The "Thursley" family

The earliest recording of the Stilwells as land owners/tenants or yeomen, is in connection with Lower House and in the neighbouring areas of High Stilwells and Nether Stilwells. Lower House still exists and is one of a number of fine houses that can be traced back to the 15th and 16th century in Bowlhead Green, a hamlet in the parish of Thursley and a few miles south of Godalming. The house is privately owned and is not accessible from public rights-of-way, but can be viewed from a public bridleway that runs across fields in front of the house.

 Lower House, Bowlhead Green

How the family came to be owners or tenants of this house is not known, but it is assumed that they built up wealth over the centuries in the Bowlhead Green area, and eventually became yeoman farmers.

The real change in the fortunes of the Thursley Stilwells came in 1660. John Stilwell of Lower House (the family owned the property by this time) married a local lady, Joan Shudd. Joan was the eldest daughter of Thomas Shudd of Mousehill Manor and Cosford House in the parish of Thursley. These two houses were more substantial than Lower House and Joan inherited them on the death of her brother, the Lord of the Manor. In keeping with the laws at the time, Joan's husband, John Stilwell, became the rightful owner and so became the new Lord of the Manor. It appears that John moved the family into Cosford House as their 2^nd child was born there. The Stilwells continued to own and occupy Lower House until sold by another John Stilwell (lots of John's in this family line) in 1742 for the substantial sum of £2500. The new owner was Member of Parliament for nearby Haslemere, Philip Carteret Webb, and he broke up the estate and gave land in exchange for parliamentary votes (Haslemere was known as a "rotten borough" and Web was a disliked absentee MP). The John Stilwell who sold the estate had remarried a young lady in 1751, 8 years after the death of his first wife, and was the father of a 2 month old son when he died aged 55. In his will he leaves nothing to the 9 children of his first marriage and there is no mention of the £2500 wealth. His wife inherited mainly the contents of the house he was living in at the time. In his will, he is recorded as being a Writing Master and living in a small house in the centre of the village of Thursley. Where did all that money go? Why did he not live at Lower House? Who was living there and what happened to him/her? Many questions with no satisfactory answers. Such is the frustration of family history research.

Mousehill Manor

Moving back to the "first born" line, they lived at Mousehill Manor rather than Cosford House. Mousehill is quite a substantial property near Milford (about 2 miles NE of Thursley - on the road to Godalming) and is still very much as it was at the time of the drawing below.

The other house, Cosford, was a little smaller but was in a sheltered valley with a regular and private water source. The house has three lakes formed by damming a local stream in the valley to create a reliable water source for nearby Cosford Mill. The house was occupied by yet another John Stilwell.

The lands belonging to Mousehill Manor were split from the house and the Stilwells owned the two separately until the late 1700s when the two were brought back into single family ownership through the bequest of an unmarried Stilwell with no children to leave his property to - a sure sign of a close family that wanted things kept that way. In the meantime, Cosford House fell out of Stilwell ownership through a lack of male heir. John Hawkins inherited it through his wife Mary (neé Stilwell) in 1793. The Hawkins family sold the house in 1808. Today, the house is in secure and private land that cannot be accessed or viewed from any public right-of-way.

The older picture of Cosford House on the left is interesting in that it depicts the original house which burnt down in the 1800's and was replaced by a larger house facing the lakes - note that the old house faces towards the artist wheras in the modern photograph the new house is facing the lakes on the right.

Returning to Mousehill Manor, this house and the associated estate remained in Stilwell ownership until the latter half of the 19^th century when it was sold to Viscount Midleton of Cork in Ireland (owner of nearby Peper Harow House). In the meantime, John Stilwell had inherited Killinghurst House near Haslemere in 1791, again through the wife's inheritance (this branch of the Stilwells were either lucky or skilful in some of their marriages). Amongst Stilwell papers at the West Sussex History Centre in Chichester are plans by John for a new Mousehill Manor to be built in a Palladian style. Either the desire or the money was not there and it was never built. In fact it is suspected that the existing Mousehill became too large and a drain on the family's finances hence the sale to Viscount Midleton. The Stilwell family "seat" moved to Killinghurst.

Killinghurst House

 Killinghurst House is a little more modest than Mousehill but had a lot of farmland. The Stilwells lived there until the family line died out through lack of a male heir in the early 1900s. The last patriarch of the family, James John Russell Stilwell, spent a significant sum of money renovating the family tombs at Thursley and erecting a number of memorials to his immediate family. 

Thursley Church

The Stilwell tombs at Thursley are under the white sarcophagi on the right in the above picture. The actual tombs are underground. Most of what you can see above ground was commissioned by James John Russell Stilwell in the late 1800s. These are typical flamboyant Victorian embellishments and a little out of keeping with the surrounding graves. The right-hand wing of the church that can be seen in the picture is a later extension and explains why the Stilwell tombs are today so close to the church wall and entrance. The sarcophagi are topped with the original gravestones and the whole lot were originally surrounded by iron railings that went the way of most iron railings in WWII. 

Compare the two pictures of the church. Note the extended wing in the top picture. Also note the distinctive Sailor's Stone headstone in the foreground in both pictures (the story of the murdered sailor covered elsewhere on this website).

Quite a bit is known about the last of the Thursley Stilwells: James Stilwell, his son James John Russell (pictured left), and their children. They do appear to have been the typical well-to-do Victorian country family. They were all well educated and the inscriptions on the tombs relate great sadness in the loss of family members. James snr., James John Russell, their wives, and the respective children are buried at Chiddingfold Church in an impressive tomb.

The most interesting aspect of the last of this dynasty is that James Stilwell is illegitimate. His father John was spurned in love and swore never to marry (we know this from letters sent between family members). However, this did not stop him fathering two sons by his first housekeeper, a Miss Buckle. John's will is very interesting in that he also left legacies to a number of Stilwell's whose existence were not known before the will came to light, and whose baptisms appear in no parish records. Did John have just two illegitimate children? Legacies were also left to female staff in trust for daughters - all very suspicious. By the accounts of the time, John was a very handsome man, and well respected in the area. Did he lead a double life? No trace has been found of descendants of the "new" Stilwells mentioned in the will, and official family papers or letters make no mention of them, apart from the two sons by Miss Buckle.

Also of interest is that John/Miss Buckle's first son, John, who was born in 1784 and believed to have lived 73 years, did not inherit the house and lands. James, the second son born in 1793 did so. We do not know the reason for this, but James was a doctor living in Walton-on-Thames before moving back to Thursley when he inherited the estate on the death of his father (and whilst older brother John was still alive, according to known records).

This family line died out because two of James John Russell Stilwell's three sons tragically died young, and the third never married. The family links continue with the female line. The Stilwells no longer have connections with Thursley or property in the surrounding land.

Ringed are Lower and Cosford Houses.  Mousehill Manor is about 2 miles NE on the way to Godalming. Killinghurst is about 5 miles SE towards Haslemere.

The lower blue blob is the location of the "High Stilwell" spring.  Nowadays in summer this is often just a silted-up pond by the side of the road, but fills in winter.  In times past, when horses were the main mode of transport, the pond would have been kept clean. The water supply was known to be reliable and pure. The upper blue blob near Lower House is the location of the smaller "Nether Stilwell" spring (now piped). It was opened out by the Stilwells to create a large pond and used to breed fish for sale. The site of this spring is now in Witley Park and inaccessible to the public.