The Development of a Hillhouse Estate

Chapter 2. Thomas Langton, Timber Merchant, c1850 to 1865

Mid-Nineteenth Century RudgwickThe Young family disappear from the census records from 1861 onwards, suggesting the family may have moved away. Some time between the 1851 and 1861, Upper Hillhouse became the home for labouring families, in 1861, that of 53 year old Philip Hills. Similarly, in 1871, labourer William Thayres, aged 61, lived there, as did Joseph Smith from Stevenage Herts. He was described as in a separate household, but probably lodging there. In 1881 and 1891 Hannah Thayres, his widow, and her sister were there. William knew the place well as he had worked for Sarah Young 20 years earlier (see census above) but it appears had in the interval been to Gloucestershire to work in a stone quarry. The Thayres name appeared several times in the 1644 poor list referred to in the previous chapter, so has a long local pedigree. It seems probable that Philip Hills living at Hillhouse was a labourer working for timber merchant and farmer Thomas Langton of Wandsworth, whose land holdings included Upper Hillhouse, which he must have acquired in the 1850s, perhaps after his father died in 1854.

Bigger holdings are in line with the widely observed trend of many small local farms becoming uneconomic. At the same time, relatively prosperous local landowners, including some incomers who had made money outside agriculture were buying into an increasingly commercial rural economy in which timber and game were included as products in addition to crop and animal products.

Local farmhouses, which we now value in six figure sums, were becoming homes for working class agricultural labourers. At this time both Upper and Lower Hillhouse were in that category. Their survival was made possible because they were lived in. There are examples in Rudgwick, on the Pallinghurst estate, where later in the early and mid 20th century farmhouses no longer needed even for labourers were allowed to fall into ruin or were demolished.

Significantly, in 1881, however, a young 22 year old gamekeeper was lodging with Mrs Thayre. Another gamekeeper was at Lower Hillhouse in 1891. The significance of these facts is made clearer by the sale of the freehold announced on several occasions in The Times, on behalf of the executors of Thomas Langton, Esq.

The announcement two pages below appeared on 30th July 1864 for “the Hillhouse and Pallinghurst Farms, a valuable and exceedingly compact freehold estate” of 274 acres. Notice these acres stretched into Alfold and Cranleigh. Hillhouse, already “park-like” was a farm, cottage with excellent garden, farmyard, barn and stable. The sales particulars for the auction on 19th August 1864 add a fatting shed and cartshed to this list of buildings1..The London agents, with the Dickensian name of Norton Hoggart and Twist, were as ever optimistically trying for a sale to a gentleman who might wish to erect a shooting box at Hillhouse, develop the estate’s plantations for shooting game, and be able to travel up to town by train.

Thomas Langton, Esq.Thomas Langton also farmed 100 acres at Dunsfold Farm, near Dunsfold Common, where he was living in 1861, and had been listed in the village as a timber merchant 10 years previously. In 1841 and 1851 censuses he was living in West Hill Wandsworth, occupation timber merchant. He died in Wandsworth on 5 March 1864, “very suddenly”, aged 68, by which date his three sons carried on the family timber merchants business, Thomas Langton & Son. At his death, announced in The Times on the 8th March, he was stated to be “of West Hill Wandsworth and Dunsfold Surrey”. He also had a house at Bletchingley, and four more, 11-14 Cross Street Clapham, also the Manor Arms in Manor Road Clapham (still trading today!), all of which were let to tenants and sold on his death.

Directories show the company was based in Lambeth near Waterloo Station and in Greenwich, both near the river for the timber trade. Meanwhile Thomas must have added to his farming and timber estates, purchasing Pallinghurst and Hillhouse. Thomas’s father, Daniel, had been a carpenter and builder in Wandsworth, so it was likely he had been the first one keen to acquire sources of timber. He was known as Squire Langton of Merton.

Daniel Langton was an early adopter of home insulation products as can be seen from this 1799 advertisement in The Times on a cold 11 February.

In 1820 Thomas married Elizabeth Watney in Wandsworth. She was from the local brewing family whose ales from the Stag Brewery in Pimlico would be well known in southern England from the 19th to the mid 20th century. James Watney, also of Wandsworth who joined what was already one of the great breweries of London as a partner in 1837 was Elizabeth’s brother. This link would add to the good fortune of the Langton family.

Thomas had two brothers surviving to adulthood. Daniel farmed at Burgate, Godalming, then retired to Chiddingfold (his son was also in the timber trade), Joseph was a master brewer in Wandsworth, having married Elizabeth Watney’s sister. The Langtons were a relatively prosperous family in two significant trades. Soon after his marriage, in 1825, Thomas was able to obtain the freehold of some land which his father had previously held from the manor of Dunsford in Wandsworth2.

Thomas’s father retired in 1837, his stock in trade sold at auction (right).

The Times, 30th July 1864

So, did Edward Child, the Slinfold timber merchant who had owned Upper Hillhouse in the 1840s, sell to Langton, a man he may have known through business? One small piece of evidence suggesting they knew each other are a series of eight letters in WSRO which exert pressure on the Wey and Arun Junction Canal Company to reduce their tolls3 (see page below). The third timber merchant in this influential group was George Marshall and his family of Godalming who also owned land in Rudgwick at Rowhook.

Later, timber merchants, such as young John Elliott at nearby Hornshill, later of Franktonhook, were active locally. John Elliott died in his 30s leaving a wife and child, together with a large quantity of ‘fence stuff’ which had to be sold at

auction in Croydon, as shown by the announcement in The Times (above) on 28 Feb 1863. His father had been a farmer and seed merchant.

Rudgwick and neighbouring parishes have been exploited for timber through to the present day. A glance at a map shows considerable areas of timber cover, especially in the north west near Hillhouse. The Guildford-Horsham turnpike, now the A281, ran through the property, having been constructed after the Act of 1809 which authorised it. Timber was a very lucrative trade, with growing urban development and railway construction in Victorian England.

The joining of the two farms, Pallinghurst and Upper Hillhouse under Thomas Langton would have long-term implications for Upper Hillhouse, not least its name, but not just yet (see front cover photo to understand the geographical proximity of the two). The map, below, is sketched from a fragile copy of the sale map for the 1864 sale particulars a copy of which is at the West Sussex Record Office1. It shows how the turnpike ‘high road’ built 50 years earlier bisected the farm.

Upper Hillhouse Farm, 1864

The farmstead (map below) was fronted by a large field even then called The Park across which a track led to the turnpike road, on the line of the modern avenue. At the steeply sloping rear (south west side) were Little Garden Field incorporating Broomfield, adjacent to Broomfield Copse, and (south east side) an orchard with ‘plots’, presumably small enclosures as they are separately numbered in the schedule. Further downhill were Garden Field, Barn Meadow and the curiously named Peagles, leading to Peagles Copse (now called Hemstocks). Peagles is often cited as an alternative name for Tisman’s, the house at the foot of the hill where a major local landowner Edwin Napper Esq lived. There was a track leading to this property which

has disappeared from today’s landscape, replaced by the footpath from Greenhurst to Aliblasters further down the hill. Peagle is also an old country name for the cowslip. Perhaps the sunny slopes were a favoured spot for cowslips centuries ago.

Across the turnpike road to the north were a further three large fields whose names suggest some removal of hedges. The Flat Field and Lower Seven Acres was next to the road. To its north was Hatchets and Pond Field, whilst the north east corner was Beachen Field and Hazards. The copse now known as Aldermoor was then Pondfield Copse and Whet Copse. These northern fields may have been for arable crops whilst the steeper southern fields close to the farmstead

were for pasture and hay. The land here described amounted to the 130 acres referred to below.

The estate did not sell despite the imminent opening of nearby stations at Rudgwick and Baynards, until the executors re-offered it for sale in 1865 (below, 29th August), the year the Guildford to Horsham railway opened, with the farms now separated into two lots. This notice of sale makes it clear that the bailiff lived at Pallinghurst Farm, a much better equipped farm, and that Lot 2 Hillhouse was 130 acres in size. However, in the sale particulars1 it is made clear that Hillhouse Farm was only 85 acres (cf 80 acres in 1851 census, and 83 purchased in 1839, above). Might it be that additional fields north of the turnpike were added?

The need for the next owner to hire a gamekeeper is clear near the end of both newspaper announcements. His description shows even greater optimism that the new owner would wish to erect not a shooting box (a mere cottage) but a residence – not to be, just yet, though the virtues of its ‘summit’ position and views gave credence to his optimism.

The Times, 29th April 1865

Langton’s LegacyThomas and Elizabeth had eight children, all born in Wandsworth, between 1823 and 1841. All of them became freemen/women of the Ironmongers’ Company by patrimony, as their father had been Master in 1847. Walter, the eldest followed his father into the timber business, but in the 1870s switched to the brewery, then retired with his family to Gatcombe House on the Isle of Wight. Thomas married Elizabeth Bennett and was also in the timber business living in Clapham, later a wood broker living in Battersea. He moved house many times, always in living in some style. James went first into the timber business then he too switched to the brewing business, living in Greenwich with his family, later moving out to a large house called Hillfield in Raglan Road Reigate, by 1901 a director of Watneys. John remained in Wandsworth for some years in the brewery business, later moving to Deptford, describing himself as an accountant. This is a story, not of rags to riches, but of skilled artisans finding that they were born in the right century in the right country to rise to the middle classes if they also had the talents and entrepreneurial drive, and to provide education and capital for their grandchildren to do even better and to live in some style in the growing suburbs of London. At least one of his daughters married a timber merchant, Ellen married John Mews. John, together with Walter and James and their mother Elizabeth were executors to Thomas’s will.

References:

1 Hill House; Pallinghurst Farm; both in the parishes of Alfold, Cranley and Rudgwick.

Plan and Sale Particulars. Messrs Norton, Haggart and Trist, Guildhall Coffee House, Guildhall, City of London. Friday August 19th 1864 at 1 o’clock precisely.“85 acres constituting the Hill House Farm are free from great and rectorial tithes”.Homestead at Pallinghurst: Farmhouse with good garden and productive orchard, 2 enclosed farmyards, excellent farm buildings – 2 barns, stabling for 8 horses, cattle sheds, fatting sheds, and 8 stalls, turnip and meal houses, cart lodge, with granary over, piggery etc, and a newly erected cottage, with garden.

SP/159  1864 (West Sussex Record Office)

2 Counterpart Enfranchisement  1 The Rt Hon George Lord Viscount Midleton, Lord of the Manor of Dunsford2 Daniel Langton of Wandsworth, carpenter [Thomas’s father]Premises: five parcels of land in Southfield, Wandsworth, amounting to 4a. 20p. held copyhold of the Manor of Dunsford. Consideration: £59 10s

ACC/1720/016  26 Aug 1808 (London Metropolitan Archives)

Indenture of AssignmentWilliam Watson to Thomas Langton of a leasehold house and premises at Wandsworth, Surrey dated 7 Nov 1806 [1808]Hanrott and Metcalfe, Solicitors

ACC/2079/F2/029  1810 (London Metropolitan Archives)

Release of freehold and covenant to surrender copyhold, Manor of Dunsford, D.H. Rucker to Thomas Langton. In South Field, 2 pieces freehold and 2 pieces copyhold. Plan in margin.  

D1/93  2-2-1825 (Wandsworth Local History Service)

3 Correspondence: 8 letters, with Edward Child, Messrs. Thomas Langton and Son and George Marshall, all timber merchants, R. Seward (Wharfinger), Charles Murray (enc. report from Henry Upton), Wey and Arun Junction Canal Co. and Messrs. Thomas Bonamy and Son, barge owners, relating to a reduction in the tolls charged by the company.

IN/Arun/F4/9  28 May 1844 - 26 November 1845 (West Sussex Record Office)