8This website, created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

COLONEL SUNDERLAND’S CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS

Copyright Valerie Martin 2008

Originally published in Sussex Local in December 2008

Findon throws up some interesting village characters over the years and I have chosen Colonel Marsden Samuel James Sunderland D.S.O. to write about this Christmastime. He formerly commanded the Sussex Regiment before occupying North End Farmhouse in Findon c.1894 until around 1915.

The above photograph was taken in the 1920s and North End Farmhouse can be just spied as it peeps through the trees on the west side of the main London Road….. now the busy A24. The house is just to the north of Findon at the secondary entrance to the Muntham Court Estate In the distance on the right in the picture can be seen the well beside the road at North End. The white sign beside the road is perhaps advertising the tea rooms once situated at the nearby Well House.

The Colonel was a tenant of Charles Goring of Wiston. Also rented were an orchard and outbuildings consisting of a three-stall stable where the Colonel housed his horses. A grey occupied one of the stalls and it is known that another was called Gypsy. The grounds extended to something like three acres including woodland. There was also a coach house, a garage for the Colonel’s car, a store for wood for the fires, and another store for apples collected each year from the orchard.

The gardens of the farmhouse were secluded behind trees and the flint wall, making them almost invisible from the main road. A drain ran from the top of a rockery and this filled a tank with water positioned in the yard.
Water has always been in short supply in notoriously waterless Findon. At North End House, it was drawn by pump from a well in the yard. When this ran dry, a horse and cart was sent to collect fresh supplies from Franklands Brook in nearby Washington.

The agricultural land farmed by the Colonel was situated at North End, Findon Park and around the Pest House area.
He was a hunting and shooting man and his hobby gave him much pleasure. The Prince of Wales around this time made Sandringham into an outstanding shooting estate and reared pheasants and partridges and this may have had something to do with the Colonel’s next enterprise. Being such a keen sportsman he decided to import a novel breed of pheasant all the way from Afghanistan to further his Findon gaming enterprise. Once installed in his pleasantry he must have been patriotic because he named them "Prince of Wales’s pheasants".

His large game birds with their trailing tails and gaudy colours had been most highly recommended to him for their high and powerful flight. An additional bonus the Colonel soon discovered was their eggs in season from the middle of April until the beginning of June. These fetched an equally soaring price and were most likely beyond the pockets of the villagers. Even today one pheasant egg in costs about 70p. The Findon shooting gentry in the early 1900s found the ordinary breed of pheasant quite sufficiently difficult to shoot during the season without the introduction of these newfangled "foreigners".

The Colonel also took to rearing pork as well as the Prince of Wales pheasants, but his favourite livestock of all were his attractive prized Jersey cows.

Around the year 1912, the Colonel employed a lad of the tender age of twelve years old living at the North End Cottages (situated on the opposite side of the road to the farmhouse). This youngster’s name was Master Cooper and each morning before the Sutherland family arose, he began work at the very early hour of four o'clock.
What were his tasks? Well, firstly the lad had the unenviable task of cleaning out the cooker flues. Later he got out the horse and cart in all weathers and delivered the Jerseys milk to Worthing. When he arrived back at North End Farmhouse, he was kept out of mischief by also helping with the cooking of the four course dinners served each night. It is guessed the lad had a considerable long working day.

Altogether the Colonel employed some eight servants in the farmhouse and these included a butler who came from Germany, a cook, a cutler (to repair the household knives, forks and similar kitchen utensils), lady’s maid, maid etc. The latter young lady was the lowest on the rung and slept in the attic, which could only be reached by climbing the ancient spiral stairs.

The Colonel also employed other labourers on the agricultural land. His own bedroom is known to have been over the "Justice Room" (now demolished), where the he paid out the wages to the farm hands.

The Colonel had two daughters. Unfortunately, one was disfigured for nearly all her life. The details are not known but disaster had sadly suddenly struck during some kind of revelry when the frock she was dressed in caught fire.

The other was Hilda, known by everyone to be a bit on the wayward side. Other than this she was a well-educated young lady and spoke fluent German. Was there some connection with the butler in this respect or pure coincidence?

Unfortunately, the wilful Hilda it is said developed into an alcoholic as she grew older and drank from dawn to dusk until her head fell on her the pillow at night. She was forever rummaging in the gloomy cellars …. her favourite tipple was in the bottled champagne stored under the old house.

Christmas was something to be looked forward to. It was always celebrated in high style at North End House and was a great occasion for the whole family to join in.

Many households begin collecting the ingredients for their Christmas pudding in November and the "stirring of the pudding" is done before the month is out. Not so in the Sunderland household though. The raisins, currants and suet for eight magnificent puddings were amassed much earlier. In the spring of each year.

In May on a comparatively quiet day in the farmhouse kitchen, the cook would announce to all that the day was "stir-up day". The ingredients brought out and the puddings would be ceremoniously made and steamed in fish kettles. Finally they were carefully stored away in readiness for the following Christmas. This meant they were duly hung, hopefully out of harm’s way, on the old hooks on the dark beams of the room that was in later years to become the lounge.

Here the traditional seasonal speciality slowly matured throughout the summer and into the autumn, waiting for the festive season. That room must have smelled of Christmas the whole year through. I wonder how many dogs went sniffing expectantly up at those beams if the door was left open? How many mice scuttled along the beams with their whiskers twitching each night?

Eventually on the 25th December a pudding was selected …. it was flamed with brandy and brought with great pomp to the dining table.

Young Master Cooper’s mother came onto the scene to assist the cook whenever company was being entertained, especially during the height of the festive season. The house became a hive of activity during the celebrations and even the hapless Hilda’s alcoholism and persistent sipping at the champagne passed unnoticed, or at least was not quite so obvious to everyone amongst the revelry.

Eventually, it is reputed that the Colonel’s wretched daughter was the ruination of her poor father with the habitual sampling. Perhaps he should have taken a firmer hand with her, who knows. Hilda apparently brought him to his knees and over the years he is thought to have got into much debt and finally mortgaged everything. This included his cars and the pride of his life, the precious cows…. all to satisfy Hilda’s craving for drink. The end came when he had to move away from North End Farmhouse.

I cannot help but wonder if any of the Prince of Wales pheasants escaped the fate of the Colonel’s guns and survived in the Findon countryside after the family departed. Did they grace the Findon hillsides with their colourful plumage for just a few years freedom before the Muntham gamekeepers brought the last one down?

Below is a Christmas card c. 1920  and sent locally around the time of the above story.... the scene is Church Hill in Findon....

This was actually sent to a person unknown around 90 years..... I wonder if there was just one card made..... or was it mass produced for the local community.    Has anyone come across it before?

Continue if you would like to read Findon Christmas Stories to Even Make Snowmen Chuckle

This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.