Two marriages and the move to Ifold
Lionel Constable married Emily Farmer at Christ Church, Hampstead, in 1884. Emily’s brother Corral Farmer had chosen an artistic career and worked as a landscape painter. In 1887 Corral married Lionel’s sister Elizabeth Constable at Lyminster.
Around 1887 or 1888 Lionel and Emily moved into Ifold House as tenants while the Napper estate remained in Chancery. John Stinson Farmer joined them at the mansion. Corral and Elizabeth bought Linden House near the eastern entrance to Loxwood, a substantial house with about twelve acres, stables, a coach house, greenhouse, livestock buildings and three cottages.
Corral continued to paint and became increasingly involved in Loxwood affairs. He served as a trustee of Loxwood Chapel, dealt with property documents and later served on local committees. Lionel and Emily opened Ifold House for large gatherings; in September 1891 they hosted a Primrose League garden party and fête in the grounds.
John Stinson Farmer dies at Ifold
John Stinson Farmer died suddenly at Ifold House on 12 December 1892, aged sixty-five. Contemporary reports described him as well known in the manufacture of railway signalling appliances. His estate exceeded £47,000 and benefited his children, including Emily and Corral.
One of his executors was Rowland Plumbe, a London architect and good friend of John Stinson Farmer. Plumbe had a long professional career designing churches, hospitals and housing developments and served as district surveyor in West Hampstead. His work included major housing schemes in London, including Noel Park.
George Sefton Constable died in 1896 and his brewery interests and investments passed to his children. By then Lionel and Emily had lived at Ifold for almost a decade, while Corral and Elizabeth were established at Linden House.
Reverend Trigge and the first church scheme
The church project had begun before the Constables bought Ifold. Reverend John Davies Trigge came to Loxwood in 1871 and became its first vicar when the village gained separate ecclesiastical parish status in 1873. His wife Emma developed the Sunday school, while Trigge pressed for a church and burial ground suitable for the new parish.
The existing place of worship stood beside the pond in the centre of Loxwood. A chapel had occupied the site since the early fifteenth century, and the building had been reconstructed in Georgian form in 1822. It still lacked a burial ground, so Loxwood families continued to use churchyards in Wisborough Green.
By the mid-1890s money was being raised for a new church. The Bishop of Chichester’s fund allocated £800 in 1896. Rowland Plumbe prepared a design for the existing central site, replacing the Georgian church. A prospectus showed the proposed building on the old chapel ground and listed the principal subscribers and their pledges.
Trigge dies and the old parish dispute returns
Reverend Trigge died on 12 July 1897 before construction began. His funeral was held three days later in the Georgian church and was attended by villagers, schoolchildren, teachers and clergy. Corral Farmer accompanied the hearse to Brighton for burial at Reverend Trigge’s former church
The Vicar of Wisborough Green appointed Reverend Connard Hildebrand as Trigge’s successor. Henry Napper of Lakers Lodge challenged the appointment and refused to pay six months of tithes amounting to £11 6s 10d. Napper argued that Loxwood’s inhabitants had the right to choose their own incumbent and that the tithes should remain with Loxwood.
Corral Farmer assisted Henry Napper with the case. In August 1897 Edward Ryley, a registrar of the London courts, translated the medieval grant issued by the Bishop of Chichester in 1404. The grant had allowed Loxwood’s inhabitants to build and maintain their own chapel, provide accommodation for a priest and appoint the person who served it.
The litigation kept the historic relationship with Wisborough Green in front of the parish at the same time that the church-building committee was considering how to replace the Georgian church. The original Plumbe prospectus still showed the new building on the old central site.
Ifold enters the church project
In the spring of 1898 Lionel and Emily opened the grounds of Ifold House for a grand bazaar in aid of the church fund. The project still needed about £1,500 towards an estimated cost of £2,200. Six years had passed since John Stinson Farmer died at Ifold House, and Rowland Plumbe was now associated with the church design.
On 10 June 1898 Lionel bought the Ifold Estate from Anne Napper’s trustees for £25,000. The purchase covered about 934 acres, including Ifold House, the park, farms, woodland and the former Headsfoldwood land running eastwards to Vicarage Hill.
Henry Botting had farmed Headsfoldwood since 1838 and became Loxwood’s first churchwarden in 1873. His wife Hannah died in 1892 and Henry died in December 1898; both were buried at Wisborough Green. The ground at Vicarage Hill on which the new church would later stand had been part of his farm for decades.
The decision to leave the Georgian site
The planned spring 1899 start passed without construction. The tithe case remained unresolved, the building fund was still incomplete and Reverend Trigge and Henry Botting had both died. On 23 August 1899 Brewhurst Mill was destroyed by fire, adding another major event to the Vicarage Hill neighbourhood.
The Georgian church remained usable and there was land behind it where a churchyard could have been made. The earlier Rowland Plumbe scheme had been prepared for that site. After Reverend Trigge’s death, Corral Farmer and Emily Constable steered the project towards a different solution: land from the Ifold Estate at Vicarage Hill.
Emily and Lionel provided land from the Ifold Estate for the church and burial ground. The site lay opposite the Victorian school and vicarage, close to Loxwood Bridge and on the eastern edge of the estate. The church could be built without first demolishing the Georgian building, which remained in use during construction.
The Ifold research also links the change of site to the continuing dispute over patronage and tithes. Moving away from the old chapel ground gave the new parish a church on a fresh site while the legal argument with the Vicar of Wisborough Green continued. Corral Farmer, deeply involved in both the tithe case and parish property, was probably central to the change.
Building on the Ifold land
The Rowland Plumbe designed church was built on the Vicarage Hill in exactly the same form as if it was constructed on the original site. Henry Spooner of Alfold Bars undertook the building work with local craftsmen. Archdeacon Francis John Mount laid the foundation stone at 3.45 p.m. on Tuesday 28 August 1900.
The court case between Henry Napper and Reverend Hildebrand ended in October 1900 with judgment for Hildebrand. The court held that Loxwood’s inhabitants had not exercised the right to select their own priest since 1628 and had lost that right through long disuse.
The Georgian church continued to serve the parish while the new building rose at Vicarage Hill. After Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901, Reverend Hildebrand held two memorial services in the old church on 27 January. By 16 May the new church was sufficiently complete for a test service.
St John the Baptist moves to Vicarage Hill
Archdeacon Mount returned to open the new church at 4 p.m. on Tuesday 20 August 1901. Maurice Botting and Corral Farmer continued as churchwardens, the offices they had held at the Georgian church.
The dedication to St John the Baptist continued the identity of Loxwood’s place of worship. The 1404 grant had authorised the original oratory and Chapel of Ease; the dedication passed through the medieval chapel and the Georgian church of 1822 to the new building at Vicarage Hill. Worship therefore moved to a new site without breaking the five-century sequence.
Historic fittings travelled with the congregation. Eight fifteenth-century pews, the harmonium, bell and pull rope, furniture, books and the font given in memory of Loxwood-born master butcher John Garton were transferred from the Georgian church. Three of the old pews carried brass plates for the Napper, Nichols and Hurst families.
The church and burial ground were consecrated on 10 November 1901. The first burials followed in January 1902. In 1902 Emma Trigge dedicated the east window to Reverend John Davies Trigge, whose campaign for a church suitable for the parish had begun the project years earlier.
The surviving Ifold legacy
Lionel and Emily remained at Ifold until 1920. Corral and Elizabeth later lived at Headsfoldwood while retaining Linden House in Loxwood, and Corral continued his work in Loxwood parish and village affairs.
Ifold House was demolished in 1936. St John the Baptist remains at Vicarage Hill on the land provided from the Ifold Estate, with its east window commemorating Reverend Trigge and its medieval pews carrying the earlier history of Loxwood worship and as a lasting memory of the Constables and Farmers.
