Forties Doldrums
Forties Doldrums Beryl Grimani-Harrold Starting school in 1941 was very much different from the bustling place we now know. George Lane’s first-year entry seemed to me a vast area of the unknown. Two teachers I remember well were Mrs Barden and Miss Miers. They later introduced a beautiful white fluffy Bunny Rabbit to the range of toys with which we played. The white rabbit was a great favourite and much loved by all the small pupils. The Headmistress Mrs Butler is also remembered with affection as was the white rabbit. School dinners remain a distant memory but the interruptions of these meals by enemy air raids were, to small children, frightening, especially when together with our plates and cutlery we had to walk briskly from the dining hall to the shelters abutting the gardens of the houses in George Lane. Those shelters were from memory very large, very dark and with copious quantities of spiders and dust and had very low benches for seating. There were toilets, but primitive is the best description. Despite this, we survived but to us, the ‘war’ was a source of wonderment. Each mid-morning the pupils were served a small bottle of milk with a drinking straw. In my opinion, this was just awful. In the summer months, the milk smelled off and had a peculiar tang. Desperately I tried to dispose of mine and was admonished for putting the bottle back into the crate. These crates, made of galvanized metal, were used by the boys as toboggans in the snowy weather to slide down the slopes in Husseywell Park. To them, it was great fun, but no doubt dangerous in reality. Food and clothing rationing were great trials for our inventive parents. There was very little wasted and the products from allotments and cultivated gardens were fully utilised. I’ve mentioned before the Pig Club which was situated on the land now occupied by the flats opposite the New Inn and Hayes Station. This was organized and run on a business-like basis by a group of men from the locality. During the week my grandfather and his friend ‘Smithy’ looked after the animals, feeding, cleaning etc keeping the sties pristine. At weekends the other members did these chores. My father with much help from the members built the sties. The straw and food supplies were kept in one of the two barns adjacent, the second being the cookhouse in which the pig swill was prepared and cooked in an old-fashioned boiler which caused great agitation when the fire was difficult to light. Water was drawn pail by pail from the well which until recently made itself evident by the small stream dribbling across Station Hill. This was quite an exhausting chore for two elderly gents. However we, that is Sally, my friend and I, spent many happy hours helping! Clothing rationing was quite a thing. In those days the motto of the time was ‘make do and mend’ and, because of the many and serious shortages of supplies, everything that could be mended was. School uniforms were passed from sibling to sibling until they became ‘beyond a joke’. Dresses were shortened and lengthened as the need arose. Sheets when worn were repaired ‘sides to middles’! We did not seem to mind, because that’s the way things were. Shoes were repaired until it became impossible to continue and as for darning socks, well, we soon became skilled in the art. During the many raids in and around Biggin Hill, I well remember that together my mother and I watched from an upstairs window the air battles at night, with searchlights and shells overhead and around the airfield. These were sights to behold and will forever remain in my memory. Following all these trials and tribulations of those dreadful times the war finally ended and a neighbour suggested that he took two of his daughters and me up to town to see the fireworks displays for the VE celebrations. Somewhat reluctantly my father finally agreed that I should join this little band of revellers. We went as arranged to watch from the rooftop of Devonshire House. The displays were many and wonderful, and for three young girls very exciting. We left Devonshire House very late in the evening making towards Charing Cross. There were thousands and thousands of revellers, more folk than any of us had ever seen before, and yes, the inevitable happened. We three girls were separated from our adult carer, and there we were somewhere, supposedly in Oxford Street and not knowing where to go or what to do! What a conundrum! However, not many minutes after losing sight of said adult we were noticed by a family group on their way homeward. They fortunately took us through the milling crowds to safety. They said they would take us to a police station on their way home. We walked and walked, seemingly for miles. It certainly seemed forever, but as good as their word they deposited us at Tottenham Court Road Police Station. Dead tired we were placed in the care of a Lady Warder who supplied hot chocolate, biscuits, buns and blankets and we curled up for much-needed sleep. Meanwhile, a very concerned/distraught carer telephoned my parents to say ‘I’ve lost the girls’. My parents were able to direct him to the police station and reported that we were safe and suitably fed and watered. He was then sent hot foot to Tottenham Court Road where he too was fed and watered! A couple of hours later we were all bundled into a police vehicle and returned to Bourne Vale arriving around 6 am. In the turmoil of being lost all three of us were nonplussed and in the heat of the moment, Angela remembered only her name, Sally only her age, whilst all I could come up with was the all-important telephone number that in some small way saved the day. Since then telephone numbers have always been very important and a secure anchor. I remember with thanks the family who rescued us and their kindness and care of us three lost waifs. Without their help who knows what might have happened? One can only surmise. Beryl Grimani-Harrold, President HKVA
Hayes remembered in the 40’s
Hayes remembered in the 40’s Peter Harrold At the beginning of the war, I was 4 years old and unaware of the gravity of the situation. One of the highlights of that period started with Father building an Anderson Air Raid Shelter in the garden of 17, Hambro Avenue. This was a corrugated structure dug into the ground for four feet and covered with earth. Being below the surface it always seemed damp, but we felt safe. As soon as the air raid siren sounded, whether day or night, o昀琀en being woken up, we would all dive into the shelter, which was father when not on police duty, mother and three boys. This went on throughout the war. In 1944 when the Doodlebugs (flying bombs – V1’s) started, the family cat somehow knew as soon as the Doodlebugs passed over Dover as he was in the shelter way before the rest of us. We demolished the shelter after the war burying most of it in the ground as we found it impossible to completely dismantle it. Before a rocket ‘V2’ destroyed Grandfield Nurseries in West Common Road (now the Rosary Catholic Church) on 9 February 1945 and Hayes Stores opposite, I remember that outside the shop, there was a tin full of broken biscuits. You took a handful, put it in a bag, and paid a nominal sum. The other lasting memory of that period was life at Hayes Primary School and the dash to the shelters when the air raid siren sounded. The siren was situated on the junction of Hayes Street and George Lane adjacent to the lovely garden of the ‘Walnut Tree’ so could be heard over the whole of Hayes. On the same site was a police box to enable the policeman to keep in contact with the Bromley Headquarters. We continued our lessons in the shelter and, if necessary, had our lunch there. A dark and spooky time. By the winter of 1945, the school in George Lane became overcrowded, so Miss Barnes and Miss Keilly took the top two classes to Gadsden (now the Administration Office at Hayes School) which had been purchased by Bromley Council. The removal of books, pupils and equipment to Gadsden was undertaken during a par琀椀cularly snowy winter, and to make the transportation of innumerable books easier, the pupils were requested to bring their toboggans to school. These, duly loaded, processed across the playing field and Baston Road to Gadsden. There was a great shortage of vehicles and manpower at this time and this procession was the most efficient way of removal. In 1946 my twin brother and I moved to Brewood Preparatory School, a private school in a private house on Courtlands Avenue run by Mrs Wood assisted by Miss Skinner. Later we had to move to Miss Skinner’s house at 7 Sackville Avenue as Mrs Wood’s son came back from the war and needed his home back. Mrs Wood was a tough disciplinarian and any misdemeanour was treated with a slipper on the backside. Miscreants were taken into the kitchen to lean over a chair and then whacked. We in the classroom could hear the chair scrape across the floor as the slipper found its mark! Soon after the war, we were invited by Mr Milne of Kechill Gardens to join him and make camp on farmland (now the estate of Bourne Vale and Mounthurst Road) to set up his ham radio on higher ground, where we made contacts throughout the world. Many of you will remember his son Geoffrey. These were interesting times. During this period, we boys played cricket at the top of Station Hill and regularly got told off by local people for using a hard ball. We had to stop as the common rangers were onto us. Another problem we had was Sgt. Egan who lived in Bourne Vale. He was determined to stop us riding our bikes on the pavement (which was certainly not allowed in those far-off days), in the end having a word with our dad to stop this naughty behaviour. During the war, a bomb landed on the two houses opposite us on Hambro Avenue. They were unsafe and had to be pulled down. The gardens soon got out of hand with much undergrowth. So, before they were rebuilt, even though it was wired off, we went in there to catch bullies and generally play about as boys will. After peace was declared Mum bought us a fox terrier which my twin and I regularly took on the common, and on Sunday mornings, we regularly walked up to Keston ponds, with no fear of our parents for our safety or being accosted, as would be a concern today. In 1947 we had a very heavy snowfall, the second highest in my lifetime, 1963 being the heaviest. During this period, we had our sledges out and one of our favourite runs was Holland Way, but the nearer option was Husseywell Park when as well as sledges we found some metal milk crates which took us faster down the hill and across the frozen lake at the bottom (so much for health and safety). Another popular pastime was that on the way home from school we went to Hayes Farm cowsheds to watch the herd of Guernsey cows being milked, still in the traditional old-fashioned way. During the late forties, we supported Bromley Football Club at their home games, with the highlight being in April 1949 travelling to Wembley with my father and twin brother for the FA Amateur Cup Final (the first time it was held at that venue). We were accompanied by my father’s colleague Mr Greener and his son Christopher (later to become the tallest man in Britain as well as being an international basketball player). Bromley won by a single goal, repea琀椀ng their success for this trophy in 1910/11 and 1937/38 seasons. That 48/49 season they won the Athenian League title and the Kent Amateur Cup, great excitement for all the supporters. These were incredibly happy days despite the war and rationing of sweets (not finishing until 1953). We were limited to
Early Schooldays in Hayes, One hundred years ago
Early Schooldays in Hayes, One hundred years ago Jean Wilson In the 1980s I was fortunate to meet some of the pupils who had been at the Hayes Church School over a hundred years ago. Beatrice Russell and Grace Willis (née Knopp) started in 1908/9 and Bill Dance in 1918. In the classroom photograph of 1908, Beatrice is on the left in the second row and Grace’s older sister Ruth is on the left in the front row. The head was William Plant who had arrived as the teacher for the senior pupils – those over 7 years old – in 1874. He was a keen musician and the school had regular concerts. He was also the Church choirmaster and there were plenty of schoolboys (not girls) in the choir. All remembered the strict discipline at school but they also enjoyed their schooldays and still had the books they had received as prizes and the silver medal given for 100% attendance and good conduct. Beatrice Russell recalled the cookery lessons which started with a visit to buy the meat from Miss Sands, the butcher in Baston Road, who once it was weighed made them work out the cost. Grace Willis remembered the strange way in which Mr Plant did the spelling tests, standing back-to-back in a circle. Bill Dance remembered that for woodwork lessons the boys had to walk to Keston School once a week and were punished if they arrived late. Football and also netball was played on the old cricket ground on Hayes Common. The boys carried up the goalposts and the pitch was marked out with sawdust. Bill Dance also had some less pleasant experiences such as clambering over the old roof of the outside toilet to collect fallen walnuts and falling through into the bucket below. It resulted in a caning both from the head and from his mother! William Plant retired in 1920 and some parents felt that the new head Mrs Burman was ‘too modern’ but they were pleased that she continued to encourage a love of music. Winifred Timms, at school from 1917-1928 and her sister Dorothy from 1923-1929 recalled the many Nativity and other plays that were acted. Dorothy remembered being Molly Cottontail in a performance of Brer Rabbit. ‘I had a lovely rabbit costume with a super tail’. Her sister Winnie was one of the narrators. Winnie also recalled that as soon as they began school they had to start to knit vests. At first, she was slow and when she came home from school she had to sit and do so many rows before she was allowed her tea. However, at the age of eight, she knitted a jumper in pink with champagne colour around the neck and the edge of the sleeves. Another school started in Hayes in 1919, Hayes Court School, but it was not for the local children. It was an exclusive girls’ boarding school opened in the rambling old house by Miss Katherine Cox. In 1985 Roma Goyder collected and published the memories of pupils who had been at the school and I was delighted to speak with Elizabeth Belsey, who was a pupil from 1925 to 1930 and later returned as a teacher. Miss Katherine Cox was ahead of her time in her attitude towards education. She could be both autocratic and also allow the pupils considerable freedom. Described by one pupil as ‘tall, angular rather than graceful, she paddled along on low-heeled pumps dressed in loose, loudly checked clothes’. Nearly all the pupils disliked the school tunics – ‘a long-sleeved grey wool stockinett琀e in winter, grey ‘sponge cloth’ in summer both garnished with green bobbles and fringes . . . We wore green-grey matching knickers under our tunics’. The traditional subjects were taught but there was an emphasis on English literature and also on science and mathematics. Pupils remembered lessons from her father, Professor Cox, a former Professor of Physics at McGill University who had published books on mechanics and ‘Beyond the Atom’. His lectures on astronomy ‘were well above our head’. Fanny Hopkins remembered that she was so inspired that until she was 17 ‘she read nothing except poetry and astronomy’. There were lessons from Mr Hamilton, ‘whose enthusiasm for Maths was so infectious that I actually caught a glimpse of what the subject was all about’. On the fringe of the Bloomsbury set Miss Cox was keen to ensure that art, music and drama were also well represented in the syllabus. Mr and Mrs Wheatley came once a week from the Slade School of Fine Art and his advice was to ‘draw, look and see where the lines go . . . put down what you see without fear or prejudice . . . never use a rubber’. Marion Richardson, a pioneer in art education for children, later took over and there were also talks from many famous ar琀椀sts including from the well-known mosaicist Boris Anrep, whose daughter was at the school. In 1926 Virginia Woolf came with her sister Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and her advice ‘Don’t read a book because you think you ought to; only because you want to’, remained firmly in one schoolgirl’s memory. It seems to have been an inspirational place and many pupils went on to achieve great success in many different walks of life. Please send any of your memories to: contact@hayeskenthistory.co.uk. Jean Wilson
FINDLAY, Alexander George
FINDLAY, Alexander George FINDLAY, Alexander George 6 Jan 1812 – May 1875Engraver, geographer and hydrographerFellow Royal Geographical Society Alexander George Findlay was born in 1812 to Alexander and Sarah Findlay. He followed his father’s profession as an engraver and cartographer, producing many maps for R H Laurie. In 1842 he published a revised version of Brooke’s Gazetteer & the Coasts & Islands of the Pacific Ocean. His output was prolific and well described in his obituary by the Royal Geographical Society of which he became a member in 1844. He produced a unique series of Six Nautical Directories of the Great Oceans which were widely used. He sat on the Arctic Committee of the Royal Geographical Society. and he was a friend of Dr Livingstone, mapping the Nile and the routes taken by Burton and Speke in central Africa in 1858-9. On R H Laurie’s death in 1858 he took over the publishing firm. He was awarded the medal of the Society of Arts for his dissertation on ‘The English Lighthouse System. In Hayes he designed a new altar screen for the Church and painted the wording of the Ten Commandments as a thanksgiving for his recovery from an illness in 1847. Today, these hang in the belfry of Hayes Parish Church. In the same year he also drew a detailed plan of the Church interior. In 1850 he married Sarah Rutley and moved to Rockwells, Dulwich Wood Park where he died 3 May 1875 aged 63. He was buried in Hayes. He had no children so left the business to his nephews, Daniel and William Kettle, who lived with their mother Sarah at the White House. They were already involved and continued both to produce original works and also to revise and update some of their uncle’s maps. William was described as a hydrographer in the 1881 Census but by 1891 both he and his brother Daniel were listed as Nautical Publishers. In 1897, the year they left Hayes, William Richardson Kettle FRGS, for example, produced a supplement to the 4th edition of Findlay’s Sailing Directory for the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Bay of Bengal. Daniel with his interest in antiquity and local history seems to have been the brother who was more involved with events in Hayes although both brothers subscribed a guinea (£1.05) annually to the Hayes Church School. References: P Griffiths, The Findlays of Leith & London and their Kettle Descendants, with special thanks for the image of Alexander George Findlay.C Kadwell History of Hayes Bromley Historic Collections p180/28/12
KETTLE, Daniel Walter
KETTLE, Daniel Walter Daniel Kettle was the son of Daniel and Sarah Kettle. He was 13 when his father died and his mother moved back into her family home, The White House, on Hayes Common. Encouraged from an early age by his grandfather, Alexander Findlay, and uncle, Alexander George Findlay, he soon was involved in the production of many different types of maps and in the 1871 census his profession was given as a Geographical Draughtsman.Ten years later he had taken over his uncle’s business and was now a nautical publisher with a special interest in producing or updating coastal and ocean maps. It is fortunate for people interested in the history of his local village that he was very keen to preserve information on and drawings of Hayes that would otherwise have disappeared. He reproduced a map of Hayes & its Environs in 1882 which had originally been made by his grandfather Alexander Findlay in 1829. He ensured that the statement of the receipts and expenditure for the 1856 building of the north aisle of the Parish Church was preserved and also provided details of the building of the south aisle in 1879 and the contribution of Lord Sackville Cecil of the Oast House. After the death of the Revd George Varenne Reed a full list of the contributors to the rector’s memorial fountain was made. He made black and white drawings from some of the original paintings of Wilhelmina Traill of Hayes Place, including a view of the Village showing the old George Inn and the stocks in 1815. Another illustration he saved was a drawing by his uncle, Alexander George Findlay, of the village in about 1835. He was also interested in archaeology and drew a palaeolithic flint & neolithic flint axe found in 1896 on the Common.The following year he discovered and made a detailed coloured copy of a Hayes palaeolithic flint. Shortly before he left Hayes in 1897 he collaborated with Lord Sackville Cecil of the Oast House to insert these drawings in a copy of Kadwell’s History of Hayes 1833 which was created with space for later insertions. He still retained an interest in the village after he moved and on his death he was buried in the churchyard. References:P Griffiths The Findlays of Leith & London and their Kettle descendants www.genealogycrank.co.uk with special thanks for the photograph of Daniel Walter Kettle C Kadwell The History of Hayes in the County of Kent, 1898 edition Bromley Historic Collections P180/28/12
LEGGE, Geoffrey Bevington
LEGGE, Geoffrey Bevington 26 January 1903 – 21 November 1940 At the age of ten in 1913 Geoffrey Legge moved with his parents Henry and Edith to the Nest in Hayes. After the First World War, he joined his father in his firm originally established as paper manufacturing agents. He continued to live with his parents who bought Baston Manor in 1921. He showed aptitude as a cricketer from an early age and with his brother Philip sometimes appeared for Hayes Cricket Club. He became the youngest cricket county captain in 1928 leading Kent until 1930 and playing for England against S Africa in 1927 and New Zealand 1929/30. This was his last international appearance, although he retained his love of cricket and continued occasionally to play for Hayes. He married Rosemary Frost of Glebe House in Hayes Church in 1929 and they lived at Nash Farm, Keston. His parents continued to live at Baston until 1934. Geoffrey became a Lieutenant Commander, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, HMS Vulture, in the Second World War. He was killed while flying despatches to Exeter when his plane became lost in the fog, ran out of fuel and crashed on a hillside. He left his widow and four young children.
Hayes Shops in the 1920s/1930s
Hayes Shops in the 1920s/1930s author The 1920s and 1930s were pivotal in the growth of Hayes. ‘The village is changing and I don’t like it very much’, was the comment in a local newspaper as some of the mansions were bought and pulled down by developers eager to seize the opportunity to provide more homes for the many people who wanted a new life in the country. Hayes offered an ideal opportunity. The 1921 Hayes Census recorded 1,010 people in 222 houses. By 1931 the number of houses had more than doubled to 452 and the population had grown to 1678. Expansion continued and by 1939 the population had reached 6,500. The main General Store run by Edwin Tidbury and most of the existing shops in 1919, described in the Autumn HKVA Review, adapted and survived. However, the little shop opposite the school was pulled down when the road was widened in 1935 to cope with the increased traffic. Elinor Harrold in her ’Hayes Remembered’ recalled the shop with its front and back doors and the shopkeeper Mrs Russell who wore a sack round her shoulders, collected firewood and stacked it in her front garden, ‘tied up into ½d bundles to be sold for lighting the fires and lighting the [washing] copper on Monday morning’ .In the front of the shop she sold haberdashery and underwear and in the back tobacco, sweets and soft drinks. Christiana Harrod remembered the liquorice sticks and rolls with a purple or pink sweet in the centre and the sherbet dabs that were four for a farthing. She also recalled when her second cousin Amy Pearce decided to turn her sitting room at Glebe View, which adjoined the Post Office, into a place to sell cakes bread, sweets, cigarettes and later ice cream. A bay window was installed in 1931. Elinor Harrold wrote that the cakes were delivered every morning by Ackermans of Bromley.
Hayes Grove
Hayes Grove Hayes Grove, Prestons Road Nationally Listed Grade II Built about 1730 The listing for Hayes Grove in 1955 describes it as an 18th century house of red brick with the following features: Stringcourse cornice and Parapet. Segmental-headed windows with glazing bars intact. Consists of a centre and 2 projecting wings. Pilasters flank each of the 3 sections – Behind the parapet of the wings are weatherboarded gables. Central doorway up 5 wide steps with iron handrail, the doorway having fluted Doric pilasters, curved pediment and door of 6 fielded panels. 2 storeys, attic and semi-basement, 9 windows and 5 dormers. The garden front has 2 symmetrical bays of 3 windows on ground and Ist floor, 1 round-headed window and a doorway with flat hood on brackets. Early history 1729 – 1820 At the beginning of King George II’s reign a brewer from Wapping, Thomas Curtis, began to build a mansion in Hayes that was unfinished at his death in 1729. It was sold for £630 to Captain George Wane who completed the house that became known as The Grove. It was the traditional Georgian symmetrical building but did not yet have the projecting wings. George Wane traded ‘as a merchant in buying and selling of wines, brandys, rum and other goods and merchandizes’. To help his cash flow he borrowed £500 from John Roberts of Woodley, Berkshire but in 1735 was behind with the interest and a London merchant, John Small, took over the debt of £562 10s. 0d. Gabriel Neve, a member of the Inner Temple, became the owner by 1751. A daughter Frances was baptised in Hayes Church in November 1752 and a son Edward in 1758. He died in 1773 leaving his estate to his wife Ann. After her death in 1775 his eldest son Philip took over the administration of his late father’s properties. Joseph Martin, the next owner was given permission in 1773 to enclose just over an acre of Common land and plant an avenue of trees [lime trees], most of which survive today. He died in April 1777, leaving his wife Elizabeth with a ten-month-old son Joseph William. Her second husband William Pickard, a wealthy Yorkshire gentleman, died in 1783 and by 1790 Elizabeth had married Edward Robinson and employed three resident domestic servants. A gardener and a coachman lived in separate cottages. Her son Revd Joseph Martin inherited The Grove after her death in 1805. He let it to Samuel Savage and then sold it to William Brown in 1813. Three years later Sir Vicary Gibbs, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who lived at Hayes Court bought the Grove. Description of the Grove in 1820 The Grove had four storeys consisting of three attic rooms, four rooms on the first floor and three main rooms heated by stoves – drawing room, dining room and breakfast room – on the ground floor. The kitchen, scullery and wine cellars were In the basement and there was also a laundry, dairy, brewhouse and stable. Hayes Grove (G W Smith) Marianne Fraser, owner 1820 – 1852 Vicary Gibbs died in 1820 and his wife’s niece, Marianne Fraser, was granted the property for her life time. At the time she lived at Hayes Court and she continued to be a companion to her aunt Lady Gibbs who died in 1843. She initially let the property to Samuel Nevil Ward before he bought Baston Manor in 1823 and then to Abel Moysey, whose family were great friends with the Gibbs. After her father’s death in 1831 Abel’s daughter, Charlotte Moysey, remained at Hayes Grove until her new house, Pickhurst Mead, was built on land south of Pickhurst Green. In the drawing room in 1824 there was a Brussels carpet measuring eighteen feet by sixteen feet, in the dining room a Turkish carpet of sixteen feet six inches long by twelve feet nine inches wide, mahogany tables and a handsome sideboard. The breakfast room had two mahogany bookcases and a large map of the world by Arrowsmith.. For insurance purposes the contents were valued, when at £450, about £20,000 today. In 1834 Lord Strathallan stayed there for a few months before Marianne Fraser arranged for her brother Charles Fraser and his large family to stay at the Grove whilst his home, Castle Fraser, was having major alterations. There was considerable correspondence between Marianne and her brother about the arrangements. She described the 5 or 6 little attic rooms going the length of the roof which could be separated by locking a door in the middle. Two back staircases meant that a complete division could be made for staff at one end and children at the other. The kitchen was near the coachhouse with a colonnade approach from it to the house. There was one man’s room over the stable and another small one in the pantry. She also said she had hired a man for the garden & odd jobs on the same term as Lord Strathallan. The next tenant was a Mr Wickham who remained for 34 weeks paying £2 a week. Colonel Cator then wanted to take over the lease but Marianne rejected his plans for alterations as she did not want it to become a ‘hunting establishment’ preferring a quiet tenant like Mr Wickham. In 1838 she moved to the Grove and employed four servants. Various changes were made to the building and towards the end of her life a verandah was removed and some chimneys pulled down and restored. John Buswell Dudin , tenant 1856 – 1884After Marianne Fraser’s death in 1852 the property reverted to Vicary Gibbs’ daughter Maria who had married Andrew Pilkington. She let the Grove to John Buswell Dudin, a wharfinger who lived there with six servants including the dairy maid, gardener and groom. He married Clara Webb Pilcher, 12 years his junior, in January 1865 and their three children were baptised in Hayes Church. They remained at the Grove until his death in 1884 Charles Marston Rose 1884 – 1899Maria
SCOTT, Stephen
SCOTT, StephenOctober 1578 – 25 June 1658Gentleman Pensioner to Charles 1, sheriff of Kent 1647 Sir Stephen Scott’s arms on his ledger stone in Hayes Parish Church Stephen Scott first leased Hayes Place from the heirs of Robert Hall. He then bought it in 1624 with his brother Edmund who left his half to Stephen when he died in 1638. Described as a gentleman pensioner to the king, Stephen remained at Hayes Place until the execution of the King in 1648. He was careful to pay his dues during the Civil War between Parliament and the King, contributing £30 in 1642 towards the defence of the County and £6 for the April 1644 tax. In 1647 he was appointed sheriff of Kent at a time when there was considerable discussion about the way forward and the moderate petition from Kent presented the following year was seen as inflammatory by Parliament. Stephen chose to leave Hayes for Cheshunt where he died at the age of almost 80. However, he was buried in Hayes Church where his ledger stone remains. Twice married, his five children by his second wife, Elizabeth Brograve, were all born and baptised in Hayes. He bequeathed Hayes Place and his property in Hayes to his wife and after her death to his son John. Descendants of Stephen Scott SCOTT, Johnbaptised 6 Jan 1627 – 8 April 1670 ‘Gentleman of his Majesty’s Privy Chamber in ordinary, Justice of the Peace in corum for Kent’ John Scott inherited Hayes Place on his mother’s death in 1667 but died three years later. On his ledger stone, it says that he had married Sir Humphrey Style’s widow, Dame Hester Style. He may have moved to Beckenham but when Dame Hester was buried in Beckenham Church in 1671 there is no mention of the marriage. He had no children and Hayes Place was left to his younger brother Stephen. SCOTT, Stephen1641 – 1712Knighted Stephen Scott married Elizabeth Butler in 1670 and lived at Hayes Place, which he inherited from his brother John. A daughter Arabella in 1684 and a son William in 1688 were baptised in Hayes Church. In the 1680s difficulties arose regarding the preacher at Hayes Church and in June 1681 an unlicensed minister Mr Alsop preached in the open air to a large crowd assembled in Mr Scott’s farmyard. The meeting was timed to coincide with Revd Robert Bourne’s reading of the service in Church. Stephen Scott supported efforts to allow Mr Alsop to preach in the Church and when the curate Mr Metcalf barred the doors against him it is reported that Stephen Scott threatened to beat the Curate if he continued to come to Hayes. Stephen Scott like many gentlemen had taken out loans on Hayes Place to finance his lifestyle. In 1695 he mortgaged all the property and two years later sold it to John Harrison. He then lived in London until his death in 1712 when he was buried at Hayes on 20 March.
WILSON Edward
Edward Wilson (State Library of Victoria) WILSON, Edward 1814 -10 January 1878Australian Newspaper Proprietor and Philanthropist Edward Wilson emigrated to Australia in 1842 and in 1847 bought the Melbourne Argus. When his eyesight started to fade he returned to England and leased Hayes Place and about 300 acres of land. He was always keen to try out new ideas and in 1870 bought two steam engines for use on his farm for ploughing. The 1871 Census reported that he employed 33 men, 6 boys and a woman and also had 11 resident servants. Edward was in frequent contact with Charles Darwin and was one of the founders of the Colonial Institute. In 1868 he received many visitors at Hayes Place. He played an important part in the community of Hayes. Edward was one of the first Common Conservators after a scheme for the Management of Hayes Common was approved in 1868. He was generous with donations. In 1872, at Christmas for example, he provided warm scarlet waterproof coats and a new shilling to every girl at the Village School. In 1873, he chaired a Parochial Committee set up to consider the sanitary arrangements in Hayes. It showed that the wells, cesspools and privy arrangements in the village were far from satisfactory. The Local Government Board, however, thought their proposals were inadequate and nothing was done. Edward died in Hayes but his body was later interred in Melbourne. Edward Wilson