Growing Up At Coombe Place

A Memory of Offham.

My family and I moved to a bungalow at Coombe Place in 1960. My father, Walter Motley, took up the post of farm manager on this 100 acre dairy farm with a herd of Jersey cattle. Coombe Place is set on the side of the South Downs with views across the Weald of Sussex. It was a truly magical place to grow up with a 50 acre beech wood to explore and make camps in, numerous old farm buildings with lofts and secret hideaways to explore and the 'big house' garden with its treehouse, croquet lawn and tennis court which the owners, Mr and Mrs Richard Cannon, let us use when they were away on their extended holidays abroad. The 'big house' in the picture still has evidence of the old victorian kitchens below stairs and there is an original ice house a short walk from the house. The house is also linked with a tunnel under the lawn to the stable courtyard so that the Victorian ladies could walk from the house to their carriages without getting wet. The stable courtyard was one of my favourite places to play with its old clock tower, which we used to climb until it became unsafe for us children, the old disused cowshed and the remains of the Victorian laundry with some of the old pulleys still in place. The old laundry became the apple store when I lived there and I can still to this day evoke the memory of the smell of warm,sweet rotting apples in that store. Another exciting place on the farm is the beautiful walled garden which supplied the house with all the fruit and vegetables it needed. It was like a secret garden which you could only get into by entering under a rose arch and through the old wooden door. Inside was a series of gardens all edged with carefully cut box. There were vegetable patches, flower beds, cold frames, a large greenhouse, an orchard, fig trees growing against the walls and a disused gardeners cottage. It was a place to find newts in the central pond and adders basking in the sun.
I could go on about the days of haymaking, milking cows and helping to clean out the cowshed, treading on the hot, sour smelling brewers grain and so much more. Many of the days were halcyon but there were days when it was freezing cold, it rained hard and the work was tough for my dad. Sometimes starting at 4.30am to milk the cows or finishing harvesting late at night. He was often very tired.
When Mr Cannon died my mum and dad stayed on to look after Mrs Cannon who lived mostly alone in the 'big house'. When she died about a decade ago they finally retired and moved to the edge of the estate. It was bought by the Armstrong family, who have done a great deal to renovate the buildings and walled garden, and live there still. My father sadly died at the age of 87 just before Christmas 2007 but my mother, 81, continues to live nearby. I still love to visit and it still feels like home.