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

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THE DUMBRELL FAMILY OF STABLE COTTAGE AT ROGERS FARM

Copyright Valerie Martin 2010

The above is a superb portrayal of Rogers Farm Cottages taken in 1912.     I love the horse waiting patiently with the cart beside the barn.   Stable Cottage (on the left hand side) was occupied by William Dumbrell and family from approximately 1906 until 1912.     These picturesque photographs of his ancestors were sent to me by Gerald Harvey of Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire

Below is the full photograph of the one shown above...

  click on image to enlarge

The Cissbury Estate and Cissbury House are in the distance..... with Cissbury Ring beyond.   Large trees have grown up in the past hundred years and it is no longer possible to see this exact view.  

Here are us girls on the climb up the slope...... to try and take a comparison photograph to that of a hundred years ago......

  click on image to enlarge

"Darn it, we're are slightly the wrong angle.... onwards and upwards .... and head southwards my stalwart chums".

I would emphasise that the landscape is the same but the terrain has altered .... there are no sheep to graze the hilltops and trees have grown up and many fences have been erected which made my passage in 2010 difficult.  

What seems like hours later, I emerged from the thickly wooded slopes.    My Shetland Sheepdog aids had gone on strike because of too many thistles underfoot.... and Katie has to be carried over them.    I was torn and battered by climbing through barbed wire and fences..... and scrambling through undergrowth where it seemed no man has trod before.

 

The following is a collection of photographs from Findon's past..... old pictures of inhabitants and locations that we all recognise.... and plenty of village cart horses.

 

I will start at the beginning with a lady named Kezia Payne born on 3rd October 1832 in nearby Henfield.    When she was 22-years old, she married Thomas Payne on 28th October 1854.  Here she is with her husband, Thomas, and their daughter Ada Ellen, aged one year.    Ada Ellen was born on 25th June 1877 so the photograph must have been taken around 1878.   

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At the age of 17, Ada Ellen Payne was married in nearby Ashurst on 26th May 1894 to William Dumbrell (born on 25th October 1864 in Ashurst).

 

 

 

 

 

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Blocks Cottage c. 1920s.  

Their first five children were all born in "Blocks Cottage" (sometimes spelt Bloques) near the Fountain Inn at nearby Ashurst.
T
he Dumbrell children are identified as follows:

         Flora aged 3

 

Back row:

Flora
age 15
Flora Dumbrell was born in Ashurst on 22nd April 1896 and married Walter Sydney Harvey in 1917.   She died in 1980 in Cornwall.  She had lived most of her married life in Shalford, near Braintree in Essex.
 
Winnifred
age 13
Winnifred Dumbrell was born on 9th June 1898 in Ashurst.  She married in 1929 in Australia and died there in 1986.
 
Front row:
Ethel
age 11
Ethel Sarah Dumbrell was born 9th June 1900.   She married twice, in 1923 and again in 1964 and died in 1995 in Portland, Dorset.
 
Alma Kezia
age 17
Alma Kezia Dumbrell was born 24th August 1894.  Yes, your arithmetic is indeed correct.... 3 months after William and Ada Dumbrell were married.   Such occurrences did happen!   Alma eventually married in 1921 in Australia and died there in 1978.
 
Frederick
age 9
Frederick Dumbrell was born in Ashurst on 16th September 1902.    He married in 1932 in Australia and died there in 1978.    It never ceases to amaze me how people moved around years ago!
 
The youngest, Horace Victor Dumbrell is not in the pic
   He was born on 24th May 1914 in nearby Storrington.   He married in 1932 in Essex and died in Bournemouth in 1976.

Click on all of the following images to enlarge

William Dumbrell at Park Farm in 1904.

Here's the full picture above.

William Dumbrell with his horses.    

Above is the full picture.   William Dumbrell is at Park Farm in Findon.   Of the two boys (left background), the one on the right in the white overall is his son, Frederick.   As Frederick was born in September 1902, so this photograph was taken c. 1906.   Lovely sleek cart horses.

William Dumbrell on Rogers Farm land in 1906 — looking towards West Hill and the trees known as the Seven Sisters.

Willilam Dumbrell of Rogers Farm Cottages (the house in the background) with his binder on the turn.   I just adore thoses horses.    Here's the full picture...

Church Hill Shaw is back right on the hillside.

Rogers Farm Cottages (left).  William Dumbrell with the binder and son Frederick.       Here's the full picture....

The agricultural equipment appears to have a mechanical failure and is being dealt with by Alfred Barnett. Church Hill Shaw is the back cloth.

c. 1907/9 William Dumbrell in the Findon fields with his three super cart horses (and his Albion Binder).

NAMES TO THE FACES.... the Findon children in this old photograph of a hundred years ago are identified as follows:-

c.1908 — Black Horse Pond with the Black Horse public house in the background. The white building just in front of the pub was a barber's shop.

From left to right:  Emily Barnett (and baby)
Alfred Constable (born 1902) of 2 Mill Cottages - son of Albert and Ruth Constable
Winnifred Dumbrell from Rogers Farm Cottages (sitting), (born 1898)
Frederick Dumbrell from Rogers Farm Cottages (born 1902)
and Edith Gibbs.

 

High Street, Findon.    Frederick Dumbrell of Rogers Farm Cottages is on the left in the foreground.   Winnifred Dumbrell is the girl on the left of the three young ladies wearing pinafores in the far background.

Below is the full photograph.

 

William Dumbrell and Cecil Young of the The Vale on the Worthing to Findon Road (A24).

William Dumbrell on Rogers Farm fields in 1910.

Rogers Farm, pre 1911.

I started this narrative with Kezia Payne and I will conclude it with her.  

   She died on 1st August 1912 and was buried in St. John the Baptist Churchyard — this was the year that the Dumbrell family left Stable Cottage.

 William Dumbrell Died on 29th April, 1936 at Braintree Essex.    He was buried at Shalford in Essex where he had been living with his daughter Flora. 

 

WHAT ARE SUZIE AND KATIE LAUGHING ABOUT in August 2010?.....

      

 

THE ANSWER IS....

a more modern type of h
arvesting in the Findon fields...

       

 

Continue to read Portrayals of Rogers Farm.

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THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life around Findon and often beyond.

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