The person who first superintended the Dyke establishment was Mr. Russell, who was succeeded by Mr. Thomas Sturt. His successor was Mr. Thomas King, familiarly then and now known as “Tommy King,” whose refreshing beverages and exhilirating fiddling gave him a far and near notoriety. The premises were only occupied and opened during the Summer season, from May to October; and although stabling and other accommodation were constructed, in a few years the public requirements induced the erection of the present building, the Dyke House, by Mr. Hardwick, and it has successively passed from King to Mr. Edwards, of Horsham, the tenant who obtained the spirit license; Mr. Ade, of Huntingdon; Mr. William Cooper, of Brighton; Mr. Peter Barkshire, now of Patcham; to its present occupier, Mr. William Thacker, who has been landlord of the house, and tenant of the farm attached twenty-seven years, during which period he has received the royal patronage of William IV. and Her present Majesty and the late Prince Consort. The house has also been the resort of many illustrious foreign visitors, amongst whom may be named Prince Metternich and Count Nesselrode. The most notorious character who took up his abode here, was Azimullah Khan, the great promoter of the Mutiny in India. He was a resident in Brighton during the Spring and Summer of 1846; but towards the latter end of the Autumn of that year, by the alleged advice of his physician, he, for three weeks, had apartments at the Dyke House; and during that time he was constantly receiving and sending off Indian overland messengers with enormous despatches, without doubt having reference to that shocking revolt which will for ever remain an odious blot upon the history of our East Indian dominions. Azimullah was the Prime Minister of the arch fiend, Nana Sahib; and though it might be saying too much in declaring that the plan of the insurrection was decided upon at the Dyke House, there is little doubt that the first copy of the proclamation was prepared there. Lieutenant Delafosse, one of the few survivors of the Cawnpore massacre, on his return to England visited the Dyke, and there assured Mr Thacker that he saw Azimullah on the river bank at Cawnpore, in the company of Nana Sahib, waving his sword when the guns were discharging their murderous balls into the boats which contained the defenceless victims.