Copies of documents relating to Old Postman's Cottage, Alciston, and Professor Caroline...

Copies purchased 19 May 1999 (ACC 7905)

A house was first built on the site of Old Postman's Cottage in about 1750; on 12 November of that year John Hayler of Alciston, husbandman, received a grant of half a rod of waste near the stocks on which he had built a cottage, to be held as a copyhold of the manor of Alciston by a quitrent of 6d. The property descended (for details see 19 below) to William Ridge of Lewes St Michael, and formed part of a much larger estate which he sold to Lord Gage on 6 December 1821 (for the deeds, including a valuation of the whole estate, see SAS/GA 437-480). The estate, which is clearly identifiable on the estate survey of 1822 (SAS/GACC 929), then included 'a substantial granary' and the cottage was occupied by Obediah Hudson, who had sold it to William Ridge in 1812 (SAS/GA 473; 19 below).

The house descended in the Gage estate and had become derelict by the end of the century. According to John Carter, interviewed in 1954 (16 below), it was used by George Dunford, the Lewes postman, as a resting-place between morning deliveries and evening collections; he is said to have kept livestock there. George Dunford and Samuel Dunford, both postmen, baptised children at Lewes St John sub Castro between 1872 and 1885.

By the end of the first world war only the chimney survived. Harold Edward Bell-Ayles Sheaves brought an army hut to the site and converted it into a bungalow (for a photograph see 17 below), purchased the site from Lord Gage for £150 on 16 March 1922 and sold it to Lewis Lewin for £1325 on 9 November the same year. In 1923 Lord Gage sold a shed and stables to Lewin, who sold the whole to Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877-1965), dean of Barnard College in New York, for £1750 on 29 September 1925 (20 below).

Dean Gildersleeve had met Caroline (Cara) Frances Eleanor Spurgeon (1869-1942), professor of English Literature at London University and a Chaucer scholar and author of Shakespeare's Imagery (1935), when Spurgeon visited New York as a delegate of the British Educational Mission to the United States in 1918; by Gildersleeve's account, the two women lived together for most of the following 24 years until Spurgeon's death in 1942. Both were prominent in the foundation of the International Federation of University Women, of which Spurgeon was president 1920-1924. For extracts from Many a Good Crusade, Dean Gildersleeve's memoirs and other biographical information on the two women, see 1-6 below.

Despite Gildersleeve's suggestion it is clear, both from the visitors' book and other parts of the memoirs (7, 4 below), that Spurgeon lived at Alciston with Lilian Clapham, her companion since 1896, and that the women were visited every summer by the dean of Barnard College.

Spurgeon was instrumental in the foundation of the International Hostel of the British Federation of University Women, designed by the architect Walter Godfrey, and to which Crosby Hall (for which see London Encyclopaedia, 213-4) was added in 1926-27. To Godfrey's designs, Old Postman's Cottage was transformed into a large comfortable house, augmented by a splendid library once the granary and adjoining land had been acquired from the Gage trustees in 1927.

Applications were submitted to Eastbourne RDC on 23 October 1925 and 26 September 1930 (DW/A6/15); in both cases the plans (DW/A1/2/75, 6/668) are missing and only the photographs (AMS6516/7, 9-14, 17, 18) allow the extensions to be attributed to each phase.

A photograph of the house appeared in the 'Picturesque Sussex Buildings' section of the Sussex County Herald on 26 May 1926 (AMS6516/9) and was featured in Homes and Gardens in July 1931 (AMS6516/10).

On 24 October 1931 Dean Gildersleeve gave the house to Caroline Spurgeon. Lilian Clapham died in December 1935 at the age of 63 and her ashes were buried at Alciston on 4 January 1936 (PAR 227 1/5/1). In the same year Spurgeon left Alciston for the sake of her health and lived with Gildersleeve in Arizona until her death there, on her 73rd birthday, 24 October 1942. She bequeathed Old Postman's Cottage to Gildersleeve, who sold it to James W A Calver on 31 October 1946 (7, 20 below). Spurgeon's ashes were buried at Alciston, in a grave next to that of Lilian Clapham, on 14 August 1946 (PAR 227 1/5/1).

Dean Gildersleeve went on to play a prominent part in the foundation of the United Nations and UNESCO; she was the only American woman delegate to the charter committee, and attended the Dumbarton Oaks and San Francisco conferences. Her papers are in the special collections sections of Columbia University Library.

The photographs allow the transformation of Old Postman's Cottage from a derelict building into a fashionable residence to be understood. Dean Gildersleeve's rather self-conscious memoirs provide a fascinating view of a self-confessed outsider who, as much as she enjoyed the English way of life and the company of intellectual women, gave garden-parties for the Women's Institute and accompanied Lady Gage round the village fête at the request of Mr Stacey the farmer and attended the inaugural Glyndebourne Festival, never felt quite at home in Alciston. It is regrettable that hers is the only non-pictorial account of this aspect of the life of Alciston between the wars.

Analysis of the copyhold title to Old Postman's Cottage, Alciston, taken from the courtbooks of the manor of Alciston (ESRO SAS/GACC 909).

12 Nov 1750 grant to John Hayler of half a rod near the stocks on which he has built a cottage; quitrent 6d, heriot and fine 5s certain; mortgage for £12 to Edward Boys of Alciston, gent

30 Oct 1752 mortgage for £20 by John Hayler of Alciston, husbandman to Edward Boys

1 Nov 1754 Edward Boys admitted under the conditional surrender

26 Oct 1762 death of Edward Boys of Alciston, yeoman; youngest son Samuel Boys admitted

3 Nov 1794 Admission of Obediah Hudson of Alciston, husbandman, on the surrender of Samuel Boys

20 Jul 1812 Surrender by Obediah Hudson to William Ridge of Alciston, gent

23 Sep 1822 presentment of enfranchisement to William Ridge and his sale of this, other former copyhold and freehold estate to Lord Gage, 6 Dec 1821

Negatives are available of most of the photographs.