Big houses in town 2 Winterton House
On the south side of the High Street stands Winterton House, so named from its having been the residence of Harriet née Board, the Countess Winterton in the early nineteenth century. The current Winterton House was reputedly built in 1811 by Hughes Minet a wealthy Huguenot and there are indeed Minet descendants buried in the churchyard.
The 1841 Census records Dr. Charles Matthew Thompson and family living at Winterton House where he also had his consulting rooms. By 1871 Charles Matthew Thompson was a widower and had moved to Sevenoaks where he was recorded as ‘Consultant Surgeon’ at seventy four years of age.
As his father had moved from the town, Charles Robert Thompson – himself a General Practitioner – and his wife Emma moved into Winterton House which had a sizeable walled-garden as a bonus because, by this date, they had three children – Edith aged eight, Charles aged five and Mildred only two years old.
The photograph shows Winterton House had railings either side of the porch at the front. On the nearside of the building there is a high wall with the gardens behind. Anyone arriving at the house by coach and Charles’ own one-horse ‘fly’ would enter at the far-side of Winterton House, through the gates in front of the Lodge. As the previous map shows, there was a coach entrance between Winterton Lodge and the big house.
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