The lands of ‘Hauedstoke and Sumeresdale’ (Havenstoke and Summersdale) were bestowed to the diocese of Chichester at the death of Bishop Ralph Neville in 1244 and would remain bishopric lands, surviving the reformation and civil wars, until the 19th century. The 200 acres of farmland, initially ordered in Neville’s will to be used for the making and baking of bread to feed the local hungry during the 13th century, was soon separated into distinct farmlands which were later rented out, ultimately forming parts of the Summersdale and Warren farms.
Graylingwell Farmhouse (interchangeably referred to as Summersdale Farmhouse) was built at some point in the early to mid-18th century, appearing for the first time as ‘Gravelling Well’ in a 1772 ‘Gardner’ map and again in 1778 as ‘Gravellingwell Farm’ on a Yeakell and Gardner map.
A 1796 indenture leased Graylingwell for ‘three lives’ (a term used for the description of a family unit, being the holder and his son or wife and a grandson) to a certain Mr John Miller, and further evidence points to the Miller family remaining involved with the farmhouse throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries. Records of individuals who owned and leased the farmhouse are sometimes difficult to track, though throughout Graylingwell’s occupants there have been some notable personalities. In the early 1800s, John Barton Hack is noted as living at Graylingwell farmhouse, renting for his growing family from 1831; he left his home in Chichester in 1836 in search of warmer climates as a cure for his ailing health, becoming an early colonist of South Australia. The Sewell family moved into the farmhouse in 1853 for the sake of their daughter, Anna, and her health which improved enough for them to move on from Graylingwell in 1857. Various newspaper records show one Edward Miller Street, mentioned in various newspapers and a Justice of the Peace publication, living in the farmhouse until at least 1870.
In 1890 the Lunacy Act passed, necessitating the development of a mental institution in West Sussex. The first public reports of this development were covered in a December 1892 publication of the East Grinstead Observer, noting that the hospital would be built on the grounds of ‘Grayling Wells Farm’ after the purchase of the land (finalised the following year) by the County Council from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. It would remain the possession of the Graylingwell estates throughout its life as a hospital, becoming a completed recovery space away from the main hospital in 1898 (a year after the Asylum had opened) with capacity for 16 live-in, non-violent patients, and on-site hospital staff. The farmhouse became a crucial source of both active treatment for patients on site and for the production of food for the main hospital. In the 20th century until its closure as a medical building, Graylingwell Farmhouse existed as a base for the psychiatric day hospital, an experimental space as patients were permitted to return home in the evenings and weekends.
The farmhouse lay unused and in disrepair until the CCDT adopted the site as an emerging project.
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Research and text by Lily Richards, Chichester University
