Holly Place
This spectacular timber-framed house in the High Street is one of the oldest in the village. The section to the left, with its gable end facing the street, dates from 1475. An airy hall, where the yeoman owner might have entertained his guests before an open fire, would have extended on the right, but this was rethought around 1600 when most of the current structure was built.
It used to be believed that the old right-hand side was demolished at this time, but more recently experts have proposed that part of it might have been transplanted to form a smaller structure at the back. A St Andrew’s cross carved near a doorway was probably designed to ward off witches, perhaps during the reign of the famously witch-averse James I.
The Round family – Shoreham farmers of long-standing – were most associated with the house in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was known as “Round’s Place” or “Round’s Farm”. William Round, along with William Everest, was listed as one of the Overseers of the Poor in a document from 1707. Another William Round adopted the same role later in the century. Operating under the supervision of the church Vestry, one of his jobs was to hand out clothing to poor women – shoes, fabric for gowns and flannel for petticoats. Another was to inspect the village workhouse once a week, just down the road near the corner of today’s Church Street.
Round was renting the house (for £31 a year) when the Mildmay family became its landlords in the 1820s. It was taken on at the end of the century by Frederick Boakes, a remarkable figure who was said to have arrived in Shoreham penniless. He became a cowkeeper, milkman and butcher (there was a butcher’s shop in part of Holly Place), and he accumulated rundown cottages in the village, which he did up and let out. He also controlled the “water meadow” behind Holly Place that later became the Boakes Meadow housing estate. |
It is thought that his second wife’s maiden name was Upton, and that he named another of his projects, the neighbouring Upton Villas, after her. His daughter Lydia inherited his remaining properties, some of which were left to the Methodist church before being sold off to the inhabitants. At some point, the timber-framed façade of Holly Place was covered in concrete, but the current owners removed this and carried out an impressive restoration.
Text by James Saynor