Kingston Stroll #7: History Pt.6 | Swanborough Corner
This is the 7th of a 10-cache series which takes you from the heart of the village through the fields and along the farm lanes of the Swanborough area immediately to the east. The 3.5km circuit can be completed in under 2 hours allowing for necessary cache and optional short bird-watching, photographic and refreshment stops en route.
The cache, a 35mm film pot, is hidden in the corner of this junction where the path from Lewes joins that from Kingston-near-Lewes to head south towards Swanborough.
Alternative approach if doing the cache out of sequence: park at the garden centre@ N 50 51.446 W 0 0.533 then walk back out to the main road, turn right and after 50m take the signed footpath heading right (east) alongside the large field to the cache location.
History Pt.6 Kingston Manor: At the Dissolution in 1538, the land owned by the priory was sold, much of it, including Kingston Manor and its extensive lands, to Thomas Cromwell. He demolished many of the priory buildings, although parts were kept and extended to build himself a 'great house'. At about this time, Kingston Manor was built using materials salvaged from the demolition work, which explains the inclusion of blocks of French limestone and the use of other high quality materials and details. In c.1773 the new owner of Kingston Manor commissioned a survey of his lands by J Merchant, and this was subsequently redrawn up by William Figg for the Duke of Dorset in 1779. This shows Kingston surrounded by thin strips of fields or laines, a medieval system of agriculture under which common fields of about one acre in size were divided into small strips and farmed by different owners. This system was eventually abandoned with the Enclosure Act of 1833. Sometime after 1834 Kingston Manor was acquired by the Gorings, who had also bought Hyde Manor. This consolidation of established farms into large estates was an important feature of land ownership in the 19th century.
Recent work at Kingston Manor has revealed much Priory stone and other details within the structure. By the middle of the 19th century it was Hyde Manor that had become the principal farmhouse in the village, employing 24 men and 10 boys on some 1,300 acres where sheep rearing and the corn industry provided, until the agricultural depression in the latter part of the century, a profitable business. The growth of the village is confirmed by the building of a new school for both Iford and Kingston children, in Iford, in 1872.
The Tithe map of 1842 shows the linear village and a scattering of farm buildings and cottages, much as today. After the land reform acts of the early 20th century, the Gorings sold their holdings and ownership fragmented. In the 1920s new detached houses and bungalows were built along Kingston Ridge as homes for officers from the war, and a small group of cottages were provided at the same time off Wellgreen Lane, with some land, for returning soldiers (The Holdings).
Hidden from view behind the trees SE of the cache location are the three popular - and private - Swanborough coarse fishing lakes and associated holiday cottages. The lakes are used for to fish for carp (common, ghost, mirror, crucian and glass), chub, tench, rudd, roach, bream and perch.
It may be possible to visit the lakes which can be accessed by either walking there down the bridlepath south from the cache location to the T-junction with The Droveway and then turning left. Alternatively, you could park at one of the two parking areas down The Droveway @ or near N 50 51.358 W 0 0.246 or N 50 51.385 W 0 0.296 and walk the short distance from there.
Either way, unless you wish to pay for fishing, you would need first to present yourself and your wishes to management there and take your chances. A request to place some geocaches there was politely declined.
