The land has always been a green open space since before Queen Elizabeth I gave it to Sir Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset in 1561 as part of Bexhill Manor.
In 1813 Elizabeth Sackville married the 5th Earl De La Warr, and when the male line of the Dukes of Dorset died out in 1865 the land passed to the Earls De La Warr. During the late 1800s the 7th Earl De La Warr began to create the fashionable health resort of Bexhill-on-Sea and the space was turned into a public park called Cantelupe Gardens.
The first houses were built deliberately around the park creating the effect of a traditional square. In 1899 the Earl leased the park to Bexhill Croquet Club, renaming it Cantelupe Croquet Ground. The Club then bought the land in 1927 with a restrictive covenant attached against development. In 1935 Bexhill Croquet Club objected to the land being zoned as Open Space in the Councils Draft Planning Scheme saying "We cannot guarantee our ability to continue to run a Croquet Club indefinitely, and we certainly want, if and when we do have to wind up, to be able to realise our property at its full present value."
During the war, some of the land was used for allotments and in 1946 the Croquet Club proposed to sell the land to the Council for a car park. The Ministry of Health stopped the Council saying the land must not be built upon and suggested planning control should be used to protect it as such.
A local philanthropist, Charles Gulliver, who donated other land to Bexhill for sport (football & cricket), bought Knole Park in the early 1950s for the playing of bowls.
Gullivers Bowls Club Ltd (GBC) bought the land from the Gulliver family in 1970, with a stipulation in place "to discourage the members from contemplating dissolution of the Club for the sake of the land value."
It is interesting to note that every owner (apart from the Sackville/De La Warr and the Gulliver families) has contemplated irrevocable loss of the open space!
GAG aims to find a way to preserve and enhance this beautiful green open space for all, incorporating gardens and sport, reflecting its history forever.
