John Wisdom, carpenter, had purchased the rod of land that the copyholdType of feudal land tenure
with duties and obligations
to the Lord of the Manor house now called Wisdoms stood on in 1766. It was then described as containing a 'tenementRented dwelling
or land, barn, close and garden', late Burgess', before Days and before Stanbridges.

When Wisdom entered the property it was valued at a nominal annual rental of £1 for land tax purposes. However, in 1790 that valuation rose to £2, suggesting additions had been made to the property.

John and his wife Elizabeth Taylor, who married at Glynde church 15 April 1750, had five children; four boys, John (born 1751), Nicholas (born 1754), William (born 1756) and Thomas, born 1761), and a girl named Mary who died young (born 1758, died 1762).

In 1793 John Wisdom died and, when he was buried in Glynde churchyard on 31 December, his burial entry described him as 'many years clerk of this parish'.

Wisdoms then passed to his youngest son Thomas, by then an excise officer living in Dorset. John's second son, Nicholas, also a carpenter, now occupied Wisdoms as his brother's tenant.

By 1793 the Glynde land tax returns described the property, now with a nominal rental value of £3 10s, as a house and shop. This more than tripled the land tax assessment of £1 in 1783 and may indicate that the house and workshop, later merged together and now known as Welsted, had been built by this date.

Thomas Wisdom continued to own the property, still occupied by his brother Nicholas, until 1823 he sold it for £270 to Nicholas' son Thomas Solomon Wisdom.

Thomas Solomon Wisdom was occupier as well as owner by 1834 and on the 1841 census he was living at Wisdoms with his widowed half-sister Elizabeth Griffiths and two other women named Mary Tester and Sarah Brown. Thomas committed suicide by drowning himself in Glynde Reach in November 1841.

In a complicated will Thomas, who never married, named Sarah Brown as his Housekeeper and left Wisdoms to Elizabeth Griffiths for life, and Welsted to his brother Richard. However, Richard, who was in financial difficulties and facing bankruptcy, appointed trustees to look after his affairs.

Richard's trustees advertised the houses 'in the occupation of Richard Wisdom and Elizabeth Griffiths' in the Sussex Advertiser of 12 July 1842 [LINK]. It may have been at this auction that Elizabeth Griffiths purchased Richard Wisdom's interest in the property as the land tax shows her as the owner and occupier of the whole property until 1853.

Despite this, Elizabeth's son Henry Griffiths, wheelwright and master carpenter, was almost certainly occupying part of the premises at the time of the 1851 census, and her brother Richard continued to occupy another part. Stephen Lusted and James Unstead became the tenants from 1853.

On 19 December 1855 Elizabeth Griffiths sold the premises to William Underwood, landlord of the Trevor Arms, for £350, while Lusted and Unstead remained as tenants until 1876, Stephen Lusted being named as sole tenant from 1877.

William Underwood retired from the Trevor Arms and went to live at 41 Balham Grove, Balham, Surrey, until his death in 1892 when the premises were put up for sale by auction at the Bear Hotel, St Thomas in the Cliffe, Lewes. The highest bidder, at a price of £420, was Frederick William Lusted, Glynde Post Master and shopkeeper who, apparently wanted the houses as a place for his great-aunt Maria to live in her retirement.