•  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: ITV starts broadcasting•  1955: Glynde Place opened to the public•  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
Ragged Lands: 1905-2024
Frances, Viscountess Wolseley at Ragged Lands with John Levett, in the front, and George Funnell, behind, two of the workmen she employed to lay out the garden.
Frances, Viscountess Wolseley at Ragged Lands with John Levett, in the front, and George Funnell, behind, two of the workmen she employed to lay out the garden.
The Lady Gardeners at work
The Lady Gardeners at work
The Lady Gardeners in their best uniforms
The Lady Gardeners in their best uniforms
Elsa More, front right, gives the days orders of work to the students
Elsa More, front right, gives the days orders of work to the students
Elsa More in a postcard sent to Tom Pickard, agent for the Glynde Estates, with a small calendar for 1918 glued to the front and a patriotic ribbon tied through the top. The rather formal message on the back reads simply 'With Miss More's compliments'
Elsa More in a postcard sent to Tom Pickard, agent for the Glynde Estates, with a small calendar for 1918 glued to the front and a patriotic ribbon tied through the top. The rather formal message on the back reads simply 'With Miss More's compliments'
Two students at work in the garden.
Two students at work in the garden.
Owner
FromNameUntil
1905Glynde Estates1970
Occupier
FromNameUntil
1905Viscountess Wolseley1921
1920Elsa Moore1921
1921Miss Matheson1924
1924Mr & Mrs Hart1928
1929Mons. Chamleys1934
1934Gay Wilkinson1936
1936Douglas Sheppey1940
1950Leonard & Thelma Irvine1950
1955Roy Grant Curie1985
1985Patrick & Bridget Leigh2011

At the beginning of the twentieth century Tom Pickard, land agent for the Glynde estate, called Ragged Land ‘the best field for barley in the parish’ so it was not surprising that, according to his daughter Kathleen, he was rather put out when the field was leased to Frances Garnet Wolseley in 1905.

Frances, later Viscountess, Wolseley, was born in 1875, the daughter of Field Marshal Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1st Viscount Wolseley, KP, GCB, OM, GCMG, VD, PC who had reached the pinnacle of the British army when he served as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces from 1895 to 1900) and his wife Louisa.

Frances Wolseley had started her College for Lady Gardeners at Old Farm House (now called Trevor House), Glynde in 1902. In 1905 she rented the field called Ragged Lands, built a new house there and moved the college to the site. The students did much of the excavation for the house foundations themselves and the house was finished in 1906. There were two later additions to the house which has been known as Ragged Lands ever since.

Frances Wolseley moved out of Ragged Lands in 1918 and rented Massetts Place at Scaynes Hill with her friend Mollie Musgrave. Frances had a troubling relationship with her parents, especially her mother, who died in 1920. Although mother and daughter appeared to have been reconciled before the Dowager Lady Wolseley’s death, Frances was virtually disinherited in her mother’s will, apart from a small annuity. Her mother had left an estate of £55,000 and did not even leave Frances any of her parents’ possessions.

In 1921 Elsa More suffered what was probably a physical and mental breakdown. She gave up her post at Ragged Lands and moved to Somewhere at Glyndebourne Corner, dying there in 1933. Elsa’s ashes were scattered on Firle Beacon

Frances sub-let Ragged Lands to a Miss Matheson who tried to run the College until 1923 until she married a man named Threlkeld and Ragged Lands passed to a Mr and Mrs Hart in 1924. The property was still listed as the Glynde College for Lady Market Gardeners, Ragged Lands, in Pike's Directories until 1933. In 1934 the property was let to Gay Wilkinson as a private house and has remained so ever since

For further reading try: Jane Brown, Eminent Gardeners (1990); Frances Wolseley, Gardening for Women (1908), In a College Garden (1916), Women on the Land (1916) and Gardens, their Form and Design (1919; Marjory Pegram, The Wolseley Heritage: the Story of Frances Viscountess Wolseley and her Parents (1939); Diana Crook, Ragged Lands (2002)

Other pages for this property:   


Ragged Lands: Now

 

Listed under the Topic: Education

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