Celebrating 150th anniversary of almshouse charity in Crowborough

Sanctuary
150 years of Mrs de Lannoy Cottages

Four gables, proud on Beacon Road,
proclaim their birth: 1, 8, 7, 4.
Today, the heart of Crowborough presses round:
house agents, pizzas, chapel, doctors, pub;
hedge filtering the daily traffic’s hum
and evening visits from the kebab van.

It wasn’t always so, when Mrs D,
replete with widow’s unexpected wealth,
endowed this house, this sanctuary,
raised high upon a Wealden ridge.
A refuge, shelter, second chance
for “inmates with a Protestant belief”.

Not all was perfect in that quiet retreat.
The trail to toilets down the garden path
now rectified by all mod cons within
and water paid for, faults repaired
beneath the watchful eye of those
who oversee and delegate such things.

So here they came, expectant eyed,
and found a welcome they did not presume;
in hugs, warm words and friendships dear.
A garden to bring peace, a plot to tend
and, more than this, a hint of springtime
in the autumn of their days.

Still stands that need, and still they come
as widows, spinsters, married pairs
to live content in Beeches’ Haven Homes
or in Swift House, the latest of the line.
A time of rest before the evening dims.
A shaft of sunlight before shadows fall.

Peter Charles Jackson June 2024