By Richard Bryant, Lindfield History Project Group
Oathall Place
Mention ‘The Bent’ in Lindfield and one immediately, thinks of The Bent Arms, but who was Bent and where did he live?
When John Bent arrived in Lindfield in 1815 the parish boundary went way beyond its present limits. In December that year he made his first purchase in the area when he bought Oat Hall from Warden Sergison’s estate. He subsequently increased Oat Hall’s land by buying a neighbouring cottage and a few acres of newly enclosed land on West Common to create parkland. He resided in Oat Hall until around 1830 when he demolished it and built a new house, Oathall Place, which stands to this day at the bottom of Oathall Road, Haywards Heath.
How did John Bent acquire the money to buy Oat Hall and build such a grand house? His maternal family were tradesmen at Ashburton, Devon, where he was born on 27th March 1776. He became the MP for Sligo from 1818 to 1820. When being put forward for this seat. John Bent was described as being ‘a commissioner in Demerara’, A British Colony since 1814 on the north coast of South America, famous for its sugar. From 1820 until 1826 he was the MP for Totnes, Devon. According to the ‘History of Parliament’, John Bent ‘certainly had money, was known in the City and invested substantially in landed property in the Lindfield and Cuckfield areas of Sussex’.
The 1817 Slaves Register of the Slave Compensation Commission, a government body set up to pay compensation to slave owners consequent upon the abolition of slavery, shows John Bent as the proprietor of Plantation Vrouw Anna in British Guiana which he sold and mortgaged back to the new owner. He put in a claim for £14,000 for slaves on the plantation but did not receive compensation as they were regarded part of the new owner’s mortgage security. Clearly, John Bent had been involved with and profited from the slave trade. He was involved in a scandal in 1825 relating to a mining company in Ireland and was found not to have been fraudulent but imprudent. However, the other directors were found to have acted fraudulently.
Without doubt money made from slavery helped fund his purchase of property and land in Lindfield. He bought Manor House in the High Street in August 1824, together with fields in Denmans Lane and elsewhere. The White Lion Inn was purchased in 1827, and shortly afterwards he changed its name to The Bent Arms. Around the same time he acquired a house then called ‘Taylors or Cheater’, today South Malling Priory, 88 High Street. John Bent also owned properties in London.
He died on 6th October 1848, aged 73, and was buried at All Souls, Kensal Green, London. He and his wife had four children; three daughters and a son, Gibbs Francis Bent. Upon John Bent’s death his properties passed to Gibbs Francis Bent, who then moved into Oathall Place, and land that he owned gave rise to the name Bentswood.
Years later the Bent family connection with the house ended and its ownership changed several times. The Lindfield Parish boundary also changed placing Oathall in Haywards Heath. It was converted to flats in the 1960s before being restored in the character of an English country house and used as offices.
To the north of Oathall, towards the Common, stood Beckworth, with its entrance drive which is now School Lane. Today all that remains of the estate is Beckworth Lodge, on the approach to Lindfield Primary Academy. Taking its name from a medieval field of that name, Beckworth House was built in 1872 for its first owner Mr William Blaber, a retired merchant. It was built by Parker Anscombe, the well-known Lindfield builder. From around 1900 it was occupied by Mr Mellor Brown, described as ‘living on own means’, and his wife; looking after them were five live-in servants and a gardener.
In 1924 Major George Churcher T.D. and his wife Aida purchased the property. A member of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), Major Churcher was a respected and well-known amateur cultivator of gladioli creating new hybrid varieties and author of an RHS paper The Modern Gladiolus. An exhibitor at many major shows, he was also a keen grower of daffodils and peonies in the extensive gardens. George Churcher died in 1938 and in his memory Aida Churcher gave All Saints Church the carved oak eagle lectern.
In September 1939 at the outbreak of World War II, the Hostel of God, a Catholic Hospice from Clapham, was evacuated to the house for the duration of the hostilities. After the war it became the dormitory house for 24 boys with troubled backgrounds attending a special agricultural course at Haywards Heath Secondary School (Oathall Community College) on the recently established school farm. The house was then used by East Sussex County Council as their education and youth careers office for the area.
A purpose built nursery was constructed in the grounds and opened in January 1966. St Nicholas Nursery provided a home for babies and young children taken into East Sussex County Council care. The nursery closed in 1976 and was demolished, and replaced with St. Nicholas Court. Beckworth House was demolished in March 2000 to make way for the redevelopment of Lindfield Primary School.
A short distance east of today’s Lindfield urban parish boundary stands Walstead Place on land that a couple of hundred years ago was quaintly called Slatfields, Comin and Bridlate.
At the time of the Tithe Survey in the 1840s, the land was owned by a Captain Graham and subsequently sold to Thomas Rook Davis. In about 1851, Thomas Rooke Davis built the house, then called Walstead House, as his country residence and to provide a home for his two unmarried sisters, Ann aged 35 and Caroline aged 30. They had previously lived with their mother at the Manor House in the High Street which they had rented since 1839 from John Bent. Following their mother’s death in 1846, Thomas Davis wished to provide his sisters with their own home. He and his wife, Lois, lived mainly at their London house in Regent’s Park, London.
In January 1883, Thomas Rooke Davis died aged 86, and is notable for being the last person buried in the Lindfield churchyard. This was 28 years after its closure as the family had a vaulted chest tomb. The sisters continued to live at the house with Ann Harriet Davis as head of the household. An entry in the Mid Sussex Directory describes Walstead House as ‘the walled-in domain of Miss Davis’. Her death a couple of years later was marked in 1888 by the installation of a stained glass window in the South (Massets) Chapel of All Saints, Lindfield. The window by Warrington & Co of London cost £63. During her time in Walstead, she had been a good supporter of Scaynes Hill, especially the school, and left the village £200.
The property was then acquired by Henry Mordaunt Cumberlege and his wife Blanche. They had three sons, and in gratitude for their safe return from the Great War they commission a window, designed by C. E. Kempe & Co, for the South Chapel of All Saints.
The Cumberleges were prominent members of Lindfield society. During the Great War, Blanche Cumberlege played a leading role supporting the home front in the village. Henry Cumberlege was the Vicar’s Warden at All Saints for nearly 40 years. In 1935, following his death, a three light memorial window was installed in the east wall of the North Chapel of the parish church. The stained glass window designed by Geoffrey Webb has his mark of a spider and web in the lower right hand corner. A further panel was added in 1939 in memory of Blanche Cumberlege.
In recognition of service to the village, Blanche Cumberlege was given the honour of unveiling the Lindfield sign erected to commemorate George V’s and Queen Mary’s Silver Jubilee on 6th May 1935.
In common with many large houses, Walstead Place was requisitioned by the military during World War II. After the war, it was acquired by the County Council and converted into a residential school for 21 ‘educationally sub-normal’ boys. Subsequently the property became a privately owned retirement home.