History Autumn 2011 tonbridge historical society newsletter Photo above: Tonbridge awash – again! The flooded interior of the Baptist Church on 19th November 1911 – see page 7. The church stood in the High Street, where the Co-op supermarket is today. The photo was taken by Allwork Brothers, one of the few Tonbridge businesses still active a century later. (THS Pictorial Collection 17.011) From the Chairman:

The publication of the Autumn Newsletter gives me an opportunity to welcome new members to the Tonbridge Historical Society. It is a great pleasure that attendance at our lectures is rising steadily and many people who first come as visitors choose to join the Society. The first draw, I’m sure, is the excellence of our programme, but I think most of our longstanding members would agree that the warmth and convenience of the Angel Centre is a large contributory factor. Shiela Broomfield has been able to book some very fine speakers and the 2011-12 programme is full of interest. I look forward to seeing you all on 8th September for Pat Mortlock’s new talk on the ladies of the Tudor court. Jenny Poxon Society News

Tonbridge Historical Society A thankyou from our former Founded: 1960 Secretary: I am taking this opportunity to thank President – Joy Debney you all for the totally unexpected and Past Presidents – Stella Hardy MBE, generous cheque that you presented Joan Thirsk CBE, Christopher to me after my standing down from Chalklin being Secretary of THS for sixteen years. I enjoyed using the money Committee to buy the new book on Medieval and also a pair of earrings and Chairman – Jenny Poxon matching pendant. These I purchased Vice Chairman – George Buswell from the local jewellers, John Angell Secretary – Madge Woods, – I felt that it was appropriate to give 56 Derwent Road, Tonbridge, TN10 3HU the business to a long-established Treasurer – Pat Mortlock, local firm. 6 Keswick Close, Tonbridge TN9 1LP Chris joins me in thanking you Minutes & Archives – Sally Robbins also for the bottles of wine which we Pictorial Records Collection and Kent thoroughly enjoyed. History Federation Liaison Shiela Broomfield – Pat Hopcroft ... and an introduction for her Publicity & Website – Anthony Wilson successor: Refreshments organiser – vacant Other Committee Members: Madge Woods, who took over as Secretary at the last AGM, has lived Deborah Cole in Tonbridge almost all her life from Gill Cowlard the age of five. Her main interests are Vanessa King the history, buildings and landscape website: www.tonbridgehistory.org.uk of Kent and Tonbridge together with collecting postcards, crested Subscription: £7 per person (£3.00 for china and books relating to the under-18s), due on 1st March annually town. Family history is another great for the following season. interest and she particularly enjoys all the research and visits this entails. Non-members are welcome as guests She is a longstanding member of at all meetings on payment of £2 at the the Society’s Pictorial Records Group door (£1 for under-18s). and has been a Committee Member since 2009.

2 Lecture Programme 2011-12 Boys, describing the fate awaiting All meetings are in the Riverside Room the young men who were directed to at the Angel Centre. the mines during the same war and were sent down the pits. The speaker Thursday 8th September, 7.45 pm is the historian Dr Ann Kneif, who The Kings’ Supporters – Ladies of the comes highly recommended. We are early Tudor period. fortunate she is free to come to us and Our first speaker, Pat Mortlock, needs give these two talks which complement no introduction as she is well known to each other and should provide an most and always gives interesting and interesting afternoon. thought-provoking talks. The Kings’ Thursday 8th December, 7.45 pm Supporters are the mothers and wives of Henry VII and Henry VIII – from Lady Behind the Scenes at ‘Time Team’ Margaret Beaufort to Catherine Parr – The title speaks for itself. The speaker, and the talk will consider the impact of Raksha Dave, has been a member their support for the Tudor monarchy of the ‘Time Team’ on Channel 4 at some of its most vulnerable times. television since 2004, following a few years’ experience with the Museum of Thursday 13th October, 7.45 pm Archaeological Service. In A City of Legends – a history of true archaeological fashion she was Benghazi, Libya urged to apply to ‘Time Team’ when The speaker, Paul Bennett, is Director in a pub! She promises to give us a of Canterbury Archaeological Trust, fascinating insight into this popular but has been working intermittently series. This is a view of archaeology in Libya since 1972. He is former that will be unfamiliar to many of us. Chairman of the Society for Libyan Thursday 2nd February 2012, 7.45 pm Studies (the UK Archaeological and Academic Mission to Libya) and is How They Built the Crystal Palace in presently Head of Mission. From Four Months Flat 2000-2008 he co-directed excavation After the Christmas and New Year at Euesperides, the first (Greek) city on break we welcome our second home- the site of present-day Benghazi. grown speaker, Anthony Wilson. Construction of the iconic Crystal Saturday 12th November, 2.30 pm Palace to house the Great Exhibition (Two-session meeting with tea. Booking of 1851 was an extraordinary feat of required: form enclosed with this News­ logistics and engineering, even by letter) Victorian standards, and achieved in In the first of two related talks,Women record time. The illustrated talk will Wartime Workers in the Munitions show how it was done. Industry, we will hear how many young women, directed to work during Thursday 8th March 2012 the Second World War, were sent Cast-iron Firebacks to the munitions factories. This will The speaker, Jeremy Hodgkinson, be followed after tea by The Bevin has recently written the first survey 3 of British firebacks, describing their which they built in the 1830s and development and variety and providing which is now a museum and part of interpretation, where possible, of the Canterbury Christ Church University. decoration to be found on them. He David Salomons became an M.P., is the President of the Wealden Iron the first Jew to speak in Parliament Research Group and author of ‘The and the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Wealden Iron Industry’ (2008). London. His nephew, Sir David Lionel was a scientist and engineer. He had Thursday 19th April 2012, 7.30 pm England’s largest private workshop AGM, followed by ‘All the Rage’, at Broomhill (with 60,000 tools) and A light-hearted look by Lee Ault at owned the second motor car in England the fashions, accessories and social which he drove back from Paris after a attitudes of the 1920s and 30s, two 30 minute driving lesson. hectic decades between the world wars, Following the AGM on 7th April, illus­trated by original clothes of the Paul Cuming gave a wide-ranging talk period. Lee Ault is a costume historian about the work of the ten-strong KCC and freelance writer as well as being Heritage Conservation team, based in curator of the Dickens House Museum Maidstone, whose main responsibility in Broadstairs. is the conservation of the archaeological Recent Meetings sites and historic landscapes of the county. They also maintain the Kent In March Katy Chaney, site librarian Historic Environment Record, a at Broomhill, told the story of the database of archaeological discoveries Salomons family and Broomhill, the and historic buildings, now available country house near Tunbridge Wells online. Tonbridge support for the Wyatt Rebellion of January 1554

It is well known that the rebellion of from the town were Thomas Blundell, 1554 was ostensibly concerned with mercer, and Thomas Plane, innkeeper, opposition to the impending marriage both tenants of Thomas Fane. The of Queen Mary with a foreign ruler, tenants of the four parks or forests Philip II of Spain. It also expressed round the town, Sir George Harper popular dislike of the return of Roman and Thomas Culpepper, had sub-let to Catholicism after the Protestant the ironmaster, Davy Willard, another reforms under Edward VI. The rebels rebel. Harper was tenant for life of part came especially from around Maidstone of Henry Fane’s estate. The rebels were and south-west Kent. tied financially and were presumably all That Tonbridge was deeply imp­ known to each other. Yet not all of the licated is seen by the fact that two leading Tonbridge people favoured the gentry, Thomas Fane of Tonbridge and revolt; John Proctor, first headmaster Henry Fane of Tonbridge and Hadlow, of Tonbridge School, was Roman who both owned extensive estates in Catholic in sympathy and opposed it the area, were rebels. Among those strongly. – Christopher Chalklin 4 The Wellers of Chauntlers: new light on a Tonbridge family ‘I am oblig’d to you to remind me of the Damps spoyling my Wardrobe at Boardike …’ – Sarah Weller to Edward Weller, from Bath, 8 Feb 1724 ‘My Nephew Geo. Austen shows away before the Skinners I understand, they praise the boy to much as indeed they did my Nephew Harry, it gives them a wrong turn of mind & makes them rediculous conceited …’ – Stephen Austen to Edward Weller, from London, 25 May 1745 The Weller family’s former home, family until it was sold to a neighbour Chauntlers, still stands in Bordyke, and relative, George Children of Ferox Tonbridge. They are known for Thomas Hall, in 1800. It was then divided into Weller’s account of skirmishes in the two properties, now called The Priory English Civil War, when he attempted and The Red House. to defend the house, together with the The Wellers were primarily a family parliamentary funds he had collected, of lawyers, with long-standing ties from royalist attack; and also for the of service to the Nevills, several fact that his grand-daughter, Elizabeth generations of Wellers acting as Weller, was Jane Austen’s great- stewards of their estates at Eridge and grandmother. Elizabeth is admired Birling. But Elizabeth’s brother Robert, for her resourcefulness in enabling a younger son, trained as an apothecary her family to recover from the sudden and moved to Rochester. In 1704 he death and debts of her husband, John made a successful marriage to Elizabeth Austen of Broadford, Horsmonden, by Poley of Rochester, where he was mayor taking employment as housekeeper to in 1719, and in 1728 he acted as High the bachelor headmaster of Sevenoaks Sheriff of Kent. When his father died School, thereby educating her younger aged ninety, having outlived his two sons free of charge. eldest sons, it was Robert who acquired Thomas had purchased Chauntlers Chauntlers. His daughter Jane, who about 1631, and it remained in the married John Children of Ramhurst, Leigh, was George Children’s mother. Then in 1754 the Poley estate at Boxted, Suffolk, was settled on Robert’s barrister son George, on condition that he assumed the Poley name. George moved to Boxted Hall in 1757 and his Weller-Poley descendants remain there to this day. One of the very first donations of estate and family papers received by the new Kent Archives Office at Maidstone, in August 1939, was from the grandfather of the present owner Chauntlers as it is today of Boxted (catalogue reference U38). 5 These mostly pre-date the family’s to few. Now the Centre for Kentish migration to Suffolk and contain Studies has acquired copies of the Kent information not only for Tonbridge material, courtesy of Suffolk RO (CKS but also for the early history of the reference TR 3882). Some documents fashionable new spa resort of the Wells. expand our knowledge of the family’s Later the personal correspondence of employment, army commissions and Elizabeth and Robert Weller’s brother connections, explaining references in Edward, mayor of Faversham, arrived the letters. There is one book containing from another source (U1000/18). This letters from Robert Weller from almost deserves to be better-known: like the his entire career, and another of family correspondence of the Woodgates, it memoranda. The deeds include the evokes the gentry of Tonbridge and its marriage settlement of John Children neighbourhood, but at an earlier date. and Jane Weller; several leases of the Intimate, candid, full of vitality and regicide John Bradshawe, owner of gossip, the letters also have a special Somerhill during the Commonwealth, interest in the glimpses which they of the Priory lands (now Tonbridge provide of Edward Weller’s Austen Recreation Ground), with interesting relatives (such as the extract given stipulations; and a conveyance to above, concerning Jane Austen’s father, trustees, from the profligate Viscountess George, at Tonbridge School). Purbeck, of the newly-built chapel at The Weller-Poley family deposited Tunbridge Wells dedicated to King further records at the Bury St Edmunds Charles the Martyr. – Mark Ballard, branch of the Suffolk Record Office Centre for Kentish Studies (HA 519), but the fact that these too [Thomas Weller’s account of Civil War events contained material for Tonbridge and in Tonbridge can be read on the THS website: Tunbridge Wells has been known www.tonbridgehistory.org.uk/events/civil-war.html] Three farms on the outskirts of Tonbridge I am researching families­ but in the history of the early years of three farms which the nineteenth have now largely century they vanished under were acquired by Lodge Oak Lane William Wood­ and its neighbouring gate of Somerhill. roads, the Priory In 1816 the farms Mill site and the were leased to industrial estate – John Bruce Allen Lodge Oak farm, who appears to Walter’s farm and have farmed them Brook farm. They as a single entity. were originally Lodge Oak farm house, now the Cardinal’s Error This reflected a owned by different pub in Lodge Oak Lane contemporary 6 trend to merge smaller farms into larger vicinity was practically surrounded and and more productive units. By the early eventually water rushed into the main 1840s the tenancy had passed to John street with disastrous results ... A foot Milles and the Tithe Annuity map and and a half of water rushed through Award shows the total acreage as 148 the premises of Mr Frank East and acres made up of arable and pasture The Bull Hotel was at one time quite land, meadows, orchards, woods and inaccessible. ... A bird’s eye view of the hop gardens. town on Sunday morning would have The farm house of Lodge Oak shown the east and west sides to be one survives and today it is the Cardinal’s great stretch of water with the High Error pub in Lodge Oak Lane. The Street still covered ... Worshippers at farm house for Walter’s farm stood on the Baptist Church found the doors what is now the Royal Mail Depot in closed against them explained by a Vale Rise but the only remaining trace notice saying ”No Service owing to today of the farm is in the name of floods”.’ Walters Farm Road on the industrial advertisement estate. There is a great deal of information available about the historic heart of Tonbridge but much less about the various farms that disappeared under the streets of Tonbridge in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I would be interested to know if any THS members remember these farms before their redevelopment last century. – Maureen McLeod

100 years ago From the Tonbridge Free Press There had been 24 hours of almost continuous rain and about two inches had fallen in that time. 24th November 1911 ‘The severest floods experienced in Tonbridge since 1900 invaded the town on Saturday night (18th November) causing considerable alarm and con­ sternation ... in a very short time the High Street and the immediate 7 Here and there ....

New History Courses in Tonbridge Nasty Normans, from 22/2/12. WEA Courses One Day Saturday Courses, 10-3: At the Adult Education Centre, Ave­bury Domesday Kent, 15/10/11; Medieval Kent, Avenue: 5/11/11; Elizabethan Kent, 14/1/12; Famous Women in Kent: 7 sessions from Roman Kent, 3/3/12. 17th Oct., 2–4 Art of Byzantium: 5 sessions from 9th Jan. 2012, 10–12 History of China: 10 sessions from 11th Jan. 2012, 2–4 At Tonbridge Bowling Club, off Dar­ enth Avenue, Tonbridge Farm Sports- ground: Exploring Medieval, Tudor and Stuart Landscapes and Buildings: 10 sessions from 4th Oct., 10.15–12.15 Industrial Architecture: 5 sessions from 10th Jan. 2012, 10–12 Legacy of the Stuarts: 5 sessions from 21st Feb. 2012, 10–12 Full details about all WEA courses available from Tonbridge Library or Jill Still in limbo: No.1 Bank Street, seen Britcher here from the High Street, remains a Kent Adult Education Courses sorry sight. The Victorian house was At the AEC, Avebury Avenue. Brochure once the premises of the auctioneer from the Library and the AEC. Arthur H. Neve, whose son of the same name, described as a ‘Tonbridge Family History: 10 sessions from 11th Jan Worthy’, was the author of the very 2012, 7.30-9.30pm readable history of the town, published Your Weald - Kent: 8 sessions from 27th as ‘The Tonbridge of Yesterday’ by the Sept. 2011, 7.30-9.30pm Tonbridge Free Press in 1933. Five Session Evening Courses, 7.30-9.30: Permission to convert Nos 1 and 3 Time Traveller’s Guide to English His- Bank Street into bed-sits was granted, tory, from 21/9/11; Racy Romans, from but permission to demolish the two 2/11/11; Smashing Saxons, from 11/1/12; properties has been refused, and this decision is currently subject to appeal.

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