Hammerfield

Stephen Hazell-Smith

Hammerfield
General Gorloff
Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower

A brief history of the house and garden

The original property, which was called Culver Hill, was “T” shaped and largely comprises the front of the house overlooking the drive and the all brick gable facing the garden. This part is all brick – red brick relieved by diapered brickwork in blue bricks.  It was built in 1848 for the painter Fredrick Lee, R.A. 

In 1857 it was bought by James Nasmyth, the inventor of the steamhammer, when he retired here to concentrate on his hobby, astronomy.  He re-named the house Hammerfield and employed the well known  Kent architect George Devey to extend the house – mainly by filling in the “T” shape to form a rectangular house, and by adding the tower feature at the front.  Devey is regarded as one the forerunners of the arts and craft movement and he designed several buildings in the area, including part of Leicester Square – the old cottages in front of the church in Penshurst – and Hall Place, the large house in Leigh.

Devey’s work was completed in 1859 and can best be seen from the garden. Devey’s main addition was the main three storey gable which features an eclectic mixture of golden stonework, including the ornate stone bay window of what was the dining room, surmounted by half-timbered and tile hung work. Devey also created the adjacent garden room with its superb oak double doors and arcade of windows above.

Also at this time Devey constructed what used to be a separate building to the west, which formed Nasmyth’s workshop, gallery and observatory – the latter occupying the upstairs room at the southern end of this wing. This room used to have a rotating wooden observatory roof, similar to an oast, under which he had his telescope  mounted on a large stone block (to stop any vibrations) which can now be found in the Culver House garden. To the side of this building away from the main house there is a large cast iron framed Victorian greenhouse.

The house was further extended in the early 1900’s by the addition of the large single storey room which linked the main building to the workshop and observatory room. Finally, in the mid 1950’s the property was split into the various properties we see today. 

The main garden front of the house, with its many gables and mixture of diapered brickwork, stone and half timbering, illustrates why the house is regarded as being the prototype of the architectural style known as “old English”.

… and gardens

 

Nasmyth also commissioned Joseph Paxton, the designer of the gardens at the Crystal Palace, to lay out the gardens, which originally extended to 13 acres and reached down to Doubleton Lane. Paxton is also credited with the large ornate stone feature which now stands on the rear lawn of Hammertower and was a pond or fountain.  Another feature of the gardens and woodland are the extensive brick pathways, which are also Victorian, and are reputed to have been built to enable a bedridden owner to be pushed around the grounds in a bath chair. The woods and gardens feature many large trees, including some Sequoias, which date from Nasmyth’s time, as do the profusion of rhodedendrons and azaleas

Hammerfield’s Colourful Occupants.

The house as it stands today was largely developed for the retirement home of the inventor of the steam-hammer, James Nasmyth, in the 1850’s. In his excellent autobiography (James Nasmyth: Engineer: An Autobiography), Nasmyth describes this very considerable house as his “cottage in Kent”. The very fact that he put a 120 foot conservatory on it (“my wife likes flowers”) belies this and demonstrates that world class Victorian engineers thought big! Nasmyth hit upon the idea of a steam-hammer when Brunel was complaining to him that he couldn’t cast a propeller large enough for his first steamship. The answer to Brunel’s problem was to use a steam-hammer to literally beat out the size of the propeller blades. He soon realised that such a powerful force had many other applications, not least of which was to become the pile driver for groundwork foundations. Nasmyth thought nothing of travelling all over the world to sell his invention and by the ime he reached 48 years old he decided he had made more than enough money to retire to Penshurst. Nasmyth and Hammerfield Although there is no certainty it is thought that Nasmyth commissioned Joseph Paxton (Crystal Palace, Chatsworth, etc) to turn the accompanying 16 acres of land into gardens for the house. What is certain is that he lived at Hammerfield for some 36 years until his death in 1890 and during that time he will have received many friends who were also very distinguished inventors such as Michael Faraday (electromagnetism) and Sir John Herschel (photography). For much of his time at Hammerfield his main preoccupation was astronomy and he had an observatory built into the roof of the house. His father was a moderately well known Scottish artist and James certainly inherited his drawing and draughtsmen skills from him. He used to delight in looking through his telescope to draw the surface of the moon. The author of this article has seen one of these drawings at first hand and can testify to the fact that it is of such high quality that it could be mistaken for a NASA photograph. Nasmyth died a very wealthy man, leaving an estate of some £250,000, but he could have chosen to have been almost immeasurably wealthier. Almost as he was arriving in Penshurst, Sir Henry Bessemer wrote to him with an invitation. For some years Nasmyth had been experimenting with the idea of blowing oxygen over pig iron and setting light to it in order to create steel. Bessemer picked up this research, perfected and patented the process and wrote to him offering him one third of the patent. Nasmyth wrote back to say that his offer was most kind but he felt that he had already made enough money in his lifetime so he was pleased to let Bessemer enjoy the whole patent. The Bessemer convertor was at the heart of steel making for the next 100 years and formed the fortune of the American steel baron, Andrew Carnegie. Nasmyth was undoubtedly a giant of the Victorian era but he was also not untypically Victorian in another way. For some 30 years he maintained a mistress and had an illegitimate daughter by her. Unsurprisingly this doesn’t get a mention in his autobiography.

General de Gorloff and Hammerfield In 1896 a Russian military advisor to the Tsar, General de Gorloff, bought Hammerfield. Not much is known about him except he was the Gatling (machine) gun company’s biggest customer in the 1870’s purchasing some 400 guns in a few months. These guns were often stamped with his name and for many years Russian army machine guns were known as “Gorloffs” (see The Book of the Machine Gun, published 1917).

Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower and Hammerfield In May 1899 the well – connected aristocrat, sculptor and author Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower bought Hammerfield. He was clearly delighted as his diary of the time showed: “Hammerfield is mine ! This welcome news arrived by telegraph on the 10th, from General de Gorloff’s agent. I had been out, and on returning to luncheon, Frank handed me the telegram, announcing that my offer had been accepted by General de Gorloff, the owner of Hammerfield. We rejoiced with an exceeding joy, and I am not ashamed to say I offered up a little mental prayer of thanksgiving to the Power from whom all good things come to poor mortals here on earth”. The “Frank “ referred to was Frank Hird. Dubbed by Oscar Wilde as “ Frank may be seen but not Hird”, he was Sutherland Gower’s youthful live- in lover. In fact his homosexuality was to be his downfall as we shall see shortly. As the youngest son of the 2nd Duke of Sutherland and possessing artistic sensibilities Lord Ronald was known to everyone in the highest echelon of society from Queen Victoria downwards. His sculptures of Shakespeare and four Shakespearian characters can still be seen in Stratford on Avon to this day. Frank Hird was something of a journalist and when he lived in Penshurst he wrote many articles for the Morning Post under the title “Notes from a Countryman”. Some of these were about events and happenings in Penshurst and can be found in another part of the archive. They are fascinating. Gower and Hird were members of what might be described as a rather fast Victorian homosexual set. One of their number was Frank Shackleton , a brother of the famous arctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. In 1907 Shackleton defauded Gower out of the equivalent of £5 million in today’s money. Frank Shackleton was a thoroughly rotten lot. It is generally believed that he stole the jewels belonging to the King from Dublin Castle, also in 1907. The historian Elizabeth Longford in her book “Darling Loosey” sets the scene: “The jewels were in the charge of Sir Arthur Vicars, the Ulster King of Arms, who moved in a bizarre set which was both homosexual and heraldic. He was made drunk and the keys were stolen and copied by Frank Shackleton. After stealing the jewels from the safe in Dublin Castle, Shackleton pawned them I Amsterdam for £20,000, a quarter of their value” They have never been seen again. The King ordered an enquiry as to what happened but this was mysteriously allowed to drop one week later. Longford states that Shackleton had threatened to expose Edward V11’s brother in law, the Marquis of Lorne as a homosexual, which would never do. Interestingly on the Monday morning that the Times announced the disappearance of the jewels Lorne was travelling by train back to London with Shackleton, both having stayed the previous weekend with Gower at Hammerfield. Shackleton was tried and convicted of Fraud against Gower but it was too late For Lord Ronald as he could no longer afford to live at Hammerfield. In circa 1911 he sold the house and moved to much more modest premises in Mount Ephraim, Tunbridge Wells. In 1916 Gower dies, a broken man. Hird stayed with him until the last an both their bodies are buried I the same grave in Rusthall.

Hammerfield in the last 100 years. No one on the same scale of colourfulness has lived at Hmmerfied since Gower although between 1948 and 1953 Lady Mount Temple, daughter of Sir Ernest Cassel (friend and financial supporter of Winston Churchill. See “No More Champagne. Churchill and His Money” by Penshurst author, David Lough) and mother of Edwina, Lady Mountbatten of Burma.. In 1954 the house was divided into four residences and that has remained the case to date.

This page was added on 15/02/2016.

Comments about this page

  • Great site – but just need to correct the entry about Muriel (known as Molly) Lady Mount Temple. She was the 2nd wife of Wilfrid, 1st Lord Mount Temple. His 1st wife Maudie, was the daughter of Sir Ernest Cassel), she died young in 1911 from TB. Maudie was the mother of Edwina, Countess Mountbatten of Burma. Molly was the “wicked stepmother” who did not get on with Wilfrid’s children. She married Wilfrid in 1914. Wilfrid died in 1939 and Molly was ousted from Broadlands, initially to Alresford, nr Winchester. At the time of her death in June 1954, she was living at Culver House, Penshurst

    By Philip Stewart-Johns (29/08/2021)
  • Thank you for letting us know – sorry for the delay in acknowledging! I had not appreciated the Ernest Cassel link- a man whom I have often come across in my studies of the final dial affairs of Winston Churchill and King Edward VII.
    David Lough

    By David Lough (04/02/2022)
  • Sir Edward Frankland’s letters at the John Ryelands Library Manchester .Letter No 1728 Bundle 19 is -Notes by Sir Edward on Hammerfield a house he was considering buying near Tunbridge. Nov 1879. He later bought The Yews at Reigate -since demolished.

    By Roger Frankland (08/03/2018)
  • Thank you so much for the extra information –

    By David Lough (04/02/2022)
  • You may be interested to know that James Nasmyth led a double life. His second family lived in a large house in Lupus Street Pimlico. I am his great great grandson. Seems the house attracted colourful characters. Thanks.

    By Chris Abbott (20/03/2017)

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