Swaylands
Swaylands is a private parkland estate set high upon the Kentish Weald, on the edge of the village of Penshurst in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England.
The Estate is situated between the market town of Tonbridge and the spa town of Royal Tunbridge Wells, at the heart of an area of countryside between the neighbouring villages of Penshurst, Chiddingstone and Hever.
The three main apartment buildings on the Estate are, from north to south, Drummond Hall, Swaylands House and Woodgate Manor, which together fall within the Sevenoaks district. Drummond Hall and Woodgate Manor are relatively new buildings, whose architecture is inspired by the original house.
Situated wholly within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Estate comprises over forty acres of terraced gardens and grounds, featuring a rockery, a cricket pitch and its listed pavilion, a tennis court, a rose garden, a pond, a lake, waterfalls and a small landscape park, all of which were developed through the second half of the nineteenth century. Following years of deterioration in the late twentieth century, the gardens and buildings have now been restored.
History
The tithe map for 1840 shows there was a farm in the same place as the current house. It was called Workhouse Farm and belonged to the Penshurst Parish.William Woodgate, a local solicitor, and member of a prominent local family, bought the farm and 33 acres of land from the Penshurst Parish in 1835/36. This was eventually increased to 95 acres.
The original Swaylands house, a villa, was built from around 1837 for William Woodgate. Guttering boxes on the original villa are marked "1842", which indicates the date the house was likely completed. When William Woodgate built this three gabled villa on the top of the hill, it was described as a smaller version of his birthplace, Somerhill House, in Tonbridge. In 1842 William's aunt recorded in her diary “William Woodgate brought his family to his new house, the bells gave a merry peal as they passed through the village.” He arrived with his wife Harriet and children.
Edward Cropper came from Pembrokeshire to buy Swaylands from William Woodgate in 1859. By this time, William Woodgate had experienced financial difficulties, was suffering ill health and returned to his home in Cumberland Terrace, London. Mrs Frances Allnut, from the Grove, Penshurst, recorded on 6 August 1859 “The bells rang merrily for Mr and Mrs Cropper coming to Swaylands, having painted and prepared the house.”
In the 1870s Cropper employed the prominent Victorian architect George Devey to extend greatly the house and to terrace the gardens. Also constructed was a stable block and lodge at the northern boundary of Penshurst Road.
Edward Cropper died in 1877 and, despite all the improvements he had made to Swaylands, his widow put the estate on the market and moved back to Pembrokeshire.
When the Swaylands estate was advertised in The Times by Norton, Trist, Watney & Co. in September 1877, the sale document described a very desirable property “in perfect order throughout, and fit for the immediate reception of a Nobleman's or Gentleman’s family”. By this time it had a miniature gas works, vinery and specimen shrubs and trees, including a splendid Wellingtonia planted by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Only 51 acres are mentioned in this document although Edward Cropper paid parish rates on 261 acres.
Swaylands was purchased by the banker George James Drummond following an auction of "a superior mansion" at the Mart, Tokenhouse Yard, near the Bank of England in London on 19 October 1877. George Drummond was a partner of Drummonds Bank, with offices at Charing Cross, London, and he chose to buy Swaylands due to its proximity to Tonbridge railway station, from where he could commute by train to the bank's premises.
Between 1879 and 1882 George Drummond made further additions to the house. He initially employed architect George Devey, but dismissed him after litigation. But plans for the house continued with the involvement of local builder, Hope Constable. George Drummond commissioned the arts and crafts architect, Sir Mervyn E. Macartney to build the vast elongated mansion that it is today.
Many of the additions were for entertainment and to demonstrate wealth and hospitality. By this time, whilst the principal drawing and music rooms were in the original villa, there was also a billiards room, ballroom, orangery, conservatory and palm house. There were also extensive bedrooms and servants’ quarters in the main house. Together with all of the farm buildings, dairy and ancillary accommodation on the Swaylands estate. George Drummond gradually bought surrounding farms and, by 1919, the estate had grown to 900 acres.
After George Drummond died in 1917 his son and heir, George Henry Drummond, sold the property in 1919 and the family dispersed. The estate was sold in 12 lots and the grounds shrank to the proportions of William Woodgate's vision.
Sir Ernest Cassel bought Swaylands from George Henry Drummond in 1919 in order to turn it into a hospital for functional nervous disorders, Cassel Hospital. He was struck by the inadequate mental health provision for soldiers returning from the First World War. It was not his first venture in this field: he endowed a hospital at Midhurst, Sussex, for chest disorders, called King Edward VII's Hospital. Ernest Cassel conveyed Swaylands to the trustees of the Cassel Hospital and he was an ex officio President of the General Committee. The stated objectives of the Cassel Hospital were “To treat persons suffering from nervous disorders on the terms of patients contributing some portion of the cost of their maintenance. To carry on… research work in connection with such disorders.”
There were various minor alterations made to the interior of the building at Swaylands in order that it may function as a hospital for 54 patients. The building was ready for occupation in May 1921.
The grounds and exterior of the house were virtually unchanged in Ernest Cassel's time. The cricket pitch was used by staff and patients, a nine-hole golf course was laid out by patients in the parklands and new tennis courts were laid. Such sports were seen as a form of treatment.
The stable block was converted into accommodation for nurses in 1927.
At the advent of the Second World War, the government gave notice that Swaylands was to be requisitioned as a military hospital. Cassel Hospital found a temporary home at Ash Hall Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. The military hospital was for skin diseases and catered for 200 patients, with a full complement of medical staff. The total population at Swaylands during the Second World War was as many as 400.
The rector of Bidborough mentions bombs falling in the rockery in his historical notes. Some of the shattered sandstone was taken away to repair the church tower in Bidborough.
At the end of the war, Swaylands was available for the Cassel Hospital to return. However, minutes of meetings show that the board of the hospital realised they could not cope with the uneconomic building. Instead, Cassel Hospital went to Ham Common in Surrey, where it remains.
Middlesex County Council bought the estate in poor condition in 1948. Swaylands opened as a “Special Needs Residential School for Boys” in 1949. It initially opened with 4 teachers and 16 pupils. As refurbishments continued, the school rose to 200 pupils. At that time, the school was the largest residential school for boys with special educational needs in the UK. During ownership by Middlesex County Council the conservatory was demolished.
The London Borough of Barnet struggled to afford the maintenance of the estate, especially the main house. The financial problems coincided with a national change in thinking about the efficacy of sending such children to a location distant, and different, from their homes. The school closed in 1994.
Gama International bought Swaylands in 1995 with the intention of developing a health centre, but 5 years later the necessary money and planning permission was not forthcoming and the estate was sold for less than the purchase price. Continued deterioration of the house and grounds occurred during this period.
Thereafter Swaylands was purchased by a series of property developers, and then by Heritable Capital Partners Limited, with a view to redevelopment as apartments. Towards the end of the restoration of the main house and gardens, Heritable Capital Partners Limited entered administration, due to the 2008 financial crisis. Ernst & Young were appointed as administrators, and the restoration of the original house, construction of two additional new residential blocks and restoration of the gardens and grounds continued to completion.
The main house now comprises 28 apartments. There are 6 houses in the former stables, and two new residential buildings: Woodgate Manor and Drummond Hall, each comprising around 10 apartments. The two new residential buildings are designed to complement the architecture of the original house.
In 2015 three men were jailed for indecent assaults at Swaylands at the time when it was a school.