Causeway Cottage history, part one

Causeway Cottage has been surveyed four times in recent years by historical societies.

Their dating conclusions vary from the middle of the 14th Century (ie. 1350, +/- 10 years) to late 15th Century (c. 1475).


It is concluded that it originally had some intimate connection with St. Mary’s Church, set above and behind it on the hill at the top of The Causeway, and it is thought the first floor of no. 63 was possibly one large ‘meeting room’ straddling two bays. It was a Wealden Hall house of four, possibly more (evidence of an internal door on the southern wall of the south end bay suggests another bay may have lain where the Georgian “Botterels” now sits. “Botterils” was the name of the Wealden house before its owner built the Georgian house.

A gentleman of the parish has recently conducted a thorough investigation of the records pertaining to this house, a copy of which we have (I would acknowledge him except that he remains anon!)

From his researches, the following:
The house was possibly built by the person who secured the land from the vicar, perhaps as early as 1320.
The record offers three possible candidates:
• 1341 Inquisitiones Nonarum … parishioners of Billingshurst… say that… 500a of arable land which used to be cultivated now lie fallow on account of the poverty & incapacity of the tenants … there are no major estates; in the parish are merchants who do not live by agriculture, viz William Wales, William Gilkyneston, John North.
The Welles (Wales, Wells, Wellys) family may have been associated with the holding from the first – perhaps 1320 – until it was sold in 1577. The vicar’s court case c.1540 provides very strong evidence (this refers to earlier records he researched).
• ? 1486-1493 or 1504-1515 Thomas Wellys s?o Thomas Wellys of B’hurst vs Edward Wellys s&hr/o Thomas the elder; Thomas Wells willed his estate to his son & heir Edward Wells - he also told Edward of his intention regarding son other son Thomas to whom he willed a messuage & garden; after the death of Thomas the elder, Edward Wells denied his brother his part of the estate (PRO C 1/175/33)
• About 1540 the vicar, William Foster, entered a plea in Chancery that for some years Thomas Wellys had failed to pay a rent 18 pence a year due to him from church lands; his evidence suggests that the obligation to pay the rent had existed long before he became vicar in 1534.
• In 1577 Thomas Welles & his wife Joan of Godalming sold Botterelles to William Stydolfe of St Giles in the Fields, Middx for £28.10s; messuage or tenement with one barn, stable, outhouse & garden called Botterelles containing 3 roods of ground in B’hurst, lying between the Highway or Streeet on the W, N, and NE parts and the Churchyard on the S part, now in the tenure of Robert Welles, brother of sd Thomas: [BM Ad Ch 55208]