The house now named Glynde Combe was originally opened as the Glynde Convalescent Home, built in 1891 in the south-east corner of a field that, in 1717, was known as Frenchman’s Field.

The field, just over five acres in size, was still known by that name in 1792 when Thomas, second Viscount Hampden, owner of the Glynde Estates, leased it, along with ‘the Place Farm or Great Farm, the Lawn, Orange Home Paddock, Cowham Brook, the Ragged Lands, Westfield and Church Field’ to John Ellman when he succeeded his father Richard as tenant of the Great Farm. By 1838, the year of the Glynde tithe map, Frenchman’s Field had been incorporated into an arable field that was named Nineteen Acre Bottom (even though it comprised just sixteen and a half acres).

The idea of a Convalescent Home for sick children from London seems to have been that of Mrs T S Brand the daughter-in-law of Henry B W Brand, Lord Hampden, and owner of the estate. The site for the Convalescent Home was given by Lord Hampden and the estate paid a considerable part of the building costs, the estate accounts showing that Charles Weller, the builder, was paid as much as £263 for the work.The Home was built to accommodate the staff and between eight and ten children. Unfortunately no account books or registers regarding the Home have survived.

The Convalescent Home lasted for more than a quarter of a century and some of the children must have been very ill as Ada Bryant from the Convalescent Home, aged 13, was buried in Glynde churchyard 30 December 1892 . In 1916 Amelia Davis, aged 8, and Gladys Christine Sherwood, both from the Convalescent Home, were also buried at Glynde. Gladys Sherwood was the daughter of John James Sherwood, 4 Molassine Flats, Tunnell Avenue, East Greenwich, a motor transport driver on active service. She died, aged 7, from a brain tumour while being treated for gastritis at Glynde Home. Her inquest of 23 September 1916 recorded a verdict of death by natural causes. In 1908 Margaret Daisy Dutfield from the Home, aged 16, was buried but her age suggests she may have been one of the staff.

Kelly’s directory of 1899 named the matron as Miss Seath and on the 1901 Glynde census two members of staff, Mary G Leedes, aged 36, described as a hospital nurse, born in Cambridgeshire, and Margaret A Eden, 18, domestic servant, born in Teddington, Oxford, lived at the Home with seven children from London:- Margaret Lane, 12, Edith Blight, 13, Edith Marsh, 8, Charles Trusly, 8, John Newell, 6, George Bland, 6, and Alfred Warburton, 3.

In a newspaper report of a fete and bazaar held to raise funds for the Convalescent Home in 1901 the Matron was named as "Nurse M Leedes-Ennals" and in 1915 Miss Leedes-Ennals (presumably the same person as Mary G Leedes, above) was still the Matron.

Sometime near the end of, or just after, the Great War, the Home closed and became a private residence named Glynde Combe. The first private resident was probably Mrs Thomas Brand, the inspiration behind the Convalescent Home. She was the widow of Thomas Seymour Brand and mother of Humphrey Brand. Mrs Brand lived there until the second world war and the house, much enlarged, has remained a private house since.