Felbridge & District History Group met recently to hear an interesting talk on “The  ‘Eating and Drinking Houses of Felbridge” -  part of a series that the Society will come back to next year.

 The first talk covered the known eating and drinking houses built upon what was East Grinstead Common, including Burt’s Brewhouse, Pattenden’s Beer Shop, North End Brewery, Halfway House & The Felbridge Hotel.

 Amongst many fascinating facts, it was revealed that The Felbridge Hotel had stays by John Wayne and even a Soviet Journalist who claimed to have been drugged, kidnapped and then held at the Hotel.  It was built in 1922 by Heselden Builders for the owner and architect Major Thomas Stewart Inglis. The hotel has since been extended many times generating the complex arrangement of the 1950’s and beyond.

 On 22^nd July,  the Society will have a talk on ‘Gibshaven Farm’.

 Gibbshaven Farm lies between Crawley Down Road and Furnace Wood and is a complex, multi-phase timber framed property. The name has been through many variants over time, from Gybbesaven in 1582 to Gibbshaven in 1915, before arriving at its current spelling.

 The farmhouse of today is made up of at least three phases of construction with the oldest part being the east end potentially dating to the early 1400’s. The second phase was the construction of a detached building to the west which was later joined to the earlier building by infilling between them.

 The talk will also cover the history of some of the owners and tenants of the property which include the Thorpe family who were running Warren Furnace within the adjacent Furnace Wood from at least 1567.

 If you would like to know more, or would like to join the Society, go to www.jeremy-clarke.freeserve.co.uk