Walnut Tree Cottages
The view of these cottages in the High Street, set back on a picturesque green next to the Village Stores, may have changed little in two hundred years. It’s thought they were encased in brick in the late 18th or early 19th century, but what lies within goes further back. The timber-framed left-hand side seems to date from at least the 1500s, the right-hand side from the 1700s. The small extension and outhouses on the left are more recent, while a barn at the rear goes back to the 1600s.
Solomon Mills owned the cottages in 1809 – along with other properties along today’s High Street and a field nearby where an annual fair was held. Mary, his widow (or perhaps daughter-in-law), had inherited them by 1835. She ran a butcher’s shop on the premises and there may have been a small farm attached. Her son Thomas had taken over a decade later.
In the late 19th century, part of Walnut Tree Cottages was home to the Shoreham Amicable Benefit Society, which provided sickness insurance and other help for working people. Members might have subscribed a shilling or two a month, and village children enjoyed a day off school at the end of May to celebrate a festival and feast organised by the Society.
The butcher’s shop carried on until the 1920s, operating (with its own slaughterhouse) from the small extension on the left. The meat hanging outside can be seen in a picture by Charles Franklin White. It’s said that the final owner, Mr Geering, sold the shop to a rival butcher, Arthur Offen, for the princely sum of £10 after some bargaining over a pint in the Two Brewers across the road. One of the outbuildings was a cobbler’s shop in the early 20th century and the shed-like building nearest the Village Hall was home to the village’s fire service, complete with its hand cart, pump and ladders. |
In 1922, the whole Walnut Tree site was bought for £675 by prominent Shoreham residents to preserve it for the benefit of the village. Part of the property was let out to the Walnut Tree Club, also known as the “working men’s club”. The club had a beer licence, and facilities included a library and a billiard table. The parish magazine noted in 1924 that the club was “in full swing” in a “really beautiful set of rooms”.
The club is long gone but the charitable trust looking after the cottages still exists a century later.
The club is long gone but the charitable trust looking after the cottages still exists a century later.