3 January 2025
After Caldecott had vacated, Hatch was up for sale by Lord Brabourne's family. See article 'A Child of Adam' in The Times, Bricks and Mortar, 22 August 2003 [online access requires subscription to the Times]. Some errors such as placing Hatch near the SOUTH Downs, wrong spelling of Rendel.
One of the firms of estate agents, Savills, produced a brochure, including some illustrative plans.
The initial CA informal reunion in September 2004, based at the Mayfield and the Club cricket ground, gave groups of us a chance to look inside the vacated Hatch. Soon after that slightly more detailed versions of the old plans were included in the public planning register of Ashford Borough Council as regards a planning application for conversion of Hatch to a private residence etc. These are available on the Council's website.
Since 2004 there have been changes to Hatch, some of them having been referred to by James King in his article for the November 2009 CA newsletter including pics. Later the two wings (or pavilions) were permitted to be separate residences.
In the 1970's I made a plan (then on foolscap size paper) of the Hatch grounds derived from large scale OS maps (Crown copyright expiring after 50 years).
I was looking at it as I was working out which areas had not been grounds of Hatch when it was built in the 1760's, just to the north of the then route of the Ashford to Hythe / Folkestone road which in those days veered to the Ridgeway so as to go via Brabourne, rather than the later route from 1827 via part of Smeeth. Of course, there had been an earlier Hatch, about a quarter of a mile away, which had been the base of the Knatchbull family since the estate was acquired in about 1487.