Kent Life (formerly the Museum of Kent Life and Kent Life Heritage Farm Park) is a farm park located at Sandling near

Maidstone Maidstone is the largest Town status in the United Kingdom, town in Kent, England, of which it is the county town. Maidstone is historically important and lies east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town, l ...

, next to Allington Locks on the east bank of the

River Medway The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, West Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a to ...

. It once operated as an

open-air museum An open-air museum is a museum that exhibits collections of buildings and artifacts outdoors. It is also frequently known as a museum of buildings or a folk museum. Definition Open air is "the unconfined atmosphere ... outside buildings" ...

, before rebranding as a heritage farm park. It was renamed as "Kent Life" in 2009.

History

Sir

Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake __NOTOC__ Sir (Hugh) Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake (22 May 1881 – 24 October 1964) was a businessman, zoo owner and author. Between 1915 and 1950, he was twelve times the Mayor of Maidstone, Kent and was High Sheriff of Kent in 1956–57. Life Tyrwh ...

bequeathed the Cobtree Manor Estate to

Maidstone Borough Council Maidstone is the largest town in Kent, England, of which it is the county town. Maidstone is historically important and lies east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town, linking it with Rochester and the T ...

in 1966. A part of the estate was Sandling Farm, on the banks of the Medway. In 1984 a decision was made to restore the derelict farm as part of a rural life museum. The museum opened to the public on 6 July 1985. As of 2013 it no longer operates as a museum and rebranded as a Heritage Farm Park, the historic houses are accessible as part of the daily ticket to the attraction which also offers tractor rides, arts and crafts, animal feeding and seasonal events yearly. Kentish Oasts p159

Farming

At the museum, various aspects of farming are recreated. There are two small hop gardens, growing Fuggles and Goldings hops. Apple and plum orchards, a herb garden, a soft fruit garden and various livestock.

Buildings

The attraction has a variety of buildings, most of which have been dismantled and re-erected across the site .

Barn

A five bay barn dating from the eighteenth century and originally at Vale Farm, Calcott, near

Sturry Sturry is a village on the Great Stour river situated northeast of Canterbury in Kent. Its large civil parish incorporates several hamlets and, until April 2019, the former mining village of Hersden. Geography Sturry lies at the old Roman j ...

. The barn has an

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

frame and a

thatch Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, Phragmites, water reed, Cyperaceae, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), Juncus, rushes, Calluna, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away fr ...

ed roof. It was dismantled in 1984 and re-erected at the museum in 1989.

Chapel

The

chapel A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...

is a timber-framed building clad in

corrugated iron Corrugated galvanised iron (CGI) or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America), zinc (in Cyprus and Nigeria) or ...

tin tabernacle A tin tabernacle, also known as an iron church, is a type of prefabricated ecclesiastical building made from corrugated galvanised iron. They were developed in the mid-19th century, initially in the United Kingdom. Corrugated iron was first u ...

). It was originally built in 1897 in

Cuxton Cuxton is a village in the unitary authority of Medway in South East England. It lies on the left bank of the River Medway in the North Downs. It is served by the A228, and Cuxton railway station on the Medway Valley Line between Strood and ...

and was donated to the museum in 2000 when a new chapel was built.

Lenham Cottages

Originally called ''Old Cottage'' and ''Water Street Cottage'', these cottages stood at

Lenham Lenham is a market village and civil parish in the Maidstone district, in Kent, England, situated on the southern edge of the North Downs, east of Maidstone. The picturesque square in the village has two public houses (one of which is a hot ...

. The Grade II listed building were threatened by the building of the

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (), sometimes referred to by the Portmanteau, portmanteau Chunnel, is a undersea railway tunnel, opened in 1994, that connects Folkestone (Kent, England) with Coquelles (Pas-de-Calais, France) beneath the English Channel at ...

rail link. The builder of the link offered the cottages to the museum, along with the funding for their removal and re-erection. They were dismantled in June 1999, and re-erected between January 2000 and March 2001, opening to the public in July 2001.

Petts Farmhouse

A late-eighteenth-century farmhouse. Petts Farmhouse is a

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

building.

Sandling Farmhouse

Sandling farmhouse is one of the original farm buildings. It was the home of George Brundle, the last tenant of the farm until his death at 98 in 2001. The building dates to the sixteenth century, and has links to

Sir Thomas Wyatt Sir Thomas Wyatt (150311 October 1542) was a 16th-century English politician, ambassador, and lyric poetry, lyric poet credited with introducing the sonnet to English literature. He was born at Allington Castle near Maidstone in Kent, though hi ...

Forge

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

's forge has been recreated at the museum.

Granary

A nineteenth-century

granary A granary, also known as a grain house and historically as a granarium in Latin, is a post-harvest storage building primarily for grains or seeds. Granaries are typically built above the ground to prevent spoilage and protect the stored grains o ...

from Boxley Grange Farm,

Boxley Boxley is a village and civil parish in the Maidstone District of Kent, England. It lies below the slope of the North Downs approximately northeast of the centre of Maidstone town. The civil parish has a population of 7,144 (2001 census), in ...

, was dismantled in March 1993 and has been re-erected at the museum.

Hopper Huts

A set of

Hopper hut A hopper hut was a form of temporary accommodation provided for hop-pickers on English farms in the 19th and 20th centuries. Background Before the days of mechanised farming, hop picking was a labour-intensive process, requiring a vastly greate ...

s from North Frith Farm,

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 ...

was dismantled and re-erected at the museum. These huts are built of brick, with internal fireplaces. A set of hopper huts with a wood frame clad in

has been constructed, along with a cookhouse and privy. Image:Cobtree Hopper.JPG, The rebuilt hopper huts from Hadlow Image:Cobtree Hopper2.JPG, The reconstructed hopper huts Image:Cobtree cookhouse.JPG, The reconstructed cookhouse Image:Cobtree privy.JPG, The privy

Oast

One of the original farm buildings. The

oast An oast, oast house (or oasthouse) or hop kiln is a building designed for kilning (drying) hops as part of the brewing process. Oast houses can be found in most hop-growing (and former hop-growing) areas, and are often good examples of agricultu ...

originally had four kilns, two round and two square.

Hops Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whic ...

had last been dried here some time before 1925. The two square kilns were demolished in 1935 and the stowage was damaged in a fire in 1951. The oast was restored in 1984, both round kilns and one square kiln being restored with

cowls A cowl is an item of clothing consisting of a long, hooded garment with wide sleeves, often worn by monks. It was developed during the Early Middle Ages. The term may have originally referred to the hooded portion of a cloak, though contemporar ...

. The oast houses a reconstruction of a village store, being the interior fittings of a general store in

Hawkhurst Hawkhurst is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. The village is located close to the border with East Sussex, around south-east of Royal Tunbridge Wells and within the High Weald Area of Outstanding N ...

Shepherd's Hut

A shepherd's hut from Acton Farm,

Charing Charing () is a village and civil parish in the Ashford district of Kent, in south-east England. It includes the settlements of Charing Heath and Westwell Leacon. It is located at the foot of the North Downs and reaches up to the escarpment ...

was presented to the museum in 1994.

Tack Room

tack room Tack is equipment or accessories equipped on horses and other equines in the course of their use as domesticated animals. This equipment includes such items as saddles, stirrups, bridles, halters, reins, bits, and harnesses. Equipping a horse i ...

has been recreated at the museum.

Tearooms

The tearooms are housed in one of the original farm houses.

Village Hall

Of similar construction to the chapel. The old village hall from

Ulcombe Ulcombe is a village and civil parish near the town of Maidstone in Kent, England. The name is recorded in the Domesday Book and is thought to derive from ' Owl-coomb': 'coomb' (pronounced 'coo-m') meaning 'a deep little wooded valley; a hollow i ...

was donated to the museum in 1997. It was dismantled in October 1997 and re-erected, opening to the public in June 2000.

Wagon Store

The wagon store building was purpose built at the museum in 1993. The re-created forge is at one end.

References

Sources

External links

* {{Maidstone Open-air museums in England Museums in the Borough of Maidstone Houses in Kent Rural history museums in England Local museums in Kent Farm museums in England Agricultural museums in England Boxley