Hancox

An extraordinary saga of upper-class English life at the brink of the First World War

Hancox is the Tudor hall house in rural Sussex where Charlotte Moore grew up, and where she lives today. It’s been in the family since her ancestor Milicent Ludlow, young, single and an orphan, took it on in 1891 and began to enlarge the house and manage the farm. Hancox tells the story of the house and the family over the following thirty years, in the long run-up to the First World War. In one sense it’s a rural idyll- the arrival of the car disturbs this peaceful agrarian world, but apart from that the rhythms of the countryside go on as they had for centuries before. But all was not quite as it seemed- Milicent made a distinguished marriage but her husband harboured a secret. Milicent herself gradually succumbed to religious fanaticism. And the death of the youngest boy at Ypres devastated the family, bringing the idyll to a painful end. Using extraordinary archive material held at Hancox today, Charlotte Moore weaves an Edwardian tale of madness and jealousy, love and loss, heroism and tragedy.