Sunnyside/Norbryght

[Chrisheal]

Please let me know of any information concerning a house called Sunnyside or Norbryght at Tilburstow Hill South Godstone, Surrey .  The site was known as Norbryght from Anglo Saxon times, in the 1800s it was called Sunnyside and Norbryght again until this present day.   One family who lived here were called Berrisford Webb. I would like to trace any information concerning the house and families who have lived on this site.  Chris Heal

[New Forester]

I know "Tilbuster" Hill, but I'm afraid I don't know the house.

 

Interestingly, a couple of hundred years ago there were natterjack toads at Tilburstow (breeding in one of the Godstone ponds -- can't remember its name, but I think the south-western one).  This shows that the common must have been very open indeed at that time, probably just with heather and grass and almost no trees (common toads need cover and outcompete natterjacks).  If your Berrisford Webbs were commoners, they would have grazed their cattle and sheep there.

 

In Anglo Saxon times the house and common would have been on the northern edge of the great Weald wilderness -- looking much like the New Forest does today.  The farms and fields came along a lot later there than elsewhere in lowland England.

 

From Roman times until the industrial revolution, the Greensand ridge was also a great centre for iron making, as it had both ironstone and charcoal -- the pits and hollows on Tilbuster Hill are old ironstone quarries.

 

Good luck with your search!

[jon rogers]

I lived on Tilburstow hill in the late sixties, indeed the house was there , it was a large mansion in a poor state of deteriation, full of old magazines and it had an old wine cellar with some bottles in tact, the floors were falling in and it was dangerous. It had a carp pond near it where I used to fish. Old man Webb lived at the top of the lane in the lodge house, he was sometimes wheeled around the old estate by a man who used to run maybe the post office in Godstone, near the station. Rumour had it that the old man went broke, left the house and moved into the lodge. He would have been around 70 0r 80, since, the house has been flattened and a new house built there, I think the lodge survives.

[BEChal]

Ahhhh... Norbryght.... has fascinated and will fascinate me all the days of my life!
Mr Webb's generosity (not monetary) many, many years ago changed my life.
Mr Gulliver was the man who owned the village store/post office who Jon Rogers mentions in his reply to you. I too remember the old mansion; to a child, as I was then, it was fuel for my imagination. The magazines, by the way, were old Punch Magazines in what was once the study. There was an orchard and large greenhouse. There was also a long canoe which was once used on the carp pond which I have also fished many times - so full of fish that all you needed was a bent pin and some bread and it worked every time. Mr Webb was a lovely man who was crippled from a racing accident...... as a child I spent holidays in the Lodge with him and my family. Happy days!!!