Dene Park is a Victorian mansion house and estate in the parish of

Hadlow Hadlow is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tonbridge and Malling in Kent, England. It is situated in the Medway valley, north-east of Tonbridge and south-west of Maidstone. The Saxon name for the settlement was Haeselholte (in t ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, United Kingdom. It served as the site of the Thomas Delarue School between 1955 and 1965.

History

The Dene Park estate was advertised for sale in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' of 13 July 1878 as being for sale. The house was described as having fifteen bedrooms and set in of land. There was stabling for five horses which included accommodation for a groom. A six bedroom shooting house was included in the sale, as was a farm and several cottages. The house was extensively altered in the next five years. Built in 1883 Dene Park was designed by the architect F.T.W Miller, Dene Park was designed primarily as a sporting estate and occupied 620 acres in total. Built of red brick with bath stone dressings, the gardens were designed by the landscape gardener

Edward Milner Edward Milner (20 January 1819 – 26 March 1884) was an English landscape architect. Early life and career Edward Milner was born in Darley, Derbyshire, the eldest child of Henry Milner and Mary née Scales. Henry Milner was employed at C ...

of which much of his original design work still remains. To the right of the property the iconic round

smokery A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more.

remains hinting at the property's sporting heritage. Owned by Sir John Hollams until his death in on May 3, 1910, it was then inherited by his second eldest son Frederick Willams Hollams (b. 1848) who lived there for the next thirty one years. Also residing in the home were Frederick's wife, Mary Owen Hollams, daughter of the architect Sir Charles Lanyon, and their daughter, the artist Frances Mabel Hollams. In 1917, Frederick Williams Hollams was appointed

High Sheriff of Kent The high sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown (prior to 1974 the office previously known as sheriff)."Sheriffs appointed for a county or Greater London shall be known as high sheriffs, and any reference in any enactment or instru ...

. He died on 21 November 1941 aged 93. The contents of Dene Park were sold by

auction An auction is usually a process of Trade, buying and selling Good (economics), goods or Service (economics), services by offering them up for Bidding, bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from th ...

on 20 January 1942. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Dene Park became the training school for the

44th (Home Counties) Division The Home Counties Division was an infantry division of the Territorial Force, part of the British Army, that was raised in 1908. As the name suggests, the division recruited in the Home Counties, particularly Kent, Middlesex, Surrey and Sussex ...

and 53rd Division. Jack Rose, a

Hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its ...

pilot flying Hurricanes from West Malling Airfield worked with the instructors to make training as realistic as possible; the school's instructors would carry out exercises on

Shipbourne Shipbourne ( ) is a village and civil parish situated between the towns of Sevenoaks and Tonbridge, in the borough of Tonbridge and Malling in the English county of Kent. In 2020 it was named as the most expensive village in Kent. It is locate ...

Green with aircraft flying in fours would carry out low-level navigation exercises culminating on an attack on the Battle School troops. Camera Guns were used and the resulting films passed to instructors and troops to estimate what casualties would have been suffered and how to improve tactics. In 1955 the house became the Thomas Delarue School, a specialist co-educational boarding school founded by the National Spastics Society to serve children with

cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, spasticity, stiff muscles, Paresis, weak muscles, and tremors. There may b ...

. In 1963 the school moved to a purpose built site near Tonbridge. The house was converted into nine flats in 1991, with the woods now managed by the

Forestry Commission The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England. The Forestry Commission was previously also respons ...

, and the original coach house is now occupied by Greensands Ridge gin distillery. The house retains many features from the time of its construction, including the original chapel ceilings, the terrace, and a fireplace dated 1591 and reputedly brought from

Haddon Hall Haddon Hall is an English country house on the River Wye, Derbyshire, River Wye near Bakewell, Derbyshire, a former seat of the Duke of Rutland, Dukes of Rutland. It is the home of Lord Edward Manners (brother of David Manners, 11th Duke of Rut ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

. John Newman, in ''Kent: West and The Weald'', his 2012 revised volume in the Pevsner Buildings of England series, describes Dene Park as a "substantial mansion in a Waterhousian

Tudor Gothic English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed a ...

" style.

Notable residents

* F.M Hollams *

Henry Cooper Sir Henry Cooper (3 May 19341 May 2011) was a British heavyweight boxer. He was undefeated in British and Commonwealth heavyweight championship contests for twelve years and held the European heavyweight title for three years. In a 1963 fi ...

* Ernie Burrington * George Wills

Notes

References

{{Hadlow Country houses in Kent Hadlow Victorian architecture in England Gothic architecture in England