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Cowbeech, East Sussex, England

from The Last 100 years in the History of Cowbeech
by Michael J Errey
 

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click on underlined words to see details

PART I The village of Cowbeech, four miles from the market town of Hailsham in East Sussex, has been in existence for many hundreds of years.  I don’t think it quite made the Domesday Book in 1086, but the date on our local hostelry The Merrie Harriers is 1624, just short of four hundred years and a fair indication of perhaps an even longer existence. I have lived in the village for 54 years and my parents and grandparents before me, consequently I have had passed on to me first hand many stories of its history and happenings, going back more than 100 years.  As I have approached more mature years it has occurred to me that perhaps with the ability and the knowledge that I have in my possession, I have a duty to record some of it for posterity. The village in line with the national trend has nearly doubled in size over the last 40 years with many new houses being built to the west of the Merrie Harriers, while to the east those of us in the weather boarded and older brick-built properties appear to live in a different world.  However integration has and is currently taking place: having a decent inn like the Harriers has been a great help in this ongoing operation. In 2005 as a result of this integration an evening was held called the Cowbeech Revels.  It proved a remarkable success and consequently it was decided to hold one again in 2006 as an ongoing annual event.  This year it is to be held in the garden of Old Mill Cottage, the home of Goff and Moira Bowles. I thought that this would be an ideal place to commence my history as this was the home of my great-grandfather Joseph Errey who subsequently purchased the mill itself around 1880.  The mill had in the past ground flour for bread-making.  By the time Joseph took over, the main items were animal feeds, with chicken feed being the leading product as Cowbeech was in the heartland of the Sussex poultry industry which was centred on Heathfield, where consignments of poultry were dispatched every day by rail to London, for Smithfield market.  A method of fattening the birds known as cramming was in use locally at that time. Although the mill started life as a windmill in the early 19th century, it was subsequently converted to a steam boiler-driven mill.  I have some invoices for the insurance by a London broker that my family paid, and it would seem that as now, insurance was a costly item.  Then in 1911 disaster struck: the mill was hit by lightning and severely damaged by the subsequent fire. When I arrived in the village fresh from the Royal Signals regiment in the early 50s, I met an old gentleman in the pub at Rushlake

Green called Tom Saunders, who told me he had pumped water all through the night to try and extinguish the blaze and that my grandfather had only paid him a shilling (5p) for his nights work, and consequently I had to buy him a pint. Would you believe it he tried this on several times.  The Horse and Groom got to be a very expensive place for me. The mill was not repaired and lay in a poor state for years, but in the 1960s a builder named Jim Harrison who I believe lived at Bodle Street with a yard and workshop buildings near the Brewers Arms at Vines Cross bought the site.  Jim was one of the first builders to convert derelict agricultural buildings, which eventually became quite a trend in the trade.  He produced a very satisfactory dwelling on the site in which he lived for some time.  As I was able to supply him with some of his materials from my builders merchants business in Hailsham, it provided a slight sweetener for the Errey family for the earlier disaster.       About a mile further down the road from Old Mill Cottage my grandparents Joseph Clifford and Violet Errey farmed at Studdens.  This was partly a dairy farm, and my grandmother made butter. In the summer it was lowered down the well to keep it cool – no refrigeration in Cowbeech in those days – and Cliff as he was always known took it into Hailsham market each Wednesday for sale.  My mother was born here and when she was small child she was shut in the bedroom upstairs, above the kitchen, while Violet made the butter below.  A hole was drilled in the bedroom floor so that the young Nancy could see and speak to her mother, it sounds like a hard life but that how things were done in those days, although my folk were relatively well off.   They had a riding horse requisitioned by the military in 1914 for the war. Granddad had hidden it in Studdens Wood, but when the authorities arrived they heard it neighing and calling out in the wood, so off it went to the war never to return.  I think compensation was paid, but my mother was very upset.  On one of his trips in the horse and trap to Hailsham market, granddad came home in his first motor car, which he acquired either for cash or barter.  Sorry I don’t know the make, but he managed to drive it home alright, but on putting it in the barn, he could not stop in time and the wheels came out of the back to my mother’s amusement. Thankfully the cars were more strongly made in those days, and it suffered no damage, just a few boards to replace on the back of the barn. [In the event, the 2006 Cowbeech Revels couldn't be held at Old Mill Cottage because of inclement weather. It was moved indoors to Bimsells.]

I produced this small part of my story of Cowbeech in the 20^th century especially for those attending the second Annual Cowbeech Revels on the 2nd of September 2006, and trust it will be to your satisfaction.  I hope to complete them in the near future.  MJE  26 August 2006

PART II As you leave Hailsham on the A271 and begin the climb past Amberstone Hospital you come to an area known as Carters Corner. Hidden unobtrusively in the trees on the left is Carters Corner Place, the country home of Quintin Hogg, 2nd Viscount Hailsham. During 1963, he disclaimed his title under the Peerage Act, as it was a strong possibility that he might become Prime Minister. This in fact did not happen, and in 1970 he returned to the House of Lords, having been awarded a life peerage as Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone. Quintin was a pleasant unassuming man. He regularly came into my shop in Hailsham when he came down from London. He was in fact a shareholder in my business. When asked to open the Merrie Harriers bonfire and children’s fancy dress one evening, in spite of it being a fine evening he rode up on an old bicycle with a scruffy hat and raincoat and performed his duties like the admirable gentleman he was. As you proceed down towards the village, again on the left, you come to Orchard Cottage, which has in the last few years been almost completely rebuilt, previously the home of the Catt family. In 1927 the family suffered a dreadful loss when young Leslie Catt was fatally run over by a motor car travelling up the hill from the direction of the village. He had apparently been crossing over from the site of the trug-making business and shop which his grandfather had started on the piece of land opposite Orchard Cottage which stands empty these days. Trugs made here were taken to Hellingly station and dispatched to London on a fairly regular basis. As you come into the village, also on the left hand is the fairly large complex of the garage and agricultural merchants. It has quite recently changed hands after being in the Shaw family since the late 1940s. It was founded by George F Shaw, joined by his brother Bill. G.F. was always known as Chubb. This business was continued until quite recently by Chubb’s son Terry, who has now retired. The agricultural side of the business has been in other hands for several years, and a staff buyout took place in recent times. Further along the road, by a sign still in place which at one time advertised the village stores, was for the most of the 20th century our village shop. When I arrived here in 1952, this was in fact a very high class almost delicatessen type shop with fine cheeses, Birds Eye frozen foods - which were in their infancy in those days - and many other delicacies and above all the Post Office. My mother told me that in the 1920s it was kept by a man called Kemp who delivered all over the area. Just past Hammer Lane on the other side of the road, in the garden of No 2 Dallaways Cottage, Mrs Lill Saunders started to sell a few sweet peas from her garden. That was about 1958. In a matter of months this enterprise took off and developed into a full scale greengrocery business with wholesalers calling several times a week. Cigarettes, tobacco and soft drinks were sold, and most people in the area purchased salad and vegetables here. It developed into quite a shop although only contained in a couple of garden sheds. This continued until about 1977, when ill health caused Mrs Saunders to close down. I wonder what council or government officialdom would make of such enterprise today. This is of course why we all have to have cars to get to the supermarkets as we have no buses. During the 50s, 60s and 70s we had a bus service, No. 95 Eastbourne to Heathfield and Waldron. The fare was 4d. to Hailsham and 7d. return from Cowbeech. That is old pence. The bus stop was outside the Merrie Harriers. We had about 8 buses

per day in each direction. They were double-deck buses, and at 1410 hrs on Saturday afternoons three would run together as they were full up. As standing was allowed in those days you could say that between 150 and nearly 200 people would be travelling at this time of day on this service, a considerable saving in carbon dioxide emissions compared with today. The Merrie Harriers has always played an important role as a central focal point in the village. My great-grandfather Thomas Partridge was the landlord in 1908. Some time in this era the brewers were Page and Overton of Shirley, Croydon, and then Charrington’s, before it eventually became a free house years latter. The name was genuinely derived as it was a regular meeting place for the Hailsham Harriers who meet and hunted from here during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The pack was kennelled in Battle Road, Hailsham opposite the old brewery, just before you get to the Community College. This pack hunted sometimes on foot and on other occasions mounted; the quarry on some days was foxes and on others hare. Perhaps the most notable contribution to the fame of the village was provided by landlord Clifford Reed, who during the mid 20th Century was the coach to the Tug of War team. For a period of some 20 years they were the Sussex County champions and were runners up to the Royal Ordinance Corps at the national championships at the White City in London during this period. A show case in the public bar displayed over 30 trophies they had won. Training took place in the garden behind the pub twice a week. All the team members lived in close proximity, the furthest living only about eight miles away. This provided a local team that was well supported on trips as far away as Ipswich. John King was the next incumbent. He came down from London bringing a wonderful horse-drawn coach with him, which was kept in the barn and drawn out by hand on nice sunny days in the summer and left outside the pub. It caused a great deal of interest as it was a most spectacular stage and mail coach type. Food was only just becoming popular in pubs and John’s coach attracted many customers who came out for lunch especially to see it. John was followed by Jim and Margaret Grey with son Richard who in his late teens was learning to drive a car and seemed to spend 25 hours a day driving an old car around the paddock by the barn. This was more like stock car racing, creating vast clouds of dust in the dry weather.  In spite of this, the Grey’s were popular incumbents, and once a week on Thursday evenings in the winter customers cooked their own bloaters over the fire on a toasting fork in the public bar. In the summer, a coil of rope and various hooks were produced, and the Harriers became the headquarters of the Pevensey Marsh Mountain Rescue team (!), as various practices took place, which inevitably proved thirsty work Subsequent landlords have allowed the local bonfire society named after the Harriers to continue in a very professional programme of money-raising events in aid of local charities. The committee of local people working throughout the year contribute a vast number of hours organising firework and bonfire displays including children’s fancy dress competitions, a summer flower and vegetable show (“Dig for Victory”) and more recently a pantomime. On the whole Cowbeech is a rather lively place to live for a small village, and the Merrie Harriers has changed radically since those early days when it was necessary to also operate as a small holding with a dairy herd, pigs, and poultry to supplement the incumbent landlord’s income.

to be continued