The end of the house of Alard

The story opens with a sweeping portrait of the Alard family, whose roots stretch back to medieval ship‑owners and crusading knights whose tombs still mark the aisles of Winchelsea church. Over centuries the clan rises, falls, and reshapes itself—absorbing rival houses, weathering civil wars, and amassing estates across the marshes and valleys of Sussex. Their ancestral home, Conster Manor, stands alone on a hill overlooking the Tillingham, a stone‑clad reminder of generations of ambition and loss.

At the heart of the first act is John Alard, a thirty‑something Londoner fresh from the glitter of Grosvenor Square. He returns to the countryside to marry Lucy Kenyon and to take charge of the sprawling Alard lands, extending holdings from Rye to Ewhurst with a mixture of confidence and naiveté. Yet early setbacks in his investments hint at the precarious balance between wealth and ruin, setting the stage for the challenges that will test the family's legacy.