This house has, at various times, been known as Seven Acres, Bridge House (probably), Dairy House, Seven Acres (again), Home Farm and Ellinge. Both the names Home Farm and Ellinge can cause confusion with other properties in the village with the same or similar names. The house took its original name from the field on which the house was built in the south-west corner. The Glynde estate account books show that in January 1802 the estate spent a total of £155 7 shillings and 6 pence on ‘building New House at the Seven Acres’. The work on the new house included work by John Winch, £1 9s 2d; sundry carriages for brick, slate and tiles, £10; William Taylor for iron dogs, £1 2s 10d; and Joseph Goldsmith for carpenter’s and bricklayer’s work and board, £142 5s 6d.

By 1841 the house may have been divided into two. Elizabeth Gorringe, widow, and her family were probably living there and Joseph Duplock and his family were living at Bridge House. In 1851 the families of John Wren, agricultural labourer, and Frances Eager, widow, dairy-woman, were recorded at Seven Acres. John Wren and family were still there in 1861 along with the family of George Kenward, a carter. By the 1871 census it appears to have reverted to a single dwelling when John Hilton and his family were recorded at Dairy House. Hilton’s family consisted of himself, aged 58, an agricultural labourer, born in Jevington; his wife Sarah, 51, born in Woodmancote; and two of their children, George, 32, labourer in a chalk pit, born in East Hoathly; and Mary A, 10, born in Glynde. In 1861 John Hilton and his family may have been living at Pigeon House where they had three other sons living with them: John, 19, born in Falmer; Alfred, 19, born in Falmer; and Frank, 13, born in Glynde. A daughter Sarah, aged 1 week, was also listed but the parents must have changed their mind as the baby girl was baptised Mary Ann at Glynde church, 12 May 1861. Mary Ann would become one of the player’s in the Glynde Butterflies stoolball team but the unfortunate John Hilton the younger, a groom and coachman for Caleb Rickman Kemp a Lewes Quaker, committed suicide in 1872. John and Sarah Hilton must have left the house in 1877 as the estate account books show that on 6 Oct 1877 John was paid £2 2s 8d as the valuation of the stoves and grates he left behind in Seven Acres House.

In 1881 George Carter, an agricultural bailiff born in Wroxton, Oxfordshire, and his family were living at Dairy House and in 1901 Thomas Pickard, land agent and valuer for the Glynde Estate, aged 38, born in Lewes, and his wife Caroline H, 35, born in North Stoke, Oxford, were living in the house which was now called Home Farm. They had a 26 year old servant, Lily Oden, born in Lewes, living with them but their son Cuthbert was away at boarding school at Steyning. Their daughter Kathleen would be born at the house in 1902.

Tom Pickard had first lived at Old Farm House (now Trevor House) which had been the residence of the land agent of the estate since at least 1871. However, he thought the house too large for his small family and, after extensions and improvements were made to Seven Acres, he moved down to the end of the quiet lane, changed the name of the house to Home Farm and converted an old railway carriage he placed on the eastern end of the house into the estate office. Pickard was a keen amateur photographer and took several photographs of the house, both before and after the improvements. When he retired in the late 1930s he moved to Harveys, which he had bought in about 1922. His place as agent for the estate was taken by H Victor Brown, who had been agent for the Brand family’s other estates in the Hoo, Hertfordshire. His wife often took the village Sunday School classes at the house in the 1950s. Victor Brown retired in the 1960s and he and his wife moved to Orchard Cottage.

Home Farm was modernised and Brian Pile, farmer of the Home Farm, moved into the house. Later tenants included Mike and Caroline Warren (daughter of Richard Brickell, tenant of Glyndebourne Farm) and their four children in the 1980s, after which the house lost its association with both the estate and the farm. It was during the Warren’s tenancy the name was changed to Ellinge. This is rather misleading as Ellinge Hall is the name of the field to the east of Seven Acres and the house that was built in that field for the gamekeeper was sometimes known as Ellinge Hall and sometimes as Keeper’s Cottage.

A part of the farm buildings to the east of the house was converted into a small bungalow for Joyce Rapley to live in when she retired from working on the Home Farm. Joyce had come to the village as a land-girl in World War II and had remained working on the farm after the war. She gained many awards for her thatching prowess on hay-ricks. The bungalow is now named Little Ellinge.