Great Maytham Hall, Cranbrook, England

The Moneypenny family owned Great Maytham from 1721-1900 but there were financial problems in the late-1800s. Additions, a fire and other problems disfigured the house. During a period of lets, one of the tenants was Frances Hodgson Burnett who took the house from 1898-1907. He was inspired to write ‘The Secret Garden' from the walled garden of the old Georgian house that existed then. Lutyens incorporated this into his new garden design, and the bricked-in doorway is eagerly hunted today by schoolchildren. The Tennant family lived in style at Great Maytham from 1909-1938, 13 gardeners being employed with a huge new kitchen garden, laundry, dairy, carpenters shop and an estate of around 530 hectares.

The whole estate and house contents were dispersed at the sale in 1936. Army occupation in 1939-45 followed by various unsatisfactory ownerships led to a deterioration and neglect of house and gardens. The site was rescued from a threat of demolition by the Country Houses Association in 1961. Conversion and restoration work took four years. There are now 30 residents, some of whom actively assist in the maintenance of the garden.

Forty-seven trees of significant size were lost in the 1987 storm. These included oaks, Scots pine, horse chestnuts, silver birch, cherries and crab apples as well as the lime avenue.

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. 

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

An estate existed at Maytham in the Saxon period and a manor and its owners were referred to in Domesday Book. Owned by two de Maytham sisters in the 14th century and by the Carew family in the early 16th century, it became Crown property in 1539. Granted first to Thomas Cromwell and then to Sir Thomas Wyatt, it passed by marriage to the Colpeppers of Bedgebury who owned it until 1714 although it was never their principal residence. It was sold in that year to Captain James Monypenny who began building the first recorded house on the site. The property remained in the hands of various members of the Monypenny family, who enlarged the house and the park in the 19th century, until the death of Lt-Col Robert Thomas Gybbon-Monypenny in 1893. Various owners and tenants including, from 1898 until 1907, the authoress Frances Hodgson Burnett, occupied Great Maytham until 1909 when the then owner, Mr Powell-Edwards, sold it to the Rt Hon H J Tennant who engaged Sir Edwin Lutyens to rebuild the house and lay out the formal gardens. When the Maytham estate was sold again in 1936 the tenanted farmland surrounding the house and park was sold off separately. A succession of owners followed, the house being used by the National Institute for the Blind and by the army before falling into a state of neglect. In 1961 most of the parkland was divided and sold, the house, gardens, and part of the eastern parkland being purchased by the Country Houses Association (formerly the Mutual Households Association) who restored the property and converted it to residential retirement apartments. The house and gardens remain (1997) in charitable ownership with the majority of the parkland in divided private ownership.