Bateman's

Bateman's
"A good and peaceable place" - Kipling on his beloved Sussex home[1]
Type	House
Location	Burwash, East Sussex
Coordinates	50°59′21″N 0°22′45″E / 50.9893°N 0.3793°E / 50.9893; 0.3793
Built	1634
Architectural style(s)	Jacobean
Governing body	National Trust
Listed Building – Grade I
Official name	Bateman's
Designated	3 August 1961
Reference no.	1044063
Location of Bateman's in East Sussex

Bateman's is a 17th-century house located in Burwash, East Sussex, England. It was the home of Rudyard Kipling from 1902 until his death in 1936. The house was built in 1634. Kipling's widow Caroline bequeathed the house to the National Trust on her death in 1939. The house is a Grade I listed building.

History

Bateman's is a Jacobean Wealden mansion constructed in 1634.^[2] There is debate as to the original builder. Historic England follows the tradition favoured by Kipling of ascribing the construction to a Sussex ironmaster, John Britten.^[3] The historian Adam Nicolson reports the tradition in the National Trust's guidebook, but notes that Britten was a dealer in iron, rather than a manufacturer.^[4] Pevsner attributes the construction to a lawyer, William Langham.^[2]

By the early twentieth century, the house had descended to the status of a farmhouse, and was in a poor state of repair.^[1] The Kiplings first saw it in 1900, on returning to England from America, following the death of their daughter Josephine in 1899 and a disastrous falling-out between them and Carrie Kipling's brother, Beatty Balestier.^[5] Enchanted by the house, they were too slow in making an offer and it was let for two years. In 1902, they were able to purchase it, with 33 acres of land,^[6] from a wealthy stockbroker, Alexander Carron Scrimgeour.^[7]

In 1900, Kipling was the most famous author in England,^[8] and was earning £5,000 per year; the cost of Bateman's, £9,300, was thus entirely affordable.^[5] Kipling wrote some of his finest works at the house including: "If—", "The Glory of the Garden", and Puck of Pook's Hill, named after the hill visible from the house.^[8] The house's setting and the wider local area features in many of his stories. Kipling's poem "The Land" is inspired by the Bateman's estate.^[9]

Kipling's only son, John, was killed at the Battle of Loos on 29 September 1915.^[10] Kipling died on 18 January 1936, of peritonitis.^[11] Carrie died three years later, in 1939. Under the terms of her will the house passed to the National Trust.^[1]

Architecture and description

The house is built of

The garden was created by Kipling from 1907, using the prize money from his award of the Nobel Prize in Literature.^[14] The house is a Grade I listed building, the highest grade reserved for buildings of "exceptional interest".^[3]

Park Mill

There is a

Sources

• Antram, Nicholas;
  OCLC 826658807
  .
• ISBN 978-0-340-73510-7
  .
• Garnett, Oliver (2015). Rudyard Kipling at Bateman's. London:
  OCLC 944313789
  .
• ISBN 0-713-99596-3
  .
• OCLC 967909099
  .
• ISBN 978-0-7867-0830-7
  .
• Wilmshurst, Alan (2020). Park Mill at Bateman's. Swindon, UK: National Trust.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bateman's.

• Bateman's information at the National Trust
• The Kipling Society