Kent Gardens Trust’s volunteers: Investigating the gardens of Sevenoaks

By Hugh Vaux

Kent Gardens Trust was established in 1988 and is affiliated to the Association of Garden Trusts. As a registered charitable trust its primary purpose is the protection of parks and gardens in Kent and, among the various ways it seeks to achieve this, is to encourage the study of the history and development of these properties.

In 1992, in conjunction with Kent County Council, the Trust published a comprehensive list of parks and gardens in Kent of historic importance. In 2008 it was decided that a further and more detailed version should be compiled with the addition of properties not previously included. A pilot scheme was set up by Kent Gardens Trust and Tunbridge Wells District Council in conjunction with High Weald Joint Advisory Committee, Kent County Council and English Heritage.

Twenty volunteers were recruited to carry out the work under the guidance of Virginia Hinze and Dr Barbara Simms, who together provided training over a two-year period. A total of 25 gardens were investigated and we hope the final reports may be viewed on the new Kent Gardens Trust website shortly.

This part of the project was completed by April 2009 and, in 2010, Sevenoaks District Council asked the Trust to undertake a similar project for 22 gardens. This project has now been completed by the volunteers who, with ongoing training, have produced reports modelled on an agreed English Heritage pattern, a proven and robust format, which produces clarity and the ability to stand up to challenge. This would not have been possible without the advice and editing skills of Virginia Hinze.

Just as necessary was the initial invitation from Sevenoaks District Council to carry out the project and the support of the department of Heritage Conservation at Kent County Council who produced the initial information packs and format of the volunteers’ material for publication. In addition English Heritage have provided a generous financial grant and Kent Gardens Trust has given an initial sum which enabled us to get started. All these organisations need to be thanked as do all the owners who have so kindly allow us to visit their gardens.

It is planned to publish these reports on the Kent Gardens Trust website shortly thus making them freely accessible to everyone, but in the meantime some findings might be of interest. At least two gardens have felt the hand of Gertrude Jeykell (Chart Cottage and Stonepitts), Larkfields was the home of Octavia Hill and at Underriver there are remaining ‘footings’ of Shoads Manor where Samuel Palmer lodged when painting in the area. Tanners was designed by Sir Harold Hillier and Parkgate House was the home of Constance Spry; while at Otford Place are the remains of a rockery built of ‘pulmanite’.

2016 is the tricentenary of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s birth and, very conveniently for the volunteers, one of the most important reviews carried out was at Valence. The history of the site near Westerham is well-documented, with records dating back to the thirteenth century. There is strong documentary and physical evidence of a landscaped park existing since the mid-eighteenth century, and

further evidence that Brown was commissioned to make improvements between 1772 and 1775. He almost certainly created a new lake, and this would have been a considerable challenge given the geological structure of the Greensand Ridge, with its susceptibility to land slippages and water leakages.

Remnants of a large pond and ten metre cascade, first recorded in 1754, can still be seen, although now dried up. But perhaps more significantly, there are eighteenth and nineteenth century physical features of ponds, lakes, watercourses, hydraulic rams and a water-wheel still remaining, all of which would benefit from further archaeological exploration. An ice-house, virtually intact and possibly early to mid-nineteenth century, would also be worth investigating.

Another site of interest was at Knockholt. Anyone walking the North Downs Way might be forgiven for thinking that they were walking through simple woodland where the path crosses the grounds of Knockholt House. Fortunately the volunteer who investigated this property was an archaeologist and realised the significance of the remaining humps and bumps, all that was left of an extraordinary house and gardens built in the late nineteenth century (on the site of an earlier house) by a London silk merchant who was obsessed by water. Not only did the owner have extensive reservoirs in the garden where the remains of a swimming pool and changing rooms are still visible, but the house had an extraordinary tower in which the owner was reputed to keep a boat against the time when the great floods would come and he could row to safety.

At Bradbourne Lakes Park in Sevenoaks, six interconnected lakes and water courses were created by Henry Boswell in the eighteenth century, by damming a branch of the River Darent. All that remains now are 3.5 hectares of park, the lakes and by the entrance to the park, a large monolith. Francis Crawshaw, an eccentric, who lived there at the end of the nineteenth century, imported several stones from the West Country to display in the grounds; hardly best archaeological practice.

Lastly, Henden Manor, a moated sixteenth century manor house, nestling in a valley below Ide Hill. Once the home of Sir Thomas Bulleyn, the landscape and historic farmland boundaries have hardly changed over the years. But perhaps more importantly for garden historians, documentary evidence shows the existence of ten gardens of Tudor origin which continued to exist 200 years later. With such tantalising evidence, the Kent Gardens Trust would welcome, subject to the owner’s permission, an archaeologist’s expertise to trace this important site’s footprint.

A postscript can now be added to this article as it goes to press. The volunteers have been asked to research 29 gardens in the Medway Towns and the initial meeting to inaugurate this project took place on 13th August. A very different group of sites.