•  1558: Calais lost by England to France•  1564: Birth of Shakespeare•  1570: Glynde Place completed by William Morley•  1577: Drake begins round the world voyage•  1587: Mary Queen of Scots executed•  1588: Spanish Armada defeated•  1600: East India Co. founded•  1605: Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot•  1620: "Pilgrim Fathers" land in New England•  1642: English Civil War begins•  1649: Charles I executed•  1658: Death of Oliver Cromwell•  1665: Great Plague in London•  1666: Great Fire of London•  1675: Greenwich Royal Observatory founded•  1692: Glencoe Massacre•  1694: Bank of England founded•  1701: Jethro Tull invents the Seed Drill•  1702: King William III dies•  1703: The Great Storm - worst ever recorded in British Isles•  1707: Act of Union unites English & Scottish Parliaments•  1714: George I crowned•  1720: South Sea Bubble financial collapse•  1721: 1st Prime Minister - Robert Walpole•  1723: Christopher Wren dies•  1739: Britain & Spain start War of Jenkins' Ear•  1746: Battle of Culloden•  1750: Death of JS Bach•  1753: British Museum founded•  1759: Death of Handel•  1761: Richard Ellman moves to Glynde•  1764: Hargreaves invents Spinning Jenny•  1770: New South Wales discovered by James Cook•  1773: Boston Tea Party•  1774: Priestley discovers oxygen•  1775: American War of Independence starts•  1776: American Declaration of Independence•  1783: First hot air balloon flights•  1789: French Revolution begins•  1800: Act of Union creates United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland•  1802: Beethoven debuts Moonlight Sonata•  1803: Start of Napoleonic Wars•  1805: Battle of Trafalgar: Death of Nelson•  1807: Slave trade abolished•  1815: End of Napoleonic Wars•  1825: 1st railway opens (Stockton - Darlington)•  1829: Metropolitan Police founded•  1832: Morse invents Electric Telegraph•  1837: Queen Victoria crowned•  1838: National Gallery founded•  1840: Queen Victora & Prince Albert marry•  1841: Glynde School built•  1842: Irish "Potato Famine" starts•  1847: British Museum founded•  1848: Marx & Engels write Communist Manifesto•  1851: Great Exhibition opens in Hyde Park•  1854: Start of Crimean War•  1859: Darwin's Origin of Species published•  1861: American Civil War begins•  1865: Salvation Army founded•  1869: Suez Canal opened•  1871: Trades Unions legalised•  1872: Secret ballots introduced for elections•  1873: Dr Livingstone dies•  1876: Bell invents telephone•  1878: Electric light bulb invented•  1881: Pasteur invents innoculation•  1884: Speaker Brand retires•  1884: Fabian Society founded•  1885: Glynde & Beddingham Cricket Club founded•  1887: Queen Victoria's Jubilee•  1894: Manchester Ship Canal opened•  1899: Boer War starts•  1901: Queen Victoria dies•  1903: 1st aeroplane flight by Wright Bros.•  1905: Ragged Lands established•  1909: Introduction of Old Age Pension•  1912: Sinking of the Titanic•  1914: Start of 1st World War•  1916: Battle of the Somme•  1918: End of 1st World War•  1919: 1st trans-atlantic flight•  1920: League of Nations founded•  1922: Irish Free State founded•  1924: Lenin dies•  1926: General Strike•  1928: Women get the vote•  1934: Hitler assumes power in Germany•  1936: Regular BBC TV broadcasts begin•  1939: Start of 2nd World War•  1940: Dunkirk evacuation•  1941: Japanese attack Pearl Harbour•  1944: "D-Day" landings in France•  1945: End of 2nd World War•  1946: USA tests atom bomb at Bikini Island•  1947: Sound Barrier broken•  1948: NHS founded•  1950: Korean War starts•  1951: Suez "Crisis"•  1953: Queen Elizabeth II crowned•  1954: Bannister runs 1st 4 minute mile•  1955: Glynde Place opened to the public•  1955: ITV starts broadcasting•  1957: 1st dog in space•  1958: Gatwick Airport opened•  1959: M1, the 1st motoway, opened•  1961: 1st man in space•  1963: US President Kennedy assassinated•  1965: Post Office Tower opened•  1966: England win World Cup•  1967: 1st heart transplant•  1968: Martin Luther King assassinated•  1969: 1st men on the moon•  1970: North Sea Oil discovered•  1971: Decimal coins introduced•  1972: "Bloody Sunday", 13 killed in Derry•  1974: US President Nixon resigned•  1976: Harold Wilson resigned as PM•  1978: 1st "Test Tube" baby born•  1979: Margaret Thatcher elected, UK's 1st woman PM•  1981: Prince Charles married Lady Di•  1982: Falklands War•  1984: Miners' Strike starts•  1985: Live Aid concert•  1987: Hurricane lashes South Coast•  1987: "Black Monday" Stock Market crash
Brigdens: 1514-2024
Members of the Hobden family stand in front of Brigdens cottages at the beginning of the 20th century.
Members of the Hobden family stand in front of Brigdens cottages at the beginning of the 20th century.
The thatched calf hovel at Brigdens on a postcard by the Mezzotint Co, Brighton, c1905.
The thatched calf hovel at Brigdens on a postcard by the Mezzotint Co, Brighton, c1905.
Owner
FromNameUntil
1514Thomas Musterden1537
1537John Thatcher1546
1546Glynde Estate?
Occupier
FromNameUntil
1514Thomas Musterden1537
1597Thomes Dyne1597
1598Richard Tull1598
1599Henry Perse & Robert Earle1599
1662William Heath1677
1706Henry Johnson1706
1710John Morley Trevor1717
1739William Watts1743
1746William Als1796
1799Joseph Als1814
1815John Ellman1828
1828John Ellman II1835
1851John Norman & John Norman1851
1861George Ide & John Akehurst1861
1871Walter Lawrence & J Akehurst1871
1881Arthur Baker & John Hilton1881
1901Henry Wheeler1901
1915Hobden & Wheeler1915
1927Mary Hutson1950
1950Frank & Henry Hutson1980

The Glynde Place Archive contains a document dated 23 October 1317 recording the transfer of two acres of land in Glynde from Thomas de Brykedene to Roger Bost. However, the land appears to have been in the north of Glynde parish around the area now known as Glyndebourne. Brigdens was certainly a place name in Glynde by 1440 when a ‘meadow called Westwisch near Brikedenys’ was named in a partition of the land of John Waleys. In January 1514 Thomas Brykeden, son and heir of William Brykden of Glynde, sold a messuageHouse or dwelling,
inc. outbuildings &
orchard, courtyard
or gardens
and 182 acres of land to Thomas Mustarden of Stoneham in Ringmer for £25 which appears to have been part of the land that eventually comprised Brigdens Farm.

There was then a dispute over the ownership of this property. Robert Morley leased it to Thomas Vynall in 1515 but Thomas Mustarden recovered the premises and mortgaged the premises to John Thatcher of Westham in 1537 for £30. By 1546 John Thatcher of Priesthawes in Westham owned the property and sold it to Thomas Morley, owner of the Glynde Estate for £76. The property then consisted of a messuageHouse or dwelling,
inc. outbuildings &
orchard, courtyard
or gardens
called Brykedens on the north side of the highway from Glynde Bridge to Lewes, 2 gardens, 30 acres of land, 26 acres of meadow, marsh, wood, link and bushes on north and south of the said way, and pasture for 100 sheep and 1 ram on the down of Thomas Morley called Calborough Down [now called Mount Caburn] to Pococks Crouche.

William Morley in his will of 1573 bequeathed the tenancy of Brigdens Farm for life at an annual rent of 40 shillings to his servant Richard Tull, ‘occupying it as Thomas Dyne occupied it’. William Heath probably lived there in 1662 when he paid the hearth tax on two hearths and he definitely occupied Brigdens ‘in the hole’ in 1671 when he was paying £30 a year rent. William Watts, steward for Glynde estate, was the occupier from 1739 to 1743 and shortly after this the farm was let out on a combined lease with Glyndebourne Farm. William Als, John Ellman and John Ellman the younger all rented Brigdens and Glyndebourne Farms but from 1841 to the early twentieth century the house, divided into two, was let out to village labourers and their families.

It returned to being an independent farm by 1901 when Henry Wheeler was the occupier and Wheeler and Hobden were occupiers in 1915. Mary Hutson, cowkeeper, who had lived at Lake Cottage in 1915, was the tenant in 1927 and after her death in 1950 her sons Frank and Henry, with their wives Elsie and Edie, and their sister Dorothy Hutson, became the last tenants to live at Brigdens and work the farm there.

After Henry and Frank’s deaths Elsie and Edie moved to Pear Tree Cottage and the farm was amalgamated into other farms and the house, still divided, let as two cottages.

Other pages for this property:   



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