Jenny Ridd lived at 5 High Street for several years and this book sets out the stories she uncovered about the people connected with the house over nearly 400 years. Most are ordinary folk with special stories, others were more famous, like the Pre Raphaelite painters and poets Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal, and the Georgian diarist Anne Lister, now better known because of the TV series ‘Gentleman Jack.
The collection [of pieces from the excavation of the garden] represents every stage and every owner over the 400-year period during which the house has been occupied [and] tells amazing stories . . . there can be few other such collections for any house in this country. Dr R.G.W. Anderson, then Director of The British Museum
If you could come across these pieces [from the excavation of the garden] complete today you could never form a collection like this. It would cost you a huge amount of money. . . . As broken fragments they’re worth nothing like this, but it’s a great way to learn and even better when you get them for nothing from your garden. John Sandon, presenter and pottery expert, Antiques Roadshow
As the house goes back well over two centuries, it should be reclassified as antique and unique and thus priceless and Grade 1, rather than ordinary. Richard Saville, Sussex Record Society, Historian And Author
2024: ISBN: 978-1-7393444-1-2; Price £15.00