NORTHIAM

Another village to explore further at a later date - specifically Great Dixter house and gardens. 

'Smugglers Cottage' - reputed to be the smallest house in England. I've photographed my little 125cc motorcycle next to it for scale. 

It is a real house that someone once lived in, not a playhouse for a child.  It was built in the 18^th century and  it is said that a family of five once lived there and it was one of the hiding places for smugglers connected by a web of secret passages.

St. Mary's church. From 1583 to 1914 a member of the Frewen family or their heirs the Lord family, was rector, except for a brief period in the late C17.  Their Puritan sympathies are shown by the name of the most eminent member, Accepted Frewen.  However, like most of his relatives, he conformed and in 1660 became Archbishop of York.

The war memorial, which was refurbished for the centennial of the end of World War I in 2018

Northiam has a wide variety of old buildings

The centre of Northiam is built around a green with weather-boarded houses, which are reminiscent of nearby Kent.   

The village’s water supply was always a headache. Farthings, a late 16th century home reputed to be the first house in the village to have a bath, was where the locals were allowed to take a bucket of water from the pond next to the house by the owner, on payment of a farthing. The name Farthing Pond appears on some of the early maps.

A survey in 1876 revealed that 69 dwellings relied on wells for their water, 44 on pumps, nine on spring water and six on ponds. Twenty years later it was reported that several houses were without any water supply at all. Some had to bring their drinking water from Stawberry Hole while water for washing was fetched in ‘bodges’ from the pond at Higham at a rate of 6d a bodge. In 1932 piped water arrived in Northiam but it was not until 1958 that it was supplied throughout the village.

This is the building on the village green that houses the old village pump, which supplied water to the village until 1907.

At the lower end of the village, stands Frewen College,  private Junior school which specialises in helping those with dyslexia.

Frewen College is based at Brickwall House, a 17th century country house and estate, which was home to the Frewen family, for over three hundred years. Brickwall House, really? Well, look at it! Actually, it is a Jacobean house that takes its name from the high walls that enclose its grounds.

John Frewen, a sturdy puritan who became rector in 1558, baptised his first two sons Accepted and Thankful, perhaps in recognition of his appointment. Accepted pursued a glittering academic career and was made Archbishop of York in 1660.

Not even the Frewen family vaults at the church were sacred when it came to storing contraband and it was also established that children were daring each other to run down among the coffins. The entrance was bricked up to put an end to these affronts.

John Frewen, a sturdy puritan who became rector in 1558, baptised his first two sons Accepted and Thankful, perhaps in recognition of his appointment. 

At the other end of the village, just outside the bounds, the Kent and East Sussex Heritage Railway which runs between Tenterden and Bodiam, crosses the main road, and if you're lucky, you my just catch a glimpse of something special leaving the station.......