Gadsden
GADSDENBuilt 1875, a locally listed building From 1798 the Norman family of Bromley Common owned the land on which Gadsden was built. George Warde Norman sold 14 acres in 1873 for £2811 to his nephew Henry John Norman. Henry wanted to build a house in the country close to his family and friends. It was built in a semi – Gothic style and became known as Gadsden Owner from 1873 -1905, Henry John NormanHenry John Norman was a director of the London and Westminster Bank. His wife was Anne Hewitt Coote and at the time of his purchase they had three sons Harold aged 6, Reginald 3 and Alfred 1. A suite of three nurseries and a nurse-maid’s room was provided for them. The main rooms consisted of a large drawing room, dining &, morning rooms, a library and three principal bedrooms. Five more children were born by 1881. The Architect, March 1874, includes a drawing of the house which had been erected under the direction of Thomas Dinwiddy of Greenwich. The builders were Messrs Downs & Co of Union Place, Southwark who had contracted to complete the building for £3738. They also had a separate contract to build the lodge, stabling with coachmen’s residence and ‘vineries with potting sheds, store and apple room.’ Architect’s image of Gadsden Although Henry John Norman also had a property in London he continued to use Gadsden as his country retreat until his death in 1905 when he was buried in Hayes Parish Churchyard.Owner from 1905 – 1927, James RailtonIn 1905 James Railton, a Dock & Railway Contractor, bought the house and land for £7000. He spent a further £3500 on improvements. Photographs of the inside of Gadsden from the Bedford Lemere daybook record that James Henry Swan and Geoffrey Norman (Henry’s fifth son) were the architects involved with some of the changes. The Drawing Room (G W Smith Slides) Fireplace, Gadsden Hall Door, 1909 James Railton was married to Margery Ann and by 1911 had three daughters under 8. He employed eight resident servants. The house comprised 23 rooms. In November 1912 it was valued at £14,000 and described as a ‘Red brick & tile House, partly covered with ivy. Semi-gothic style in first class structural & decorative repair throughout. Electric light generated on property, mahogany doors, parquet floors, heated throughout by radiators’.In 1916 Railton left Gadsden and put the property up for sale. It was advertised as a freehold residential property standing well back in its own ground, 280 feet above sea level in a rural and bracing position, approached by a long carriage drive with lodge at one entrance. It had 15 bed & dressing rooms, 3 bathrooms, 5 reception rooms, a principal and a secondary staircase, coachman’s quarters, glasshouses, beautiful pleasure grounds and park like paddocks, squash racquet court, in all over 14 acres. South east corner of Gadsden (G W Smith slides) Gadsden 1916 – 1927It was the middle of the First World War and the property did not sell. It was let during the next eleven years to a number of tenants : Richard Martens 1917, Thomas Scott 1920, George Simmons 1922-24 and then Donald Haldeman who moved from Baston Farm to Gadsden in 1924. Born in Pennsylvania in 1860 Donald Haldeman became a naturalised British subject and was made a JP in 1918. Three years later he became Master of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners. In 1925 the resigned as UK manager of the Mutual Insurance Company of New York and became life manager of the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company. He was also a very successful farmer and breeder of pedigree cattle.Gadsden was put back on the market in December 1927. It now included a billiard room, photographic dark room, garage for three cars, two stall stables, a chauffeur or gardener’s quarters and a four roomed lodge. The grounds still covered 14 acres and it was stated that there were ‘1340 feet of valuable building frontage’.Owner from 1928, Kent County CouncilIt was not sold for development but the Kent County Council purchased it for £8600. They planned to use Gadsden as a Secondary School. Over the following years the Kent Education Committee (KEC) considered a number of plans for the property including its use as a boys’ school, a school for girls and later a regional college. In the meantime the house was leased, on condition that its grounds could only be used as a sports ground or for grazing cattle. The tenant was Henry Wilding who moved to the Grove in the 1930s. The grounds continued in use. In October 1935 the HVA reported complaints from residents in Hayes Street about the smell and noise of pigs kept at Gadsden and the pigs’ owner promised to remedy the situation. Gadsden during the Second World WarGadsden was empty in 1938 and became a base for the local ARP Rescue Units. It was used in practice exercises to test arrangements in the case of air raid attacks. On the outbreak of the Second World War there was an instant need for more gas masks and a further 700 were assembled over a weekend at Gadsden, Camouflage nets were made & stored, some were used by local army units. Several stretcher party practices continued and a concert and party for school children was organised in 1939. Gas mask ARP badge ARP Exercise 1939 The following year in May 1940 Gadsden became the North West Kent Reception centre for nearly 1000 refugees from Belgium, Holland and France. Marquees were set up in the grounds and the refugees were given identity cards, ration books and gas masks before being allocated to individual homes. The international situation worsened and the camp was closed on 25 May. A bomb fell in the grounds on 29 September 1940 when window were shattered. Further damage was inflicted in October 1943 by a bomb which destroyed the East Lodge.With the increasing demand to grow one’s own vegetables, one acre of Gadsden land was taken over for allotments in April 1942
Hayes Trail
The Hayes Trail is a circular trail around the buildings that survive from the Parish of Hayes in 1914. It was devised as part of the ‘Hayes Remembers‘ exhibition and details who lived there, what happened to the inhabitants and the effect of the war on Hayes. The circular trail (approximately 6 miles long in total), divided into five walks, starts at the Parish Church, St Mary the Virgin, Hayes Street, and returns to the War Memorial and Churchyard. A separate walk covers part of Hayes Road, which is now in Bromley. There are ninety-four properties or groups of properties covered, ranging from the larger properties such as Hayes Court and Hayes Grove (both listed buildings) to smaller Victorian cottages such as those in Baston Road. The present research has revealed the names of 261 men who were born, lived, worked or owned property in Hayes, who served in the First World War. There were 61 casualties. The 88-page colour trail has 124 photographs and maps. Book size height 210mm, width 150mm. Although out of print there are plans to publish a reprint. To find out more information, please email charles@wimble.uk Trial Map Sample page Sample page
Hayes Remembers
The exhibition in 2014 showed the impact of the events of the First and Second World Wars on the lives of those who lived in Hayes and on Hayes itself. It remembered those from Hayes who died or were wounded.Highlights included: Community Poppy Quilt produced by Hayes School First World War Trail around Hayes Displays by local schools The opportunity to handle artefacts from both wars Relics from the battlefield, medals and ration books etc. Letters and postcards sent home by soldiers Models of Hayes in 1914 and in 1938 Models of Hayes Place and of Hayes Church Field of Poppies Peace Quilt The Community Poppy Quilt provided an impressive focal point for the displays. Hayes School asked for individual poppy squares to be created by local individuals, community groups and from their Etwinning schools in Belgium (BerkenBoom Humanoria Bovenbouw, Sint Niklaas, Ypern), France (LP Henri Leroy, Port-Saint-Louis du Rhone), Germany (Kaufmannische Schule Aalen, Aalen, Baden Wurttemberg) and Italy (IIS ‘Cattaneo’, Monselice, Padua). Field of Poppies Peace Quilt Photographs from the exhibition Click on an image to see it full size. WWI artefacts Part of the model of Hayes in 1914 Gunner Bob’s equipment for his talks Gunner Bob and young recruit World War II artefacts World War II artefacts Handling tables World War II Handling tables World War II Well supported Well supported
Oast House
OAST HOUSE, Croydon Road Built 1873 -4, Grade II Listed Building ‘Built in the middle of Hayes Common in 1873-4 by Philip Webb for the eccentric Lord Sackville Cecil. A large house but as independent minded as any by Webb and composed with a good deal more finesse than the Red House as one would expect fourteen years after that pioneering effort. Long, low with a deep barn-like roof and the chimney stacks in four massive slabs. The materials squared ragstone blocks and red brick dressings, not always where expected. White window frames and a little white weather boarding in the gables. The entrance (w) front rather like an enlarged school——ending in gabled wings of equal width but unequal projection. The windows are wide and have his favourite segmental heads (one or two window sills lowered in recent years). In the centre three evenly spaced dormers of Queen Anne proportions. Low square porch running at the full depth of the right wing. The east side has a memorable feature of four wide gable dormers in a row starting up from the foot of the roof. They impose a rhythm on a façade otherwise quite without symmetry (The bow window at the r end not original) The interior has been altered out of recognition.’ This description from The Buildings of England ed Nikolaus Pesvner is reproduced with the permission of the Building Books Trust and Yale University Press. It provides a good summary of the building which was originally designed by Philip Webb. The supervision of its construction was taken over by Charles Vinall when Philip Webb withdrew his services, possibly because Lord Sackville Cecil with his very firm ideas may have attempted to supervise some of the building work himself . Original Cottage before the Oast House Lord Sackville Cecil, the younger son of James Cecil, the second Marquess of Salisbury, bought the land and two small cottages on 30 April 1873 from Mrs Ann Fry of Baston Manor after the death of her husband James in November 1872. Original Cottage on Oast House site Oast House land purchased by Lord Sackville Cecil 1873 By 1875 Sackville Cecil was in residence and in the October an acorn was planted by Thomas Carlyle in the grounds for Sackville’s mother Mary, Countess of Derby. It successfully grew into a large oak tree Acorn planted at Oast House by Thomas Carlyle 1875 Oak tree from acorn planted 1875 Lord Sackville Cecil had very stout pillars built in the brick vaulted cellar to support the delicate equipment he used in his ground floor study. The basement where he conducted his electrical and mechanical experiments was reached by a spiral staircase. He remained at the Oast House until his death in 1898. The property was then let briefly to a solicitor Frederick Hoare who moved in with his wife Amy, and in 1901 their household consisted of 3 children, a governess, nurse and three resident servants. The following year Henry Wellcome, founder of Burroughs & Wellcome, moved to the house with his new wife Syrie (née Barnardo). A son Henry Mounteney was born in 1903. They left the Oast House in 1904 and moved to another property in Hayes, the Nest. Oast House, Hayes Common (G W Smith) In March 1907 a seven year lease on the property was taken out by Alexander Boord with the Hon. Margaret Ceil and Arthur James Balfour. They subsequently sold the property to Arthur William Cecil. In 1914 the house was described as in a lovely position surrounded by common. It had a small garden for the size of the house which was reported to be in fair decorative and good structural repair. The house included 3 large and five small bedrooms, a night nursery and dressing room over two floors, 2 large reception rooms, a dining room, kitchen and hall on the ground floor and cellars. The notes on the diagram at the time refer to the parquet flooring and oak panelling in the dining room and the carved oak overmantel in the drawing room. Some of the oak carving was said to have formed part of the Duke of Wellington’s bed. Outside was a lodge with four rooms, a coach-house, stabling with three stalls. It was rated as a very saleable property with a market value of £3600 and the current rent was £220 a year. Ground floor plan of Oast House 1914 1916 – 1934 By 1916 Alexander Boord had moved into Coney Hill, the former home of his wife Coralie Hoskier and the Oast House became empty. The property was put up for sale after the First World War on 27 August 1919 and was bought by Guilford Edward Lewis, a solicitor. One of his first actions was to convert the Coach House and stables into a house, Turtons, and divide it from his garden making an entrance on to the highway. It was put on the market at an asking price of £2700. The following year it was stated that it might rent for £100 per annum A balcony was added to the Oast House in the 1920s so that his daughter who was suffering from TB could sleep in the fresh air. He was in considerable disagreement with the Conservators of Hayes Common in 1926 when he proposed to build a small cottage for his gardener at the north east corner of his garden and make a pedestrian access from it which involved going on to the Common. By 1928 the cottage was built and finally agreement was given for this gate on payment of one shilling [5p] a year. His daughter married in 1932 and he put the Oast House up for sale in 1934. One of the main selling points was that because of the covenants on the property ‘it was secured from building development for all time and was surrounded by acres of beautiful Common lands’. It comprised a spacious entrance hall, 3 reception and 7 bedrooms, 2
DEVAS, Horace George
DEVAS, Horace George1852 – 1927Copper Merchant, Bank Director, Hayes Parish Councillor Horace Devas was the son of Charles Frederick Devas and was living at Pickhurst Manor, Hayes, when he married in 1886 Edith Caroline Campbell (1862 – 1924). They lived first at Pickhurst and then at Hartfield built for them on the edge of Hayes Common. It was designed by the architect Alex Stenning. Horace paid £1500 for the land and his father contributed £7000 for the house which was built in a Tudor style. Like his father he was a copper merchant and was wealthy enough to employ eight servants. He became a director of the Union Bank of London and continued in that position when the bank was merged into the National Provincial Bank. In 1892 Horace Devas bought more land from Sir John Farnaby Lennard for £339 to build a lodge, stables and coach house. The estate now amounted to just over 21 acres. His three children Geoffrey, Marjorie Edith and Nancy Marion were born and lived with their parents at Hartfield until they married. The eldest daughter Marjorie married Ralph Alexander Campbell, son of the 3rd Earl of Cawdor in 1914. Her brother Geoffrey married Joan Campbell Bannerman in 1916. He served with the Welsh Guards in the First World War and was awarded an MC in 1918. His sister Nancy served as a VAD Nurse at Oakley VAD Hospital, Bromley Common, from 1916 until her marriage to Captain Evelyn Hardy in June 1918. Horace and his wife took a keen interest and were very involved with events in Hayes. He was a Hayes Parish Councillor from 1898 to 1910, a school manager and treasurer of the school. Edith Devas was for many years President of the Hayes branch of the Mothers’ Union, took a special interest in the Parish library and in 1910 became President of the Hayes Branch of the Cottage Benefit Nursing Association. When they moved from Hartfield to Hildenborough, near Tonbridge, in 1920 there were many tributes to their outstanding work for the community of Hayes.
DEVAS, Charles Frederick
DEVAS, Charles Frederick5 April 1826 – 26 May 1896Coppersmith, Justice of the Peace Charles Frederick Devas took out the lease on Pickhurst Manor, Hayes, after Arthur Kinnaird left in 1871. He made some changes to the property before he moved to Pickhurst from Bromley Lodge with his six children, aged from 7 to 21 in about 1873. He was a coppersmith but was greatly involved with local matters. From 1858 he was very concerned about sanitary affairs in Bromley and was elected chairman of the Bromley Local Board set up in 1867. There were protests about his re-election in 1868 and he resigned the next year when the Home Secretary rejected the Board’s proposals for the compulsory purchase of land for a sewage farm. In July 1870 he paid £250 for the Board’s agreement to waive the rights of the parish to dig gravel on his Bromley Lodge property, a move that greatly enhanced the value of his land, many plots of which were then sold for development. This was the time when he moved to Hayes where he remained until his death in 1896 The south aisle was added to Hayes Church in 1878 and after the death of his mother, Louise Charlotte, in April 1879 he paid for a stained glass window showing the flight of Mary, Joseph and Jesus into Egypt to be installed in her memory. The 1880s saw the marriages of daughter Leonora to Charles Simpson in Hayes Church and of his son Horace to Edith Campbell who moved to Hartfield, West Wickham. In 1891 Charles & Leonora were living at Pickhurst Manor with their invalid daughter Hester and youngest daughter Laura. They employed thirteen resident servants including two footmen and a butler. Hester died in 1895 and their son Frederick in May 1896 in Western Australia. The following month Charles died and was buried in Hayes churchyard. His widow Leonora continued to live at Pickhurst Manor with her daughter Laura and nine servants until her death in May 1909. Her grandson, Walter Charles Simpson, remembered her sitting in the drawing room, where there was a writing desk, chintz-covered sofa and chairs and small tables on which were vases of flowers and photographs. She was ‘dressed in black, a white lace cap upon her head above the Victorian sweep of her parted hair, some white crochet work on her lap, and at her feet, his head resting on the folds of her dress, an old fox terrier with the undistinguished name of Jack.’ Charles, Leonora, Hester and Horace and his wife Edith were all buried in Hayes Churchyard.
KINNAIRD, Arthur Fitzgerald
Arthur Kinnaird, 10th Lord Kinnaird KINNAIRD, Hon Arthur Fitzgerald (10th Lord Kinnaird) 8 July 1814 – 26 April 1887 Liberal MP for Perth, Banker Arthur Kinnaird was an MP for Perth, a position that he held until he became Baron Kinnaird of Rossie in 1878. He was married to Mary Jane Hoare from a prestigious banking family. They moved to Pickhurst Manor in 1863 with their six children, including their son Arthur Fitzgerald who was born in 1846. Arthur Fitzgerald spent some of his teenage years in Hayes. He enjoyed all sports and occasionally played for Hayes Cricket Club. His passion was football and after he left Hayes he played for Scotland in the 1870s and was in the team that reached the semi-final of the first Football Association Challenge Cup. He appeared in nine of the first twelve Football Cup finals and became President of the Football Association for thirty years. In 1870 the family seem to have left Pickhurst Manor and Hayes and in 1871 the house was occupied by a few servants
CATOR, John Farnaby
CATOR, John Farnaby1816 – 1889Lieutenant Colonel, Landowner, Deputy Lieutenant, Justice of the Peace John Farnaby Cator took over the lease of Pickhurst Manor after the death of Lady Morland in 1851. His sister Margaretta had married William Morland in 1843. He was serving with the Royal Artillery overseas when his first wife died in 1850 leaving him with two young daughters, Penelope aged two and baby Laura. He reluctantly returned to his unit in Canada after the funeral leaving his children in the care of a sister. However, in 1852 he retired from the army on half-pay and raised the Kent Artillery Militia of which he became Lieutenant Colonel Commander. In the same year he married Julia Hallam and moved to Pickhurst Manor. The following year twin daughters, Julia and Eleanor, were born although Eleanor only lived a few months. Another daughter called Eleanor was born in 1857 and in 1860 a son Henry was born in Hayes. He was named after Julia’s father, the renowned historian Henry Hallam who had lived at Pickhurst for a while before his death in 1859. By 1861 the immediate family numbered six and there were also 12 resident servants including a butler, two footmen, a Lady’s maid and nurse maid. When his uncle Sir Charles Farnaby of Wickham Court died he left the property and estate to John Cator providing he took the surname Lennard which he agreed to do. The family therefore left Pickhurst Manor and moved to West Wickham.
MORLAND (née Courtenay), Caroline Eustatia
MORLAND (née Courtenay), Caroline Eustatia1775- 1851 Caroline Eustatia Morland was recently widowed when she left West Wickham and took over the lease of Pickhurst Manor in 1828 and moved to Hayes. She was the daughter of Viscount William Courtenay, 8th Earl of Devon and married Colonel Charles Morland in June 1812. At the time of their marriage he was Aide-de-Camp to King George IV and held a senior rank in the army. In 1841 her son William was living with her at the manor and they had eight resident servants. William married Margaretta Eliza Cator in 1843. Lady Caroline continued to live at Pickhurst Manor until her death in 1851.
HAWARDEN, Lady Viscount Anne Isabelle, (née Monck)
HAWARDEN, Lady Viscount Anne Isabelle, (née Monck)c.1759- 26 July 1851 Lady Viscount Isabella Hawarden was a widow when she took out a lease on Pickhurst Manor in 1813. At the age of eighteen in 1777 she had become the third wife of 48 year old Sir Cornwallis Maude MP, by whom she had eleven children. He was created Baron de Montalt of Hawarden, County Tipperary in 1785, Viscount Hawarden in 1791 and died in 1803 in Teignmouth. In 1821 ten people were recorded in Dowager Lady Hawarden’s household including her youngest daughter Emily. Five years later Emily who was 32 years old married Lord Henry Dunalley in Hayes Church. The family showed their support for the poor and made an annual contribution to the special fund to help those in need in Hayes. In 1814, during a very hard frost, Lady Hawarden gave an additional £2 and her daughter Miss Maude £1 towards the cost of supplying the poor with coals. Under her will made in 1840 she left the equivalent of a year’s wages to one of her servants Joseph Hunt and £50 to another servant Elizabeth Jeffries. She moved from Hayes in 1828