During the Second World War, the Mazehouse, which was unoccupied at the time, was requisitioned for military use. The house is ideally placed not far from the east coast and was used initially as a training centre for SOE recruits.
 
Later on in the War, however, it seems that the house was used by the secret services for a very different purpose. Certainly at one stage late in the War, the house was used as a radio broadcasting station. It was at this time that the writer Raymond Williams, among others, was stationed in the house.
 

By the middle of the nineteenth century the Mazehouse had become the rectory for the nearby church of St Dymphna and home to the Brightleys, the family of the Rev Dr Brightley, the parish vicar. As with many of the lives associated with the house, the story of the Brightleys is a sad one, for all the salacious delight it afforded the newspapers of the time.

For several centuries, from the late fifteenth century until well into the nineteenth, the Mazehouse formed part of the estate of May Hill Hall, home of the Day family, key figures in the local aristocracy. The most famous of the Days, although the word infamous might be more appropriate, was Sir Francis Day, the twelfth Baronet, who lived at May Hill in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

One of the more notable past occupants of the Mazehouse has been the novelist and ghost story writer Raymond Williams.

Williams was stationed in the house during the war, when it was requisitioned by military intelligence, and stayed there for almost two years.

Although we know comparatively little about what he was doing there, we do know that his time in the house, and one particular, apparently violent, event, had a lasting and formative influence on Williams as a writer.