Rectory, the Jones connection

Frank Jones and his sister lived in a gloomy old house in the village.
Larger and more imposing than the rest, it had once been the Rectory.

Extract from p142 of ‘Turn Back the Years’ written by Doris Williams (nee Mason) who grew up in Stanmer, and wrote this biography of her husband Owen Williams.

We learn a great deal about the history of Stanmer from these memoirs, including how Owen Williams unexpectedly moved into the Rectory when he was suddenly promoted from Estate Carpenter to Estate Foreman in 1937, following the tragic suicide of Frank Jones in the nearby woods.

Francis (Frank) Jude Jones lived at the old Rectory with his sister Elizabeth (Lilly) until the village was requisitioned for the war effort. Generations of the hugely talented Jones dynasty of skilled stone and woodcarvers, also artists and musicians, lived in the house and made a significant contribution to the Chichester Estates across East Sussex.

Very little is known about the period between 1835 and WWII, however, other than the demolition and rebuilding of both the churches at Falmer and Stanmer, where there is a wooden plaque on the north wall expressing gratitude for all that Jude had done for the church. Presumably carved by his son, Frank, himself a highly talented carpenter, who is known to have carved the altar, the lectern and the main entrance doors early in the 20th century.  But what Jude contributed is less clear. Was it perhaps Jude’s father, Thomas Jones, who had played a role in the rebuilding of Stanmer church itself in 1838? Was he responsible for re-using masonry and flint and relocating both of the original church doors: the old villagers’ entrance door to the north was relocated to the Donkey Wellhouse and the Earl’s south door, facing the Mansion, to the Carpenter’s Workshop outside the Walled Garden where it remained until the recent HLF renovations.

The Earls of Chichester thought so highly of the skilled Jones family that they arranged for the graves to be placed on the path to the church, close to the Pelham family vault, to be passed respectfully each Sunday by the Earl and Countess as they attended services.

Was it Frank Jones who carved his father’s gravestone, inscribed  In Memory of Thomas Jones, for many years the faithful servant and friend of the 6th Earl of Chichester (Jocelyn Brudenell Pelham).
Francis Jude Jones (Frank) and his sister Elizabeth (Lilly) are the last of the dynasty to be buried beneath the final gravestone in the churchyard.