The workhouse is very full just now, and officials have little time for work outside the heavy daily duties. The house, however, it is customary Christmas decoration, chiefly on the time honoured lines of holly and evergreens. On Christmas day, the breakfast for the inmates consisted of sausages, kindly provided by Mrs Montague Turner, of Cuckfield, bread, butter and coffee. Service was held in the chapel, conducted by the chaplain, the Rev. RHC Mertens.

Dinner was a Christmas fare, roast beef, baked potatoes, brussels sprouts, plum pudding, beer and minerals. After dinner rthere were nuts and oranges, tobacco for the men, sweets for women and children. At teatime the special Christmas cake was provided, the Guardians evidently sparing nothing in providing Christmas fare. Each child received a present, and during the day there was a distribution of Christmas cards throughout the building in the infirmary, after dinner, oranges and grapes were served. Christmas evening is generally made merry with an entertainment program, but it being Sunday, is it this year the evening was devoted to carol and hymn singing. It was a home-like quiet Christmas Day.

Southern Weekly News, 31 December 1910

Contributed by Malcolm Davison.

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