An interesting 1994 article by Barbara Abbs, published in Sussex Archaeological Collections, traces the remarkable history of Woodlands Nursery at Maresfield in East Sussex, from its foundation in 1826 to its closure in 1922.
The Founder – William Wood
William Wood was born in 1781, the son of a Horsted Keynes butcher. After leaving home in 1796 and working as a footman and groom to Lady Louisa Stuart, he ‘got into a scrape with the parish, on account of a damsel 10 years older than himself’, and begged to go abroad with Lady Louisa’s son Charles Stuart.
Charles Stuart was in the diplomatic service, and seems to have been responsible for espionage in mainlaind Europe throughout the Napoleonic wars. As his trusted confidential servant, William Wood apparently engaged in several spying missions as an undercover courier, including carrying dispatches for the Duke of Wellington (another Maresfield “regular”), concealing documents in the lining of his cap.
William Wood’s diplomatic career was cut short by a scandal in 1829, when “The Times” discovered that embassy staff (including Wood) were using the Diplomatic Bag – which is exempt from customs inspection – to smuggle net and tulle cloth from Nottingham to Calais. In Calais, the cloth was turned into French Lace and smuggled back to England in the same way. By avoiding excise duty, Wood apparently earned £100-£200 at each crossing (equivalent to £15,000-£30,000 in 2026).
But whether it was the smuggling or the espionage work that led to Wood’s wealth, it certainly funded the development of Woodlands Nursery.
Founding the Nursery
Wood had anticipated his departure from diplomatic service. As early as 1826 he purchased a cottage and eleven acres at Tyes Gate, Maresfield, for £550, naming the holding Woodlands.
Inspired by the explosion of rose-growing he had witnessed in France — fuelled by the Empress Josephine’s enthusiasm — he claimed to have introduced standard roses to Sussex that same year. By November 1830 the first advertisement for his nursery appeared in The Sussex Advertiser, offering rare foreign and British plants, dahlias, chrysanthemums, orange trees and roses, with a parallel Paris branch maintained until at least 1837.
Growth and the Great Age
By 1837 the nursery covered forty acres; at its peak between 1871 and 1910 it extended to between 120 and 200 acres, incorporating neighbouring farms. It became one of England’s largest nurseries, employing up to sixty or seventy men and boys in the winter months. The surviving 1842–43 catalogue reveals an astonishing range of stock, from exotic greenhouse plants to thousands of rose varieties. Wood advertised energetically in both local and national gardening publications, including the newly founded Gardeners’ Chronicle.
His son Charles, born at the Paris Embassy in 1816, took over the business and — unlike his father, who stubbornly refused to use the railway — embraced the Uckfield line when it opened, transforming distribution and enabling the mortgage to be paid off by 1874.
The nursery orders were carefully packed and sent by waggon to Uckfield Station, where they were transported to London. An unexpected benefit for the nursery was that the waggons did not return empty – the trains down from London were loaded with London manure!
Decline and Closure
The death of Charles Wood in January 1900, followed days later by his wife, marked the beginning of the end. The untimely deaths of his sons Frederick (1907) and William in the same year left the business without capable family leadership.
Frederick’s widow Blanche struggled on as an invalid until her own death in 1919, after which the nursery was auctioned. The buyer, a Southend nurseryman named Barnard, declined to purchase the remaining stock and sold up three years later, undone by the post-war agricultural depression. By 1922 Woodlands had quietly disappeared, leaving behind only some unusual trees in the hedgerows of a narrow Maresfield lane.
Believed to be Charles Wood (1900) but could possibly be that of William Wood (1863).