Catalogue description Deeds of Somerset House, Alfriston

Somerset House formed the southern part of a copyhold tenement, held of the manor of Lullington by a quitrent of 6d, late Brooker, before Smith, before Susan, before Rothwell, before Sacre (1)

On 12 February 1892 Ada Brooker was admitted to the whole tenement as trustee for sale under the will of Charles Springate Brooker (1)

On 23 June 1899 Brooker's property, described in five schedules in which the copyhold tenement formed the fifth, was sold for £750 to James Eglington Anderson Gwynne of Folkington Manor, esq, by Fanny Taylor Favell of Cotmaton Cottage, Sidmouth, Devon, widow, and Mary Naylor Brooker and Ada Brooker both of Lodore, Croydon, spinsters. The tenement then consisted of three houses, occupied by [blank] Gatland, [blank] Button and [blank] Lower (1)

On 7 August 1903 the property was enfranchised for £200 by Ada Brooker (in order to avoid fees) at the request of Gwynne, to whom Miss Brooker conveyed the fee on 4 September 1903 (1)

Gwynne died on 22 March 1915 and his will of 31 August 1903 was proved on 2 June 1915. An abstract of title to Somerset House was drawn by Messrs Raper and Fovargue of Battle and that property conveyed for £650 by Gwynne's personal representatives (his sons Rupert Sackville Gwynne of Wootton Manor, esq, MP, Roland Vaughan Gwynne of Michelham Priory in Arlington, retired lieutenant-colonel and son-in-law John Gordon Gordon-Woodhouse of Armscote, Stratford on Avon, esq) to Kate West-Comfort of Twytton House, High Street, Alfriston, music-teacher on 6 December 1922 (2). Mrs Comfort's £650 mortgage to the Lewes Building Society was discharged on 14 May 1926, on which day she obtained a further mortgage of this and other property for £1600 (3-5)

On 22 March 1928 Mrs West-Comfort, then of The Croft, Alfriston, was joined by her mortgagees to sell Somerset House to Albert Edward Baker of Saddlers House, Alfriston, motor engineer, for £835, of which £650 was raised by a mortgage to the Provident Association of London Ltd. On 23 March 1933 Baker, the occupier, sold Somerset House for £700 to Harry Wood of Cross House, Alfriston, butcher, with a covenant against the use of the premises in connection with the motor or electrical engineering trades, except by the vendor for as long as he remained in occupation (8)

Harry Wood, still at Cross House, sold Somerset House (with a covenant against the use of the premises as a butcher's shop) to Hugh Cecil Ford of 7 Gildredge Road, Eastbourne, architect and surveyor for £2000, of which £1400 was raised by mortgage to the Eastbourne Building Society, discharged on 22 July 1947 (9-11). Plans to add a single-storey hall in the yard on the north side of the property were passed by Hailsham RDC on 30 July 1947 (12, 13), for additions to a garage on its south side on 25 August 1948 (14, 15) and to add French doors to the dining room on 27 July 1960 (16)

Hugh Cecil Ford of Somerset House died in hospital at Eastbourne on 17 September 1961 and his widow Dorothea Mabel Ford, who had proved his will of 27 May 1942 on 31 January 1962, vested Somerset House in herself on 14 March 1962 (17, 18)

On 27 April 1962 plans were prepared by Clive Ford of 7 Gildredge Road, Eastbourne, for the connections of the drains at Somerset House to a new sewer under the road bordering Alfriston Tye (19)

Dorothea Mabel Ford of Somerset House died on 26 December 1989 and her personal representatives, who had proved her will on 6 April 1990, sold Somerset House to David Michael Summerfield and Ruth Valerie Summerfield on 30 October 1990 (20). They were living at 4 Wingrove, Alfriston in February 1992 when they obtained plans for work on the garden (21). In June 1996 the property was conveyed to Andrew Denning (22)

Also present with the deeds is a postcard, published by Roy Hudson Photos Ltd of Eastbourne, showing Somerset House and neighbouring properties viewed from the north; it can perhaps be died to the 1930s (23)

For copy documents relating to the Brooker family of Alfriston, see AMS6294

Documents deposited 11 February 1999 (ACC 7836)

Somerset House formed the southern part of a copyhold tenement, held of the manor of Lullington by a quitrent of 6d. The property to the north, now known as Moonrakers, was presumably the original messuage on the tenement, and Somerset House can possibly be identified with the newly-built house described as forming part of the tenement on its sale by William Smith, an Alfriston bricklayer, to James Brooker in 1827

For details of these transactions, and a descent of the tenement from 1750, see ROHAS tenement analysis P52/18

In 1899 the manorial tenement was purchased from Brooker's descendants by James Eglington Anderson Gwynne of Folkington Manor, and the three houses upon it were sold off separately by his executors in 1922 (see 1-3 below). It is clear from local directories that the name Somerset House was in use from at least 1899