A king, a plate of cherries and the Garden of England; a folly taller than Nelson's Column at the end of our lane; a nut that only grows properly on our hill; and a castle that lost a two-day siege in 1088.
Checked 11 September 2026. Hours and prices change, so follow the links to the official sites before you set off. Distances are from Hamptons Farmhouse.
The Garden of England
Legend says Henry VIII called Kent the Garden of England after a plate of Kentish cherries. His fruiterer, Richard Harris, planted the first orchards of sweet cherries and apples at Teynham in 1533. The Romans had found wild cherries here in AD 43 and brought the cultivated ones. Discovering Britain.
The tower at the end of the lane
Hadlow Tower, or May's Folly, is 175 feet high, nine storeys, and six feet taller than Nelson's Column, which makes it the tallest folly in Britain. Walter Barton May began it in 1838 in imitation of Fonthill Abbey. It was restored in 2013 and is now a private house. Hadlow Castle on Wikipedia.
Hops and the white cowls
Kent has grown hops since the fifteenth century. The oast houses with their white cowls dried the crop, the cowl turning with the wind to draw the kiln fire. By the late 1800s there were about 8,000 oasts in England. Most are houses now. Ours is still an oast in shape.
The nut that likes our hill
The Kentish cobnut is a hazelnut variety from about 1830 that thrives on the ragstone around Plaxtol, Ightham and Shipbourne, which is to say around us. The Kentish Cobnuts Association was founded in 1990 by John Cannon of Plaxtol, the "Cobnut King". They are in the farm shops from late August. Kentish Cobnuts Association.
A two-day siege
Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare raised the motte at Tonbridge after 1066 to guard the crossing of the Medway, moving some 50,000 tonnes of earth. In 1088 his son backed the wrong side in a rebellion and William II burned the castle and the town after a siege of two days. The gatehouse you visit today came 200 years later. Tonbridge Castle.
Writers in the county
Jane Austen stayed six times, ten months in all, at her brother Edward's house at Godmersham Park, and is said to have drawn Mansfield Park from it. Charles Dickens bought Gad's Hill Place at Higham in 1856, having coveted it as a boy, and wrote Great Expectations there. Charles Darwin lived at Down House, twenty miles from the farm, for forty years. Jane Austen's House, Gad's Hill Place.
Cricket on the Vine
The Vine at Sevenoaks hosted Kent against Sussex in 1734 and was given to the town by the Duke of Dorset in 1773. It is one of the oldest cricket grounds in the world. The Swan on the Green at West Peckham, two miles from us, still has cricket on its green all summer.
The Weald and the Pilgrims' Way
The Weald, the countryside you see from the farm, takes its name from the Old English "wald", a forest. The Greensand ridge behind us carries the Greensand Way, and a few miles north the North Downs Way follows the Pilgrims' Way to Becket's shrine at Canterbury, the road Chaucer's pilgrims took. North Downs Way.
Our own college
Hadlow College, on the other side of the village, is Kent's only land-based college. It opened in 1966 on 600 acres bought from the Bourne Grange estate. The Bourne, the stream that names our valley, runs through it to the Medway.
“Set in nine acres, all that can be seen is rolling countryside, yet we are just 32 miles from the centre of London.”
From our Dairy Cottage page
Questions we are asked
- Why is Kent called the Garden of England?
- The story credits Henry VIII, who is said to have used the phrase after eating a plate of Kentish cherries. His fruiterer Richard Harris planted the first orchards at Teynham in 1533.
- What is the tower near Hadlow?
- Hadlow Tower, also called May's Folly, a 175-foot Gothic tower begun in 1838 and the tallest folly in Britain. It is a private house.