Kent believe it

The market in the garden of England is seeing a Dutch bloom

- Penny Churchill

WHEN, in December 2009, domestic rail services were first introduced on the high-speed (HS1) line between Ashford International station and London St Pancras, commuting times from Ashford to central London were slashed by more than half, from 84 minutes to only 37 minutes. At the time, property search agent Colin Mackenzie fully expected to see a surge of activity in the market for country houses in east Kent, an area previously shunned by commuters because of its abysmal rail links with the capital. ‘In reality’, he says, ‘that surge never happened—until now, when buyers are finally waking up to the charms of this part of Kent, which boasts some of the best Georgian houses to be found anywhere in the county.’

Low-lying areas of east Kent had long been prone to flooding until, in the 17th and 18th centuries, Dutch engineers came to drain the flood plains of the River Stour around Canterbury. Many of them settled in the area, especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that saw Mary II and her husband, William of Orange, installed as joint monarchs of England and Scotland. Waves of Dutch immigrants flowed into east Kent and elsewhere, bringing with them their skills in the manufacture of wool, building and creating the formal gardens that were a speciality of the Netherlands.

Yeomen farmers of east Kent were quick to reap the benefits of Dutch expertise, among them one John Mantell, described by genealogists as ‘a grazier, of Tenterden’, who made his fortune farming sheep on the reclaimed Romney Marsh. By the early 1700s, the Mantell family owned several large landed estates in east Kent, where existing farmhouses were often gentrified in a conspicuous display of new-found wealth.