Catalogue description Batemans and adjoining land, Park House Watermill and part of Dudwell Farm, purchased by Rudyard Kipling on 28 Jul 1902

Batemans

The estate as it stood in the ownership of Robert Pattenden in Jun 1797 is shown on an estate map (1/5 below) but at that date its dissolution had already begun. As a result of this dissolution the earlier title to the estate can only be derived from covenants to produce deeds included in the various conveyances off. The sources of this information are indicated by the references to later deeds given in brackets at the ends of paragraphs; the bundle handed over on Kipling's purchase begins in 1787 only

On 19 and 20 Sept 1729 Thomas Butler gent settled the property on his marriage with Elizabeth Goldsmith spinster on Henry Goldsmith and Thomas Hussey gents as trustees; his will was proved 12 Sept 1737 and on 29 Sept 1755 his daughter Elizabeth mortgaged the estate to Martha Roberts of Warbleton widow. Elizabeth married Joseph Picknall Rogers formerly of Eastbourne and on 25 Jan 1756 they conveyed to John Constable gent, Timothy Rogers of Northampton gent and Robert Rogers of St Mary Woolnoth silversmith so that the estate could be resettled by fine. On 28 Apr 1756 the mortgage was assigned to Samuel Durrant of Lewes gent and on 23 and 24 Jun 1760 the estate was sold to Richard Johnson shopkeeper, who on 24 and 25 Mar 1773 conveyed to John Freeland of Hurst Green in Salehurst shopkeeper for £950; the property was then described as a house and land (80a) called Batemans, Lanebridge, Merihams and Highland formerly occupied by Rogers, then John Langridge and now Elizabeth Langridge widow (see 4/6 below)

On 23 and 24 Mar 1787 Freeland, then of Burwash, conveyed the estate (upon which he had built a house occupied by Sutton) to Robert Pattenden yeoman (who already occupied a windmill which he had built on the land), for £1,050 borrowed from the vendor (1/1-3). [For certified copies of baptism marriage, burial entries for the Butler, Rogers and Pattenden families supplied on the sale of the windmill in 1829 see 6 below.]

On 9 May 1797 this mortgage was paid off and the term assigned to John Pattenden of Warbleton yeoman (1/4) and on 11 May the first sale off, to Robert Ellis, occurred (see 4 below)

In Jun 1797 the estate was mapped by W Williams. The map shows the house and cottage in elevation and agricultural buildings in plan, the field names and acreages and the names of neighouring owners. It has been annotated to show the areas sold away from the estate, the purchasers and the dates of sale (1/5)

On 30 Mar 1803 a field at the W extremity of the estate on the turnpike road was sold to Thomas Francis Gorringe surgeon, who on 13 and 14 Mar 1810 purchased sixteen acres further E (including the land surrounding Edward Hilder's windmill) for £703 18s 9d. Gorringe moved to Brighton and on 29 and 30 Jun 1819 sold the land (with a newly-erected barn and lodges) to Robert Pattenden junior of Warbleton farmer and James Pattenden farmer (1/6-9), whom Robert Pattenden appointed his executors with Charles Geer tailor

Robert senior died in Jun 1821 and on 19 and 20 Mar 1824 the estate was conveyed to Richard Smith Appleyard of Gt St James Street, Bedford Row esq; the Pattendens sold the Windmill Field (the buildings on which had been converted into two cottages) as owners for £530 and Batemans itself with its remaining forty acres of land as executors (with Geer) for £1,270 (1/10-14)

On 18 Jan 1838 Appleyard (now of Bloomsbury Square) sold the estate to the rev Joseph Gould clerk for £1,400 who by his will of 7 Jan 1832 had appointed his brother-in-law the rev Thomas Anderson of Felsham, Suffolk clerk and Nathan Wetherell of Pashley in Ticehurst esq his executors. Gould died 6 Oct 1866 and on 13 Oct 1868 the executors sold Batemans (57a 2r 33p) and a house, cottages and land (116a 0r 33p) part of Ashlands, enfranchised copyhold of Burwash manor, to Thomas Miller Whitehead of 8 Duke Street Mx esq for £5,311 11s 6d (plan on deed) (1/15-17)

Cottages on the site of a windmill, purchased by T M Whitehead in 1884

Robert Pattenden had built the mill before his purchase of the Batemans estate in 1787 (see 1/1-3 above) and on 17 and 18 Jul 1804 sold it to the occupier Edward Hilder miller for £300. On 28 and 29 Apr 1822 Hilder, now described as a yeoman, mortgaged the mill and covenanted to mortgage the copyhold Dudwell Mill to the rev Joseph Dodsworth of Bourne, Lincolnshire for £600. From this date the title is identical to that of Dudwell Mill (6 below) until on 5 Feb 1884 John McInnes (assignee of Honeysett's mortgage) sold two cottages built on the site of the windmill to Thomas Miller Whitehead for £160 (1/18-23)

The whole estate

Whitehead sold Batemans to Albert Jarvis, farmer, on 13 Aug 1886 (the conveyance does not survive) who on 15 Jan 1887 mortgaged it to Caroline Elizabeth Mary Shoosmith of Polegate in Hailsham widow for £1,500. On 27 Feb 1892 John Alexander Macmeikan of The Gables, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire esq, purchased a field, part of Ashlands Farm (for the title see 9 below) from Henry Stephen Noakes watchmaker for £183 15s and on 3 Mar received a conveyance of Batemans and the surrounding eight acres (plan on deed) from Albert Jarvis and his mortgagee for £1,000

On 25 Apr 1875 Macmeikan, of The Manor House, Burwash (formerly called Batemans) further charged the estate with £650 to William Henry Odlum of Isleworth gent to whom the Shoosmith mortgage was assigned. After several subsequent mortgages the estate was conveyed by Macmeikan to Alexander Carron Scrimgeour of 23 Warwick Road, Maida Vale gent for £6,500 on 13 Apr 1897, discharged from the mortgages (1/24-35)

Park House Watermill

In 1785 a plan was drawn of this property by William Barber of Burwash. Although it shows the house and buildings in detail and names the neighbouring owners, the name of the mill's owner is life blank; [in 1784 it was owned by Thomas Lord Pelham of Stanmer with the manor of Fosters and Park Farm - see SAS RF8/149 and 6/3-5 below]. By 1797 the land is shown as belonging to Mr Skinner (see 1/5 above) and John Skinner senior and junior are later named as former occupiers. The mill was in the hands of the rev Joseph Gould by 1832 and was sold by his exeutors to Francis Russell senior miller for £1,650 on 11 Oct 1867 (plan on deed)

Russell died 11 Aug 1878 and on 4 Oct his executors (Francis Russell miller, Daniel Russell of St Albans draper and Frances Elizabeth Russell spinster) sold to Samuel Barrow farmer for £2,250, of which £1,700 was borrowed from Frances Elizabeth Russell and her two sisters. On 21 Mar 1896 they leased the property to William James Richardson miller on a yearly tenancy and two days later Samuel Barrow, miller, surrendered his equity of redemption. On 11 Aug 1878 the misses Russell sold the mill and land to Alexander Carron Scrimgeour esq for £925 (1/36-44)

Cottage near Park House Watermill

The cottage was built in about 1844 by John Weston yeoman who bequeathed it to his trustees in his will of 10 Jun 1873. On 31 Jul 1884, after the death of his widow Hannah on 24 Apr, they sold it to Tom Brook carpenter for £75 12s, who conveyed to Alexander Carron Scrimgeour esq for £85 12s on 29 Sept 1900 (1/45-50)

The whole estate

On 4 Jul 1902 Scrimgeour agreed with George Alexander Macdonald of 5 Arundel Street, Strand for the sale of Batemans, Park House watermill and the western part of Dudwell Farm for £9,300

Macdonald was acting for Rudyard Kipling of The Elms, Rottingdean esq to whom the estate was conveyed on 28 Jul 1902. The following day Scrimgeour's solicitors wrote to Braby and Macdonald who were acting for Kipling promising to execute a grant of a water supply from a spring to Kipling as soon as Scrimgeour had purchased the relevant land (for which see 7/10 below) from Albert Jarvis; the conveyance, with plan, was executed on 10 Nov 1902 (1/51-55)