Court House TA1278

Court House forms one side of a farmstead complex including two five bay barns linked at right angles and two open fronted hovels. The house has a tiled roof which is hipped at the north and half-hipped to the south and is tile hung above brick, where grey headers are used in a chequer pattern. At the southern end of the house are two added wings. From a photograph taken of the front elevation, when the tile hanging was being repaired, it can be seen that the house has full-storey height close studding to the first floor.

The principal range is a four-bay, crown-posted house that was originally in three units. The central section was an unfloored open hall flanked by floored ends, the service to the north the solar to the south. The service bay is appreciably longer than the other bays and it is possible that it also contained a cross-passage half-screened from the hall. The close studding, the fine post and plank screen at the dais end of the hall and the central open truss in the hall are all signs of status and quality. There is not a great deal of diagnostic detail by way of wall timbering or joisting. Details of the roof frames suggest that date range of 1450-80 is reasonable. The chimney was described as 'new built' in 1565 when the roof was of Horsham stone.

Farm buildings
The western barn has five bays and probably dates from the early part of the 17th century. The southern barn, also of five bays, is contemporary with the added wings to the south of the house; that is towards the end of the 17th or the beginning of the 18th century.

Early photographs show that the barns were thatched.

A gatehouse, stable, stall and 'newly built' pigeon house are mentioned in 1565 but, curiously, no barn.

These notes have been compiled from survey reports prepared by Dr Annabelle Hughes.
The full reports have been deposited in the Sussex Archaeological Society Library, Barbican House, Lewes, where they can be consulted by researchers.

Court House c1935.
By this time the house was becoming more gentrified and no longer has the look of a working farmhouse.
Reproduced by kind permission of Mike Green

Court House Farm early 20th century
Reproduced by kind permission of Mike Green

Tithe Data

Court Lodge House & Garden
(Court House)

1841 Census

Tenement Analysis

Buildings

Archaeology

Old Maps

Further Information