Alexander Nesbitt, a Sussex antiquary , and the Oldlands estate

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SUSSEX ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS 137 (1999), 161–73
Alexander Nesbitt, a Sussex antiquary , and
the Oldlands estate
by Janet H. Stevenson
lexander Nesbitt, an amateur of medieval
art and architecture and a collector of
ancient glass, was the younger son and
third child of John Nesbitt and his wife Elizabeth
Tatam. Of Anglo-Irish descent, he was born at W ood
Street in Walthamstow, Essex, on 9 July 1817 and
baptized in W althamstow parish church on 1 1
September. 1 Before 1851 the family had moved to 9
Oxford Square, Paddington, and from August 1841
or earlier had a seaside home at 30 W ellington
Square, Hastings. His parents apparently spent much
time there and his father died at Hastings in 1853.
His brother Cosby Thomas Nesbitt, a barrister and
man of letters, suffered ill health and frequently
travelled abroad. A volume of his Essays and Letters
was published posthumously in 1864. 2
Alexander himself was destined for the family
business, Nesbitt & Co. The firm had its origins as
Baltic merchants and bankers in the city of London
in the later 17th century . 3 In the 18th century it
was the chief London house acting as bill agents
between London and Ireland and had many
distinguished Irish clients. 4 From the middle of the
century its partners traded to the W est Indies, where
they bought estates, and imported wines from
France to London and Dublin. 5 A
From 1756 to 1782
the firm undertook a series of contracts with the
government to remit money for the payment of
troops in America and to supply provisions for them.
Debts to the T reasury incurred during the contracts
resulted in the bankruptcy of the partners in 1802,
In 1931 Sir Bernar d Eckstein, Bt, pr oposed to enlarge the east end of Christ
Church, Fairwarp, as a memorial to his father Sir Fr ederick. Despite local
enquiries and advertisements placed in The Times from 1 June to 3 June 1931,
it proved impossible to trace the r epresentatives of Alexander Nesbitt to seek
their permission to alter the position of the east window , which was dedicated
to his memory. Thus, in the space of 30 years, the Nesbitts, for whom Oldlands
Hall in Buxted had been built, and who had been instrumental in the
establishment of a school and chur ch at Fairwarp, had been for gotten, their
presence there for 30 years entir ely obscured by the later occupation of the
Ecksteins. This paper seeks to r edress the balance and to r ecount the history of
the Oldlands estate.
when the firm ceased to act as bankers. It continued
as general provision merchants after John Nesbitt’ s
death in 1817 under his junior partner , Alexander’s
father John, and other members of the Nesbitt
family. It was based in Mincing Lane in the city of
London and in T ooley Street, Southwark, until at
least 1876. As Thomas Nesbitt & Co., the headquarters
of the firm was at 255 T ooley Street and from about
1879 at 3 Borough High Street. The firm was last
mentioned in 1902 at Hibernia Chambers, 2
Borough High Street. Alexander was employed in
the firm and from 1853 was a joint partner with his
cousin Thomas Nesbitt, presumably the Thomas
who had earlier been his father ’s partner. 6
Although destined for commerce, Alexander ’s
education was, as his adult interests show , thorough
and wide-ranging. After his father ’s death in 1853
the wealth the firm had created for him enabled
him to leave day-to-day business to his partners in
order to follow scholarly pursuits, although he was
still named as a partner in 1863. His brother ’s death
in April 1856 at Algiers may have prompted
Alexander’s marriage in London on 5 June to Cecilia,
born to Lieutenant Frederick Franks, R.N., and his
wife Frederica at Geneva on 14 October 1835. 7 His
scholarly preoccupations entailed extensive travels
abroad, and a stay of four months in Rome during
the winter of 1858–9 was evidently for study . A
lithograph made there during an earlier visit in 1857
depicts him at the age of 40 as handsome, darkhaired,
and with aquiline features (Fig. 1). 8

1 6 2 ALEXANDER NESBITT
Fig. 1. Alexander Nesbitt, 1857. (Lithograph by G. B.
?Panivari, Rome. Reproduced by permission of the Society of
Antiquaries of London.)
Alexander was one of the earliest and most active
members of the Royal Archaeological Institute, and
made numerous contributions to its proceedings and
to the Archaeological Journal, including several on
monumental brasses. He exhibited his extensive
collection of rubbings of sepulchral brasses and
incised slabs from France, Belgium, Germany and
Poland at the Guildhall in Chichester , where the
Archaeological Institute held its annual meeting in
July 1853. 9 It is likely that Alexander ’s scholarly
interests were encouraged by his friend and brotherin-law,
Sir Augustus W ollaston Franks, keeper of
British and Medieval Antiquities at the British
Museum 1866–96, and President of the Society of
Antiquaries from 1891 until his death in 1897.
Alexander himself was elected a Fellow of the society
in 1859 and contributed to Archaeologia and the
Vetusta Monumenta series. 10 He collaborated with W .
S. Walford in an article on the 13th-century manor
house at Crowhurst published in Sussex A rchaeological
Collections, volume 7. The draughtsmanship
exhibited in his illustrations for it and for the other
publications mentioned below shows a high degree
of technical competence. He provided the illustration
of one of the capitals of the chancel for an article
on Worth church published in volume 8, and in
December 1869 alerted the Society of Antiquaries,
apparently successfully, to what he described as a
‘destructive restoration’ of the 1 1th-century
building. 11 He contributed to T . H. T urner’s and
J. H. Parker ’s Domestic Architecture in England, for
which he also drew illustrations, and wrote several
articles, including substantial ones on Altar ,
Baptistry, Chalice, Church, and Reliquary , for Sir
William Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Antiquities .
He wrote learned introductions to two catalogues
of ancient glass, one (1871) to Felix Slade’ s
collections, the other (1878) to those of the V ictoria
and Albert Museum. 12 His own collection of ancient
glass fragments was donated to the British Museum
by his brother-in-law, who was himself a substantial
13 benefactor of the museum, in 1887. He also
perfected a method of taking moulds of ivory
carvings, the moulds forming the collection of fictile
ivories belonging to the Arundel Society , of which
he was a member by 1866. W ith Cecilia, he worked
extensively on the history and particularly the
medieval origins of the Nesbitt family , and in 1898
his widow published the History of the Family of
Nisbet or Nesbitt in Scotland and Ir eland. 14
As an absentee, Alexander owned estates at
Lismore in county Cavan and at Clonsast in Offaly
(formerly King’s County). Neither he nor his father
had, so far as is known, ever lived in Ireland. The
mansion built at Lismore near the town of Cavan
shortly after 1713, probably to the designs of Sir
Edward Lovett Pearce, for their ancestor Thomas
Nesbitt (d. 1750), was uninhabitable in the late 19th
century. Alexander and Cecilia are likely to have
lived in a smaller house on the estate when in
Ireland. 15 Where he and Cecilia, who were childless,
lived immediately after their marriage is unknown.
Although Alexander had inherited the moiety of a
lease of 13 Bolton Street, Piccadilly , first acquired
by his great-uncle John Nesbitt in about 1807, he is
not known to have lived there. 16 He and Cecilia may
have spent time abroad pursuing Alexander ’s
antiquarian interests, as in the winter of 1858–9. At
an unknown date they took a lease of Kidbrooke
Park in Forest Row where they were living in 1861
and 1867. They afterwards lived briefly at Ashdown
House and at Stone House, both also in Forest Row . 17
What attracted them to Ashdown Forest and its
neighbourhood is unknown. The likeliest reason is
that the Nesbitts had several acquaintances in the

area, which had the added attraction of a convenient
railway connexion to London. They were close
friends of Lieutenant-Colonel Cuthbert Larking and
his wife Lady Adela, a daughter of the second Earl
of Listowel, who were lessees of Stone House, Forest
Row, where they were living in 1869. Cuthbert
Larking was the son of John W ingfield Larking, a
British consul in Egypt and one of the first
Englishmen to acquire influence there. Like his
father, at whose expense Henry Holman Drake rewrote
and published in 1886 Hundred of Blackheath,
a portion of Hasted’ s History of Kent , and his uncle,
the Kent antiquary Lambert Larking, vicar of R yarsh
near Maidstone, he may have had antiquarian
interests, perhaps encouraged by service in Egypt
where he was a bey and an aide-de-camp to the
khedive. In later life, however , he wrote reminiscences
and novels. Through his brother-in-law A. W . Franks,
Alexander is also likely to have been acquainted with
Coventry Patmore, who had been an assistant in
the Department of Printed Books of the British
Museum when Franks was an assistant in the
Department of Antiquities. 18
Patmore resigned his post at the museum in 1865
and shortly after bought two estates, one on either
side of the Uckfield–Crowborough road, for about
£14,000. 19 The lands on the west side were bought
in 1866 from Robert Stayner Holford, who also
owned lands in Gloucestershire and W iltshire. They
were mostly in Buxted and included an estate called
Oldlands. In about 1841 the south part of the
western portion was in Oldlands farm, then about
84 acres; the north part was in woodland extending
over 134 acres. 20 Mill farm and about 20 acres were
in Maresfield on the west side of the parish
boundary. Edward Turner, rector of Maresfield, had
identified four acres of Mill farm in 1844 as the site
of a Romano-British bloomery . 21 Patmore wrote later:
I saw at a glance that, with its deep and
beautifully wooded ravines, its superb views,
its mile and a half of trout stream, and its
neighbourhood to London, I could not make
a mistake in buying it at agricultural value;
and did so at once. And, finding that the estate
which ran for about a mile alongside of it on
the other side of the turnpike-road, and which
had on it a house in which I could live, was
for sale, I at once bought that also; though I
had to pay much more for it, in proportion to
what I thought its real value, than I gave for
the first purchase.
ALEXANDER NESBITT 1 6 3
Patmore rebuilt the house, called Puxty’ s, on the
eastern part, and when he sold the 263-acre estate
west of the road in 1869 to Alexander Nesbitt, he
renamed the part east of it, and his new house,
Heron’s Ghyll, from the chief feature of the land, a
long wooded valley, or ghyll, which he considered
not nearly so picturesque as the ravine on the
Oldlands estate. 22
The name Oldlands was known in the late 13th
century. The estate was formed in the early 14th
century from lands in Buxted and Maresfield. It is
likely to have originated as assarts from Ashdown
Forest and later evidence shows that it abutted the
forest on the north-west, the lands of Hendall manor
in Buxted on the south and a road from Barnsgate
to Buxted on the north and east. 23 Most of the estate
was a freehold of the manor of Buckhurst in
Withyham. Oldlands was called a manor in the early
17th century when it included rights of common
for all types of animals on Ashdown Forest. It was
said to contain about 100 acres in 1558–60 and
1597–8, and about 120 acres in the 1680s. 24 About
20 acres of the estate formed Mill farm in Maresfield
which also had common rights on the forest. A small
portion of land in Maresfield called ‘Syggers’ and
‘Synderfeld’, later Siderolls or Cinderbank farm, was
a freehold of Maresfield manor and became part of
Oldlands in the 16th century . 25
The date at which iron-working was begun on
Oldlands is unknown, but it was perhaps by the 14th
century when the Culpepers of Bayhall in Pembury ,
Kent, who had iron works near by at T udeley, owned
it. Iron was certainly founded at Buxted in 1492.
The frequent changes of ownership in the 16th and
early 17th centuries suggest commercial activities
connected with the iron industry , either from direct
exploitation of the estate or , more likely , through
letting it to tenants. The increase in the purchase price,
from £563 in 1576 to £2200 in 1609, may indicate
that such financial speculation was justified. 26
In 1313 or 1314 Thomas Culpeper of Bayhall and
his wife Margery acquired a messuage and 60 acres
of land in Buxted from Ralph Marescot and in 1319
or 1320 another messuage and 50 acres in Buxted
and Maresfield from Reynold Burgess. Culpeper was
appointed forester of Rotherfield in T onbridge chase
in 1315, and in 1318, at the request of his patron,
Bartholomew de Badlesmere, and others, Edward II
granted to him the forestership of Ashdown and the
keeping of Maresfield park. He was involved with
Badlesmere in the rebellion of Thomas, Earl of

1 6 4 ALEXANDER NESBITT
Lancaster, and was sentenced to death and executed
at Winchelsea in 1322. 27 His possessions were
forfeited to the Crown, but the lands in Buxted and
Maresfield were restored in 1324 to Mar gery, whose
date of death is unknown. Their son and heir , Walter,
died childless between 14 July 1359 and 20 July
1364, and the estate descended under an entail to
Walter’s younger brother Sir John Culpeper . 28 The
John Culpeper, esquire, whom John of Gaunt
appointed constable of Pevensey castle in 1372 and
master forester of Ashdown chase in 1375, may have
been a kinsman, possibly a younger son. By 1378
Sir John had been succeeded in the estate by his
son Sir Thomas, who died late in 1428 or early in
1429. Sir Thomas devised it to a younger son
Nicholas, who died late in 1434 or early in 1435.
From Nicholas it descended to his daughter Joyce
(d. 1486) and her husband W alter Lewknor (d. 1498),
whose elder brother Richard Lewknor (d. 1503) held
the manor of Buxted itself in 1483–4. 29
Walter’s and Joyce’ s son and heir Humphrey
Lewknor (d. by 1531) sold Oldlands at an unknown
date to George Nevill, Lord Abergavenny (d. 1535),
who sold it in 1533 to Edmund Pope of Little
Horsted. Pope sold it at an unknown date to his
kinsman William Levett, the rector of Buxted, who
may have founded the first ordnance in England
on the estate, possibly near Oldlands farm. Between
1552 and his death in 1554 Levett conveyed
Oldlands to his niece Mary , daughter of his brother
John Levett, and her husband Francis Chaloner , then
of Little Horsted. 30
Chaloner was holding the estate in 1558–60, and
in 1576, when he was described as of Lindfield, sold
it and a water mill, presumably part of Mill farm, to
Hugh Cornford, a yeoman from East Malling in
Kent, and his son Robert. Robert Cornford, himself
possibly an ironmaster, leased Oldlands to W illiam
Basset of Withyham, who was the tenant in 1593. 31
In 1609 Cornford sold the estate, including a
furnace, to William Wood, son-in-law of Gregory
Relfe (d. 1605), an ironmaster who had leased
Crowhurst furnace and forge from 1588 to 1590.
Wood, his wife Constance, Constance’ s sister Mary
and Mary’s husband Urban Best, vicar of Iford from
1625 to 1629, sold Oldlands and its furnace in 1614
to Richard Amherst, a serjeant-at-law and member
of parliament for Lewes in 1614 and 1621–2. The
purchase price, £1400, apparently reflected the fact
that the estate was burdened with a debt of £600
from Wood to William Mason of Hartfield. Three
months later Amherst charged Oldlands with an
annuity of £40 for Mason until he was able to repay
the debt, and from 1614 to 1617 leased the forge to
William Crowe of Selmeston and David Middleton
of Chailey. 32 Amherst sold the estate in 1624 to John
Nutt (d. 1653) of Mays in Selmeston, a pluralist who
was patron and rector of Berwick, vicar of Bexhill
and prebendary of Ferring in Chichester cathedral.
Nutt immediately repaid Mason and in 1651 settled
Oldlands on his eldest son Thomas (from 1660 Sir
Thomas) Nutt and Thomas’ wife Katharine Parker .
Still called a manor , the estate then included a
furnace, an iron mill and a water mill. The house
and agricultural land were let to Thomas Bray for
£70 a year, and the woodland was exploited directly
for the Nutts. 33 Sir Thomas (d. 1675) devised
Oldlands to his nephew Thomas, elder son of his
younger brother John Nutt (d. 1664), and in 1677
Katharine released her interest to him. Thomas
charged the estate in 1679 with an annuity of £70
for his uncle George Nutt (d. 1696). While in Lewes
on 14 September 1688 Thomas was fatally stabbed
by Archibald Clinkard but survived until the
following day, when he made his will. His murderer
was still at lar ge a year later . Thomas’ heir was his
brother John Nutt, a witness to his murder , who
died in 1704, leaving an infant son W illiam. 34 At
William’s death in 1769 Oldlands passed to his
daughter Ann (d. 1795), the wife of Peter Holford
(d. 1804). Under the terms of her father ’s will she
was succeeded by her children Robert (d. 1838),
George (d. 1839), Sarah (d. 181 1), afterwards the wife
of Sir Charles Hudson, Bt, and Charlotte (d. 1839),
afterwards the wife of Charles Bosanquet, who held
as tenants in common. In 1839 Robert Holford’ s
nephew and heir Robert Stayner Holford, the son of
George, extinguished his mother ’s dower in his father ’s
portion and Charles Bosanquet’ s right to hold
Charlotte’s by the courtesy of England, and bought
that of his surviving tenant in common, the Revd R.
W. Bosanquet, son of Charlotte and Charles. It was R.
S. Holford who sold the estate to Coventry Patmore. 35
In 1841 most of Holford’ s agricultural land in
Buxted, about 84 acres, formed Oldlands farm. On
it, standing north of the road from Fairwarp which
ran east to a junction with the Uckfield– Crowborough
road, was a substantial T-shaped stone and timberframed
house of 16th-century origin, but with
features mainly of the 17th century . It presumably
incorporated William Levett’s house, for which
Edmund Pope bequeathed 20 loads of wood from

his manor of Hendall in 1552. The initials ‘TN’ on a
first-floor overmantle suggest that Levett’ s house was
enlarged and altered for Sir Thomas Nutt in the mid-
17th century. That building, called Oldlands House
at the beginning of the 19th century and identified
by Alexander Nesbitt as the ‘old house’ of Oldlands,
was then occupied by farm bailiffs and later in the
century by tenant farmers. On Mill farm, Old Mill
Cottage stood south of the road from Fairwarp. 36
A small freehold of Maresfield manor which
Maud Oldland held in about 1290 for a yearly rent
of two barbed arrows was, as her surname suggests,
evidently at Oldlands. John Rootes, a citizen and
grocer of London, sold it in 1548 to Nicholas
Eversfield of Buxted, who sold some 16 acres called
‘Syggers’ or ‘Synderfeld’ to Francis Chaloner in 1549.
The land was afterwards part of the main Oldlands
estate, and the arrows were still due to the lord of
Maresfield manor in the early 17th century . 37
Siderolls, as ‘Synderfeld’ was often called in the 19th
century because it abutted the Buxted parish
boundary, contained about 20 acres in Maresfield.
It too included a substantial house, possibly also of
16th- or 17th-century origin, which stood north of
the road from Fairwarp and west of Oldlands Farm.
In 1839 Holford sold Siderolls to John V illiers
Shelley, from 1852 Sir John V illiers Shelley, Bt, whose
widow sold the land, then called Cinderbank farm,
to Alexander Nesbitt in 1869. 38
The enlarged Oldlands estate comprised about
280 acres in 1873. Nesbitt’ s entitlement to common
rights drew him and other landowners bordering
the forest into a lengthy dispute with its owner ,
Reginald Sackville, Earl De La W arr (d. 1896), which
began in 1877 and was finally resolved in the
commoners’ favour in 1882. 39
A house called Oldlands, later Oldlands Hall, was
built for the Nesbitts from 1869 to the designs of Sir
Matthew Digby W yatt on a new site south of
woodland called Brown’s Brook and Birch W ood in
the 1840s and Oldlands W ood from the late 19th
century. 40 Alexander and Cecilia were living in their
new house in about 1870. A temporary residence in
1871 with their indoor staff, including a French chef,
at Ashurst Lodge near East Grinstead may have been
necessitated by further work at Oldlands. 41 The
house was built of ashlar and had a gabled roof of
red tiles and chimneys in a style of the 16th century .
A watercolour which represents an early design by
Wyatt shows a house smaller than, but in a similar
style to, that which was eventually built (Figs 2, 3 &
ALEXANDER NESBITT 1 6 5
4). 42 It stood at the head of a valley on ground rising
from south to north. The main entrance, leading
into an oak-panelled hall, was on the north side of
the house and to the north-east there was an
extensive service wing. The principal rooms, which
included a drawing room also panelled in oak, were
on the south side of the house, from which there
was a wide vista to the South Downs. There was a
lodge in 1871 in which one of the under-gardeners
lived. The red-brick tiled lodge on the west side of
the Uckfield–Crowborough road was built between
1874 and 1901. 43
South of Oldlands W ood the gardens of Oldlands
and a park of about 30 acres south of the house were
created from part of Oldlands farm after 1870 (Fig.
5) by a newly-appointed head gardener , Edward
Luckhurst, who lived with his family in Oldlands
Cottage. His duties also included arranging flowers
and table decorations for the house, and dispatching
produce, including soft fruits, to the Nesbitts on
their visits to London and Lismore. In 1871 he was
32 years old and has been adjudged ‘one of the rising
talents of the 1870s’. He was a member of the
editorial board of the Journal of Horticultur e, to which
he contributed a series of articles from 1871 to 1884
describing in vivid and evocative prose all aspects
of his work at Oldlands, indoors and outdoors.
Although no direct evidence has been discovered,
it is likely that most if not all the thousands of trees,
shrubs and plants bought for the new grounds were
supplied from Woodlands nursery in Maresfield. The
more formal plantings, including a parterre, a rose
garden and a long and wide perennial border , were
near the house, and south of the parterre a lawn
was separated from meadowland by a ha-ha. Northeast
of the house there was a large walled kitchen
garden, in and around which 800 fruit trees were
planted. Among the many fruits inside, which
included peaches and nectarines, were over 100
varieties of gooseberries, and along one of the high
walls 70 types of pear trees, each pruned back and
trained in a single diagonal stem, were planted in
order of ripening.
In the park Luckhurst used semi-natural
woodland planting which also included many
conifers and rhododendrons, as well as shrubs in
more formal groups. He made the valley which had
attracted Patmore the chief feature and aimed to
recreate in it a Highland glen. In it the eastern and
south-eastern parts of the park were marked by a
feeder of the river Ouse in which there were four

1 6 6 ALEXANDER NESBITT
Fig. 2. Proposed design for Oldlands Hall, n.d. (W atercolour by M. D. W yatt. Reproduced by permission of the British
Architectural Library, RIBA, London.)
ponds, the northernmost on the edge of the
woodland and three further south. All were
apparently associated with the 16th-century furnace
at Oldlands farm, north-west of which the stream
flowed into another feeder of the Ouse which
marked the boundary between Buxted and Maresfield.
Luckhurst made the three lower ponds into a lake
and established a series of features beside the stream,
planting ‘in bold irregular spreading masses’ with
‘no formal angularity of outline . . . but a blending of
growth and a certain air of irregularity of nature’. The
main shrub was holly; heather , ferns, lichens and
mosses provided ground cover; and the northern
slopes of the valley , where there were a lready ancient
oaks, were planted with Scots pine, Norway spruce,
silver fir and yew . North American conifers were
planted beside paths along the valley floor . Two new
lakes were made in the stream: that nearer the house
was planted with water lilies and s panned by a
balustraded stone bridge; the other , further south, had
a waterfall, and was overhung by weeping birch,
crossed by a rustic bridge and surrounded by flowering
trees and shrubs such as laburnum, broom, mock
orange, lilac and may . Other features of the valley
included a fernery displayed on a rock face. 44
For an unknown reason Alexander , then already
terminally ill with cancer , revoked his bequest of
two years’ wages and £100 to Luckhurst in July 1885.
Perhaps Cecilia made good the deficiency because
Luckhurst attended, and provided a wreath for ,
Alexander’s funeral. Cecilia’s gardener in 1900 was
Arthur Fitt, to whom she bequeathed £100 and a
year’s wages. 45
Alexander was a deputy lieutenant for Sussex and
served as high sherif f for county Cavan in 1862. 46
He and Cecilia were presumably among those who

contributed money for the building in 1873 east of
the Maresfield–Hartfield road on land given by Earl
De La Warr of a National school for children to the
age of eight years. In 1879 Alexander began a forceful
and protracted correspondence with the Secretary
for Education in an attempt to have the school
enlarged to accommodate children to the age of
fourteen. He based his argument on the fact that
the population of Fairwarp had increased since 1871
and claimed that about 70 older children were in
need of schooling nearer their homes than
Maresfield. ‘It is obvious’, he wrote, ‘that to expect
anything like regular attendance from children
living from two to four miles distant from a school
is futile, and that the refusal of such improvement
of the Forest school as shall enable these children
to receive their education there is practically a denial
ALEXANDER NESBITT 1 6 7
Fig. 3. The north front of Oldlands Hall, c. 1910. (Photograph reproduced in W . T. Pike, Sussex in the T wentieth Century:
Contemporary Biographies (Pike’s New Century Series. Brighton: W . T. Pike & Co., 19 Grand Parade, 1910), 50.)
to those children of the educational advantages
which the legislature has designed to be offered to
all.’ In his opinion only coercion by the Secretary
would achieve the school’ s enlargement because
Maresfield ratepayers refused to pay for it voluntarily.
In a compromise, the school managers conceded
that children might attend until the age of ten,
dismissed the woman who taught the infants and
engaged another teacher capable of more advanced
work. The school was not enlarged or older children
admitted until 1893, 20 years after its building. The
Nesbitts were also instrumental in the building in
1880 of Christ Church, Fairwarp, to designs by
Rhode Hawkins on an acre of land given by the earl
south of the school. Although the church was
opened for worship in November 1880, it was not
consecrated until a year later . 47

1 6 8 ALEXANDER NESBITT
Fig. 4. The south front of Oldlands Hall, 1989. (Photograph by J. H. Stevenson.)
Alexander died at Oldlands on 21 June 1886,
and, as befitted one dedicated to scholarly pursuits,
his body lay in the library there before his burial on
25 June in Maresfield churchyard in a vault later
surmounted by a Celtic high cross, Earl De La W arr
having expressly forbidden burials in the churchyard
at Christ Church. His entire estate was valued at
about £53,000 gross. His entailed Irish lands
devolved upon his surviving sibling, Mary Anne,
widow of James Edward Burrowes, and he devised
others in county Cavan inherited from his uncle
Cosby Nesbitt to their son Thomas Cosby Burrowes.
He devised the Oldlands and Clonsast estates to
Cecilia, who caused windows in his memory to be
placed in Maresfield and Fairwarp churches, and in
Kilmore cathedral near the town of Cavan. The
three-light east window in Maresfield church is by
Messrs Powell of Whitefriars. The middle light
depicts the Crucifixion, the left-hand light Christ
carrying His cross to Calvary , and the right-hand
light the Deposition. In the lower portion of each
window angels bear a scroll with the text ‘For as in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive’, and across the base the window is inscribed
‘To the glory of God and in loving memory of
Alexander Nesbitt of Lismore Co. Cavan, of Oldlands
Buxted, and of this parish, born 9 July 1817, died at
Oldlands 21 June 1886, and is buried in this
churchyard’. 48 The window in the north nave wall
of Kilmore cathedral, stylistically similar and
presumably also by Powell, depicts the risen Christ’ s
appearance to Mary Magdalene. 49 In Christ Church,
Fairwarp, an east window inscribed to his memory
had three panels, each of two tiers: the central panel
depicted the Resurrection and above it the A scension,
a left-hand lower panel St Peter and St John, and

the lower right-hand panel the Holy W omen. The
upper panels of the side windows each contained
an angel. Cecilia also gave in his memory an
alabaster and stone reredos inlaid with mosaics and
glass, again by Messrs Powell. She had given a font,
a pulpit, coronae and a harmonium in 1880. When
ALEXANDER NESBITT 1 6 9
Fig. 5. Map based on O.S. Map 6", Sussex, sheet 27 (1878 edn, surveyed 1874); sheet 28 (1878 edn, surveyed 1873–4). The
estate boundary is approximate and has been reconstructed from the tithe award and map of Buxted (PRO, IR29/35/52; IR30/
35/52), those of Maresfield (PRO, IR29/35/179; IR30/35/179), the Oldlands estate sale catalogue and map of 1949 and
information supplied from the title deeds of Oldlands by Mrs Rosemary Mulady .
the east end of the church was extended and rebuilt
from 1935 at the expense of Sir Bernard Eckstein,
Bt, the central panels of the east window were reset
as single panels in the south wall of the chancel,
and the side panels were reset, still double, in the
north and south angles of the new apse. 50

1 7 0 ALEXANDER NESBITT
Cecilia died on 6 November 1900 at the age of
65 of acute jaundice caused by gall stones and was
buried on 10 November beside Alexander in
Maresfield churchyard, where her grave is marked
by a plain stone cross. She devised the Oldlands
estate to her husband’ s godson Reginald Nesbitt
Wingfield Larking, the son of Cuthbert and Adela
Larking. She bequeathed £6000 of her £66,000
estate, known as the Fairwarp Legacy , for the
endowment of the ecclesiastical district of Christ
Church, Fairwarp, which was formed in 1901. R. N.
W. Larking afterwards caused a two-light window
depicting the Annunciation and the Nativity to be
inserted to her memory in the south nave wall of
Christ Church. In 1901, as a public memorial to her ,
a vicarage house, paid for by subscription, was built
south of Fairwarp village to the designs of H. J.
Powell of Lewes in a style similar to the east lodge
of Oldlands Hall. 51
In 1902–3 Larking, an officer in the regular army
until 1907, leased Oldlands Hall, which was lit by
electricity, with its fixtures and fittings, to Sir James
Pender, Bt. In February 1905 the entire contents,
which included much antique English and Italian
furniture of the 16th and 17th centuries, were
auctioned. The house and estate of about 289 acres
were sold in March to V entura Paul Misa, a senior
partner in the firm of M. Misa, sherry shippers, of
Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. 52 Frederick Eckstein
bought them from Misa in 1920. Eckstein had been
born in 1857 at Stuttgart and educated there, and
was a partner in the firm of W ernher, Beit & Co.,
which he represented for many years in Johannesburg.
He was also chairman of the Sudan Plantations
Syndicate. He was created a baronet in 1929. After
his death in 1930 the estate passed to his son Sir
Bernard, who also had business interests in the
Sudan. A bachelor, he lived at Oldlands with his
unmarried sister Herminie Beatrice. After his father ’s
death Sir Bernard extended the estate southwards
and increased it to 379 acres by purchasing Furnace
Wood in Buxted in 1931. He also made many
alterations to the house and grounds. An outer hall
on the north side of the house was fitted with marble
walls and floors and double bronze-glazed ornamental
doors. On the first floor three suites were formed,
their bathrooms fitted with marble. One of the
bathrooms in addition had a mother-of-pearl ceiling
and a heated floor . Sir Bernard’s own suite included
Author: Janet H. Stevenson, 23 Byron Gardens, Sutton, Surrey , SM1 3QG.
a gymnasium. Bedrooms on the second floor were
opulently furnished, and a bathroom there, which
still survives, was panelled entirely in plate glass.
Although the house had attics, most of the servants’
quarters remained in the separate service wing. The
alterations to the gardens, equally lavish, were
carried out in the early 1930s under the direction
of Leslie Wood of the firm of W ood & Walford,
chartered land agents, surveyors and valuers of East
Grinstead. A fountain and lily pond were made in
the parterre from which a semi-circular flight of
stone steps descended across the lawn in six terraces,
each with a lily pool, to a lower walk paved with
stone, at the end of which a bronze fountain was
constructed as a fawn between two deer . The water
of the fountains could be illuminated in colours. A
swimming pool was also constructed. During the
cleaning and enlarging of the lakes on the southeastern
boundary of the park an oak pentrough and
penstock associated with iron-working near
Oldlands Farm in the 16th and early 17th centuries
were uncovered. Herminie died in 1945 and her
brother in 1948 and they and their father are
commemorated by tombstones designed by Sir
William Read Dick in the churchyard of Christ
Church, Fairwarp. The estate was broken up by sale
in 1949. The house, then covered in wisteria,
magnolia and other climbing plants, was afterwards
stripped of its foliage and of many of its fittings. It
and the stable block were divided about 1950 into
13 apartments for the owner , Mrs A. W ebster. The
house and stables remain in 13 freehold apartments. 53
Acknowledgements
I owe many thanks to Mr C. H. C. Whittick, East
Sussex Record Office, for directing me to sources
there and in the Centre for Kentish Studies at
Maidstone which I would not otherwise have found.
Thanks are also offered to the following for their
help, advice and encouragement: my husband Dr
R. F. Hunnisett; Mr Peter Kirby and Mrs Joan
Wheeler, both of Nutley; Mrs Rosemary Mulady of
Spring Bank, Oldlands Hall; the late Dr Roy Scott of
Fairwarp; and Mr Simon W right of the Uckfield and
District Preservation Society.
The Society gratefully acknowledges a grant
towards publication costs from the Scouloudi
Foundation in association with the Institute of
Historical Research.

NOTES
Abbreviations used include:
CC Church Commissioners
CCR Calendar of Close Rolls
CKS Centre for Kentish Studies
CPR Calendar of Patent Rolls
ESN East Sussex News
ESRO East Sussex Record Office
ONS Office for National Statistics
PRO Public Record Office
PRFD Principal Registry of the Family Division
SAC Sussex Archaeological Collections
SRS Sussex Record Society
VCH Victoria County History
WSRO West Sussex Record Of fice
1 A. Nesbitt & C. Nesbitt, History of the Family of Nisbet or
Nesbitt in Scotland and Ir eland (Torquay: Andrew Iredale,
1898), 60; Essex Record Of fice, D/CR 394/1, bishop’ s
transcripts,Walthamstow, baptism of Alexander Nesbitt.
2 C. T. Nesbitt, Essays and Letters (London: Emily Faithfull,
1864), 83–4; PRO, HO107/1467, census returns 1851, f.
417 and v.; HO107/1634, census returns 1851, f. 424;
ONS, death cert. of John Nesbitt.
3 E.g. Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers, 1708 , 292; PRO,
C5/258/34–5, Chancery proceedings, 1706–7; C7/244/21,
Chancery proceedings, 1706.
4 Their transactions with Thomas Conolly , reputed to be
the richest man in Ireland, are recorded in the Conolly
papers: Trinity College, Dublin, MS. 3974–84, e.g. nos
143, 149, 151, 371, 430, 433, 440, 451, 454–5, 1117.
5 Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers, 1742–5 , 505, 574,
579, 702, 711, 713, 769; Caribbeana 4 (1916), 331–2;
Greater London Record Office, Acc. 775/826–7, sale,
Touchet to Colebrooke, Nesbitt and Franks, 1766; Acc.
775/837–8, sale, Nesbitt to Colebrooke, 1768; Acc. 775/
852, abstract of title, pp. 14–15.
6 Gentleman’s Magazine 87(1), 375; Robson’s London Directory
(1833 and later edns); Kelly’s Directory of London (1828 and
later edns); PRO, AO1/205/666, declaration of victualling
account of Drummond, Franks and Nesbitt, 1782; PRO,
C12/579/8, Chancery proceedings, 1779; PRO, B3/3768,
proceedings in bankruptcy commission of Nesbitt &
Stewart, 1815–27, f. 444; PRO, B4/26, docket book.
7 Kelly’s Directory of London (1863); J. C. Combe, St
Fethlimidh’s Cathedral, Kilmore: a Shor t History (Lurgan: L.
M. Press Ltd [1992]), 27; The Commissioned Sea Officers of
the Royal Navy, 1660–1815 (Navy Records Soc. 1994), 165;
ESN 16 Nov. 1900, 7f, corrected by Guildhall Lib., MS.
10926a/2, baptisms at the English church, Geneva, p. 86;
ONS, marriage cert. of Alexander Nesbitt and Cecilia
Franks.
8 A. Nesbitt, Descriptive Catalogue of the Glass V essels in the
South Kensington Museum (London: Science and Art
Department of the Committee of Council on Education,
South Kensington Museum, 1878), p. xix; see Fig. 1.
9 Archaeological Journal: General Indexes 1–25 (1878), 26–50
(1955), s.v. Nesbitt; Report of the Meeting of the
Archaeological Institute at Chichester in July 1853 , 9:
included in SAC 7 (1854) following p. 232. His collection
may be that which passed to the Society of Antiquaries on
the death of his brother-in-law A. W . Franks: inf. from the
ALEXANDER NESBITT 1 7 1
Librarian, Society of Antiquaries of London.
10 DNB 22, 665–8; Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries
[2nd ser.] 11 (19 Nov. 1885–30 June 1887), 372.
11 Society of Antiquaries of London Lib., letter , Alexander
Nesbitt to C. Knight W atson, 8 Dec. 1868. His notebook
on castles and churches compiled between 1845 and 1847
survives as MS. 962 in the Society’ s library.
12 T. H. Turner & J. H. Parker , Some Account of Domestic
Architecture in England fr om the Conquest to the End of the
Thirteenth Century 1 (Oxford: J. H. Parker; London: 377
Strand, 1851); 2 ([?Oxford: J. H. Parker], 1853); W . M.
Smith & S. Cheetham, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities
(London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1, 1875, 2 ,
1880); Catalogue of the Collection of Glass formed by Felix
Slade, Esq., F.S.A., with Notes on the History of Glass Making
by Alexander Nesbitt, F.S.A., and an Appendix containing a
Description of the other W orks of Art pr esented or bequeathed
by Mr. Slade to the Nation (printed for private distribution,
1871); see also note 8.
13 Information provided by Mr S. Corri, Central Archives,
British Museum.
14 F. Boase, Modern English Biography 2 (Truro: Netherton &
Worth, 1897), 1108; Arundel Society, or Society for Pr omoting
the Knowledge of Ar t, established in 1848: List of Members
corrected to 1866 and 1872 , 10; see also note 1.
15 M. Craig, Classic Irish Houses of the Middle Size (London:
Architectural Press, 1976), p. 74, no. 23; The Knight of
Glin, D. J. Grif fin & N. K. Robinson, Vanishing Country
Houses of Ireland (Antrim: W. & G. Baird Ltd for the Irish
Architectural Archive and the Irish Geor gian Society,
1988), 39; Burke, Landed Gentry of Ir eland (1958), 125;
PRFD, will of Alexander Nesbitt proved 14 Aug. 1886.
16 Westminster Archives Centre, Rate Books, St Geor ge’s,
Hanover Square (Dover Street and Out wards); PRFD, will
of Alexander Nesbitt; PRO, IR26/719, death duty register ,
f. 487.
17 Kelly’s Directory of Sussex (1867); PRO, RG9/579, census
returns 1861, ff. 69v.–70; Society of Antiquaries of
London Lib., letter, Alexander Nesbitt to C. Knight
Watson, 8 Dec. 1868.
18 For the members of the Larking family mentioned here,
see Boase, Modern English Biography 2, 309–10; Who Was
Who, 1897–1916, 412; DNB 22, 665, 1121–2; cf. WSRO,
EPII/16/75, bishop’s transcripts, Forest Row , baptism of R.
N. W. Larking, 6 Jan. 1869.
19 D. Patmore, The Life and T imes of Coventr y Patmore
(London: Constable & Co., 1949), 140, 142; [C. Patmore],
How I Managed and Impr oved My Estate (London: reprinted
from The Saint James’s Gazette, 1886), 3.
20 VCH Gloucestershire 11, 286, corrected by VCH Wiltshire
13, 10; [Patmore], How I Managed and Impr oved My Estate ,
4; PRO, IR29/35/52, tithe award, Buxted; IR30/35/52, tithe
award map; notes from title deeds of Oldlands made by
Mrs Rosemary Mulady, Spring Bank, Oldlands Hall.
21 PRO, IR29/35/179, tithe award, Maresfield; IR30/35/179,
tithe award map; SAC 2 (1849), 171.
22 Patmore, Life and Times of Coventr y Patmore, 142;
[Patmore], How I Managed and Impr oved My Estate, 4–7, 43–
4; notes from title deeds of Oldlands ( see note 20).
23 Ernest Straker (ed.), The Buckhurst Terrier, 1597–1598, SRS
39 (1933), 5; CCR, 1323–7, 124–5; PRO, SC12/15/66,
rental of Maresfield c. 1290.
24 E. H. W. Dunkin (ed.), Sussex Manors, SRS 20 (1915), 328;

1 7 2 ALEXANDER NESBITT
PRO, SC6/1146/5, account of Thomas Culpeper ’s
possessions in Buxted, 1321–2; CKS, U269 E 341, rental of
Buckhurst manor, 1558–60, f. 19v .; ESRO, ADA 39, f. 1 1,
Buckhurst court, 7 Sept. 1687.
25 Brian Short (ed.), The Ashdown Forest Dispute, 1876–1882 ,
SRS 80 (1997 for 1994), 186–7; PRO, SC12/15/66; ESRO,
SAS/F 198, deed, Eversfield to Chaloner , 1549; ESRO, SAS/
G ACC 903, pp. 494–7, Maresfield court, 5 Oct. 1840; SAS/
G ACC 918, Maresfield rental, 1619, f. 18v .; notes from
title deeds of Oldlands ( see note 20).
26 CPR, 1321–4, 440, 442; F . W. T. Attree & J. H. L. Booker ,
‘The Sussex Culpepers’, SAC 47, pedigree between pp. 56–
7; Ernest Straker, Wealden Iron (Trowbridge: Redwood Press
Limited for David & Charles (Publishers) Limited, Newton
Abbot, Devon, 1969), 47; PRO, E101/485/11, iron-work
accounts, Tudeley, Kent, 1350–4; ESRO, SAS/F 201a, deed,
Chaloner to Cornford, 1576; SAS/F 214, deed, Cornford to
Wood, 1609.
27 CPR, 1317–21, 109; CPR, 1321–4, 148; CCR, 1323–7, 124–
5; VCH Sussex 2, 323.
28 CCR, 1323–7, 124–5; CCR, 1354–60, 636; CPR, 1364–7, 9;
SAC 47, pedigree between pp. 56–7.
29 Robert Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster , 1
(London: Chancellor and Council of the Duchy of
Lancaster, 1953), 380; VCH Warwickshire 4, 132; Register of
Henry Chichele, 1414–1443 , 2, Canterbury and Y ork
Society 42 (1937), pp. 382–6, 539–40; SAC 47, pedigree
between pp. 56–7; History of Parliament, Commons, 1439–
1509, ed. J. C. W edgwood (London: HMSO, 1936), 540–4 1;
Edward Cobby, The Lewknors of Sussex (Cranleigh, 1991),
35; PRO, C142/80, no. 37, inquisition post mortem of
Walter Lewknor; PRO, KB27/891, m. 34, Richard Lewknor
and others versus John Clenton and others, 1484: I am
indebted to Professor Mavis Mate for this reference.
30 Complete Peerage 1, 31–3; H. F . Cleere & D. W . Crossley,
The Iron Industry of the W eald (Cardiff: Merton Abbey Press
Ltd, 1995), 347–8; SAC 33 (1883), 268; J. F . Hoxford, Arms
of Sussex Families (London and Chichester: Phillimore &
Co. Ltd, 1982), 165–6; PRO, C142/80, no. 37; PRO,
PROB11/35, ff. 119–120v., will of Edmund Pope proved
1552; PROB11/37, ff. 39–40, will of W illiam Levett proved
1554; CKS, Drb Pwr 8/293b, will of Humphrey Lewknor
proved 1531; ESRO, SAS/F 197, deed, Nevill to Pope, 1533.
31 The history of the estate from the 16th century has been
touched upon by P . Combes, ‘Oldlands furnace, Marshalls
and the Nutt family’, Wealden Iron [2nd ser.] 16 (1996),
13–16; CKS, U269 E 341, f. 19v .; ESRO, SAS/F 201a–202,
Oldlands deeds, 1576; PRO, ST AC5/B90/39, Star Chamber
proceedings, 1593.
32 E. H. W. Dunkin (ed.), Sussex Marriage Licences , SRS 1
(1902), 28; SRS 20, 328; Visitiations of the County of Sussex,
1530, 1633–4, Harleian Society 53 (1905), 90; Joseph
Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, 1500–1714 , 1, 22; WSRO, EPII/
16/49a, bishop’s transcripts, Crowhurst, burial of Gregory
Relfe, 18 Oct. 1605; EPII/16/121a, bishop’ s transcripts,
Iford, burial of Urban Best, 3 Jan. 1630; PRO, C3/319/23,
Chancery proceedings, 1619; PRO, PROB1 1/107, ff. 65–
66v., will of Gregory Relfe proved 1606; ESRO, SAS/F 214–
18, Oldlands deeds, 1609–14.
33 SRS 20, 329; SAC 6 (1853), 238; Visitations of the County of
Sussex, 1662, Harleian Society 89 (1937), 80; J. Le Neve,
Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1541–1847 , Chichester, compiled
by Joyce M. Horn (University of London: Athlone Press,
1971), 27; George Hennessy, Chichester Diocese Clergy Lists
(London: St Peter ’s Press, Muswell Hill, 1900), 30–31;
ESRO, SAS/F 219–20, Oldlands deeds, 1624; ESRO, SAS/G/
41/20, marriage settlement of Thomas Nutt and Katharine
Parker, 1651.
34 R. F. Hunnisett (ed.), Sussex Coroners’ Inquests 1603–1688
(Kew: PRO Publications, 1998), no. 520; PRO, PROB11/
314, f. 25 and v ., will of John Nutt proved 1664; PROB1 1/
348, ff. 265v.–268, will of Sir Thomas Nutt proved 1675;
PROB 11/478, f. 320 and v ., will of John Nutt proved
1704; ESRO, SAS/F 226–7, Oldlands deeds, 1677, 1679;
SAS/F 246, will of Thomas Nutt proved 1689; ESRO, P AR
420/1/1/4, burial of John Nutt, 2 Feb. 1704; P AR 462/1/1/
2, burial of George Nutt, 9 Dec. 1696.
35 J. L. W. Petley, Maresfield Old and New (Chichester: J. W .
Moore, 1896; rep. W orthing: Gadds Printers Ltd, 1991),
55, where Ann Holford’ s date of death is incorrect; PRO,
PROB11/946, ff. 72–73v., will of W illiam Nutt proved
1769; ESRO, SAS/AB/842, abstract of title of R. S. Holford
to lands in Maresfield, 1840; see below.
36 SRS 80, 180, 186–7; SAC 33 (1883), 268; PRO, IR29/35/52;
IR30/35/52; IR29/35/179; IR30/35/179; PRO, PROB11/35,
ff. 119–120v., will of Edmund Pope proved 1552; Oldlands
Hall Sale Catalogue and Map [1949], p. 21 (in 1998 in the
possession of Mrs Joan Wheeler , Nutley); personal
observation in 1998.
37 PRO, SC12/15/66; ESRO, SAS/F 198; ESRO, SAS/G ACC
918, f. 18v.
38 SRS 80, 186–7, 192; Burke, Peerage (1963), 2212; PRO,
IR29/35/179; IR30/35/179; ESRO, SAS/G ACC 903, pp.
494–7; Oldlands Hall Sale Catalogue and Map [1949], p. 25;
notes from title deeds of Oldlands ( see note 20).
39 Return of Owners of Land, 1873 [C. 1097–I], II (1875),
Sussex, p. 22; Burke, Peerage (1963), 689–90; cf. R. Cocks,
‘The Great Ashdown Forest case’, Legal Record and
Historical Reality (London: Hambledon Press, 1989), 175–
97.
40 Ian Nairn & Nikolaus Pevsner , The Buildings of England:
Sussex (London & Beccles: W illiam Clowes and Sons
Limited, 1965), 533; PRO, IR29/35/52; IR30/35/52; O.S.
Map 6", Sussex, sheet 27 (1878 edn). Alexander Nesbitt’ s
letterhead called the house ‘Oldlands’: PRO, ED2/434/
10138, parish file, Maresfield.
41 SAC 22 (1870), list of members; PRO, RG10/1054, f. 47;
RG10/1058, f. 93, census returns 1871.
42 Royal Institute of British Architects, Portman Square,
London: British Architectural Lib., Drawings Collection,
W1/52. See Figs 2, 3 & 4.
43 The description of the interior of Oldlands Hall is based
on the sale catalogue of 1949, that of the exterior on the
catalogue and on personal observation in 1989. For the
lodges, PRO, RG10/1054, f. 47; O.S. Map 6", Sussex, sheet
28 (1878 edn); CC file E3244, Fairwarp. For the estate in
1874, see Fig. 5.
44 Joan Morgan & Alison Richards, A Paradise out of a
Common Field: the Pleasur es and Plenty of the V ictorian
Garden (London: Random Century Group Ltd, 1990), 39,
48, 60–61, 64, 101, 118–19, 123, 142–3, 150, 170–5, 197,
220: I am indebted to Dr Roy Scott of Fairwarp for this
reference; PRO, RG10/1054, f. 47; RG11/1054, census
returns 1881, f. 45v .
45 ONS, death cert. of Alexander Nesbitt; PRFD, will of
Alexander Nesbitt; will of Cecilia Nesbitt proved 20 Feb.

1901; ESN 2 July 1886, 6b.
46 Burke, Landed Gentry of Ir eland (1958), 125.
47 Petley, Maresfield, 12, 49; Nairn & Pevsner , Sussex, 499; CC
file 62262/1, Fairwarp; PRO, ED2/434/10138; ED7/121,
no. 92, Public Elementary Schools, preliminary
statements, Maresfield.
48 ESN 2 July 1886, 6b; Petley , Maresfield, 32; PRO, IR26/3758,
ff. 2277–8; CC file 62262/1; PRFD, will of Alexander Nesbitt.
49 Personal observation.
50 Petley, Maresfield, 12–13; WRSO, EPII/27/2217, faculty ,
Fairwarp, 1930; Christ Church, Fairwarp, foundation
stone dated 1935 on external south wall of chancel. None
of the fittings except the font survives.
51 ESN 16 Nov. 1900, 7f; ONS, death cert. of Cecilia Nesbitt;
PRFD, will of Cecilia Nesbitt; PRO, IR26/7787, ff. 4213–18;
CC files 62262/2, E3244, F5886, all Fairwarp; WSRO, EPII/
16/75. Personal observation.
ALEXANDER NESBITT 1 7 3
52 Who Was Who, 1941–50 , 662; ESN 17 Feb. 1905, 4d;
Kelly’s Directory of Sussex (1905); Pike, Sussex in the
Twentieth Century: Contemporary Biographies, 280; ESRO,
BMW/A4/5, pp. 23–4, Powell & Co., Lewes, inventory of
Oldlands Hall, 1902; BMW/F2/18, unpaginated, accounts
of Powell & Co. for the sale of the Oldlands estate, 8, 15
March 1905; ESRO, C/C70/105, East Grinstead
constituency: electoral register, Buxted, 1905; notes from
title deeds of Oldlands ( see note 20).
53 ESN 9 July 1920, 8e; Who Was Who, 1929–40, 401; 1941–
50, 346; Burke, Peerage (1949), 673; Nairn & Pevsner ,
Sussex, 499; Sussex Notes and Queries 5 (1934–5), 134–6;
Kelly’s Directory of Sussex (1934); Oldlands Hall Sale
Catalogue and Map [1949]; ESRO, DW/A6/9, Uckfield Rural
District Council, building plan register , plan 9544/56 and
a (Oldlands Hall); notes from the title deeds of Oldlands
(see note 20); inf. from Mrs Rosemary Mulady .