MaresField Sleepy village, or executive dorm?
photo: emma Chaplin For much of the twentieth century Maresfield was not so much a village as a sacrificial offering to the juggernaut of the internal comb<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>ti<strong>on</strong> engine. There was talk of a by-pass as early as 1936, but it was not until November 1989 that it actually opened. In the interim Maresfield had been a godsend to those motorists temperamentally disinclined to slow down. Certainly I remember my father barrelling though the village en route from Croyd<strong>on</strong> to the family dacha at Fairlight Cove. For many passing through, Maresfield was reduced to a flash of battlemented church tower, a glimpse of the solid facade of the Georgian Chequers Inn, a slalom round the sharp corner, an impressi<strong>on</strong> of tilehung cottages and little more. The terse entry for Maresfield’s St Bartholomew’s Church in Pevsner begins with the single word ‘overrestored’. This 1879 restorati<strong>on</strong> involved replacing the existing chancel and the additi<strong>on</strong> of two transepts. At the same time the narrow opening in the south wall of the nave was rediscovered, having remained hidden for hundreds of years. This was the <strong>on</strong>ly surviving remnant of an earlier Norman church. Apart from some nice Victorian stained glass in the chancel and an interesting free-standing ir<strong>on</strong> tombst<strong>on</strong>e to Robert Brooks who ‘departed this life’ in 1667, there is little to detain the visitor, although the m<strong>on</strong>ument to Edward Kidder (1817) does feature a curio<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g> Turkish-looking soldier wearing a turban and holding a shield decorated with three crescent mo<strong>on</strong>s. The Kidders were a distinguished local family, the most famo<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g> of whom went <strong>on</strong> to become Bishop of Bath and Wells. This was Richard Kidder, a martyr to gout so debilitating that he often had to be carried to ordinati<strong>on</strong>s and debates at the Ho<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>e of Lords. He was cr<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>hed to death during the Great Storm of November 1703, when a chimney stack collapsed through the roof of the Bishop’s Palace. The gargoyled lodge at the entrance to Maresfield Park was built in 1847 to replace the old ‘streteho<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>e’. Sir John Shelley had inherited the estate in 1814. F<strong>on</strong>d of gambling and ‘trotting races’, the implementati<strong>on</strong> of proposed renovati<strong>on</strong>s and extensi<strong>on</strong>s to his property were often dependent <strong>on</strong> the performance of his horses <strong>on</strong> the flat. So in 1818 a new c<strong>on</strong>servatory was aborted when ‘Prince Paul’, favourite for The Derby, <strong>on</strong>ly came in third. In 1824, by c<strong>on</strong>trast, Sir John’s horse ‘Cedric’ w<strong>on</strong> The Derby, and some of the £8,000 prize m<strong>on</strong>ey was spent ensuring that the coaching road was rerouted away from his ho<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>e. In October 1819, the Shelleys welcomed the Duke of Wellingt<strong>on</strong> to Maresfield. A shooting party, laid <strong>on</strong> as entertainment, proved eventful when the Duke’s assessment of what c<strong>on</strong>stituted a legitimate quarry turned out to include <strong>on</strong>e of the keepers, a retriever and ‘an old woman who chanced to be washing her clothes at her cottage window’. No doubt the Duke reacted with the same insouciance that he showed when characterising the destructi<strong>on</strong> of the Turkish Fleet, in time of peace, at Navarino as ‘untoward incidents’. V I VA V I l l A G E s The artist Edward Wadsworth and his wife, the violinist Fanny Eveleigh, moved to Dairy Farm in Maresfield Park in 1927. The tedio<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g> attenti<strong>on</strong>s of agricultural implements salesmen necessitated a change of name to Dairy Ho<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>e. While in Maresfield Wadsworth worked <strong>on</strong> a design for a painting for the cafeteria at the De La Warr Pavili<strong>on</strong> and also produced large paintings for the Smoking Room in the new Cunard liner Queen Mary; for the latter the Parish Council allowed Wadsworth the <str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>e of the Village Hall. To avoid unsympathetic development, the Wadsworths bought the ten acre meadow next to Dairy Ho<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>e. Would that their successors had shown similar sensitivity! A more motley collecti<strong>on</strong> of ho<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>es than those disfiguring Maresfield Park today is hard to imagine. In fact the whole of Maresfield risks being transformed from a village into an executive dormitory. The church and the Village Hall are flourishing. There is still a village shop, although if too many people take up the offer of ‘free computer training’ advertised outside, with its touted benefit of ‘J<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>t think! You could order your shopping <strong>on</strong>line’ it might not last much l<strong>on</strong>ger. The Chequers has borne little resemblance to a village pub for some time <str<strong>on</strong>g>now</str<strong>on</strong>g> and the advent of Marco Pierre White is <strong>on</strong>ly likely to exacerbate the problem. In fact the whole village seemed pretty dead when I visited but the Deputy Editor reports an enth<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>iastic stoolball c<strong>on</strong>test in progress when she did the restaurant review so perhaps I was j<str<strong>on</strong>g>us</str<strong>on</strong>g>t unlucky. David Jarman 7 3