Mill Lane Central | Pirb Props Hist

Mill Lane - Central

This section covers the buildings in the central part of Mill Lane (excluding the Manor House, its surrounding buildings and The Mill House, which are all described in the Manor House section.

We will cover the north side of the road first, ie Pirbright Lodge and nearby buildings (Older Cottage, Groom’s Cottage, Stone Cottage, The Hay Loft). And then these 2 houses, which are on the south side of the road:

Millcroft.
The Glen.

Below is an extract from the current OS map (with thanks) and a table showing the dates of each house.

I'm a paragraph.

Pirbright Lodge (previously Mount Byron)

We now move further south-west along Mill Lane from the Manor House and The Mill House to reach Pirbright Lodge. As well as being one of the most imposing buildings in Pirbright, the garden contains some superb trees, including a giant Cedar of Lebanon.

The house

We’ll start by looking briefly at the history of the building, rather than that of the occupants. To help us we will use a very helpful drawing prepared by Lady Monica Smith (one of the owners) in the 1970s (see below). Below we have summarised Lady Monica’s own knowledge of the house, together with some of our subsequent findings.

A1 and A2 were originally (pre-1776) 2 cottages, each separate from the main house. A2 was not built parallel to A1, and is 2 steps lower than A2. When alterations were made to A2 in 1962, the old main door and side windows of the original cottage were revealed at the point marked X.
B was added to A1 prior to 1776. The wall between them is 12 inches thick (ie it was an external wall).
In 1962, near the label A1, a panel of wood was found with the inscription “John Burrows, Farnham Surrey. August 20 1822. A good harvest.” No, we have no idea either.
c1776 the then owner (Admiral Byron – a lot more about him below) joined A1 and A2 by building C (with some additional building work) to form a larger house.
At some stage a staircase was built at C1.
c1910 part of the wall was removed and a curved French Window added at D.
c1920 a porch was added at E, with other internal modernisation work.
In 1954 the first floor of A2 was let out as a separate flat (called East Flat) with an external staircase.
In 1962 A1 and B were reformed into a separate dwelling, called Older Lodge.

We have referred to most of these items in the main text below.

Pirbright Lodge - Monica Smith drawing.jpg

The combined Pirbright Lodge and Older Lodge is a Grade II listed building. We have shown the listing particulars below. Additionally the old stable block (today The Hayloft and Groom’s Cottage) is a Grade II listed building. We have shown the listing particulars in The Hayloft section below.

House, now divided. Early C19. Colour washed roughcast and render with shallow pitched slate roofs, hipped. Half-H plan with entrance front to rear. Central square block with projecting wings flanking ends and enclosing a courtyard. 2 storeys with deep eaves to central block cornice. Rendered multiple stacks to ridges of central and side ranges. Central 3 bay block with pediment. 12-pane glazing bar sash windows, three on first floor. One window on first floor of flanking bays, 2 on return fronts of wings facing courtyard, tripartite sashes to re-entrant angles. Similar arrangements across ground floor. Central doubled, panelled, doors under modillioned hood with flanking Bath stone Doric columns in antis, quadrant walls behind. Further half-glazed door to first floor left, approached up an external flight of wooden stairs. Further door to ground floor of right wing.

Street front: central three bay block with 2 flat roofed casement dormers. Three 9-pane glazing bar sash windows on first floor, 2 full height, tripartite glazing bar sash windows on ground floor behind tent-roofed balcony on thin, reeded, columns with funnel capitals. Curved ends to centre block leading to flanking wings set back to ends.

Early history to 1801

We’ll now talk about the occupants of Pirbright Lodge. We’ll start by relating a story of Pirbright Lodge, as told by Mary Cawthorn in the 1930’s:

How much of this is true? We’ll allow our readers to make up their minds about the first part. We will stick to what we know to be correct about the early history of the property, which is (in summary):

1653: Fernando Matthew (born 1596 in Reigate) was the copyholder of a tenement (ie a cottage), barn and 1 acre of land in the area known as Mansland.
1663: Fernando died (in Farnham) and the copyhold passed to his son, William Matthew.
1693: William Matthew died at Petersham, Richmond without having any children, and the property passed to his sister Elizabeth and her husband Matthew Waldren. They had been married at Farnham in 1665.
1725: Elizabeth Waldren surrendered the property to her son, William Waldren. The next year he married Elizabeth Goddard in Farnham.
1728: William surrendered the property to Ann Gosling, a widow.
1736: The copyhold was inherited by David de la Haye Dumont (David had married Jane, who was Ann Gosling’s daughter, in 1729 at Pirbright).
1753: Jane Dumont died. David Dumont surrendered the copyhold to Richard Teale of Mortimer, Berkshire.
1763: Several buildings (named as “Pot House”) appear on the 1763 Rocque map on the site of today’s Pirbright Lodge (see extract from map below).
1776: Admiral John Byron purchased the property from Richard Teale and his wife, Mary. The Admiral built a larger house by adding 2 existing cottages to the main house.
1776: Admiral Byron purchased 13 acres of land from Henry Collins.
1786: Admiral Byron died.
1792: Sir John Woodhouse, Admiral Byron’s executor, sold the property to William Wallen of Wokingham.
1796: William Wallen sold the property to Robert Shuttleworth of Wandon, Bucks
1801: Robert Shuttleworth sold the property to Henry Halsey 1, who was Lord of The Manor of Pirbright at the time. His story is told in the Halsey family section.

What do we know about these people? Until Admiral Byron moved in, the answer is – precious little. It appears, though, that most of these copyholders lived in other parts of Surrey, presumably renting the property out to local people. The Dumonts in 1736 were the first copyholders to live in Pirbright, most likely at the tenement on the site of today’s Pirbright Lodge.

Now to Admiral John Byron. John Byron was born in 1723, the 2nd son of William Byron, 4th Baron Byron and Frances Berkeley, the daughter of William, 4th Baron Berkeley. So John was born into the English aristocracy. To confirm this point, his father William had had the honour of being appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark. Despite what the reader may imagine, it was a much sought-after appointment. The holder had the ear of the King while dressing and retiring for the night.

John Byron joined the Royal Navy aged only 14, and thus began his illustrious career. Highlights included:

In 1741 being shipwrecked on the coast of Chile when he was aged only 18, and being one of the 10% of the crew to survive.
Fighting in the Seven Years War (1756-1763).
In 1765 claiming The Falkland Islands for Britain (unaware that a French explorer had established a colony on one of the other islands the previous year).
In 1766 being captain of HMS Dolphin during its circumnavigation of the world (the fastest at the time).
In 1769 being appointed Governor of Newfoundland until 1772.
In 1775 being promoted to Rear-Admiral.
In 1779, serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Leeward Islands Station during the American War of Independence.

From his habitual ill-luck in unfavourable weather conditions when at sea, he was known as “Foul-weather Jack”. He had the honour of having Cape Byron and Byron Bay on the east coast of Australia named after him by Captain Cook. Both are very well-known locations to Australian people. We have shown below a portrait of the Admiral, together with the title page of his 1768 account of the 1741 shipwreck. In 1748 he married Sophia Trevanion, his cousin (1729-1790). They had 3 children.

John Byron’s career came to an end when he attacked (unsuccessfully) a French fleet at the Battle of Grenada in July 1779. He then resigned from his post, aged 57. He returned to England, now in poor health.

We do not know why he bought the Pirbright properties in 1776 (but please refer to Mary Cawthorn’s ideas at the top of this section). It was probably he who planted the magnificent Cedar of Lebanon and a large lime tree, which was felled in 2017. His daughter was married in Pirbright in 1783, but his poor health got the better of him and he died in 1786 in his London home. He is one of the very few Pirbright residents to be pictured on a postage stamp (see right).

The following year Admiral Byron’s Pirbright property was put up for sale. The press cutting left is very helpful in explaining the extent of the admiral’s property.

Some particular points of interest to us (Warning: one should know that most of the symbols that look like f’s in the text were pronounced as s’s!):

Lot 1 was today’s Pirbright Lodge.
Lot 2 – “Duchess Farm” (refer The Duchies section) – was 11 acres in size
The approach to the house was said to be planted with fir trees (surely more likely to be pine trees?) for 2 miles. This was known as “Admiral’s Walk”, and we have provided more detail on it in the paragraphs below.
The 2 lots comprised a mix of freehold, copyhold and leasehold properties.

Admiral’s Walk was either constructed by Admiral Byron, or took its name because it was his favourite walk. But which route is being referred to? Was it the track leading towards Rails Farm? Or was it a more westerly track leading to the Ranges (marked on the 1873 OS map as “Admiral’s Road”)? The 1805 survey map clearly points to the latter, and this was Mary Cawthorn’s view in 1930 as well. It was probably part of the old coach road from Frimley, which divided at Pirbright Lodge: The northern fork went north-east along Mill Lane to Pirbright, and thence to Brookwood and Chertsey. The southern fork crossed the fields opposite Pirbright Lodge and then Burners Heath in an easterly direction. From there it crossed to Rowe Lane, and went via Fox Corner to Worplesdon and Guildford. We have shown this on the 1805 survey map below:

Admiral’s Walk is coloured purple. Note the “fir trees” showing its path.
The northern fork is coloured green.
The southern fork is coloured turquoise.

Pirbright Lodge - 1805 map showing old tracks.jpg

Today there are a lot of pine trees in the whole area. We have shown below two early 20th century photos of Admiral’s Walk below. Many of the pine trees have now gone, but several stumps are visible. And if you look further afield, you might stumble across old WW1 training trenches.

The 1787 advert offering Pirbright Lodge for sale was evidently unsuccessful, as another advert was placed in 1791. Lot 1 was not sold until 2 years after Sophia’s death (1790) in 1792 (to William Wallen).

Curiously the Admiral’s name is remembered in Pirbright today via the name of another house, Admiral’s Walk, which wasn’t built until over 100 years after his death. But at times during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Pirbright Lodge was referred to as “Byron Lodge”, and the land to the north of it as “Mount Byron” (the word “Mount” being a bit of an exaggeration).

Admiral Byron is probably best known as being the grandfather of Lord Byron (1788 - 1824), the poet and 6th Baron Byron. The latter was born 2 years after his grandfather’s death, and so they never met. We will not go into Lord Byron’s life here, for several reasons...

1801 - Present

By 1801, Henry Halsey 1 had added Admiral Byron’s estate to his own growing estates. After his death in 1807, his trustees administered his estate for a few years, as his eldest son, Henry Halsey 2 was a minor at the time. We have devoted a separate page to the Halsey Family.

We do not know much about the tenants of Byron Lodge (as Pirbright Lodge was then known) in the years immediately after its acquisition by Henry Halsey 1. A Thomas Bacon was an early resident in 1807-09.

In 1822 Andrew and Anna Stirling moved into Byron Lodge, having previously rented Henley Park from the Henry Halsey family since c1815. Their decision to move out of Henley Park was probably driven by Henry Halsey 2’s desire to live at Henley Park once he had reached the age of 21. The Stirlings rented Byron Lodge from Henry Halsey 2.

The same year, Henry Halsey 1 “fell in love with one of the lovely daughters of Andrew and Anna, Miss Mary Noel Stirling” (as Mary Cawthorn put it). Henry and Mary married in 1822 and moved into Henley Park, while the Stirlings moved into Byron Lodge, which sounds like quite a tidy arrangement.

We must now look at the Stirlings and in particular some of the sources of their wealth. Andrew Stirling had been born in Glasgow in 1851, the 3rd of 12 children of William and Mary Stirling. The Stirling family came from a long line of colonial tobacco and textile merchants with extensive warehouses in Glasgow. They were based at a grand estate, Drumpellier, near Coatbridge, east of Glasgow. Andrew was known as “Andrew Stirling of Drumpellier” to distinguish him from other branches of the Stirling family.

In 1778 Andrew married Anna Stirling, who lived in London, but in fact they were 2nd cousins. He was a “commission agent” (ie a merchant, who derived his income from commission from buying and selling goods), running a textile-based commission house called Cadder and Drumpellier. In 1792 he left the family business and founded (in London) the textile trader Stirling, Hunter & Co, which later became Andrew Stirling & Co, when Mr Hunter (a relation of Andrew’s) left c1796. Some historians believe that there is strong evidence that Andrew made his money by selling large quantities of textiles to slave-owners in the Caribbean, including Jamaica.

Andrew and Anna had 13 children between 1781 and 1799. They continued to live at Drumpellier until at least 1798 (when their 12th child was born). But in 1803 Andrew’s company folded after some heavy losses. His liabilities were £140,000 (£12 million today), but his assets including Drumpellier would raise £260,000 (£22 million today). So we are talking serious money. In 1807 Drumpellier had to be sold, and this effectively marked Andrew and Anna’s final departure from Scotland. From then on, they lived in the south of England (including, of course, Pirbright). Andrew Stirling died in 1823 and Anna in 1830. They were both laid to rest in the Halsey mausoleum in Pirbright Churchyard. We have shown portraits of Andrew and Anna below.

Pirbright Lodge - Andrew Stirling pic.jpg

The fifth son of Andrew and Anna Stirling deserves special mention. James Stirling (1791-1865) became Admiral Sir James Stirling, a Junior Lord of the Admiralty. He is best known for founding the city of Perth, the capital of Western Australia. His grandfather and an uncle were both admirals, so perhaps his choice of career should not be a surprise. We have set out some details of his life below.

James joined the Royal Navy in 1803, aged just 12, and saw action in the Napoleonic Wars. At the age of 21 he was in command of a 28-gun ship, and fought in the War of 1812 between Britain and the US. While stationed in the Caribbean, he made a tidy amount of money by escorting (slavery-related) merchant goods and currency into and out of Jamaica.

In the 1820s, he led an expedition to explore the Swan River in modern-day Western Australia, but then known as “New Holland”. In 1828 he founded the city of Perth and the port of Fremantle there. There is an area of Perth today still called Henley Park, which he named after the place of his childhood.

He was knighted in 1833 and by 1854 he was Commander in Chief of Britain’s China and the East Indies Station. He negotiated a Treaty of Friendship with the Japanese in order to protect Britain’s interests against Russia (who was at war with Britain).

One act in 1834, however, is a big stain on his reputation. Stirling led a group of 25 armed soldiers and police to a camp of around 70 Binjareb (aboriginal) people, who were camped at a place called Pinjarra, near modern-day Perth. There had been incidents of robbery and murder of settlers, but Stirling’s plan resulted in the massacre of an unknown number of Binjareb people – 15 is the minimum number quoted, but the total was almost certainly higher. October 28 is commemorated today as Pinjarra Day by the Binjareb people. Some historians believe that James was initially influenced by the slavery-based systems in America and the Caribbean islands, and that these were a primary motivation in colonising Western Australia.

During his time in Australia he was ably assisted by Lieutenant William Preston. William’s father was an admiral, and William himself was soon promoted to Commander. Their friendship was further enhanced when they ended up marrying two daughters of Captain James Mangles, whose uncle had an estate at Woodbridge Park (where today’s Woodbridge Road, Guildford is, in the area which includes Wickes and Majestic Wine). James Stirling married Ellen Mangles on her 16th birthday(!) in 1823. William Preston was to marry Hamilla Mangles 10 years later in 1833 and the couple would live at Sutton Green. We have written about the Mangles family further on in this section (Ross Lowis Mangles lived at Pirbright Lodge in the late 1800s).

Mary Cawthorn reports that, in 1829, James and William paid for a party of “about 50 men and women from the parishes of Worplesdon and Pirbright” to sail with them to the Swan River Colony to live there.

As the reader may know, there is today a suburb of Perth (Western Australia) called Guildford, and another, just near it, called Woodbridge (where James Stirling built his residence). Coincidence? Absolutely not. Guildford has a Stirling Square, a Stirling Street and a Stirling Arms Hotel, and was the 3rd town to be settled in the original Swan River Colony (after Perth and Fremantle). To reinforce the Surrey connection even further, there is another suburb nearby named Hazelmere (sic). Lake Preston, just south of Perth, is named after William Preston.

James and Ellen Stirling are both buried in Stoke-next-Guildford.

After Andrew and then Anna died, 4 of their children continued to rent Byron Lodge (now called Pirbright Lodge) from Henry Halsey. The 4 were their eldest son, William Stirling (1781-1860), Walter Stirling (1783-1864), Dorothea Stirling (1793-1841) and Agnes Stirling (1799-1873). They shared the house with 7 servants. They were all unmarried. Walter had received £12,000 in compensation (worth £1.1 million today) when slavery was abolished in the 1830’s. He owned estates in Guiana and Barbados with 230 slaves. When he died in 1864 he left £60,000 (worth over £5 million today).

Dorothea died in Pirbright in 1841, leaving her estate to Agnes. The other Stirling siblings moved away to Westminster in 1845. We have shown portraits of William (left) and Walter (right) below.

The next occupants of Pirbright Lodge were William and Lucy Anderson. William Bensley Anderson was born in Bombay in 1797, the son of Robert and Ann Anderson. Robert was Superintendent of the Marines of the East India Company at Bombay, but died in Madras in 1813, aged around 50, and a reasonably wealthy man.

William remained in India, and in 1828 he was working for the Madras Civil Service. But he returned to England to marry Elizabeth Lucy Crew, from Bath, in Brighton. The couple returned to India, but in 1842, the situation in Afghanistan was turning nasty (following the retreat of the British and East India forces from Kabul), and so the Andersons decided to return to England from their base in Kerala.

By 1845, the Andersons were living at Pirbright Lodge with 7 servants. They had no children, so 7 servants might be considered by some as a little excessive. It is worth recording the name of one of them, Ann Pantling, born in Pirbright in 1826 and who appears with the Andersons in the 1851 and 1861 census as a housemaid. She moved away from Pirbright afterwards, died in Godalming in 1908 and was buried here as a spinster. She must have saved all her life and left £800, the interest on a £200 bequest being left to a charity in her name for ‘seven old persons most in need’ in Pirbright, which still exists to this day. William Anderson died in Pirbright in 1863. Lucy then moved to Gotham, near Nottingham (for unknown reasons) and died there in 1869.

Between 1863 and 1866 a John and Mary Kingsford were living in the house. John was born John Jeken Kingsford in Maldon, Essex in 1816, the son of Kennett and Mary (nee Jeken) Kingsford. Kennett was a corn factor (ie trader) from Kent – obviously a successful one, as the family kept 3-5 servants in their house in their later years.

John followed his father into the corn factoring business, and soon went (or more likely was sent by his father) to New York. While he was there he met and married c1847 a lady called Mary (born 1827, surname unknown). They proceeded to have 8 children while in the US, and returned to England in the 1860’s.

It is quite possible that Pirbright Lodge was their first abode in England. Their 9th child (Kennett) was born at Pirbright. They farmed at Pirbright (keeping 2 horses, 4 cows, 5 heifers, 2 sows and 7 pigs) but only stayed 2 or 3 years there before moving to Beckenham, where John continued his trade at The Corn Exchange in London.

By 1891 he was a “Director of a Bank and Insurance Company” (which was actually called The Fire Insurance Association (which sounds more like an Insurance company than a Bank to us). The family were living in Queen’s Gate Gardens, Kensington, near the newly-built Natural History Museum, with 6 of their children (all single) and 6 servants. John died in 1899. Mary died in 1913. Their Pirbright-born son, Kennett, became a JP and a Director of The Needlerock Estate and Gold Mining Company Ltd. We don’t know what became of that fine-sounding venture. We have shown a rather impressive photo of John below.

Pirbright Lodge - John Kingsford photo.jpg

The next occupants were Ninian and Ellen Crawford. Ninian’s name should be well known in Hong Kong, as the business he and a fellow Scot (Thomas Lane) founded in 1850 still survive today in the form of Lane Crawford Joyce. Their stores today are high-end, luxury-based, stocking items from Fortnum & Mason, for example.

Ninian had been born in 1827 in Port Glasgow, the eldest child of a shipmaster. He travelled to Hong Kong in the late 1840s, just after Hong Kong had been ceded to the British (in 1842). That must have been quite a trip for a lad in his early 20s.

In 1850 Ninian and Thomas opened their first shops on Des Voeux Road. At the time the road was on the waterfront of Hong Kong Island, but recent land reclamation means it is now set back about 100 yards from the water. It is still a major thoroughfare on Hong Kong Island, with historic trams travelling along it at frequent intervals. Their first shop was a makeshift bamboo structure

Ninian left Hong Kong in the early 1860’s. He married Ellen Stanford in East Dereham, Norfolk in 1864. Ellen was born in 1847 in Suffolk, the daughter of a merchant’s clerk, and she was 20 years younger than Ninian. The Crawford family settled first in Kensington, and then in Pirbright, where their 2nd son was born. They had 4 more children, all born in Pirbright.

In 1870 he sold his share of the Hong Kong business, although his brother, David, retained an interest in it. This must have netted him a considerable sum. In the 1871 census Ninian, Ellen and their family were living at Albany Terrace, near Regent’s Park, with 5 servants, although they still kept Pirbright Lodge as their house in the country (with 2 further servants recorded there in the census). They moved out of Pirbright in the late 1870s.

In 1874 Ninian was a director in the City and County Bank Ltd. We can’t trace what happened to it thereafter. In 1886 he was a director of The New Zealand Red Hill Gold Mining Company Ltd. This company lasted until 1916, when it was dissolved. Below we have shown a copy (with thanks to Scripoworld) of a share certificate in the company, signed by Ninian. Let’s hope the hopeful shareholder made some money from his investment. Meanwhile Ninian resigned as a director the following year. We have shown a photo of Ninian from around this time below.

By 1876 Ninian and Ellen had left Pirbright and were living in Hastings. By 1891 they were living at a house called Trohork, in Surbiton. Ninian died there in 1894, aged 67. Ellen moved to St Leonards, Sussex and died there in 1929, aged 81.

The next occupants of Pirbright Lodge in 1876 were Admiral Sir Sydney and Emma Dacres. The name of the house had reverted to Byron Lodge – surely a request from Sir Sydney, himself an admiral, to honour a famous admiral of the past? And, who knows, maybe the chance of seeing the ghost of Admiral Byron explains why the house had attracted Sir Sydney to live there.

Sir Sydney, or to give his full name, Admiral Sir Sydney Colpoys Dacres KCB, was born in Totnes in 1805, the son of Vice-admiral Sir Richard Dacres. Sir Richard had served under a Captain John Colpoys in 1793, hence his son’s unusual middle name.

Sydney entered the navy aged 13. In 1841 he married Emma Lambert, born in 1819, the daughter of a “gentleman” (ie a wealthy person who didn’t need to work). They had 9 children, one of whom went on to marry a John Hopkins, who became yet another admiral.

Sydney had an illustrious career. He commanded one of the ships that carried out the bombardment of Sevastopol in 1854. He was in charge of the landing of a force of 28,000 men there a little later. In 1859 he was appointed Captain of The Fleet in the Mediterranean. He was the First Sea Lord from 1868 to 1872. One of his brothers, Sir Richard Dacres GCB became a Field Marshal in the Royal Artillery.

Sir Sydney and Emma lived at Byron Lodge for 7 years. A quaint reminder of their time here is shown below. It is a page from the account book of John Collins, a farmer who we think farmed at Whipley Farm, Worplesdon, near Henley Park. It shows that Sir Sydney ordered 1 ton of manglewurzels in 1880, and another 4 tons in 1883. Presumably these were for his horses, although they were sometimes consumed by humans (but not 4 tons of them, surely?). If you look closely, it also shows that Sir Sydney was far from prompt in paying his bills....

The Dacres left Pirbright in 1883, moving to Hove, perhaps to be near Sydney’s brother (the Field Marshal) who lived there. Sir Sydney died at Brighton in 1884 with an estate of £4,500 (worth £500,000 today). Whilst a very reasonable sum, this is considerably less than Andrew Stirling’s wealth 60 years earlier, which perhaps demonstrates just how lucrative slavery-related activities were.

We have shown Sydney’s obituary below, which gives more detail of his naval career. We have also shown a picture of Sir Sydney in uniform. Emma stayed at Hove with some of her family and 3 servants. She died in 1913, aged 92. A press obituary of her is shown below.

In 1884, Ross and Henrietta Mangles took out a 21-year lease on the property.

Ross Lowis Mangles is possibly the most illustrious of all Pirbright residents, so we will spend some time on his background, starting with his grandfather, James Mangles (1762-1838), known as “Old Potato –face” for some reason. A photo of him is shown right.

Pirbright Lodge - 1913 Emma Dacres obit.jpg

Pirbright Lodge - Mangles - James Mangles pic.jpg

James was born in 1762 into a wealthy family. His father was a ship chandler in Wapping. In 1791 James married Mary Hughes of Worplesdon at St Mary’s Church in Worplesdon. We think that this was the first Mangles connection with the Pirbright area.

Independent historical research has shown that in 1792 James and his brother John Mangles (1760-1837) were part-owners of the Rio Nova, a slave ship that in 1792 purchased 467 captive Africans from three ports on the West Coast of Africa, including the notorious Cape Coast Castle in Ghana. The 414 people who survived the voyage were sold at Montego Bay in Jamaica. The following year the Rio Nova returned to the same ports on the West Coast of Africa, purchasing 416 people and selling 412 at Black River in Jamaica. Around half of the people on these voyages were adult men—the rest were women and children. But within a few years the Mangles brothers had changed tack: At least 9 Mangles ships conveyed convicts from London to New South Wales and were busy with Indian Ocean trade.

James’s businesses were obviously highly profitable. From c1803 James and Mary lived at Woodbridge Park (where today’s Woodbridge Road, Guildford is, in the area which includes Wickes and Majestic Wine). The house itself stood on the site of today’s Wickes store. When the foundations for Wickes were being dug in 2012, some traces of the old estate surfaced, including a number of bricks among other building rubble, presumably from the original house.

We have shown a photo from the 1870s of the house, taken from the opposite bank of the Wey. (Thanks to David Rose for the information and the picture).

James and Mary had 11 children, of whom we will (briefly) mention 4:

Ross Donnelly Mangles, the father of Ross Lowis Mangles, who we look at below.
Charles Mangles, who was Chairman of London and SW Railways 1859-1872.
Ellen Mangles, who married Admiral James Stirling. They were earlier occupants of Pirbright Lodge (see above).
Hamilla Mangles, who married William Preston, a colleague of Admiral James Stirling (again, please see above).

James Mangles was MP for Guildford 1831-37. He was a shareholder in The East India Company and had various commercial interests with India, of which we have no details. He encouraged his son-in-law, James Stirling to establish a settlement in Western Australia (which he did – details above). James (Mangles)’s motivation for this idea was not derring-do, but commercial - to use the new settlement to soak up cheap labour from India and China (profitably to himself, we presume).

James died in 1838, whereupon Mary moved to Cuckfield. She died in 1852 and was buried at Wyke.

We’ll now turn to James and Mary’s 7th child, Ross Donnelly Mangles (1801-1877). Ross was the last of James and Mary’s children to be born in London (ie before they moved to Woodbridge in Guildford). By 1819 he was working for the Bengal Civil Service, but in 1830 he was back in Britain and married Harriet Newcome (1807-1863), daughter of a George Newcome Esq, in Marylebone. They lived in India between 1832 and 1839, and it was during this period that Ross Lowis Mangles (see below) was born. The Surrey Herald in 1834 carried an advert for some of Ross’s writings. (see below). Enticing as it sounds, we have not investigated this book any further.

Ross and Harriett returned to Britain in 1840, living at the family home at Woodbridge, with a home in London as well. Ross threw himself into public life wholeheartedly. He became a Director of the New Zealand Company (set up to found a new settlement in New Zealand). He became Liberal MP for Guildford in 1841, and so was thrust straight into the debate over the Repeal of the Corn Laws. He sided with the landowners, claiming to be a farmer himself, and thus ended up on the losing side of the debate.

He became a Director of a few railway companies, and, rather esoterically, was a member of the Anti-Duelling Association. In 1847 he followed his father’s footsteps by becoming a Director of The East India Company. By 1856 he had become Deputy Chairman of the company, and the following year, Chairman. Harriet, meanwhile, was Treasurer of Christ’s Hospital.

When the Indian Mutiny broke out in the summer of 1857, Ross found himself in the hot seat, facing questions in The House of Commons as to what the East India Company knew about potential unrest. This included some verbal jousting with Benjamin Disraeli.

But the mutiny was to have two other more direct and more significant influences on Ross and Harriett’s lives. Later in 1857 their son (Ross Lowis Mangles) won a VC for outstanding bravery (as related below). And secondly, the East India Company (of which Ross senior was Chairman) was abolished, with India now being directly controlled by the British Government. This came to pass in 1858: Ross was elected to the newly-formed India Council, and resigned as an MP.

Ross and Harriett continued to live at both Woodbridge and London, owning a number of farms in Surrey (eg at Flexford). Harriett died in 1863 and Ross gradually wound down his India and Railway committee work, retiring from the India Council in 1874. He died in 1877. A report of his funeral is shown left. His son, Ross Lowis Mangles, was not at the funeral, presumably because he was in India at the time. One of the attenders was Robert Godwin-Austin of Chilworth, whose daughter Charlotte was soon to move into the Pirbright Manor House.

Finally we will look at Ross and Harriet’s 3rd child, Ross Lowis Mangles VC (1833-1905). Ross junior was born in Calcutta in 1833, while his father was working as a member of the Bengal Civil Service, and spent the first 8 years of his life in India. He returned to Britain with his parents in 1840. In 1851 he was a student at the East India College in Hertfordshire. He joined the Bengal Civil Service in 1853 and served as Assistant Magistrate at Patna (in North-East India) until 1857. His application letter to join is shown right.

And then in June 1857 the Indian mutiny broke out. This would have sent shock waves throughout the East India Company and its staff. Ross’s reaction was to volunteer to serve with “The Force”, a group of soldiers and Indian troops assembled in Patna in July to relieve the nearby town of Arrah, which was under siege by the mutineers.

But The Force fell into an ambush on the night of the 29 July, and, during the retreat the next morning, Ross, despite his own wounds and lack of food and sleep, carried a wounded soldier out of the action for some 5 miles, even swimming a river to bring a boat back in which to transport him to safety. And he was aged just 24.

Meanwhile the tiny garrison at Arrah managed to hold out and inflict severe casualties on the vastly superior number of rebels, until finally relieved on 2 August.

Not until a year later, after representations from Private Taylor (the man whom Ross rescued), did a recommendation come by Sir James Outram for the award of Victoria Crosses for two civilians, Mr. William McDonell and Ross Mangles, both of the Bengal Civil Service. This was rejected until the Governor-General, Lord Canning, made emphatic representations to London that led to a Royal Warrant in 1858 allowing awards to civilians.

Ross’s citation from The London Gazette is worth reading:

“Mr Mangles volunteered and served with the Force, consisting of detachments of Her Majesty's 10th and 37th Regiments, and some Native Troops, despatched to the relief of Arrah, in July 1857, under the Command of Captain Dunbar of the 10th Regiment. The Force fell into an Ambuscade on the night of the 29th of July 1857, and during the retreat on the next morning, Mr Mangles, with signal gallantry and generous self-devotion, and notwithstanding that he himself had been previously wounded, carried for several miles out of action a wounded soldier of Her Majesty's 37th Regiment, after binding up his wounds under a murderous fire, which killed or wounded almost the whole detachment; and he bore him in safety to the boats.”

A true hero.

Two imagined pictures of the rescue are shown below.

Ross Mangles went on sick leave in England from September 1858 to January 1860 (was a period of sick leave ever better-deserved?) and finally attended Windsor Castle to be invested with his Victoria Cross by Queen Victoria on January 4th 1860. Later that year he married Henrietta More-Molyneux, daughter of the owner of Loseley Park.

The couple immediately returned to India, living at Chittagong in Bengal. They had 5 children there, 2 of whom died in infancy. Their 6th (and last) child, Roland, was born in Guildford in 1874, but they soon returned to India. Ross served as a Magistrate in the Chunparun District, North Behar, retiring from the Indian Civil Service in 1883.

They returned to England in 1874 and took out a 21-year lease on Pirbright Lodge, sometimes then referred to as just “The Lodge”. A delightful photo from 1903 from the south side of Mill Lane looking across the park towards Pirbright Lodge is shown right.

Ross spent his time tending his roses, dying there on 28 February 1905, leaving an estate of £28,000 (worth £2.8 million today). He was buried in Brookwood Cemetery. On the north wall of Pirbright Church is a brass memorial to him. The oaks on the plaque represent England, his native land; the palms are for India, where he spent much of his working life. 2 photos of Ross and one of Henrietta are shown below.

Henrietta presumably extended the lease on Pirbright Lodge (which was due to expire in 1905) and remained there until she died in 1918, leaving an estate of £27,000 (worth £1.3 million today). She was buried with Ross. In 2006, the Brookwood Cemetery Society restored his grave to its former glory (see photo left). His Victoria Cross is displayed at the National Army Museum.

I'm a paragraph.

Their youngest son, Roland Mangles (1874-1948) deserves special mention. He served in the Boer War, gaining a DSO. He later rose to the rank of Brigadier-General. But some people might be more interested to learn that he played rugby for England twice in 1897, against Wales and Ireland, playing as a back-row forward. Unfortunately both games were lost. At one stage he lived at Monida in Rowe Lane.

After the death of Henrietta in 1918, Henry Halsey 4 decided to sell Pirbright Lodge (including 6 acres of land) as part of his “dash for cash” at that time. The purchaser in 1919 was a Bertram de Quincey Quincey, a London solicitor. We have no evidence that Bertram ever lived in Pirbright Lodge, and suppose that his reason for purchasing it was as an investment.

Bertram (1866-1924) was the son of Roger de Quincé Quincey, a merchant of East Indian produce. Roger died in 1906 with an estate of £370,000 (worth over £37 million today), so he was another of those who made money from colonial-related business. Despite the exotic-sounding names, the Quinceys appear to have originated in Lincolnshire. But they were certainly wealthy.

Bertram and his family lived in Chislehurst (with 7 servants in 1911), but then retired to Aldeburgh. We have shown a photo of Pirbright Lodge from 1920 below.

During the ensuing few years there were some short-term tenants: Richard and Eveline Poole (1920-24), and Henry and Susan Grace (1921). Henry, from Winchester, had been the gardener at Pirbright Lodge since the 1890s. During Mr de Quincey’s period of ownership Henry’s job was presumably to keep the place tidy inside and outside. Between 1890 and 1934 Henry and Susan actually lived at No 2 Longhouses, where their stories are told more fully. It looks as though their short period of residence at Pirbright Lodge was just house-sitting for the Quinceys.

In 1921 de Quincey auctioned the property (now 9 acres), as shown in the Country Life ad below. The house was one of the earliest to have a phone connection (it was in Bertram de Quincey’s name and the phone number was Worplesdon 43). The small print at the bottom of the ad shows that it was Bertram’s firm of solicitors who were handling the sale. The sale was successful, although we do not know the identity of the purchaser. Bertram died in a Suffolk train in 1924, leaving an estate of £60,000 (worth £3 million today).

Evidently the purchaser in 1921 was another investor, as the house was sold again in 1924 (now with 10 acres) to Christopher and Alice Dudgeon. Mrs Dudgeon (who lived in Westminster) lost little time (ie 2 or 3 days) in advertising for an experienced cook.

Christopher was born in Highbury in 1887, the son of an Evangelical Minister. He studied medicine and in 1914 joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving in East Africa and reaching the heights of Major. In 1919 he married Alice, nee Pumphrey in 1894, whose father ran a colliery in Durham. The wedding took place at Bywell, Northumberland. The couple lived in Cairo and started a family there.

Christopher and Alice returned to England c1922 and had one more son (in Cuckfield). They moved to Pirbright Lodge in 1924, but then disaster struck when Alice died in 1927, aged only 33. She was buried in Bywell, Northumberland.

Christopher and his 2 sons soon sold Pirbright Lodge and moved to Headley, a little north of Liphook. He threw himself into his medical work and was awarded an OBE in 1944. His eldest son was killed in action in 1943 in Italy. Christopher died at Headley in 1976 and was buried at Bywell, Northumberland with his wife, who had died nearly 50 years earlier.

The next owners, from c1928 were Lt General Sir Arthur and Monica Smith. Arthur Francis Smith was born in Kensington in 1890. He was the son of Colonel Granville Roland Francis Smith and Lady Blanche Catherine Keith-Falconer. One of Arthur’s grandfathers had been an MP. And one of his great-great-grandfathers had been the 6th Duke of Beaufort. So an impressive pedigree. Arthur was brought up in a house in Queen’s Gate, Kensington with 6 servants (in 1901). By 1911 the family were living in Grosvenor Square with no less than 13 servants (of whom one was a Hall boy, and another an “Odd Man”).

Arthur attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the British Army's Coldstream Guards in 1910. He served in the First World War as an adjutant with the 2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards on the Western Front from 1914 before becoming a General Staff Officer (GSO) in France in 1915.

In 1918 Arthur married Monica Victoria Crossley. Monica’s father was Savile Brinton Crossley GCVO PC, 1st Baron Somerleyton, scion of the well-known Crossley carpet manufacturing family in Halifax. Savile had been a Liberal Unionist MP and was a friend of King George V (who sent a personal telegram to Savile’s wife on her husband’s death in 1935). Monica’s mother, Phyllis (nee de Bathe) was the daughter of Gerald Henry Perceval (4th Baronet) de Bathe. So another impressive pedigree in the family.

During the interwar period Arthur became a General Staff Officer at London District and then adjutant at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst from 1921. It was during this time that he compiled the “100 Days Bible Study” for cadet officers. It is still in print today. He became Commandant at the Guards Depot in 1924 and then moved back to London District in 1927. He was made Commanding Officer of the 2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards in 1930 and then Commander of the Coldstream Guards and Regimental District in 1934. In 1938 he became a Brigadier on the General Staff of British Troops in Egypt.

He served in the Second World War initially as chief of staff at Middle East Command until 1942 when he became (at the age of 52) Major-General commanding the Brigade of Guards and General Officer Commanding London District. He was appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief for Persia and Iraq Command in 1944, and was awarded the Soviet Order of Kutuzov, 2nd Class. Below is a 1944 Airgraph message from the Middle East replying to Christmas greetings from Ar.

After the war he was made General Officer Commanding-in-Chief for Eastern Command, India in 1945. He became Chief of the General Staff in India in 1946 and Commander of British Forces in India and Pakistan in 1947. He retired in 1948 as Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Francis Smith, KCB, KBE, DSO, MC after a most impressive military career.

He was Lieutenant of the Tower of London from 1948 to 1951. He was also a religious man who became Chairman of the British Evangelical Alliance and President of the World Evangelical Fellowship and Chairman of Pirbright British Legion.

During his military career and afterwards, the Smiths carried out a series of small-scale developments at Pirbright Lodge as follows.

In 1928 they restored a Coachman’s Cottage at the rear of the main house, above one of the stables. This is Groom’s Cottage today (see below).
In 1929, they pushed out one of the external walls of the house by 4 feet in order to accommodate a decent-sized billiard table in the billiard room. We would wager a small sum that this doesn’t happen very often these days.
In 1945 they converted the upper floor of one of the original cottages into an apartment with its own external staircase, named East Flat, quite possibly as a home for a member of their staff. The only occupant we can trace there was a Mary Kingsford in 1970.
In 1962 the second of the original cottages was sealed off and converted into a separate dwelling named Older Lodge. We have added some information on Older Lodge in the next section.
In 1971 they applied to convert part of their stable block for accommodation “for a missionary returning from Africa”. Initially refused, a revised application stated that the accommodation was now for a cook. The application was approved (somewhat controversially), and the new accommodation became The Hay Loft (see section a few paragraphs below).

Several years later a local resident gave his recollections of Arthur and Monica:

Arthur was a smashing bloke. He walked with a limp following a WW1 injury. There was no “side” to him: He would wave and shout hello from his car. He wore the oldest clothes, visiting in a battered trilby, jacket out at the elbows and trouser knees threadbare.
Arthur once came back from London wearing his morning suit and a boy asked him where he’d been. “The Palace, m’boy, to see the Queen. I’ll tell you all about it”. So he sat on a rickety stool in a dusty old shed, sat the lad on his knee and told him all about his knighthood ceremony.
Lady Monica was a Lady in her own right. She was very religious. She was keen on watercolour painting and would sit in the middle of a field with her easel and a shepherdess style broad brimmed hat tied under her chin.

Below are 2 mementos of Arthur and Monica, which were kept by another Pirbright family, together with a photo of them.

Sir Arthur died on 8 August 1977 at age 86. His obituary in The Times is shown below. Photos of Arthur and Monica are also shown below.

Within a year or two of Arthur’s death, Monica moved to Sussex (near Storrington) and died there in 1990. A newspaper notice of her death is shown below.

The next occupants from c1979 were Lt Col Iain and Dymphna Ferguson. Dymphna (the name is of Irish origin) was born Dymphna Mulligan c 1931 and they married in 1956 in Chelsea. They had previously been living at Fairway, in Rowe Lane, and before that in Dawney’s Road.

Between 1989 and 1991 Iain was the Director of the annual Royal Tournament. The 1990 show was of special significance as it was the 100th Royal Tournament to be staged. By 2009 the Fergusons were living in Newmarket.

By 1992 the current owners had bought Pirbright Lodge. The property includes the c6 acre field on the south side of Mill Lane which used to be the park attached to the Manor House in medieval times. A recent photo of the house is shown below, together with the remains of a huge lime tree which came down in 2013.

Older Lodge

Older Lodge was created in 1962 by Arthur and Monica Smith by separating one of the original cottages (the western cottage) from Pirbright Lodge. The name of the house is a little unusual, but descriptive.

We think that the earliest occupants (either as tenants or owners) from c1962 were Frank and Sylvia Stevens. Frank was Pirbright born (in 1925) and bred, like his father (also Frank, who was a cowman). Frank junior spent his early years at Stanford Cottages and married Sylvia Herbert in 1955. Sylvia was the daughter of Albert Herbert, Club Secretary of the British Legion on The Green. At the time of his marriage Frank was a bricklayer living at Rapley’s Field.

c1971 Frank and Sylvia moved to the newly-created Groom’s Cottage (refer below).

At around this time Older Lodge was occupied for a short period by a Lt Col Maurice Wood and his family.

From c1981 the current owners moved into Older Lodge.

The Hay Loft

The building containing The Hayloft and Groom’s Cottage is a Grade II listed building. We have shown the listing particulars below.

Former stable block, now houses. Late C18 with C20 extensions to ends. Red brick with gauged brick dressings, hipped plain tiled roofs. 2 storeys with plat band, rendered, over ground floor; dentilled eaves and copper scroll work finial to roof. Symmetrical facade ABCBA, with shallow, projecting, end bays and central 2 storey break. Thermal window under gauged, keystoned, head to first floor of end bays, two square windows either side of centre on first floor. Door to first floor centre under gauged brick head. Ground floor windows, glazing bar sashes to either side of centre under gauged brick arches over rendered plat band, separated by brick piers. Door to ground floor centre under gauged brick head. End doors with flanking windows. Single storey extensions to ends.

The Hayloft was formed by converting part of the stable block of Pirbright Lodge in 1971. Arthur and Monica Smith, the then owners of Pirbright Lodge, claimed that the purpose of the conversion was to provide accommodation for an “old missionary returning from Africa”. Sure enough, the first occupants of Hayloft (from c1972) were the Rev Edward J Gilligan and Beryl Walsh. We are not sure whether they were owners or tenants. Edward was born in Manchester in 1915, the son of an Irish Police Constable. In 1939 he was studying at St John’s Seminary, Wonersh as a Roman Catholic Theological student. By 1948 he was living in Deptford, and by 1950 in Uckfield.

In 1972, after his return from Africa, Edward worked at Aldershot Barracks as the Army’s senior RC chaplain in the southern area. The other RC priest at Aldershot, Father Gerry Weston MBE, was blown up in an IRA “revenge raid” at Aldershot in 1972. We have shown part of a press cutting about this terrible incident below.

Edward was still living at The Hayloft when he died in 1994, leaving an estate of £120,000 (worth £250,000 today).

The Hayloft was sold in 1996 and again in 1999, when the current owners purchased it.

Groom’s Cottage

The first reference we can find to a dwelling where Groom’s Cottage is today is in 1928, when Arthur and Monica Smith restored “the coachman’s cottage adjoining to and over stabling at The Lodge, Pirbright”. This does suggest that a coachman previously lived there, but we cannot find any evidence of who this coachman was. The Smiths did this restoration the same year as they moved into Pirbright Lodge, so it must have been a high priority for them.

The first occupants in the newly restored cottage from 1928 were Austin and Georgina Mundy. Austin was born in Thornbury, just north of Bristol, in 1888, the son of a railway haulier. Georgina was born Georgina Evans in Bridgend in 1897, the daughter of a Police Sergeant.

In the years after WW1, Austin was a soldier at Aldershot. Georgina had moved to Surrey for some reason, and they were married in Farnham in 1920. They lived there for the next 8 years, during which time they had 4 daughters (the first of whom was born 4 months after their marriage).

In 1928 the Mundys moved into the newly-restored cottage and Austin worked as a groom for Arthur Smith at Pirbright Lodge. The Mundys remained there until Austin’s death in 1940.

Georgina moved to London to live with one of her daughters and died in Islington in 1969.

The next occupants of Groom’s Cottage from c1942 were Alfred and Margaret Wainwright.

Alfred was born in Hereford in 1908, the son of a time keeper at a nursery. Margaret (nee Connon) was born in Scotland in 1910. They married in Wandsworth in 1932 and had 1 child. But the marriage didn’t last and they moved out of Groom’s Cottage c1947. Margaret remarried in 1950 to a Percy Ling who lived on Connaught Road, Brookwood, and they later moved to Cowshott Cottage. Meanwhile Alfred moved back to Hereford.

We don’t know who lived in the cottage after 1946. It may have been left largely unoccupied, and only later spruced up when The Hayloft (refer above) was converted into a dwelling in 1971. The internal division between the 2 dwellings has altered since 1971, but we will not go into the details here.

The next occupants from 1971 (possibly having purchased the property from the Smiths) were Frank and Sylvia Stevens, who had previously been living at Older Lodge (refer above). They lived in the cottage until 1988 when Frank died. Sylvia remained there until at least 1992.

Groom’s Cottage was sold in 1995 and again in 2021 to the current owners.

The Stone Cottage

We will now return to Mary Cawthorn’s story, which we printed at the top of the section on Pirbright Lodge (but here it is again):

Apart from hearsay, there is no evidence for the tale of Admiral Byron’s disaffected bos’un building a cottage on the hill overlooking The Lodge. But the picture below shows an intriguing entry from the baptism register for 1793. Thereby hangs a tale….

Sarah Sherrat was born Sarah Bullen at Pirbright in 1754. She married William Sherrard (all sorts of spellings) at Woking in 1781. A daughter, Sarah, was born there in 1782. But their marriage must have been short-lived, as Sarah soon took up with another man, William Russell.

Apart from James in 1793 (shown above), the baptism register shows 3 other Sherrat/Russell sons baptised at Pirbright - in 1788, 1790 and 1795. William Russell was 20 years older than Sarah and from the family of stone-getters, who delved Pirbright Common for stone for building (such as the then-new church tower). He died in 1796, leaving his estate to trustees of the eldest son, 8-year-old William Russell Shirrett, but allowing Sarah £200 to buy the property for her lifetime, which she did. In the 1807 Halsey Survey, she holds the cottage, a 2-acre arable field and a strip of land on Hasleacre by copyhold. Her husband, William Sherrett, had died in 1799.

William Russell had purchased a ‘tenement, orchard & 4 acres of arable land’, part of Mansland, in 1768. In 1772, he sold 200 rods to John Bartlett, miller of Pirbright and in 1777, ½ acre to Admiral Byron, probably the strip to the north of Grooms and Stable Cottages (refer sections above). In 1823, Sarah ‘Skirrett’ sold to James Paine, trustee for the young Henry Halsey, 2 acres for £200. There is no building marked on the 1840 Tithe map, so it appears it may have been demolished by then. All that remains is a short portion of stone wall with brick capping.

Using the Court Rolls, we can trace the copyholders of a ‘messuage and 3 acres’ back to 1651, a George Marten and wife Mary. His son, also George, succeeded in 1677, but sold to husbandman John Gyles of Worplesdon the next year. On his death in 1693, it passed to his young son James, one of many generations of Pirbright wheelwrights, then to his son, also James, in 1754. It was his brother William who sold it to William Russell.

Millcroft (previously Brooklands)

In 1899, Henry Halsey 4 (who owned Manor Farm at the time) obtained approval to build a house on the land on the opposite side of Mill Lane to the Manor. It was the first house to be built on that side of the lane, and we think it was intended to house the farmer of Manor Farm. The plans describe it as a “Farmhouse near Manor Farm”, and the house was named Brooklands.

We are not sure exactly when it was built, nor are we sure who the first occupants were. The first reference we have found to the name Brooklands was in the 1911 census. One would think that the name was derived from the Brooklands Motor Racing circuit, which had been built on an estate called Brooklands in Weybridge. It had opened in 1907, which might give a clue as to when the Pirbright house was built.

The 1911 census shows a Henry and Sarah Martin and their family living at Brooklands. Henry was a farmer there. He had been born in Pirbright in 1859, one of 8 children of James and Winifred Martin. James had been born in Pirbright in 1829, and had started work as an agricultural labourer, but had risen to being the farmer of Whites Farm in 1891. James’s story is told in the Whites Farm section. Henry’s elder brother, James Martin jnr had been working at Manor Farm until his death in 1898, and now 13 years later Henry was working as a farmer there.

Sarah was the 2nd of 12 children of Albert and Sarah (nee Cherryman) Thompson. Albert had been a labourer at Cowshot Farm until his death c1880, aged 40. Henry Martin and Sarah Thompson married in Pirbright in 1895 and had 4 children.

But Henry died later in 1911, aged 52. Sarah carried on the farm for a while, but at some stage moved out of Brooklands and died at West Heath in 1917, also aged 52.

The next tenants of Brooklands in 1918 were Arthur and Nellie Lunn. Arthur was born in Shepherd’s Bush in 1876, the son of a painter and decorator. Nellie was born Nellie Whitehorn in Hammersmith in 1975. They were married in 1894, aged 18 and 19 respectively and had 10 children. Arthur was a Builders Merchant’s manager. In 1911 they had been living in 1, The Gardens. In 1919 the Lunns returned to The Gardens. Arthur was clerk to the Parish Council 1912-28. He died in 1933, and Nellie in 1936. A photo of Arthur is shown below.

After the Lunns departed in 1919, the farm was let to Mark and Mary Rushen. Mark was born in Stert, near Devizes in 1867, the son of a plumber. In 1890 he married Mary Jane Thomas (born 1860) in Calne. By 1911 they had 5 children and Mark was working as a farmer near Devizes. For reasons unknown, they moved from Wiltshire to Pirbright in 1920. We have shown below a wonderful photo of Brooklands (looking from the north) in 1919.

In 1922 Brooklands was sold by Henry Halsey 4, and this may have persuaded the Rushens that they had no long-term future at Manor Farm. Or more likely, their lease may not have been renewed, and they may have been ejected by the new purchaser. At any rate, soon after the sale, the Rushens moved to Russell Place Farm at Wood Street. Mary Jane died there in 1933, and Mark in 1938.

The purchaser of Brooklands in 1922 was a developer from Southend named Frederic Francois Ramuz. His story is told in the Manor Farm section above. In summary:

Mr Ramuz immediately sold the 89-acre Manor Farm to Esdor Faggetter for £1,500 in 1922.
A year later in 1923, Esdor sold part (30 acres) of the farm, including a bluebell wood to Major William Frank and Grace Heyland for £3,000 in 1923.

William Heyland was born in Rawalpindi, India in 1889, the son of Captain John Rowley Kyffin Lloyd Heyland (1857-93), who was son of Lt Col John Rowley, the son of Major Arthur Rowley, who died in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo). So, a through-and-through military family.

William was only 4 years old when his father (who had fought in the Afghan wars of the 1880s) died in India, aged only 36, from an abscess of the liver. He joined the British Amy in 1909, and the following year he served in the Indian Army, a posting which surely he had requested so that he could visit the place of his birth. He stayed there a year, then in 1912 he seemed to take a break from his military service, as he sailed to Canada, aged 22, giving his occupation as “Lieutenant” and his destination as British Columbia. In September 1914 he sailed from New York back to London, recording his address as Bayswater and his occupation as “Rancher”. Perhaps William wanted to return to England to offer support to his country during WW1.

On his return to England he was mobilised in the Special Reserve. He was promoted to Captain and joined the 60th Rifles a year later. His entry in the Wellington School Roll of Honour below left tells his life story on a nutshell. 2 of William’s 3 brothers were killed in WW1. William and his other brother were both wounded. An independent account (below right) of William’s heroism was given by a colleague from WW1.

At the time of the 1921 census he was still in the army (at Castlebar Barracks in County Mayo, during the time of Irish Independence). So by 1924 William had had a highly eventful life and was still only 35 years old. Perhaps it is not surprising that he wanted the quieter life of a farmer in rural Pirbright. Later the same year he married Grace Ibberson (born near York in 1895, the daughter of a solicitor) in Farnham, and they proceeded to have 2 daughters, Philippa Mary (born 1925) and Rosemary Anne (born 1927). William obviously didn’t want life to be too quiet, as he immediately installed a telephone line in the house (phone no: Brookwood 124).

William had changed the name of the house from Brooklands to Millcroft as soon as he bought the house. Perhaps he didn’t want to be associated with the Brooklands racetrack, which was growing in popularity at the time, not least because of the “Chitty Bang Bangs” which had recently appeared. Maybe it didn’t fit with his vision of the quiet life. [By coincidence, the Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang car that flew in a David Walliams Channel 4 show is housed not far away in the Pewley area of Guildford. It is most impressive – take a look on youtube!]

William played cricket for Pirbright (becoming vice-captain of the team in 1929), sat on the Parish Council, and was prominent in local activities. In 1935 he was involved in a fatal road accident at St John’s. William was driving to Pirbright from Woking and had just made the right turn in St John’s when a motorcyclist (an amateur boxer aged 23, travelling at 35-40mph according to a passing cyclist) crashed into William’s car head-on, having pulled out to pass a parked van. The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death and William was exonerated of any blame.

Grace died in 1939, aged 43, as reported in the local newspaper below.

William died in December 1942 in a car accident in Shrewsbury, while on duty during the blackout. At the time, he was serving in No. 11 Group, Royal Pioneer Corps. But members of his and Grace’s family stayed at Millcroft for a few years after WW2. These included (apologies in advance: These family relationships are a little complicated):

Captain Geoffrey Ibberson (1897 - 1977) was Grace’s brother. He had married a Dorothea Turnly in 1923 (William Heyland was one of the witnesses), and they had 1 son, John. But Geoffrey and Dorothea went through a nasty divorce case in 1931, as set out in the press cutting below. He remarried in 1950 (to Kathleen McLaren) and the couple moved to the Salisbury area, where they lived for the rest of their lives.
Geoffrey A Ibberson (1927 – 1992) was one of Geoffrey and Dorothea’s 2 sons.
Lucy Ibberson (1890 - 1962) was Grace’s sister. She never married, and moved to Salisbury with her brother Geoffrey and his new wife.
Philippa and Rosemary Heyland were the 2 daughters of Geoffrey and Grace who had been born soon after their parents had moved into Millcroft. Philippa married John Ibberson (son of Captain Geoffrey and Dorothea) in 1951 (see Tatler cutting below), so they were first cousins.

During this post-war period, some of the fields (around 20 acres in size) were sold to Alfred Fry (junior) of nearby Vines Farm for £425 (£12,000 today). We tell the story of the Frys in the Vines Farm section. A plan of this sale is shown below. It’s a bit tricky to work out where this land is today (even with the help of google maps), as it doesn’t have any road frontage, and is now heavily treed. It stretches from just south of the house Admiral’s Walk across to Burners on the Guildford Road.

After the Ibberson/Heyland clan had decamped from Pirbright (largely to Salisbury), the next occupants (as tenants) from 1955 were Cyril and Evelyn Lane. Cyril Rickword Lane was born in Cheltenham in 1899, the son of a tutor in a teacher training college. He read medicine at Oxford University and graduated in 1923.

In 1926 he married Margherita “Babbo” Dupre in Jersey. Margherita was born in Jersey in 1901, the daughter of a perfume manufacturer. By then Cyril had qualified as a doctor. They had 3 children, and during the 1930s they lived in Hampstead, with a practice in Wimpole St.

In 1939 Cyril was a member of the Emergency Medical Service, and in the register of that year, he was “Pathologist at Sector Laboratory” at Epsom College [which is of particular interest to the author, who (several years later) attended Epsom College as a lad.] In 1942 Cyril was still working at Epsom College in the Path Lab. He wrote papers on such specialised themes as “Case of Agranulocytosis” and “Tumour of the urachus” (don’t ask).

Margherita died in 1942, aged only 41. In 1950 Cyril remarried Evelyn Robinson. Evelyn was born in 1899 at Kirkandrews, near Carlisle, the daughter of a seed merchant. She had previously married Thomas Robinson, a Carlisle solicitor in 1921 and they had 2 children. Thomas emigrated to Canada in 1927, but we suspect that he and Evelyn had separated (as in 1939, Evelyn was living with her father and one of her sons in her home town of Kirkandrews). Thomas died in 1941 in Canada.

Cyril’s daughter, Jean-Marie, married James Puxley RN at Pirbright in April 1955. There were 300 guests at the reception at Millcroft. That must have been quite a party! Cyril and Evelyn lived at Millcroft until c1964. Cyril died in Carlisle in 1984 and Evelyn in 1996.

While the Lanes were renting Millcroft, the owners (the Ibbersons/Heylands) sold off in 1957 another 5 acres or so of land for £405 (£8,000 today) to Alfred Fry (junior) of nearby Vines Farm, to add to the 20 acres they had sold in 1953 (refer above). This left Millcroft with 5 acres of land, still with considerable frontage along the south side of Mill Lane. We believe that it remains the same size today.

The next owners from c1967 were Douglas and Joyce Woodward. Douglas Atter Woodward was born in Twickenham in 1920, the son of a market gardener, who lived about half a mile from Twickenham Rugby Stadium (which had been first built in 1909). His unusual middle name of Atter was his mother’s maiden name. In 1939 he was helping his father in his market gardening business, and they were now living a mile further north on the A4 in Isleworth. Joyce was born in New Malden in 1920, the daughter of a foreman at a company called T Clark & Co. Douglas and Joyce were married in 1947 and in the 1960s were living in Wokingham.

They only stayed at Millcroft until 1973, when they moved to Devon. Douglas died there 4 years later. Joyce died in Monmouthshire in 2018, aged 98.

The next owners were Michael and Margaret Rogerson. During the 1990s they sold the house to John and Louise Compton. Millcroft was sold to the current owners in 2009. A recent agent’s photo is shown below (with thanks).

The Glen

The Glen sits in 23 acres of agricultural fields on the south side of Mill Lane. The house was built in 1970 by the then owner of Vines Farm. At the time both Vines Farm (87 acres) and The Glen (23 acres) were under common ownership, but the 2 properties were separated (between different members of the family) around 1970.

The family of the 1970 owner still live in The Glen, but we will cover the property’s development over the past 50 years briefly below.

In 1968 the 23 acres of The Glen (at the time part of Vines Farm) had been used as a piggery, with some 1800 pigs there. The resulting slurry was spread over the fields belonging to The Glen and Vines Farm (110 acres). The smell was memorable, apparently, as was the boiling up of the swill collected from Pirbright Camp....

The Glen was built in 1970 and occupied by the owner. The house was extended in 1973. Over the next 20 years the pig business diminished gradually until it ceased completely c2001. The original owner died in 2008.

By this time, many of the fields were being used for horses, and in 2010 the family formed a riding school, Glendell Equestrian, on the property. The old pig buildings were replaced by stables and other equestrian-related buildings.

In 2023 approval was given to demolish a barn on the property and build 3 dwellings in its place for family accommodation.