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It is now a museum of local life with country furniture, ironwork and local history with temporary exhibitions. The cottage garden features large herbaceous borders containing over 170 herbs and perennials and is open to the public from March to October. The garden has been opened twice per annum for the National Gardens Scheme for the past twenty-two years.

Suffragette Handkerchief

On the first floor The Suffragette Handkerchief is on display. There are sixty-six embroidered signatures and two sets of initials, mostly of women imprisoned in HMP Holloway for their part in the Women’s Social and Political Union Suffragette window smashing demonstrations of March 1912. The handkerchief was found at a local jumble sale by Dora Arnold, custodian in the 1960s. Its link to the village of West Hoathly is not clear (although John Godwin King’s daughter Ursula was a member of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies) and research is ongoing. The list of the signatories and some notes on their activism is available.

Witch marks

There are witch marks scratched into wood in several places in the house including the front door and on the beam above the main fireplace. These are more properly known as apotropaic marks and were believed to prevent witches from entering the house. They are believed to date from the seventeenth century. Set into the ground outside the front door is a rough slab of iron which is waste from a local furnace. This was believed to prevent witches entering the house (witches were commonly believed to be scared of iron).

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “The Priest House, West Hoathly”, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Source: Wikipedia

Date: 2025

Licence: CC-BY-SA

Social History Collection

House of Correction and Prison Museum A redbrick building with barred windows in St Marygate was a well-equipped Victorian prison. Its origins go back to the 17th century when Houses of Correction were being set up of vagrancy and unemployment. In 1629 Ripon Corporation asked the Archbishop of York to provide a House of Correction, but it was finally made in 1686 on the initiative of local magistrates. The building has rows of mullioned windows and was built on land belonging to the Dean and Chapter. The first Master was appointed in 1686 with a salary of 15 a year and in the 1770s it was reduced and the then Master Michael Gregg left in 1778 to take over the Sign of the Minister. Punishing vagrants was the prime function of the House of Correction in the 18th century, but in 1800 the Liberty magistrates decided to build a new prison block on the north side of the original House of Correction, which then became the Governor’s private residence. The work was completed in 1816. The Liberty Gaol (now the Old Curiosity Shop) near the Cathedral, was demoted to a debtor’s prison and all other categories of prisoners were transferred to St Marygate. About 40 to 50 offenders passed through its cells each year mainly petty offenders rarely serving more than three-month sentences and often less than two weeks. The prison was mixed, but the majority of inmates were male, mostly aged 17 to 30 and convicted for theft or under the Vagrancy, Game and Bastardy laws. In these early years those sentenced to Hard Labour suffered the rigours of the Treadwheel. The diet consisted of carefully measured portions of bread, meat, potatoes, soup and oatmeal gruel. However, by the 1860s the emphasis was on reform and there was a matron, surgeon, barber and chaplain to attend the inmates. There was a library and sick bay. In 1878 Ripon’s House of Correction and Liberty Gaol finally closed but within ten years it had become the Police Station until 1956. In the early 1980s the cellblock was put to a very appropriate use as a Prison and Police Museum, and hopefully the House of Correction building will soon become part of this complex.

Subjects

Social History

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

Arms and Armour

Weapons, uniforms, accoutrements, Colours silver, items that belonged to the late Field Marshal Viscount Hardinge, memorabilia, oil paintings, prints, watercolours, drawings, photographs and other relevant material of the 50th Regiment, 97th Foot, The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment for the life of the Regiment and its forebears from the middle of the 18th Century to 1961.

Medals

Medals and badges include the collections from Major General RA Riddell CBE and Lieut. Colonel H.N. Edwards MBE.

Archives

Maps, regimental records, books, documents, diaries, relating to the history of The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment and its predecessors.

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC