THIS IS FINDON — created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

THE DREAMER AND THE ARTIST

Copyright Valerie Martin 2002

Part (Christmas card story) published in Findon Pages in December 20908

Alfred Lyall (1795-1865) was George Lyall's (1779-1853) youngest brother and he became the curate in Findon.  He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge and spent several years studying and travelling.  This was particularly in Italy, where he acquired some knowledge of art. 

In 1827 he published a book “Rambles in Madeira and in Portugal”.  He seems to have been a man of romantic inclinations, and of a studious, dreamy personality and a little remote from reality.  It is related that once, having merely dropped into a London auctioneers, he awoke from his musing to discover he had bid for a picture 12 ft. square, which he had not meant to buy and, more to the point, had no room to hang.   

Alfred was an avid reader, a serious student of history and philosophical works and also a lover of poetry.  When not engrossed in his books, he was a good companion, full of wit and had the reputation of being a good horseman (no doubt like his grandfather, John Lyall).

The young bachelor of Regency days wrote a second book with the strange title of “Principles of Necessary and Contingent Truth” and he might have wandered aimlessly through life if his elder brother, William, the future Dean of Canterbury, had not taken him in hand and steered him towards an ecclesiastical career.   Being under pressure to take holy orders, Alfred took a nostalgic trip to Madeira and gave in after his return.

In 1829, Alfred was welcomed as the new curate in Findon.  He was a young bachelor and recently ordained and was by now in his mid-thirties and living at the fine family Georgian property in The Square.  For the next few years he was of great assistance to the Reverend John Hind and was held in great esteem by the villagers, he was conscientious although just a little uninspiring in his duties.   He gave up his greatest pleasure — that of his extended holidays on the Continent and the cares of the world set in on him from then on.  

When he was 39 years of age in 1834,  he married a girl who was fourteen years his junior, Mary Drummond Broadwood, and the couple briefly honeymooned in Venice. 

Mary brought quite an historical background with her.  The Broadwoods were originally from the Border too.  Mary's father was James Tschudi Broadwood (1778-1851).   Her grandfather was John Broadwood (1732-1812), who bought the Lyne Estate in Surrey.  He was an immigrant Scottish piano-maker and founder of the famous family of piano-makers, the Broadwood Piano Company that still produces them in their West London workshops today.  Apart from the Broadwoods of piano fame, she was linked to the Swiss harpsichord maker Burkat Schudi (who supplied Handel in the 1700s).

Her mother was Margaret Shaw Stewart, descended from the Stewart clan, whose grandfather was closely associated with Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 that had disastrous consequences all over Scotland.

Mary was a lively and practical wife.  Like her husband, she was well read, especially in poetry, and she shared his love of art.  They often rode together over the same Findon Downs that I walk today.

Mary was also a delightful artist as this sketch depicting the spire of St. John the Baptist Church peeping through the trees shows —

I would guess that their eldest children, Walter Tschudi (1834-1904), Alfred Comyn (1835-1911) and Mary Sibylla (1836-1891) were the only three of their eleven children that could have been born in Findon before they departed in 1837.  Three others died in infancy, leaving him with four sons and four daughters to support. 

When Alfred became the Reverend Lyall they left Findon in 1837 when he was appointed the Vicar of Godmersham in Kent.  Alfred was not the person one would naturally think of as a parish priest, he was a little too removed from the ordinary people.  He required the benefices to give him an income to live on and the spare hours to continue writing.  

Tom Lyall in Bangkok tells me that the Lyall family do not know what happened to Mary's original sketches and they appear to have vanished into thin air.  He says that the photographs of his great-great-great-grandparents stared down at him as a child every time he visited his grandparents' home.

After the Lyall family departed from The Square, the property had many owners over the years — George Hard, Mr Parson, Captain Farmer, Reverend Canon Gover of Findon.   The latter also bought at auction in 1886, two properties in the Broadwater Road, numbers 5 and 6, complete with ornamental grounds, stables and kitchen gardens, for £2,330.    

Another owner of the property in The Square was Alfred Duval.  I still do not know by what name the house was known but by 1901 it was called Salteystead and owned successively by Captain Samuel P. Oliver, Mrs. Chapman and by 1907 by Captain O’Beirne.  The latter's wife, Marian, ran it as a boarding house.  

Around 1909/22, Salteystead was known as Woolsthorpe and resided in by

By 1924/5 the property had become known as Grey Point and was owned by Edgar Frank E. F. Thriscutt from Worthing and was run as a boarding house.  At this time drinking water came from the well behind the Gun Inn.  The garden was set in three acres and the entrance hall was supposedly haunted by a ghost.   This was in the form of an old man with a walking stick.   Edgar's son, Herbert Sydney Thriscutt (born in Worthing) says was a young child the ghost did not worry him and he did not clap eyes on it.   The Thriscutt family moved back to Worthing in 1931.   The property at this time was mainly Georgian in style with the original portion of  brick with a slate roof but it had been added to over the years and was now approached through two pairs of double entrance gates with a drive to the front door.

After the Thriscutt family's departure, Grey Point was  run as a private hotel with a corner of the grounds as tea gardens.   Having direct access from the main London-Worthing road with what was considered at that time to be "a large volume of traffic" — it was thought that the vehicles slowed down at this point in Findon because of a 10 mile limit!

The above is a plan of Grey Point in 1931 when it came on the market and was described as

"Ripe for immediate development into tea gardens, petrol station and future shop property". 

At this time it had a main frontage of about 218 feet and a frontage on Cross Lane of 260 feet and the area of the property covered some 1¾ acres.   The whole of the grounds were completely surrounded by a brick and flint built wall.  It is interesting to note that there were fourteen bedrooms at this time, a bathroom, four reception rooms and land on the opposite side of the road with garages for nine cars.

The matured grounds of Grey Point in thirties were laid out with lawns and flower beds to the east of the drawing room with a surrounding belt of fully grown specimen trees, such as tulip trees, magnolias, weeping ash and maiden hair trees of outstanding beauty.   A substantially built tiled roof summer house stood at the corner of the boundary wall overlooking the lawns.

The back garden was enclosed by this time and partly utilized as a full-sized tennis court surrounded by herbaceous borders with a box hedge.   The east and west borders were stocked with plum trees, gooseberry and currant bushes.

The kitchen garden was also well planted with matured apple, pear, fig, plum and other trees in full bearing.

By 1934/40 Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Sandison were the proprietors of the hotel.

It is rumoured that Sir Isaac Newton once resided at the property known as Grey Point standing in The Square in the centre of the village. Whether this was prior to his major work on the theories of universal gravitation, or after, is not known and I can find no authenticity for his presence in Findon but ― it’s a nice story.

Grey Point continued to be run as a hotel until the Second World War years and there was a nightclub on the premises.

In the mid 1920s Grey Point was owned by Edgar Frank E. F. Thirscutt and was run as a boarding house. At this time, the entrance hall had gained the reputation of being haunted by a ghost in the form of a strange old man with a walking stick.

By 1949, Mr and Mrs Barnett owned Grey Point and used a sketch of the property on their post war Christmas cards in that year. The couple appear to have believed the Isaac Newton story and had printed on the front of their greeting cards "Grey Point Hotel, Findon. Once the home of Sir Isaac Newton". Below is the actual faded card….

In May 2008 I was pleased to receive the following email from Lawrie May in Antigua in the West Indies...."Here is a picture of a rather worn medal my father won for the Grey Point gardens which were very extensive.  The medal is rather worn - hope you can read it ! 

In September 1958, there were proposals to demolish the Grey Point Hotel to make way for building a parade of shops on the site but the Worthing Rural District Council turned this down. The Planning Committee refused permission because development of the site might lead to traffic congestion and danger.

Around 1961 Mrs. Pat Hunt (formerly the Mrs. Barnett of Christmas card fame) ran Grey Point as an A.A. appointed hotel. Her most famous guest was the star of Dynasty…..yes, Joan Collins. I am told that Joan was the niece of Mr. Godfrey the owner of Downs Edge Farm and she is reputed to have visited the village on a number of occasions. I cannot help but wonder if she ever encountered at Grey Point the spectre of the elderly gentleman with his walking stick?

Grey Point was eventually converted into flats.  The residence had once boasted a lovely garden with a rare tree called a tulip tree which had wonderful blooms during the spring but one cannot stop progress.  This was cut down when the land was sold for the building of the bungalows in Tudor Close.

In February 2002, Police Constable Andy Tunnicliffe reported that complaints had been received about youths congregating in the private porch to the Georgian property, Grey Point, in The Square.  They were causing a general nuisance and upsetting an elderly occupier.  P.C. Tunnicliffe requested Findon parents be aware of the ongoing problem and ensure that it was not their child who was concerned.

Continue if you would like to read about the Reverend John Hind's life in the village.

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