•  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
Rookery Cottages: 1559-1955
Rookery Cottages, on the right, c1910
Rookery Cottages, on the right, c1910
Rookery Cottages, from the west, in a postcard by Brew, c1925
Rookery Cottages, from the west, in a postcard by Brew, c1925
Owner
FromNameUntil
1549J Vynall1561
1651J Reames1655
1652J Lambert1655
1655W Simmons1678
1678J Simmons1679
1679J Denham1702
1702M Jeffery1707
1707N Jeffery1722
1722O Jeffery1730
1730J Kidder1744
1744J Harris1759
1759Glynde Estate?
Occupier
FromNameUntil
1549J Vynall1561
1651J Reames1655
1679J Denham1702
1702M Jeffery1707
1707N Jeffery1722
1722O Jeffery1730
1730J Kidder1744
1838J Turner & S Baker1838
1841J Turner1841
1851J Turner & Others1851
1861A Lockyer, J Turner, C Turner, A Turner 1861
1871J Hylands, M Hilman, A Turner1871
1881H Leppard, M Hillman, H Beach1881
1918H Hastings & W Brewer1918
1955W Funnell, K Bell & J Todd1955

This house is divided into three small cottages but the vast roof suggests that this building was a late medieval hall-house possibly built in the fifteenth century or even earlier.

This building is one of the oldest in the village and must have been built by someone of some wealth. It may have been this property that was owned by John, son of Thomas Godewyn [Godwin] in the rental of the manor of Glynde of 1462.

The first definitely known owner was John Vynall [Vinall] in 1549. Little is known of Vynall but the house was known as Melwards before 1562, when the property comprised one house and three acres. John Reames, yeoman, owned it before 1652. In 1655 William Simmons, the Glynde blacksmith who had also owned Trevor House, bought this property and in 1679 his son John Simmons sold to Joseph Denham of Glynde, weaver. Denham's widow Mercy married Nathaniel Jeffery in 1702 and they were the owners of this property on the 1717 estate map. In 1722 it passed to Oliver Jeffery, Mercy's adopted son, who sold it to John Kidder, tenant of the Great Farm, in 1739.

Kidder had also bought the plot next door where he built the house now called Hampden House. Kidder's relation John Harris, corn factor, of Middlesex sold all Kidder's property in Glynde and Beddingham to Richard Trevor, owner of the Glynde Estate, in 1759. The house was now divided into "one dwelling with part of the garden and yard; another dwelling with part of the garden and yard; a granary; and the barn which has of late years gone with the Brick House" [now Hampden House]. Rookery Cottages still had a thatched roof until the late nineteenth century, by which time it was divided into three cottages.

The name Rookery Cottages may have first been used in the late 19th or early 20th century. Edward Boys Ellman in his Recollections of a Sussex Parson suggested that the town of Lewes had gained the nickname "the Rookery" from the large number of clergymen who could be seen around the town in their black attire (Lewes Football Club are still nicknamed the Rooks). As Rookery Cottages stand next to Glynde vicarage (now named Hampden House), it is likely the name was given because of its proximity to that building rather than any reference to nesting birds. In South Heighton and Winchelsea there are roads next to their vicarages that include the word Rookery in their name.

Other pages for this property:   


Rookery Cottages: Now

  

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