butterflies, and the humming bees at the thyme, alone and isolated; the bushes near Devils Dyke one autumn, but gone the next; the sheep white-faced west endless masses of hills on three sides, endless weald or valley on the fourth; all warmly lit with sunshine, deep under liquid sunshine like the sands under the liquid sea, no harshness of Bramber bridge, black-faced to the east. As befitted its iconic status, theN ational Trust of man-made sound to break the insulation amid nature, on an island in a far Pacific of bought Wolstonbury and the woodland fringe below from the Danny estate in 1990. Much sunshine. of it also became a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Thereabouts, too, in the1860 s the great botanist, Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin’s friend and co-researcher, gathered 3 Unless of course village lads were bumping down the steep slopes on sledges and tin trays. orchids with Miss Mitten, a granddaughter of a butler at Danny and soon to be his wife. Jefferies also observed that the massive Southdown rampart demarcated ‘two climates’, From Neolithic times the chalk land of the South Downs sloping towards the sea was a double England, two countries side by side. In early spring the chalk slopes, dipping the scene of intensive cultivation and settlement. Indeed, Wolstonbury itself was famed for southwards towards the Channel, were still hard, harsh, flowerless almost grassless, bitter its Antiquities. In 1806 William Hamper supplied The Gentleman’s Magazinewith a plan of the Roundel on its summit, an ancient ‘camp’ with a ditch enclosing a tumulus. Some place-name experts link this barrow to Wulfstan, a pagan Saxon war-lord now long-forgotten. Sadly, by 1862 resolute digging for raw flints had destroyed the tumulus and the Roundel’s south entrance. Some time earlier skeletons, ‘each with a warlike weapon by their side’, were unearthed on the summit, along with Roman coins, broken shields, spurs, swords and ‘celts’ – tools of flint and bronze. In 1929 the eminent Sussex archaeologist, Cecil Curwen, excavated Romano-British pottery in a ditch which ran inside the bank and suggested to him it was an Iron-Age enclosure for penning cattle or a hill fort of unusual design. However in 1984 Owen Bedwin speculated that the Roundel had served as ‘a henge’ – an enclosure created in the Bronze Age as a conspicuous site for sacred ritual, and ringed perhaps with wooden posts. So, maybe Lloyd George, that famed ‘Welsh Wizard’, had sensed the vibes from a Celtic sanctuary. A later survey in 1994 traced an earlier field pattern beneath

6 William Hamper’s plan in The 5 Roofscape below Wolstonbury. Gentleman’s Magazine. Introduction: Danny in Context xxi

‘the henge’. Older still were the fossils dug from a marl pit below Wolstonbury by a trainee surgeon, Richard Weekes, including ‘a Nautilus as large as your head nearly’ – later, in 1845, he took the landowner, William Campion, to court over a locked door into the rebuilt parish church.4 Though familiar to the villagers of Hurst, Wolstonbury, with the fertile arable fields on the greensand at its base attached to Wilcombe Farm, formed the northern fringes of Pyecombe parish. Indeed the isolation and conical shape of its northern bastion might explain the Saxon place-name pic cumbe, if interpreted to mean ‘a valley’ dominated by ‘something that thrusts itself forward’. Pyecombe itself was a Southdown parish with a village and church set high up amid the chalk. Wilcombe Farm, annexed to the Danny estate about 1606, was depicted on a marvellous map made by Robert Whitpaine in 1666, which also showed ‘Woollsenberry’ where grazed a flock of 310 sheep belonging to Wilcombe Farm. Besides yielding wool and mutton, the flock was valued for its manure. After the harvest the sheep were folded each night on the stubble of the farm’s wheat and barley fields; serving as ‘a moving dunghill’, they fertilised the soil before the autumn sowing. Whitpaine also sketched rabbits ignoring a huntsman to invade the arable – a warren was recorded in 1662. Wolstonbury also abounded in chalk and flints. Chalk was used to sweeten the sour acidic clays and sands of the Weald to the north. Flints served to stabilise the atrocious ‘bottomless’ Wealden roads. Until New Way Lane was 7 Wolstonbury and Wilcombe Farm mapped by Robert Whitpaine laid out in the 1670s, carts carried chalk and flints past Danny House, though whether freely, in 1666. ‘as of right’, was hotly disputed. Later on, the sprightlier inmates of Hurst workhouse were marshalled up ‘the hill’ by their beadle to dig out the more promising flints – to the detriment, already noted, of the Roundel and Wulfstan’s tumulus.5 Since Saxon times the union of a large sheep flock and of nearby wheat and barley fields fertilised by its dung, as depicted by Whitpaine in 1666, had shaped the layout of Southdown farms, whether on the high chalk as at Stanmer or on the scarp foot below as at Firle and Wiston. This union in turn fixed the geography of the local manor and parish. Initially, strips within the open fields were rotated among family farmers, who shared a communal flock, though by the late 18th century enclosed farms were the rule. By then, too, family farms had usually given way to larger-scale grain production for distant markets in and overseas, which grew ever more profitable from Tudor times. Intensive farming left no space for woodlands or commons, or for any but essential craftsmen. This sheep-corn husbandry was widespread across the chalk lands of England, until the drastic ploughing up of sheep pastures during the Second World War. Increasingly it bred a race of prosperous yeomen, employing labourers living-in. Their barns and buildings often clustered in the village street, close to a squire and parson whose authority they found easy to accept. Their parishes had become classic ‘closed’ communities where order and stability reigned.6 Despite its Southdown backdrop and the inclusion of Warren Farm, the Danny estate was rooted in the Low Weald. Initially the site of the mansion was a hunting lodge in a 400-acre Great Park created by the Pierpoints on the southern edge of their massive Wealden manor of Hurst. This they received after the Norman Conquest from William of Warenne, the newly minted Lord of Lewes Rape. Being at least two miles wide and nearly six miles long, Hurst manor roughly coincided with Hurst parish itself which xxii Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Introduction: Danny in Context xxiii

It was a world, not of affluent sheep-corn yeomen, but of insecure peasants and small holders, and of craftsmen exploiting local materials – tanners, glovers, brick makers, charcoal burners and wood workers. Elsewhere in the Weald, from the 16th to the early 18th centuries, the smelting and forging of iron also flourished. Wealden folk in general were more scattered, mobile and diverse than their affluent Southdown neighbours solidly settled in compact sheep-corn communities, and were less amenable to the authority of magistrates, and parsons. Quakers, Baptists, and then Methodists flourished. And whereas from Tudor times the Southdown population stagnated, as family farms gave way to larger, more efficient units, population in the Weald increased. Small-scale livestock farming remained viable, craftsmen still plied their skills and incomers still settled on commons and elsewhere. Indeed, Southdown farmers came to rely on Wealden labour to gather in their bountiful grain harvests.8 Typically therefore, in Hurst parish, the number of inhabitants rose from 1,104 in 1801, to 2,118 in 1841 and 2,827 in 1871. Hurst village, with its cross roads, church and rectory, its blacksmiths and wheelwrights, builders and plumbers, grocers and shoemakers, alehouses and inns, its Baptist and Methodist chapels, had long been the service capital of the sprawling parish. Turnpike roads and the arrival of the railway at in 1841 further stimulated its commerce. Hundreds arrived by train en route to its Chinese Pleasure Gardens. Nathaniel Woodard founded a High Church College. In the 1850s and 1860s a weekly cattle market thrived. By then the acreage of the expanded Danny estate lapped the southern fringes of this thriving village, though already for centuries the fortunes of both had been closely interlinked.9

8 Danny and its locality in the 1920s. sprawled across 5,000 acres. The Great Park sloped down from a bridle path (still extant) below Wolstonbury, then across gravels and sodden gault clay, to a disintegrating east-west Roman road. Beyond it demesne lands sloped north up to the manor-house, the church and village which crowned a low ridge, with an inspiriting view back to Wolstonbury and the South Downs. Beyond the village the manor continued deep into the clays of the Low Weald struggling on towards , and .7 These harsh Wealden sands and clays, sometimes water-logged, sometimes baked hard, were never naturally fertile. They underpinned a tangled landscape of small fields, copses, streams, scattered farmsteads, commons and twisting lanes – the product of a strenuous piecemeal colonisation from Saxon times of ancient forest. The farms were usually small. The husbandry focused on beef cattle, dairy cows and small crops of oats and wheat, diversified by keeping pond-bred carp and, from Tudor times, by tending hop gardens. 9 Danny residents in 2011 enjoying the panorama from Wolstonbury. 1 Danny Lodge: The Pierpoints, the Dacres and their Great Deer Park, 1239-1582

By the mid-15th century the site of Danny House was occupied by a ‘lodge’, a base for the hunting of deer within an encircling Great Park. Both the lodge and its Park lay in the manor of Hurstpierpoint and were surveyed for Gregory Fiennes, in 1569-70, along with a Little Park of 132 acres, alias the ‘Home Park’, which lay near the former and the parish church. In the Little Park grazed 18 stags, 80 young deer and the Baron’s geldings; in its two-acre pond were 200 carp and tench ‘fit for the lord’s house’. But by 1570 Danny Lodge was the Baron’s manorial as well as his hunting base. Its Great Park of 409 acres lay a mile or so to the south of Hurst village, between an old Roman road called Bedlam Street and the foot of Wolstonbury Hill. The soil of this Park was mostly sodden infertile Gault clay, only fit for timber and rank pasture, though its ponds, and the sluggish rills that gurgled towards the Washbrook stream, did refresh the deer and any seasonal ‘guest’ cattle driven there. Forty stags and 260 ‘rascals’ [young deer] grazed in 1570 and ‘40 couple of conies’ [rabbits] nibbled within a fenced warren. A survey of the former Great Park made in 1582 for George Goring reveals that 120 acres were devoted to ‘wood grounds thickly set with oaks, ashes and beeches of great bigness and age’ – a shelter for the deer in winter and a haven for the does when fawning. The other 289 acres (apart from the rabbit warren) were open pasture, described as ‘lawns and other places thinly set with oaks and under woods’, with ‘maples, hazels, thorns etc’ – ‘Lawnes’ lingered as a field-name, west of Danny House, into the 18th century. These open pastures were the setting for the ‘chase’ and for the kill, a sometimes solemn occasion when carcases were ritually cut up and venison allotted according to social rank. On the lawns the ladies could also admire the flight of the Baronial falcons. In 1582 the warren was specifically located at ‘Sandhills’, probably the outcrop of light Folkestone clay on the Park’s north-eastern fringe mapped in 1666 as Sandfield, where remains of a pillow mound, once housing rabbits, survive.10 The Great Park itself was dismantled soon after 1570 and largely converted to agriculture.

10 The Great Park, Randalls and Hatches, George Goring’s Little Park and the New Way. But its boundaries can be retrieved, though its likely perimeter has left no clues on the ground. In the mid-15th century timber from trees felled on the manor was used to make ‘pales, posts and rails’ to repair the fence pale of ‘the Home Park’ [The Little Park], whereas thorns were cut down in ‘the park of Danye’ and used ‘to hedge the dykes of the same’. So, it seems, an ephemeral barrier of thorns sufficed to reinforce the ditches defining the Great Park. Fortunately most of the Park’s former boundary was described in 1670 by elderly witnesses during a legal dispute about tithes. Decades earlier, ‘very ancient men’

1 2 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Pierpoints, the Dacres and their Great Deer Park, 1239-1582 3

Courthope at Danny House. The remainder, listed as ‘the Riddens, the Lawnes, the Great and Little Clayes’, belonged by then to Thomas Luxford at Randalls. On Whitpaine’s map the Park boundary continued north against Hatches (‘Chatfield’s land’) to its north-west corner by Bedlam Street to the west, which still marked the course of the former Roman road, alias the Greensand Way. Cottages occupied the bank of the Roman causeway north of Hatches. At the corner the boundary turned east, keeping just south of the Roman road as far as ‘the highway’ near Randidles. It was bordered to the north in the 1680s by two copyhold farms called Maresford and Megrams Bank, names recalling the course of the road. Along this stretch in the 1930s Ivan Margary found traces of the road bank and the ditches either side. ‘A derelict hollow way’, formerly a lane, marked the line of the southern ditch as far as a ford over a stream flowing north. Nearby, once stood a ‘Roman’ building, probably a pottery kiln. East of the ford Margary found remains of a 11 The pillow mound in Sandfield. bank, ‘a slight terrace on the shoulder of the hill’ just before New Way Lane. From there the road had been slightly re-aligned, towards Stonepound Corner, where a large Roman had divulged to them that the pale on the east was ‘against’ the highway from Randidles cemetery was eventually laid out. Near Randalls Farm a pavement set with red brick down to Stroods End [now New Way Lane], and then ‘against’ lands of the copyhold tesserae, covering a hypocaust, evidently from a Roman , was disturbed in 1857-8.12 called Dapps. (This boundary was used in 1675 when ‘the highway’ was extended south The Great Park itself owed its origin to the prestige of the Pierpoint family. Soon after to Dapps orchard – hence New Way Lane.) On its southern side the pale followed ‘the 1066, William of Warenne, the wealthy new Lord of Lewes Rape, bestowed the sprawling whapple way’ [now a bridle path], ‘near the foot of the hill leading from Clayton to manor of Hurst on Robert of Pierpoint, ‘possibly a lieutenant-general in the Conqueror’s ’, which was also Hurst’s boundary with Pyecombe – beyond it lay the corn army’. Initially the manor house, with its dovecote, its Home Park and teeming fishpond, fields of Wilcombe below the slopes of Wolstonbury Hill. The pale then turned north stood in the village near the church. Tradition states that a Sir Simon de Pierpoint fought along the parish boundary with Newtimber, leaving ‘the copyholds of Newtimber manor’ as a crusader at the siege of Acre in 1191. Certainly a Sir Robert de Pierpoint served as to the west, until it veered east, then north, against ‘a piece of land called Randalls’. The Steward to William, the 5th Earl Warenne, sometime after 1202. But by 1239 his son, Luxfords had owned this 80-acre freehold and its 15th-century farmhouse since at least the Sir Simon, and the Earl were locked in a lawsuit over hunting 1590s and were keepers of the Park in the 1570s. So maybe this tenement, neatly filling wild beasts across the lands of Hurst manor. William claimed the gap between the Park perimeter and the boundary with Newtimber, had long been the sole right to hunt anywhere in his Rape, though conceding the keeper’s allotted abode. Maybe, too, the keeper of the Park ‘gate’ had occupied the 20- he had allowed Simon’s father, as a personal favour, to hunt acre copyhold, north of Randalls, called Hatches, which faced across Bedlam Street to the across the manor. But Sir Simon asserted it was his ancestral road coming south from the original manor house by the church. ‘Hatch’ is derived from right to do so. A jury found in William’s favour; only the Earl 13 The ‘wood of Daneghithe’ the Old English haece, meaning a could hunt ‘the buck, doe, hind, hare, fox, goat, cat, or any mentioned in the royal gate to a paled enclosure; hence other wild beast’ across the manor. But as a consolation Earl confirmation of 1333. Chuck Hatch was a ‘creaking gate’ William graciously gave Sir Simon a goshawk, and authorised to Ashdown Forest.11 him ‘to enclose his wood of Daneghithe’ within the manor The elderly witnesses in 1670 and to hunt within it. This dispute was not documented till 1333, when the concession omitted, though, to describe was confirmed by the 7th Earl to a later Sir Simon. At that date the enclosure ‘within the Park boundary between the dykes’ was described as ‘the wood of Danye and the demesne lands bounding the Randalls and the ‘highway’ near wood … to the amount of 17 furlongs … measured by the perch of 20 feet’, wherein Sir Randidles, now New Way Lane. Simon and his heirs could keep ‘beasts, wild and others’, as they wished. A length of 17 But this stretch is shown on Robert furlongs suggests perhaps a perimeter of 2.57 miles enclosing 170 acres, under half the Whitpaine’s meticulous map of 409 acres of the Great Park surveyed in the 1570s. If so, the boundary of the enclosure the 282 acres of the former Great maybe ran from Hatches at the park ‘gate’, south to Foxhole, east to Dapps, excluding 12 An ancient oak in the former Great Park. Park owned in the 1680s by Peter the arable fields on the gravels north of Wilcombe Farm, then north to the Roman road 4 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Pierpoints, the Dacres and their Great Deer Park, 1239-1582 5 and back to Hatches. Within this area, any ‘lodge’, if located where Danny House now stands, would have been centrally sited. The extra acres added after 1333 were annexed perhaps once the Black Death and later bubonic plagues decimated the local peasantry and slackened demand for corn land.13 The meaning of the place name ‘Danye’, used in the 1333 confirmation, is not entirely clear. The component, ‘dan’, probably derives from denn, meaning ‘a woodland pasture, especially a swine pasture’. And indeed it is very plausible that an oak wood there, flourishing on the sour sodden clay, was used before 1239 to fatten the demesne pigs. The second component, ‘ye’, is less easily explained. Most commonly it derives from eg, meaning ‘island’ – in this case perhaps a swine pasture on ‘raised dry land in a marsh’. But in what sense the wood at Danny was set in ‘a marsh’ seems unclear, as firm ground stretched southwards across gravel and chalk towards Wilcombe. Unhelpfully the variant ‘Daneghithe, copied in 1333, from the 1239 grant, seemingly links the swine pasture to a ‘wharf’ or loading place, an unlikely amenity at Danny, and so that name has been dismissed as ‘corrupt’. (The authors’ own hunch that ‘ghithe’ might be a misreading of ‘hays’, a variant of haeg, meaning ‘a deer enclosure’, has not satisfied expert opinion – though at Wrotham in the eastern deer 15 The knight encased in defensive gear. park of the Archbishop was written as ‘Easthay’ in 1283 and as ‘Easteye’ somewhat later.)14 mutilated effigy in the church resting on an altar tomb decorated with quatrefoil panels. In 1264 a Sir Robert de Pierpoint joined his overlord, the 6th Earl Warenne, to fight The knight is encased in defensive gear of ‘about 1340’, complete with bascinet, gorget, and lose the battle of Lewes – his ransom set him back 700 marks. His perhaps is the close-fitting gypon with scalloped lower edge, baudrick and plate-armour with knee-caps weathered recumbent effigy in Hurst church of a cross-legged knight wearing chain armour to the legs; his head rests on a helm with a lion crest, his feet (once broken, now restored) of ‘about 1260’. A shield guards his left arm, his right hand grasps a sword-hilt, his feet on a recumbent lion. Elaborate iron railings with embattled tops and candle-spikes rest on a lion. In 1280 a Sir Simon de Pierpoint unwisely forced his villein, Hildebrand defend the tomb.15 Reynberd, to serve as his reeve on an estate at Upwick in which he held from the Sometime after 1359 the Pierpoints became extinct in the male line and the manor house bishop of . Whereupon Hildebrand with 53 henchmen attacked him and at Hurst doubtless lost status when a string of heiresses took the manor to husbands sited his house there, torching it in three places, killed his falcon, maltreated his palfrey and elsewhere: to Sir William Bowett, to Sir Thomas Dacre and to Sir Richard Fiennes who married made him swear he would refrain from further demands – an incident that tradition Joan Dacre. Sir Richard’s father, a wealthy and much-hated Royal Treasurer, died in 1449, had transposed to Hurst and advanced to ‘about 1450’. In 1304 a Sir Simon was also after building a suavely expensive brick castle at Herstmonceux, thereafter his family’s chief summoned to join Edward I’s army mustering at Portsmouth to sail to Gascony, and residence in Sussex. During Cade’s Rebellion in 1450 the assets of some rich royal officials were in 1333 had his privilege to hunt wild beasts at Danny confirmed. His, possibly, is the

14 The cross-legged knight wearing chain armour. 16 Herstmonceux Castle in 1776, a water-colour by James Lambert senior. 6 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Pierpoints, the Dacres and their Great Deer Park, 1239-1582 7

Thomas, the 24-year-old 9th Baron Dacre, allegedly for killing a gamekeeper during a poaching spree. His titles were forfeited to the Crown, but his widow Mary, a daughter of Baron Bergavenny, clung to the estates – her brother had also been executed, for ‘conspiracy’. Short of money, she contrived a showy tomb at Herstmonceux for Thomas and his father by salvaging effigies of two knights from recently destroyed Battle Abbey. Her tenacity paid off in 1558 when the ever-shrewd Queen Elizabeth graciously restored Gregory, her son, as 10th Baron Dacre. The fashionable Court artist, Hans Eworth, duly painted a celebratory double portrait – his ‘acknowledged masterpiece’, now acquired for the Nation. The austere battle-worn matriarch occupies the dominant position, while the eager young Baron glows amid costly furs and jewelled chains – affordable perhaps from his marriage to Anne Sackville, whose wealthy father, Sir Richard ‘Sackfill’, was the Queen’s trusted cousin and adviser. Residing at Stourton House in Westminster, the devoted young couple delighted in the fashionable whirl of London and the Court. But Gregory also found time for his Great Park at Danny, part of which had been rented out, probably after the mishap in 1541. In 1564 Thomas Luxford, then living at ‘Danny’, and quite probably the keeper of the Park, agreed to give up his lease of ‘Dannie lands, Bablands and Broomefield’, 100 acres in all. He was also to supply oats, wheat-straw and up to six ‘oxen, steers or cattle’ when Gregory ‘keeps house at Danny Lodge’.17 But what relation had the footprint of Gregory’s lodge to the ground plan of the stately mansion that George Goring of Lewes created after he bought the manor and Great Park of Hurst from Gregory in 1582? The survey of Gregory’s Sussex estates in 1569-70 made no mention of a manor-house near the church – so presumably it had been abandoned. Instead the lodge at Danny was enthusiastically commended as ‘a fair [good] mansion- house [built] of timber, where the [park] keeper lieth, who hath the custody thereof.’ The site of the lodge was moated, ‘two parts with water, the other part dry’, and was 180 feet 17 The double-portrait of Lady Dacre and her son Gregory. long and 80 feet broad. The entrance porch was on the east front, being ‘12 feet long, and eight feet broad, of four storeys; the hither [top] storey used for a lodging, newly built’. molested and just possibly the manor house at Hurst suffered. But the tradition that it was The hall was entered from the porch and lay to its south. It was ‘43 feet long, and 24 burned down seems a garbled version of the Upwick riot back in 1280. Intriguingly, though, feet broad, having no other storey’ (being an open hall). ‘At the highest end’ of the hall, the rebel leader was perhaps a local man – a John Cade of Hurst, yeoman, was residing in the the southern, was ‘a fair parlour, 28 feet long and 20 feet broad’, with a storey above. It household of Sir Thomas Dacre in 1448 when he murdered a pregnant woman and had to had ‘two fair bay windows, [fitted] with transoms, embowed with timber-work, [each] flee the country, forfeiting his horse, gown and bed. Molested or not, it seems that by 1465 containing 21 lights, 7 below each transom’. One window was 10 feet wide, the other the manor house near the church was neglected, at least periodically, in favour of a hunting nine feet. ‘Adjoining’, presumably north of the hall, were ‘certain other edifices, used for lodge set deep within the Great Park. Estate accounts for the 1450s reveal men repairing the lodgings, of two storeys, [including] a kitchen with scullery and larder, and an outhouse of pale of ‘the Home Park’ (the Little Park) and digging out thorns in Danny Park to barricade two storeys, all covered with tiles in good repair.’ This substantial but sprawling structure, the ditches – the deer grazing limited the ‘guest’ cattle munching there in the summer, though with its communal hall and ‘fair’ parlour lit by elaborate bay windows, must surely have pigs rooting under the oaks brought in 8s. a year. But in 1465 a court roll specifically noted predated 1541, since only the top storey of the porch was singled out in 1569-70 as ‘newly that an ox, being ‘the best beast’ at Danworth Farm, and owed to the lord of Hurst manor as built’ – presumably by Gregory to give the keeper a better view of the restored Great Park. a heriot, was delivered to his household, ‘now at Danny’. Presumably by then the lodge was ‘Half a furlong’, south of the lodge, the survey noted ‘a spring of water, always continuing a substantial structure.16 but slow’, which ‘with little charge may be carried to the house’ – perhaps the spring still Hunting, however, brought the Fiennes family a very nasty tumble in 1541. A degenerate bubbling beneath an existing domed late-Georgian red-brick structure – a well-head or Henry VIII, distrusting the Old Nobility, contrived the brutal hanging at Tyburn of plunge bath, or both – at the crest of ‘the Burmah Road’.18 8 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Pierpoints, the Dacres and their Great Deer Park, 1239-1582 9

19 Brickwork adorned with a diaper pattern in blue.

stretches of surface gaiety: a similar pattern occurs at Herstmonceux Castle. If this wing was already matched by a south wing, as seems likely, then the lodge, with its central porch, had perhaps acquired an ‘E’ shaped entrance front – a Courtier’s tribute to his Queen? Moreover, the lower two storeys of 18 The survey of 1582. the back part of Goring’s north wing have internal walls of clunch which incorporate a In 1582, after its sale to George Goring, the lodge was surveyed afresh in some doorway with a depressed arched head, an entrance perhaps to cellars stretching southwards. detail. It was then described as ‘a capital [principal] mansion’ and ‘a convenient house On the north these two storeys are still lit by low ‘mean’ wooden-framed windows, which meet for a gentleman of reasonable calling’. It was built ‘after the old manner’ – again flank the most westerly of three square, gabled, turret-like projections, facing north across suggesting it predated 1541 – being constructed of brick and timber and roofed with the now vanished moat. Their lower brickwork may date back to the lodge and housed ‘large and thick stone called slate’. There was a moat of ‘good sweet water’ perhaps ‘the three sets of stairs’ leading to seven chambers, two and a privy. on three sides, a paled [fenced] garden west and north, and within the moat a paled (The turrets are strikingly similar to three which dominate the back wall of a hunting courtyard. A porch ‘in the middle thereof’ led into a ‘screen’ passage with on its south lodge erected after 1540 by Lord Williams at Beckley Park in .) And finally side ‘a fair hall’, 40 by 24 feet. Beyond, in a cross wing to the south, was ‘a fair dining a western fireplace, capped by a three-centred brick arch 10 feet wide, which survives parlour’, 28 by 22 feet, on the ground floor, also two other ‘parlours or chambers’, with from Goring’s kitchen, would not, according to the Martins, be ‘out of place in the early fireplaces, three other rooms and two ‘houses of office’ (privies). On the upper floor, 16th century’.20 up two sets of stairs, were seven more chambers, four with fireplaces, and two ‘privies’. But despite the sprawling convenience of his lodge, unwelcome intruders were spoiling All these ‘diverse convenient rooms and lodgings’ had ‘large lights’ (windows) to them. Gregory’s sport. Such that in 1576 the exasperated Baron alleged that a local gang, ‘At the lower [north] end of the hall’ were a buttery, pantry and dresser, and a kitchen beyond was equipped ‘with a great range, two ovens and an oast to dry malt’. ‘Next’ were a larder and milk house, and ‘a great parlour heretofore used for a privy [private] kitchen’ with a fireplace and privy. Over these rooms extending north of the hall, up three sets of stairs, were seven more chambers, two with fireplaces, and a final privy. So many convenient chambers and fireplaces, stairs and privies, though marring perhaps the ‘good sweet’ water of the moat, doubtless gratified the glittering hunting parties that Gregory chose to lodge there.19 Both surveys reveal how close the footprint of the sprawling lodge was to the ground plan of the stately mansion that Gregory’s successor, George Goring, was soon to build. Set within the medieval moat, the location and dimensions of his porch, open hall and ‘fair’ dining parlour were those of Gregory’s lodge. But Barbara and David Martin have noted nonetheless that the lodge was described in 1569-70 as built of ‘timber’, but in 1582 as built of ‘brick and timber’. So maybe Gregory modified, and perhaps extended it, soon after 1570. And indeed they have identified, to the north of the open hall, existing stretches of fabric quite plausibly dating back to the 1570s. Such perhaps is the brickwork, adorned with a diaper pattern in blue, which graces the lower section of the external wall north of the porch and continues along the south wall of the north wing – the only surviving 20 The north wing. 10 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Pierpoints, the Dacres and their Great Deer Park, 1239-1582 11

received over £8,000 and lands in . Intriguingly, the new owner of Danny Lodge in 1582 was George Goring, the very Justice of the Peace who Luxford alleged had master-minded there the assault on the Philisteans at Court Bushes. But local roughs apart, perhaps Gregory needed some ready money. Life at Court was proving expensive. In 1572 he shone in the costly entourage ushering the English ambassador into Paris to ratify the Confederacy of Blois. In 1575 he paid £3,000 for a mansion in Chelsea previously owned by Sir Thomas More. And he remained an assiduous Courtier till his death, being sumptuously interred in 1594 at Chelsea, rather than obscurely amid his ancestors at Herstmonceux.22

21 The fireplace in the kitchen. flamboyantly self-styled ‘Philisteans’, famed for their ‘lewd and idle lives’, were killing his deer, his rabbits, his swans and cygnets, destroying eggs and poaching his fish ponds. Indeed their braggart leader, Thomas Luxford – a relative of his keeper at Danny’s Great Park – had sworn ‘by the piteous wounds of God’ to give the deer in the Home Park ‘little rest’. And in fact his Philistines, ‘arrayed in warlike manner’ with bows and arrows, long staves and skull caps, had brazenly hunted there and abducted the deputy-keeper – Luxford boasting of it the next day at a Lewes tavern, in a ‘most proud, disdainful manner, as in glory of the work’. These local roughs, allegedly, also attacked Gregory’s farm servants peaceably tending some copyhold fields at Court Bushes in Hurst. Luxford, though, filed an audacious counter-claim: Gregory’s men were the aggressors at Court Bushes, after being egged on at Danny Lodge by a Justice of the Peace – George Goring no less – who scolded the keeper there for not supplying better arrows and authorised the elimination of Luxford – ‘if I say kill him, you can kill him’. In 1577 Gregory further complained that four Southdown ‘gentlemen’ plus a posse of ‘yeomen’ had broken into Danny Great Park and killed five deer. Perhaps this well-heeled irruption was the final straw. Gregory dismantled the Great Park soon after: its 289 acres of lawns and under woods were partitioned by rails, hedges, ditches and quicksets into meadows, arable fields and pastures.21 Then in January 1582 came a more dramatic break with the past. Gregory disposed of the lodge and the dismantled Great Park, along with the manors of Hurst, Westmeston and Streat – estates held by his ancestors since the Norman Conquest. In return he 2 George Goring: Courtier, Builder and Embezzler, 1582-94

George Goring, who bought Danny Lodge in January 1582, was very much a rising man. A younger son of Sir William, a landowner with an estate at Burton Park, near Duncton in West Sussex, he trained to be ‘learned in the law’ and married Mary Everard, heiress to half of Ovingdean manor near Lewes. A keen supporter of the young Queen Elizabeth and her Protestant religion, Goring was elected an MP for Lewes borough in 1559 and again in 1563. He served as Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1572, and as a local Justice of the Peace he tangled with Hurst’s Philisteans at Court Bushes. After buying part of Houndean manor near Lewes in 1575, he rebuilt his residence in the town as ‘a house of stone’. The two corner turrets of his south faÇade still lurk beneath a coat of Georgian brick that graces what is now the stylish Pelham House Hotel. Superbly carved oak woodwork dated 1579 also survives there. Two coats of arms celebrate the marriage of George and Mary, and of his brother Henry to her sister Dorothy. More fetching perhaps are the undraped caryatid figures crowned with baskets of fruit and flowers. Amid them a bearded man, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and high-collared coat, clasps a jar with IHON HATHORN inscribed upon it. The carving is metropolitan in quality, and a London carpenter of that name died in 1577 – so doubtless the woodwork is his, but posthumously installed in Goring’s new ‘house of stone’.23 By 1579 Goring, an evident admirer of metropolitan chic, was active at Court, where his father, Sir William, had served as a Gentleman of Edward VI’s Privy Chamber. Indeed, in 1581 Goring joined the annual Accession Day pageant at Whitehall when members of Queen Elizabeth’s gilded entourage paraded and jousted before her. The next year he also agreed to pay Gregory Fiennes over £8,000 for ‘the capital mansion’ of Danny and for the manors of Hurst, Westmeston and Streat. He probably borrowed heavily to do so, which suggests that the Queen had already chosen him to be the next Receiver-General of her Court of Wards, a lucrative post 22 Aerial view of Danny from the south-east. he duly filled in 1584. Why she favoured him so markedly is unclear. At all events the sale by Gregory, himself a long-established Courtier, was amicable, for in 1594 his widow made Goring’s son one of her executors. Acquiring Danny Lodge and three manors edged Goring further into the landed elite of Sussex. Indeed, by 1584 he was at odds with Lord Buckhurst and Lord Montague, both county magnates, over electing the county’s two knights of the shire. Meanwhile his eldest son, George (momentously it turned out) married Anne Denny, daughter of a wealthy landowner in . In 1585 George junior duly fathered a son, also George – a future Earl of

13 14 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries George Goring: Courtier, Builder and Embezzler, 1582-94 15

Gorings of Lewes and Danny

Sir William = Elizabeth of Burton Dau. of John d.1554 Covert d.1558

Sir Henry = Dorothy George of = Mary Dau. Henry Denny of Burton Dau. of William Lewes and of William of Waltham Abbey 1521-94 Everard Ovingdean d.1594 Everard

George of = Anne Edward Danny 1st Earl of Norwich d.1602 1569-1637

Anthony Stapley = Anne Mary = George Honora = James Hay 1590-1655 d.1637 Dau. of 1st Earl of d.1614 favourite of James I Edward Neville Norwich (2nd creation) 1580-1636 Baron Bergavenny 1585-1663

George = Lettice Dau. of Charles Diana = Sir Thomas 1608-57 Richard 1st Earl 2nd Earl of Norwich Covert of Cork c.1615-71

23 A pedigree of the Gorings of Lewes and Danny (owners in red).

Norwich – and was elected in 1593 an MP for Lewes. So when Goring died a year later his dynasty seemed safely entrenched at Danny.24 Moreover, by then, an impressive new mansion was arising there, though ‘not fully finished’. Goring’s survey in March 1582 had conceded that the capacious hunting lodge was ‘a convenient house meet for a gentleman of reasonable calling’. But such an irregular 24 The carved woodwork preserved at Pelham House Hotel: (a) a bearded man and (b) an undraped caryatid. structure, ‘after the old manner of building’, with its jumbled staircases, sprawling service rooms and four-storeyed look-out porch, could hardly serve as the country seat of a rising 25 Eastern front of the mansion. Courtier – even if its entrance front was, at least roughly, ‘E’ shaped. Goring required a prestigious, state-of-the-art mansion, designed within and without to publicise the wealth of his household, dazzle tenants and neighbours, upstage rivals in the Sussex elite, and perhaps, one God-given day, welcome his gracious Benefactress, the Queen. He could, of course, have built it where the manor house of Hurst once stood, near the church and the Little Park. Instead he chose the site of the lodge set in the privacy of the former Great Park. Indeed his architect retained the footprint of Gregory’s ‘fair parlour’, open hall and entrance porch facing east – Doctor Andrew Boorde had advised in 1549, that ‘the principal and chief prospects [should] be East and West … for the south wind doth corrupt and doth make evil vapours’. And north of the hall stretches of ground-floor brickwork, sometimes diaper-patterned, were perhaps preserved, facing the courtyard and in the bases of the three turrets looking north.25 Whatever constraints the footprint of the former lodge imposed, Goring’s architect, adhering to a master plan, set about a phased rebuilding to create an impressive three-storeyed brick mansion with stone dressings and tiled roof. Its (almost) symmetrical main faÇade, 16 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries George Goring: Courtier, Builder and Embezzler, 1582-94 17

(c) Parham.

(a) Danny.

(d) Wiston. 26 Elizabethan mansions in Sussex.

(b) Glynde.

(e) Wakehurst. 18 Danny House: a sussex Mansion through seven Centuries George Goring: Courtier, Builder and embezzler, 1582-94 19 now very certainly ‘e’ shaped, with north and south ranges boldly projecting, survives intact, looking exactly as it did when skilfully sketched in 1666 by Robert Whitpaine on a map of the Danny estate. Ian nairn, writing in the Buildings of England, hailed its ‘monumental’ grid of mullion-and-transom windows as the ‘apogee’ of a ‘sober’ design peculiar to sussex, pioneered at Wiston and at Parham in the 1570s. Doubtless Goring was well aware of them, for both mansions lay just below the southdown route between Lewes and Burton, his father’s estate. Th e Victoria County History found room for a detailed description of the faÇade. ‘Th e east front … has two bay-windows on either side of the porch, the two to the south, lighting the Great Hall, having four tiers of lights rising two stories in one, with three transoms. above these are blanks to the upper story. Th e other bays have a window to each of the three stories, divided by a transom; all are of four lights in the width and one light in each splay. Th e moulded jambs and mullions, &c., are of stone, and there are moulded labels. Th e bays have gabled heads with moulded copings, the kneelers of which are carried on scrolled brackets … Th e middle (gabled) porch-wing has a round-headed entrance fl anked by half-round shafts with moulded square capitals and bases; above these are enriched pedestals to an upper order, which has fl uted Ionic shafts, fl anking the fi rst-fl oor window, and a pediment … Th e inner side of the north wing has two bay-windows, like the others … Th e inner face of the south wing also has two bay-windows, with lights taller than those of the north side. Th e east ends of the two wings are gabled and have bay-windows of two stories with sloping roofs, but otherwise like the others; the third story has a fi ve-light window’. nothing disturbs the unity of 28 Ground-fl oor plan of the mansion, as it was standing in August 1725. this monumental faÇade, not the tall windows of the Great Hall, or the porch with its ‘meagre pediment’, or the four maltreated busts set in roundels on the fl anking bays.26 heavily in debt to his Benefactress. Moreover, a survey of his ‘whole estate’ made in 1595 as for the rebuilding itself, structural evidence, especially the roofi ng, reveals it was described Danny as ‘not fully fi nished’. so perhaps a phase fi ve, to replace Gregory’s ‘fair carried out in phases – fi rst the ‘service area’, then a luxury suite in the north wing, initialled parlour’ and rooms in the south wing beyond the Great Hall, was still incomplete – no GMG and dated 1593, next a new porch and an entrance bay (‘the screen’) adjoining structural evidence survives there. at Parham sir Th omas Palmer’s two-year-old grandson Gregory’s open hall, then a new Great Hall itself. Tree-ring analysis dates the timbers used laid the foundation stone in 1578. If the future earl of norwich, born in 1585, offi ciated to 1585-98. But work probably halted in 1594 when Goring’s death revealed him to be at Danny, he brought the dynasty no lasting good fortune.27 Th e fi rst phase, the ‘service area’, north and north-west of the existing porch, saw the fi rst two bays of the showpiece faÇade emerge, their lower storey perhaps incorporating existing diapered brickwork. Th eir windows lit a front passage (linking the cross-passage to the north wing), and possibly a large room above, perhaps used as a dining room. Behind the passage were three service rooms (one now the spice Room), connecting on the west with a capacious kitchen, probably of one storey, where remnants of a massive hearth remain. Th e same roofi ng also covered the three storeys and garret forming the back of the north wing. Its ground fl oor may have kept from Gregory’s day some internal walls made of clunch, also a doorway with a depressed arched head, and the three low ‘mean’ wooden windows which still fl ank the western of three square, gabled, turret-like projections – possibly remnants of the lodge’s three sets of stairs at its service end.28 To the north of the service area the second phase delivered a self-contained, lavishly decorated, luxury suite in the north wing, perhaps retaining from the lodge its ground plan 27 Detail of gables and busts. and diapered brickwork. a single lofty chamber occupied each storey, and the spacious 20 Danny House: a sussex Mansion through seven Centuries George Goring: Courtier, Builder and embezzler, 1582-94 21

29 Th e three turrets of the north range.

31 Plaster work in the luxury suite.

30 ‘Th e Great Entrance’ at Danny, drawn by S.H. Grimm in 1780. 32 Th e timber roof of the Great Hall. 22 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries George Goring: Courtier, Builder and Embezzler, 1582-94 23 garret above has been variously interpreted as a chapel or a long gallery devoted to exercise. south wing doubtless balanced the luxury of the private suite in the north. And even if the The suite was served by a turret staircase and by a discreet entrance from the inner court. state rooms were ‘unfinished’ in1594 , the wealth of Goring’s grandson probably ensured Until the 1980s a fine stone fire-place with tapering pilasters and enriched Ionic caps their sumptuous embellishment sometime before the 1630s. But clearly Danny was unfit stood in the lower chamber. (See 138) Expanses of ribbed plaster ceiling still adorn the to receive the Queen when she progressed to Sussex in 1591 to savour a stunning reception upper chamber and the garret. They are patterned with squares and curves, stars and at Cowdray House staged by Lord Montague.31 crosses, foliage pendants, lily flowers and marigolds; roundels contain a rampant lion, a Whitpaine’s map also shows, besides a still-extant dovecote, a ceremonial Approach to the cock and a lion’s mask, and panels carry the date 1593 and the initials of Goring and his house in 1666. This accorded with Sir Francis Bacon’s advice published in 1625 that a palace wife Mary (GGM). Strap-and-jewel ornament enriches the soffits of two windows. The should have three forecourts: ‘a green court plain, with a wall’; a second, ‘more garnished’, turret staircase also survives intact. It begins as a spiral of oak treads and risers; its plaster with ‘little turrets on the wall’ and a third ‘to make a square with the [palace] front’ – giving ceiling, segmental and barrel-vaulted, has a starred entablature and lions and lion masks a foretaste of grandeur to come. Danny offered a charming variant of this: an outer court, a in the tympana. The stair continues as a straight flight with steps of solid oak baulks. Its fairy-tale gatehouse, and a grand inner court. Gatehouses, usually lodging a guardian-porter, ceiling is a ribbed plaster rectangle with a classical profile labelled DIUS AUGUSTUS were ‘quite old-fashioned’ by the 1590s, so quite probably Goring built it, and indeed laid out (divine Augustus) in the central roundel, and flowers, an eagle, a cock and a grotesque the whole Approach. The gatehouse sported three miniature gables above an entrance arch mask elsewhere. (Not directly linked to this ‘private’ suite was a turret further west; by flanked by exuberant angle-turrets with bulbous lead-covered onion domes. A ‘delightful’ twin, 1725 two lavatory chutes in the thickness of the wall emptied from it towards the moat.)29 ‘Elizabethan’ in date, still enlivens the approach to Cuckfield Park. Sadly, Danny’s gatehouse Phase three rebuilt the entrance passage next the open hall (the ‘screen’) and also the was demolished before 1674, though its lurking foundations perhaps underpinned the belief entrance porch, which now had three storeys, whereas its predecessor had four and that Danny Lodge had stood to the east of Goring’s mansion. The 1666 map also suggests included the ‘lodging’ and lookout for the park keeper. This new, less prominent, porch suited the discipline of the emerging east faÇade. During phase four a Great Hall arose, on the footprint of the old. It still rises through two storeys lit by immense bay windows, though an early-Georgian ceiling masks Goring’s splendid five-bay roof. Its braces and main rafters are finely finished with scroll and ovolo moulding. By contrast with Parham, no space was made for a long gallery, linking the wings of the house above ground level. (But sometime after Goring’s death a bold cupola, sketched by Robert Whitpaine in 1666, was set into the Hall roof.) By the 1580s, of course, wealthy Elizabethans dined in private, though at Christmas and other public ‘feasts’ they resorted to the Great Hall where normally the servants ate and lounged. It also lingered as a symbol of status, an impressive ‘room of entrance’, through which awe-struck visitors were ushered towards 33 The mansion, its 30 entrance courts and the family state rooms beyond. gatehouse in 1666. At Danny these state rooms were in the south wing, but perhaps not ‘fully finished’ by 1594. No traces of them remain, for in 1728-31 the entire interior was ruthlessly gutted and its south front rebuilt. But a ground-floor plan of the mansion made in 1725, and Whitpaine’s sketch made in 1666, both show three massive chimney stacks punctuating the south wall. The western stack heated a Great Parlour, seemingly built on the foot print of the lodge’s ‘fair parlour’, with on the north an entrance to a Great Staircase, itself also accessible from the Great Hall. This capacious Stair leisurely rose to a second storey. So, in line with Parham and other Elizabethan mansions, there was a processional route for Goring’s cooked meats and other delicacies to be carried in ceremonial state from the kitchen, through ‘the screen’, into the Great Hall, where the servants would pay them due homage, and then up a stately staircase into a Great Chamber. This suitably splendid dining room, ‘the ceremonial pivot of the house’, was normally above the Great Parlour and so at Danny probably shared the western chimney stack. The public grandeur in the 24 Danny House: a sussex Mansion through seven Centuries George Goring: Courtier, Builder and embezzler, 1582-94 25 the inner court was grassed, with a wide stone path to the porch, passing ‘an ornate and the deer sheltered, when not grazing with dappled grace amid ‘lawns’ and copses further disproportionately large sun dial’. (see 59) But probably not laid out till after 1652 was the west. (see 10) Goring’s purchase also included the site of a 20-acre rabbit warren at straight tree-lined avenue shown leading eastward from the gatehouse. not shown on the map, ‘sandhills’, seemingly the ‘sandfi eld’ plotted in 1666 – traces of a pillow mound survive though, were two ‘common ways’, two public roads, claimed during a bitter legal dispute in there and rabbits still resolutely burrow into its well-draining Folkestone Beds. (Th e the 1670s to converge on the outer court of Danny from the north-east and the south-east.32 tradition that the three-acre sandfi eld Pond to the south was dug to provide clay for To a thrusting Courtier ornate formal gardens were as needful as a ceremonial approach, the bricks used to build Danny seems confi rmed by a fi eld bordering it being referred a stately faÇade, a Great Hall, a Great staircase, a Great Chamber and a luxury suite. on to in 1649 as ‘stubbs’ alias ‘Brickhost croft’, suggesting that a memorable brick ‘oast’ or the 1666 map the approach lay east of the house, the moat, bordered by the wagon road kiln had been sited there.) Besides a deer park, a necessary adjunct of seigneurial status from Hurst, to the north, and various outbuildings – probably stables, laundry, dairy, wash- was a pigeon-house, though the lofty one, shown in 1666, perhaps post-dated 1652. a house, smithy and slaughter-house – and perhaps a kitchen garden, to the west. But exactly humbler, maybe older, structure still stands near Little Danny.34 to the south of the inner court, the mansion and its outbuildings, stretched a neat rectangle In his estimate of the value of Goring’s ‘whole estate’, made in 1595 after the Receiver- of planted trees, tidily divided into three enclosures – almost certainly the framework of General’s death, Lord Treasurer Burghley commented that Danny House was ‘not fully fi nished’ tripartite formal gardens, dismantled after the Civil War. Th e middle enclosure, walled in and had cost, ‘as may appear, £4000’ – an enormous sum. In the 1560s sir William More, brick, was carefully aligned to be overlooked by the Great Parlour and the Great Chamber in who served twice as sheriff of surrey and sussex, spent less than half that on his ‘very grand’ the south wing, which had in 1725 a convenient ‘garden’ entrance. Probably this enclosure, house at Loseley near . Perhaps £4,000 was an exaggeration – likewise the £2,000 if the principal pleasance, was adorned with intricate ‘knots’, clipped topiary and statues, allegedly spent on Goring’s town house at Lewes. But clearly materials were not skimped while and maybe with a fountain or water features, fed perhaps by the spring of sweet water, implementing the master-plan for Danny. Th e splendid brickwork, the exuberant plaster, ‘always continuing but slow’, noted in the 1569-70 survey. Large matching gateways in the fi nely crafted roof of the Great Hall, these far outstripped the rubble, the render and the the middle of the brick walls led to the east enclosure and to a ‘new orchard’ on the west. knotted oak shamelessly used by sir Th omas Palmer to build Parham on the cheap in the all three were bounded to the south by a narrow strip of ground, perhaps the remnant of 1570s. Th at Goring spent lavishly also became shockingly clear when the Crown auditors a raised viewing terrace. To their east in 1666 were what seem to be rectangular ponds, the examined the offi cial accounts of the Queen’s deceased Receiver-General. Th ey found Goring remains maybe of a ‘canal’, possibly fed from the moat. exactly south of the ‘terrace’ lay an had so mismanaged her money fl owing through the Court of Wards that his estate owed ‘old orchard’ and then an ‘ash Croft’, with more ‘ponds’ to the east. Perhaps by 1594 this nearly £20,000 – hence the offi cial posthumous audit of his estate. and how would his short- ambitious garden grid had been laid out, if not already stocked and embellished. elaborate changed Benefactress react? unlike Danny House, did Goring’s dynasty now rest on sand?35 gardens there were reinstated in the 1720s, only to be swept away 50 years later. according to J.B. Burke, writing about 1850, these were ‘a series of terraced gardens, rising upwards towards a grove of venerable trees’.33 Goring also required an elegant deer park and, after his purchase, a new 150-acre park was duly paled within the former Great Park, west of the mansion. Th is new Little Park and the Home Park near the church were approximately plotted on John norden’s map of sussex published in 1595. Like the formal gardens, the Little Park was dismantled before 1666. Indeed, Whitpaine’s map shows, just west of ashcroft and the orchards, some 63 acres of ‘park’ divided into six enclosures, formerly the site of ‘a great wood’ where

34 Danny Park on John Norden’s map of Sussex, augmented by John Speed in 1610. 3 Danny Saved and Lost: Three George Gorings, 1594-1653

Dire indeed might have been the consequences for the Receiver-General’s family, faced with a debt of almost £20,000 owed to the Queen. In 1597 she imprisoned their neighbour, Sir Thomas Shirley, and confiscated his estates, for misappropriating £35,000 while Treasurer of her armies in Flanders and France – much of it was spent on his splendid mansion at Wiston. But Elizabeth chose to be merciful to her errant Receiver’s son and heir. She let George repay the debt in instalments – Lord Burghley, her tireless High Treasurer, reckoned his assets to be worth £18,264. It helped perhaps that George’s brother-in-law, Edward Denny, had married Burghley’s granddaughter, and that Anne Dacre, Lord Gregory’s childless widow, who died in 1595, left him three manors in . Indeed George admitted that, but for her, ‘I might have wanted meat to put into my mouth’. She also left his wife Anne ‘a chain of pearl’ and gowns ‘of velvet, or cloth of gold and silver, or laid on with gold lace’. George himself received ‘household stuff worth £200’, which was ‘to remain in his house at Danny for his son’. So perhaps the Dacres, clearly close friends of the Gorings, had apartments there. And perhaps the ‘stuff’ included the ‘elaborate chimneypiece of oak’ dated 1571, now in an upper bedroom, and the archaic cupboard standing beside it, with processing kings and soldiers carved on its doors.36 George, moreover, was still welcome at Court. Indeed, as a Gentleman Pensioner he escorted the Queen on state occasions. And her favourite, Sir Walter Raleigh, allowed him and a Sussex associate, Herbert Pelham, to prospect – fruitlessly as it turned out – for iron on his Irish estates in Munster. So despite his debt, George clung on to Danny. Indeed, he was re-elected an MP for Lewes borough in 1601 and died in 1602 owning property in several counties besides Sussex. Moreover, a costly tomb was erected at St Michael’s church in his Lewes constituency. Despite its casual demolition in 1748, an alabaster tablet survives, displaying George’s coat of arms. And in Thomas Horsfield’s History of Lewes is an engraving of the broken effigies of a kneeling bare-headed son and a chicly bonneted daughter, and also a note of the heart-warming Latin verse formerly incised upon it, which translates as:

The day of death is the birth of eternal life, Death is a seedbed from which life grows abundantly.

This sanguine sentiment was echoed in George’s will – he ‘nothing doubting’ but that his Lord God, having made him ‘a reasonable creature’, would receive his soul ‘into his

35 Colonel George Goring by Van Dyck.

27 28 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Saved and Lost: Three George Gorings, 1594-1653 29

36 Chimneypiece dated 1571. 38 A miniature of George Goring, later Earl of Norwich.

glory and place it in the company of the heavenly angels and blessed saints’.37 Though the Queen thoughtfully reduced the widow Anne’s debt repayments, possibly her very rich brother, Edward Denny, chipped in to fund George’s costly tomb, especially as in October 1602 he helped her to buy Wilcombe Farm with its pasture for 310 sheep on Wolstonbury Hill, which bordered the Danny estate to the south. But still better, by a dazzling twist of fate Denny’s wealth was soon to trigger a dramatic upsurge in her family’s prospects. In January 1607 a grand masque was staged at King James’s Court to celebrate a marriage dear to that monarch’s susceptible heart. The nuptials united his adored but impecunious Scottish favourite, comely James Hay (later to be Earl of Carlisle) with a suitably succulent heiress – with Honora, the only child of Edward Denny (soon to be Earl of Norwich). And prominent in the masque was the comely ‘Master Goring’, the widow Anne’s eldest son and Honora’s first cousin, still fresh from his studies at Sidney Sussex College Spanish Infanta. However, after busily shuttling between London and Paris in 1625, Goring in Cambridge. Intelligent, sprung from three generations of Courtiers, and with a charm crisply did clinch Prince Charles’s marriage with Henrietta Maria, the sister of Louis XIII. Abidingly confirmed by a surviving miniature, ‘Master Goring’ swiftly blossomed as Hay’s protégé at grateful, she made him, when Queen, her Vice-Chamberlain and Master of Horse – they enjoyed James’s flamboyant Court. Knighted in 1608, made a Gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber racing their state barges down the Thames, urged on from the river bank by cheering crowds of in 1611, he was soon supplying his easily tickled monarch with ‘fooleries’ and fiddlers, with Londoners. An adept Courtier, George became Baron Goring of Hurstpierpoint in 1628 and Vice- ‘antic dances’ and bawdy songs. Typically he caused the King’s two principal Fools, mounted Chamberlain of the King’s Household in 1639. ‘on the back of the other fools’, to tilt at each other, ‘til they fell off together by the ears’. And Royal favour also secured him a fast growing in 1618 at a Newmarket feast he delighted James and a fresh income. Besides official posts in Wales and the favourite, Lord Buckingham, by having ‘four huge, brawny Peak District, with a chance to dabble in local pigs’, served up, ‘piping hot, bitted and harnessed with ropes coal mines, he profited from state regulation of sausages, all tied to a monstrous bag-pudding’.38 of commerce – from the export of butter, the With such heart-felt backing at Court, Goring was making of gold thread, the sale of tobacco, and repeatedly elected an MP for Lewes borough in the 1620s. the licensing of taverns. By 1641 he was netting Indeed in the House of Commons he was seen as chief an ‘astronomical’ £26,000 a year.39 spokesman for the King and for Buckingham. Being a This income, though, was soaked up by plausible diplomat and a loyal confidant, he also joined a sumptuous lifestyle at Court requiring Buckingham and Prince Charles at Madrid in 1623 where a prestigious London mansion. Thus at they memorably failed to secure for the Prince the hand of the ‘Goring House’ in 1632 the Baron staged

37 The broken effigies at Lewes. 39 Louis XIII of France, artist unknown. 30 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Saved and Lost: Three George Gorings, 1594-1653 31 a masque for the Queen – which his friend, the poet Will Davenant, teasingly disparaged plotted as ‘the way that leadeth towards Hurst Town’. This new exit was possible because to her in verse: ‘What though the Owner of the Building knows/That to your influence he after 1604 his family either owned or erected a rabbit warren at Wilcombe, making entirely owes/His preservation … must he needs select this rude/Dull way to trouble you superfluous the one located at ‘Sandhills’, alias Sandfield. So Goring’s new road could with gratitude?’ A tease indeed, given that Goring’s ‘musicians’ also performed at Trinity traverse his demesne, from the outer court of Danny, past Stubbs Field, over a ‘wain’ College in Cambridge and his ‘players’ at St Mary’s Guildhall in Coventry. Goring House bridge at the tail of Sandfield Pond, and through Sandfield to a ‘gate’ at its north-east itself (now the site of Buckingham Palace) was a spacious gabled mansion looking east corner. Previously, a tortuous ‘old way’, described in 1674 as ‘right deep and noyous so across St James’s Park. Its formal gardens included a fountain, a raised viewing terrace, that people cannot have their carriages thereon’, had veered from the outer court across shady arbours and tunnels formed of willow or lime, and a ‘prospect’ mound planted Stubbs, over the stream feeding Sandfield Pond and through Dapps copyhold to a road with trees. Goring himself added a 20-acre pasture and a Mulberry Garden (now the ‘gate’ near Bearstake. Goring’s ‘new way’ also extended southward from Danny, ‘up to nucleus of the Palace grounds). He also laid out a bowling green and a maze, similar to the the barns’ (the site of Little Danny) and then ‘up’ to the lane under Wolstonbury Hill. Queen’s at Wimbledon. In 1638 he owed £150 to the Royal Gardener, John Tradescant This in turn replaced an ‘old way’ veering south-east from the outer court across demesne of Lambeth – payment due perhaps for work at Goring House. And when Tradescant fields towards Dapps orchard. The status of this ‘new way’ was later the subject of bitter added to his ‘Ark’ of rarities, now cherished in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, various dispute. The estate map in 1666 firmly labelled each stretch of it as ‘not a high way’ and items from South America, were they perhaps relics of a rather futile expedition that some witnesses gathered at Hurst’s Royal Oak in 1674 agreed. Samuel Bland, a Cambridge- Goring organised in 1633 to colonise the mouth of the Amazon?40 trained lawyer, residing at Danny between 1625 and 1642, insisted that Goring made it And maybe Tradescant supplied plans and plants for the tripartite formal garden at for his private use; the nine gates between the Sandfield and ‘the hill’ were usually locked; Danny, the frame of which survived in 1666. But, sadly, evidence for Goring’s presence carts loaded with chalk were charged 2d. to use it. But Widow Crowche, aged 82, flatly at his mansion is scarce. His cousin Honora’s glittering marriage in 1607, of course, disagreed: it was made ‘sixty years since’, ‘in lieu of the old common highway’ which was transformed his standing in Sussex, prompting the august county peer, Baron Bergavenny, then ‘stopped up’. Widow Mary Moore, aged 72, reinforced Widow Crowche: Goring had to accept him as a son-in-law. Mary Neville dutifully bore him a son, George, in July assured his tenants it was a way ‘in which he took much delight’, and made as much for 1608, and at least nine more children. And doubtless Danny was a focus for this growing the benefit of the parishioners of Hurst as for his own. Others testified that carts bringing family. His daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, were baptised at Hurst, and in 1621 Goring flints from ‘the hill’, or ‘laden with wood and faggots out of the Wild [Weald] of Sussex’, penned a letter there fending off a diplomatic mission to Paris by citing his ‘good wife’s had freely used it. But whatever its legal status, if Goring did express ‘delight’ in his ‘new great belly within a month of her time’ – she duly bore him Edward, their last child. Yet way’, was it an aesthetic response? Did the sparkling vista across the Pond, and the massy Goring never used his great wealth to enlarge his modest estate in Sussex. Anchored at sandstone outcrops in Sandfield, remind him of romantic Arcadian scenes painted by Goring House, close to the pageantry and profits of the Court, he felt no need to expand for the Court masques which he so admired and indeed commissioned?42 a local power-base. Quite what mark he made on the fabric of Danny is unclear. It was Goring’s involvement with Danny, however, slackened in 1629, when his eldest son, ‘not fully finished’ when his grandfather, the errant Receiver-General, died in 1594, so George, came of age. A highly gilded youth, educated at Cambridge and on a Grand maybe the state rooms in the south wing – the Great Parlour, the Great Stair and the Great Tour amid ambassadors and embassies, he married that year Lettice Boyle, a daughter Chamber – were still incomplete. If so, and if his debt-ridden father merely patched them of the wealthy Earl of Cork, and a sister of Robert, the pioneering chemist. She duly up, then doubtless Goring embellished them with a Courtier’s ostentation – though sadly arrived from with a hefty dowry of £10,000. For his part Goring settled the Danny the gutting of the south range in the 1720s wiped away all trace of its earlier decor. And estate on the wedded couple – hopefully to serve as a stately, if bucolic, haven for another maybe Goring placed above the central bay of the roof of the Great Hall the polygonal growing family. But Lettice bore no children. And by 1633 the spendthrift George owed lantern-like cupola sketched in 1666. (See 33) It was capped by an onion dome covered £9,000 – a debt, which his fond father lamented, ‘almost breaks my back’. Marital discord in lead or grey tile, rather matching the angle-towers of the ebullient gatehouse below, and separations ensued. Indeed, in 1636 the Earl of Cork complained of Lettice being and served as a sunny belvedere, ideal for savouring a delicate desert course of spices, wine deserted at Danny, ‘solitary and alone in a country house’ and Lettice for her part alleged and sweetmeats, while admiring a pleasing ‘prospect’ of dappled deer, verdant woodland, ill-usage by her mother-in-law, ‘as bad as bitter words can make it’. His relatives, hoping to and waving wheat below ‘the hill’. And maybe, when the cupola was erected, the barrel- distract George from incessant spending, bought him an English regiment then fighting vaulted plastered ceiling was inserted in the roof of the Great Hall, which followed the for the Dutch against the Spanish. He led it with dashing courage at the siege of Breda curve of the arch braces above and was itself replaced in the 1720s.41 in 1637, though ‘lamed’ for life there by a wound to the ankle. Undaunted, he returned Though the breezy belvedere has gone, Goring did orchestrate a ‘new way’ which still to fight in against invading Scottish Covenanters in 1639, causing the serves as the drive from Danny House to Hurst village via New Way Lane. In 1666 it was Cavalier poet, Richard Lovelace, to salute him as a war hero ‘whose glories shine so brave 32 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Saved and Lost: Three George Gorings, 1594-1653 33

a fervent royalist he warned his parishioners that ‘they must bare whatever their sovereign please to lay upon them, though to the death’. Moreover, his memorial in Hurst church still proclaims that his expulsion from the rectory in 1644 was ‘sola in Regem fidelitatis causa’. But the fervent monarchism of Swale and his patrons was a minority view in eastern Sussex, shared by few of the Justices of the Peace who gathered at the quarter sessions in Lewes. Indeed an anti-Court and Puritan ‘faction’ there was headed by Thomas Pelham, , and Anthony Stapley (Lord Goring’s brother-in-law!). This faction triumphed locally at elections in October 1640 for the which lingered on till 1653. The same masterful Puritan trio secured eastern Sussex as a solid Parliamentary bastion once the Civil War erupted.44 After impending Civil War forced the Court to quit London, Lord Goring accompanied Queen Henrietta to the Dutch Netherlands, pawned the royal jewels there and bought 20,000 muskets for the King’s cause. In 1644 he secured at Paris a royalist alliance with France and was created Earl of Norwich – the title borne by his deceased uncle Edward Denny. Back in England by December 1647, the war seemingly lost, he surfaced near Rochester in May 1648 to command a royalist rising in Kent. But General Fairfax seized Maidstone and the London militia blocked any advance on the capital. Crossing into Essex, Goring was overtaken by Fairfax and hotly besieged in Colchester. This hindered the General from marching north to reinforce Cromwell, who awaited an invading army of Scottish royalists, which he duly routed at Preston in August. As the siege at Colchester dragged on and the townsfolk grew hungry, ‘The Lord Goring told them they must eat their children’ – so Parliament’s propaganda claimed. After the town surrendered, two royalist commanders were shot. But Goring, after languishing in the , was tried by the House of Commons in March 1649 and avoided execution by the Speaker’s casting vote. Allowed to return abroad, he shuttled about the Spanish Netherlands, between Brussels, Breda and Antwerp, serving Charles II’s Court in exile till the Restoration in 1660. (Another royalist commander at Colchester, Sir William Campion, died leading a sally. His ultra- 40 Colonel Goring (right) and the Earl of Newport by Van Dyck. Tory grandson acquired Danny in 1725 and high’, and to neatly unite him with Lettice ‘whose eyes wound deep in Peace as doth by marriage and deeply cherished there his his sword in wars’ – a signal that the pair had reconciled. The Court painter, Van Dyck, memory and his armour.)45 also paired him with the Earl of Newport in two stylish double portraits. Both soldiers Colonel Goring meanwhile fared even superbly shimmer in velvet, fine linen and steel – the handsome Colonel Goring’s level worse than his father. Historians still debate stare not quite masking the ‘wit’, so ‘natural, sharp and flowing’, that a hostileE arl of his tortuous conduct in the run-up to the Clarendon later credited him with in a partisan History of the Great Rebellion.43 Civil War – during the Army Plot and while The invading Covenanters, of course, were the catalyst for the outbreak of the English Governor of Portsmouth, and though finally Civil War in 1642. Unsurprisingly, Lord Goring proved a steadfast Royalist. So did Doctor declaring for the King, he surrendered the Swale, his choice as rector of Hurst. Lawyer Bland later claimed that Lord Goring allowed Swale free passage along his ‘new way’, having ‘a special kindness’ for him. And indeed, as 41 Sir William Campion by Cornelius Jansen. 34 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Saved and Lost: Three George Gorings, 1594-1653 35

House in London, causing his wife Lettice and Lady Goring to settle at Danny – any ‘bitter words’ between them hopefully forgotten. Nearby at Lewes presided their powerful Puritan kinsman, Anthony Stapley, and he secured maybe for Lady Goring her pass to travel to the King’s headquarters at Oxford in March 1643 – she departed in style, with a coach, six horses and six saddle horses. The next month, aged 32, the childless Lettice died, again ‘solitary and alone in a country house’. And though she was buried in the 42 The armour of Sir ‘Danny chancel’ at Hurst, no memorial survives nor any record of one. Possibly Lady William Campion. Goring never returned, being interred in Westminster Abbey in July 1648. Meanwhile in 1643 asset-stripping of the Danny estate began, with the felling of timber in the now dismantled Little Park. And when Lord Goring contrived to pass briefly through in 1644, en route to his relations at Burton Park, he instructed his Hurst lawyer, Ralph Beard, to begin ‘the freeing of copyholds’ on the estate. He also lamented that Sir Thomas Covert at , though the father of his ‘precious’ grandchildren, refused to lend him money. Soon after, the financial plight of both father and son required more drastic measures. Rapidly the estate was split into lots which were mortgaged, re-mortgaged and then sold outright. From this awesome legal tangle, a wily Parliamentarian from the Weald of Kent, Peter Courthope, emerged by 1653 as the buyer of Danny House and 263 acres of the former Great Park, also of Wilcombe Farm and the Goring town-house at Lewes. The Luxfords, the freeholders at Randalls, bought another 132 acres of the former Great Park, beleaguered naval base in August 1642. But later he blossomed as an intrepid and astute just west of Danny House. Also sold off were the demesne fields south of Hurst village cavalry commander, repulsing Fairfax in battles at Seacroft Moor and Marston Moor and and the former Home Park by the church.47 Cromwell in skirmishes at Newbury and . By January 1645 his prestige was such Meanwhile, in May 1652, an ‘impoverished’ General Goring paused from besieging that he led 3,000 ‘horse, foot and dragoons’, plus artillery, from the still-royalist West in at Barcelona Catalan rebels against the King of Spain, and wrote to his brother Charles a sudden attack on Fareham in Hampshire, as a prelude to invading west Sussex, where affirming his ‘just’ claim to some remnants of the Danny estate – ‘offals’ as he picturesquely he believed that ‘well affected persons’ would ‘declare for the King, and that Kent would called them – ‘to which I am made so great a stranger’. He even talked of returning to do the same’. But despite raids on Aldershot and Arundel – and Danny almost within London, ready and willing to wrestle any such scraps from his ‘villainous’ trustees. But his grasp – lack of money and supplies forced him to retreat. And although in March the thereafter his health broke down and rumour had it that he became a Dominican lay King made him commander of his forces in the West, the royal cause was all but lost after brother. Certainly English Jesuits buried him at Madrid in July 1657. By then shortage Naseby, and in July General Goring was duly defeated by Fairfax and the New Model of cash hindered his still energetic father from pursuing the King’s business in Brussels Army at Langport in Somerset. In November 1645 he left Devon for France, never to – ‘it rained so fast and my boots [were] so thin’. After the Restoration, though, in 1660 see England again. It was in the West that he antagonised the royalist civilian adviser, he regained his sinecures in Wales and the Peak District, and received a pension of Sir Edward Hyde, later Lord Clarendon, who in his History charged him with a talent £2,000, before expiring in 1663 at a hostelry in Brentford bound for the Court and being for ‘dissimulation’ and a ‘most supine negligence’ that encouraged his troops to inflict buried beside his wife in Westminster Abbey. His makeshift will jumbled up debts – to ‘horrid outrages’ on civilians – charges also still debated by historians. Less controversial relatives, Courtiers, a Lewes attorney and London tradesmen – stretching back 20 years was his adjutant’s verdict: ‘he strangely loved the bottle, was much given to his pleasures, and totalling £11,500, which he entreated the King to settle by posthumously paying his and a great debauchee’ – yet ‘he was as good an officer as any [that] served the king’. pension for two and a half years. After his son Charles, the 2nd Earl of Norwich, died And indeed, back on the Continent, his military prowess attracted a command and a without children in 1671, his executors conveyed the lordship of Hurst manor and the pension, from the King of Spain.46 advowson of Hurst rectory to John Shaw, a London merchant – perhaps the ‘offals’ of As for General Goring’s Danny estate, it was menaced even before his family’s political his Danny estate that fuming General Goring had on his mind in 1652.48 ruin began. In March 1641 he appointed trustees to manage it and hopefully pay off his massive debts. The Civil War then wiped out his father’s income from sinecures, tobacco, butter, gold thread and taverns. Parliament meanwhile requisitioned Goring 4 Danny Truncated: Two Peter Courthopes, 1653-1725

Peter Courthope was in his 70s when he bought Danny House, having prospered as a cloth merchant and ironmaster in the Weald of Kent. Indeed, his accomplished portrait by Cornelius Jansen depicts the level stare and sumptuous lace collar of a satisfied entrepreneur. His brother Nathaniel, though, had been more intrepid still, hoisting the English flag in 1616 over Pulo Run, an island in the East Indies abounding in nutmeg and mace. But ruthless Dutch rivals plundered his spices stowed aboard The Swan and killed him when they captured Pulo Run in 1620. Dutifully, his brother Peter acquired, and preserved at Danny, a list of his plundered cargo and a copy of his will made in the East Indies – his ‘blacke Boye’, Will, stationed at Macassar, was to be sent home to friends in Bantam ‘and let go free’. Peter, who was Puritan as well as affluent, also helped to fund Parliament’s military campaign in Kent during the Civil War, meticulously noting the loans made, as he put it, ‘for the Service of the State’. ‘Subscriptions’ totalled £230 and cash for cavalry horses, some ‘completely armed’, £155; sundries included ‘foot armour’ £4 13s. 4d., ‘a broad gilt sword’ £2, and 10s. for hay, oats and shoeing. Later, in the 1650s, his younger son Alexander went into partnership with Browne & Foley to cast guns in Kent for England’s wars against the Dutch, who had plundered and killed Uncle Nathaniel.49 Despite his deep Kentish roots, Peter chose in his 70s to migrate to mid-Sussex, drawn perhaps by a clutch of close relatives there. Back in 1618, as his second wife he married Jane, the widow of Ninian Burrell of Cuckfield, and in 1630 his eldest son Henry wedded Anne, Jane’s daughter by Ninian. Peter was already located at Isfield in 1649, when he paid £500 for the Goring town-house at Lewes. By 1650 his local prestige was such that he could fittingly serve as the new Republic’s High Sheriff of Sussex. And by 1653 he acquired Danny House, 262 acres of the former Great Park, and Wilcombe Farm with its warren and sheep pasture on Wolstonbury Hill – an estate memorably mapped in 1666 for his grandson by Robert Whitpaine. But the elderly Peter’s tenure of this new ‘earthly estate’ was brief. With a suitably Puritan turn of phrase his epitaph, on a plain mural tablet in the former ‘Danny chancel’ at Hurst, recorded his death on 15 August, ‘in the year of Salvation restored’, 1657. Forty shillings for a funeral sermon, and as much for the parish poor, were scrupulously allowed for in his will. This massive document ran to 40 pages, each signed and sealed – in stark contrast to Lord Goring’s valedictory

43 Peter Courthope by Cornelius Jansen.

37 38 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Truncated, Two Peter Courthopes, 1653-1725 39

45 The mural tablet to Peter Courthope. Courthopes of Cranbrook and Danny

Alexander Courthope of Cranbrook d.1608 cousin and Walter’s seventh son. He survived and duly embraced Natural Nathaniel Ninian Burrell = (2) Jane Burrell = Peter of Goddards Green = (1) Elizabeth killed in East Indies d.1614 widow & Danny 1577-1657 Sharpey History. In October Ray warned Peter 1620 to guard his own ‘thin body’ against Walter Anne = Henry of Goddards Green a bout of ague – as for remedies, he 1600-73 1604-91 dvp 1642 distrusted Doctor Budgen’s ‘sneezing powder’, and indeed the new-fangled Thomas Timothy Peter of Danny = Philadelphia Dau. of ‘Jesuits’ bark’ (quinine),‘so slippery b.1632- 1642-1717 1639-1725 1652-76 and ambiguous a medicine’. But he praised in passing Peter’s masterful John Barbara = Henry Campion of Danny English prose, so ‘handsome, proper 1673-99 1676-1755 d.1761 and elegant’.51 Ray wrote again in November 44 A pedigree of the Courthopes of Cranbrook and Danny (owners in red). 1661, promising to ‘wait upon’ Peter at Danny, once College business list of jumbled debts totalling £11,500. As a seasoned Puritan, Peter felt able ‘to forsake allowed. And there indeed in February this earthly tabernacle in full assurance and confidence that all my sins, original and 1662 he signed as a witness to a major actual, are fully pardoned and remitted by and through the merits of Jesus Christ, my settlement of Peter’s property. He was only Saviour and Redeemer’. The bulk of ‘such estate’ in Kent and Sussex as God had also intrigued, like Richard Jefferies ‘blessed’ him with, along with ‘a great thick silver cup’ once his father’s, he left in trust two centuries later, by the several ‘sorts for his grandson Peter, whose father Henry had died in 1642. But he instructed his three of fern’ growing nearby. And he tried executors to sell the Lewes town-house and also required them to keep exact accounts his hand at grafting, but performed, and copy them twice, ‘duplicatively’, into separate books.50 he confessed, ‘very sinisterly’. From At Trinity College Cambridge, meanwhile, his grandson Peter was forging lasting Danny he progressed to Cuckfield to friendships with two men later illustrious in the annals of English science. Francis Willughby, his pupil Timothy, who promised to send on to him a specimen of a rare ‘sort of hairy a fellow student, was heir to lucrative coal-pits and in Nottinghamshire, wood-grass’. In April Ray wrote from Cambridge remarking on the Cardamine impatiens while John Ray, a young lecturer, was a blacksmith’s son from Essex. Having watched his that he saw growing lustily ‘all along the ditches’ on his ride back to London. In May mother deftly mixing medicinal herbs, Ray himself was busily classifying the local Cambridge he asked Peter for details of the vacant headship of Lewes grammar school, having a Mr flora, a prelude to his encyclopaedic books exploring ‘God’s Creation’, which brought Hunt of Pontefract in mind. More sombrely, his letters in August chart his expulsion him European fame and the respect of Linnaeus. And letters sent to Peter at Danny, and from Trinity College after refusing to accept the restored Anglican rituals – his previously carefully filed, reveal that Ray’s passion for Natural History had infected both students. taking ‘so many oaths and subscriptions’ had taught him ‘to disgust such pills’. So in In 1658 Ray thanked Peter for sending a small plant ‘growing on your downs’. Could he September, though he had thought of taking up ‘my quarters with you for the best also send him an iron retort ‘for conducting useful experiments’, as illustrated in Glauber’s part of this winter’, he wrote to Peter from a country-house near Aldeburgh in Suffolk. Philosophical Furnaces? Perhaps Ray hoped to tap the skills of Peter’s uncle, Walter Burrell, Between tutoring the children there, he studied the ‘famous Sea Pease’ on the shingle an ironmaster at Cuckfield. Willughby in turn wrote that Peter’s new caterpillar should be beach, and duly killed and ‘cased’ both a bittern and a curlew that he spied disporting exposed to the sun, once the warm weather came, though he could offer no advice on ‘her in a nearby creek. He also urged Peter to travel the next spring into Europe with himself diet’. In 1660 his two well-heeled disciples helped Ray publish his Latin Catalogue listing and Willughby to examine its Natural History. And Willughby wrote to assure him that 558 species of plant growing in and around Cambridge. After Peter graduated, Ray sent ‘The King of France’s designs [for war] will not at all obstruct us, there being enough of news in June 1661 of a ‘feverish distemper’ afflicting a new pupil, Timothy Burrell, Peter’s the world that won’t be in his power to disturb’.52 40 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Truncated, Two Peter Courthopes, 1653-1725 41

46 John Ray by an unknown artist.

47 Sketches of snails, caterpillars and wild flowers from Whitpaine’s map.

After Willughby died in 1672, Ray slowly wrote up their research notes and in 1693 duly appeared his monumental Synopsis animalium quadrupedum et serpentini generis, which he fondly dedicated to Peter and Timothy as ‘the last survivors of his early associates’. In 1695 he was still answering Timothy’s queries, about hawks expectorating and insects breeding in the bodies of live animals. That year too Ray’s list of plants, distinctive to Sussex, appeared in a new edition of Camden’s Britannia. Timothy in return sent a remedy for Ray’s running sores, ‘a diet drink’ that a local ‘poor woman’ concocted by boiling up in ale fresh oak bark, root of ribwort and cinquefoil oak leaves – apparently it cured ulcers that baffled London physicians. Whether sampled or not, Ray died in 1705 and the Sussex cousins loyally subscribed £7 of the £50 needed for a monument in his native parish to their ‘worthy friend’ and ‘revered’ tutor. Later that century, another great But Peter was too preoccupied to travel, too undecided whether to settle at Danny naturalist, Gilbert White, was wont to traverse the crest of the South Downs above Danny, or sell it. So in April 1663 his friends departed without him on an epic three-year tour en route from his rectory at Selborne to his Aunt Snooke and her tortoise at Ringmer. through the Netherlands, the Rhine valley, Munich, Vienna, Venice, Padua, Genoa, And pausing on the crest at Plumpton Plain, he used to recall the fond reminiscence of Naples, Sicily, Switzerland and southern France. Their mission was ‘to reduce the several visits to Danny that Ray published in his Wisdom of God in the works of Creation – his Tribes of Things to a Method; and to give accurate Descriptions of the several Species, conviction that the noble view from the Plain, of the Weald on one side and the Downs from a strict View of them.’ Willughby ‘undertook the Birds, Beasts, Fishes and Insects’; and ocean on the other, was ‘equal to anything he had seen in the finest parts of Europe’, Ray ‘did the Vegetables’. After his return, Ray visited Timothy Burrell, possibly in 1666, during his epic three-year tour with Willughby.54 and certainly from November 1667 until the spring of 1668, the year Peter was elected to Ray’s friendship with Peter endured despite theological differences. Such had been the Royal Society. Doubtless Ray was also at Danny that winter, renewing acquaintances. Ray’s distaste for the restored Anglican rituals that he quitted Trinity College. But Peter’s Indeed, in January 1674 he wrote tendering his ‘very humble service’ to a string of Peter’s own epitaph in the former ‘Danny chancel’ at Hurst, composed after his death in 1725, Sussex relations – to his ‘much-honoured’ mother, to Mr Oliver, Mr Bill, Mr White and applauded him as a devout Anglican. Indeed it claimed that ‘in his infancy, and even Sir John Stapley – all ‘known to me as though I had named them’. He also dedicated to in the midst of anarchy and confusion [the Civil War], he imbibed loyal and orthodox Peter ‘a small trifle’ which he published ‘chiefly to gratify’ Peter’s cousin, Thomas Burrell principles’. And he asked no reward, ‘but that of a good conscience, when our Church (Timothy’s brother), who paid for it. And indeed A collection of English words, not generally and Monarchy were restored’ [in 1660]. Yet during that dire ‘confusion’ Peter’s Puritan used, with their significations and origin‘sold very well’. It included a detailed account, grandfather had steadily funded Parliament’s war effort in Kent – the armoured cavalry replete with technical terms, of iron-making at the furnaces and forges of Sussex, supplied horses, the ‘broad gilt sword’ etc. – and went on to serve as the Republic’s High Sheriff in by his ‘honoured friend’, Walter Burrell. And perhaps, while at Danny, Ray admired Sussex. So maybe, after his father Henry died in 1642, the infant Peter imbibed his loyal the sketches of snails and caterpillars, of honeysuckle and wild flowers, adorning the ‘principles’ from his widowed mother Anne. His epitaph insisted, too, that ‘he preserved exemplary estate map drawn by Robert Whitpaine in 1666 – also the rabbits shown [them] to the last, unmoved by fear of danger or hope of sordid gain, with a steadiness … straying unofficially from Wilcombe warren to nibble the adjacent corn fields.53 imitated by few’. And indeed, as a loyal disciple of ‘our Church and Monarchy’, he did 42 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Truncated, Two Peter Courthopes, 1653-1725 43 enlarge the silver communion chalice used at Hurst. And in 1705, at the election of two knights of the shire for Sussex, he staunchly voted for the Tory candidates, Sir George Parker and Mr Lumley. A family with an even more rampant Republican past to bury were the Stapleys, Peter’s neighbours across the Downs at Patcham. The Puritan Anthony, who married Lord Goring’s sister, also in 1649 signed the death warrant of King Charles 48 Peter Courthope’s the Martyr. But fortunately John, his son and heir, flirted with plans for a Cavalier rising achievement of arms from Whitpaine’s map. in Sussex in 1657 and was generously dubbed a baronet by Charles II in 1660. This in turn cleared the way for Peter to marry John’s daughter Philadelphia in 1667.55 Peter’s marriage surely signalled that he was now ‘settled’ at Danny. Moreover, in 1666 he paid Robert Whitpaine, a local surveyor, to draw the exemplary estate map depicting the sheep-run on Wolstonbury Hill and the fields of Wilcombe below, as well as Danny House and 262 acres of the former Great Park. But the 42 acres labelled ‘Parke’, just west of the house, were in fact the site of the ‘great wood’ in the Little Park, dismantled in the 1640s. When Peter in 1688 bought another 18 acres of this ‘Parke’, a parchment strip showing them was attached to the map. Otherwise the fields plotted in 1666 broadly equate with those listed in documents splitting up the estate in 1649-53. And maybe their layout dated back to the conversion of the Great Park to agriculture, its partitioning with ‘quickset hedges, posts and rails’, before its sale to George Goring in 1582. Exceptionally, to remain private. But with the assent of local JPs he laid out a new and ‘commodious’ though, East Lane, listed in 1649-50, seems to have been divided before 1666 into Pigeon way (New Way Lane), 30 feet broad and 205 rods (3,382 feet) long, which led ‘direct’ House Field and New Mead, with a straight avenue of trees between them, aligned with from near ‘Bearstakes’ south to ‘Dapps orchard’ – perhaps the earliest documented the ebullient gatehouse and the entrance porch of Danny. So presumably Peter, or his by-pass in Sussex, and still visible as a trimly uniform stretch of lane. (See 10) This grandfather, devised this vista – and perhaps built the lofty pigeon house shown on the ‘New Way’, Peter acknowledged, replaced ‘a common highway … in places right deep map, an amenity not listed in 1649-53. Peter was certainly credited in 1674 with having and noyous so that people cannot have their carriages thereon’ – formerly the public grubbed up great stands of trees on high banks enclosing the Stubbs Field. But thereafter roads converging, as alleged, on the outer court of Danny.57 it seems that the fields Whitpaine plotted in 1666 survived intact till transformed in the After settling the New Way Peter expanded his Danny estate. In 1683 he bought the 80- 1780s into a landscaped park embodying the precepts of .56 acre Hautbois Farm, just across the New Way, in 1688 the 18 acres of former ‘Parke’, and in In the corner of his map Whitpaine included the invaluable sketch of Danny House 1701 Ham Lands, North Wickham and Hassocks, some 190 acres to the north-east in Hurst itself, its orchards, gatehouse and breezy belvedere. He also highlighted a current and Clayton. But seemingly he made few changes to the mansion, though a witness at the dispute between Peter and some neighbours by firmly labelling as ‘not a highway’ the Royal Oak in 1674 did refer to the ‘late’ gatehouse. That same year John Ray alluded to an road from Hurst through the Sandfield, past the gatehouse, and up via the barns to apparently flourishing social life at Danny when sending greetings to Peter’s father-in-law, Sir the fields of Wilcombe.Y et in 1674 witnesses at the Royal Oak in Hurst, including John Stapley, and to three prosperous brothers-in-law resident in Lewes. Henry Bill was county Arthur Luxford, a ‘gentleman’ who grew up at Randalls Farm, advanced a wealth of Treasurer for Charitable Purposes. John Oliver owned two thriving inns, the White Lion and anecdote to affirm that Lord Goring had laid out the road for his, and the public’s, the Bull. And Benjamin White, a Leyden-trained physician, numbered in his fashionable convenience, and that Peter and his grandfather had denied the public access. They practice Mrs Timothy Burrell and Lady Pelham; he also lent heavily to hard-up gentlemen also claimed that Goring’s new road replaced two inconvenient public highways which along the South Downs. But Peter’s wife Philadelphia died in 1676 and he never remarried. formed ‘an exact triangle leading from Bearstake, lying north-east of Danny House’, So her death perhaps deadened any incentive on his part to modernise the mansion, to make up to its outer court, ‘and thence to Dapps House which is directly south-east … so more domestic, for instance, the highly ceremonious State Rooms in the south wing.58 that it is almost as near Bearestake to Dapps House as to Danny House’. No traces of A further blow was the death in 1699, aged 26, of Peter’s only surviving son. John, a rising these appear on Whitpaine’s map. And indeed, other witnesses, among them Samuel politician, died a few days after being elected an MP for the local borough of Bramber. Party Bland, a lawyer residing at Danny in Goring’s time, stoutly denied, again with abundant politics there in the 1690s are difficult to decipher, for its fewer than 40 electors were mostly anecdote, that Goring’s road had ever been public or that two older public ways ever in the pocket of two or three wealthy outsiders. So although John filled a seat vacated by Sir existed. Yet in 1675 Peter conceded half his opponents’ case. Lord Goring’s Way was Henry Furnese, a Whig merchant from London, he possibly shared his father’s ‘loyal and 44 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Truncated, Two Peter Courthopes, 1653-1725 45

just offN ew Way Lane, a well-drained sloping pasture, once a rabbit warren. (Thomas noted a sixth match ‘in our bank field’, possibly an alias – the Sandfield bordered a copyhold called Megram’s Bank.) Peter’s field indeed is the first identifiable ground in Sussex where cricket was played, and regularly played. There were single matches ‘at the Dicker’ in 1677, ‘at Lewis’ in 1694, ‘in Sussex’ in 1697 and in 1702 when brandy was drunk while the Duke of Richmond ‘plaid at Cricket with Arundel men’. But where the pitches were is unknown. Thomas’s diary takes up the story with ‘a Cricket Match’ in May 1717, away matches at ‘Dungton Gate’ (Hassocks) in June and at Bolney in April 1718 and the home match in June 1719. Later, in 1721, the home team stormed to victory against Henfield, Cowfold andS teyning, the last match ‘won at one inning’. Like several early pitches, most famously Broadhalfpenny Down in Hampshire, the Sandfield offered very uneven ground with sandstone outcrops overlooking the Pond. Fifty years later, it was still the venue where the Gentlemen of Hurst clashed with the Gentlemen of Lindfield, ‘for a Guinea each’ in July 1772.60

49 Little Park Farm with its capacious carp pond surveyed in 1569-70. orthodox’ Tory principles. Certainly they were shared by Henry Campion, the wealthy Kentish landowner who married Peter’s only surviving child, Barbara, in 1702. Thereafter, ageing and mildly sociable, Peter fitfully figures in the detailed diary kept by Thomas Marchant, a yeoman fish-farmer at Little Park Farm near the church. Peter is mentioned dining out with the Rector and with Mrs Beard, the attorney’s widow, and attending a ‘club’ of village notables at the Swan. He invited Mrs Marchant to Danny one afternoon in July 1719 to celebrate his 80th birthday. She and Thomas also dined there the following Christmas. More prosaically, after evening prayer, Peter dropped in to discuss parish business with Thomas, who also sold him 100 ‘store’ tench for his Danny ponds, but regretted paying him 14s. for a whip – ‘a fool and his money parted’. Perhaps Peter shared his Puritan grandfather’s eye for a bargain as well as his longevity.59 Marchant’s diary also suggests that Peter was an early patron of village cricket in Sussex. The first match Thomas noted at Hurst was held on 4 June 1719 and the pitch, which also hosted five later home matches until June 1727, was in Peter’s estate, at ‘Danny Sandfield’ 5 Danny in Shadow: A ‘Sanguine’ Jacobite and his Depressive Son, 1725-78

What proved to be for Danny a decisive dynastic union was sealed in June 1702 by the marriage of Henry Campion and Barbara Courthope. Indeed, it was flamboyantly re- enacted there in 1935 during two crowded days of Revels and Pageant – the bridegroom being played by Simon Campion, who duly inherited the estate in 1951. But though Henry was a devoted husband, his wayward politics doubtless gave Barbara many anxious moments before, and after, her father Peter died at Danny in 1725. A sumptuous pedigree, compiled in 1907, traced Henry’s remoter ancestors to Campion Hall in Essex, and then further back by three ‘royal descents’ to King Edward III, and also for good measure to ‘cadets of the Counts of Champaigne’. Closer and more prosaic, though, was Henry Campion, a younger son and prosperous mercer in Elizabethan London, whose house property there included what became the site of the Condemned Cell at Newgate Prison, rented out to the Lord Mayor for £50 a year. Henry’s son, William, moved up into the by acquiring an estate at Combwell near Goudhurst in Kent, owned before the Dissolution by Augustinian monks. And William’s grandson emerged as an ardent Royalist during the Civil War. Valiantly defending Boarstall House, an outpost guarding King Charles’s headquarters at Oxford, he yielded it with the full honours of war only in June 1646 when the city itself capitulated. Undaunted, Sir William then joined the ill- fated South-Eastern Rising led by Lord Goring and perished leading a sally from besieged Colchester in 1648. His epitaph rightly hailed him as ‘constant to his Prince, whose cause he chose, and in whose service he died’. His battle armour was later to grace the Great Hall at Danny till the Great Dispersal in 1984. His son William, entering Trinity College Cambridge in 1655, became ‘the chamber-fellow’ of Peter Courthope – a chance which forwarded maybe the momentous union in 1702 between his eldest son Henry and Peter’s only daughter. Elected an MP for Seaford in 1689 and for the county of Kent in 1701, William was a steady Whig supporter of William III and died in September 1702.61 The marriage of William’s son to the heiress of Danny consolidated his political prospects. But Henry’s public career proved less steady than William’s. His portrait reveals the slightly petulant stare of an enthusiast and indeed his devotion to the Stuart cause was to become almost as perilous as his grandfather’s fatal sally from Colchester. Elected an MP in 1708 for , he was a leading spokesman for the ‘October Club’, a group of ultra-Tory MPs and peers zealous for the Anglican Church, for a Peace with Louis XIV’s France and the exposure of Whig corruption. Doubtless with his Tory father-in- 50 The cartouche and title plate from the 1907 pedigree. law’s backing, he was elected an MP for Sussex in Queen Anne’s last parliament in 1713.

47 48 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny in Shadow: A ‘Sanguine’ Jacobite and his Depressive Son, 1725-78 49

Campions of Combwell and Danny

William Campion of Combwell d.1615

Sir William of Combwell and London 1585-1640

Sir William of Combwell 1613-48

William of Combwell 1639-1702

Henry of Combwell and Danny = Barbara Courthope d.1761 1676-1755

Elizabeth dau. of Edward = William of Combwell & Danny Henry Katherine = George Courthope Patheriche c.1702-63 1707-78 1711-43 1713-78 1712-83

Henry Courthope = Henrietta Heathcote William of Lewes Edward of Chichester Frances Barbara = George Courthope 1734-1811 d.1771 1738-1818 1740-1808 d.1813 1737-1828

Wiliam John = Jane Dau. of Francis Bridget Priscilla Frances Elizabeth 1770-1855 Motley austen d.1857 1769-97 1781-95 1778-1804

Henry Francis William John = Harriet Dau. of Thomas Rev Charles George Edward Jane Bridget Frances Henrietta = Rev Augustus 1802-09 1804-69 Read Kemp 1807-1900 Heathcote 1814-88 1816-41 1799-1840 1809-78 Pack 52 Henry and Barbara Campion by an unknown artist.

Col. William Henry = Gertrude Dau. of William Brand [Charles] Walter Frances = John George Florence = John George Dodson Mary Georgina = Ferdinand 1836-1923 Visc Hampden 1844-1927 1839-1926 1829-1913 Blencowe d.1912 1st Lord Monk Bretton d.1874 Ernest Tower Courthope seek to prevent the conclave at Nut Knowle? And who was ‘the Frenchman’?62

Sir William Robert = Katherine Mary Frederick Henry = Noel Edward Charles Mary Gertrude Alice (Elsie) = Charles Phillimore Jacobite goings-on or not, such was Henry’s known partiality for the Pretender that in 1870-1951 Dau. of William Byron 1872-1957 Blaxland 1873-1916 1876-1901 1878-1965 b.1880 1871-1949 July 1715 Marchant noted local talk of his having sailed from Shoreham to join James in [William] Simon = Lilias May Wilfred 1895-1976 Dau. of D. Scott Portious France. In fact Henry was still angling in Thomas’s pond at Little Park Farm and attending the parish church. Soon after, though, risking his fortune, if not his life, he slipped away (1) Deborah Kennett = [William] David = (2) Patricia Ainsworth Lambert b.1924 1922-2000 1925-88 to Cornwall, to help prepare the ground for ‘a Western Rising’ against King George, Katherine Ann James = Sandhya Emma Caroline before crossing to France. There indeed, on 19 August, the Pretender’s chief adviser, b.1944 b.1952 b.1957 Lord Bolingbroke, alerted him to the imminent arrival in Paris of ‘8 6 17 20 14 19 18’ Tarun Sai David b.1996 (alias Campion) – ‘one of the most considerable and most zealous of your servants’. In October Henry was poised at Cherbourg to sail back to Cornwall, to announce that an 51 A pedigree of the Campions of Combwell and Danny (owners in red). invasion force led by the Duke of Ormonde was on its way. But sustained bad weather in the Channel caused the Western Rising to be called off. Thereafter Henry drifted about In the Commons he voted against a £100,000 reward for the capture of ‘the Pretender’, the Continent for almost five years.A t Brussels in October 1717, after mildly defending James Stuart, the exiled son of the deceased James II, and sought to hinder George, the Bolingbroke’s character, he was forced into a duel by Mr Ratcliffe, a drunken fellow Elector of Hanover, succeeding the childless Queen Anne on the throne. After her death, Jacobite, and suffered ‘three bad wounds in the body, but none of them mortal’. In June but before George’s coronation, Thomas Marchant hints in his diary at furtive, possibly 1718 he met a doubtless appreciative Bolingbroke at Charleville and reported on troop Jacobite, goings-on at Hurst. Thomas, three neighbours and ‘a Frenchman’ met Henry movements at Sedan. Next October he stayed four days with the Duke of Berwick near at Danny and agreed to meet again at Nut Knowle, a local farm in Woodmancote, Paris. Unsurprisingly, by then, he was pondering ‘a return to England on account of though Mrs Susan Courthope ‘promised’ Thomas she would ‘prevent the above mentioned the uneasy situation of my family affairs’. But not till May 1720 did the Pretender, now journey’. Yet he did gather with Henry, Mr Hay, John Bateman (the curate), John Hart resident in Rome, inform Ormonde that ‘honest Harry Campion’ (compressed by then (the schoolmaster) and ‘a Frenchman’, at Richard Whitpaine’s in West Town. Then in to ‘193’) had just left him, armed with a ‘Commission’ which ‘will I hope settle such an May 1715, after the coronation, Henry sent Thomas five pamphlets, and on 10 June, ‘the unanimity and concert betwixt my friends in England and me, as will frustrate all the Pretender’s birthday’, the yeoman spent a convivial evening at Danny, when Henry also vain attempts of mine enemies on this side of the sea’. In August Henry duly arrived in paid him 39s. for 12 bushels of beans. Were toasts drunk to the Pretender, alias James III, London and on 3 September Marchant noted that five Hurst notables went part of the by then holding his Court in France? Were the pamphlets inflammatory? Why did Susan way to meet him on his journey ‘home’ to Danny – Henry ‘having been away 5 years 50 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny in Shadow: A ‘Sanguine’ Jacobite and his Depressive Son, 1725-78 51 and 6 weeks’. Thereafter Thomas’s diary shows him steadily socialising again with his neighbours.63 Quite what tortuous political course Henry was steering is unclear. In November 1721 he still risked writing to the Pretender, as his ‘faithful humble servant’, bemoaning the 54 The Apotheosis of Charles the ‘excess of caution and variety of Schemes’ displayed by his ‘several partners’ – the Pretender’s Martyr, possibly painted by Jonathan other ‘correspondents’ in England – while admitting he was himself ‘perhaps naturally Richardson the Elder. too sanguine and impatient of delay in everything where I engage’. Small wonder that in February 1721 his prudent father-in-law Peter had chosen to leave his estates at Danny and elsewhere in trust for Henry and Barbara’s eldest son. And did Henry’s ‘partners’ in sedition include his neighbour, Sir Harry Goring, who fled into exile in 1722, after plotting to recruit a battalion of Sussex brandy smugglers and link them up with an invasion force of émigré Irish soldiers to be headed by the still indefatigable Ormonde? Did Henry meddle with this crack-brained treason? Or by then had he made his peace with the Whig government of King George, perhaps promising on his side to abstain from public life – a peace brokered perhaps by that amiable Sussex godfather, Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle? Or did the government deem him too ‘sanguine and impatient’ to be worth arresting? Certainly the memory of his escapades lingered long in mid-Sussex – thus in 1796 at a Lewes election, when his grandson William flaunted his loyalty to the throne, a local Radical reminded him, with only slight exaggeration, of his descent ‘from a man who had been constrained to fly his country as a Jacobite traitor against the present royal family’.64 That a ‘peace’ was made is suggested by Henry admitting privately in 1739 that he had career in the East India Company was being furthered by the ‘powerful interposition’ of the long practised the ‘sloth of retirement’ from ‘party zeal’. Moreover, by then, his son Henry’s Duke of Newcastle’s equally amiable brother, Henry Pelham, soon to be Prime Minister. Also, in October 1745, Campion could assure the Duke of his loyalty to George II and his dislike of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s campaign in – though he was so distant from public life, he could not venture to Lewes to say so at a County Meeting. Henry’s epitaph at Hurst duly made the best of his absence from public office:A ‘ midst the praise of abilities which would adorn the highest station, he sought domestic happiness in retirement from 53 Charles I on trial in Westminster Hall, by or after Edward Bower. the busy world’. And it shrugged off his not being a JP: ‘In his behaviour he maintained a personal dignity which no pomp of titles could confer, a dignity founded in true greatness of mind’. He was ‘A minister of justice and peace to his neighbours, acting with an authority which the King’s commission cannot give, [having] the reputation of superior knowledge and integrity’. Indeed, his ‘ambition’ in his retirement, ‘his unenvied honour’, was ‘to excel in acts of piety and beneficence, in the exercise of every patriarchal virtue’.65 But though renouncing ‘party zeal’, Henry piously preserved at Danny mementoes of his grandfather’s devotion to the Stuart cause – the letters Sir William received from King Charles, Prince Rupert and Thomas Fairfax while valiantly defending Boarstal House, and the armour he wore at the fatal sally from besieged Colchester. Henry also alluded to his ‘steadfast loyalty to King Charles, in whose glorious cause he was at last killed’, on a stylish monument, possibly by Francis Bird, that he erected in Goudhurst church. And quite probably Henry installed the two portraits of King Charles the Martyr still hanging at Danny. One derives from sketches that Edward Bower made while present at the trial 52 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny in Shadow: A ‘Sanguine’ Jacobite and his Depressive Son, 1725-78 53

55 The initials of Henry and Barbara Campion and the date 1728 on a rainwater collar-head.

in Westminster Hall. Seated on a red velvet-covered chair, the King wears a black gown with the large Garter star and ‘the lesser George’. His expression is strained but courageous – ‘for once the official mask has slipped to reveal the man’. His refusal to remove his tall black hat proclaims his contempt for Parliament’s makeshift Court of Justice. The second portrait, The Apotheosis, painted after his death, is smartly stylised and attributed by some to Jonathan Richardson the elder. Attired in sumptuous robes of state, the King is attended, as befitted a Martyr of the Church of England, by two fluttering cherubs bearing aloft a heavenly crown of stars. Also at Danny are portraits of the royalist Earl of Craven, and of three of Henry’s fellow ultra-Tories in Queen Anne’s Parliament – Lord Lichfield, Sir Watkin 56 The south elevation of the south wing. Williams Wynn and William Shippen – all probably copied from originals by Michael Dalh. symmetrically placed with alternate pointed and dome-topped gable roofs. So the faÇade Another, of James II as a child, was sold in 1984. And surely Henry acquired the various is reassuringly ‘Queen Anne’ in style. Not for Henry the new-fangled ‘Whig’ Palladianism Vindications of King Charles the Martyr, the Merveilles de Rome (1717) and the Life of the of the chill stone mansion that the Duke of Newcastle’s relatives were erecting over the Duke of Ormonde (1736), which reposed in the library till 1984 – also ‘the touch pieces Downs at Stanmer – its austere classicism disturbingly reminiscent of the Roman republic.67 for the King’s Evil’ – testaments to the healing powers of anointed Stuart monarchs, still displayed in the drawing room in 1939.66 Though Henry was only one of four trustees that prudent Peter Courthope chose to act for his eldest grandson William, Henry effectively took charge at Danny in 1725 and soon loomed large in Thomas Marchant’s diary. The new squire discussed with him the building of a gallery in the church and lent his wife ‘a chariot and four’ to convey her to a funeral at Rusper; he acted with the yeoman fish-farmer as a pall bearer at Newtimber and joined him in carousals at the village ‘club’ – a robust disregard of class distinction that amazed ‘A.D.’, a contributor to Country Life in class-conscious 1913. And though having no public office to live up to, Henry undertook major building works at Danny between 1728 and 1731 – the initials HBC still adorn stretches of external lead piping. Fittingly, too, the remodelled faÇade of the south wing still displays his conservative, ‘ultra-Tory’, architectural taste. It memorably blends local red brick and white to embody the warmth and ‘movement’ of late-Stuart English . Its nine bays are unified by four giant pilasters – one at each end and two framing the five middle bays which project slightly forward. They support a stately panelled parapet and above, originally, were five dormers, 57 A drawing of the south wing from the south-east, showing the original dormers. 54 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny in Shadow: A ‘Sanguine’ Jacobite and his Depressive Son, 1725-78 55

58 Capitals and pilasters on the south wing.

Henry paid a ‘Mr Saunderson’ 10s. 6d. in April 1728 for ‘a draught of the new building designed at Danny’. The recipient of this slender sum was probably JohnS anderson, a young architect living in 1725 at Covent Garden, who went on to design Kelham Hall in Nottinghamshire and Stratton Park in Hampshire. Payments in the surviving accounts chart the progress of his south wing: in August 1728 for drink ‘upon the foundations 60 The new being laid’, in September for ‘putting in the first keystone’, in October for ‘framing’ staircase. the roof, in February 1729 for sash windows (brought from ) and the ‘large wire’ they needed, in May for ‘framing 3 ground floors’ and fetching stone to secure the cornice, in August for cleaning the new front. Much of the skilled work was done by Mr Batterson and his team of London bricklayers. The building materials also included lead and Baltic deals shipped from London, an ash tree carted from Combwell, local oak and elm, and ‘ship timber’. £39 was spent on ‘faggots and making and burning bricks and tiles’ – perhaps Sandfield Pond was excavated further.68 As for the interior of the south wing, even the ultra-Tory Henry could dispense with a grand processional way for cooked meats from the kitchen up a Great Stair to a Great Chamber above a Great Parlour. More intimate private apartments were organised around a new central staircase rising through two storeys. The spaces were remodelled, the floor levels adjusted, the roof rebuilt and the cellar reinforced with barrel-vaults. New axial chimney stacks replaced the three formerly punctuating the south faÇade and £47 was spent on two tables and five chimneypieces. The three rooms paid two guineas to paint ‘sham windows’, perhaps to preserve externally the Elizabethan on the ground floor, serving by the 1850s as dining symmetry. And the space of the redundant Grand Stair was floored to form two west-facing room, drawing room and library, were largely lit by the rooms with a gable above. The building accounts, meanwhile, mention a little parlour, a new sash windows facing south. Some bay windows great parlour, a withdrawing room, a best bed chamber, a second bed chamber, ‘my new were ruthlessly blocked and Mr Roger Mortimer was study’, dressing rooms, a smoking room, a north chamber, two closets and two back stairs. The new staircase, still splendidly visible from the Great Hall, swings elegantly round, with two twisted and one columnar walnut baluster to each tread – the handrail is oak. 59 The sundial in the south garden. Seemingly the carpentry was metropolitan. Payments were made for ‘the freight’ of a 56 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny in Shadow: A ‘Sanguine’ Jacobite and his Depressive Son, 1725-78 57

62 Finely moulded roof-beams in the south wing.

Besides re-building the south wing, Henry updated the rest of his mansion. But maybe it was his allegiance to ‘patriarchal virtue’ which prompted him to preserve its grand Elizabethan east faÇade intact – no sash windows marred its ancestral ambience, whereas at Parham House Sir Cecil Bisshopp was inserting them wholesale. But quite when, prior to 1781, the breezy belvedere crowning the Great Hall was removed and a clock and a 61 A ground-floor plan of the remodelled mansion. bell cupola installed on the entrance porch, remains uncertain. No relevant costs appear walnut tree, for a ‘model’ of the staircase, to ‘Goodman Ifold’ for turning 96 balusters and in Henry’s accounts. However, he did enclose the entrance court with ‘walls’ and ‘gate to Widow Ward for carving 36 brackets, and to the Lewes merchant, Ambrose Galloway, piers’, as sketched by Samuel H. Grimm in 1781 – substitutes for the ebullient, long- for ‘the carriage’ of the woodwork, presumably by sea from London. The ground-floor demolished gatehouse. Inside the mansion in 1728, though, the Great Hall was given a walls of the stairwell still retain raised and fielded panels and a moulded dado ‘in typical cool Classical tone. The present flat plaster ceiling replaced a barrel vault. On the floor early 18th-century style’.69 Thomas Dunn laid paving slabs ‘with black dots’ (removed by 1870, some now rest in Henry also renovated the gardens fronting the south wing. To be ruthlessly replaced by the walled garden). The panelling was renewed. At the north end Joseph Wood ‘framed naked ‘lawn’ sometime before 1782, they were recalled in 1852 as ‘a series of terraced gardens, the floor for the screen’; at the south end men were paid for ‘cutting down the wall … rising upwards towards a grove of venerable trees’ – a formality befitting Henry’s Baroque and turning arches’ which opened onto the well of the new staircase – preparations for faÇade. Two ‘great steps’ were built, a ‘canal’ was dug and stopcocks were fitted to a fountain. Still surviving is a sundial dated 1725, now mounted on a weathered pedestal, possibly the one depicted by Whitpaine in 1666, and bearing the inscription:

Amidst ye fflowres 63 A barrel-vault I tell ye hours. in the cellar. An orchard was also laid out, with a ‘south aspect wall’, 137 feet long, sheltering peaches, nectarines, apricots and cherries, and with plums, apples and pears elsewhere. Mr Greening at Brentford supplied 150 gooseberry and currant trees. A new greenhouse was equipped with four iron stoves and grapes were among the plants bought ‘for espalier’. To the west of these gardens Henry laid out a formal 15-acre ‘Park’, adorning with firs the walks leading north-south and east-west and planting coniferous ‘abeals’ elsewhere.70 58 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny in Shadow: A ‘Sanguine’ Jacobite and his Depressive Son, 1725-78 59

65 The ‘chimney back’ in the Great Hall.

Elsewhere the open space between the former Great Stair and the ‘lower end’ stair was built up and given a gabled roof, making a fourth on the western faÇade. And perhaps because the Great Hall was being gentrified, carpenters ‘framed’ a new ‘servants hall’ lit with transom windows. The kitchen was supplied with an up-to-date copper and the butler enjoyed a new ‘dressing room’ in which to carve the meat. Other re-organised service rooms were served by a new ‘lower end’ stair, in the north range, which retains its early 18th-century turned balustrade. A laundry and drain were built in 1730, a wash house and coach house, with ‘two floors over’, in 1731. The latter, severely modified, sports a clock face similar to that formerly on the entrance porch.72 Seemingly this ambitious building campaign, costing over £3,000, strained Henry’s finances – 50 years later, the rental income from the Campion estates in Sussex, Kent, Essex and London was approximately £2,000. Indeed, in 1741 he admitted being in debt, despite ‘a retreat of almost five years’ recently made for economy’s

64 The Great Hall before 1871: water-colour by an unknown artist. the present matching white-painted­ screens, each with two round-headed openings. The joiner Charles Edwards also supplied a cornice ‘down to the Triglyphs’ and carved two pediments – probably for the doorways adorned with interlocked Cs still flanking the fireplace. Mr Mortimer painted the cornice and the stucco. Henry also installed a fireplace in the Hall – presumably the present limestone chimneypiece with its open segmental pediment which appears in a water-colour sketch made perhaps in the 1860s or earlier. Ian Nairn admired the piece as ‘very simple, large, and strictly architectural’, Roger White as an ‘absolutely convincing’ product of ‘provincial classicism’; both dated it to ‘about’ 1728. For his fireplace Henry bought an iron ‘chimney back’, paying two guineas to Mr Legas – probably the John Legas, ironmaster, working Lamberhurst Furnace near Combwell. His impressive ‘back’, doubtless the present one, shows the sea-god Neptune aloft on a pedestal in a pool shared with two spouting sea-horses and a clambering mermaid – whelks, mussels and clams festoon the frame.71 66 The coach house and the Bowerbank fountain. 60 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny in Shadow: A ‘Sanguine’ Jacobite and his Depressive Son, 1725-78 61 sake to Whiligh, the Sussex home of his son-in-law, George Courthope, facetiously dubbed his ‘house-keeper’. In 1727 he was selling barley to his yeoman neighbour Thomas Marchant. But his debts perhaps intensified his efforts to farm the Danny estate for profit. His accounts reveal constant experiments. He introduced clover and rape, turnips and ‘nonesuch’, into his arable rotations. He spread lime and horse-dung. He crossed his Southdown sheep with specimens from Leicestershire. He piped water to the ‘hovel’ where he fattened his cattle. He grew hops and brewed his own beer. He also farmed fish. Indeed, in December 1760 he stocked 14 ponds and stews, including ‘the moat’ and ‘the canal’, with 162 carp and 146 tench. And, as a breeder of oysters, he pondered the impact of the hard frost in the Thames estuary, which his own sheltered beds at Burnham Water in Essex had escaped. A final economy perhaps was to forbid pallbearers, escutcheons and other showy expense at his funeral held in 1761.73 But Henry’s economies did not eliminate ‘his acts of piety and beneficence’. Indeed, his epitaph in the former ‘Danny chancel’ soothingly affirmed that ‘His charities to the poor, secret and silent as the dew of Heaven, dispensed a blessing well placed, which the profusion of greater wealth seldom bestows’. But hardly clandestine were the ‘80 stone of beef’ distributed to ‘the poor’ in 1741, or the £40 expended in 1760 on ‘cloth’ for

50 men and ‘linsey’ for 49 women, or the £125 given in 1749 towards building a Pest 67 The south screen and the fireplace in the Great Hall. House at Bedlam Street for the isolation of smallpox cases – the two up, two down, cottage serving that laudable purpose till 1877. Henry also paid £6 a year till 1751 to traders. Herself plagued by a ‘scorbatick humour’ of the legs, Barbara passed away in support a parish school master; thereafter he paid the rent charged on a new subscription 1755 – her epitaph applauding ‘a woman truly pious and virtuous, an affectionate wife school built at Bedlam Street, which still flourished in 1819. Doubtless Dr John Burton, and parent, a generous and charitable neighbour’.75 a frequent traveller through Sussex in the 1740s, had such ‘beneficence’ in mind when Though memories of Henry’s Jacobite escapades still enlivened a Lewes Borough election he described Danny as ‘the happy mansion of Henry Campion … at once the glory and in 1796, they could hardly hinder his politically blameless elder son, William, from 74 reproach of county squires!’ playing a part in public life befitting his landed status, once he inherited Danny in 1761. Fortunately trust funds left by prudent Peter Courthope helped pay for the chests And money, perhaps, was less of a problem. After leaving Trinity College Cambridge, he of port wine and the ‘foreign silver’ dispatched to India to assist private trading by married in 1727 Elizabeth Partheriche, a Cambridgeshire girl who brought him £3,000 Campion’s younger son, Henry, while he carved out a career in the East India Company and bore him three sons, Henry, William and Edward, and a daughter Frances who there – following the footsteps of its founder-member, Peter’s great-uncle, the intrepid tidily married her cousin, George Courthope. The younger children were provided for Nathaniel, ‘nutmeg’ Courthope. Young Henry duly reported back on his voyage out in in 1758 by selling Campion lands in East Anglia for £7,000. And £3,000 were allotted 1739: the ship was loaded with young ladies going out ‘to get husbands’, and the hills and to them from the £9,000 that their brother Henry received when he married Henrietta valleys of the island of Saint Helena were very ‘like the middle part of our Downs’, except Heathcote in 1768. Yet William, a substantial squire, dogged by no sullied political past, for the swarms of rats and mice. At Fort Marlborough, though, he found the intense never entered public life to serve as a Justice of the Peace. Possibly his mental health was heat as irksome as selling cutlery and coarse cloth to the locals, a ‘poor, miserable set’. to blame. In 1741 his father worried that ‘his constant and uncommon gaiety has made But meanwhile in London, his amiable ‘patron’, Henry Pelham, soon to become Prime me apprehensive of a relapse into his earlier disorder’ – doubtless melancholia. And Minister, was securing his transfer to up-market Madras with the rank of Junior Factor. indeed, after escorting his sister to Bath in 1743 – Katherine suffered from severe attacks Before news of this arrived, however, Henry’s career, like Nathaniel’s, was savagely cut of colic – he became ‘very dispirited’. Troubling changes of mood persisted. In 1769 he short. While fetching fresh water for his storm-battered freighter on the shore of Orissa, was ‘sometimes pretty well, but relapses again’. Meanwhile his accounts suggest that he was seized and incarcerated by a ‘piratical Jentoo King’, ‘the rajah of Connica’. Though domestic life at Danny was kept soothingly humdrum till he died in 1778 aged seventy- ransomed by the Company, Henry was so badly ‘afflicted in Body and Mind’ that he died one. His epitaph, perhaps over-ambitiously, described him as ‘a man of lively and strong soon after. His estate was proved at Calcutta and his grieving parents received £978 10s. parts, improved by extensive classical learning, and an intimate knowledge of the Holy in 1748, along with ‘Silk Furniture’ for Barbara’s bedchamber, a present from his fellow Scriptures, his favourite study’.76 6 Henry Courthope Campion: Arcadia and Affliction, 1778-1811

Henry Campion, a 44-year-old widower, succeeded his reclusive father in 1778 and, as befitted a confident and prosperous landowner with main-stream political views, he promptly entered public life as a Justice of the Peace for Sussex. He also cemented his local influence by expanding the Danny estate – static since 1702, apart from the 12 acres of Hatches copyhold at Bedlam Street added by his grandfather. Firstly he tidied up the approach from Hurst by acquiring two small copyholds which straddled the old Roman road, north of the Sandfield – Megrams Bank, bordering New Way Lane, where the lodge to the drive now stands, and Maresford, a bundle of pastures to its west. Both duly appear on the estate map delicately drawn in 1783 by Richard Budgen, a Lewes surveyor. More decisively, from the Burry family, Henry then bought Foxhole Barn and 130 acres of the former Great Park sold away from Danny after the Civil War, and also Randalls, the 60-acre freehold bounding Foxhole to the north, with its dovecot, fish pond and venerable farmhouse – once the abode of the Luxfords, keepers of the Great Park. These purchases pushed the estate westward to the Newtimber border and set Danny securely within a spacious domain of field and woodland. Thereafter, before he died in 1811, Henry also annexed the copyhold at Dapps and a malt house and defunct ‘tavern’ at Hatches, and boldly thrust the estate northward to the very edge of Hurst village by acquiring Washbrook Farm and Townland, another 160 acres. He also bought the Lordship of Hurst manor from the Shaw family, though they kept the patronage of the rectory. These exertions consolidated Henry’s status as the indisputable ‘squire’ of Hurst, by restoring the prestige of Danny, territorial and seigniorial, which the ruin of the Gorings so sadly shattered in the later 1640s.77 Although he expanded the estate and built the stable, described as ‘new’ when insured in 1812, Henry seems to have left his ancestral mansion little changed. But, as the 1783 estate map reveals, the adjacent fields farmed till 1761 by his grandfather had been partially transformed into a landscaped park, a fashionably Arcadian setting for the residence of an aspiring landowner and Justice of the Peace. Predictably, the new park conformed to the model long popularised by Capability Brown. Thus by 1783 Henry’s mansion was free of archaic clutter – gone were his grandfather’s terraced formal gardens and enclosed entrance court, his fish-farmed stretches of medieval moat. And safely distant from the house was the new walled garden sloping up from the north shore of Sandfield Pond – where ivy-choked fragments of brick still remain. Freed of clutter, Henry’s windows by 1783 68 The estate map drawn by Richard Budgen in 1783. commanded serene vistas across gently rolling greensward to new serpentine plantations

63 64 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Henry Courthope Campion: Arcadia and Affliction, 1778-1811 65

of trees, with ‘the hill’ slumbering on the southern horizon for good measure – vistas hopefully reminiscent of the idealised Roman landscapes exquisitely painted by the much admired Claude Lorrain. Only to the west did newly established greenery crowd quite close to the house. And by happy chance, a sketch drawn by Samuel H. Grimm in 1780 establishes that Henry, not his reclusive father William, removed the clutter. It shows the entrance court still enclosed by robust gate piers and high curving walls, and the ancestral moat still lapping it to the north. Yet by 1783 the entrance lay open to the greensward and the moat had shrunk to a puny pond. And presumably Henry had also launched the re-shaping of the adjacent fields, which at least till 1761 were much as Robert Whitpaine plotted them in 1666.78 As for the formal gardens, so lovingly 69 Henry Courthope Campion, attributed to renovated by his grandfather, their site is John Hoppner. 71 The sketch of the entrance court by S.H. Grimm drawn in 1780. starkly labelled ‘Lawn’ in 1783, and indeed a sketch by Grimm in 1782 shows relentless 72 The ‘lawn’ and south wing sketched by S.H. Grimm in 1782. grass surging up to the south wing – a drastic change lamented somewhat by J.B. Burke in 1852 – ‘in the spirit of improvement of last century, the terraces were levelled, the gardens were removed, and the green park was brought under the very windows’. Also vanished by 1783 was the formal ‘canal’ – only the serpentine was now acceptable. As

70 A remnant of garden wall by Sandfield Pond. 73 The estate map drawn by William Figg in 1826. 68 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Henry Courthope Campion: Arcadia and Affliction, 1778-1811 69 for the emerging greensward, the estate map reveals that a Great Mead of 58 acres, east shapely chimney stacks of Randalls can still be savoured. of Lord Goring’s Way, had absorbed Cant Mead, Pigeon-house Field, New Mead, West And maybe the wooden ‘Tudor’ casement adorning the Stubbs and Stubbs. Some great oaks were spared, but not the archaic pigeon-house (still farmhouse at Dapps was grafted there to enhance another standing in 1754), nor the regimentally straight, tree-lined approach to the entrance ‘vista’. Highly picturesque, too, was a southern prospect court. To the west of Lord Goring’s Way three fields had merged to form The Grove. And painted from a rock-strewn Sandfield in the 1790s by a another splendid estate map drawn by a second Lewes surveyor, William Figg, reveals that Flemish artist, Hendrik Frans De Cort – Arcadian park and by 1826 this greensward had absorbed five fields further west to re-emerge as The Groves, ancestral mansion nestle below majestic Wolstonbury, its covering 49 acres. There, and in the Great Mead, workaday ponds were now duly prettified. austere slopes now graced by twin groves, alias ‘Campion’s And by 1783 this evolving Arcadia was already mostly bordered by the obligatory belt of Eyebrows’.79 trees, with walks winding artfully through them. These also skirted the southern fringe of De Cort also depicted a trim pedimented pavilion, Sandfield Pond, manicured to enhance its rustic allure, with glimpses of the new garden possibly associated with a domed brick structure still beyond. West of the mansion the walks bordered the former 15-acre ‘Park’, once rigidly standing at the summit of the Burma Road above the south ruled with straight avenues of conifer, but fast becoming by 1783 a romantic mixture of wing. Probably late-Georgian in date and long thought shrubbery and grove. And J.B. Burke noted how the walks were punctuated by outward to be a ‘truncated’ ice house, recent scrutiny has shown it vistas towards ‘the rich scenery of Sussex’. Indeed from one raised stretch that survives the to be a well head, sheltering a tank of piped spring water – perhaps the useful spring noted as ‘always continuing 75 The interior of the ‘plunge bath’. but slow’ in Lord Dacre’s survey. Quite possibly it served as a plunge bath – an amenity popular with energetic late-Georgians such as Henry Campion. It could even have been built to stimulate his depressive father, William. Also standing till the 1980s, on the south-east edge of the South Lawn, were shattered remnants of a once celebrated Carolina poplar. In 1913 an authoritative textbook hailed it ‘the most remarkable tree in Europe’ and included a map of its offspring ramifying across 150 yards. A claim it was ‘old’ when Henry’s heir, William John, first knew Danny would place it among the earliest specimens in England. Venerable and still flourishing near the house are a tulip tree and a swamp cypress – the latter with the largest bole recorded in Sussex.80 Doubtless Henry’s ability to buy up local farms and convert corn fields into sylvan greensward owed something to his father’s reclusive regime. Moreover, in 1783 his uncle, John Partheriche, left him and his siblings £14,500, plus the sale price of a smart London house. And, indeed, his two brothers duly prospered. William became a partner in a

74 The view of Danny and Wolstonbury Hill drawn by H.F. De Cort in the 1790s. 76 The Carolina poplar in winter and summer. 70 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Henry Courthope Campion: Arcadia and Affliction, 1778-1811 71

77 William Campion, attributed to Sir Thomas Lawrence.

wine business at Oporto and leased for his retirement fashionable ‘Pelham House’ in Lewes, the nucleus of which George Goring built before buying Danny from Lord Dacre. As an ardent Tory, William incautiously meddled in a bitterly fought election at Lewes in 1796, by denouncing the Radical candidate as ‘a well-known supporter of Jacobins’ – only to be himself vilified as ‘a sort of mongrel personage, half Squire, half Visitor’, with a head ‘as round and brainless as one of his Portuguese onions’ and, even more woundingly, as ‘descended from a man who had been constrained to fly his country as a Jacobite traitor against the present royal family’ – political memories were long in mid-Sussex. Meanwhile, William’s Chichester-based brother, Edward, with a Lewes partner, Henry Blackman, was supplying much of mid- Sussex, including the Lewes Freemasons, with wine and coal. Indeed Edward sold his share of the business in 1804 for £10,000. Clearly the brothers fared better in Trade than did ‘nutmeg’ Courthope or their uncle Henry.81 Clearly, too, family ties with Danny remained strong. Indeed, each brother chose to bury ‘the Remains’ of a cherished child in the ‘Danny chancel’ at Hurst. Moreover, the epitaph of William’s daughter Priscilla, who died in 1795, praised her ‘modest, humble, sweet and docile mind, her compassionate and affectionate heart [which] gave the fairest promises of a life not unworthy of the amiable and excellent virtues of the much- beloved and respected House of Danny.’ The memorial to Edward’s only child,

78 The memorial to Priscilla Campion. 79 Bridget Campion, attributed to John Hoppner. 72 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Henry Courthope Campion: Arcadia and Affliction, 1778-1811 73

Frances Elizabeth, who died in 1804, bears an exquisitely carved Lamp of Remembrance coastal Sussex teemed with regiments and Volunteers. And as Miss Weekes’s father and records the anguish of her ‘afflicted Parents … to whom her ever submissive, dutiful grimly noted, Mr Campion himself recruited ‘a troop of horse … consisting of about and affectionate behaviour endeared her beyond the Power of Language to express … For 40 men, young farmers principally’. On ‘the hill’ meanwhile soldiers now guarded a her Benevolence and Purity of Heart, Firm Faith in the ever Blessed Redeemer, Sincere beacon of faggots and straw, so that if the unspeakable French did land, its blazing Piety and Devotion to God, They Trust She will receive in the Great Day of Account that would suitably ‘alarm the country’. And Henry’s carts were made ready to evacuate Inestimable and only Enduring Praise, The Approbation of her Merciful Judge. Consoled local women and children ‘to different parts nearer London’. A‘ dmission ticket B’, for by this animating Hope under their Severe and Deeply Regretted Loss, they bow with instance, signed by ‘Superintendent’ William Borrer, authorised Mrs Randell and her Religious Resignation to the all wise Decree of Him who Gave and hath Taken Away.’ In two children at Randidles Farm to board the wagon marked ‘No 9’ and be carted to the mansion, meanwhile, still hangs William’s portrait, attributed by some to Sir Thomas safety by William Currenden.84 Lawrence. Certainly his Life and Correspondence by D.E. Williams, published in 1831, was added to the library, where books on Art were otherwise few.82 Perhaps the paucity of Henry’s own family commitments itself eased his finances. After his wife died in 1771, he remained a widower. His only son, William John, married into an agreeably wealthy Kentish family – rich cousins disliked by Jane Austen – while Bridget, his only daughter, who died in 1797, stayed a spinster. And her lifestyle was hardly lavish, if her epitaph in the Danny ‘chancel’, fulsome even for a Campion, can be relied on: ‘In times too much addicted to dissipation and trifling amusement, her life was spent in one continued course of improvement in useful knowledge … and [a] constant … practice of the Heavenly precepts … being uniformly actuated by … a singular filial affection and compliance, a kind and beneficent attention to the poor, a truly just and generous concern for the happiness of every rank and condition of her fellow creatures’. An imposing if chilly portrait of her, perhaps by John Hoppner, survives – prominent beside her are a Bible and a volume of Metastasio, an Italian dramatist of blameless sentiment whose works also reposed in the library.83 As an emerging public figure and Justice of the Peace, Henry dispatched a weighty letter in 1783 to the Sussex Weekly Advertiser proposing a cautious Reform of the Parliamentary franchise. Not ‘every member of the community’ had ‘an absolute natural claim’ to the vote – it was not ‘a birthright of the people’. But the moral authority of Parliament would be increased if some copyholders and more freeholders were added to the county electorate. And very decayed parliamentary boroughs might be abolished and their seats allotted to ‘principal trading towns’ – doubtless he envisaged teeming smoke-filled Birmingham replacing deserted wind-swept Old Sarum. Sadly, the shock of the French Revolution delayed Reform till 1832 and indeed at the Royal Oak in 1793 Henry assisted the setting up of a local Association to support the King and the Constitution and to protect Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers – hopefully there no one raked up his Jacobite grandfather. More cheerfully, as a hands- on local squire he sponsored Rejoicing in the village after the signing of the Peace of Amiens with Napoleon in 1802. Grace Weekes, a local surgeon’s daughter, bubbled with excitement: ‘We are going to have illuminations tonight … three candles in each of our windows … Mr Campion is carrying faggots up the hill and has ordered ten cheeses to be carried up, and I don’t know what all.’ Sadly, the Peace quickly collapsed. Instead Napoleon gathered a massive invasion army about Boulogne and suddenly 7 William and Jane: The Bountiful Squire, 1811-55

Henry died in 1811 in his late 70s – his epitaph tersely stating: ‘Right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints’ – a marked contrast to earlier florid effusions in the ‘Danny chancel’. His son, William John, studied at St Mary’s Hall in Oxford, became a Commissioner for New Shoreham harbour in 1795 and was married shortly after to Jane Austen, the daughter of a wealthy Kentish squire. By 1802 they were settled at Danny with the widower Henry. That same year Jane’s namesake and second cousin was penning Sense and Sensibility. But though her never-finished novel Sanditon was set on the Sussex coast near , and though her father’s education was overseen by Jane Campion’s grandfather, a visit to Danny seems unlikely since in 1807 she caustically remarked that the ‘ill-gotten wealth’ of her Kentish relatives ‘can never prosper’. As for the young couple, quite probably they, rather than the widower Henry, chose to install the ‘Gothick’ ceiling in the drawing room – its delicate plaster ribs and pendants being spared when the dining room and library were given a ponderous Tudor make-over several decades later. Jane herself in 1827 was praised by a London architect, J.N. Repton, for proposing a new servants’ hall and ‘dressing room for brushing coats’ in the yard west of the butler’s pantry, allowing the dining room bell to be more speedily answered, and a knife-and-shoe room to be reached under cover. If ever built, Jane’s hall later gave way to a Baronial structure with robust mullions and ceiling timbers (now Apartment 20).85 Apart from a new servants’ hall, the couple’s willingness to leave the faÇades of their mansion untouched was prompted perhaps by its increasing fame as an icon of Romanticism, a jewel of the Picturesque. In 1852 J.B. Burke saluted Danny as one of the finest specimens of Tudor domestic architecture, with its ‘immense hall’, ‘innumerable oriel windows’ and ancient brickwork ‘mellowed to a deep reddish purple hue’. Burke also extolled the Arcadian glamour of the maturing landscaped park, ‘literally crowded with magnificent timber’ – though by 1826 an enclosure also admired by Burke, as ‘a most beautiful and extensive flower garden’, had replaced the naked ‘lawn’ previously lapping the south wing. Thomas Horsfield in his also noted a fountain and a fine horse chestnut nearby whose ‘beauty in the spring , when in full blossom, must be ravishing’. Danny indeed by the 1830s was famed for its blooms. At a Show of the Hurst Horticultural Society the gardener exhibited ‘a wonderful Fuchsia Fulgens’, and at a Dahlia Show he unveiled a Salvia Patens with ‘slender hooded blooms in spikes of glorious blue’.86 William continued his father’s consolidation of the Danny estate south of Hurst village

80 The memorial window to William and Jane Campion. by annexing three copyhold farms at Randidles, Wanborough and Breachlands – about 180

75 76 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Jane: The Bountiful Squire, 1811-55 77

81 The Gothick ceiling in the drawing room. 78 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Jane: The Bountiful Squire, 1811-55 79

Though resolutely genteel, William as a conscientious squire exuded Benevolence. He gave £25 to ease the Irish Famine, £100 to build the Sussex County Hospital at , and cash to ease the plight of debtors in Horsham gaol. Locally his charity was unremitting. Money and surplus spectacles for the aged poor were reinforced in winter with beef and flour, soup and bread, blankets, coats and coal. Pennies were bestowed on children bringing flower garlands to Danny on May Day and subscriptions made to local Friendly Societies, to the curate’s Book Club and to his Mothers’ Lying-in Fund. William’s annual ten guineas to Hurst’s new National School brought 140 pupils gratefully processing to Danny in 1834 to honour his birthday – as they consumed ever more roast beef, plum pudding and strong beer, their toasts waxed a trifle raucous. William was, too, a thoughtful employer. As a ‘kind Master’ he executed the will of a footman, Thomas Blandford, who left money in the Bank of England’s Three and Five Per Cent Funds to his sisters, and his ‘watch and seals and appendages’ to ‘his esteemed fellow servant, Mistress Elizabeth Head’. William also built Townfield House in Hurst village for his retired butler, William Mitten, and left him £100. His will also rewarded the 20 labourers on the home farm at Little 82 Archery in Danny Park. Danny; nine had toiled over twenty years and received £10 each. Meanwhile, less acres in all. Only Tott and Little Washbrook still eluded purchase. Elsewhere he retained the benevolently, he paid his gamekeeper £5 for every poacher caught and convicted – the Campion farms and oyster beds in Kent and Essex and the house property in London which estate’s pheasants ate ‘myriads of acorns’ gathered each autumn from the ancestral included the condemned cell at Newgate prison. In 1855 rents yielded over £5,000 and oaks. Also to pursue his sport, William subscribed £26 a year to the East Sussex sales of timber £3,809. As befitted his entrenched landed status William, like his father, was Hunt. Indeed, scores of riders now mustered picturesquely on the ‘East Lawn’. His appointed a JP for Sussex and in 1819-20 served as High Sheriff for the county. And socially enthusiasm, perhaps, accounted for a rumour, current in the 1920s, that an ‘ancient’, the Family at Danny grew more exclusive. In the 1720s the ultra-Tory Henry Campion but mislaid, newspaper cutting had reported an owner of Danny turning his hounds had chosen to carouse at the village ‘club’. William’s own great-uncles were wine merchants, on an aged female farm labourer suspected of poaching his rabbits – in the style of albeit wholesale. But his own offspring were resolutely genteel – though, sadly, the eldest, a serf-owner on the Russian steppes.88 Henry Francis, ‘a child of the greatest promise’, died in 1809 in ‘melancholy’ circumstances A charge of ‘feudal’ tyranny, hurled against William by the dynamic local surgeon, – ‘a spark from the fire, communicating to his night-dress, it instantaneously burst into Richard Weekes, has a firmer context, however. In 1827 ‘Dick’ inherited Little Washbrook flames, by which the child was so much burnt, that he only survived the accident a few Farm and a smart ‘Mansion House’ in the High Street. There he fired off a cannon days’. The next son, however, William John, wedded Harriet Kemp. And her father, though during National Rejoicings and launched an air balloon which landed near Harwich. a popular Radical-Whig MP and amateur Evangelical preacher, was also the wealthy Sussex He installed, too, his collection of urns and fossils, including perhaps the ‘Nautilus landowner who developed the Kemp Town estate just east of Brighton. William’s other two as large as your head nearly’, the ‘large Ammonia’, and the ‘palate of the fish sulcus’, sons, meanwhile, pursued careers untainted by Trade. Charles dutifully inspected Anglican all dug from a marl pit below Wolstonbury in 1801. And indeed, Thomas Horsfield schools in the Chichester diocese while officiating for 40 years as rector of Westmeston, a in his History of Sussex gravely applauded his ‘preserving industry, elegant taste and nearby parish below the Downs. After Charles’s father bought the living, R.C. Carpenter, the scientific acquirements’. The restless surgeon dabbled, too, in ‘development’ and turnpike talented architect of Lancing College, rendered the rectory house more modishly ‘Gothick’. roads – the Brighton Patriot, a Radical newspaper, damning him as a ‘builder of hovels The military career of his brother George, meanwhile, was sadly cut short. He died in 1841 for the parish poor’. William, however, as a powerful turnpike trustee, intervened to sailing to India to join his regiment, the Light Dragoons, being interred below a granite tomb squash his scheme to site a toll gate by New Way Lane. The squire also won a sharp in St George’s burial ground at Cape Town. As for William’s daughters, Frances Henrietta legal battle over 12 cartloads of sand removed by Dick from a field of William’s by a wedded the Reverend Augustus Pack, but Jane Bridget never married – though shrewdly turnpike road. Rather desperately Dick argued that the field was manorial common ‘shooting at 60 paces’, she did win a grand archery contest at Firle Place. An engraving ‘waste’ and, being a tenant of Hurst manor, he could remove the said sand – adding depicts this elegant pastime also underway at Danny – sofas shaded by a striped Turkish abusively that William, as the manorial lord, ‘should be better employed than in acting Tent command a view of the butts on the ‘East Lawn’.87 up to the vile Tyrannical system of the barbarous feudal times’.89 80 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Jane: The Bountiful Squire, 1811-55 81

In truth the dynamic surgeon had long nourished a grudge against William. Back in and subscribed £100 to the County Hospital at Brighton. Nathaniel himself in 1835 1802 when his sister Grace enthused over faggots, cheeses and the Peace of Amiens, Dick ‘generously’ released five acres of land for a village Allotment Club. More momentously, and his brother Hampton were still trainee surgeons. Their father Richard, meanwhile, he bought the presentation to the rectory at Hurst and awarded it to his son, Carey doctored and inoculated the servants at Danny, and hoped one day to physic the Hampton, in 1841. Educated at Eton and Oxford, the young parson proved a strenuous Family. Indeed, in January 1802 Dick confided to Hampton, ‘we are getting in a little High Church man who was to officiate as rector for 57 years. His first target was the parish at Danny now … Mrs [Jane] Campion desired to see my father when he came to see church, musty, cramped and gallery-ridden, a sad reminder of Georgian inertia and lack one of the servants and had some conversation with him (what a wonder!)’. Better still, of High Purpose. To his delight the Archdeacon also damned it as ‘a miserable piece of in March, Grace informed Hampton, ‘there was a very beautiful young lady staying patchwork’ and so, between them, they master-minded its demolition. In its stead arose at Danny a few days ago by the name of Moreland. She sprained her foot and Papa a lofty cruciform edifice in ’s best Early Decorated style, costing £7,500 was sent for and attended her in her own room. A few days after, Dick called and was and capable of seating 691 adults and 344 children. As the ‘squire’ William gave £1,200, introduced in to the parlour’. But by April the mood had soured, especially towards the rector £1,000, the patron £500, Anglican sources £830 and the parishioners £1,700, William, the heir apparent. Hampton wrote dismissing him as a ‘proud puppy’. In via a compulsory church rate which met bitter complaint – the rector ‘alone preserved a June Dick reported that the physicians – ‘the Gentlemen’ – treating him for dysentery calm demeanour, his opponents meanwhile [were] in a state bordering on fury’.91 had so ‘lowered him’ he needed carrying from room to room. And in December Dick Had William bought the living, he might well have installed Charles there, rather glimpsed him in Hurst with his hounds and rejoiced he was mounted on Bull, a horse than at Westmeston. But squire and rector remained cordial. Indeed in lieu of the his father Richard had sold him – a horse which ‘is, was, and ever will be, a fool’. But it demolished ‘Danny chancel’, William was allotted the new north transept and a vault was at least consoling that Dick’s other sister, Mary Anne, had ‘got in’ as a close friend beneath. And when his new seat there turned out to be disconcertingly higher, wider of Widow Newnham at Newtimber Place, allowing him to excavate ‘urns and patirae’ and more comfortable than any other, the rector piously hoped it would be ‘scarcely on her land at Beeding Hill.90 observed from the rest of the church’. But William’s insistence, that the door into his More decorous than the spate with Dick about sand was a polite warning by William’s transept from the churchyard was solely for the Family’s use, caused Dick Weekes to lawyers to another manorial tenant, Nathaniel Borrer, about felling trees on his copyhold fulminate afresh at another ‘Tyrannical’ act, and to take his grievance to the Diocesan land at Broad Lane. Borrer, of course, was a gentleman, resident at Pakyns manor to the Consistory Court which allowed William nonetheless to keep the door locked. It west of the High Street. His affluent father had raised a troop of horse to repel Napoleon proved the surgeon’s last assault – at his funeral in 1847 the rector tactfully dwelt on his prompt response to the sick and injured. William himself died in February 1855, his funeral delayed because ‘the roads were so slippery, horses could scarcely walk’. His widow Jane, who died two years later, was unkindly observed by Dick’s nephew, surgeon George Weekes, during a ‘Dinner and Ball’ at Danny – she was seated ‘in a low invalid chair in black … apparently in her dotage, in the corner of the room for an hour or two, when she disappeared from the gay scene’. In the new ‘Danny transept’ their children placed a memorial window depicting the Crucifixion – the entire church meanwhile was being glazed in glowing colours by John Hardman of Birmingham to tell the Gospel story of Christ’s redemptive mission.92 (See 80)

83 The Georgian fittings of the church sketched by William Hamper in 1799. 8 William and Harriet: Castanets and Cottage Visits, 1855-69

The heir to Danny in 1855 was another William John. A graduate of Christ Church College Oxford, he served briefly with the Fifteenth Hussars and was already a JP for Sussex and a Deputy Lieutenant. In 1829 he wedded the talented Harriet Kemp. Her father Thomas, a versatile Sussex landowner, had married Frances Baring, a banker’s daughter. By the late 1820s Kemp was extremely active as a popular Radical-Whig MP for Lewes Borough, as a zealous preacher to an up-market Evangelical sect with chapels at Lewes and Brighton and, adjacent to that burgeoning resort, as the developer of the palatial Kemp Town estate. While dining with Kemp there at Sussex Square in 1827 a susceptible French poet much admired Harriet’s many accomplishments – her playing the piano and the harp, her singing airs by Rossini and Thomas Moore’s enticing Come Rest in this Bosom. He admired, too, ‘a collection of landscapes and flower-pieces designed by her’. Harriet’s wedding at Brighton entailed great public rejoicing, and at Lewes church bells pealed, a band paraded and public houses were ‘thrown open’. She maintained her affection for flora whilst residing with William in Hampshire. Indeed the Horticultural Society of London awarded to their gardener, William Bunney, its medal, struck at the Royal Mint, ‘for the best Exhibitions during the year 1839’ – it displayed a sleekly clad nymph bearing flowers and grapes, with four colleagues floating Flaxman-like behind her. That same year, Harriet’s fond father, writing from Nice and missing Brighton’s ‘nice sea smell’, assumed she ‘ran away with all the prizes as usual’, but hinted he might upstage her, florally, with ‘a new idea from Geneva’. And a sustained enthusiasm for designing ‘flower-pieces’ might explain a diary entry by the ever terse Parson Borrer in 1865 – ‘After prayers with Mrs Campion about carving’ – slightly amplified, 20 years later, as ‘Wood carving began under Mrs Campion’s kind direction to boys at [the National] school’.93 William’s reign at Danny was nourished by a long agricultural boom. He himself kept impeccable stock on the home-farm at Little Danny – Alderney dairy cows, Southdown sheep and plump Devonshire steers – besides a formidable array of ladders, harnesses, rakes, rollers, carts, ploughs, drills, crushers and cribs. At Hurst every Tuesday, meanwhile, local farmers, potters and tradesmen transacted market business at the New Inn, smoking their long ‘churchwarden’ pipes. ‘The street would be lined with horses and carts from miles around.’ And indeed, in 1855 the Hurst Cattle Market Company leased the Campion coach house on Church Green as its base. That December, Parson Borrer, after seeing the cattle show, attended the ‘Market dinner’, with ‘W. Campion in the chair’. William’s

84 The memorial window to William Campion in the chapel of St John’s College, Hurstpierpoint. purchase for £7,050 of Tott Farm and its 66 copyhold acres in 1857, and of Bearstake

83 84 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Harriet: Castanets and Cottage Visits, 1855-69 85

86 The Family dispersed across the east lawn.

dam between the first and second ponds in the park, to facilitate a supply of piped water to the house, including to ‘the upper closets’. And in November 1856 surgeon George Weekes admired the ‘new’ dining room with its ormolu chandelier and its hearth (still in place) enriched by a ‘raised fixed stone’ fender and ‘encaustic glazed tiles’. Presumably William inserted on its north wall the ‘new’ fireplace, and its robust neo-Tudor surround. Probably, too, he extended the room, and the whole south wing, westward, and installed the heavily mullioned neo-Tudor window, the sturdily ribbed plaster ceiling and the 85 A water-colour by Harriet Kemp of Dale Park near Arundel. sombre panelling still adorning the room. The library has similar panels. A sizeable oak tree, excluding light from its eastern bay window, was felled in August 1870. William’s, and 16 acres in 1869, also squared off the Danny estate south of Hurst village – Mary too, maybe, was the new servants’ hall in the yard west of the butler’s pantry, with its bold Anne Jenner stayed on as his tenant at Tott. As squire of Hurst, William kept Danny mullions and baronial timbered ceiling. And William, or possibly his father, sometime and its grounds accessible. In February 1863, for example, children came to collect after 1829, placed the heraldic glass in the Great Hall emblazoned with coats of arms soup for their families; in May the wedding of the Prince of Wales was celebrated on borne by Campion wives. They begin with Margaret Cordall who died in 1599 and ‘the hill’, and in June a Review of the Volunteers in the was held in the park. William’s staff at Danny, listed in the 1861 census, also befitted his status. Enumerated were a butler, two footmen, a coachman, a groom, a housekeeper, a lady’s maid, three house maids, two laundry maids, a kitchen maid, a scullery maid and a dairy maid. And though William’s five children had flown the nest, a visiting daughter, her husband and child accounted for a third footman, a second lady’s maid, a nurse and a nursery maid.94 Two photographs taken by Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, sometime before 1859, display William and the Family, first assembled on the porch steps and then dispersed across the East Lawn. R.B. Utting adapted the second for an engraving which embellishes an article by Robert Willis Blencowe in Sussex Archaeological Collections. Doubtless William was mindful of his mansion’s picturesque value when he promptly sought to improve it. In August 1855 an engineer from Southwark recommended raising by two feet the 87 The ‘new’ dining room. 88 The dining room today. 86 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Harriet: Castanets and Cottage Visits, 1855-69 87

89 The Victorian library.

91 The heraldic glass in the Great Hall.

conclude with Harriet – Gules, three garbs within a bordure engrailed or. The Campion arms – Argent on a chief gules, an eagle displayed or – glow in the border.95 Of William’s three daughters, Florence and Frances wedded local landowners who were also Liberal MPs – John Dodson sat for East Sussex and John Blencowe for Lewes Borough – while Mary married the village curate, Ferdinand Tower. Walter, William’s younger son, became a barrister and pursued a legal career in the House of Commons, first as Secretary to the Speaker, and then as an Examiner of its draft legislation. Meanwhile, his elder brother, William Henry, progressed from Eton to the Seaforth Highlanders and served in the Crimea. While campaigning ‘on the open brae’, he resourcefully devised a portable oven – a coffee tin plastered with mud to bake apples and ‘other wonders’. He also assisted in capturing the Redan, the mighty fortress protecting Sevastopol. Then, during a protracted voyage to India, where Mutiny was simmering, he heard the regimental band play in the Botanical Gardens at Cape Town and lassoed sharks near Mauritius. Once disembarked at Bombay, he took part ‘in the siege of Kotah and the pursuit of the rebels under Tantia Topee and Rao Sahib’. His letters home tell of constant marches by night to avoid the heat, and endless shooting by day of pigs, partridges and snipe. Sadly, during a jungle skirmish, he lost a prized sporting gun and a much loved horse, 90 The library today. whose ‘enlarged fetlock’ he was tenderly cherishing – he never became a close chum of 88 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Harriet: Castanets and Cottage Visits, 1855-69 89

animals and plants was the key to their evolution. He sent a summary to Charles Darwin who duly alerted the London Linnean Society, before publishing in 1859 The Origin of 92 William Bunney and two sons. Species, summarising his own lengthy research into ‘natural selection’. Returning home in 1862 with two birds of paradise for the Zoological Society, Wallace united with Darwin to defend their theory from bitter attacks by ‘creationists’. And maybe his ‘un-Christian’ stance caused a Miss Leslie to abruptly jilt him. Still extremely upset, he arrived at Hurst to join Richard Spruce and met Mr Mitten and his daughters. Quite soon they were all placidly botanising together amid the orchids, dyer’s broom and giant cowslips nodding in the woods below ‘the hill’. He duly wedded Annie, the eldest Miss Mitten, who clearly could cope with ‘natural selection’. Indeed, it was at Treeps, her family home in the High Street, that Wallace wrote in 1867-9 his best-selling natural history of The Malay Archipelago, dedicating it to a delighted Darwin. Two hundred years earlier, of course, the rich flora of the Danny estate had intrigued the great naturalist, John Ray.98 Harriet, like her father Thomas, was as committed a Christian as she was a gardener. In the 1830s she bound up her Essays on the Bible and assembled details of charitable institutions at home and abroad. On the Danny estate she steadily pursued Good Works, his three camels. Though not ‘a Victoria Cross man’, he fondly dreamed of a mention in aided perhaps by a copy of The Cottager’s Visitor (1827), later listed in the library. Thus in dispatches. Leaving the army in 1863, and being Danny’s heir-apparent, William Henry 1865 a villager at Bedlam Street assured George Jupp, the local gamekeeper’s son settled by was promptly made a JP, serving thereafter on the local Bench for 60 years. He became, then in New Zealand, that during a long and fatal illness Jupp’s brother had ‘everything he too, a stalwart Volunteer in the Royal Sussex Regiment.96 wished for from Danny’. Indeed ‘Mrs Campion visited him often and went to see him after Harriet’s part in improving the mansion is unclear. But her passion for plants and ‘flower his death, which was a great comfort to your dear Friends’. Earlier George had written to pieces’ perhaps fuelled the creation of a new kitchen garden covering almost three acres just Harriet that he was ‘doing well’ in his ‘new and bountiful country’ and sending her details to the east of Little Danny. In 1842 its predecessor still blossomed to the north of Sandfield of its plants and trees. When a painful accident prevented her from replying in person, Pond. But by 1874 the new garden, with high walls and ‘glass ranges’, gardener’s house her brother-in-law Charles wrote from Westmeston rectory. Signing himself ‘ever your and orchard en suite, was neatly apparent on the Ordnance Survey map. Seemingly it was friend and well-wisher’, he conveyed her ‘best wishes’, along with much local news, and constructed about 1860, for in August 1908 the vines in ‘the early Vinery’ were reckoned promised George a packet of ‘useful’ garden seeds, as well as flower seeds ‘to remind you of to be ‘nearly fifty years old’ by James Bunney, the head gardener – he was sheltering there old England’. Given Harriet’s devotion to Good Works, it was unsurprising, perhaps, that with a contributor to Garden Life from a shower of ‘almost tropical violence’. James’s her third daughter, Mary, married Ferdinand Tower, the village curate.99 father, William, had been Harriet’s prize-medallist in 1839 and by 1871 was residing at ‘the In 1856 Harriet paid ‘Madden’, a local homeopathic doctor, to attend a sick woman in the Gardener’s House’, after a spell at Sutton Hall near Newick. The ‘House’ still stands, an village. He prescribed a small white powder dissolved in eight dessert spoonfuls of water, to be ornately rustic, gabled, tile-hung dwelling, with a pretty watch-tower and belfry overseeing taken four times a day for 12 months. Scoffing in his diary at such a remedy, surgeon George the trim horticultural domain below. (See 116) William used the kitchen garden’s lavish Weekes dismissed her condition as ‘simple debility and hysterical haemoptysis’ which time facilities to specialise in ‘stove plants’ – alpine strawberries, grapes and melons. He was widely alone would cure. The scoffing George was a nephew of the belligerent Dick who died in 1847. respected as a judge at exhibitions, even those of the Royal Botanic Society held at Regents But being a tireless social climber he was loath to re-ignite the family feud with Danny. While Park. And he died in 1881, aged 72 it seems, after falling from a ladder in the peach house.97 a surgeon in the Royal Sussex Militia Artillery he had fraternised with local gentry – claiming In the 1860s the village of Hurst was itself the scene of strides in botanical science. The them as ‘brother officers’. And he rebuilt his High Street house as a smart double-fronted villa High Street pharmacist, William Mitten, was the son of the butler at Danny previously so and re-branded it Carey Hall, with the Weekes coat of arms preening above the porch. In prized by William’s father. Being also a skilled amateur botanist, Mitten used his leisure November 1856 he also chronicled a pleasing visit to Danny, to a Dinner and Ball celebrating hours in 1864-5 to classify the many mosses and lichens collected in South America by a the safe return from Sevastopol of ‘Harry’ Campion, the son and heir. The park was prettily plant hunter lodging nearby, Richard Spruce, a close friend of Alfred Russel Wallace. In illuminated, with calico lanterns, patriotically coloured red, white and blue, hanging from 1858 that great naturalist, while recovering from a fever in the East Indies, had conceived the ancient oaks. The dancing was in the ‘new’ dining room, ‘freshly floored and renovated’, a theory of ‘natural selection’, that ‘the survival of the best fitted in every generation’ of and well lit by an ormolu chandelier. Mirrors reflected the many wax candles; artificial roses 90 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Harriet: Castanets and Cottage Visits, 1855-69 91 nestled in festoons of evergreen, and encaustic tiles glowed in the hearth. ‘Niebours Band’ mustered castanets, a piano, a violin cello, a tambourine and ‘occasionally a cheerful horn’. Dinner was served in the warm and spacious Great Hall, ‘very pleasing and noble’; delicacies loaded the tables and champagne bountifully flowed. When dancing resumed, ‘Mr Campion’ led off in a Sir Roger de Coverley, as befitted the patriarchal occasion.100 On balance surgeon Weekes was satisfied. True he doubted (wrongly) that Harry was ‘ever under fire or actually engaged with the Russians’ – he heard ‘he was on the sick list’. And the dancing area was very crowded – not only were the estate tenants there, with ‘their wives and the nubile portion of their families’, but so were ‘the inhabitants of Hurst generally’ – ‘a crush Ball’ in fact. But Colonel Paine from Patcham, ‘late of my old regiment’ – sporting a full beard made fashionable by returning Crimean veterans – presented him to Mr John Dodson, who presented him to his parents-in-law and to Harry – all ‘very agreeable’. And Parson Borrer, Weekes’s cousin, introduced him to Mr Gordon from Newtimber Place – a sporting squire ‘not fond of dancing or company’. The very next day Weekes and his daughter, Georgina Julia, drove their dog cart back to Danny to observe the Southdown Hunt. Tiresomely, an unsporting fox skulked in undergrowth for an hour, before being killed near Muddleswood Gate. But a second, quite quickly disturbed, was soon dispatched 93 The sumptuous altar piece. in Newtimber Holt ‘after a short but sharp run’. Weekes meanwhile chatted happily with Captain Bethune, once briefly his brother officer at Chichester Barracks. Next day, Mrs But Danny Park has left its mark Weekes left a card at Danny. But later, rather sparse, diary entries down to 1871 make no Hard by my orb of vision, Where cricket ball met facial wall mention of further social contact. It hardly helped perhaps that Weekes was a fervent Tory. In violent collision. In 1857 his diary damned as ‘the Rabble, the Huzza mobile’ the Liberals gathered at Lewes Oh stiff and stark in Danny Park to support Mr John Dodson’s election as Liberal MP for East Sussex. But made a Deputy Would I could find the schemer, Whose art unsound laid out that ground Lieutenant in 1858 by the Conservative Duke of Richmond, he delightedly wore his new And gave me Emphusema!102 uniform and silver spurs to the Queen’s ‘Birthday Drawing Room’ at St James’s Palace. And in 1862, as a new Commissioner of Assessed Taxes, he blissfully sat with the JPs at Cuckfield Doubtless, too, William applauded the annual College procession to the summit of Petty Sessions, ‘within the rail’, with his hat on. When his diary more fully resumes in 1871, ‘the hill’ on Ascension Day – in 1859 the boys showed ‘a courage, worthy of the Alma’, his rage at not ‘getting in’ at Danny becomes painfully apparent.101 charging up the slope and chasing coconuts down. Probably, William also added to the By contrast terse Parson Borrer and his children were often at Danny, to dine, shoot rabbits library at Danny Pusey’s Sermons (1852-3) and Neale’s Holy Eastern Church (1850), and rooks and admire the Christmas tree. It helped of course that William, like Harriet, was a both classics of High Church exegesis. Harriet for her part presented a Union Jack and committed Christian and indeed, like Borrer, a High Churchman. Both gave steady support a corps colour when the College formed its cadet company in 1860, while their eldest to St John’s College at Hurst which Nathaniel Woodard set up in the High Street in 1850, son Henry was briefly crammed there for his army exam, paying £10 for a special room soon after he launched Lancing College. Both were boarding schools ‘for the education of the and extra meat. Small wonder, then, that William was praised after his death in 1869 middle classes on Church of England principles’. St John’s moved to its present site in 1853 as the College’s ‘best friend’ during ‘its early days of difficulty’, or that its pupils lined with much ceremonial – with embroidered banners and choristers clad in surplices – ritual the route for his funeral. And to his memory, a lofty three-light window in their chapel deplored by many local residents as the rankest ‘Popery’. Undeterred, William subscribed to was filled by Messrs Clayton and Bell with stained glass depicting saints and scriptural the College building fund and to a sumptuous altar piece in the immense chapel. He donated scenes – their colours reinforcing the ‘great excelsior’ achieved by the chapel’s architect, prizes and invited visiting bishops and charismatic preachers to dine at Danny. The boys also R.H. Carpenter. Harriet, meanwhile, energetically lived another 30 years. By 1871 she played cricket on ‘the Danny lawn’ – ‘that billiard table of a wicket in front of the Hall’, where resided in fashionable Mayfair with her unmarried barrister son Walter. Returning to Walter, the squire’s younger son, captained scratch sides against them. One pupil recalled, Danny, she resumed her ‘kind direction’ of Parson Borrer’s school boys carving wood too, the luncheon in the Great Hall – ‘Whenever I smell pineapple or boraged claret cup my and in 1891 subscribed to a ‘Piece of Plate’ celebrating his 50th year at the rectory.103 mind shoots to that hospitable board’. Another was more critical: 9 William and Gertrude: Local and Imperial Service, 1869-1914

William Henry inherited the Danny estate in June 1869 and in September married Gertrude Brand from Glynde Place near Lewes. Fifty years later the couple gracefully retired to 31 The Drive in Hove, after celebrating the Golden anniversary of a ‘long and happy’ union. Pleasingly, Gertrude numbered among her remoter ancestors the Pierpoints, the medieval lords of Hurst – her father, Henry, the second son of the 21st baron Dacre, being descended from a sister of the Gregory Fiennes who sold Danny to George Goring in 1582. Henry Brand himself was a leading Liberal MP, for Lewes Borough and then for Cambridgeshire, and served with unruffled ‘suavity’ as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1872 till 1884, when he was created Viscount Hampden – Gertrude becoming thereby an ‘Honourable’. And by 1881 William’s barrister brother, Walter, was employed as Speaker Brand’s secretary and lived in South Street, Mayfair, between Lord Lucan and Florence Nightingale. In mid-Sussex, meanwhile, Gertrude’s cousins, the Freeman-Thomases, were reinforcing William’s relatives, the Dodsons and the Blencowes, to form a close-knit alliance of landowners who rallied at Danny to promote Charitable Endeavour. And as the 1881 census also reveals, the Campion line itself had fast proliferated there. The heir, ten-year-old William Robert, was absent and baby Joan had yet to arrive, but Frederick, Edward, Charles, Mary and Alice, were at home. The 18 household servants, all unmarried and mostly under 30, included a butler, two footmen, two grooms, a housekeeper, two lady’s maids, two house maids, a kitchen maid, a scullery maid, a stillroom maid, a nurse, three nursery maids and a ‘tea’ governess. To ease the running of this complex, expanded household, a broad ‘Elizabethan’ staircase was installed west of the entrance porch, probably after a serious fire in 1884, to give better access to the bedroom corridors, the Nursery suite and the Bachelors’ Wing.104 The ‘nurse’ enumerated in 1881 was ‘Nanny’ Jenny Carter from Brighton, who was

94 Colonel William Campion by Walter W. Ouless. later identified as a pivotal presence in the Family by Charles Phillimore who married Miss Alice. For though she ruled the five younger children ‘with a rod of iron’, she sweetened her discipline ‘with a love almost maternal’ and became ‘an object of very great affection’. Indeed, by 1908 she had risen to be a ‘much liked and respected’ housekeeper. ‘Her little bedroom with its oil stove, where she always sat between tea and dinner, was a safe place to find one or two of the sons or daughters of the house’ – akin perhaps to the snug abode of Nanny Hawkins beneath the cupola at Brideshead. But despite her ‘extremely sane, kind and wide outlook on life’, Jenny Carter could be endearingly artless. When Joan confessed on a train to forgetting her morning

93 94 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Gertrude: Local and Imperial Service, 1869-1914 95

he also embraced Imperialist Conservatism, chairing the East Grinstead Constituency Party from 1885 till 1906 and hosting on his lawns the summer fete of the local Primrose League. When County Councils were set up William was duly elected in 1899 for the Hurst division and swiftly created an Alderman. As ‘an earnest churchman’, he also busily engaged in diocesan work, supported the Additional Curates Society and befriended Hurst College. And by purchasing the living of Hurst, after Parson Borrer belatedly expired in 1898, he reunited the rectory with the Danny estate. Also at Hurst he attended the Parish Vestry and the Workmen’s Club, and presided over the Cricket Club.106 As William’s obituary also acknowledged, his wife Gertrude did ‘splendid work for the Church in Sussex, being ‘a familiar and honoured figure at all kinds of diocesan gatherings’, and of course at Hurst’s own Temperance Society, Women’s Union and Parish Room. She also continued, as Charles Phillimore observed, the hands-on Good Works of Harriet, her cottage-visiting mother-in-law. ‘She was not at all put out when, at the end of reading a chapter of the Bible to old Kidd, the bed-ridden octogenarian shepherd, who remembered the old days of smuggling on the Sussex coast, he only remarked: “I likes a bit of rabbit”. Needless to say, she saw that he had rabbits sent to him’. Moreover, in 1883 at Chichester House in Hurst High Street Gertrude ‘and some friends’ – including the ‘cousinhood’ – launched a Diocesan Training Home for Workhouse Girls. Linked with the Girls’ Friendly Society, it groomed them for domestic service – some indeed reached the ‘first rank’. A familiar sight was the donkey cart delivering dirty laundry from Danny. The Home also served as a refuge if the girls were out of work or recovering from illness. On its behalf in August 1884 a monster two-day bazaar over-spilled the Great Hall at Danny. Some stalls abounded with genteel needlework – floral bouquets, embroidered dolls, sumptuous tea

95 Walter Campion by M.E. Miller. prayers, Nanny told her to ‘say them quick, before you read the Daily Mail’. And apropos of a visit to ‘the Happy Valley’, a popular beauty spot on the Isle of Wight, she remembered ‘over here, dear (pointing to one side) … a rock where (in lowered tones of deep respect) Wesley wrote Rock of Ages’.105 William, meanwhile, in his local public life embodied ‘a fine type of the old school of English country gentlemen’, according to his obituary in the Sussex Daily News in 1923 – a species imbued with ‘robust common-sense’, breadth of outlook and ‘old-fashioned courtesy of manner’. Appointed a JP in 1863 after campaigning with the Seaforth Highlanders, William later chaired the magistrates’ Bench at , retiring from it a few weeks before his death. ‘He always sought to temper justice with mercy’, though in cases of ‘savage cruelty’ to hapless children and animals he was ‘as stern as the circumstances called for’. Being a Crimea and Mutiny veteran, he also joined the Volunteers linked to the Royal Sussex Regiment and devotedly served from 1897 as Colonel of the Second, later the Fourth, Battalion, whose drill hall at Hurst summoned enthusiasts from much of mid-Sussex. Like most late-Victorian landed gentlemen (but unlike his Sussex cousins) 96 Possibly Nanny Carter or the Honourable Gertrude. 96 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Gertrude: Local and Imperial Service, 1869-1914 97

Georgina Julia, ‘by card’ to witness her Cottagers’ Show, where cash prizes were awarded for deserving vegetables, fruit, flowers, and needlework. After duly admiring there ‘a wasps’ nest entire, dug up, under a glass light – a curious structure and composition’, a delighted Weekes was allowed by a ‘very agreeable’ Mrs Campion to view the Hall, ‘lately boarded with polished oak’. But in June 1872 came a cruel setback. Gertrude sent him another ‘plain white visiting card’ with ‘cricket at Danny on Saturday – Hurst v. Danny’ written on it. Weekes felt ill-used – ‘a notice to attend if you like … I have been once or twice [lumped] with the hoi-polloi from a similar notice or card’. Was he not a Deputy Lieutenant, the owner of 125 Wealden acres at Cowfold, and welcome to shoot at Bolney Place any time he pleased? Had not Georgina Julia assisted with bazaars at Eastbourne held on behalf of the Benefit Association for Reduced Ladies? And ‘the card’ proved to be no mere oversight. Despite Weekes giving William Campion a lift in his wagonette on 1 August, Georgina Julia received four weeks later a paltry ‘printed circular’ curtly announcing the next Cottagers’ Show at Danny. She did not attend and Weekes died in 1884, seemingly still languishing ‘outside’.108 Like their parents, William’s four sons set out to serve Queen and Country. The eldest, William Robert, achieved fourth-class honours in History at Oxford, married Katherine Byron, daughter of the Reverend the Honourable William Byron – a distant kinsman of the poet – and joined the Stock Exchange, restoring the Family’s link with Commerce. As a Liberal-Unionist (a Conservative in all but name) he advocated Imperial economic and military co-operation, and entered Parliament in 1910 as MP for the Lewes Division. His brother Frederick, also an Oxford graduate, but destined for the priesthood, sailed to Sydney in 1895 to tutor the children of his uncle Henry, the 2nd Viscount Hampden. Writing home to uncle Walter, now Examiner of Legislation to the House of Commons, Frederick admired the genial Henry’s ‘gigantic success’ as Governor of New South Wales – ‘pinching pigs’ at agricultural shows, buying dolls at charity bazaars ‘from the prettiest stall lady’ and extolling ‘moral backbone’ to the Young Men’s Christian Association. And despite ‘woman 97 The Honourable Gertrude by George Richmond. suffrage’ and their other ‘socialistic’ legislation, the colonists were ‘unanimously loyal’ to England. True they were brash, without manners or artistic feeling and always ‘on the spree’ cosies and baskets sewn with fern and moss. Others offered Florentine china, live guinea – ‘Not a man, woman or child is left at home on Saturday afternoon’. But they ‘would pigs, local cream cheese and signed photographs of Speaker Brand. Playing melodiously do anything which calls upon their courage or chivalry’ – a verdict tragically vindicated on the sunlit lawns were the bands of the Royal Sussex Regiment and the Royal Irish in 1915 amid the slaughter at Gallipoli, where Frederick was to serve as chaplain to ‘the Dragoon Guards. And hard-fought was ‘a menagerie race’ contended for by a pig, a goat Fourth Sussex’. He was himself already a Sydney Volunteer – ‘to keep me in discipline and and a hedgehog, a turkey, a goose, a rooster and a duck. Soon after the bazaar, William, to equip me for a curate’s work among boys’. But his vocation was soon to take a sudden Gertrude and Miss Spooner, the matron, sponsored the baptism of seven girls from the twist. While out shooting the meagre local game, he noticed the ‘spiritual destitution’ of the Home. And in a letter to The Times in 1895 Gertrude spelt out to the Nation the vision Aborigines. After his ordination, therefore, he launched the Bush Brotherhood of the Good of the Girls’ Friendly Society – ‘the promotion of purity of life, dutifulness to parents, Shepherd, a still-flourishing Mission to the Out-Back. And before returning to Sussex in faithfulness to employers, temperance and thrift’. In all, she supported Chichester House 1909 to be rector of West Grinstead, he married Noel Blaxland whose grandfather, the first ‘self-denyingly’ for 38 years.107 ‘free settler’ in New South Wales, planted its first vineyard and pioneered a route through Though benevolent, Gertrude maintained Class Distinctions. Indeed, early on, she parried the Blue Mountains.109 fresh attempts by surgeon George Weekes to fulfil his family’s long-cherished ambition to Meanwhile Frederick’s younger brother, Edward, an officer in the Seaforth Highlanders, ‘get in’ at Danny. In September 1871, as his diary reveals, she invited him and his daughter, their father’s regiment, kept a vivid diary of the Sudanese campaign which destroyed near 98 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Gertrude: Local and Imperial Service, 1869-1914 99

ad infinitum’. And then, after days of ‘perspiring, beastly cursed inaction’ and nights of bitter cold, on 8 April the Seaforths attacked some entrenched Dervishes near the river Atbara, artillery having rendered their position ‘an inferno of shrieking shell and bursting shrapnel’. Survivors were bayoneted.110 There followed four hot months of dust, flies and fever at Darmali, a ‘mud-housed God-forsaken place’ by the Nile, where General Gatacre, ‘idiotic as usual’, ordered endless sweltering pointless fatigues. ‘Nigger songs’, an Indian Club team and a gymkhana on Waterloo Day did little to lighten Edward’s ennui, though he did shoot some sand grouse and pigeons, plus a vulture and a scorpion – the local gazelles having quickly fled the area. Finally, on 13 August the Seaforths began the march towards Khartoum, beset by dust 98 Two of Edward’s Kodak photographs of the and heat, and obliged by General Gatacre’s ‘infantile childishness’ to sleep ‘fully dressed Sudanese campaign. and accoutred’ at night. Then at dawn on 1 September they waited in entrenchments by the Nile near Omdurman, with the Lancers, Guards and Warwicks on their left, the Camerons, Lincolns, and ‘Native Regiments’ on their right, all eyes scanning the open desert. ‘Then all of a sudden we saw their banners in the distance and knew they were really coming – coming to the slaughter, for it could be nothing less, over this level plain – no finer field of fire could be imagined … I suppose no-one in the Anglo-Egyptian army will ever again behold such a magnificent spectacle as this advance of the dervishes – on they came, long white lines – line behind line – banners waving … a grand display of fanatical bravery, such an utter disregard of death … here and there one could see their emirs boldly riding far in front to, by their own dauntless courage, inspire the same in their men – shells were bursting all around them, but they didn’t seem to mind a bit and came sweeping on – a grand finale to Mahdiism.’ And then indeed the maxim guns and the massed rifles began their ‘devilish fire’ and slaughter ensued. In Omdurman itself ‘the stench was awful … the filth past all description’. But in the Khartoum ‘the whirling Dervishes’, the followers of the Mahdi who ‘murdered’ intrepid ruins of Khartoum Edward did retrieve ‘one General Gordon there in 1885. In February 1898 ‘wild enthusiasm’ in Edward’s Mess at of Gordon’s round shot which I mean to Cairo greeted the order to ‘mobilise’. ‘A lot of the darlings came to see us off … Shepherd’s make into a letter weight’. A letter to Danny Hotel cheered us vociferously’ – would the darlings in the Sudan be ‘dark and dusky’, he then charted his return down the Nile: ‘As wondered. The regiment duly advanced 1,500 miles up the Nile by rail, barge, Cook’s we got nearer civilisation, luxuries appeared steamer Ramses the Great, and camel. At Philae Edward was baffled by the great temple – at Daklida bread and Rosbach [beer], – its ‘hieroglyphics, figures etc’, but much amused by a colour-sergeant being nastily at Halfa potatoes and chickens, at Shellal nipped taking a fish off a hook. After a dust-storm ruined his rations, leaving him three ice, at Luxor an omelette for breakfast in boiled eggs, came ‘a rough uncomfortable camel, a hard saddle and 6 hours ride’. Then a first-class hotel, and this morning roll 111 at Kenur, 200 miles from Khartoum, the Seaforths, whose kilts bewildered the natives, and butter in one’s own mess [at Cairo].’ built their first stockade to repel night attack and heard General Gatacre deliver ‘what is, I believe, his usual idiotic speech … what fine fellows we all are … and such like slush 99 The memorial window to Charles Campion. 100 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Gertrude: Local and Imperial Service, 1869-1914 101

Edward’s younger brother, Charles, joined the Imperial Yeomanry, but died at Vlakfontein Philanthropic Society marched to them, headed by ‘the Railway Band’ – their day out was in South Africa fighting the Boers in1901 . His large memorial window in the chancel of crowned there by ‘an eruption of Mount Vesuvius’. Thanks in part to the station William also Hurst church, depicting the Crucifixion and designed by Charles Eamer Kempe, displaced sold off building plots in the 1880s for houses fronting the High Street and a newly laid out a sumptuous Ascension, made by John Hardman as the climax of the new glazing scheme – South Avenue. Later he sold three acres for a cemetery – Parson Borrer’s price for a piece of thenceforth the church had two Crucifixions. The expelled Ascension now illumines a church Church Field having proved too high.114 in Ontario. Kempe was a relation of Charles’s grandmother Harriet and a prolific designer of William, nonetheless, chose in 1897 to lease out Danny, its gardens and shooting for five stained glass and church fittings, who left his workshop and craft-filled mansion at Lindfield years, at an annual rent of £600, and withdraw with Gertrude to genteel suburbia, to 31 The to Walter Tower, another grandson of Harriet. Later a pretty birdbath made of terracotta Drive at Hove. Doubtless this abrupt departure of the Old Order unsettled both tenants was set up in the churchyard in memory of Charles ‘who passed his happy boyhood among and neighbours, especially as the new occupier stemmed from the new bourgeoisie. Leopold these Sussex Downs … and obeying the first call of his country in her hour of need, found a Bernhard Bonn brought his own servants with him from 22 Upper Brook Street in Mayfair. soldier’s grave on the South African veldt’.112 A rich German-Jewish banker, based in London since 1870, he had largely funded the But while Edward and Charles were fighting in the Sudan and South Africa, their building of the Metropolitan District Railway. And maybe his sojourn at Danny confirmed parents, somewhat disconcertingly, were resident in Hove, having leased out Danny, its a taste for rural life, for he later purchased ‘a first-class hunting estate’ in Warwickshire. gardens and shooting for five years in 1897. This abrupt economy was required perhaps More memorably, he also became hard-of-hearing and accordingly promoted a National by falling returns from their landed property. In 1881 William farmed Little Danny Bureau to further the General Welfare of the Deaf, later the National Institute for the Deaf. and its 272 acres, with 16 labourers and three boys. His tenants, of course, employed But the Family duly returned ‘home’ to Danny in 1902, reinforced by Mr Grimson, an many more. Indeed, at his Harvest Home in September 1884 ‘100 sat down to a hot awesome new butler. Years later Gordon Tulley fondly recalled an ensuing servants’ New dinner’ after a cricket match. And in the 1870s, when farming was still buoyant, William Year Ball that he attended as a lad of 16: he danced a polka with the Honourable Gertrude; bought land in Essex and the Dyke Farm at , also a ‘Patent BB No. 2 Plough Bill Walker played the piano and Fred Furlonger the fiddle; John Pearsey, Captain of the with two wheels and steel breast’ from the Britannia Iron Works at Bedford. But the Fire Brigade, served as Master of Ceremonies. Small sales of land nonetheless continued price of British farm produce sagged once cheap imported grain and canned meat began till 1914 – grazing ground near Pevensey, building plots at Station Road, Cranbrook, and flooding the domestic market. In May 1879 William returned to his tenant farmers ten also in Kent a copse ‘noted for woodcock’, and a pasture where cattle rested en route to per cent of the rent paid at the half-year audit in March. He also issued a rallying call: Ashford market.115 ‘I do not pretend to hold out hopes that prices either of wheat or fat stock, will go back to what they were a few years ago … Where we have grown three quarters of wheat we must grow five … when we have fattened one Bullock we must fat two … But I look with hope and confidence to the enterprise, patience and perseverance which has never yet deserted the English cultivator of the soil.’ Sadly, though, wheat and fat stock could no longer sustain local agriculture. In 1880 the ‘late Hurst Cattle market’ vacated the Campion coach house on Church Green. And in 1882 two ‘old-established cultivators’, Henry and Samuel Beeching, quitted the estate farms at Randalls and Washbrook. Other valued tenants later sold up as the agricultural depression persisted.113 Some salvation, though, stemmed from the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. Local farmers used Hassocks station to supply fresh milk, lamb, fruit and vegetables to a bourgeoisie, replete with shares and government bonds, now mustering in the metropolis and select coastal resorts in Sussex. Indeed Randalls and Washbrook were advertised in 1882 as ‘well suited for combining Dairy Farming and Sheep Feeding, with either Nursery or Market Garden purposes’. New ‘cultivators’ with dairying skills duly arrived. The Harvey family moved from Cornwall to Randalls and, being staunch Methodists, also revivified Hurst’s Wesleyan Connexion. Experienced market gardeners were more locally available – like Frederick Peskett who lived on the Danny estate at Breachland Cottage in 1871. Hassocks station also prompted a profitable flow of day-trippers to its Chinese Gardens. One September, 700 members of a 100 William and his hounds. 102 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries William and Gertrude: Local and Imperial Service, 1869-1914 103

102 The Danny coach.

with a thatched pavilion set amid ancient oaks on the northern edge of the park. As for

101 A cage for hanging game. the skating parties on Sandfield pond, Gordon Tulley remembered the long skirts and fur-muffs, the bowler hats and curling moustaches, ‘proudly sported’. But hunting and Despite the retreat to Hove, William remained ‘a fine type of the old school of English shooting were William’s primary passions, as they had been during the Mutiny – though country gentleman’, becoming in 1899 chairman of Haywards Heath Petty Sessions and in he did quit the chase to greet Edward VII when the King-Emperor paid a surprise visit to 1902 a Companion of the Order of the Bath. Indeed, Charles Phillimore remembered him Danny, the chauffeur stopping in New Way Lane to ask Esther Funnel for directions. The as the ‘absolute king of his neighbourhood’. Thus at a Rejoicing on ‘the hill’ for George V’s Boxing Day meet of the Southdown Hunt was a great occasion at Danny: ‘eager hounds, Coronation in June 1911, some neighbours, ‘including ex- Ministers’, wanted to handsome horses, riders in their colourful coats, quaffing inevitable stirrup cups’, gathered get the Bonfire started. But ‘nothing would induce the country people to have a match put on the East Lawns. And William persevered into his mid-70s, even though his ‘seat in to the pile till the Squire appeared riding up the Downs on his old hunter’. (The evening the saddle had come to depend on balance rather than grip’. Unabashed, he once rode before, boys from Hurst College had struggled up with blazing torches, through wind and eight miles home, soaking wet from being thrown into an icy stream, merely remarking, rain, to sing the National Anthem.) Gertrude, meanwhile, had launched the Sunshine ‘If I have not learnt how to fall at my age, I never shall’. As for shooting, ‘the ceremonial Convalescent Home for Women and Children, with her friend, the crippled Sister Maud, counting of the pheasants, laid out in the stable yard, was a ritual that nothing could be as Matron. The patients, mostly from Sussex and London hospitals, occupied a large villa allowed to interrupt’. Though informed that Gertrude had slipped on a rug and hit her on the Danny estate with splendid views towards ‘the hill’. There in April 1913 Princess chin hard on a window sill, he scarcely paused – ‘she is so careless about falling’ – before Alexander of Teck laid the foundation stone of a new chapel and planted two rose bushes, continuing, ‘seventy, seventy-one’. Out shooting, he also playfully asserted his seniority before lunching at Danny. And in July an ‘Elizabethan Fayre’ was held at Danny to aid the over his brother Walter. When the now retired Examiner to the House of Commons Home and Chichester House: the stalls were cunningly disguised as half-timbered Tudor stirred from his post at a covert to aim at higher birds, William would threaten: ‘If my houses, and Dolly Lawrence-Smith, the local ‘suffragist’, presided with aplomb as Gloriana, brother won’t stay in his place, I shall send him home.’ A cage for hanging game was the Virgin Queen.116 later mistaken by a school boy in the 1950s as intended for wild beasts brought back Being an archetypal ‘country gentleman’, William was a keen sportsman. He enjoyed from Africa.117 golf at Pyecombe, at Hove, and village cricket now played on a pitch 10 The Mansion, The Park and The Gardens, 1869-1914

Given Danny’s much publicised picturesque value, and indeed their own patriarchal lifestyle, it was only to be expected that William and Gertrude would seek to preserve their mansion’s ancestral ambience largely intact – though in May 1870 a venerable oak screening the south-east window was felled and in 1871 the inquisitive surgeon Weekes noted that the Hall ‘had been lately floored with polished oak [and] the white and black stone taken up’. However on 7 June 1884 the mansion ‘had a very narrow escape from destruction’. About 11 o’clock on that Saturday night, Gertrude, ‘on retiring to rest’, heard ‘the roaring of fire within the walls’. A large oak beam in a chamber above the kitchen had been ignited from a flue serving an over-heated hot-plate below. Prompt action by household and farm servants, using an ‘extincteur’ and hose, reinforced an hour later by the Hurst fire brigade, contained, then vanquished, the flames. Seemingly, the damage prompted William and Gertrude to commission a broad central staircase rising from a new entrance ‘lounge’, formed from two service rooms next to the cross passage behind the porch. Quite possibly Charles Eamer Kempe was the designer, using craftsmen employed by Norman and Burt of . Suitably ancestral are the finely carved heads of a Cavalier and two Ladies gracing the solid carpentry of this new ‘Elizabethan’ ascent. Probably, too, the low square lantern on the roof, which still lights it, was inserted and the cupola removed from the entrance porch – a photograph taken about 1880 by Russell and Sons of Portsmouth shows it still in situ. Also atmospheric are the Minton tiles in the ‘lounge’, showing scenes from ‘Early English History’ and designed by John Moyr Smith sometime in the 1870s, which adorn a re-set 17th-century carved oak chimneypiece with an over-mantel of two bays. The ‘Tudor’ woodwork of the inner porch, dated 1884, matches the staircase.118 The broad new staircase gave surer and statelier access to a labyrinth of upper rooms and allowed the Family to be duly distanced from house maids and other staff treading back stairs and corridors. The layout of these upper rooms was probably that still followed by an inventory made in 1939, though with fewer bathrooms and WCs. On the first floor, the Family occupied five bedrooms in the south wing, and their guests seven elsewhere, close to three bathrooms, three WCs and a strategically sited housekeeper’s sitting room. Above, on the second floor, the female staff occupied six bedrooms in the south wing, and the footmen two facing west. Also facing west, with its own corridor, bathroom and back stairs down to the billiard room, were the three bedrooms of the

103 A water-colour of the north wing by Mary Campion. segregated Bachelors’ Wing, where, as decorum decreed, slept unmarried male guests

105 106 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Mansion, The Park and The Gardens, 1869-1914 107

106 The three carved heads.

duly distanced from temptation. Another suite on the second floor, in the north wing, nurtured the Family children – a ‘play’ landing and WC, the Nursery with tiles in the fireplace depicting nursery rhymes, the Schoolroom and the ‘chapel bedroom’ beyond, reserved for a (usually) cherished ‘Nanny’.119 As for the semi-public ‘reception’ rooms on the ground floor – the Great Hall, the drawing room, dining room and library – photographs taken before 1914 show them 104 The east front in the 1870s after the removal of the oak. furnished as befitted a venerable Stately Home – an ambience fully savoured by ‘A.D.’ [Alice Dryden] writing for Country Life in 1913, and explored, more reminiscently 105 The grand central staircase. in 1927, by Frances Wolseley for Sussex County Magazine. For her – the sensitive only child of Sir Garnet, ’s bluff Commander-in-Chief – the fragrance in the Great Hall mingled ‘lavender, thyme, verbena, and perhaps the sweet scent of fir cones on a winter’s day’. And assuringly ancestral were ‘the high-backed chairs and comfortable couches covered with old-world tapestry’, the fire-screen with its touch ‘of Eastern decoration’, the oak settle, heraldic glass and Neptune fireback. Nostalgic, too, were the relics of the Stuart cause once cherished by Henry Campion, the wayward Ultra-Tory – the armour of his heroic grandfather slain at Colchester, still loading the chimneypiece and, above it, the Apocalypse portrait of the Martyr King,

107 The oak chimneypiece and the Minton tiles. 108 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Mansion, The Park and The Gardens, 1869-1914 109

109 The east end of the drawing room.

110 The north-west corner of the drawing room.

108 The Great Hall today. cherubs supporting his Heavenly Crown – also other portraits, of James II as a child, of Queen Anne and four members of Henry’s October Club. Frances also admired those of James Hay and Honora Denny, ‘dressed in becoming fashion, with touches of red, white and blue ribbons in her hair and on her gown’ – their nuptials, of course, sparked George Goring’s glittering career at King Jamie’s Court.120 On leaving the Great Hall, Frances doubtless studied Hoppner’s likeness of pious Miss Bridget in the Baroque stairwell before reaching the drawing room. Often the scene of an elaborate five o’clock tea, this south-facing room exuded that ‘feminine delicacy’ already identified as needful by fashion-expert Robert Kerr in 1864 – with its white and gold wainscot, graceful ‘Adam’ fireplace and delicate Gothick ceiling, its slender Louis Quinze chairs and sofas swathed in chintz, its Italian cabinet set with lapis lazuli and precious stones, its knick-knacks thickly strewn. And Frances also admired 23 Family portraits hanging in gilded or ebony frames, progressing from frozen-faced Elizabethans to relaxed Henry Courthope Campion ‘in a grey suit and white satin waistcoat’. Cornelius Jansen had fluently painted puritan Peter Courthope and royalist Sir William Campion. And in a crowded showcase nearby Frances spied the very miniature depicted by Peter Lely in his portrait of Sir William’s widow, Grace. Also inventoried there in 1939 were 110 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Mansion, The Park and The Gardens, 1869-1914 111

111 ‘The Danny Jewel’. A pendant, made about 1550, in the shape of a ship, and Bulwer Lytton, ‘Bronte’ and George Elliot, Prescott and Motley. Less ponderous with a semi-circular section of a narwhal’s tusk mounted in enamelled gold, suspended by three chains from a ring. Owned by the Campion family before the was the library gracing the morning room in the north wing, which served as a secluded First World War, it was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1917. sitting room for the ladies. Listed there in 1939 were ‘58 volumes various’, the Illustrated London News, the Fossils of the South Downs and 17th-century studies of Roman coins and inscriptions. Adjacent was the billiard room. After dinner, the gentlemen often donned smoking jackets and adjourned there to play a few frames, savour cigars and a tray of spirits, and discuss topics of which ‘ladies were expected to be ignorant’. At Danny in 1939 they could also examine Horses in Stable painted by C.B. Spalding (1866) and Salome with John the Baptist’s Head on a charger – artist unknown. There, too, were shelved 113 ‘modern’ novels and biographies, with almost 300 works from the 18th century or earlier – La Seconda parte della vite di Plutarco (1551) being bound in ‘vellum’. And some books there, the History of Magick (1657) maybe, Juvenal’s Satyrs (1647), Letters of a Turkish Spy (1692), a Secret History of White-Hall (1697) and Arabian Nights (1788), were perhaps specifically reserved for gentlemen, likewise odd volumes of Amelia, Pamela and ‘Congreve’.122 Suitably ancestral, too, was Lord Goring’s way still leisurely winding through the romantic timbered park. Frances Wolseley had left ‘the sheltered high-banked lane’ at the rustic gabled lodge, crossed the Sandfield with its ‘fine old oak trees’, dipped to ‘the sombre mystery of the approach to the pond’, and rejoiced at the liberating view beyond of ‘the great rounded hill of Wolstanbury’ with its wooded hollows ‘known to the neighbours as Campion’s Eyebrows’. And the mansion itself, of course, was embowered in bloom. 112 Grace, the wife of William Campion, attributed to Peter Lely. Indeed, when E.V. Lucas witnessed Twelfth Night in the gardens, it was ‘difficult to believe that Shakespeare had not the spot in mind when he wrote it’ – perhaps it was the ‘12th ivory boxes, gold watches, mourning rings, brooches ‘with hair’, a Roman toga pin, an Night at Danny’ seen by terse Parson Borrer in August 1890. Later the gardens were at Edward VII Coronation Stick, and ‘touch pieces’ to do with ‘the King’s Evil’ – more their blazing zenith in August 1908 when Alfred Wilcox described them for Garden Life. Stuart relics presumably. By contrast, the Family dining room exuded, as Robert Kerr After admiring the great elms in the park, ‘those green-robed sentinels of mighty woods’, recommended, a ‘masculine importance’ – dark panels, recent Family portraits, a sober Mr Wilcox was met at the equally ‘mighty’ Carolina poplar and its circle of offspring ribbed ceiling and massive mullions. Also sombre, above the Neo-Tudor fireplace, hung by James Bunney, smartly clad in suit and watch-chain. Head gardener since 1881, his Bower’s mournful study of King Charles the Martyr on trial. For her part, Frances ‘great knowledge’, ‘sterling character’ and ‘artistry in arranging floral decorations’ had preferred the view through the mullions to ‘an opening in the tall elm and beech woods, brought him ‘a countywide reputation’. Royalty indeed had relished his table displays where moss-carpeted vistas are full of restful shadows on still summer evenings’. From at Danny. A noted exhibitor, he also judged for the Royal Horticultural Society and the dining room, of course, a discreet back passage led to the ‘domestic offices’, to the 32 other Societies and Shows. Moreover, since 1889 his meticulous measurements had servants’ hall, the pantry and butler’s pantry, the house maids’ sitting room, store rooms appeared annually in Symon’s British Rainfall. And he supplied Gertrude with flowers for for china, glass, plate and linen, the kitchen and chef’s room (now the Spice Room), the her ‘Church work’ and charities – much favoured for altar vases were Cynthias (double furnace room, meat larder and scullery.121 white Pelargoniums), Ostrich Feather Asters and hardy white Peas. Himself immersed in As for the library, its fireplace displayed Delft tiles and in the over-mantel a ‘16th- ‘Church work’, as chorister, sides-man, church warden and parochial church councillor, century’ coffer panel of carved Adige cypress wood. And impressively ancestral were Bunney also served Hurst village as an umpire for the Stool Ball Club, as Provincial Grand the books, nearly two thousand of them, many ‘morocco bound’, embracing Theology, Master of the Odd Fellows and chief marshal on ‘Hospital Saturday’, besides distributing History and Antiquities, Law and Politics, Travel, Sport and Agriculture, Classical and parish charities with ‘rare tact and kindliness’.123 European Literature. The oldest included Orlando Furioso (1519), Camden’s Britannia Beyond the Carolina poplar, Bunney first conducted Mr Wilcox to the Rock Garden (1586), Donne’s Devotions (1627), Smith’s Virginia (1653) and Muffet on Food (1655). recently laid out on the ‘stiff heavy soil’ of a field, now planted with Miss Jekyll Nigellas, More recent were the collected works (102 volumes) of Dickens and Thackeray, Disraeli Alpines and Crimson Rambler roses climbing up tree stumps. Wilcox next admired 112 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Mansion, The Park and The Gardens, 1869-1914 113

113 The rustic gabled lodge.

114 The sombre approach to the pond. 115 Sentinel elms along the drive.

the ‘very effective’ beds flanking the terrace outside the south wing – very ‘bright’ with fuchsias, salvias and Miss Nightingale Heliotropes – and then the Yew Hedge Garden with its hyacinths, antirrhinums, ‘very suitable for amateurs’, and Miss Mappin geraniums, ‘a very good doer’. Beyond, in the Rose Garden, were massed the best Hybrid Teas, and in greenhouses nearby basked the Lord Napier Nectarine and the Princess of Wales Peach. Doubling back to the lawn, they passed the tulip tree and ‘a wheel bed’ of geraniums (among them Souvenir de Charles Turner) and reached the Wild Garden, ‘taken in’ only three years earlier. Its roses and honeysuckles, ‘all hanging carelessly together’, were reinforced in October by scarlet-leaved Oaks, Golden Elms and Liquidambars. Next they ascended the Walk, its horse chestnuts and oaks towering above lilacs, laurels and roses, and arrived at Bunney’s ‘pretty’ cottage overlooking the kitchen garden, glass ranges and orchard. Driven by a sudden storm ‘of tropical violence’ into the Vineries, they examined the Alicante grapes, Violette Sepor figs and Barcombe Champion tomatoes. In the garden Mr Wilcox noted sweet peas, chrysanthemums and border carnations, among them the Duchess of Fife and Sir Walter Scott. As for his ‘wall fruit’, Bunney listed over 40 varieties of plum, pear and apple – his Pitmaston Duchess pears sometimes weighed almost two pounds. He commended, too, his Ne Plus Ultra peas, Royal Sovereign strawberries, Warrington gooseberries and Raby Castle red currants. Mites on the black currants were picked off ‘the moment we see them’. His Scarlet Runners grew ‘quite twelve feet high’.124 Clearly the Rock Garden and Wild Garden were among the ‘effective additions’ praised 114 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Mansion, The Park and The Gardens, 1869-1914 115

Wilcox noted no orange pots, sundial or white tubs, maybe the work was done soon after, possibly creating ‘the Dutch garden’ noted by a national Inland Revenue survey in 1914.125 But who was the ‘wise lady’? Neither the ageing Gertrude Campion nor her daughter, Alice, seems likely. ‘Elsie’ was a robust Conservative, keen on turkey-rearing and Tariff Reform, and captained the estate stool-ball team, the Danny Daisies, against their arch- rivals, the Newtimber Nettles, led by the Honourable Doreen Buxton, the daughter of a Liberal cabinet minister. Moreover, in 1908 Elsie married Charles Phillimore – Hurst duly celebrating with flags, bunting and an arch of evergreens wishing her ‘GOOD LUCK’; lists of guests and presents overflowed two packed columns in the Mid-Sussex Times. A more plausible ‘wise lady’ was her spinster sister, Mary, a leading light of the Sussex Arts Society. She was also a close friend of Frances Wolseley, who in 1906 rented from Mary’s uncle five acres of raw chalk at Glynde called Ragged Lands as the site for a pioneering College to shape Lady Gardeners. She and Mary then gathered ideas for its layout by touring the terraced vineyards and of Italy. So perhaps Danny’s formal garden with its Florentine orange pots was a by-product. Being the official ‘ornamental draughtsman’ of the College, Mary designed its stationery and also illustrated Frances’s influential book, Gardens Their Form and Design, published in 1919. Intriguingly, a close mutual friend was that archetypal ‘wise lady’, Gertrude Jekyll, with at least 166 garden commissions to her credit in Surrey alone. No evidence links her with Danny’s formal garden and the half-moon herbaceous bed ‘following’ Wolstonbury’s ‘soft velvety

116 James and Caroline Bunney at their gardener’s cottage. by ‘A.D.’ in 1913, and were probably made after the Family’s return from Hove in 1902. But seemingly Mr Wilcox in 1908 made no mention of a ‘formal garden’ fronting the south wing, the design of which Frances Wolseley in 1927 credited to a ‘wise lady’ who ‘levelled an oblong near the house’ and placed symmetrical beds in the smooth turf ‘to hold the roses and the mauve violas that flourish with a stone sundial in their midst’.S he also placed ‘handsome orange pots’ from Florence along the wide paved walk and gave ‘height of colour amidst the beds’ by using white wooden tubs of square shape to hold pink roses. ‘Through their branches we perceive a half-moon shaped bed on rising ground above some grass steps, wherein bold yellow herbaceous plants flourish, and then beyond this, again, following the same curved line, there rises the soft velvety crown of the hill fort of Wolstanbury’. Since Mr 117 The garden laid out by ‘the wise lady’. 116 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Mansion, The Park and The Gardens, 1869-1914 117

118 The east front painted by Thomas Cobb in 1906. 118 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Mansion, The Park and The Gardens, 1869-1914 119

121 The horse-drawn fire brigade at Danny.

crown’. But since ‘the garden uniting the house with surrounding nature’ was always her overriding aim, the ‘wise lady’ – whether Mary or not – was seemingly a disciple.126 Mary at all events was also an authoress. Indeed Mr Wilcox’s allusion to ‘sentinel’ elms was drawn from her ‘charming sketch’ of Danny published in Country Home a month before 119 A new lawn mower proudly displayed. his visit – the photographs were by Annie Mitten’s sister, Flora, a qualified pharmacist since 1883. Mary’s sketch enshrined an image of the romance-laden country-house very 120 James Bunney with a young assistant near the lodge. dear to Edwardian Romantics – a sheltered secluded mansion below the South Downs, hardly touched by time or change, where the hoot of the motor was seldom heard. What stories, Mary suspected, might its mellow bricks tell, ‘were they endowed with speech by some wizard spirit’ – not indeed tales of ‘heated voice and hasty duel’, but stemming rather from ‘the gay days of the Stuarts, when plumed and splendid cavaliers ruffled it in its , whilst fair ladies sighed and loved’. Moreover, ‘dim legends are still told, unverified by fact, of how the martyr King hid – some say here and some there – when a fugitive for his life’. The mournful Trial portrait of him ‘in a Roundhead hat’ reminded her of a poignant couplet lurking in ‘an old miscellany’:

Can this be he! Could Charles the good, the great, Be sunk by Heaven to such a dismal state?

And of course Danny’s ‘most precious possession’, far outstripping the Italian cabinet inlaid with lapis lazuli and precious stones, were letters the Martyr King wrote to loyal Sir William Campion, whose burnished armour still sanctified the Great Hall.127 But redolent of Olden Time, too, was the virtually intact Elizabethan north wing 120 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Mansion, The Park and The Gardens, 1869-1914 121

122 The tulip tree, the west front and outbuildings.

with its Chapel Room and intricate plaster ceilings. And near the foot of its corkscrew elms cast long shadows like delicate lacework across the green to the house … Then staircase was a cross, ‘deeply cut’, prompting the ‘serious belief held by some that beneath the spirits of the past come forth and hold high revel … Inmates rise before us from lie a skeleton and much treasure’. Of course, the mood of the mansion varied. ‘In the the days of the plume and the ruffle, to the days of the hoop and crinoline’. And one sweltering days of summer, it stands an island of mellow red amidst the surrounding indeed, so her nephew Simon later recalled, was wont to roam the Nursery suite. He green’. But ‘in the drear December days the cruel north-easterly wind whistles and and his siblings, playing there, viewed as ‘perfectly normal’ the presence, now and then, moans round the gables, like the shrieks of lost spirits’. Mary, though, believed that of ‘a young man in a Cavalier costume’.128 ‘our imaginations are busiest with the unwritten history of the past, when the dark outline of the house is silhouetted against the evening sky, and only the long windows filled with light; or when the moon rises over the downs to the east, making the sentinel 11 The Great War, The PM and his ‘Darling Pussy’, 1914-18

Sadly for Danny, an Indian summer of idyllic seclusion, rose-tinted romance and ever- expanding gardens came to a brutal close in August 1914. The Great War drastically disrupted civilian life. In Hurst villagers flocked to join the army and 78 ‘died for the Empire’. Horses were requisitioned, rationing imposed, and Emergency Orders for evacuation in the event of invasion echoed those issued in 1804 when Napoleon’s legions massed at Boulogne. William Campion was himself a casualty of new regulations – being summoned before his own Bench of Magistrates and fined half-a-crown for failing to register as an ‘alien’ his elegant French visitor, Madame Veaux. Otherwise he was active as Honorary Colonel of the Fourth Territorial Battalion of the Sussex Regiment, ‘the Fourth Sussex’ – B Company had its Drill Hall at Hurst. Indeed, his epitaph (he died in 1923) claimed, rather obscurely, that his ‘last work on earth was associated with the despatch of Sussex Territorials to active service in France’. Also on the Home Front, the dauntless Gertrude, ably seconded by Flora Mitten, set up a Women’s Institute, while her Sunshine Home became the ‘Sunshine Auxiliary Hospital’ for soldiers wounded in France. Her daughter Mary, whose Danny Daisies defeated the Newtimber Nettles in August 1914, organised the Hurst branch of the British Red Cross (VAD) and then at Rouen recreation for convalescent troops, earning an OBE.129 Meanwhile William’s three sons and his grandson, Simon, were enmeshed in a war which killed Major Edward, the career soldier. Truculently, in April 1915, when his men were dug in at the Ypres Salient on the Western Front and facing their first poison- gas attack, the veteran of the Sudanese War sent a message along the line: ‘Remember no Seaforth Highlander ever has left or ever will leave his post. Whatever damnable engine-of-war the enemy use, the Seaforths will stick it out and will have their reward in killing the enemy’. Gassed a few weeks later, he died from its effect in 1916 aged 43. Meanwhile, his eldest brother William Robert had vacated his seat in Parliament for the Lewes Division to take command of the Fourth Sussex, his father’s beloved Battalion. His brother Frederick, the former Bush-Brother, joined him as Battalion chaplain and his wife Katherine organised at Danny a depot for Battalion comforts – carbolic soap, insect powder, jellies, tobacco, matches and chocolate. After a brief 123 Lloyd George and colleagues during the Great War, by Sir James Guthrie. stop in Egypt ‘the Fourth’ landed at Sulva Bay on 8 August 1915, to join an ill-fated Gallipoli campaign designed to seize the Dardanelles and threaten Istanbul. The very next day William and his men advanced towards a baptism of fire – one treacherous gulley they nick-named, with black humour, ‘The Devils Dyke’. Twenty-two men were

123 124 Danny House: a sussex Mansion through seven Centuries The Great War, The PM and his ‘Darling Pussy’, 1914-18 125

killed by relentless shelling and sniping from the Turkish defences, before the mutilated Battalion was withdrawn to the Corps reserve. Further ravaged by dysentery, it returned to egypt, whence William was invalided home. Th ereafter, on 8 and 9 august, the survivors met to remember ‘epic days, friendship, sorrow and joy, service and sacrifi ce in a distant theatre of war’. simon Campion’s health also suff ered while serving with 124 Edward Campion’s order to his Seaforth Highlanders. the seaforths in Mesopotamia – indeed he later restricted himself to helping his father and managing the estate.130 suitably reinforced in egypt, the Fourth sussex advanced through Gaza to capture Jerusalem, before transferring to the Western Front, where William, now recovered, took command and gained his Dso. But a shell killed his fellow offi cer, Captain Weekes MC, whose grandfather ‘Dick’ and great-uncle George had so yearned to ‘get in’ at Danny – a feat fi nally achieved by the Captain’s father, arthur – the magistrate indeed who fi ned Colonel William for failing to declare Madame Veaux. a barrister educated at Harrow and oxford, he fl ourished in the Bengal Civil service and then loomed large at Hurst as a JP, County Councillor and Chairman of the Parish Council. and on May Day morning he gave an orange and a bright new penny to any child bringing to his Mansion House in the High street a posy of spring fl owers – and to aged ‘Crazy Jenny’, a stranger with wild fl owers stuff ed in a dusty hat, who swung a hand bell, danced a jig and croaked an incoherent song. Fittingly, therefore, at a fund-raising held at Danny in 1916, Daisy Randell identifi ed the ‘village celebrities’ as Colonel Campion, admiral Beaumont and arthur Weekes. When Weekes died in 1917, Walter Tower supplied a memorial east window in st Lawrence’s chapel.131 Briefl y though, the grim stoicism of wartime Hurst was brightened by the ebullience of the Prime Minister, the mercurial David Lloyd George. In July 1917 sir George Riddell, who owned the News of the World and keenly admired ‘the Welsh wizard’, leased Great Walstead Place near Lindfi eld to allow the P.M. to relax, free from fear of air raids. Th e next year, for that same patriotic purpose, he rented Danny from mid-July till mid-october and Daisy Randell was to vividly recall L.G.’s local impact, his very musical voice, his ‘habitual twinkle’. Her father, a Hurst builder, enjoyed ‘a long talk’ with him during a reception he gave in July for local Liberals. and in august the P.M. hosted ‘a grand party’. on the lawn at Danny the sussex yeomanry Cadet Band assisted the dancing and patriotic songs, while amid the marquees and refreshment tents promiscuously strolled Cabinet Ministers and convalescents from the ‘sunshine Hospital’, staff offi cers in dazzling uniforms and the Randells in their sunday best. ‘Good to see you again, Mister Randell,’ the P.M. crooned, bowing slightly over his wife’s hand and grinning at Daisy and her sister – ‘Very charming, 125 Edward Campion’s trench map and case. daughters, very charming’. and maybe, not since edward VII’s chauff eur enquired of esther Funnel the way to Danny, had a village maiden received such expert appraisal. Meanwhile, L.G. was often in the High street, popping into shops, greeting Mr Randell yet again, raising his hat to Daisy – the perfect politician.132 amid these public festivities, relays of Very Important Persons were closeted in the mansion as the Great War jolted towards an armistice. In July 1918 the Central Powers – Germany, austro-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey – were still undefeated by the allies – 126 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries The Great War, The PM and his ‘Darling Pussy’, 1914-18 127

Britain, France and Italy. In 1917 Lenin’s Russia had deserted the Allies, but the United 126 The Armistice plaque in the Great Hall. States, led by President Wilson, had joined them. Indeed, on 13 July Sir Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretary, observed L.G. at Danny ‘very rampageous still about getting more Wilson for an Armistice and a negotiated Peace. Americans’, to stiffen a beleaguered Western Front. Next day, he noted that the P.M., After more conferences at Danny, on shipping Borden, the Canadian premier, and Smuts, his South African counterpart, climbed ‘the and the campaigns in Italy and Turkey, L.G. high hill on the Downs at the back of the house’. But whereas the P.M. and Borden spent 4-9 October in Paris, anxiously discussing returned ‘covered with perspiration and forthwith had to bathe’, Smuts, the ex-Boer with Allied leaders the Fourteen Points that commander, took Wolstonbury in his stride. After dinner they met in the Great Hall President Wilson was proposing to offer with Viscount Milner, the War Secretary, and Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial Germany as the price of Peace. Back at Danny General Staff – the speedometer of his official motor-car registered versts, being built on 12 October, and despite a refreshing drive for the Tsar but undelivered. Their worry was that General Foch, the Supreme Allied to Brighton along the coast, the P.M. used Commander, was massing the new American troops behind the French armies, leaving ‘awful language’ when roused from his bed the British line dangerously thin. But they left it to General Haig to protest if he thought and told that Wilson was agreeing Peace terms fit. The Germans, in fact, attacked the French line near Chateau Thierry the very next without further consultation. Next morning day and were thrown back – it proved their last major offensive. The following weekend, he was still ‘declaiming against Wilson’s action’ 20-21 July, L.G. was ‘very busy preparing suggestions for a dispatch to President Wilson while climbing ‘the hill’ with Riddell and Lord regarding Japanese intervention’ – an attempt to restore an Eastern front now the Russians Reading. Nonetheless, after lunch, a ‘conference’ had withdrawn. ‘With his legs cocked up in the window seat of the dining-room’, he also was held in the Great Hall, which a plaque absorbed a report from General Wilson.133 still commemorates: ‘In this room a meeting Then on 8 August, ‘a black day for the German army’, the British with 456 tanks of the Imperial War Cabinet was held on the broke through near Amiens, forced a retreat and smashed enemy hopes of victory on the 13th October 1918 at which the following Western Front. And naturally, by 14 August, L.G., exuding ‘energy and enthusiasm’, was were present: – Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Bonar discussing possible Peace terms at Danny with Smuts and Lord Reading, the Ambassador Law, Mr. A.J. Balfour, Viscount Milner, The to the United States. After a fortnight with his family at home in North Wales, the P.M. Earl of Reading, Mr. W.S. Churchill, Admiral returned to Danny and with the war going well thought of calling a general election. Sir R. Wemyss, General Sir Henry Wilson, Locally he inspected anti-submarine defences at Shoreham and fussed over a picnic at Lt.-Col. Sir M.P.A. Hankey, Mr. Philip Kerr. Beachy Head – ‘how the tea was to be made, what sort of kettle we should take with A cable was sent to President Wilson authorising him to proceed with negotiations for us’. Unscheduled, though, were the ten days he subsequently spent in Manchester Town an Armistice with Germany.’ In actual fact the Imperial War Cabinet had disbanded in Hall, laid low by the influenza sweeping a war-torn world. ‘Still with a respirator’, he was August. Nor was the ‘conference’ a formal meeting of the War Cabinet, of which only back at Danny on 21 September, destined for a busy convalescence. This extended his L.G. and Bonar Law were members – indeed, absent members later complained that stay till 15 October, as William Campion, lodged at Chichester House in Kemp Town, vital decisions were taken there without them. informed carpenters due to repair windows in the south wing. The PM’s visitors included Nonetheless the conference in the Great Hall was momentous. Crucially, his colleagues Winston Churchill, the Minister of Munitions, and Lord Northcliffe, owner of the Times rejected the P.M.’s fears that unless the German Fatherland was invaded, and German towns and the Daily Mail. Meanwhile, the fate of Europe was being decided on battlefields bombarded, there would be no lasting ‘humiliation’ of Prussian Militarism, such as Rome far distant from the re-stabilised Western Front. In Syria General Allenby destroyed the inflicted on Carthage after the Second Punic War – delenda est Carthago. And without last Turkish army and cleared the way to Damascus. In the Balkans the Allied advance that, L.G. argued, ‘In a short time the Germans would say that these miserable democrats from Salonika caused Bulgaria to sue for peace. And indeed, on 27-8 September terms had taken charge [the Kaiser having fled] and had become panic-stricken, and the military for such an Armistice were agreed at Danny by L.G., Bonar Law, the Chancellor of the party would get into power again’. As indeed it did in 1932, in fruitful alliance with Herr Exchequer, A.J. Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, Lord Reading and General Wilson. Next Hitler and his National Socialists. But the P.M.’s colleagues argued that Wilson’s Fourteen day the stream of good news prompted the P.M. ‘to dance a hornpipe’. The Allies were Points would require Germany to evacuate all occupied territory, surrender its colonies, now poised to invade an exhausted Austro-Hungary and Germany’s armies were already cede Alsace-Lorraine to France and German Poland to ‘an independent Polish State’. over-stretched. Indeed, on 4 October the German government appealed to President Moreover, the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire would enjoy ‘self-determination’ 128 Danny House: a sussex Mansion through seven Centuries The Great War, The PM and his ‘Darling Pussy’, 1914-18 129

128 Miss Frances Stevenson and Lloyd George.

127 Signatures and a paw mark in the visitors’ book.

Margaret Lloyd George and Miss Frances stevenson – along with the paw print of L.G.’s pet dog. Miss stevenson also appears, unfl atteringly, in Daisy Randell’s reminiscences. ‘Th e and the Turkish empire be dissolved. so entire village’ knew that L.G.’s routine was to climb ‘the hill’ before breakfast and work on the ‘war cabinet’ sent President Wilson a War Cabinet papers. sometimes a shower of rain would send him scuttling back down to cable merely requiring that, before any Danny, leaving documents behind – whereupon, ‘his long-suff ering secretary’ was often armistice, Germany must accept Peace seen ‘grunting up the steep slopes to retrieve them’.135 terms that ‘in the opinion of experts’, Th e reality was far diff erent. attractive, intelligent and half-Italian, with a Classics degree naval as well as Military, ‘would make the and Liberal views, Miss stevenson became L.G.’s private secretary in 1911 and his mistress in resumption of hostilities by the Central 1913, though 26 years his junior. Th e aff air, though passionate and persistent, stayed secret. Powers impossible’. Th e cable also sought L.G. would not leave his wife or ruin a political career rooted in Welsh nonconformity. But clarifi cation of Point Two – ‘absolute some ardent notes survive written to her at Danny while she languished upstairs with infl amed freedom of navigation upon the seas … kidneys. Variously she was his ‘darling Pussy’, his ‘dear little girl with the cold in her “dose”’, alike in peace and in war’ – conceivably his ‘sweet loving fond thrilling little worry’, and he, ‘ever and ever your old Dai’, ‘your very a threat to Britain’s maritime supremacy. jealous old Lover’, ‘a Doting old man who is Father, lover and husband all in one’. Did she so ended the fateful conference and a adore him as much as ‘a grilled kidney swimming in fat’? He even envied her ‘cold’ – ‘in the complacent Riddell could note: ‘after dinner, this being our last day at Danny, L.G. dead of night I should have crept down to the lips & had a great time – pressing their softness proposed my health in a delightful little speech.’ Th e armistice duly arrived on 11 and then scampering along those pearly teeth – then touching the top of the tongue’. and while november, in the nick of time for William Campion and his Fourth sussex, poised on the recovering she was doubly desirable, as ‘the little pink sofa girl with the blue dressing gown’ Western Front in Belgium to go ‘over the top’ and assault entrenched German positions and as ‘a little love in pink with braided hair falling on each side of the sweetest face you ever 134 at dawn on 12 november. saw nestling on a pillow’. He had drifted unfulfi lled through life’s ‘marshes plains mountains But amidst these awesome aff airs of state, private passions were threading the corridors for half a century’, but henceforth (in private at least), they would ‘walk alongside arm in arm of Danny. Mary Campion in 1906 ended her ‘sketch’ for Country Home with a lyric touch: or arm around waist as long as we can’. a playful memo, penned before he left for Paris in ‘Th ose who have lived and loved within its walls never leave it; and herein lies the charm of october, suggested she act as if she was ‘right down glad to get rid of an old bore’ – though association, of personality, in an old house. Th ey come to us, these far-off airy visions of the in truth, ‘whatever luggage I leave behind, Pussy will be with me, for the little witch has done past, of dainty ladies and splendid gentlemen, like a soft sentiment of romance, intangible, her own packing long long ago & she never leaves the valise whatever is taken out or put in’. half real, like the whiff of lavender from a long-closed drawer.’ To this aroma L.G. added a such was the newest ‘soft sentiment of romance’ soon to enrich ‘the whiff of lavender’ from fresh fragrance. Besides the signatures left by the Great and the Good in the Visitors’ Book Mary Campion’s ‘long-closed drawer’.136 at Danny (which Colonel William stipulated was always to remain there) were those of Mrs 12 Sir William and Katherine: Gold Mines, Revels and World War, 1919-47

One Thursday in September 1919, amid ‘blurring sheets of rain’, many ‘friends and neighbours’ with their families – tenant farmers, estate workmen and villagers – thronged to Danny to meet William and Gertrude ‘At Home’ and share their Golden Wedding celebrations. After a ‘friendly’ hand-shake, the guests duly admired the wedding gifts – the ‘admirable’ pencil portraits of the couple from the Family, the gold inkstand from the tenants, the gold pins and sleeve-links from the workmen, the golden bowl from Hurst’s loyal tradesmen. William himself had received a gold and tortoiseshell casket from Officers of the Fourth Sussex, and Gertrude a finely bound hymn book from the ‘Sunshine’ staff, a bouquet from the Women’s Institute, a handsome Bible from the Mothers’ Union and a gold-mounted walking stick from the Girls’ Friendly Society. Doubtless these tributes loaded the massive oak refectory-table hewn from estate timber to mark the anniversary. Before tea, everyone ‘settled down’ in the Great Hall to enjoy scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Katherine Campion was at the pianoforte, her younger son Wilfred played Bottom, while Winnie Tugwell, Ivy Berry and Maggie Stringer reinforced a ‘charming’ troop of local fairies. The Rejoicing ended at 6.30 when the drums of the Fourth Sussex sounded the Retreat. The hosts themselves then retired to The Drive at Hove where William died in 1923 in his 88th year, having just resigned from Haywards Heath Petty Sessions after 60 years of service.137 Gertrude soldiered on to unveil in the Campion transept a memorial wrought from Derbyshire alabaster to the 78 Hurst men who died in the Great War. Above it hung a crucifix from ‘the battlefields of France’, sold by a soldier to a Brighton curiosity shop. In the churchyard lies a second memorial to her son Edward – a rugged sword, set in a cross, with urns at each corner of the surround. Next to it, and set up after Edward’s death, stands a shapely birdbath, also of terracotta, dedicated to his brother Charles, ‘who found a soldier’s grave on the South African veldt’ in 1901. Details of their design, the lettering and the foliage decoration, suggest the taste of their artist-sister Mary. In 1928 she was to paint murals, skilfully depicting scenes from the farming year, for a room in Hove library which Frances Wolseley endowed to celebrate her soldier father, Sir Garnet, and also the glories of rural Sussex. Other murals by Mary enlivened tearooms in Oxford and the restaurant at Bush House, the BBC’s London HQ. In 1938 she also unveiled at a memorial to Frances, her cherished friend – a hoop of Sussex-forged iron adorned with ears of corn, clover leaves and red apples. And with farm produce in mind, she wrote to The Times in November 1939 warning the authorities against prematurely

129 Four generations of Campions in the Great Hall (left).

131 132 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Sir William and Katherine: Gold Mines, Revels and World War, 1919-47 133

131 William Campion by J. Henry, presented 132 Katherine Campion by P. Perrelet, 1937. in 1924 by ‘constituents and friends in the Lewes Division’.

bathrooms and billiard room, the tennis and squash courts, a staff schooled ‘in private service’ and a first-class French chef doing full justice to a stream of fresh produce from the dairy and kitchen garden. Three cars were for hire and a fourth sped to the golf links 130 The gravestone of Edward Campion. each morning. Full weekly board in summer cost five guineas ‘or upward’, but was fixed at three for ladies’ maids and chauffeurs. Not till June 1931 did William step down as rationing butter. ‘We people of England are always ready to cooperate, but we resent Governor and return on the SS Naldera. But by then the ‘Country House Party’ had coercion’. Instead posters urging patriotic restraint were needed. ‘Once people realise folded. Indeed by October 1929 the mansion was rented by Mr van Swinderens, an this is a commodity hardly come by, which costs the lives of Englishmen and the loss of eminent Dutch diplomat, whose family, that month, paid Cecil Curwen to excavate the English ships, cooperation would be only too ready.’138 inner ditch of the prehistoric ‘camp’ on ‘the hill’ – William cabling his consent from Once his parents retired to Hove in 1919, their eldest son William resumed his duties as Government House at Perth. Also very agreeably, in September 1930 they invited Mary Conservative MP for the Lewes Division and took charge of the estate. Shaken by wartime Campion and Frances Wolseley to tea.139 taxation, many landowners were selling farms and woodland – indeed his relative, Lord When dispatched in 1924 to Western Australia by the Labour Prime Minister, Ramsey Monk Bretton, resident at Coneysborough Place near Lewes, sold 1,156 acres north of Macdonald, William entered an Imperial arena familiar to Sussex landowners. His uncle, Hurst village. William avoided this. But in May 1920 the Court Circular in The Times Viscount Hampden, had governed New South Wales. His cousin, Freeman Freeman- revealed that Major and Mrs Paget had arrived from Paris at Danny Park ‘which they Thomas, from being ADC to Lord Brassey (his father-in-law) at Government House in have taken for a time’. This economy was to be neatly sustained for seven solid years once Melbourne, rose to be Marquis of Willingdon and Viceroy of India. And his neighbour, William became Governor of Western Australia in May 1924 and sailed on The Majola Sidney Buxton, whose daughter captained the Newtimber Nettles, became Governor- to Fremantle with Katherine and their son Simon, who served as his ADC. Doubtless General of South Africa. Even while MP for Lewes William had championed economic the Family had departed by July 1924 when a tourist disparagingly noted on a postcard and military cooperation within the Empire. And installed at Perth he proved a popular from Hurst: ‘This lovely old Place [Danny] is not kept up properly and is let to people Governor of a rough-and-ready State where the leisurely shearing of sheep mingled with who take PGs [paying guests]’. But maybe, by the date of this damning remark, the frenetic bouts of gold mining. ‘Bald, with prominent blue eyes’, he was viewed, like mansion was already rented to Captain and Mrs Almack. If so, their brochure strenuously his father before him, as ‘the pattern of an English gentleman’. He mixed amiably with set the record straight. Danny was ‘not in any sense a hotel’. Rather it was run ‘entirely local politicians, both Labour and Nationalist, ably assisted by Katherine, sometimes as a Country House Party with its attendant amenities and ways’ – listed were its five at the pianoforte. He helped the Duchess of York to plant a Weeping Fig in 1927 and 134 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Sir William and Katherine: Gold Mines, Revels and World War, 1919-47 135

presided with dignity at the State’s centennial Rejoicings in 1929. And endearingly, too, Government House at Perth had overtones of Danny. Designed in 1861 by the local Comptroller-General of Convicts in a cheerily debased Elizabethan style, its exterior relied heavily on transoms and mullions; inside highly polished jarrah wood prevailed, though the thrones were crafted from English beech. And suitably relaxed was the Saturday Guest Night staged in its ballroom by the local TOC H in May 1931 to say fond Farewell to William, now a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George. The festivities kicked off sharp at 7.40 pm with twenty minutes of ‘Community Singing’. His parting gifts included a set of hand-painted dishes depicting the Donkey Orchid and other native flora of a grateful State.140 Two months later, after an afternoon at Lord’s, there ensued Sir William’s ‘triumphant home-coming’ to Danny. At the lodge in New Way Lane Rovers, Scouts and Wolf 133 William’s uniform as Governor. Cubs tied ropes to his car and hauled it up the drive 135 An estate ball at Danny House in the 1930s. between cheering well-wishers – players also scampered from the cricket pitch to doff their caps. Loyal and expectant before the mansion were Fire Brigade (with engine), the Girl Guides and Brownies, also Miss J. Weekes from the massed the tenant farmers, the Parish Councillors, the clergy, the local tradesmen, the Mansion House and retired James Bunney from Sunny Cot. Once he alighted, a floral benediction floated from an upper window as 80-year-old Nanny Carter blissfully released an armful of roses, and then C.F. Tulley, owner of the village ‘department store’, stepped forward to extol their restored squire’s ‘devoted’ service to Parliament, to the Fourth Sussex and to the Empire. Responding, Sir William revealed that Western Australians and Sussex men shared a motto – ‘Won’t be druv’. But just as ‘the Sussex man, his confidence secured, could be led … so could the Australian.’ As for the future, he hoped, with Lady Katherine’s aid, to ‘live the life of a country gentleman’, ‘be of some little use in a quiet way’ and ‘do a little bit as well’ as his parents before him. Hardly had the loud applause died away, before an aircraft dipped low in salute – piloted by Viscount Ratendone, heir to the Marquis of Willingdon, it added a ’30s touch to an otherwise perfect patriarchal occasion.141 And indeed ‘of use’ the Campions were. Sir William, like his father, chaired the Bench of magistrates at Haywards Heath. He presided at the local British Legion and led the Remembrance on Armistice Day. An active Anglican, he served as people’s churchwarden and chaired the Governors of Hurstpierpoint College. He attended the House of Laity in the Church Assembly and Bishop Bell’s committee to raise money for new churches in Sussex. New Year’s Day in 1934 found him at Brighton’s lighting ‘a lantern’ at a ball given by the Society for the Welfare of the Blind. And though the ‘Sunshine Home’ was now run by the Church Army, and Chichester House had closed, along with 134 Government House at Perth in Western Australia. the workhouses that supplied it, Lady Katherine became chairman of the New Sussex 136 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Sir William and Katherine: Gold Mines, Revels and World War, 1919-47 137

Hospital for Women – organising its two-day Christmas bazaar – and deputy president of the Lewes Division of the British Red Cross. Sir William also presided over the Sussex County Cricket Club and the Weald Tennis Club at Hassocks. And the pitch at Danny still hosted matches every Wednesday and Saturday in summer, and other County players taking part. The local side captained by Simon included Harry Schofield, father of Paul the actor and master of the National School. Simon’s siblings, Wifred, Dorothy and Barbara, also ‘entered enthusiastically into village life’. Other sports resumed – skating on Sandfield Pond, the steady shooting of rabbits and game, and days out with the Southdown Hunt. Indeed the Lawn Meet at Danny on Boxing Day, with its ritual distribution of cherry brandy, sloe gin, mince pies, sausage rolls and cake, best publicised the return to patriarchal routine. Moreover, Queen Mary paid a tightly planned visit one very wet Wednesday afternoon in 1934. After being ushered round – and doubtless appraising the furniture – she sat bolt upright in the dining-room, conversed until tea 136 The Danny Revels: the wedding procession in the garden. was served, smoked a single cigarette and promptly departed at six.142 But even Queen Mary’s visit was eclipsed by the Revels held at Danny for two days bibulous irascible earl demanded that his bootlaces be ironed daily. And ‘Bill’ Thomas, in June 1935 to celebrate the Jubilee of George V and also raise money to enhance ‘the a miner’s son from depressed South Wales, was fondly reminiscent of his days at Danny. youth of the nation’. Fittingly, the local Scouts built a massive bonfire on ‘the hill’ and After humping crates of soft drinks in the Valleys, he was trained as a male servant and guarded it at night. Hurst focused mainly, though, on the Revels – the proceeds paying dispatched, complete with a short striped jacket and thick black trousers, to toil as a for new classrooms at the National School to accommodate secondary pupils. But the general ‘dogsbody’ in a dismal Sussex boarding school. Moving on to Danny in 1938 as a elaborate pageant, an Art Form very popular in the ’30s, also celebrated Danny. Scores of ‘houseboy’, he uncomplainingly stoked boilers, chopped wood, washed up and scrubbed participants, some in flamboyant Queen Anne costume, were marshalled to re-enact the floors from 7.30 am to 10 pm. He and the other servants ‘still had our little jokes and as fateful union in 1702 between Barbara Courthope and Henry Campion. Simon played a team got on very well together’. Encouraged by Katherine, he was quickly promoted to the bridegroom, a distant Courthope cousin the bride. After wrangling family lawyers footman – the silver buttons on his splendid velvet tailed jacket bore the turkey crest, but finalised the marriage settlement there followed a stately wedding ceremony, the cutting his bow tie was white, whereas Mr Arnold’s was black. Sir William also arranged driving of an enormous cake and a closing medley of madrigals, dances and folk song. Vida Herbison, meanwhile, in lace-trimmed habit and tricorn hat, was precariously mounted side-saddle on Marcus, and when a wag blew a hunting horn, her bold stallion bolted, taking in his stride ‘the ha-ha as if it were an Irish bank’, several flower beds and an old lady in a bath chair.143 These pre-war years were ‘really lovely days’ according to Mr Arnold who arrived in 1931 from the Marquess of Salisbury’s household at Hatfield to succeed Mr Grimson as butler. The country-house rituals were still scrupulously preserved. Each bedtime he proffered a nightcap from a grog tray laden with whisky, brandy and gin. And on Christmas Night, as a prelude to a ‘superb’ meal, he bore into the Great Hall head-high a massive turkey on a silver salver, the assembled Family clapping and shouting ‘fizz, boom, bang’ – a turkey cock in its pride proper being the Campion coat-of-arms. After the meal a festively decorated oak chest, full of presents, was carried in, and amid shouts of ‘how lovely’ or ‘just what I wanted’, discarded wrappings rose higher and higher. Besides the butler, junior house servants – there were still nine of them – appreciated Sir William and Katherine. Wages were paid during the two or three months each year they were absent in Holland – perhaps with the Swinderens? Moreover, Sir William insisted that his chauffeur should ferry a house maid, Rita Dalrymple, to a new post at Newton Park near Bath, where a 137 The Danny Revels: wedding guests on the terrace. 138 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Sir William and Katherine: Gold Mines, Revels and World War, 1919-47 139

138 Boys in the billiard room, with the still 139 Simon chatting with George Tupper. extant stone fire-place.

lessons. Meanwhile he relished the for unforeseen extras – medicines, woodland orchids and Max Miller at telephone calls, daily cheese and the Theatre Royal in Brighton. So when break-time buns – estimated in May War came in 1939 Bill left ‘dear old 1940 to have cost £1,500 – there was Danny’ with much reluctance.144 talk of legal action.146 But despite the restoration in 1931 After Dunkirk, of course, Danny, of patriarchal routines at Danny – the except for the south wing, was grog tray, the Revels, the Boxing Day required by the Military. Coastal Meet – away in London Sir William was Sussex became a war zone braced bonding, precariously, with a seasoned for a German invasion. The mansion cosmopolitan financier. Claude Albo now housed officers while other ranks de Bernales was born in London in 1876. His wealthy father was Basque, his mother occupied tents and Nissen huts in the park. By the autumn of 1941 these makeshift facilities American. Modishly educated at Uppingham and Heidelberg University, he joined a gold were full of Canadian infantry. First to arrive were the Seaforth Highlanders – a mere rush in 1897 to Western Australia, where he manufactured mining machinery, bought up coincidence, presumably, that Simon, his uncle Edward and his grandfather had served gold fields at Kalgoorlie and Wiluna, attracted foreign investment and built a ‘Spanish’ with their British equivalent. Then on6 August 1942 came Le Regiment de La Chaudiere. mansion at Perth which eclipsed its cheerily Elizabethan Government House. In the Some days later, after apples were stolen from the orchard, the men were mustered on late 1920s he also ‘fostered a close alliance’ with Sir William, while negotiating a loan of parade and duly berated. This fierce discipline, and the watchful eye of Mr Arnold, who £300,000 backed by the State government. This alliance persisted when Bernales later multi-tasked as butler, barrack warden and ARP controller, could account for Danny’s settled in London, raised millions from new investors and founded several companies, plaster ceilings and back-staircases surviving the war intact. More positive, perhaps, on 16 which Sir William chaired, including Anglo-Australian Gold Development. In 1935-6, August, were an open air Mass on the forecourt and an inspection by the Canadian Air indeed, the allies returned to Perth and triumphantly toured their then burgeoning mines. Minister. Sadly though, by October steady rain, clinging mud and defective latrines had But in 1939 this investment empire collapsed and after angry shareholders in their Great lowered morale: ‘C’est mort’ agreed a visiting General. And despite ‘a coloured troupe, Boulder Proprietary Gold Mine accused its directors of taking ‘excessive compensation’, mostly girls’, at the Chinese Gardens, and dances in the Great Hall fleshed out by ladies a Board of Trade investigator doubted that they (the said directors) had ‘done their duty’. ferried in by army lorry from Hurst, morale was further depressed by training the local Maybe Sir William was merely an amiable, too-trusting figure-head. How much he, his Home Guard and by exercises on the Downs to repel an ever less likely German invasion. family and friends, gained or lost is unclear. (The Board of Trade also alleged that Bernales After Le Regiment thankfully redeployed to Scotland in the summer of 1943, thoughts owed tax on profits of £1,382,000 from share dealing – an evasion Lord Beaverbrook avidly turned to the Liberation of Western Europe and British Commandos tidily trained on pursued in his Daily Express.)145 the estate for an Invasion of Normandy, whereas luckless Stanmer Park way over ‘the hill’ Patriarchal routines at Danny, of course, were finally shattered by the Second World War. was mangled by manoeuvring tanks.147 The Family confined itself to the south wing ‘for the duration’ and from September 1939 Amid the deepest secrecy the Danny estate hosted other war work. In 1940 six men to April 1940 – as the Tatler magazine cosily put it – extended ‘hospitality’ to Westminster from the local Home Guard were recruited into a ‘Resistance’ Patrol. A market gardener, School. Though evacuated to Hurst College, the headmaster and two assistants were a baker, a farmer and two builders were led by Percy Tulley from the ‘department’ store. ‘billeted’ at Danny, while sixth formers cycled over for lessons and to enjoy the amenities. Trained to handle weapons and explosives, they were expected, if the Germans overran Thus the Tatler’s morale-boosting series, ‘Country Homes in Wartime’, pictured nattily Sussex, to live off the land while blowing up railway lines and ammunition dumps. ‘In attired prefects relaxing in the billiard room and admiring the sundial on the south lawn. a small private wood to the north of Wolstonbury Hill’, the Royal Engineers built them For good measure Simon was snapped at the Home Farm, leaning on a tractor fuelled with an underground hideout of timber and corrugated iron, linked by a field-telephone to a faggots, in amiable converse with its dusty driver, George Tupper. Sadly though, during lookout a few hundred yards away, with a clear view of the Clayton-Stonepound road. this time of otherwise Phoney War, hostilities flared up between the co-habiting public The Patrol’s training included mock attacks on Danny House, which presumably the schools. Wealthy Westminster, it seems, would not reimburse cash-strapped Hurstpierpoint Canadians and the Commandos were alerted to the likelihood of.148 13 Danny Transformed: Private Schools and Stylish Retirement, 1947-2004

Terse Parson Borrer had noted in October 1895: ‘Bill Campion’s child christened in London – Simon by name, after the first Campion Sir Simon’ – a very remote ancestor in medieval Essex. Yet sadly in a sense baby Simon was to be the last Campion. Though fraternising with a ghostly Cavalier in the Schoolroom, playing Barbara Courthope’s bridegroom in the Revels, and running the estate in the war, Simon also oversaw the Family’s final departure from Danny. The mansion survived the Canadians intact, but the cost of its staffing and upkeep in Mr Attlee’s Age of Austerity could not be sustained. Accordingly, in January 1947, during a bitter winter, some of the Family silver was auctioned in the Great Hall while the momentous move was made to Little Danny, formerly the Home Farm (and thereafter to The Ham). Sir William was still spry enough in 1949, two years before his death, to preside as Chairman of the Governors over the complex flurry of High Church ceremonial that celebrated the Centenary of Hurst College – ‘Five bishops will robe in the sanatorium [and] albs may be borrowed from Saint Bartholomew’s, Brighton’ – though doubtless the Countess of Athlone and the Archbishop of Canterbury were to robe less communally.149 Fortunately for Simon the empty mansion was quickly occupied by Montpelier College, a boarding and day school for boys, formerly housed since at least 1936 at 25 Montpelier Crescent in Brighton, and moved by a new headmaster to Danny in the summer of 1947. Captain Robert St Lawrence Willmore Costello, B.A. (London), formerly of the Canadian Commandos, vividly impressed Anthony Harrison-Barbet, a nine-year-old boarder. ‘Tall and languid [and unmarried], he had a black patch over one eye – no doubt the result of a war wound’; he ‘spoke with what seemed an affected drawl’ and kept ‘splendid motor cars’ in the converted coach house. In March 1948 he also drew up suitably audacious plans to adapt the mansion for a hundred pupils, aged from eight to eighteen, roughly half of them day boys bussed in from Brighton. The Great Hall with its War Cabinet plaque remained sacrosanct. But the white-and-gold drawing room was to be Costello’s reception room, the book-lined library his study; the dining room a chapel, the servants’ hall a cinema, the butler’s pantry a bursar’s office; day boys would eat in the billiard room, boarders in the morning room, and beyond the scullery were to be a changing room, a laboratory and serried rows of stark WCs and urinals. Planned on the upper floors were class rooms, masters’ bedrooms, a sick bay, a matron’s room, a scholars’ library and billiard room, and dormitories bracingly labelled Frobisher, Drake, Nelson, Wellington and Churchill. And

140 Helen Scott and her smiling staff at Danny House in 2000. maybe the Captain’s plans were largely realised, for ‘alterations’ did take place. Indeed, a cutting of uncertain provenance, dated 1949, reported that, due to their ‘heavy expense’,

141 142 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Transformed: Private Schools and Stylish Retirement, 1947-2004 143

142 Montpelier College football team in 1949.

141 An auction in the Great Hall, possibly of Family silver. 1830 and, indeed, had ‘furnished Dickens with the original of Dr Blimber’s Academy in Dombey and Son’, but added archly, ‘The tradition has been preserved, but the methods only the parents rallying to raise ‘a large sum of money’ had saved the College from closure changed’. It listed six Governors, all Brighton residents, along with 25 men ‘kindly’ willing – ‘Seldom has confidence in a headmaster been so readily and so practically displayed’, was to vouchsafe for the new, married, headmaster, Major F.J. Danby-Hunter B.Sc. – among its unctuous conclusion.150 them a baronet, an admiral, ten senior army officers (two in Weapons Research), a police Harrison-Barbet, moreover, recalled the College with affection. True, the masters were superintendent in Burma, a professor in British Columbia, the Reverend Oakshott in all bachelors and, apart from kitchen staff, the only females were an amiable Welsh Chile and Carl Spitzer in Ohio. The College also sported a new crest and motto, servi et matron and a Secretary, efficient Miss Sinden, sister of Donald, then a budding actor. defende replacing spes sibi quisque, and new school colours, dark maroon and dark green. And conditions were Spartan, with meagre coal fires, little hot water, few wash-basins Two Matrons now checked the ‘excellent’ sanitation and ‘extensive central heating’. And and a tap in the changing-room. But the food was good, the teaching excellent, the the Inter-Denominational teaching aimed to be ‘stimulating’ but free of cramming, staff ‘dedicated and kind’, and the sport low-key and relaxed – the school colours being despite specialist teachers and scholarship classes. Pupils also enjoyed fresh vegetables blue with yellow trimmings. An advert also claimed that ‘visual education’ was ‘fully and pasteurised milk from Grade ‘A’ cows, could tend plots in the formal garden and integrated with the curriculum’. And there was ample free time. After wearing his red join a Scout Troop. The intention was to mould ‘happy, healthy and useful citizens’, cassock to Sunday service, Harrison-Barbet could roam freely and collect shell casings imbued with ‘a spirit of service and a sense of responsibility’. Danby-Hunter, though, from the former tank training grounds beyond ‘the hill’. And unsupervised use of the soon departed – and maybe it was relevant that in 1931 a Captain F.J. Danby-Hunter, laboratory allowed him to mix copper turnings with nitric acid to produce a billowing after ‘operating’ a girls’ school in the Far East, set up St George’s College for boys in brown cloud of toxic gas which dispersed undetected, however. Sadly though, early in Vancouver, but left ‘under a cloud’ – being fond of ‘sherry and the ladies’. His successor at 1950, after lights-out, he was wakened in his dormitory (called ‘Campion’ it seems) by a Danny, a Mr Harris, moved the pupils to the vicinity of Horsham in 1954 – the youngest commotion in the forecourt below. Looking out, he spied the headmaster being carried boarder, Michael Smale, being ritually roasted at the fire in the Great Hall on the day of unconscious on a stretcher to a police car. Captain Costello had just swallowed laudanum departure. (By then a skilful pupil had cut out and pocketed ‘Mr. W.S. Churchill’ from in the open-access laboratory, after being confronted with evidence of his ‘abusing’ several the Armistice plaque nearby.)152 pupils. His suicide attempt failed and he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment at Simon was to bleakly inform his friend, Lord Euston, in March 1955 that both schools Lewes Assizes in March.151 ‘went bankrupt’ – a convenient half-truth perhaps. His search for a new tenant, meanwhile, Harrison-Barbet was withdrawn, but remembered the College being rebranded reassuringly was proving ‘pretty much of a headache’ – in the mid-1950s scores of empty ancestral as ‘Wolstonbury’. Its prospectus now claimed that the school had begun at Brighton in mansions were facing decay, even demolition. Usefully, Lord Euston was Chairman 144 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Transformed: Private Schools and Stylish Retirement, 1947-2004 145 of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and, recognising Danny’s great Any ‘mucking in’ was doubtless exaggerated. But residents regrouping there from the army, architectural merit, he helped secure a repair grant from the Historic Buildings Council, navy and colonial civil service could enjoy a social life reminiscent of the mess or the club, applauded by Country Life in July 1956. But more momentously Danny had been sighted and as toughened survivors of World War and Austerity they took in their stride remote by Rear-Admiral Bernard Wilberforce Greathed, a retired commander of naval dockyards, bathrooms, long corridors and steep stairs – as indeed did the Honourable Bruce Ogilvy, then ashore at North Court in Hassocks. His recently launched Mutual Households a relative of the Queen. Thus with enthusiasm they laid out the ‘Burmah Road’, a path Association Limited aimed to lease or buy ‘historic’ country houses, and convert them descending from the plunge-bath through clumps of bamboo down to the ha-ha. They into unfurnished flats for ‘active’ retired persons who had ‘given service to the Crown, enjoyed a game of croquet, often taking the form of an ‘Octogenarians’ Match’. Suitably Country, neighbourhood or neighbours’, and wanted ‘a degree of gracious living’, with seasoned spinsters were, of course, welcomed. Outstanding, perhaps, was Dr Isobel Glasgow, communal catering, cleaning and laundry services supplied by resident staff. To Simon’s born in 1901 and resident from 1963 till 1997. An Ulsterwoman, orphaned early, she put delight, the Rear-Admiral identified Danny as ideal for his first flagship ‘household’ and herself through medical school in Belfast and parried deep suspicion as the only female in September 1956 the MHA duly leased the mansion and eight acres of garden and doctor in County Down – one father promised to shoot her if the child she delivered was a grounds for 30 years, at an annual rent of £350, the Association paying for repairs and girl. After serving in India with the Royal Medical Corps, she ‘enjoyed an illustrious career insurance. Cuckfield Rural District Council meanwhile agreed Improvement Grants to in Tropical Medicine’. At Danny she took one alcoholic drink a day and smoked one cigar create 20 apartments upstairs, leaving the ground floor free for communal sitting and every Christmas. The mansion’s ‘common’ rooms, replete with Campion heirlooms, and dining rooms, a kitchen and staff quarters. Weekly rents averaged £4-£5 per person, and its grounds, also hosted local events, quite apart from being open to the public at least a cash down-payment of £300 was returnable on vacating, minus 3 per cent per annum. 18 days each year, a condition of the HBC’s grant in 1956. There were art shows and The Campion armour, portraits and ancestral furniture remained, adding distinction to puppet-theatres; an engineering firm laid out a miniature railway, and the Hurst Players the public rooms. In July 1957 Simon’s neighbour at Firle, Lord Gage, as President of revived the Danny Revels and staged Love throughout the Ages – ‘beginning with a caveman’, the National Federation of Housing Associations, declared the ‘household’ open and it attracted over-flowing audiences.155 by March 1958 the flagship was full – indeed Simon himself was a resident till 1964.153 Residential life at Danny in the late 1970s also stirred the muse of Lieutenant-Colonel Other cash-strapped landowners meanwhile were besieging the MHA, desperate to Ronald Cox. His robust verse saluted the female domestic staff, ‘a dedicated cheerful save their stately homes from dereliction or worse – heartened no doubt by Rear-Admiral smiling band’ armed with ‘snarling Hoovers’, ‘dressing chairs like Guardsmen from the Greathed’s declared intention to berth 2,000 appreciative ex-public servants in 100 gracious right’, serving up ‘tender veal or roasted mutton, with peas and buttered cabbage’, or households. And indeed, by May 1959 picturesque Otterden Place in Kent was ‘open’ and ‘mash-bangers, fish-pies, macaroni-gratin’. He admired ‘cruise-happy Madame Christine’, Pythouse, a majestic Palladian pile in , was under conversion. But by then the steaming past St Kilda: ‘You frighten the sea birds, the seals you bewilder’. He encompassed MHA was also heavily in debt and the Rear-Admiral resigned. Sadly, his book-keeping the tedium of long winter afternoons: and his engineering were both unreliable. At Otterden, perhaps with a battleship in mind, Some play at Bridge and have their tiffs; he proposed fitting a lift into a back staircase, leaving only 18 inches for the stairs; at Some Scrabble deep in gloom; Pythouse a costly cold storage chamber and his own intricate heating system, re-using old While others snooze by ‘goggle box’, pipes, both failed to function. The MHA was snatched from liquidation by Mr Barkell Warm in the hot Spice Room. Taylor of Croydon, a hard-headed consultant, whose artful delay in settling its bills was sometimes deplored at AGMs as ‘caddish’. Under his deft guidance seven more ‘historic’ And sombre was his mood in 1977-8 during ‘this winter of our discontent’ when houses were acquired – an initiative praised by Marcus Binney in his otherwise doom- Militancy was rife: laden lament, The Destruction of the Country House. Indeed, Good Queen Bess had visited For Colonel Mac has grave grim doubts Gosfield Hall and eminent architects had designed, wholly or in part, Swallowfield Park, That all may yet be lost, Aynhoe Park, Albury Park ‘with 63 chimneys’, Great Maytham Hall and Flete. The least Unless they shoot wee Wedgewood Benn And string up David Frost.156 happy choice, perhaps, was Ford Manor in Surrey, built in 1868 – Ian Nairn deemed it ‘a rock-hard stone pile’, ‘over-confident to a fault’ – and fittingly, maybe, it was renamed Happily, of course, such ‘grave grim doubts’ dispersed, once Mrs Thatcher was elected. 154 Greathed Manor as a tribute to the MHA’s intrepid founder. But new worries loomed as the ending of the MHA’s lease of Danny in September 1986 Association life at Danny in the early days was variously viewed as ‘like a country-house drew nearer, with no certainty of renewal. Indeed repairs were skimped, ‘brambles, weeds weekend party, except that one does not leave on Monday morning’, or again, as ‘a do- and nettles’ ravaged the grounds, rampant bamboo choked the Burmah Road. Worse still in it-yourself, up-market, commune where everyone joined in the washing up and cookery’. 1983 took place the shattering sale of the freehold of Danny to Ian Burgess, a local ‘developer’. 146 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Transformed: Private Schools and Stylish Retirement, 1947-2004 147

Simon Campion had died in 1976 and his only son David (Eton and Cambridge), a signals officer in the North Atlantic during the war, had been managing the Danny estate which still spread across 2,000 acres. But his only son, James, renounced the life of a ‘country gentleman’. Choosing ‘the rugged path’ of helping the poor in India, he left to run an isolated medical centre about 100 miles north of Madras – a fitting sequel to his family’s long engagement with Empire. His departure clinched David’s decision in 1980 to auction the estate, apart from the 350-acre Ham Farm where he lived, and Tott Farm, already sold to Mr Burgess. The auction failed. But in July 1983 Mr Burgess paid £1,250,000 for the remaining farms, for 218 acres of woodland and for Danny and most of its contents. Afterwards, Mr Burgess confided to local journalists that, though ‘not a social do-gooder’, he had ‘a dream for the stately pile’ and intended to ‘turn back the clock’ to the days when it was central to village life, so that ‘the expansive grounds will again buzz to the sounds of horse shows, fairs, balls and other community activities’. Danny was to become ‘an attraction’, though bereft of its more collectable paintings. Cornelius Jansen’s portrait of Peter Courthope (estimated price £4,000-6,000) and The Apotheosis of Charles I(£ 2,000-3,000) were among the long-cherished heirlooms removed to Sothebys for sale in July 1984. Gone, too, from the Great Hall was 144 Bowerbank’s ‘Jacobean’ dining-room. Sir William Campion’s long burnished armour, though his Boarstall letters were among the rich collection of family and estate archives that Simon had given to the East Sussex Record Apotheosis, were bought back, and also the oak table given to William and Gertrude at Office in 1966.157 their Golden Wedding. But in 1986-7 the CHA’s proposal to build new apartments, to So despite Mrs Thatcher at Number 10, an Orwellian gloom doubtless pervaded Danny replace those lost to bathrooms and a new dining-room, sparked what the local press as 1984 unfolded – until ‘a bolt out of the blue’ landed. On ‘a red-letter day’ for the headlined as a PLANS WAR AT PEACE TREATY SITE. Council officers, and the Royal Country Houses Association (as it had become) an anonymous donor – a lady living Fine Arts Commission, rejected as ‘out of scale’ a T-shaped, two-storey extension, all in South Africa – gave it in excess of £1,000,000 to purchase Danny and its grounds, too visible from ‘the hill’. But they approved a discrete single-storey annexe in the north and help fund its refurbishment. Inevitably the 16 residents then endured four years courtyard, designed by Christopher Bowerbank with blank lunettes above the windows of upheaval while apartments were redesigned to include that essential of the ’80s, a and tall chimney stacks, playfully capped. He also laid out there an elegant fountain and bathroom en suite. Seeing themselves ‘as akin to survivors of the London Blitz’, they later converted the coach house. (See 67) Mr Burgess meanwhile had voiced complaints from a impressed on newcomers ‘that the serenity of the present had been won by the sacrifices public gallery about unseemly gas tanks, the felling of trees and the size of the car park.158 of the past’. In the grounds the ha-ha was rebuilt, the Burmah Road reopened and a pond The CHA itself, however, was disturbed by aspects of Bowerbank’s ‘Jacobean’ dining- created below the restored plunge-bath. A few paintings sold at Sothebys, including The room, formed in the North Wing from apartments, previously the Morning Room and the Billiard Room. His design was stylish enough – the ribbed plaster ceiling copying motifs from the Chapel Room above, the wall panels inspired by the Kederminster Library at Langley church near Slough, and the pillared fireplace of Portland stone based on a drawing by the Renaissance architect, Sebastiano Serlio. Nor were materials skimped. The oak floorboards were cut into uneven widths to achieve ‘authenticity’. Each wall panel was crafted from three planks, so it would split in time and give ‘a distressed appearance’, while the colours – dull green, dirty cream, dark brown – were fixed by an expensive tinted glaze. And delicate sconces dispersed a soothing glow from mirrored backs. But Bowerbank teased his clients about the slate design on the Serlian fireplace (repeated on the basin of his fountain) being ‘a cabbalistic device’, ‘deeply relevant to its position’. A floating eye painted on the north wall, with the warning ‘Deus videt’ (God sees), ‘made up for its sunless orientation’. Meanwhile, residents deplored as a slur on their loyal culinary staff a line from the Roman poet Juvenal 143 Bowerbank’s discrete annexe. sited by the exit door to the kitchen – Occidit miseros cranite repetita coquos translates as ‘the 148 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Transformed: Private Schools and Stylish Retirement, 1947-2004 149

still flourished. Some residents tended a flower bed – ‘cloches are allowed, and all kinds of botanical experiments are carried on in quiet corners’. Octogenarian Vera Dabson-Webb hung her walls with paintings of Danny executed on ‘hazy days’. Dr Glasgow, now in her mid-90s, still practised the violin, though the late John Chidell, a Cambridge classical scholar, no longer researched Danny’s intricate history or harassed Bowerbank to justify his Latin.160 Clearly in January 2003 residents had reason to applaud a statement in the CHA’s 48th annual report that its trustees viewed ‘the future with tempered enthusiasm’. Yet the following December the same trustees declared their intention ‘to cease the residential accommodation business’ at Danny and their other properties – due to ‘the falling demand for the particular serviced apartments offered, the increasing age-profile of the residents, the increasing regulations surrounding the business and the significant level of losses that all of this has produced’ – trends not apparent, it seems, the previous January. Residents had until ‘mid-2004’ to find other accommodation. But as an editorial in Country Life indignantly pointed out, the deposits which many residents had put down years before, when repaid, minus 3 per cent per annum, would ‘in property terms represent only a fraction of their original value’, leaving little hope of them finding even ‘a simple cottage nearby’. In February 2004 their dilemma was also dwelt on by an article, ‘From the manor 161 145 ‘Tudor’ leather shoes found during repairs in the 1980s. torn’, in the Daily Telegraph. A happy resolution, however, was in the offing. cook will be the death of the unfortunate [diners] by serving them with rehashed cabbage’ – as a protest the residents kept the door open to hide it. That the CHA – a ‘difficult’ client – was ‘not amused’ was even noted gleefully in 2002 by his obituary-writer in the Daily Telegraph: Bowerbank, a wealthy bachelor, owed his first design opportunity, new offices for the record company of the Rolling Stones, to his escorting Marianne Faithful. Indeed, he embraced the ‘haut, beau and demi mondes’ – spanning without effort Princess Margaret, Mayfair and Notting Hill – when not watching birds in ‘the stark wilderness of Orkney’.159 Bowerbank apart, little seemed to ruffle the residents once refurbishment, ably directed by the Administrator, John Grant, was completed in 1989. New elegancies arrived with the en suites and promoted a ‘stylish’ living – the cuisine was now a far cry from the Basic British that satisfied Ronald Knox in the 1970s. Thus in 2001 the CHA’s glossy house magazine, Country Style, featured the Head Cook, Hungarian-born Helen Scott, and her five staff, all smiles despite the slur on their cabbage. Residents could relish Red Cabbage with Hungarian Pork, Roast Cod in Serrano Ham, and creamy Dobos Cake with a unique caramel topping, while Pot-roasted Poussin with Cranberries now enriched the Black-Tie Dinner in the Great Hall on the Saturday before Christmas. Firmly displaced were Cox’s ‘mash-bangers, fish- pies and macaroni-gratin’. The furniture residents brought tended to be ‘old, well-loved and warped’, neither institutional nor cheap. And some inmates were seriously well-off. John Duthie arrived in 1995 after ‘some years of lotus-eating in a mid-Victorian manor in Devon’, and duly encountered Louisa Legh, the widow of a high official at the Bank of England, Sir Stephen Brown, a former President of the Confederation of British Industry, Peter Rigden, the retired director of an up-market car-sales franchise, and Brigadier McQueen, ‘a cerebral staff officer’. But the ‘style’ did not inhibit a civilised communal life. Bridge and croquet 14 Danny Relaunched, 2004-12

Admiral Greathed’s original concept – the saving of fine old houses by turning them into retirement homes for colonial servants and servicemen – was a brilliant one, and for many years the nine houses prospered. But from the ’90s doubts had been expressed by those claiming some knowledge of such matters – was the Country House Association as well managed and financially stable as it should be? On Thursday, 3 December 2003 all doubts were finally removed when the residents at Danny (the same thing was happening at seven other houses, the events being carefully synchronised) were invited to a meeting in the white drawing-room at 12 noon. As they waited, the staff emerged looking thunderstruck, and the reason soon became clear: a Mr Wu informed them in a few words that CHA had gone into administration, and that they had a little over six months in which to find a new home. Advertisements appeared in Country Life and elsewhere, and for two months there was a constant coming and going, as various people came to view the property, one even arriving on the South Lawn by helicopter. Meanwhile, the residents pursued their search for alternative accommodation with greater or lesser success, as no one had much hope that a buyer would want them to remain. While many may have secretly prayed for a white knight to appear, there seemed small chance of that actually happening in the real world. So it was a happy surprise when, towards the end of February, Richard Burrows announced to another gathering in the white drawing-room that he intended to buy Danny, and that all residents were invited to stay, on similar terms to those they had enjoyed under CHA. They now knew that their tenure was secure, and on 1 April 2004 Richard took possession of Danny, moving with his family into part of the south wing. 146 Richard Burrows and his resident ram. In spite of the extensive refurbishment carried out between 1985 and 1989, little had been done subsequently. So Richard undertook a programme of his own, including the repair of windows in the south wing and opening up others on the east front. He has also bought much of the historic parkland that provides the setting for the house, as well as establishing a flock of sheep to help conserve Wolstonbury Hill and the Southdown landscape that frames Danny. He has spent time and energy, too, on furnishing the house with suitable antiques, even managing to buy back paintings sold by Mr Burgess in 1984. Danny has also become a venue for concerts and lectures open to all. Previously visitors to Danny asking their way in Hurstpierpoint would be met with a blank look. Now it has become a part of village life, as in the Campions’ time.

151 152 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Danny Relaunched, 2004-12 153

147 A garden party at Danny in 2007, oil by Paul Brown. 154 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries

Of the original eight houses (Greathed had already closed its doors as the lease was due to expire) Danny is the only one still to offer the style of living at which CHA aimed. Apartments are rented, rather than bought or leased, so that the only call on capital is for a deposit of six months’ rent, and the monthly rent is truly inclusive, as it covers the apartment, three meals a day, heating, lighting, cleaning, maintenance and council- tax. There is access to 100 acres of parkland in the South Downs National Park, and a Endnotes weekly bus-service takes residents shopping in one of the nearby towns. Transport is also provided to theatres, concerts, Glyndebourne, and gardens and houses open to the public. All round, it is really the life of Riley, with activity – dancing, keep-fit classes, bridge, a book club and gardening – if it is wanted, or a quiet life for those who prefer that. What Abbreviations in footnotes:

Richard Burrows has done is to take the CHA lifestyle and refine and improve it; to ACC: Accession in East Sussex Record Office restore to Danny its place in the village; and, because he is on the spot, rather than in a ADA: Adams MSS in ESRO remote office in London, to give the house and grounds the care they need and deserve. AMS: Additional MSS in ESRO A staff (resident ratio of 1:3) ensures that service is ever-ready but unobtrusive. To live DAN: Danny MSS in ESRO ESRO: East Sussex Record Office at Danny in the 21st century is to enjoy the sort of gracious living that was experienced Martin: David and Barbara Martin, An Archaeological Interpretative Survey of by our forefathers and would be hard to find elsewhere. Danny House, Hurstpierpoint, Updated Report, Project Ref 3118 (2010) Nelson, Hurstpierpoint: I. Nelson, ed. Hurstpierpoint – kind and charitable (2001) Nelson, Weekes: I. Nelson, ed. The Weekes Diaries (2005) ODNB: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Packham, Memorial Tablets: R.A. Packham, An Inventory of Memorial Tablets … in Holy Trinity Church and St Georges Chapel, Hurstpierpoint (1988) SAC: Sussex Archaeological Collections TNA: The National Archives VCH: The Victoria County History: Sussex WSRO: West Sussex Record Office

Introduction: Danny in Context 1 e.V. Lucas, Highways and byways in Sussex (1921), 199. 2 ‘Woolsonbury Nymphs’, a poem written before 1785, quoted in William Smith Ellis, The Parks and Forests of Sussex (1885), 80; Gilbert White, The natural history of Selborne (1951), 138, 167, 170. 3 Richard Jefferies, The life of the fields( 1884), 118-20. 4 Gentleman’s Magazine (October 1806), 897; A. Mawer and F.M. Stenton, The place-names of Sussex, 2 (1929-30), 287-8; E. Cecil Curwen, ‘Wolstonbury’, SAC 71 (1930), 237-45; O. Bedwin, ‘Aspects of Iron Age Settlement in Sussex’, in B. Cunliffe and D. Miles (eds.), Aspects of the Iron Age in Central Southern Britain, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 46-51; Miles Russell, Wolstonbury Hill, Pyecombe, West Sussex, research design for an archaeological survey (1994); J.M.T. Ford, The Weekes Family Letters( 1987), 5, 8, 9. 5 Mawer and Stenton, op. cit., 287-8; B.J. Mitten, Guide to Hurstpierpoint and its neighbourhood (c.1906), 16. 6 Peter Brandon, The Sussex Landscape( 1974), passim. 7 VCH, VII, 172-7. 8 Brandon, op. cit., passim. 9 Nelson, Hurstpierpoint, passim.

1: Danny Lodge: The Pierpoints, the Dacres and their Great Deer Park, 1239-1562 10 William Smith Ellis, ‘Hurstpierpoint: its Lords and families’, SAC 11 (1859), 65-6; DAN 1126, ff. 192-3; DAN 1602; DAN 2097.

155 156 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Endnotes 157

11 essex Record Office, D/DL M68; DAN 2071-9; TNA E134/22&23 Chas 2/Hil 4&Trin 7; ADA 37 TNA PROB11/100/3-4; Hasler, op.cit., 209-10; Brent, op. cit., 231; T.W. Horsfield, The history 7 p. 111; Mawer and Stenton, op. cit. 367. and antiquities of Lewes and its vicinity, 1 (1824), 280. 12 DAN 2097; DAN 1238; ADA 11 p. 42; Robert Willis Blencowe, ‘Roman remains in the 38 DAN 1256; Memegalos, op. cit., 7-9. neighbourhood of Hurst-pier-point and Danny’, SAC 14 (1862), 178-81; I.D. Margary, Roman 39 Barbara Donagan, ‘George Goring, first earl of Norwich’, ODNB; Memegalos, op. cit., 9-23. Ways in the Weald (1949), 172; Anon, ‘Roman Pavement at Danny’, SAC 10 (1858), 210. 40 Memegalos, op. cit., 35-6; Records of Early English Drama: Patrons and Performers, 2003-07; Jane 13 anon [William Smith Ellis], A History of Hurstpierpoint (1837), 1-5, 15; L.F. Salzman (ed.), ‘Feet Brown, The gardens at Buckingham Palace: an illustrated history( 2004), 20-22; Prudence Leith-Ross, of Fines for the county of Sussex’, Sussex Record Society, 2 (1903), 93-4; L.C Hector (ed.), ‘Curia The John Tradescants (1988), 114-6, 179. Regis Rolls of the reign of Henry III’, vol.16, 575; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1354-8, 18; TNA C66/242. 41 Memegalos, op. cit., 12; Martin, 26-8. 14 Mawer and Stenton, op. cit., 274; Richard Coates, ‘Some notes on Danny’ in Some Place-names of 42 DAN 2071-73. the Downland fringe (1990), 27-9 and personal information from the author; Jayne Semple, ‘The 43 Memegalos, op. cit., 25-36, 40-63, 66-7, 73-4. medieval deer parks of Wrotham’, Cantiana, 128 (2008), 179-182. 44 DAN 2073; Brent, op. cit., 297-8, 302. 15 T.W.Horsfield,The history, antiquities and topography of the county of Sussex, 1 (1835), 245; VCH, II, 45 Donagan, op. cit.; Memegalos, op. cit., 127-8,132-6, 142-60. 331-41, 346-60. 185, VII, 78, 266. 46 Ibid, 143-319. 16 Rev. Edmund Venables, ‘The castle of Herstmonceux and its lords’, SAC 4 (1851), 125-202; David 47 DAN 1132; Memegalos, op. cit., 142; DAN 1133; British Library, Add. MS 5683 ff.395 -6; DAN Calvert and Roger Martin, A History of Herstmonceux Castle (1994), 5-7; I.M.W. Harvey, Jack Cade’s 1136-75. Rebellion of 1450 (1991), 78-9; Essex Record Office, D/DL M68; DAN 1036. 48 Memegalos, op. cit., 348-60; Donagan, op. cit.; TNA PROB11/310/54-5; VCH VII, 175-6. 17 Calvert and Martin, op. cit., 8-10; Art Quarterly, Autumn 2008, 19; Jan Broadway, ‘Gregory Fiennes tenth Baron Dacre’, ODNB; TNA SC6/EDWVI/459, SC6/ELIZI/2216; AMS 679/2/29. Chapter 4: Danny Truncated: Two Peter Courthopes 1653-1725 18 anon [William Smith Ellis], op. cit., 16-17; Martin, 4-7. 49 Judith A. Wooldridge, The Danny Archives: a catalogue (1966), plate III; Alsager Vian, revised by 19 DAN 1126 ff. 192-3; Martin, 7-9. H.V. Bowen, ‘Nathaniel Courthope’, ODNB; DAN 158, 273; DAN 140; Henry Cleere and David 20 Martin, 9-13; Jennifer Sherwood and , The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire Crossley, The iron industry of the Weald( 1995), 184, 195. (1974), 448 and plate 52. 50 Wooldridge, op. cit., xv; Sussex Archaeological Society Library, Thomas Woollgar, Spicilegia, 4, 21 TNA STAC 5/ B9/6, D19/28, D29/6, L23/39; J.S. Cockburn (ed.), Calendar of assize records: appendix, 342-4; Packham, Memorial Tablets; DAN 1157-63; TNA PROB11/268/220-4. Sussex indictments Eliizabeth I (1975), 137; DAN 1126, ff. 192-3. 51 G.S.Boulger, revised by Michael Hunter, ‘Francis Willughby’, ODNB; Scott Mandelbrote, ‘John 22 DAN 1127; Broadway, op. cit. Ray’, ODNB; DAN 344-5; Cleere and Crossley, op. cit., 184; DAN 2229; DAN 353; DAN 350-1. 52 DAN 352; DAN 1176-7; DAN 355-63; DAN 2230. Chapter 2: George Goring: Courtier, Builder and Embezzler 1582-94 53 DAN 361; Mandelbrote, op. cit.; Boulger, op.cit.; DAN 364; Robert Willis Blencowe, ‘Extracts 23 P.W. Hasler, The history of Parliament; the House of Commons 1558-1603, 2 (1981), 209; Colin from manuscripts … at Danny and … Charlton House’, SAC 10 (1858) 31; E. Straker, Wealden Brent, Pre-Georgian Lewes (2004), 227-9. Iron (1969), 44; DAN 2097. 24 Florene S. Memegalos, George Goring (1608-57) (2007), 5-6; DAN 1127; DAN 1126 ff. 122-7; 54 AMS 6585/3-6; Mandelbrote, op. cit.; White, op. cit., 167. Brent, op. cit., 229. 55 DAN 346; Packham, Memorial Tablets; DAN 140; Nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 40; W.C.Renshaw, 25 W.H. Godfrey, ‘The estate of George Goring 1595’, Sussex Notes and Queries, 1 (1926), 21-2; DAN ‘Miscellaneous records of the county of Sussex’, Sussex Record Society 4 (1905), 44. 1126 ff. 192-3; Andrew Boorde, A compendious regiment or a dietary of helth (1549). 56 DAN 2097; DAN 1191; DAN 1144, 1150; DAN 1126, ff.192 -3; DAN 2071. 26 DAN 2097; Ian Nairn and Nikolaus Pevsner, The buildings of England: Sussex (1965), 517-8; VCH, 57 DAN 2071-9. VII, 173. 58 DAN 1226-7; DAN 1191; DAN 1381; Brent, op. cit., 333-4, 343, 352. 27 Martin, 10-13; M.C. Bridge, The tree-ring dating of timbers from Danny House, Hurstpierpoint, 59 eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley and D.W. Hayton, The history of Parliament1690 -1715, vol. West Sussex (Oxford dendrochronology laboratory report 2009-11); Godfrey, op. cit., 21-2; Jayne 2 (2002), 691, vol. 3 (2002), 753; Anthony Bower, ed., A fine day in Hurstpierpoint: the diary of Kirk, Parham: an Elizabethan House and its restoration (2009), 30. Thomas Marchant1714 -1728, Hurst History Study Group (2005), 12, 82, 117, 144, 156, 181-2, 28 Martin, 28-34. 197. 29 Martin, 35-42; VCH, VII, 172-4. 60 Bower, op. cit., 97-8, 133, 176, 232-4, 259, 280; Timothy J. McCann, ‘Sussex cricket in the 30 Martin, 22-8; Mark Girouard, Life in the English Country House (1978), 81-118. eighteenth century’, Sussex Record Society 88 (2004), xxx-xli, 1-5, 83. 31 DAN 2098; DAN 2097; Martin, 42-3; Girouard, op. cit., 81-118. 32 Paula Henderson, ‘The gardens, orchard and park at Danny in Hurstpierpoint: an analysis of the estate map Chapter 5: Danny in Shadow: A ‘Sanguine’ Jacobite and his Depressive Son 1725-78 of 1666’, SAC 148 (2010), 145-56; Nairn and Pevsner, op. cit., 478-9; Horsfield Sussex, 244; DAN 2071-3. 61 DAN 6; R.W. Blencowe, ‘Extracts from manuscripts … at Danny and … Charlton House’, SAC 33 Henderson, op. cit., 152-4; J.B. Burke, Visitation of seats and arms [c.1852], 24. 10 (1858), 1-13; DAN 35-139; Cruickshanks et al., op. cit., vol. 2, 456. 34 TNA E134/22&23CHAS2/Hil 4 & Trin 7; DAN 1150; [pillow mound] Identified by Paul Stamper, 62 Ibid., 453-6; Bower, op. cit., 1, 2, 27, 30. English Heritage 2010; DAN 1144. 63 Ibid., 34-5, 213, 217, 237, 248, 260, 273; Calendar of the Stuarts belonging to HM the king preserved 35 Godfrey, op.cit., 21-2; Kirk, op. cit., 31, 39-40; Hasler, op. cit., 209-10. at Windsor Castle, Historical MSS Commission (1902-20), vol. 1, 395, vol. 5, 106, vol. 6, 529, vol. 7, 444; Sir Charles Petrie, The Jacobite Movement1688 -1716 (1948), 172; Royal Archives, SP/ Chapter 3: Danny Saved and Lost: Three George Gorings 1594-1653 Main/46/129. 36 J.V. Pennington, The Wiston estate, Sussex, M.A. thesis, Brighton Polytechnic (1989); Godfrey, op. 64 Royal Archives, SP/MAIN/55/110; TNA PROB 11/602/269-71; Cruickshanks et al., op. cit., vol. 4 cit., 21-2; Hasler, op. cit., 209-10; DAN 1126 ff 122-127; VCH VII, 174. (2000) 72-3; P.K. Monod, Jacobitism and the English people (1989), 113, 115-6; Brent, op. cit., 193. 158 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Endnotes 159

65 DAN 404; TNA SP/36/71-2; Packham, Memorial Tablets. Chapter 8: William and Harriet: Castanets and Cottage Visits 1855-69 66 DAN 35-119; John Newman, The buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald (1969), 287; 93 Brighton Gazette, 22 January 1829; Antony Dale, Fashionable Brighton (1967), 60, 74; DAN 442; A.C. Cox, ‘Portraits of King Charles I seated at his trial’, Northamptonshire Museums and Art Borrer, WSRO Addit MS 17736 and 17739, 4 August 1865, 30 December 1885. Gallery Journal 7 (June 1970), 3-15; Anon [John Chidell] Danny: a brief guide to the house, 9-14; 94 nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 261-3, 268-9; Borrer, WSRO Addit MS 17735, 13 December 1855; ADA Catalogue of auction of British Paintings 1500-1850, Sotheby Parke Bernet and Co, 11 July 1984; 12 p. 90; Nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 326. Inventory of furniture and effects at Danny House, 5 April 1939, ACC 2933/2/602. 95 national Monuments Record, B.E.C. Howarth-Lomas BB 83/607-8; Robert Willis Blencowe, ‘Extracts 67 Bower, op. cit., 282, 284-6, 291; Martin, 20-1; Nairn and Pevsner, op. cit., 461, 517-8. from manuscripts … at Danny and … Charlton House’, SAC 10 (1858), opposite 1; DAN 1772; 68 Howard Colvin, A biographical dictionary of British architects (1995), 845-7; DAN 2199, pp. 313, Nelson, Weekes, 12; Borrer, WSRO Addit MS 17736, 18 Aug 1870; [Chidell], op. cit., 7-8. 316, 318, 322, 324, 328. 96 DAN 476-85; Anon, Sussex: historical, biographical and pictorial (1907) [unpaged]. 69 [Chidell], op. cit., 5-6; Martin, 14-15, 42-51; DAN 2199, pp. 221, 225, 230, 232, 336. 97 alfred Wilcox, ‘A notable Sussex garden: interview with Mr J. Bunney at Danny, Hurstpierpoint’, 70 British Library, Add. MS. 5472, f. 30; Burke, op. cit. 24; DAN 2198, front flyleaf; DAN 2199, Garden Life, 3 October 1908; information on the Bunney family from Jennie Burgess. front flyleaf, pp 225, 230, 236, 280. 98 Peter Raby, Alfred Russel Wallace: a life (2001), especially 182-3, 187-99. 71 Kirk, op. cit., 76-9; Martin, 22-4; DAN 2199, pp. 236, 239; British Library, Add. MS 5672, f. 29 ; DAN 99 DAN 428, 430; Jupp letters in possession of Carole and John Lynskey, New Zealand (transcripts 2199 pp. 230, 234, 315, 321; Nairn and Pevsner, op. cit., 518; Roger White, personal communication; in Danny House library). [John Bloe thought the chimneypiece ‘modern’, VCH VII, 173]; DAN 2198 p. 238; [Mr Mortimer’s 100 nelson, Weekes, iii-iv, 10-13. nephew, born at Eastbourne, was the celebrated Romantic artist, John Hamilton Mortimer]. 101 Ibid., 12-19, 21-2. 72 Martin, 15, 32, 52; DAN 2199 pp. 225, 228, 238-9, 313, 335. 102 nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 340; Peter King, Hurstpierpoint College 1849-1995 (1997), 1-16, 34; R.M. 73 ACC 7560/69; DAN 406; Bower, op., cit., 288; DAN 2199-2201; TNA PROB11/865/137-9. Hill, ‘Fifty Years Ago – And Three’,The Hurst Johnian (1910), 136; ‘W’, ‘Ode To The Danny Park 74 DAN 2198, 2201; Nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 178, 320; W.H.Blaauw, ed., ‘Extracts from the “Iter Ground’, ibid. (1892), 146. Sussexiense” of Dr John Burton’, SAC 8 (1856) 265. 103 King, op. cit., 23, 34, 48, 51-2; Nairn, op. cit., 68; Borrer, WSRO Addit MS 17739 and 17740, 75 DAN 401-2, 405-6, 409-10, 415, 418; ACC 7560/39; Packham, Memorial Tablets. 30 December 1885, 18 January 1891. 76 DAN 151, 406, 408, 411, 636-7; ACC 7560/70; ACC 9065/3/7; Packham, Memorial Tablets.

Chapter 9: William and Gertrude: Local and Imperial Service 1869-1914 Chapter 6: Henry Courthope Campion: Arcadia and Affliction 1778-1811 104 ‘Historical Associations of Danny’, Sussex County Magazine 8 (1934), 274; Mid-Sussex Times, 9 77 ADA 8, 171; DAN 1610; ADA 11, 42; DAN 2103; ESRO MOB 633; DAN 153-5; VCH, VII, September 1919; Sussex Daily News, 5 December 1923; A.F. Pollard and H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Henry 175-6. Bouverie William Brand’, ODNB. 78 DAN 2064, 2103; British Library, Add. MS. 5672, f. 29. 105 DAN 490. 79 DAN 2103; British Library, Add. MS. 5672, f. 30; Burke, op. cit., 24; ACC 7560/69; ADA 228/1; 106 Sussex Daily News, 5 December 1923; Anon, Sussex: historical, biographical and pictorial (1907) WSRO Mitford MS., MPD 264. [unpaged]; Eva Daisy Ellis, op. cit., 54; VCH, VII, 178. 80 R.G. Martin, ‘Ice Houses in Sussex’, Sussex Industrial history, 24 (1994), 19; plunge-bath identified 107 Sussex Daily News, 5 December 1923; DAN 490; Nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 360; Sussex Express, 9 in 2010 by Paul Stamper of English Heritage; H.J. Elwes and A. Henry, The Trees of Great Britain August 1884; East Sussex News, 5 September 1884; The Times, 10 April 1895. and Ireland, 7 (1913), 1867. 108 nelson, Weekes, 25-6, 62, 71, 73, 77. 81 DAN 706; Brent, op. cit., 53; ACC 3780. 109 Letter from Frederick Campion to uncle Walter, 17 May 1897, in possession of Peter Campion; 82 Packham, Memorial Tablets; [Chidell], op. cit., 13; ACC 2933/2/602. Ruth Teale, ‘Frederick Henry Campion’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition. 83 Packham, Memorial Tablets; [Chidell], op. cit., 10. 110 Manuscript diary: ‘Nile Campaign and Capture of Omdurman,1898’, kept by Edward Campion, 84 Sussex Weekly Advertiser, 23 January 1783; Nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 218; Ford, op. cit, 149-50; in possession of Peter Campion, 27 February-13 April. Nelson, Weekes, 5; Eva Daisy Ellis, Daisy: growing up in a Sussex village 1897-1919 (2003), 121. 111 Ibid, 8 May-13 September. 112 nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 359, plate xviii. Chapter 7: William and Jane: The Bountiful Squire 1811-55 113 ACC 2933/2/602; Sussex Express, 16 September 1884; Nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 259, 264-5, 268-9. 85 DAN 29, 153-5; information on Jane Austen (writer) from Elizabeth Proudman; DAN 1769. 114 Ibid, 51, 266, 269, 279, 352-3. 86 Burke, op. cit., 24; ADA 228/1; Horsfield Sussex, op. cit., 244; Colgate, op. cit., 187, 235-6. 115 anne Pimlott Baker, ‘Leopold Bernhard Bonn’, ODNB; Eva Daisy Ellis, op. cit., 53; Hurstpierpoint 87 ACC 2933/1/4/2; ACC 2933/2/602; DAN 30; unidentified newscutting in The County of Sussex Parish Magazine, January 1967; ACC 2933/2/602. 27 (scrapbook by unknown compiler) in Sussex Archaeological Society library; DAN 2173; W.T. 116 Sussex Daily News, 5 December 1923; DAN 490; King, op. cit., 148; Eva Daisy Ellis, op. cit., Pike, ed, Sussex in the twentieth century (1910), 182; DAN 430; Colgate, op. cit., 152-3. 129-31; Mid-Sussex Times, 29 April 1913; Eva Daisy Ellis, op. cit., 132-3. 88 Ibid., 132, 151-2, 186-7, 283-4; TNA PROB 11/1688/5-6; Nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 309-10; DAN 117 Hurstpierpoint Parish Magazine, January 1967; Eva Daisy Ellis, op. cit., 99-100; DAN 490. 1829; Eva Daisy Ellis, op. cit., 122. 89 Ford, op. cit., 5, 8-9; Colgate, op. cit., 107, 134, 181-2, 192-3, 269; Horsfield Sussex, 243. Chapter 10: The Mansion, The Park and the Gardens 1869-1914 90 Ford, op. cit., 5, 8-9, 105, 141-2, 150, 159, 176, 196, 242. 118 Borrer, WSRO Addit. MS 17736, 18 May 1870; Nelson, Weekes, 26; Sussex Express, 10 June 1884; 91 nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 257; Colgate op. cit., 132, 202; John Norris, Holy Trinity Hurstpierpoint: [Chidell], op. cit., 6. notes on the church (1993), 3-7, 14-15. 119 ACC 2933/2/602; Mrs Audrey Holly’s reminiscences of the refurbishment in 1986. 92 Ibid, 15-16; DAN 2172-3; Colgate, op. cit., 280-1, 289-90; Journal of Rev. C.H. Borrer (henceforth 120 a[lice] D[ryden], ‘Danny, Sussex, the seat of Mr William Henry Campion’, Country Life 22 (March Borrer), WSRO Addit MS 17735, 3 Feb 1855; Nelson, Weekes, 12; Norris, op. cit., 12-13. 160 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Endnotes 161

1913), 418-24, [Our thanks to Christopher Whittick for identifying ‘AD’ as Alice Dryden – see Chapter 13: Danny Transformed: Private Schools and Stylish Retirement 1947-2004 Brian Dix, ‘Henry Edward Leigh Dryden’, ODNB]; Viscountess Wolseley, ‘Historic Houses of 149 Borrer, WSRO Addit. MS 17741, 10 October 1895; ACC 8419/8; King, op. cit., 216-17; Sussex Sussex: no. 1 – Danny’, Sussex County Magazine 1 (1927), 457-61. County Magazine, 28 (September 1949), 274; Sussex Daily News, 4 January 1951. 121 Girouard, op. cit., 292; Wolseley, op. cit., 460-1; ACC 2933/2/602. 150 Conversion plans deposited by courtesy of Briony Dessoutter (Danny House library); Anthony 122 Wolseley, op. cit., 460; ACC 2933/2/602; [Chidell], op. cit., 6; Girouard, op. cit., 293-8. Harrison-Barbet, ‘My experience of Danny as a school’, talk given at Danny in April 2007 (typescript 123 Wolseley, op. cit., 457; Lucas, op. cit., 200; Borrer, WSRO Addit. MS 17740, 7 August 1890; Danny House library). Wilcox, op. cit., 9-10; ‘A grand old man of Hurstpierpoint’, unidentified newscutting in Danny 151 Sussex Daily News, 10 March 1950. House library. 152 ‘Wolstonbury’, two undated prospectuses (Danny House library); information from Michael Smale 124 Wilcox, op. cit., 9-11. of Ilfracombe. 125 ‘AD’, op. cit., 424; TNA IR/58/40360. 153 Correspondence of Simon Campion and Rear Admiral Greathead with Lord Euston and officials of 126 eva Daisy Ellis, op. cit., 124-5; Mid-Sussex Times, 8 December 1908; Diana Crook, Ragged Lands the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, 18 March 1955–28 July 1956; Daily Telegraph, (2002), 8-46. 4 June 1957. 127 Mary G. Campion, ‘Danny’, The Country Home (July 1908). 154 Frederick Burn, consultant architect, ‘Historical Notes on the Mutual Households Association’ 128 Ibid; Vida Herbison, ‘Hurstpierpoint’, Sussex Life (June 1979), 27. (Danny House library); Marcus Binney, The Destruction of the Country House( 1974), 185; Ian Nairn, The Buildings of England: Surrey( 1971), 67, 266. Chapter 11: The Great War, the P.M. and his ‘Darling Pussy’ 1914-18 155 Burn, op. cit.; Anon, ‘A History of the Country Houses Association’ (c.1984) (typescript in Danny House library); scrapbook compiled by Squadron-Leader Gerald Stoneham, resident 1974-80 129 eva Daisy Ellis, op. cit., 157-8, 178-9. (Danny House library); ‘The death of Dr Isabel Little Glasgow’, Navigator (c.1997). 130 DAN 488; K. Grieves, ‘Sussex in the First World War’, Sussex Record Society 84 (2000), xvii, xxxv, 156 Verses by Lieutenant-Colonel Ronald Arthur Cox (typescript in Danny House library). 343. 157 John and Sally Grant, ‘Life at Danny’, Country Style, [magazine of the C.H.A.] number 2 (2000) 131 Ibid., 341-3; Eva Daisy Ellis, op. cit., 29, 87, 127, 164; Norris, op. cit., 21. 16; Mid-Sussex Times, 7 September 2000; Brighton Evening Argus, 16 June 1980; Catalogue of 132 eva Daisy Ellis, op. cit., 183-6. auction of British Paintings 1500-1850, Sotheby Parke Bernet and Co, 11 July 1984. 133 The narrative of Lloyd George and his ministers at Danny is taken entirely from notes [copy in 158 Information from John Grant; [Chidell], op. cit., 5; John Duthie , ‘A snapshot of Danny House Danny House library] prepared by John Campbell for a talk given there in October 2008. These in 1995’ (typescript in Danny House library); unprovenanced local newspaper cuttings (Danny collate extracts from Lord Riddell’s War diary 1914-1918 (1933) and Stephen Roskill, Hankey: House library). man of secrets (1970-74), with signatures in the Danny visitors’ book. 159 John Chidell’s research notes (Danny House library); Leslie Geddes-Brown, ‘Alimentary Latin’, The 134 WSRO, Norman and Burt archives, CC/2/1; TNA CAB 24/66/5967, 13 October 1918; Sussex World of Interiors (April 1990), 108-11; Obituary of Christopher Bowerbank, The Daily Telegraph, Daily News, 4 January 1951. 30 April 2002. 135 Mary G. Campion, op. cit., 124; Eva Daisy Ellis, op. cit., 185-6. 160 Gil Saunders, ‘Living the Good Life with Danny’, Sussex Life (March 1998), 30-2; Ysenda Maxtone 136 John Campbell, If love were all (2008), 140-3; A.J.P. Taylor, ed., My darling Pussy (1975), 22-5. Graham, ‘Where life begins at 80’, Town and Country Property; Duthie, op. cit. 161 ‘A Humane Solution for Houses’, Country Life (1 January 2004), 25; Daily Telegraph, 7 February 2004. Chapter 12: Sir William and Katherine: Gold Mines, Revels and World War 1919-47 137 Mid-Sussex Times, 9 September 1919; Sussex Daily News, 5 December 1923; [Chidell], op. cit., 5. 138 nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 371; Crook, op. cit., 52-3; Wolseley Collection scrapbook, Hove Library Rare Materials, 47; The Times, 9 November 1939. 139 nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 276; The Times, 19 May 1920; postcard AEB 3528 dated July 1924, in possession of Rendel Williams; Wolseley Collection scrapbook, 41, 52; Curwen, op. cit., 241. 140 G.C. Bolton, ‘Sir William Robert Campion’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition; West Australian, 8 June 1931; DAN 2192-6; Anon, A Short History of Government House (1980s); Information supplied by Tom Reynolds, Archives Research Officer, State Records Office of Western Australia. 141 Mid-Sussex Times, 14 July 1931. 142 The Times, 4 January 1951; M.S.R.G., ‘Colonel Sir William Campion’, Sussex County Magazine 8 (1934), 72; Nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 370; Vivienne Manchester, ‘Memories of Hurst’, Mid-Sussex Times, June 1974. 143 Ibid; Ian Nelson, Hurstpierpoint School (2006), 160; Herbison, op. cit., 23, 27. 144 Mid-Sussex Times, 2 October 1981; Anton Bantock, ‘Lady’s Maid to Countess Temple’, Malago, vol 9 (February 2006), 1-4; Reminiscences by William Thomas (Danny House library). 145 John H. Laurence, ‘Claude Albo de Bernales’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition. 146 The Tatler, 26 June 1940; King, op. cit., 199-200. 147 Mid-Sussex Times, 2 October 1981; Nelson, Hurstpierpoint, 373; The War Diaries or Intelligence Summary, Le Regiment de la Chaudiere. 148 Information supplied by Stewart Angell of Eastbourne and Tim Wren of Hurst Historical Society. Index

Places, except as indicated, are in Sussex. Persons, except as indicated, are of Hurstpierpoint. Italics refer to an illustration.

Alexander, Princess of Teck; visited the Sunshine Bonn, Leopold Bernhard, German-Jewish banker; Home, 102 leased Danny, championed the Deaf, 101 Almack, Captain and Mrs; leased Danny as a ‘Country Boorde, Dr Andrew, Tudor physician; distrusted the House Party’ hotel, 132-3 south wind, 14 Arnold, butler, with fond memories of Danny life, Borden, Canadian prime minister; conferred at Danny, 136-7, 139 126 Austen, Jane, novelist, 72, 75 Borrer, Carey Hampton, dynamic High Church rector for 57 years, terse diarist, 81, 83, 90-1, 101, 111, Bacon, Sir Francis, garden theorist, 23 141 Balfour, A.J., Foreign Secretary; conferred at Danny, Borrer, Nathaniel, of Pakyns Manor (father of CH), 126-7 philanthropic patron of rectory, 80-1 Barry, Charles, architect of parish church, 80 Bower, Edward, artist; painted Charles I on trial, 51-2, Bateman, John, curate, possibly seditious crony of 53 Henry Campion, 48 Bowerbank, Christopher, colourful architect of Batterson, skilled London bricklayer, 54 fountain, dining room and annexe for CHA, Beard, Ralph, lawyer used by George Goring III, 35 147-8, 66, 143, 144 Bearstake(s), copyhold farm, 31, 42-3, 83-4 Bowett, Sir William, lord of manor, 5 Beaumont, Admiral, notable, 125 Boyle, Richard, Earl of Cork, rich father-in-law of Bedlam Street, 1-3 George Goring IV, 31 Bedwin, Owen, excavator at Wolstonbury Hill, XIX Brand, Henry, first Viscount Hampden (father of the Beeching, Henry, farmer at Randalls, 100; Samuel, Honourable Gertrude), Liberal MP for Lewes, farmer at Washbrook, 100 Speaker of the House of Commons, 93, 96 Bernales, Claude Albert de, gold miner and financial Brand, Henry, second Viscount, governor of New buddy of Sir William Campion, 138 South Wales, 97 Berry Ivy, fairy, 131 Breachlands, copyhold farm, 75, 100 Berwick, Duke of, Jacobite friend of Henry Campion, 49 Brick-making, 25 Bethune, Captain, Southdown Hunt follower, 90 Brown, Sir Stephen, CHA resident, President of the Bill, Henry, Lewes lawyer, relative of Peter Courthope CBI, 148 II, 43-4 Budgen, Richard, eminent Lewes surveyor, 63, 68 Bisshopp, Sir Cecil; installed sash windows at Parham Bunney, James, head gardener 1881-c.1927, prize House, 57 exhibitor, rainfall measurer, 88, 111-15, 135, 116, Blackman, Henry, Lewes wine merchant, partner of 120; William (father of James), head gardener Edward Campion, 70 c.1870-81, prize medallist and judge, 83, 88, 92 Bland, Samuel, lawyer, resident at Danny; advised Burgess, Ian, developer; bought estate and sold George Goring III, 31-2, 42 contents of mansion, 145-6 Blandford, Thomas, loyal footman, 79 Burke, J.B., author of Visitation of seats and arms Blaxland, Noel, daughter of pioneer Australian wine (c.1852), 24, 64, 68, 75 grower; married Frederick Campion, 97 Burrell family of Cuckfield, iron masters, related to Blencowe, John, Liberal MP for Lewes and landowner; Peter Courthope II, 37, 38-9, 40-1, 43 married Frances Campion, 84 Burrows, Richard, owner of Danny since 2004, 151-4, Bolingbroke, Viscount, Jacobite contact of Henry 146 Campion, 49 Burry family, freeholders at Randalls, 63

163 164 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Index 165

Burton, Dr John, topographer, admirer of Henry William John I; praised by J.N. Repton, 72, 75, John (son of Peter II), briefly MP for Bramber, 43 sale of estate 1983, 145-6 Campion, 60 80, 81, 80 nathaniel (brother of Peter I), ill-fated pioneer Danny House (1983-2004) Buxton, the Honourable Doreen; captained Liberal Jane, spinster archery champion, 78 spice trader, 37 sale to and occupation by MHA, renamed The stool ball team at Newtimber, 133 Katherine, née Byron, related to poet; married Peter I, owner of Danny 1653-7, Kentish cloth Country Houses Association, 146-9, 66, 143, William Robert, vigorous church, charity and merchant, Parliamentarian, Sheriff of Sussex, 3, 144, 145 Cade, John, yeoman and murderer, 5-6 war worker, 98, 123, 131-8, 132 35, 37-8, 43, 45 Danny House relaunched (2004-13), 150-4, 9, 146, Campion, Sir William, of Combwell in Kent, ardent Mary, artist and ‘ornamental draughtsman’; Peter II, grandson of Peter I, owner of Danny 147 Royalist; killed at Colchester, armour at Danny, 33, awarded OBE for VAD work, 115, 119-21, 1657-1725, High Tory, naturalist, friend of Ray Danny, place name, 3-4, 13 47, 41, 42 123, 128, 131, 133, 103 and Willughby; laid out the New Way, probable Dapps, copyhold farm, 2, 31, 42-3, 63, 69 Campion family of Combwell and Danny: see Priscilla, docile spinster, 70, 78 patron of cricket, 38-45, 47-50, 48 Denny, Edward, Earl of Norwich, powerful brother- pedigree for fuller coverage, 50, 51 simon, owner of Danny 1951-76, farmer, cricketer; susan, probable anti-Jacobite, 48 in-law of George Goring II, 27-8; Honora, his Alice, ‘Elsie’, turkey breeder, tariff reformer; leased mansion to schools, then to MHA, 47, Covert, Sir Thomas, of Slaugham, unhelpful son-in- daughter, wife of James Hay, Earl of Carlisle, 28, 108 married Charles Phillimore, 115 121, 125, 132, 136, 138,141-4, 146, 129, 139, law of George Goring III, 35 Dodson, John, husband of Florence Campion; Sussex Barbara, née Courthope, heiress of Danny; 141 Cox, Lieutenant-Colonel Ronald, MHA resident and landowner and Liberal MP; created Baron married Henry, 47-61, 52 Wilfred, cricketer; played Bottom, 131 versifier, 145 Monk Bretton, 87, 90 Bridget, highbrow spinster; died in 1797, 72, 79 William, owner of Danny 1761-78, probably Cricket, earliest known pitch in Sussex, 44-5 Dryden, Alice [A.D.], article in Country Life, 107, 114 Charles, soldier; killed in Boer War, 100, 131, 99 manic-depressive, 52, 61, 69 Currenden, William, wagon master in Napoleonic Dunn, Thomas, layer of paving in Great Hall, 57 Charles Heathcote, rector of Westmeston, a William, wine merchant (father of Priscilla), fierce evacuation plan, 73 Duthie, John, CHA resident, lotus-eater and pen- courteous correspondent, 78, 89 Tory; possibly painted by Lawrence, 69-72, 77 Curwen, Cecil, excavator at Wolstonbury Hill, XIX, portraitist, 148 [Charles] Walter, barrister, cricketer, Examiner of William Henry, owner of Danny 1869- 133 Dyke farm, Poynings, 100 parliamentary legislation, 87, 90, 93, 97, 1919, farmer, High Churchman, magistrate, 103, 95 Conservative, Crimea & Mutiny veteran, Dabson-White, Vera, CHA resident, artist, 149 Edward VII, king, visit to Danny, 103 David, owner of Danny 1976-83, father of Colonel in Fourth Sussex, huntsman, 87-8, 90- Dacre, Joan, heiress, 5; Sir Thomas, manorial lord, 5 Edwards, Charles, joiner working on Great Hall, 58 James; sold house and estate to Ian Burgess, 1, 93-5, 100-103, 105-21, 123, 126, 131, 94, Dalrymple, Rita, housemaid at Danny, 136-7 Ellis, Eva Daisy (née Randell), daughter of Liberal 146, 129 129 Danby-Hunter, Major F.J., headmaster of builder, and local chronicler, 125 edward, wine merchant at Chichester (father of William John I, owner of Danny 1811-55, Wolstonbury College, 143 Euston Lord, chairman of SPAB; advised Simon Frances), 70-2 magistrate, huntsman; helped fund new church, Danny Great Deer Park & lodge, XXI-XXII, 1-4, Campion on grants, 143-4 edward, soldier, robust diarist of Omdurman 69, 72, 75-81, 80 6-11, 10, 12, 18, 19, 20 Eworth, Hans, artist; painted Anne and Gregory campaign; gassed at Ypres, 97-99, 123, 131, 98, William John II, owner of Danny 1855-69, Danny House (1582-1653), 1, 22, 25, 26a, 28, 29 Fiennes, 7, 17 124, 125, 130 magistrate, farmer, High Church patron of Building and contents, 14-25, 30, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36 elizabeth, née Patheriche, well-endowed; married Hurst College, 83-91, 84, 86, 93 Gardens, 24, 30 Fiennes family of Herstmonceux and Danny, 5 William, 61 William Robert, Sir, owner of Danny 1919-51, Little Park, 24-5, 35, 42, 10, 34 anne, née Sackville (wife of Gregory), friend of Frederick, Anglican priest, founder of Bush Liberal-Unionist MP for Lewes; commanded Lord Goring’s Way, 30-2, 10 George Goring II, 7, 13, 27, 36 Brotherhood, chaplain to the Fourth Sussex, 97, Fourth Sussex at Gallipoli and in France; Danny House (1653-1947), 103, 104, 118, 122 Gregory, tenth Baron Dacre, gilded courtier; 123 governed West Australia 1924-31; High Building and ‘improvement’, 42, 52-9, 63, 69, 75, plagued by poachers; dismantled the Great George, soldier; buried at Cape Town, 78 Churchman, charity-worker, sportsman, 97, 93, 105, 55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 62, 63, 66, 71, 75, Park; sold the estate in 1582, 1, 7-11, 13, 17 Gertrude, née Brand; married William Henry; 123, 125, 128, 131-8, 141, 129, 131, 133, 134 105, 106, 107 Mary, née Nevill, tenacious mother of Gregory, 7, 17 devoted church worker and gardener; launched Carpenter, R.C., architect of Westmeston rectory, 78 Contents, 52, 54-8, 75, 85-7, 105-111, 131, 60, Richard, Sir, husband of Joan Dacre, 5 Chichester House and Sunshine Home, 93, Carter, Jenny, ‘Nanny’, fondly remembered family 64, 65, 67, 81, 87, 89, 91, 109, 110, 111, 112 Thomas, ninth Baron Dacre (father of Gregory), 95-7, 100-103, 105-21, 123, 131, 96, 97 retainer, 93, 135, 96 Dances, Fayres and Revels, 89-90, 95-6, 101-02, hung at Tyburn, 6-7 Harriet, née Kemp; married William John Chidell, John, CHA resident, diligent historian of 125, 136, 139, 145, 135, 136, 137 Figg, William, eminent Lewes map maker and II; talented artist, Evangelical cottage visitor, Danny, 149 estate management and leasing, 43, 60, 63, 75-6, surveyor, 68, 73 ambitious gardener, 83, 87-9, 91, 85 Churchill, W.S., Minister of Munitions; conferred at 78, 83-4, 100-101 Fourth Sussex Regiment (Volunteers), 94, 123, 125, Henrietta, née Heathcote, well-endowed; married Danny, 126-7, 143 Gardens, 7, 56, 64, 69, 75, 88, 111, 113-15, 59, 128, 131 Henry Courthope [Campion]; died young, 61 Clayton and Bell, Messrs; supplied memorial window 70, 76, 116, 117, 119 Freeman-Thomas family of Willingdon, Liberal Henry, effectively owner of Danny 1725-61, ultra- to W.J. Campion II, 91, 84 Landscaped park, 42, 63-9, 75, 111, 68, 72, 73, Sussex landowners and imperial governors, 93, Tory MP for Sussex, Jacobite activist, keen Cobb, Thomas, artist, 118 113, 114, 115 133, 135 farmer; remodelled south wing, Great Hall and Cort, Hendrik Frans De, Flemish landscape artist, Royal visits, 102, 103, 136 Funnel, Esther; directed Edward VII, 103 offices1728 -31; funded pest-house and school, 69, 74 servants, XIX, 79, 84, 93, 101, 105-6, 135-9, 96, 102 Furlonger, Fred, fiddler, 101 47-61, 107, 52, 53, 54 Costello, Captain Robert, ill-fated headmaster of sport & recreation, 79, 84, 90-1, 97, 102-03, 136, Furnese, Sir Henry, Whig MP for Bramber, 43 Henry junior; mercantile career in India savagely Montpelier College, 141-2 82, 100, 101 cut short, 60-1 Court Bushes, copyhold farm, 10 World War Two, 138-9, 138, 139 Galloway, Ambrose, Lewes merchant, 56 Henry Courthope [Campion], owner of Danny Courthope family (see pedigree for fuller coverage, 43) Danny House (1947-83), 141 Gatacre, General, ‘idiotic’ speechmaker in Sudan, 98-9 1778-1811, magistrate; expanded estate and alexander (son of Peter I), Kentish iron master, 37 Montpelier College (1947-50), 141-2, 142 Glasgow, Dr Isobel, MHA/CHA resident, pioneer landscaped park, 63-73, 75, 69 George, of Whiligh, Henry Campion’s ‘house Wolstonbury College (1950-4), 142-3 doctor in Ulster, 145 Jane, née Austen, related to novelist; married keeper’, 60 Mutual Households Association (1956-83), 144-5 Glynde Place, 26b 166 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries Index 167

Goring family of Danny and Lewes (see pedigree for Horsfield, Rev. T.W., historian of Sussex, 75, 79 Lucas, E.V., topographer, XVII, 111 of Sussex politics, 50 fuller coverage, 23) Hurstpierpoint, XXIII Luxford family, sometime freeholders at Randalls, Peskett, Frederick, market gardener, 100 anne, née Denny, wife of George II, custodian of Advowson, 35, 63, 81, 95 2-3, 35 Phillimore, Charles; married Alice Campion; penned Danny, 1602-c.1606, 13, 27-8 Charities, clubs and schools, 60, 79, 83-4, 95, 97, arthur, witness at highway dispute, 42 amusing reminiscences, 93, 95, 102, 115 George I, owner of Danny 1582-94, lawyer, 111, 136 Thomas, probably Park Keeper, 7 Pierpoint family, knights and lords of Hurst manor, Receiver-General of the Court of Wards, MP Chichester House, 95-6 Thomas, leader of poaching gang, 10 3-5, 93 for Lewes; largely completed mansion within Fire brigade, 105, 135, 121 effigies in Hurst church,4 -5, 14, 15 footprint of hunting lodge; died in debt to Home Deer Park, 1, 3, 6, 10, 35, 34 Madden, homeopathic doctor, 89 simon; created Danny deer park in 1239, 3 Crown, 13-14, 18-19, 25 Inns, 31, 43, 72, 83 Marchant, Thomas, of Little Park farm, yeoman, simon; confirmed its grant in 1333, 3 George II, owner of Danny 1594-1602, Courtier, Manor house, 1, 3, 6, 7 fish-farmer, meticulous diarist, friend of Henry MP for Lewes, strapped for cash, 13, 27-8, 37 Market, 83, 100 Campion, 44-5, 48-50, 52, 60 Rabbit warrens, 1, 25, 31, 7, 11 George III, Baron Hurstpierpoint, Earl of Parish church, 33, 37, 42, 51-2, 60, 70, 72, 75, 81, Maresford, copyhold tenement, 3, 63 Randalls (Randolphes), freehold farm, 2, 3, 63, 69, norwich, owner of Danny c.1606-c.1630, 100, 45, 78, 80, 83, 99, 130 Margary, Ivan, expert on Roman roads, 3 100 comely favourite of James I, close adviser st John’s College, 90-1, 95, 102, 135, 138-9, 141, Martin, Barbara and David, historic building Randidles, copyhold farm, 2, 73, 75 to Henrietta Maria, MP for Lewes; besieged at 84, 93 surveyors, 8-9, 155 Ray, John, eminent pioneer botanist, life-long friend Colchester, ruined by Civil War, 13, 28-35, 37, 38 scouts, XVII, 134, 136, 4 Mary, queen, visit to Danny, 136 of Peter Courthope II, XVIII, 38-43, 46 George IV, owner of Danny c.1630-53, Courtier, sunshine Home, 102, 123, 131, 135 Maud, Sister, crippled supervisor of Sunshine Home, Reading, Lord, Ambassador to United States; intrepid cavalry general, ruined by Civil War, 102 conferred at Danny, 126-7 30, 31-5, 35, 40 Jansen, Cornelius, portrait painter, 37, 41, 43 McQueen, Brigadier, CHA resident, ‘cerebral staff Repton, J.N., architect; planned improvements at Lettice, née Boyle, childless, possibly ‘neglected’, Jefferies, Richard, author and naturalist, fond of officer’, 148 Danny, 75 wife of George IV, 31-2, 35 Wolstonbury, XVIII-XIX Megrams Bank, copyhold tenement, 3, 63 Reynberd, Hildebrand, revolting Hove villain, 4 Mary, née Neville, wife of George III, 30-1, 35 Jekyll, Gertrude, garden designer, friend of Mary Milner, Viscount, War Secretary; conferred at Danny, Richardson, Jonathan the elder; possibly painted The Goring, Henry, of Lewes and Ovingdean, brother of Campion, 115, 119 126-7 Apotheosis of Charles I, 52, 54 George I, 13 Jenner, Mary Anne, owner, then tenant, of Tott farm, Mitten family: Richmond, George, portrait painter, 96, 97 Goring, Sir Henry, of Highden, Jacobite plotter, 50 84 annie (daughter of William II); married A.R. Riddell, Sir George, newspaper owner; rented Danny Goring House, London, 29-30, 34 Jupp, George, game keeper’s son; migrated to New Wallace, XIX, 89 for Lloyd George, 125, 127-8 Goring, William, of Burton, father of George I, 13 Zealand, 89 Flora (her sister), photographer and early female Rigden, Peter, CHA resident, up-market car salesman, Grant, Mr and Mrs John, CHA administrators at pharmacist, 119, 123 148 Danny, 148 Kemp, T.R. (father of Harriet Campion), Radical MP William I, butler, XIX, 79 Roman road and remains, 1, 3 Greathed, Rear-Admiral B.W., zealous master-mind of for Lewes, Evangelical and developer of Kemp William II, pharmacist and skilled botanist, 88-9 Russell and Sons, Portsmouth photographers, 105 MHA, 144 Town at Brighton, 78, 83 More, Sir William, builder of Loseley House in Surrey, 25 Greening of Brentford, plantsman, 56 Kempe, C.E. (cousin of Harriet), designer of stained Mortimer, Roger, artist; painted ‘sham windows’ for Sa(u)nderson, John, architect; supplied Henry Grimm, Samuel H., topographical artist, 64, 30, 71, glass and furniture; worked maybe at Danny, Henry Campion, 54-5, 58 Campion with design for south wing, 54 72 100, 105, 99 Scholfield, Harry, schoolmaster, cricketer and father Grimson, awesome butler, 101, 136 Kerr, Philip, private secretary to Lloyd-George; Nairn, Ian, architectural historian, 18, 58, 144 of Paul, 136 conferred at Danny, 127 New Way, 2, 42-3, 10 Scott, Helen, accomplished CHA cook, 148, 140 Hamper, William, topographer, XIX, 6 Kerr, Robert, architectural theorist, 108, 110 Northcliffe, Lord, newspaper owner; conferred at Shaw, John, London merchant; bought lordship of Hankey, Sir Maurice, Cabinet-Secretary; conferred at Kidd, aged shepherd visited by the Honourable Danny, 126 manor and advowson of rectory, 35 Danny, 126-7 Gertrude, 95 Shirley, Sir Thomas, embezzler and builder of Wiston Hardman, John; supplied stained glass for church, 81, Ogilvy, Honourable Bruce, CHA resident, 145 House, 27 100, 80 Law, Bonar, Chancellor of Exchequer; conferred at Oliver, John, owner of Lewes inns, relative of Peter Sinden, Miss, secretary at Montpelier College, sister of Harrison-Barbet, Anthony, happy boarder at Danny, 126-7 Courthope II, 43 Donald, 142 Montpelier College, 142 Lawrence, Sir Thomas; possibly painted William Ormonde, Duke of, Jacobite associate of Henry Smale, Michael, pupil roasted at Wolstonbury College, 143 Hart, John, schoolmaster, possibly seditious crony of Campion of Lewes, 72, 77 Campion, 49-51 Smith, J.M., designer of Minton tiles at Danny, 105 Henry Campion, 48 Lawrence-Smith, Dolly, suffragist and Gloriana, 102 Smuts, prime minister of South Africa; conferred at Harvey family, Cornish Methodist dairy farmers at Legas, probably John, of Lamberhurst furnace; Pack, Rev. Augustus; married Frances Campion, 78 Danny, 126 Randalls, 100 supplied fire back to Henry Campion, 58, 65 Paget, Major and Mrs; rented Danny in 1920, 132 Southdown farming and society, XIX, XXI Hatches, copyhold tenement, 2, 63 Lewes, 13-14, 25, 27-8, 35, 37-9, 56, 70, 83, 97, 123, Palmer, Sir Thomas, builder of Parham House, 19, 25 Spalding, C.B., animal painter, 111 Hathorn, John, gifted London carpenter, 13, 24 132, 24 Parham House, 19, 22, 25, 57, 26c Spooner, Miss, Matron of Chichester House, 96 Hautbois (Abbey) farm, 43 Little Danny farm, 31, 79, 83, 100, 138, 141 Patheriche, John, benefactor to the Campions, 69 Spruce, Richard, botanist friend of A.R. Wallace, 88-9 Hay, James, Earl of Carlisle, crucial patron of George Little Park farm, 44, 49, 49 Pearsey, John, Captain of fire brigade and Master of Stapley family of Patcham: Goring III, 28, 108 Little Washbrook farm, 78-9 Ceremonies, 101 antony, regicide, brother-in-law of George Head, Elizabeth, servant at Danny, 79 Lloyd George, David, prime minister; momentous stay Pelham family of Laughton, 27, 33 Goring III, 33, 35, 42 Herbison, Vida, local chronicler; rode at Revels, 136 at Danny, XIX, 125-9, 123, 126, 127, 128 Henry, prime minister, patron of Henry Campion sir John (his son), belated Royalist, 40, 42 Herstmonceux castle and church, 5, 9, 16 Loseley House, Surrey, 25 junior, 51, 60 Philadelphia (Sir John’s daughter); married Peter Hoppner, John, painter, 72, 69, 79 Louis XIII, king of France, 29, 39 Thomas (his brother), prime minister, Godfather Courthope II, 42, 43 168 Danny House: A Sussex Mansion through Seven Centuries

Stevenson, Frances, ‘Darling Pussy’, secretary and George, surgeon (grandson of Richard I), Deputy mistress of Lloyd George, 128-9, 128 Lieutenant; felt belittled by Campions, 81, Stringer, Maggie, fairy, 131 89-90, 96-7 Strood (Stroud), copyhold tenement, 2 Georgiana, George’s daughter; assisted Benefit Swale, Doctor, fervently Royalist rector, 32-3 association for Reduced Ladies, 90, 97 Swinderens van, Dutch diplomat renting Danny, 133, Grace (daughter of Richard I); excited by 136 illuminations in 1802, 72 Hampton, surgeon (son of Richard I); disliked Taylor, Barkell, accountant, financial saviour of MHA, William John Campion I, 80 144 Richard I, surgeon; dosed servants at Danny, 73, 80 Thomas, Bill, footman in 1938-9 with fond memories, Richard II, surgeon, fossil and urn collector; 137-8 clashed with William John Campion I over Tott, copyhold farm, 78, 83, 146 turnpikes, sand and locked transept door, XXI, Tower, Rev. Ferdinand; married Mary Campion, 87, 79-80 89; Walter (his son), stained glass maker, 100, 125 Wemyss, Admiral; conferred at Danny, 127 Townland farm, 63 Westminster School, 138-9, 138 Tradescant, John, Royal Gardener used by George White, Benjamin, Lewes physician and money lender, Goring III, 30 relative of Peter Courthope II, 43 Tugwell, Winnie, fairy, 131 White, Rev. Gilbert, naturalist and author, XIX, 41 Tulley family, Hurst tradesmen: White, Roger, architectural historian, 58 C.F., welcomed Sir William Campion home, 135 Whitpaine, Robert, skilled local map maker and Gordon, danced a polka with Gertrude Campion, surveyor, XXI, 2, 18, 22-4, 31, 37, 42, 1, 7, 33, 101, 103 47, 48 Percy, leader of Resistance Patrol, 139 Wilcombe (Warren) farm, XXI, 28, 35, 7 Tupper, George, Danny tractor driver, 138, 139 Wilcox, Alfred; described gardens for Garden Life, 111-15 Utting, R.B., engraver, 84, 86 Willughby, Francis, pioneer naturalist, close friend of Peter Courthope II, 38-41 Wakehurst Place, Ardingly, 26e Wilson, General Sir Henry; conferred at Danny, 126-7 Walker, Bill, pianist, 101 Wilson, Sir Thomas Maryon, early photographer, 84, Wallace, A.R., eminent naturalist, friend of Darwin; 86 married Annie Mitten, XIX, 88-9 Wiston House, 27, 26d Wanborough, copyhold farm, 75 Wolseley, Frances, Viscountess, garden designer, close Warenne family, Earls of Surrey and lords of Lewes friend of Mary Campion, 107, 111, 114-5, 131-3 Rape, 3 Wolstonbury Hill, XVII-XXI, 72-3, 84, 91, 102, 126- Washbrook, copyhold farm, 63, 100 7, 3, 5, 6, 7 Wealden farming and society, XIX-XXIII Wood, Joseph, turner working in Great Hall for Henry Weekes family: Campion, 57 arthur (son of Richard II), barrister and magistrate, Woodard, Nathaniel, High Church educationalist; 125 launched St John’s College, 90 arthur II, Captain, M.C., killed in France, 125 Wulfstan, long-forgotten pagan war-lord, XIX