The ‘modern’ story of Dunsdale begins when the mansion had been converted into a V.A.D. hospital in 1914 having been unoccupied since 1911 when Francis Johnstone, the tenant, and Norman Watney, the owner, both died. From 1914 the Dunsdale Hospital (V.A.D. Kent 38) was fully occupied until 1917 when it was decommissioned from its V.A.D. status to ...
Reference: WH0990
This 1939 section of O.S. map shows the mansion – internally converted into several apartments and let to tenants – to be externally unaltered at this time, albeit run-down with the gardens and grounds in a sorry state. Note that the lake had dried up beyond the stone bridge carrying the coach road.
Reference: WH0991
In 1949 the Valence estate (only) was purchased by Kent County Council to rehouse Laleham School for girls that had outgrown its earlier premises in Hartfield, Sussex. In 1951 the status was changed to that of Valence School for physically handicapped children. In 1949 the run-down Dunsdale estate and Valence Wood were sold to Llewellyn Jones, ...
Reference: WH0992
This section of the 1891 O.S. map shows the North Lodge, Dunsdale Farm and the Victorian gothic mansion itself, built for and occupied by a wealthy industrialist Joseph Kitchin in 1858. In 1880 the estate was sold to William Bryant, but by 1885 had been resold and purchased piece by piece over then next four ...
Reference: WH1045
The Gardens of Hosey date back to 1815 when ‘commons waste’ was mapped-out and ‘allotted’ to the families of the poor of the district, the menfolk of whom had fought for Britain in the Napoleonic wars – penniless men came home to starving families. Enclosure of commons waste was being established in rural areas throughout the country at ...
Reference: WH0445
This 1934 O.S. map shows the northern half of the ‘Kennedy Garden’ allotments, being plots 27 at the south end and 41 at the north, behind the school. Between the two divided sections of the Gardens can be seen the haul road for movement of ragstone excavated from the Hosey mines in the nineteenth century.
Reference: WH0429
Allotments under threat. Following the second World War local planning was well under way for the development of much needed social housing to expand on that first built on Nursery Site in 1927 and at the Paddock. Some allotment sites were put under threat by these development plans and to that end Westerham Allotment Holders ...
Reference: 0048
Adits is the term used to describe horizontal passages leading into a mine for the purposes of access or drainage. Hosey caves below Kennedy Gardens had no drop-shafts, being quarried into the hillside of the Greensands ridge. There are about six adits in total giving access to a network of quarry tunnels branching off in ...
Reference: WH0461
