About 1900 James Deadman (born 1856) from Chiddingly, who had married Rose Mary Thompson at Bodle St. Green in 1891 at the end of an army career of nine years in the Royal Sussex Regiment, brought his family to ‘Powder Mill Cottages’ and became neighbours of the Chatfield family and worked at Park Farm.

Despite the isolation, no gas, electricity, sewerage system, piped water or refuse collection, the Deadmans raised a large family in the cottage:

Elizabeth	Born 1891 married Mr Langridge of Five Ash Down
Philadelphia	Born 1893 married James Rogers
Edith Rose	Born 1895 spinster (in service at Hampden Park, Eastbourne)
Louisa	Born 1897 married Harry Fuller from Eastbourne
William	Born 1900 married Doll Beadle, lived at West Malling, Kent
Nellie	Born 1902 died 1909
Mabel	Born 1904 married John Hooper, lived in Eastbourne (no issue)
Ernest	Born 1907 died 1923
Cecil John	Born 1910 bachelor, died 1978
Vera Maud	Born 1915 married Edward Blease, lived in Uckfield later
Silvester George	Born 1918 married Mary Kendrick of Rochester, served in Royal Marines

The fire in 1977 left the last of the Deadman occupiers, bachelor Cecil, with nothing but memories and the clothes he had with him that weekend when he was away in Maidstone. The gutted cottages have been pulled down and the site redeveloped and landscaped.