Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Northbourne Court is an early-17th-century walled garden with terracing of 1.5 hectares. The site was re-developed in the late-19th and early-20th century. The gardens are set in a larger agricultural estate of 200 hectares.

Monument Types

• GARDEN (GARDEN, Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• GATE (GATE, Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• TERRACE (Ornamental Terrace, Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• WALL (WALL, Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• FORMAL GARDEN (FORMAL GARDEN, Modern - 1901 AD to 2050 AD)
• ORNAMENTAL POND (ORNAMENTAL POND, Modern - 1901 AD to 2050 AD)
• WALL (WALL, Modern - 1901 AD to 2050 AD)

Full description

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[Name TR 33745224] Northbourne Court[NAT] (1) Early C17 brick-walled enclosure and terraces, c.1 1/2ha, redeveloped late C19 and C20, within estate, mainly agricultural, of c.200ha. Main rectangular enclosure extending 200m south-west from ruins of original mansion. Planting mainly C20.[Full topographical description]LISTED GRADE II*. Additional references, not consulted.(a)(b)(c) (2) Additional topographical reference. (3)

The enclosed garden is the main feature of interest here, while the house, the magnificent farm buildings and tree groups form a significant landscape feature in this particular area of Kent.

All boundary Tudor walls have been systematically restored over a period of years by a local bricklayer using local handmade bricks. This includes the fine arched gateway south of the village, now used as the main entrance for visitors. There have been other repairs to steps and walls within the garden.

The gardens were largely created by the late fourth Lord Northbourne over the last half century. He was a sensitive artist and very knowledgeable plantsman. With the aid of Lady Northbourne, he created a richly planted and beautiful garden within the confines of the old brick courts and enclosures. The walls were used for a luxuriant tapestry of climbers, including old roses, and the terraces for different planting themes. Details of the planting are given in T Wright's account of the garden, (Kent, Sussex and Surrey No. 4 Batsford 1978). The head gardener has also created an inventory of all the plants in the garden.

There has been considerable loss of trees due to the 1987 storm, mainly holm oaks to the east of the house, which has opened up views to the sea creating more exposure. Also within the garden the old mulberry and box thicket have been severely damaged. There has been no new planting.

This is a very ancient site, said to be used for a hunting lodge by Eadbald, son of Ethelbert, the Saxon King of Kent.

Sir Edwin Sandys built a large house in the Jacobean style (James I reign, 1603-25) with much excavating to create three tiers of garden terrace facing the house. This provided raised walks and the highest ‘prospect' of the garden and the countryside beyond. These terraces are an important feature of the gardens today.

The house was burnt down in 1750 and a newer 19th-century house was built just to the south-west. Today, this is Northbourne Court. The ruins of the old house still survive, and an attractive Flemish gabled gate keeper lodge of the 17th century is on the site of the old main entrance to the Court. This is entered through a Tudor brick arch still standing to the south-west. The second Lord Northbourne bought the house in 1895.

A series of foundation walls of flint and stone have recently been discovered in the vegetable garden area south-east of the house, thought to be monastic or an extension of the demolished 17th-century house. (7)

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

A late 16th- or early 17th-century walled garden with formal terraces, with an adjacent 19th-century park.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Northbourne Court lies adjacent to the east end of Northbourne village, about 1 kilometre west of the A258, Deal to Sandwich road. The 23 hectare registered site comprises about 3 hectares of formal and ornamental gardens and 20 hectares of parkland with small areas of woodland. It lies on the slopes and floor of a shallow valley which runs north-eastwards from the dip-slope of the North Downs to the levels of the Lydden valley, 4 kilometres distant. The site is bounded to the south-west by a high brick wall running beside the lane from Northbourne south-east to Great Mongeham (Bonners Lane) with, at its west end, village houses and a recreation ground. The north-west boundary is lined by the industrial-style buildings, yards and screen mounding of the Kent Salads factory which are built on the line of a road known as The Drove, while beyond this and beyond the north and east boundaries, land under intensive arable and horticultural cropping generally abuts the site, except for a narrow area of rough grazing and marshland which extends from the north-east boundary towards the Lydden valley.

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Northbourne belonged to Eadbald, a Saxon king of Kent who in AD 618 gave the Manor and land to the Abbot of St Augustine's, Canterbury, in whose ownership it was still recorded in Domesday Book. Northbourne Manor became Crown property at the Dissolution and in 1540 Henry VIII gave it in exchange for other property to Archbishop Cranmer. It reverted to the Crown and was gifted to new owners on two further occasions: in 1561 by Queen Elizabeth to her foster brother, Edward Sanders, for his lifetime and in 1604 by James I to Sir Edwin Sandys, who built a mansion on the site and may have constructed the terraced gardens (Country Life 1925). Sir Edwin died in 1629 and Northbourne remained in the Sandys family until, on the death of Sir Richard Sandys in 1726, the terms of inheritance left the house unoccupied. It was pulled down in around 1750 and the estate sold by a representative of Sir Richard Sandys' daughters in 1795 (CL 1925). Northbourne had a number of subsequent owners until purchased in 1895 by the second Lord Northbourne. It remains (1997) in private hands.

<1> OS 1:10000 1981 (OS Card Reference). SKE48167.

<2> English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of special historic interest,Part 24 Kent(May 1987) (OS Card Reference). SKE41622.

<3> Country Life (13 June 1925) 954-961 (OS Card Reference). SKE39327.

<4> Country Life (11 Aug 1960) 278-279 (OS Card Reference). SKE39318.

<5> Wright T(1978)Gardens of Britain. 73-76 (OS Card Reference). SKE51414.

<6> Newman J(1969)The Buildings of England:Northeast and East Kent. 392 (OS Card Reference). SKE47537.

<7> Parks and Gardens Data Services Limited (PGDS), 2005, Parks and Gardens UK (www.parksandgardens.org) (Website). SKE16061.

Sources and further reading

Related records