THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — these Findon Chronicles are created by Valerie Martin and contain scenes from her home village of Findon,
West Sussex, U.K.    Everyday stories about real people.

THE GHOST OF GREY POINT IN THE SQUARE, FINDON

Copyright Valerie Martin 2011

The Lyall family lived at Grey Point in Findon's Square for many years and after their departure the property had many owners over the ensuing years  — George Hard, Mr Parson, Captain Farmer, Reverend Canon Gover of Findon to name but a few.  

Another owner of the house 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 of Grey Point was set in three acres and the entrance hall was supposedly haunted by a ghost.  

This apparition was in the form of an elderly gentleman man with a walking stick.   Edgar's son, Herbert Sydney Thriscutt (born in Worthing) says that as a young child the ghost did not worry him and he did not evem clap eyes on it.   The Thriscutt family moved back to Worthing in 1931.  

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.

There was no more mention of the ghost.    Who can he have been?

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.

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 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 (and much else) …..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?    I am intrigued by this thought.

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