Knowlton Court: Difference between revisions
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{{unref|date=October 2009}}'''Knowlton Court''' is a country estate in [[Kent]], [[England]], with a Grade I listed manor house that dates back to the Elizabethan period. |
{{unref|date=October 2009}}'''Knowlton Court''' is a country estate in [[Kent]], [[England]], with a Grade I listed manor house that dates back to the Elizabethan period. |
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Revision as of 15:13, 11 April 2010
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Knowlton Court is a country estate in Kent, England, with a Grade I listed manor house that dates back to the Elizabethan period.
Early history
The Knowlton Court estate is recorded in the Domesday Book, during which time it belonged to Bishop Odo of Bayeux, the half-brother of William the Conqueror.[1]
Elizabethan and Stuart period
The current manor house was built by Sir Thomas Peyton in 1585, with some rebuilding in 1785.[2] The front façade is in the Queen Anne style, completed in 1715.[3]
In the 17th century, Knowlton Court was home to the Royalist lieutenant-general Sir Thomas Peyton, born in 1619. He was MP for Sandwich from 1640 to 1644,[4] removed from Parliament after a spell in prison in 1643 charged with, among other things, being a “malignant”.[5] After heading a failed Royalist rising in Kent in May 1648, Sir Thomas was taken prisoner near Bury St Edmunds and committed to the Tower – and Knowlton Court was ransacked. He regained his status after the Restoration and again became an MP.[6] Sir Thomas as well as his wives and Knowlton Court are mentioned in the published love letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet (1652 to 1654).[7]
18th century
In the late 17th century, the Knowlton Court estate became the property of Admiral Sir John Narborough, 1st Baronet who died at sea, leaving a widow and two sons.[8] Lady Narborough then married Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell, who died along with his his two Narborough stepsons in the Scilly naval disaster of 1707, when his flagship HMS Association and three other ships were lost, claiming the lives of nearly 2,000 sailors. Shovell's stepsons, Sir John Narborough, 2nd Baronet, and his brother James are commemorated in Knowlton Church. Their memorial displays an incredible rendition of the grounding of the Association.[1]
19th Century to the present
The estate passed to the D'Aeth family in 1707, including Sir Thomas D'Aeth. [9] The D’Aeth family owned it until 1904 when it was bought by Major Francis Elmer Speed (February 28, 1859 - August 23, 1928).[10] He was High Sheriff of Kent and had two sons, John and Douglas.[11]
Knowlton Court is privately owned but the main house is hired out for weddings and other events.[12] The estate includes a number of other buildings including the Grade II listed Elizabethan dower house and a gatehouse designed by Edwin Landseer Lutyens in 1912.
Francesco Cordani, who helped to smuggle British officers out of Italy during World War II, worked on the estate as a gardener, landscaping the gardens at the dower house, including the creation of an Italian walled garden.[13] He secured the job, as well as work for his two sisters, through Colonel Rudolph de Salis, one of the officers he had helped to escape and the brother-in-law of Brigadier Jack Speed who, at that time, lived in the dower house with his wife.