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cotchford farm
BRIAN JONES’ COTCHFORD FARM
A farm in the southwest of the village of Hartfield, East Sussex, fifty miles southeast of London, which Brian Jones bought for £31,500 in November 1968. The building was bought as a country home by the author A. A. Milne in 1925, who wrote all of his Winnie the Pooh books at the house. William the Conqueror had also once lived at Cotchford.
Sadly, that’s the place where Brian died on the night of July 2 1969. The house retains some of the fittings he installed, including coloured lighting and glazing. It was bought by Alistair Johns in 1970 and became a Grade II listed building in 1982. The house was put on sale for £2m in April 2012, including its 9.5 acres plot with the heated outdoor swimming pool and fishpond. It failed to sell, and was put up for sale again in 2016, and was sold for £1.8m in June 2017.
About Brian Jones and Cotchford Farm, where he spent his last days (from Vanity Fair)
Today, in fascinating real-estate developments, we learn that one of the most beloved literary characters and a Rolling Stones band member lived on the same quaint British estate, Cotchford Farm. According to Forbes, the six-bedroom house, whose past proprietors include Winnie-the-Pooh creator A. A. Milne and founding Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones, is now on the market for $3.2 million. The 16th-century home, historic in both the literal, literary, and rock-and-roll senses, was purchased in 1925 by Milne, who penned all of his Winnie-the-Pooh books on the East Sussex estate, using the nearby Ashdown Forest as a setting for the bear’s adventures.
Sometime in the late 1960s, original Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones bought Pooh’s stomping grounds, and in fact died there in 1969. Jones drowned in the estate’s outdoor pool a month after Mick Jagger and Keith Richards dismissed him from the band. The pool has since been remodeled by its current owner, Alastair Johns, who creepily sold its original tiles to fans of the late rock star for approximately $150 each.
The house still features original Pooh-related details, like a statue of Milne’s son, the real-life Christopher Robin; the bridge where the fictional Christopher Robin played “Pooh sticks”; and even the occasional flock of fans, whose visits “increase every time there’s a new Winnie-the-Pooh film,” Johns tells the Telegraph. According to the real-estate listing, Cotchford Farm’s other details include antique wooden beams and window frames, a den with a fireplace, an oak-paneled dining room, a pool house, and a fish pond.
