This is the original parchment map of the plot of the house, taken from the Conveyancing document of 1920. In it the land & cottage is sold to a Mrs Preston, by the combined owners/ freeholders from the original Withdean and Tongdean Estate, about 6 of them. It shows that the plot is 148 feet on its longest side, 124.5 feet on the opposite side, 63.5 feet on the back end of the party fencing, and a mere 46 ft at the top end. This measurement is repeated in each conveyancing deed until about 1952, by which time the cottage had been renumbered twice and the road had been renamed.
There is now a garage not in this plan, and also the extension with the conservatory, which was built in 1999. It
is most 'quirky' as the Estate Agent insisted! Some friends have said only someone like us would take it on, seeing its potential under all the bindweed! It seems it was an 'Allotment Cottage', in 1912. A neighbour says the road was an Orchard.
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| 1912 Allotment Cottages are the half-timbered buildings |
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| 1925 |
From 1920 onwards the house seems to have a dual history of 'quick buck' sales and long occupation. Some owners have not lived in it, such as Mr Ogden, a Baker & Confectioner from Kemptown, so was it rented out? Others, such as the Betts, lived in it for 40 years. The Library archives should give us a good idea, especially as the Conveyancing history shows when it was no. 5, then no.12. There is a Covenant which says we cannot run it as a Pleasure or Tea Garden open to the Public !
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| 1955 |
