Parts of Green Hedges House date back to the sixteenth century (witness the wattle and daub style walls hidden behind a hatch in the Library - a hatch now blocked by bookshelves).
In Dr. van Buren’s consulting room there is also some rather fine linen-fold panelling and an "open fireplace with oak chimneypiece beautifully carved with figure supports".

The house has been described as "the interesting house partly old, with subsequent additions, possesses a pretty elevation in brick, upper part weather tiled with half timbered gable and is covered with a roof of dark tiles and Horsham stone".

The earliest evidence of the house’s existence appears on an estate plan of c. 1776 where it is shown as part of Willingtons Farm. Willingtons Farm appears in later documents as Willingtons Town and presumably extended to the area now known as Wellington Town Road. Perhaps the success of the Duke of Wellington in the nineteenth century caused the change in name.

In the Tithe Award of 1842 the house is described as "Cottage and Garden" with no house name given. The extent of land was then 2 rods and 30 perches but over the years pieces of land have been sold off, to the railway company or for the building of private residences.

The first owner whom we have managed to track down is Henry Rogers who is listed as both owner and occupier in the Tithe Award. In the 1851 Census for East Grinstead his name is given as John Henry Rogers, aged 38, unmarried and a surgeon born in Middlesex, London. He is accompanied by his mother, Anna Louiza Rogers, aged 74, a widow and an annuitant born in Oporto, Portugal, British subject. He has a servant, Ann Searle, aged 48, a servant born in Middlesex, London. In the 1861 Census John H Rogers is now a physician aged 47 and is still accompanied by his mother and servant.

By 1871 John H Rogers is 58 and a Physician MRCP. His mother has by now, presumably, died but Ann Searle remains as housekeeper. The household now has the addition of two more servants, John Betchley, aged 18, a groom born in East Grinstead and Caroline Booren, aged 21, a servant born in Lingfield, Surrey. The house, which in earlier Censuses had no name, is here called Green Hedges. The entry after this, for the Cottage Hospital mentions a nurse, a domestic servant and five patients. It was opened in 1863 by John Henry Rogers who had opened a dispensary in 1858.

In 1881 Green Hedges House is hard to identify, the whole area being known as Green Hedges. It seems possible that the house was being used to lodge Railway labourers as there are three houses with ten or thirteen occupants, all Railway labourers or Railway navvies! Green Hedges Cottage has John and Caroline Betchley as occupiers. John is 28 and Caroline 31, so it looks as though John Rogers’ two servants married each other. John Henry Rogers died in October 1879.

By 1886 Green Hedges (still not Green Hedges House) is occupied by R Pearless a solicitor and commissioner for oaths with a practice in Church Lane, East Grinstead. In the entry in the 1891 Census Green Hedges is occupied by Reginald W Pearless, a solicitor aged 44 born in East Grinstead. His wife, Alice, is 37 and was born in Glasgow. They have a son, Hugh N aged 6, born in Plaistow, Kent and a nephew, Edward Parnell, aged 5, born in Oundle, Northampton. A 78 year old visitor, Hilda M Parr, born in Nottingham, and three servants complete the household. These are Catharina M Graylitch, aged 37, cook and domestic servant born in Fewmor, Hungary of Hungarian parents, Henrietta S Ruck, aged 15, a housemaid born in Chelmondiston, Suffolk and Amelia Richards, the nurse, aged 20 and born in Chichester. It seems that people moved around a lot more in the nineteenth century than is generally believed to be the case.

Reginald Wilson Pearless appears as the occupant of Green Hedges and as "solicitor and commissioner for oaths and taking acknowledgements of deeds by married women" in Kelly’s Directories until his last entry in 1909. In the directories for 1911, 1913, 1915 and 1918 Mrs Reginald W Pearless is the resident of Green Hedges. It was while R W Pearless occupied the house that a fair-sized chunk of the garden was purchased (forcibly?) by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway to accommodate a line from East Grinstead to Oxted and Croydon (opened March 1884), the only line of the four (to Three Bridges; to Groombridge where it met the Tunbridge Wells and Uckfield line; to Brighton via Lewes and Haywards Heath and to Oxted and Croydon) still in operation today.

From the Title Deeds12 we know that Kenneth Hayward Devitt purchased the property on 31st July 1919. However, he does not seem to have lived here himself as the Kelly’s Directory for 1922 gives the occupants as Misses Clough, and the one for 1924 Mrs Clough. In the 1924 Directory, the address is given for the first time as Green Hedges, Green Hedges Avenue. In the 1922 Directory a Kenneth Devitt is listed as living in Cherry Tree Cottage, Forest Row, but in the title deeds his address is given as 38 Beaumont Street, Baker St W1, Herontye, East Grinstead and Green Hedges, East Grinstead. He was a Major of the Royal Field Artillery.

On 12th October 1925 Green Hedges House was purchased by Florence Mary Woolner (spinster) for the sum of £4,000. She appears only in the Kelly’s Directory for 1927 as she sold the property on 24th June 1929 for £5,000. The purchaser was John Kenelm Stenning.

John Stenning was a timber merchant with premises at 136 London Road, East Grinstead; Robertsbridge and Bexhill-on-Sea. He had a telephone installed in both Green Hedges House Number 51) and his commercial premises (Number 291). In the Directory for 193015 the commercial entry is "Stenning John & Son Limited, (british)" but by 1934 it has expanded to "Stenning John & Son Limited, british & foreign timber merchants & fencing contractors". In the Directory for 1938 the business is now given as "Stenning John & Son Limited, English & foreign timber merchants & fencing contractors, 136 London Road, East Grinstead & at Robertsbridge & Ardingly, Haywards Heath. It looks as though he had either sold or given the business in Bexhill to his nephew J H Stenning by his death in 1949. By his will three nephews are appointed trustees and executors: J H Stenning of Bexhill-on-Sea, timber merchant, E K Williamson of Dorchester, solicitor and M S Pearce of Cheshire, engineer. They sold the house on 24th November 1949 to Harriett Nyemann (widow) and Lise Nordan (widow) for £4500.

On 21st June 1957 Mrs Nyemann and Mrs Nordan sold the house to Michael Hilary Christopher Glyn of Leambye, Cranston Road, East Grinstead for £4300. A covenant was placed on Mr Glyn that "no buildings, huts, sheds, cages, kennels, pens, runs or enclosures for the accommodation or confinement of any animal or bird shall be erected, placed or allowed to remain north of the dotted line..." and also that "the purchaser will erect and forever after maintain a post and wire or such other form of fence as may be approved by the vendors in writing along the north boundary of the property...". It appears that Mrs Nyemann and Mrs Nordan were dividing the property and what had been the stable block now became Jay Cottage. It is possible that the two ladies moved into the cottage themselves, but I have not yet had time to pursue this line of thought.

On 26th August 1976 Green Hedges House was bought by The International College of Oriental Medicine. The thread of healing which runs from John Henry Rogers (physician and surgeon), through Michael Hilary Christopher Glyn (veterinary surgeon), continues in the acupuncture and massage clinic located on the premises today.