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Ecclesden Manor It is over eighty years since Skeet published his excellent history of Angmering, but a new volume of the Victoria County History series will soon be on our shelves, providing a more comprehensive and authoritative account. There may be a few surprises, and amongst them I believe will be the story of Ecclesden manor house, that imposing Tudor style building at the foot of Highdown. Skeet appears to derive his history entirely from secondary sources, such as Elwes, Castles and Mansions , of 1876. In this it is recounted how John Palmer acquired the manor at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and then at some vague date it passed into the hands of John Foster, who was living at Angmering in 1634. Elwes confines himself to saying that “the house was no doubt erected by the Fosters about the middle of the 17th century”. Skeet unaccountably gives 1634 as the date of building. Now, in 1540, with the several manors of Angmering in lay hands, and divorced from the monasteries, there ceased to be any need to keep them intact. The Syon lands were certainly broken up in the course of time, so that it may never be possible to define exactly what houses and fields were originally owned by it. The manors were by no means compact and separated areas, but very much intermingled. East Preston, West Preston, Madehurst, and Poling, are amongst external parishes and manors once owning lands in present day Angmering. Therefore the history of Angmering, subsequent to 1540, relates more to estates than to manors. There is a well known brass in Angmering church, which has a figure of an Elizabethan lady and the inscription, “Here lyeth the bodye of Eden Baker late wife of John Baker of Eglesden ...” She was indeed his first wife in 1590, the daughter of Thomas Truelove of East Preston, who died so prematurely in 1598. John’s family were to descend from his second wife Elizabeth. John Baker died in 1611, no mere farmer, but already the owner of part at least of the manors of Wick and West Preston, but principally the manor of Ecclesden. In seeming contradiction to that, it was not until 1615 that Sir Thomas Palmer of Angmering sold Ecclesden, when it went to Sir Thomas Bishopp of Parham. In reality the manor had been divided, and what Baker owned was only the manor house and its farm. John’s son Thomas died in 1641 and his land is fairly specifically defined as the, “capital messuage of Ecclesden alias Eglesden and demesne lands of the manor of Ecclesden containing 200 acres”. That is a good estimate of the area of the farm as it remained until the 19th century, extending south from the mansion to the northern boundary of Kingston at the “ Lakes of Ecclesden”. In 1671 a survey of East Preston and Kingston refers, in several places, to land adjoining “Mr Baker’s parte of Ecclesden Farme”, called “the Lakes”. There is no reason to think the farm had been sold to Foster, and when Thomas Baker’s son John died in 1673 he left his estate in Sussex, worth £300 per annum, to his sisters. It was not until 1700 that Wick and Ecclesden passed out of the family, after which its descent becomes obscure until the end of the 18th century, at which time the Revd Mr Brandon had “Eglesdean farm“ in distinction from Sir Cecil Bishopp for his “Egglesdean farm“. While the first John Baker was buried at Angmering, probably inside the church near to his first wife, his son married into a Berkshire family and moved out of the village. His tomb is in the chancel of Cunmore church, next to it his son John, and that has an inscription which reads from the Latin - “John Baker of Ecclesden in the county of Sussex gentleman died 8th January 1672“ [1673 by the modern calendar]. This brings us back to the John Foster, senior and junior, who certainly lived in Angmering from the early 17th century. One of them had the tenancy of the Shelley lands at Old and New Place, and it is entirely conceivable that they also had tenancy of Ecclesden manor house. However, it is difficult to reconcile simple tenancy with rebuilding on the scale of that fair mansion house. Unless evidence can be provided to the contrary, it is more likely that the new house dates from earlier in the century, while John Baker was still in residence. It is notable that Pevsner writes of, “Ecclesden Manor a long low, comfortable, Tudor looking building” and although he has not disputed the date of 1634, “it takes a keen eye to spot the tiny C17 touches.” In other words it may as well have been built at the turn of the century. There is a vast amount of research needed into the history of Angmering, and even the VCH will only trace the broad outlines. RW Standing August 2001 |
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