Account for farming on the Searles Estate at Fletching

Introduction

This document, purchased from a dealer, is a stray from ESRO SRL/21/6, a bundle of similar accounts covering the period 1782-1787

The documents consist of letters sent to Thomas Spencer Wilson, bt (1726-1798), most frequently at Charlton House in Kent, by his bailiff Henry Cook. They consist of detailed profit and loss accounts for the home farms of the Searles estate, a day-book of work and a letter with comments on the week, written in a strong vernacular in a well-formed hand

Wilson retained the letters, which he annotated extensively, in order to demonstrate how much more profit could be made by keeping farms in hand than by letting them to tenants

Although the land managed by Cook is not specified in this letter, it is clear from the remainder of the bundle that it consisted of Woodcocks, Clapwater and Laurences Farms, Hesbridge Mead, the three Paste Fields, three South Fields and Hatches Field in Fletching

At some point in about 1900 the letters were numbered in red ink in a series extending as far as 26, the number carried by this document. It has also been annotated in pencil, at a much later date, 245 7/6, suggesting that it had been separated from the bundle and sold as an example of postal history. It is not, however, the only letter in the bundle to have been sent through the post, nor the only missing item: letters 9, 13, 15-17 and 19 are also not present

<span class="wrapper"><p>For informative (but regrettably unreferenced) accounts of Sir Thomas Spencer Wilson, colonel of the 50th Regiment of Foot, and his wife Jane, née Weller, see Hindsight (Uckfield, 2001) 7 10-19</p></span>

Document purchased 24 April 2001 (ACC 8321)