Leaving our offices next to Gatwick airport, we drove through quaint, ancient villages that looked basically untouched and drove through South Downs National park. Recognised as a region of exceptional beauty, our project known legendarily as “Mundy’s House” resides within this extraordinary piece of land.
The area is festooned with history and the town itself as old-fashioned and pleasant as anyone could ever expect. Strolling along the main pathway to the house, I was greeted with a plot of land dating back over hundreds of years and feelings of past lives lived. This is where our journey really began. The historic period of the birth of Mundy’s House gave way to a number of legends still told by the town folk today.
From the moment we arrived on site, it was as if we were transported back in time. There was an exquisite, large garden that surrounded the estate and a man made body of water filled with geese, ducks and other serene wildlife. The house itself was in the process of being restored but I could imagine what it would have looked like in a past age. As we walked through the construction site, project manager, Tim Humpage helped us visualize how the final layout of the house will appear in essence of its former glory.
I ventured down the back garden near the quaint duck pond and came across a long pathway beneath a forest known as Mundy’s Bottom. It was at the edge of this woodland where a history of legends and ghost stories were aplenty.
As the legend goes, Mundy’s bottom, a grassy pathway behind the estate, lay on a route taken by discharged sailors in the 1700s. It was told that Betty Mundy lured in these exhausted sailors and murdered them for their wages. Speculation has it that the spirit of a long-dead navy sailor still walks along the trail in the wee hours of darkness.
Another story depicts Betty as part of a press gang where she would once again use temptation to demand attention from farm labourers. After luring them in, she’d take them for a stroll in the woods and shortly after, the gang would ambush the pour labourer while Betty received her promised commission.
The final myth surrounding Mundy’s House is of greater betrayal. Apparently, Betty was caught cursing a herd of cattle which didn’t go over well with the devoted locals. Angry farmers took matters into their own hands and decided to burn Mundy’s House to the ground while she was still inside it. It was believed that Betty had valued gold and the spiteful neighbours searched long and hard for her rumoured treasure after her murder, but found nothing.
No one will ever really know whether or not the legends of Mundy’s House bare any truth. What we do know is the village and Mundy’s Bottom has experienced a past that no human alive today has bared witness too. Now, all we can do is expose these eerie tales and like our Project Managers at K2, attempt to restore an old country house and begin to create new stories and memories of an ancient manor.
