A selection of famous people who have lived in or around Sevenoaks
Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales
Lady Diana Spencer (1961-1997) was educated first at a preparatory school, Riddlesworth Hall at Diss, Norfolk, and then in 1974 went as a boarder to West Heath, Sevenoaks. At school she showed a particular talent for music (as an accomplished pianist), dancing and domestic science, and gained the school's award for the girl giving maximum help to the school and her schoolfellows. The Headmistress of West Heath at the time remembered Diana as a "lovely, loving girl" who excelled at field sports and dancing.
She was quite naughty with a wonderful sense of humour. She went into Sevenoaks one day, walked past the pet shop in Tubs Hill and bought a little kitten which lived in the cowshed - the sixth form dorm without anyone knowing for a week.
She left West Heath in 1977 and went to finishing school at the Institut Alpin Videmanette in Rougemont, Switzerland, which she left after the Easter term of 1978.
Sir Winston Churchill
In 1922, Winston Churchill (as he was then) purchased Chartwell, near Westerham. For the first two years after the politician purchased this property, he was out of office, but he was reelected as member from Epping in October 1924 and he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Baldwin’s cabinet until 1929.
Politics dominated life at Chartwell but it was very much a family home for Winston, Clementine and their four young children. Although he demanded absolute quiet when he was working in his study, when that was over he joined in alarmingly strenuous high-jinx with his children. The Dining Room was the scene of many games of charades and theatricals. The garden was a place of enchantment for everyone. For the three elder children he built a tree-house, and for the youngest, Mary, a little brick summer house called "Mary cot."
Christmas was the highlight of the family’s year, when the house was decorated with ivy, laurel, yew and holly. Clementine’s watchful eye supervised a staff of eight or nine indoor servants, a chauffeur, three gardeners, a groom for the polo ponies and an estate bailiff. The head of Churchill’s secretarial corps was Grace Hamblin, who arrived in 1932.
During the 1920’s Chartwell was used mainly as a weekend home (the family lived at 11 Morpeth Mansions in London), but in May 1930 the Conservative Government was defeated. This had been preceded by the Wall Street Crash in October 1929. The house was mothballed and the family moved to the Well Street cottage at the southern end of the garden (now the Administrator’s house). Churchill’s prolific writing during the 1930’s allowed him to reopen Chartwell and enlarge and improve the garden, build a tennis court, the brick walls, a swimming pool and an island in the lake.
Chartwell hosted many Churchill family, friends, political and business associates, and celebrities from around the world. Many signed the visitor’s book just inside the front door.
Lord Jeffrey Amherst
Lord Jeffrey Amherst Lord Jeffrey Amherst lived in Sevenoaks at an estate which he named Montreal Park .
Jeffrey rose from the humble beginnings of a page-boy at Knole to become Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in Canada from 1758 to 1764. He had been trained as a soldier on the battlefields of Flanders and then he crossed the Atlantic where he assumed command of disheartened soldiers and disillusioned colonists and trained them into one of Britain's finest armies.
Under his leadership, James Wolf took Quebec, and Amherst himself captured Montreal from the French. He returned a hero and was popularly acclaimed as the "Conqueror". In 1776, King George III created him Lord Holmesdale.
Lord Amherst erected an obelisk on a hill overlooking his house, Montreal Park (long since demolished) to commemorate the reunion of the three Amhurst brothers. This 230 year old structure is still standing but is in need of repair. The inscription, which is in danger of disappearing, does not actually mention any of the protagonists of the Canadian campaigns by name, - either because they were too modest, or because they arrogantly assumed everybody would know exactly to whom it referred.
The inscription says:
To commemorate the providential and happy meeting of three brothers on this their Paternal ground on 25 January 1761 after a six years glorious war in which the three were successfully engaged in various climes, seasons and services.
Dedicated to that most able Statesman during whose Administration Cape Breton and Canada were conquered and from whose influence the British Arms derived a Degree of Lustre unparalleled in past ages.
Louisbour surrendered and Six French Battalions Prisoners of War 26 July 1758
Du Quesne taken possession of 24 November 1758
Niagara surrendered 25 July 1759
Ticondcroga taken possession of 26 July 1759
Crown Point taken possession of 4 August 1759
Quebec capitulated 18 September 1759
Fort Levi surrendered 25 August 1760
Ile au Noix abandoned 28 August 1760
Montreal surrendered and with it all Canada and 10 French Battalions layed down their Arms 8 September 1760
St Johns Newfoundland retaken 18 September 1762
Jack Cade
Jack Cade was an English rebel but very little is known of his life. He may have been of Irish birth; some of his followers called him John Mortimer and claimed he was a cousin of Richard, duke of York. In 1450 he appeared as the leader of a well-organized uprising in the S of England, principally in Kent, usually known as Jack Cade's Rebellion. The protests were mainly political, not social, although the 14th-century Statute of Labourers (which attempted to freeze wages and prices) was among the grievances. Others were the loss of royal lands in France, the extravagance of the court, the corruption of the royal favorites, and the breakdown of the administration of justice.
The rebels defeated the royal army at Sevenoaks, entered London, executed Lord Saye and Sele (who was blamed for the losses in France), and sacked several houses. The government then offered pardon to Cade's men and so dispersed them. In 1450 Cade himself was mortally wounded while resisting arrest.
Jane Austen
The Red House in Sevenoaks was once owned by Dr Francis Austen, the great uncle of Jane Austen. Jane was known to have stayed here in 1788. In 1796 it is believed that she spent time at Chevening in one of her uncle's houses there and used Chevening House (now the official residence of the Foreign Secretary) as the model for Rosings Park in Pride and Prejudice. Jane's great grandmother, Elizabeth Austen, was housekeeper to the Master of Sevenoaks School. Kippington House (in Kippington Road) also belonged to her husband.
Samuel Palmer
Samuel Palmer (dates) lived at Water House in Shoreham and gained his inspiration for his paintings from the lush countryside and babbling brooks of the district. His "Shoreham Period" is regarded as his finest achievement.
Vita Sackville-West
Vita Sackville-West grew up at Knole. In 1908, when she was 15 years old, her family were hit with an inheritance dispute over the ownership of Knole. Her father Lionel had inherited the house from his uncle, the second Baron Lord Sackville. The Baron co-incidentally was also the father of Vita's mother Victoria (in other words, Lionel and Victoria were cousins).
The claim against Lionel came from a brother of Victoria called Henri, who like Victoria was born to the mistress of the second Baron Lord Sackville - a Spanish dancer called Pepita - and was therefore an illegitimate heir.
Whilst the court case was being prepared the family had to move away from Knole and lock the great house up. The case was finally heard in 1910 in the High Court and Henri lost his legitimacy claim. The family, including the 17 year old Vita made a triumphant return to Knole amidst a crowd of cheering Sevenoaks inhabitants.
Vita later moved to Long barn in Sevenoaks Weald before moving to Sissinghurst.
H. G. Wells
The famous author and scientific prophet, H.G. Wells lived at 23 Eardley Road, Sevenoaks during 1894. It was here that he finished writing the first ever science fiction thriller 'The Time Machine'.
Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946) wrote a short story entitled Miss Winchelsea's Heart. This comic tale tells of dashed hopes and thwarted love - all due to the fact that the object of Miss Winchelsea's desire has the surname 'SNOOKS'.
"By a great effort she controlled herself to face the inquiring eyes of her friends. All that afternoon she lived the life of a heroine under the indescribable outrage of that name, chatting, observing, with 'Snooks' gnawing at her heart. From the moment that it first rang upon her ears, the dream of her happiness was prostrate in the dust. All the refinement she had figured was ruined and defaced by that cognomen's inexorable vulgarity".
Her disgust at the thought of becoming 'Mrs. Snooks' results in her rebuffing Mr. Snooks advances - though she never tells him of her reasons for rejecting him. Miss Winchelsea, however, cannot let him go altogether and she commissions her friend Fanny to keep an eye on him and report back to her at regular intervals.
Fanny's letters reveal that she has forged relations with Mr. Snooks herself and has persuaded him to change his name to Senoks. He had told Fanny what his surname really meant:
"...it means Sevenoaks, only it has got down to Snooks - both Snooks and Noakes, dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be, are really worn forms of Sevenoaks. So I said - even I have my bright ideas at times - 'if it got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it back from Snooks to Sevenoaks?"
Fanny 'gets her man' and Miss Winchelsea loses Mr Snooks through her pride. Her sense of rejection is further enhanced when she learns that Fanny has persuaded her new husband to change his name still further. And so, Mr. and Mrs. Sevenoaks are happy and contented in their new identity and settle into married bliss.
Edith Nesbit
Edith Nesbit, the author of "The Railway Children" was born in Kent in 1858. She moved to Knockholt, near Sevenoaks with her husband and lived close to the South Eastern Railway Company's station (then known as Halstead).
It was her years in Knockholt which inspired the book "The Railway Children" which was published in 1906. It is based on her memories of the men cutting the great embankment at Halstead station and then the long tunnel under the North Downs. The miners worked in terrible conditions, and as a founder member of the Fabian Society, Edith Nesbit was most concerned for her well-being.
Her husband was known as being a bit of a philanderer and Edith actually shared her home with his mistress who was the housekeeper and the mother of Mr Nesbitt's two children.
In 1899 she published "The Story of the Treasure Seekers" in which she first introduced Mr and Mrs Bastable and their three children. She followed this with Five Children and It in 1902, the same year that she moved away from Knockholt.
Top level
About Sevenoaks
