This is Findon - Margot and Nancy

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

MARGOT AND NANCY

Nancy Price (1880 -1970 in Edwardian costume pre 1904.

Lilian Nancy Bache Price was born on 3rd February 1880 and was an actress and star of the London stage as well as being a prolific authoress.

She was also the confidante of Queen Mary and was equally at home with the Findon shepherds, gipsies and rural wayfarers she befriended.

Nancy Price in "The Whip"

She had the unusual gift of putting everyone at ease. She was interested in bird-watching and archaeology and had empathy for the old ways of the downland around her home.

Her cottage was named “Arcana” and was situated in Heather Lane on the Downs above Findon, quite near the High Salvington Windmill.

Nancy Price the banjo player in 1911.

One day on her rambles over the Findon downland she headed eastwards and said she heard the skirl of bagpipes and voices singing old Scottish folk lyrics. It was getting dusk and she saw cheerful lights twinkled invitingly from the lonely house she knew to be Fox Down. She had always previously noticed on her travels that the curtains were never drawn even at night, as the property was too isolated to worry about peeping toms.

Shafts of light spilled from the windows as Nancy dared to look in and saw a great log fire burning. It was a good old-fashioned grate and a log crackled and spluttered. Someone raised the log on the fire with a poker and the flames sprung up. The dark shapes of furniture receded into the shadows. The glass and china, wood and metal all came alive, the whole room was warm with colour and life. Nancy was so intent and taken in by the sight inside the house that she did not realize that the owner was beside her and he took her by surprise.

She was immediately flustered and wanted to retreat but he was the artist Edwin Douglas and instead of being warned off, she was immediately invited indoors and a glass of warming cherry brandy was placed in her hand.

From that day forth it was Nancy’s habit to ride over the Downs from High Salvington and drop in at Fox Down to water her horse. She was sure of a welcome. In autumn and winter she had the cherry brandy and in spring and summer she partook of a cup of tea in the garden with the family. It was the beginning of a rich friendship that Nancy had with Margot, Edwin Douglas’s youngest daughter.

Nancy Price

There are many local stories about Nancy Price. The late John Pelling of Worthing has told me that on one occasion his Uncle Alf had set a row of rabbit wires around the lower slopes of Cissbury Ring...... just as Nancy Price came along on one of her daily walks. She dismembered every one of them with her stick and he had to go round behind her and re-set every one.

When Edwin Douglas died in 1914, Margot’s brothers had a house built for her at High Salvington near to her great friend Nancy. This was The Cottage in Honeysuckle Lane. Nancy would walk along the lane to visit her wearing a colourful silk robe with her parrot named “Boney” perched on her shoulder.

I have not been able to discover much about the private life of Nancy. But I have heard that in 1942 the esteemed local actress and authoress, recalled how Worthing's town crier used to walk around ringing his handbell to advertise forthcoming church services. For this service he received £2. per annum.

The Cottage

One of Nancy’s books is dedicated to Margot ..... and Margot is described in another as —

“Her company gives a sense of well-being that God’s in His Heaven, all’s right with the world”.

Nancy Price's seat on the Downs above Findon.

In 1949 the Duchess of Hamilton unveiled at Beach House Park a memorial to pigeons killed on active service during the war. The memorial was the brainchild of none other than the conservationist, Nancy Price. She attended the ceremony herself with Boney Whiteoaks (who was a green parrot), perched on her shoulder!

In 1950, Queen Mary wrote to congratulate Nancy when she was made a Companion of the British Empire in the King's Birthday Honours.

One summer evening in 1955 Nancy returned to the Fox Down site after Edwin Douglas had been dead for some forty-one years and the property had been demolished and she described the scene…..

I came to a group of pine trees and a tangled mass of under-growth, brambles, gorse and honeysuckle running riot.

Here was once a garden with well-kept grass paths and flower borders and I walked over the rubble that had been a carriage drive. Not a brick or stone was left of this isolated house I had known, once full of life, love and laughter, hopes and tears. Where now was the fine artist who had lived here, his jolly family, the deerhounds, the collies, the great bloodhound, the horses, the parrots? All gone. Now only the sighing pines remained, dust and ashes, desolation and oblivion.

Eight years after Nancy had written these words, her friend, Margot was dead. She died in the Autumn of 1963 and in her will she left Nancy “the sum of one hundred pounds”.

Nancy died on 31st March 1970.

Clapham Church was packed with a congregation of 230 for a memorial service marking the life of actress and countryside campaigner, Nancy. Hymns included We Plough the Fields and Scatter, While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night and All Things Bright and Beautiful.

When I first came to live in Findon, eight years ago, one or two of the tall pines remained as stark skeletons on the Fox Down site, but now they are all gone in the gales we have suffered. Many inhabitants of Findon will recognize the description of the area as being on the Downs where Nick Gifford deposits used straw from the racing stables. stables.

In September 2002 I received this from Neil Rogers-Davis in Angmering —

1st September 2002.

Hi Valerie,

Several months ago the husband of my wife's godmother's (now in his late 80s) was telling me of Nancy Price's love of birds and the countryside.

On a fine day, she used to get her chauffeur to take her up to Patching and would sit under a tree in the hurdle makers' yard watching the woodmen at their craft and listening to the birds - her parrot came too.

On one occasion a squirrel came down from a tree and disappeared under Nancy's long skirt causing quite a commotion. My informant, always the gentleman, waited for my wife to leave the room before relating the story in case it caused embarrassment.

There is, of course, a plaque in the Beach House Park rockery, commemorating Nancy's love of birds.

In a 1945 film in which she appeared "I Know Where I'm Going", Valentine Dyall also starred who had an aunt living at High Salvington in Cherry Walk whom, I understand, he visited fairly regularly - only a few hundred yards away from Nancy's house. I wonder if he visited Nancy during his visits.

John Laurie also appeared in that film together with a very young Petula Clark. I also lived in Cherry Walk in the 1950s.

Regards,

Neil Rogers-Davis.

Neil Rogers-Davis, Angmering, West Sussex.

11th September 2002.

Valerie -

I just happened to be near Beach House Park today so I popped in to look at the bird memorial, and what an eyesore it has become. Even during the war it was kept in better condition.

I was born within a stones throw of Beach House Park, and for many years enjoyed climbing through the large rockery and savouring the many aromatic shrubs for which it was renowned.

I am sure that most people would agree that it should be (once again) the centre piece of the garden, instead it is a totally uncoordinated, tangled mess with a non existent water supply for the birds.

I wonder if the supporters of Nancy Price are aware of the situation. Do I sense a campaign coming on?

The old postcard does not do the rockery justice, and don't be mislead by today's coloured photo, it really doesn't look that good.

Tony.

Tony Hammond, East Preston, West Sussex.

11th November 2005

Valerie

Nancy Price

I have just read with interest your piece about Nancy Price the actress.

I have a keen interest in local history and some years ago was browsing through a book by Nancy Price in a local secondhand bookshop.

As I read one particular chapter I began to realise that the character she was describing was my great grandfather.

In the book she relates her meeting with him at the Red Lion pub in Ashington to persuade him to show her round his mill, the watermill (now gone) She goes on to describe getting to know him and some of his family, though her description of my grandmother, then a young mother stretches our family incredulity!

He was known as an awkward character locally at the time and at first treated her with much suspicion.

Tim Muddle, Ashington, West Sussex.

Tim tells me that Nancy Price called his Great Grandfather, Mr. Merry, because he was so grumpy!

Continue if you would like to read about Fox Down's Last Days.

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

E-mail: valeriemartin@findonvillage.com