Nab Cottage's history and location

Drone photo of Nab Cottage taken by a guest

Broad Oak Lane is one of the oldest roads in Bexhill. It would originally have been a track linking the Old Town up on the hill with Broad Oak Farm (now Broad Oak Park.)

Nab Cottage was built in the 1850s as a replacement farmhouse for Watclarke's farm. The original farmhouse can be dated, by records, to the 17th Century but it was possibly even older.

An 1875 Ordnance Survey map shows 'Wat Clarks' farmhouse as being set back from the road, as it is now, with a large barn down by the road, and a big farm courtyard to the side of that. It had three bedrooms upstairs and 2 rooms downstairs, a cattle yard and a shed. In 1879 the farm had both arable land and pasture for grazing animals, amounting to 58 acres. There was a stream and a lake behind the farmhouse and, at some point, a clay pit and a brickworks. It is in my deeds that I’m not allowed to make bricks on the premises!!

By 1918 the majority of the farm land had been sold off, reducing the plot size  to just over one acre! In spring 1920 George and Harriet Carley were living at Wat Clark’s Farm, but by 1923 the farmhouse was a private dwelling, known as Hildawald (named after its then owners, Hilda and Oswald  Marshall.) From 1938 Albert Stanley Knoll and Laura Louise Knoll were living there and it was named Nab Cottage. In 1974 Alan M Knoll was living at the house, and then in 1976 it was acquired by Geoffrey (Gus) and Julie Mitchell. I purchased it from Gus in November 2016.

I used to walk the family dog past Nab Cottage in the 1980s. I didn't know it was called that as there was no sign up,  and I would love to know where the name 'Nab' came from. It can mean a hill but the house isn't really on a hill. Anyway, every time I walked past the house I admired it and wondered who lived in it. I never imagined it would come up for sale over thirty years later, and that I would be able to buy it. The house needed a lot of work, and I also extended it. On the drone photo you can see the original part of the house at the front, and the double-roofed extension at the back. The garden was a big draw, as it feels like you are out in the countryside when you walk around it. Having the Downs and Broad Oak Park within 10 minutes' walk made Nab Cottage an ideal location for a dog-friendly B&B, and the off-road parking is a real bonus. I'd love to be a 10-minute walk away from town and the station, but you can't have everything, and for me the history of the house, and its character and peaceful outlook, outweigh the distance from town.