The house we are going to investigate is called Stream Farm Cottage.  It used to belong to Stream Farm but in 1940, Mr Westgate purchased it to house the workers on his farm, Mill Farm. 
Jim Bennett moved in with his wife Dorothy.  Jim worked at Mill Farm and stayed in Stream Farm Cottage until he fell down the stairs and died in the house.  His wife, Dorothy discovered him at the bottom of the stairs alive, but did not want to make a fuss and left calling the Dr until the morning, when it was too late.  She continued to live there until 2009 when she also had a fall in the house and was discovered 2 days later in the lounge, barely alive. She did recover but it was decided that she would not be able to live on her own anymore and the house has been empty since November 2009.

Laughton lies just off the main A22 Eastbourne to London road, on the B2124 Hailsham to Ringmer road.

Laughton is derived from the Anglo SaxonLeac tun (The herb settlement). The village has been known by a number of names from Lestone in the Domesday Book, Lacton, Leghton, Layghton and now Laughton  

Stone implements have been found nearby, and the Romans built a villa on land towards Ripe, probably for farming as the land is very fertile lying as it does on a tributary of the river Ouse .

Until the Norman conquest in 1066 the area was owned by Earl Godwin, the father of Harold II the last Saxon King of England. The ownership was passed to Aquila family who founded Michelham Priory and who started to build the church in 1229.

The Black Death appears to have effected the village as the church lies just under a mile from the village centre.

In 1356 at the battle of Poitiers a local knight Sir John Pelham together with Sir Roger De La Warr captured Jean the King of France, because of this Sir John was given the Kings belt buckle as a badge of honour.

This badge can be seen in many churches in the area showing the influence and power of the Pelham family.

The Pelham family bought Laughton Place, an old fortified manor in 1466, this was rebuilt in 1534 by William Pelham . The Pelhams built a new house in Halland in the 1600's and moved there, but continued to be Lords of the manor.

The area was once a major brick producer with four brickworks nearby. The bricks were used to build Laughton Place , with production continuing until the 1930's.

During the Second World War the village was hit by a doodlebug ( Flying Bomb ) and unusually for the villages in the area four people were killed.

Archaeological evidence points to prehistoric dwellers and it is thought that the Roman settlement of Mutuantonis was here, quantities of artifacts having been discovered in the area. The Saxons built a castle here, having first constructed its motte as a defensive point over the river; they gave the town its name.

After the Norman invasion Lewes was given by William the Conqueror to William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey. He built Lewes Castle on the Saxon site; and he and his wife, Gundred also founded a Cluniac priory here in about 1081. Lewes was the site of a mint during the Late Anglo-Saxon period and thereafter a mint during the early years after the Norman invasion. In 1148 the town was granted a charter by King Stephen. The town became a port with docks along the Ouse.
The town was the site of the Battle of Lewes between the forces of Henry III and Simon de Monfort in the Second Barons’ War in 1264, at the end of which de Monfort's forces were victorious. The battle took place in fields now just west of Landport.
At the time of the Marian Persecutions of 1555–1557 Lewes was to witness the deaths of seventeen Protestant martyrs who were burnt at the stake in front of the Star Inn, now the Town Hall.
Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Lewes developed as the county town of East Sussex expanding beyond the line of the town wall and serving as a port and developing iron, brewing and ship building industries.
In 1846 the town became a railway junction with lines constructed from the north, south, and east to two railways stations. The development of Newhaven ended Lewes' period as a major port, Lewes became a borough in 1881
The High Street runs from Eastgate to West-Out forming the spine of the ancient town. Cliffe Hill gives its name to the one-time village of Cliffe, now part of the town. The southern part of the town, Southover, came into being as a village adjacent to the Priory, south of the Winterbourne Stream. At the north of the town's original wall boundary is the St. John's or Pells area, home to several nineteenth century streets, the Pells Pond. The Pells Pool, built in 1860, is the oldest freshwater lido in England. The Phoenix Industrial Estate lies along the west bank of the river. This area is home to the old fire station and subject of a potential regeneration project.
On 27 December 1836, an avalanche occurred in Lewes, the worst ever recorded in Britain. It was caused by a large build-up of snow on the nearby cliff slipping down onto a row of cottages called Boulters Row (now part of South Street). About fifteen people were buried, and eight of these died. A pub in South Street is named The Snowdrop in memory of the event.
On 21 August 1864, Lewes suffered an earthquake shock measuring 3.1 on the Richter scale.
In October 2000 the town suffered major flooding during an intense period of severe weather throughout the United Kingdom. The commercial centre of the town and many residential areas were devastated.
Bonfire Night:
Arguably the town's most important annual event is Lewes Bonfire, or Bonfire Night - Guy Fawkes Night celebrations on the 5th of November. In Lewes this event not only marks the date of the uncovering of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, but also commemorates the memory of the seventeen Protestant martyrs. The celebrations are the largest and most famous Bonfire Night celebrations in the country.
Bonfire festivities on the 5th began when the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot was declared a national holiday. Celebrations in Lewes were not planned or carried out annually, but were more random events that were more like riots. They continued until they were banned by Oliver Cromwell during the Commonwealth. However, they were reintroduced when King Charles II returned, but still on a random basis. Interest waned by the end of the 18th century but in the 1820s large groups of Bonfire Boys started celebrating with fireworks and large bonfires. The celebrations became more and more rowdy until in 1847 police forces were drafted in from London to sort out the Bonfire Boys. There were riots and fighting, and restrictions were clamped down on the celebrators, their locations moved to Wallands Park, at that time fields, not the suburb it is today. However, in 1850 they were allowed back to the High Streets. By this time the former riots had become much more like the processions carried out today. In 1853 the first two societies, Cliffe and Lewes Borough were founded and most of the others were founded later in the same century.

Landmarks:
The town is the location of several significant historic buildings, including Lewes Castle, the remains of Lewes Priory, Bull House (the former home of Tom Paine), Southover Grange and public gardens, and a sixteenth century timber-framed Wealden hall house known as Anne of Cleves House because it was given to her as part of her divorce settlement from Henry VIII, though she never lived there. Anne of Cleves and the Castle are owned and maintained by the Sussex Archaeological Society (whose headquarters are in Lewes). The Round House, a secluded former windmill in Pipe Passage, was owned by the writer Virginia Woolf.
The steep and cobbled Keere Street is home to many historic buildings, including a timber framed antiquarian bookshop. The gardens of the buildings on the east side of the street border the old Town Walls. The Prince Regent once drove his carriage down the Street, and a sign at the bottom commemorates this event.
At the highest point of the old town the limestone and Coade stone facade of the eighteenth century Crown Court, the brick Market Tower and florid War Memorial mark the historic centre, although trade has tended to concentrate on the lower land in modern times. At the lowest part of the town, by the river, Harvey & Son's Brewery, 'The Cathedral of Lewes' is an unspoilt nineteenth century tower brewery and is the only one of the town's five original major breweries still in use. The railway station is the other important monument of the industrial era.

Lewes has limited public garden space hence the popular appeal of the Grange Gardens. Southover Grange was built in the sixteenth century of Caen limestone sourced from the demolition of Lewes Priory and today is used as a nursery school and as a location for weddings and exhibitions.
The Grange has a strict and lengthy list of rules controlling its visitors and the Winterbourne stream runs through it. A tulip tree was planted there by Queen Elizabeth II and a mulberry tree dating perhaps to the seventeenth century is now enclosed by steel fencing. The history of these significant, historic gardens is under researched.