Birches

Robert Rees

Birches 2106
S Crookenden

Birches is a large Grade II listed house looking out over the confluence of the river Medway and the river Eden, towards Swaylands.  It lies just beyond the School and Star House.

The current building was constructed around 1825, described in West Kent and the Weald Building of England (John Newman) as “an early 19th century townish rendered box with a white wooden loggia of Tuscan piers”.

It was originally a 2 ½ storey house with 5 windows, low pitched slate roof, stuccoed exterior, and mouldings, with sash windows. There is a long front verandah with a glazed roof supported on square columns. Modifications were made to it circa 1900.

It could be that the Birches was originally named Mount Pleasant (1841 census) listed as being between Thimble Hall and School Cottage, whose residents at that time were Mrs Ann Yates (60), Miss Emma Yates (25), with four house servants and a coachman.

In 1851, George Devey designed a cottage for Miss Yates, though it is uncertain whether it was ever built. Miss Yates (probably Emma) is recorded as having lived at the Birches from 1878-1882. It may be that the Yates moved from time to time as they are recorded as living in the village, but without a house name between 1845 and 1874.

Mrs Ann Yates, the only daughter of Patrick Telfer of Gower Street, was the widow (married in 1810) of Reverend Richard Yates DD, Rector of Ashen, Essex, and 36 years Chaplain of Chelsea Hospital (d 1834). Yates lived mainly in London, where he was in demand as a preacher at the fashionable chapels. He interested himself in the conduct and management of public charities, and acted as secretary of the asylum for the deaf and dumb. In 1805 he was elected one of the treasurers of the Literary Fund, a post which he continued to hold till his death nearly thirty years later.

Yates was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. During the last five or six years of his life he was an invalid, and he died at Penshurst in Kent on 24 August 1834. The family grave is at the east edge of the Penshurst Churchyard.

1891                           The inhabitant is recorded as owned by Major General Alfred Fitzhugh CB JP (the census of 1891 records it as unoccupied). As lieutenant Alfred Fitzhugh, he appears in a number of photos at Kohat and Peshawar in 1863-5 as an officer and in the cricket team.

1895-1899                 Mrs Bertie Cator.

1903-1918                 Arthur Drinkwater Bethune Chapman (d 1829)

In 1919 Mrs Catherine Chapman (1838-1918) left £100 to maintain and repair the Almshouses. In 1923-4 added £300 to supplement the bequest . Two bedrooms were added in his wife’s memory.

1922-30                     Lady Mary Katherine Turnor CBE, widow of Edward Turnor of Stoke Rochford, Lincolnshire (1838 –1903) who was an English Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1868 to 1880.

He was a Deputy Lieutenant of Lincolnshire, and a J.P. for parts of Kesteven and Lindsey in Lincolnshire.

Lady Mary Katherine was the  daughter of Charles Gordon, 10th Marquess of Huntly in 1866, a Scottish peer who also played first-class cricket for Hampshire, Middlesex, Kent, Surrey and Marylebone Cricket Club in an amateur career which stretched from 1819 to 1843.

 

1934-1940                 Miss Kathleen Isabel Clive. Second cousin twice removed of Robert Clive of India, First Earl of Powys. During the Second World War, Major Rigsby (RM) lodged in a flat there with his wife and son Earnest. It is likely that Crispin Gascoigne , great nephew of Miss Clive, also lived there at some point in the mid 20th Century. Bill Hancock (d [2010]) remembers Miss Clive “She was a supporter of the church, and started a health savings scheme for the poorer families. Her great friend was Miss Leek of Colquhoun Cottage. When I went to the War, Miss Clive gave me a lovely wallet.”

 

1948                           A P Moray

1953-7                        JF Noel Anstee, solicitor, churchwarden (d 1992). Head of Bentalls in Kingston (his mother was a Bentall). The Anstees also lived in Doubleton, Holts, and Elliotts House

 

This page was added on 05/09/2016.

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