The Almshouses
These venerable single-storey cottages can be found just where Filston Lane enters the village. Not far back along the lane is Filston Hall – and it was the Hall’s owner, John Roos, who in 1473 left money in his will for the building of “three almshouses within the… parish of Shoreham… [for] three poor men or women of Shoreham who should be paid a dole of seven pence per week”.
The homes were put up some decades later using the expensive building material of brick. In the early 1700s, landowner John Borrett (who controlled Filston and much else besides) was paying out the “dole” to the residents. By the 1820s, they received four shillings a month – provided now by Alexander Baring, who was in the process of conveying the big Shoreham estate to the Mildmay family. The Charity Commissioners noted that “the inmates of the almshouses are selected by the parish officers from amongst parishioners, a preference being given to those widows who are the most destitute and helpless”.
The Mildmays were responsible for the buildings until 1927, when the Charity Commissioners appointed a local board of trustees to take charge, and a similar arrangement continues today. Several other village charities – the Terry, Prestwick and Cohen funds – were folded into the trust in 1957. A plaque outside the almshouses remembers Dudley Greenwood, a 26-year-old airman who was reported missing in action in the Second World War. His father was the local Home Guard commander and the family gave money in 1945 for much-needed upkeep.
A further sum of about £9,000 was spent on improving the houses in 1974, when they were converted into two homes. Proper heating plus new kitchens and bathrooms were put in, and the houses have continued to be renovated since, with great care taken to preserve their historic fabric. |
Text by James Saynor