From Elizabeth Lloyd, The Story of a Community, Chapter 1:
The search for a place in the country was the first of Leila Rendel's many treks and cross-country journeys to find new accommodation for the ever expanding Caldecott school. It is not exactly clear why East Kent was chosen but in 1917, Charlton Court, a few miles from Sutton Valence, was leased and the Caldecott Nursery School moved there to become a "Boarding School for Working Men's children".
It is not clear when the decision was finally reached to change the word 'school' to 'community' but the idea must have been mooted and much talked over for some time: it is possible that after the first few months in Kent it was decided that in future it was to be a community rather than a School: it was to be run on a communal basis with as much in common as possible, all sharing in the work and so forth: so, finally, there came into being, and to stay - the Caldecott Community.
From Chapter 2:
Charlton Court was Elizabethan; a beautiful house with great distinctive Tudor chimneys. It had fine grounds, a farm, stable-block, kitchen garden and a paddock. It stood on high ground above the Kentish Weald surrounded by cultivated country with hop gardens, fields and oak copses that were messed each year with spring flowers: here was space and air and light undreamed of by those young Londoners.
At the start there were forty children, the oldest about twelve, and the youngest eighteen months. They must, adults and children alike, have lived a fairly spartan life with no light except oil lamps and candles and the only heating from fires. The nearest station was five miles away at Headcorn and the only transport, except possibly bicycles, was horse and cart or pony and trap. It must have been a tremendous experience, to say the least, for those children, most of whom had never been away from home and a great city.