 |
| Preston Hall c.1719 |
As a child, I used to stare up at the towers and turrets of Preston Hall and re-imagine the stories of its ghosts, hidden tunnels and headless horseman. I vaguely remember going to a Christmas party at the Hall for children of the British Legion Village. As we approached its heavy oak doors, down the grand drive, it seemed two carved lions were watching us from their stone plinths.
One evening my father brought home a print of the old Preston Hall. I was amazed that this beautiful manor house with its sprawling grounds (above) had once existed nearby. Now, for my benefit, I have briefly opened the door on the often-overlooked story of the Hall and glimpsed episodes of Tudor intrigue, Elizabethan plots, executions and even hidden staircases!
The Domesday Book mentions Preston Manor, and later documents show it sold to the monks of St. Andrew in Rochester. Succeeding generations of the Culpeper family from Bayhall Manor in Pembury then developed the estate as a farming concern. Many of them were called Thomas!
A Thomas Culpeper was a courtier during the reign of Edward I and later became Sheriff of Kent. But, his son Walter switched sides during the rebellion against Edward II. Together with his three brothers, he took part in the Battle of Boroughbridge. Later that year, Walter refused Isabella, wife of King Edward, entry into Leeds Castle in Kent. The furious Edward then besieged the castle and 'took Captaine Colepeper and hung him up.'
Later generations of the Culpeper family who inherited Preston Hall became Justices of the Peace and Sheriffs of the County. When Sir William Culpeper died in about 1457, his son Sir Richard (1429-1484) inherited the estate. He had at least three children. His daughter Joyce (Jocasta) married Sir Edmund Howard in about 1510. They had two sons and three daughters, one of their daughters, Catherine, would become embroiled in court intrigue.
Her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, found Catherine a place in the household of Henry VIII’s fourth wife, Ann of Cleves. Soon she caught the eye of the 48-year-old king. Henry quickly had his marriage to Ann annulled, making Catherine his new queen.
Henry described Catherine Howard as ‘a rose without thorns,’ but his opinion quickly changed when he learned of her alleged affairs, including one with her sixth cousin Thomas Culpeper (11514-1541).
Catherine was imprisoned in the Tower of London, charged with treason, and beheaded on February 13th 1542. A year earlier, the execution of Thomas Culpeper occurred at Tyburn. Like many traitors, they displayed his severed head on London Bridge.
The story of Preston Hall as the setting of Catherine and Thomas's love nest and the legend of their meeting by a secret staircase featured in The Tudors TV drama shown in 2007-10.
Later another Thomas Culpeper became mired in political intrigue. We know that Thomas Culpepper (1517-1587) was born in Preston Hall. In 1554 he met secretly with Thomas Wyatt the Younger and others at nearby Allington Castle to plot against Queen Mary and put her sister Elizabeth on the throne. But, the rebellion failed, Culpeper and the other ringleaders were incarcerated in the Tower of London. One of the prisoners with Culpeper was a certain Thomas Vane, husband of Elizabeth Culpeper.
An inscription on the stonewall of their cell in the Tower reads:
“ Be thou faithful to the end and I will give you a crown of eternal life – 1554, T Fane, T. Culpeper, of Ailsford, Kent.'
Culpeper and Fane were later pardoned, unlike other rebels. Documents in 1561 show Thomas Culpeper as a new purveyor of Rochester Bridge. Five years later, his daughter Anna Culpeper married Sir Henry Crisp of Thanet. In Aylesford church, between the two pillars of the chancel, a commemorative brass plate records Crisp's internment in 1594.
Although Preston Hall Manor stood just over the river from Aylesford, the ancient church of St. Peter and St. Paul only lists the Culpeper’s in the late 16th Century. Earlier family records exist in their other residences like East Farleigh and West Peckham. But, Aylesford does contain what has been declared one of the best rectangular tomb chests in Kent, erected in memory of Sir Thomas Culpeper (c.1549-1604) by his wife Dame Marie (Maria).
Originally from Old Soar Plaxtol, this Thomas Culpeper inherited the ‘royal manor of Aylesford;’ in 1604 from James I and became a knight of the realm. He married Marie Pynner in about 1587; they had six children.
The last of the Culpeper family to live in Aylesford was Alicia, who inherited the estate from her brother in 1723. She was widowed four times and sadly survived all of her children. She spent her later lonely years at Preston Hall where she died in April 1734 and interred in the north chancel of Aylesford Church.
Preston Hall then passed to the Milner family through Alicia’s last marriage. By this time, the former Elizabethan manor, described as a ‘plain white stucco square building of an elegant appearance crowned with tall brick chimneys', stood on the west of a beautiful avenue of cedars that stretched from Aylesford bridge across timbered parkland to Barming.
 |
| Preston Hall, Aylesford c.1850 |
In 1848 the ‘palatial residence’ was purchased by Edward Ladd Betts (1815-1872), a prominent civil engineer who had made his fortune building parts of the British, Canadian and Russian railways. Prince Albert’s favourite architect, John E. Thomas, was then commissioned by Betts to design and construct Preston Hall Manor House in the Jacobean style. After selecting a new site, it was re-built with a grand stone facade, large bay windows, high and magnificent ceilings and rich wood-panelled walls. Outside were installed ornate fountains, an orangery and decorated stables with a carriage driveway through elegant gardens complete with sculptures.
Edward Ladd Betts enjoyed extravagant parties - to bring guests to his new estate, he extended a local railway branch line into Victoria London. He constructed a new railway station called Preston Hall - later re-named Barming because the family disliked the association with a railway station.
During the banking crisis of 1866, Betts had to declare himself bankrupt. Six years later, he died in Aswan, Egypt. His family arranged for his body to be brought back to Aylesford and buried in the parish church.
Preston Hall now became the property of another railway tycoon, Thomas Brassey, who passed the estate on to his son Henry Arthur. The Brassey family became great benefactors of their local community; Henry was named, The Good Squire of Aylesford by locals. Sports days and Sunday school parties were held at the Hall in the summer when the Brassey family presented oranges, boots for the boys and items of clothing for the girls.
After the death of his mother Anna in 1891, the second son, Henry Leonard Campbell Brassey (1870-1958), inherited the estate. He married Lady Violet Mary Gordon-Lennox in 1894. Unfortunately, his new wife detested Preston Hall, describing it as 'a workhouse only fit for commoners'. So to please Lady Violet, he sold off 4000 acres of the Preston Estates and moved to Apethorpe Hall, Northamptonshire.
Robert Horner of Spitalfields bought the estate in 1906 - a year after the Sauber family were in residence.
During WWI Preston Hall was requisitioned by the War Office, in 1919 they established a scheme to use the remaining estate as a training centre for recovering soldiers from tuberculosis. It was known as the Preston Hall Colony and later evolved into The British Legion. In about 1955 my father, a veteran of WWII, recovering from tuberculosis, convalesced there. He eventually rented a house in The Crescent in the British Legion Village and worked for the British Legion Press.
