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

FINDON’S PEST HOUSE

Ref TQ 1210

Copyright Valerie Martin 2003

First published in Along the Furlong in October 2003

The ancient Pest House stands a mile north of Findon in a downland coombe.   A Pest House is a unique feature for a community to have and not many villages can boast one.

I have found that there are a number of approaches that can be made to the Pest House.  Stable Lane ends at The Downs racing stables — a bridleway then leads straight ahead across Gallops Farm northwards to the Pest House.

Alternatively, leaving Findon and heading north on the A.24 there is a shady bridleway a few hundred yards outside the parish boundary.  This bridleway is all that remains of a prehistoric track that led to Chanctonbury Hill.  Near this bridleway there are old farm buildings and the cottages of North End Terrace, the remnants of the hamlet of North End.  At this point a minor road leads eastward towards the Pest House and New Barn and later divides into two bridleways on to the Downs and a private road to Findon Park House.

A primitive dwelling may have been on the site of the Pest House in Saxon Findon when the feared leprosy was rampant.   The notorious old Isolation Hospital or Pest House (originally called Pestilence House) would have been a place of detention.  Afflicted lepers would have been sheltered there in an effort to prevent an epidemic of the contagious disease spreading through the village.  The inmates would have been driven from Findon’s midst, forbidden to enter the church, fair, market, taverns and alehouses and condemned to the Pest House.  This would have doubtless been only of timber structure, in fact probably, a thatched hut.  The use of wood by the Saxons for building means that there is no trace of the Saxon village of Findon.   Subsequent structures were built on the same site for patients suffering from pestilence, bubonic plague, or other infectious diseases in the days when epidemics were rife in the countryside. 

The Pest House would have certainly been in use again in the 14th century when nearly half the population of the country died of bubonic plague.  This was during the reign of Edward III and the plague arrived in the south of England from the Continent in 1348.   It ravaged the countryside wiping out half the population of southernmost villages such as Findon.  It was the worst outbreak the country has ever witnessed and was called “The Black Death”.  It arrived in Sussex in the spring of 1349 and raged through the summer spreading rapidly.  The Findon countryside population was decimated.  No figures were kept for our area but it was said that a third to a half of the entire population of the country died.  It is, therefore, probable that one in every two or three inhabitants of Findon succumbed to this horrific affliction over a fifteen year period.

Local suspected victims of the pestilence would have been taken from their infected houses to this downland house in Findon and kept under enforced quarantine or imprisonment, within its grim and daunting walls.  The unfortunate casualties were never returned to their families.  Findon withstood the catastrophic event, but many villages of the same size were wiped off the map.  The result of this attack on our environment meant there was a serious lacking of able-bodied villeins (labourers), to work the Findon fields for the Lord of the Manor.

In the sixteenth century the average death rate in Findon was fairly constant at six in any one year.  There was an higher than average mortality rate in the village during the year 1582 which points to the fact that there was an epidemic of some kind and meant work for the Master of the Pest House.  There were fifteen deaths, including nine within five weeks in October and November, eight of whom were members of the Sumner family. 

Again in 1658 there was a high mortality rate in Findon, which indicates another epidemic.  There were fourteen deaths.  Five within a period of four weeks during October and November. 

The last great visitation of the bubonic plague raged in London during Charles II’s reign, from April 1665 to the Autumn of 1666.  This was to become known as The Great Plague.   The court and parliament were transferred from the city and it is estimated that between 75,000 and 100,000 died, nearly half the population, and there is little doubt that Findon would have suffered at this time too. 

The year 1703 saw another high rate of deaths in Findon.  There were seven deaths, six within five weeks in September and October, all children.  Three of these were from the Scotchford family.  1733 was another bad year with thirteen deaths.  In 1752 there was a smallpox outbreak in the area that most likely kept the Findon vicar busy with burials. 

Findon’s Pest House was still in use in the 17th century in times of fear and panic of plague.  

Cholera has rampaged through Findon on many occasions.  On 12th December, 1810, George Woodhatch who worked as a gardener for the vicar, the Reverend John Hind, died.  Four days earlier he had done his last full day’s work and was seized by the Cholera Morbus that night.   George Woodhatch’s mother at the grand old age of 89 was so anxious to assist, that she died from over exerting herself two days later.  This left Mrs Woodhatch, a poor widow woman, with not one but two corpses to bury.

Dozens, quite possibly hundreds, of gruesome remains of unknown corpses lie undetected and not recorded in quick-lime graves within the grounds and foundations of the Pest House.

The majority of the present property dates from the 19th century.

The Findon Pest House can also claim to be the last house in the village to lose its picturesque thatched roof and to be replaced with tiles.  The thatch would have kept the dwelling cool in summer and warm in the winter, but also increased the risk of being destroyed by fire.

Beyond the Pest House can be seen a series of ancient field systems on the quiet undisturbed downland.  These bear witness to the fact that this was indeed a well-populated area in the past and not quite as remote as it seems today.  The regular ridges, furrows and lynchets apparent on the Racing Gallops could also be the result of farming by the Celts 700 - 400 BC, followed by Romans and Saxons.  Mediaeval field systems abound too between Muntham and Blackpatch.  These indicate that the Downs around Findon were populated by a civilization of intensive farming communities, which in times of pestilence would have greatly suffered from a lack of agricultural workers.

The Pest House now comes under the umbrella of the Goring Estate.   When I wrote this in 2003, the property was one of the houses in Findon that did not have any central heating.       

Continue if you would like to learn about a resident of the Pest House ... Mrs Hockham and the Bees.

THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — is a continually growing record created exclusively for documenting life in Findon.