Grand National winner hailed from Telscombe stud

Following on from last week's Yarns featuring the history of Peacehaven and the town's enigmatic founder, Charles Neville, this week's story takes us literally over the hill to the village of Telscombe.
Ambrose Gorhams 1902 Grand National winner, Shannon Lass. She was one of only 13 mares to ever win the race and was schooled on Telscombes Downland Gallops. The horse is pictured flanked by Gorham (right) and trainer James Sailor Hackett. Jockey David Read is in the saddle.Ambrose Gorhams 1902 Grand National winner, Shannon Lass. She was one of only 13 mares to ever win the race and was schooled on Telscombes Downland Gallops. The horse is pictured flanked by Gorham (right) and trainer James Sailor Hackett. Jockey David Read is in the saddle.
Ambrose Gorhams 1902 Grand National winner, Shannon Lass. She was one of only 13 mares to ever win the race and was schooled on Telscombes Downland Gallops. The horse is pictured flanked by Gorham (right) and trainer James Sailor Hackett. Jockey David Read is in the saddle.

Only a few hundred yards of grassland separates the highest houses of Peacehaven from the buildings that make up Telscombe but the two places are world’s apart in character.

The first mention of Telscombe dates from the time of King Edgar who ruled England from 955 until 975AD.

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Edgar apparently gifted the village to the New Minster of Hyde in Winchester. It remained the property of the church until Henry VIII’s Reformation whereupon he gifted the village to his court favourite, Thomas Cromwell, who became Lord of the Manor of Telscombe. Cromwell was not short of properties and it is unlikely he ever visited the place, hidden away as it is in a fold (or “combe”) in the Sussex Downs.

Telscombe Village today is still home to horses. Thanks to Ambrose Gorham It was the first such community in Britain to be connected to mains electricity.Telscombe Village today is still home to horses. Thanks to Ambrose Gorham It was the first such community in Britain to be connected to mains electricity.
Telscombe Village today is still home to horses. Thanks to Ambrose Gorham It was the first such community in Britain to be connected to mains electricity.

Cromwell himself came a cropper in 1640 when he suffered a gruesome botched beheading upon being found guilty of a spurious charge of treason. His lands were confiscated by the Crown where they remained until the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. After this Telscombe came into the remit of Sir Richard Sackville, Duke of Dorset. He was succeeded by various Lords of the Manor until 1686 when Henry Shelley of the prominent Sussex family of the same name purchased it.

One imagines life in the village was ever-placid although it acquired a macabre record in 1819 when Telscombe resident James Lulham achieved the notoriety of being the last man hanged in England for sheep stealing. Sheep farming was big business on the South Downs and the hapless Lulham with his regrettable bent for rustling would have been surrounded by woolly temptation.

The extended Shelley family had a presence in Telscombe until 1900 when the Manor House was acquired by James Harman. In 1924 it was bought by Peachaven’s founder, Charles Neville. Whether Neville harboured ambitions of making the village an extension of his seaside estate is not known. But had he tried he would certainly have found himself up against a formidable adversary in Ambrose Gorham.

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Gorham settled in Telscombe Village in 1890 at Stud Farm. Horseracing was his business but to boot he was also a bookmaker. In 1902 he won the Grand National at Aintree with 20-1 shot Shannon Lass who had learned her trade on Telscombe’s Downland Gallops. The horse was one of only 13 mares ever to win jump racing’s most coveted contest. The prize money was considerable but I suspect Gorham’s bookmaking connections added to his financial coup.

One of Gorham’s employees looking after up to 25 racehorses as well as 20 working farm horses was Henry Windless. In 1915 his 14-year-old son, George, joined him in the shoeing trade. Henry had actually shod Shannon Lass for the Aintree race; amazingly, in 1966 George himself shod the winner of that year’s Derby - Charlottown, trained in Lewes by Gordon Smythe.

After becoming a very rich man indeed, Gorham revealed a philanthropic nature very much to the benefit of Telscombe Village, almost all of which he owned. In what became known as “Gorham’s Gift”, his good works extended to building a clubhouse where his apprentices could enjoy their leisure time. He also paid for every house to be connected to mains electricity, the first village to be so endowed in Britain. In addition he laid on a piped water supply and funded repairs to the village church. Every Christmas he gave each child in the parish the gift of a book and a pair of Wellington boots. In a final grand gesture, Gorham bequeathed his entire estate to Brighton Corporation in trust, stating in his will that the purpose of the gift was to preserve the rural nature of the village. He did stipulate that no pub should ever be allowed. Oddly enough, he wasn’t totally against drink for in his directions to the Corporation concerning his successor he stated: “I shall prefer a man who is a sportsman and not a total abstainer from alcohol and tobacco.”

Nearly nine decades after his death, the Gorham Trust remains extant, owning five cottages, all of Stud Farm and the village club. The Trust also enjoys the right to graze animals on Telscombe Tye, a stretch of common land separating the village from Peacehaven. The Tye was a source of friction between Gorham and Neville. At one time the latter owned the Tye itself while the grazing rights resided with the trustees of “Gorham’s Gift”. In 1979 the land was listed as “common” under the Commons Registration Act. Ten years later the land was put up for auction by the Neville family (Charles Neville having died in 1960) and was purchased by Telscombe Town Council.

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Gorham died in 1933 and is buried in 10th Century St. Laurence Churchyard. One thing is certain; if Ambrose were to return to life today he would certainly see that his cherished Telscombe Village is very much the same as he left it. The only vehicular access to Telscombe is via a winding narrow lane that joins the C7 at Southease. Until relatively recently, the lane had no name. Then the emergency services pointed out that these days every road requires identification. Fittingly, Gorham Lane now leads the way to the village that Ambrose did so much to preserve.