This website, created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K. 

PORTRAIT OF COBDEN PRE-WAR

First published in the West Sussex Gazette in July 1999.

I have discovered that at one time the Muntham Estate, situated to the north of Findon, supported four individual farms. These were Muntham Farm, North Farm, North End Farm and the rather remote Cobden Farm below Blackpatch Hill.

Cobden Farm, with its glorious views, lay in the middle of nowhere to the west of the Muntham Court mansion. The property is first mentioned in 1835 when the Muntham Court Estate covered 1,860 acres and stretched across both sides of the London Road from Findon to Washington.

I have found that the entire Muntham Estate was put up for auction that year at 12 o’clock on Wednesday, 22nd July, 1835 at the Auction Mart opposite the Bank of England and was, no doubt, an important occasion. Particulars and maps were obtained by interested parties from the principle inns at Findon, Washington, Steyning, Worthing etc. The adjoining Downs at Muntham were described as —

Cobden was subsequently loaned to Messrs French in 1835 at a rent of £300 per annum. The actual farmland consisted of 717 acres, the majority of which was in Findon but also ran into the Parish of Sullington.

Thirty-six years later, the occupations of the residents of the outlying farm indicate the agricultural influence on the area. It is known that twenty-two year old farm labourer, James Downer, lived at Cobden with his wife Angelina. They had a three year old daughter named Elizabeth, and William who was in his first year and had been born in Findon. This perhaps indicates that they were comparatively new to the district.

A thirty-seven year old carter, Jesse Luxford, also inhabited the somewhat isolated Cobden in the same year, 1871. His wife was Charlotte and their two children were Findon born — William was twelve years old and already in employment as a carter's boy. Mary, their daughter was only four years old at the time. Jesse's mother, Elizabeth, also resided with the household. The family had a lodger and this was eighteen year old William Weller who was unmarried and holding a job as an agricultural labourer.

Cobden Farmhouse was considered substantial and comprised six bedrooms, a spacious parlour, together with a kitchen and other offices. There was an attached cottage, a large farmyard, an orchard of fruit and fair sized garden. There was a good supply of water always available from the well.

Ten years later a Farm Bailiff was residing at Cobden. He was fifty-four year old Richard Symonds Gadd who lived with his wife, Charlotte, and their twenty-two year old daughter.

Twenty-two year old Henry Lindfield was a lodger with the Clapham family. He was employed in that favoured occupation on the farm as an "under carter".

Various buildings grew up around Cobden over the years. The brick built stabling contained over-head storage lofts. There was also a cart house, a granary and many cattle sheds.

Cobden Farm stretched across inaccessible downland, secluded meadowland and arable fields with the descriptive names of Warren Meadow, The Croft, The Barn, Middle Field, Blackpatch Field, Hill Field, Crooked Field, Cockhill Ash Fields, The Cobden Down, The Inner and Outer Lepers and The Broad Meadow.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Colonel Ulric Oliver Thynne of Muntham Court owned Cobden, and by 1914 a gentleman by the name of Pictor Sambrook farmed the land with his family.

Between the wars, Cobden remained as remote as ever. Young Violet Ockenden, when in her twenties, worked for George Winton in the Square. One of her duties was to pedal her cycle out to the farm to collect the regular weekly orders for provisions.

On one occasion, Violet's bicycle became so plastered with mud on her outward-bound journey that on arriving at Cobden the wheels would not turn. The track grew worse and Violet wondered if she would ever reach the farm. She dismounted and pushed her machine. It just so happened that her father, John, who was employed by the Ockendens in Findon, was working on a building project at Cobden. The Ockenden men had walked out to the farm with their tools and handcart from the yard in Nepcote. John took it upon himself to dunk his daughter's muddy cycle in the farm pond to clean it before she returned back to the shop in the Square. Upon her arrival at the shop,

Violet's work for the day was not done. She then had to prepare the orders she had collected for delivery the following day. These were later taken by a lad on a bicycle or Ernest Groves in the Winton's van.

The agricultural concern at Cobden continued until the outbreak of the Second World War. The buildings were then abandoned and occupied by the army and the end was nigh. The farm was derelict, deserted, and finally demolished in 1942. The Cobden area is now only well known by the clay pigeon shooting fraternity who enjoy the sport there.

Continue if you would like to read about Jack Long's Muntham.