Rose Hill, Bobbing - An early Cottage Ornée near Sittingbourne - TQ885644

A contribution from documentary sources to a wider archaeological and topographical research study. By Roger Cockett.

Summary

The house was originally known as Gore Hill and was built as a "shooting seat" by the wealthy Gore family of Ireland about 1770. Arthur and Booth Gore were tenants there of the Tyndales of Bobbing Court, who sold Bobbing Manor to Valentine Simpson of Sittingbourne in 1796. The Gore tenancy continued until 1800, when Mrs Frances Montrésor took over. Her husband John who died in 1799, had been a military engineer for the British army in America during the War of Independence. She was a tenant at Gore Hill from 1801 until her death in 1826. In her time the house became known as Rose Hill. It may have been she who had the house clad in yellow mathematical tiles, as had been done at their former house, Belmont in Throwley.

About this date it was described as "a neat dwelling house consisting of two parlours, a hall and kitchen on the ground floor, 6 bed chambers on the first floor and two in the atticks - good cellars, a pleasance and kitchen garden, a fishpond, good stabling and every other office and convenience." A mezzotint print of the house was published by Greenwood in 1838.

Later tenants were William Fairman from 1827 and William Munn from c1835. Valentine Simpson's son George was vicar of Bobbing from 1818 and inherited Rose Hill and the manor in 1832. He was residing there by 1847 and died in 1854. His son George Stringer Simpson was vicar of Bobbing from 1840 until 1872 and he died at Rose Hill in 1888. Freehold of the house seems then to have passed through the hands of several members of the Simpson family, in 1898 being acquired by Sybilla Lucy Hilton, a sister of George S Simpson.

There followed two further tenancies, by Walter Stagg, (wool-stapler and fell-monger) and his wife Rose from c1891 and Guy de Mattos (coal contractor and colliery agent) and his wife Melita from c1911. A naval surgeon, Admiral Herbert Doyne bought Rose Hill in 1926, probably from the Simpson family or their executors. A Mr and Mrs Stocker of Key Street purchased from Doyne's executors in 1938. Mr Stocker died soon after, but his wife lived at Rose Hill until c1969. The house was then sold for development but this did not take place and it was occupied by a caretaker until c1975. It was demolished in 1976.

Bobbing Court

Rose Hill was built on the land of Bobbing manor. Its story begins with the demolition of old Bobbing Court, which lay on the eastern side of the road to Sheppey, just south of St Bartholomew's parish church 1. Dr John Harris mentions 2 that by 1719 the owner of old Bobbing Court, "Tyndale, parted with the house to a carpenter and he hath since pulled it down." Edward Hasted later explains that this owner was a William Tyndale Esq and that he had died in 1748. By Hasted's time, the Bobbing manor lands were owned by Colonel William Tyndale, a collateral descendant 3. The present Bobbing Court is a house which I would date to around 1770-90, and is on the western side of the road a little further south.

Rose Hill, Bobbing 1780s Hasted map

The Shooting Seat

Hasted tells us of the building which was first known as Gore Hill and then Rose Hill, though he does not in fact name it. His account was evidently written before the rebuilding of Bobbing Court, and can be narrowed down to 1783-1790 4. "At a small distance from these ruins southward" he writes (meaning south of old Bobbing Court), "on the brow of the hill, at the end of the toll 5 of elms leading from the high road, Arthur Gore Esq. of the kingdom of Ireland, built on colonel Tyndale's land a few years ago, a small shooting seat, which has since been further improved by his cousin Sir Booth Gore, bart. of Sligo in Ireland... and they both pretty constantly reside in it; the house commands the view of the London Road and a fine one southward beyond it". Booth Gore succeeded to his baronetcy in 17736, which would be a reasonable date for his improvements to the shooting seat and would give enough time for the elm trees to have grown up when Hasted wrote. Hasted gives a succession date of 1760, but that was for Gore's father6. Probably Arthur Gore built the shooting seat about 1770; the Land Tax7 shows that he was still there in 1800. The tax assessments survive from 1780, but Arthur does not appear until 1798. It may be that he added additional land such as a garden to the building at that date and the property then became liable to tax.

Booth Gore's London address was Fitzroy Square and one might wonder why he and his cousin came out as far as Bobbing to shoot, for the land around the shooting seat had long been cleared and farmed. The attraction must have been the shores of the nearby Medway estuary. Like General Richard Hannay a century and a half later, Arthur and Booth would have gone down to the mud-flats in the dark to shoot wild duck and goose8. Dawn and dusk, when the birds were aloft, were the times for shooting. The sportsmen would have retired to the house during the day to eat and sleep and avoid the mosquitoes.

These activities must have ended before 1801 when a new tenant took over the shooting seat, which was then and perhaps always had been known as Gore Hill9. Booth wrote his will that year, leaving £500 per annum to his friend and cousin Arthur. Compare this with his bequest of only £300 p.a. to his sister Arabella Gore and £40 p.a. to his "old and faithful servant" John Leon10. By 1802, Booth was living at his manor of Huntercombe in Buckinghamshire and he died in 1804. An Arthur Gore died 7 years later in St George, Madras, India11. Whether this was one of our sportsmen we do not know, but we hear no more of the Gores in Bobbing. The building and the avenue of trees are shown on the 1797 Ordnance Survey drawing of Sittingbourne and on Hasted's own map of 1798.

A new owner of Bobbing and a new tenant at Gore Hill

Meanwhile, in September 1796 Colonel William Tyndale sold the whole manor of Bobbing including the recently rebuilt Bobbing Court and its lands to Valentine Simpson, described in the conveyance as an innkeeper of Sittingbourne12. One might suspect a false sale to manipulate voting rights here, but Simpson and his family did not re-convey it and they retained Bobbing for many years. Simpson and his family did not live at Bobbing Court as it already had a tenant, William Boykett. A letter of March 1803 to Valentine Simpson regarding the rent for Bobbing13 was addressed to him at Glover House, near Sittingbourne. William Boykett, or perhaps his son of the same name, remained at Bobbing Court until at least 181514.
   At this point we must introduce a small, undated piece of paper in a 19th century hand, amongst a collection of deeds at the KHLC15:

"Advertizement of Bobbing House.
   Bobbing near Sittingbourne - To be let and entered upon at Michaelmas next, a neat Dwelling house consisting of two parlours, a hall and kitchen on the Ground Floor, 6 Bed Chambers on the First Floor and two in the Atticks - good cellars, a pleasance and Kitchen Garden, a Fishpond, good stabling and every other office and convenience for a small genteel Family, and with or without 5 acres of Pasture Land. The above Premises are situated on an Eminence and commands a most beautiful view of the adjoining county in the most desirable part of the pleasant village of Bobbing, distant about a ¼ mile from the London Road to Dover and near the Road to the Isle of Sheppey. Enquire of Mr Simpson, Rose at Sittingbourne."

The description does not fit Bobbing Court and it cannot be any other house in the parish than Gore Hill, which Valentine Simpson intended to let to a tenant. Eight bedrooms in a modest sized house does sound about right for a shooting seat, where the occupants would spend most of their waking time outside. Whether or not the "advertizement" was ever published, by 1801 a tenant had been found for the house at Gore Hill in the person of the recently widowed Mrs Frances Montrésor.

Frances Montrésor's late husband John had been a British military engineer in America when the War of Independence broke out and he had an adventurous career there until his retirement in 177816. They had acquired Belmont Place at Throwley, near Faversham in 1780 and employed the architect Samuel Wyatt to make major improvements there circa 1792. Montrésor had years of dispute with the Audit Office over his expenses during his active service and he was eventually committed to Maidstone prison, where he died in 1799. The Montrésor family seem to have lived at Belmont until John's bankruptcy. The estate was then acquired by the Exchequer and late in 1801 was sold to General George Harris17.

By September of 1801, Montrésor's widow Frances was living 8 miles away at Gore Hill, probably with her two sons and two daughters z. Recent excavations have shown that the walls of Gore Hill were clad with pale yellow mathematical tiles giving the appearance of yellow brick, much like those at Belmont Place. It is hoped that excavation will show whether this was how the Gore cousins had built it, or whether Frances had added the tile cladding when she moved there. The latter seems more likely.

Another uncertainty is the actual ownership. So far we have assumed that Arthur Gore and Frances Montrésor were successive tenants at Gore Hill. However the Land Tax listed Arthur as proprietor and occupier in 1798 and 1800 and Frances similarly in 1801 and later. From 1810, Frances' son Henry was listed as proprietor, but Frances continued as occupier until her death in 1826. One William C Fairman took over from 1827 to 1832 and Mary Fairman who became the second wife of Frances's son Henry in 1828 may have been his daughter. It is not impossible that the Land Tax was correct and ownership of the property did pass from William Tyndale to Valentine Simpson, to Frances Montrésor, to Henry Montrésor and then to William Fairman, but it had certainly passed back to the Simpsons by 183918. Given the lack of evidence of any sales except the first, to Simpson, it seems more likely that proprietors in the Land Tax returns were not always actual owners.

Frances Montrésor was to live at Gore Hill for 25 years and it is clear from her will zz that it was "the house I live in" and she did not own it. She was using the alternative name of Rose Hill19 for the house in a codicil of 1822 and after her time that was the only name used. She died in 1826 and was buried, not at Bobbing but at Norton, near Faversham.

The appearance of Rose Hill formerly Gore Hill

Greenwood's "Epitome" of 1838 contains a mezzotint which is the one and only detailed illustration of Rose Hill20. The watercolour of 1838 mentioned in the Kent H.E.R. must surely be a tinted version of this. The print shows a substantial but eccentric two storey house apparently built of brick, with a thatched roof whose roof battens project like dentillation into the gable-end; an oval attic window in the gable and elegant sash windows on the lower floors; a pair of shallow bow window bays with thatched "eyebrows" above them; and an entrance porch with rectangular glazed panels which is probably 19th century. The print looks as if the house was timber-framed, like Eastgate House in Rochester and local accounts of its demolition suggest that this was the case.

Illustration from Greenwood's Epitome of 1838

In front of the house the 1838 print shows a driveway and a wide lawn and we know from the Tithe map that a yard and outbuildings lay behind with a formal garden (or perhaps a vegetable garden) adjoining. Apart from addition of a cottage or two at the end of the yard, the house looks little altered in later maps and in air photos of 1940 and 1960. A 20th century postcard shows the original gable end and entrance porch through a distant gap in the trees. Possibly the thatched roof has been replaced.

A few acres of land belonged to the house, but Rose Hill was never a farm. The Tithe Survey later18 described it as a house, lawn, stable yard, garden and shrubbery, totalling some 6¼ acres. Rose Hill had a remarkable resemblance, on a smaller scale, to the mansion at Belmont as rebuilt by Samuel Wyatt for John Montrésor. Both had the yellow mathematical tile walls, the shallow bay windows and the hilltop situation. Just possibly this was how the seat had looked in 1770 when built by Arthur Gore. It does seem unlikely that Samuel Wyatt would have been brought back to reconstruct a shooting seat with the family in a degree of financial distress, but Frances might have employed a local builder to make the shooting seat resemble her old home.

The Simpson family

Valentine senior was living at Bobbing Court at the time of his death in 183221 and his widow Sarah was still there in 183322. The Simpsons' elder son, another Valentine, had died in 1816 but George their younger son, took holy orders and eventually became vicar of Bobbing from 1818 to 184023. George Simpson duly inherited the Rose Hill shooting seat with Bobbing Court and its estate. However the family did not occupy Bobbing Court again.

In the Tithe Survey of 1839, the Revd. George Simpson was the owner of Rose Hill but William Augustus Munn from Chatham, was the occupier (and he had in fact been there in 1835)24. Rose Hill was named in the 1841 census and William Munn was a man of "independent means" aged 30 with his wife Elizabeth, son and two daughters and two male and three female servants. However the Revd. George Simpson, now aged 56 resided a little way off at Glovers, a somewhat larger house on the southern edge of Sittingbourne town. He had resigned the living of Bobbing in favour of his son the 26 year old Revd. George Stringer Simpson who shared Glovers with him and with his mother Sarah Simpson now aged 90 and his aunt Mary Hopper aged 80, both ladies being of independent means. There are two female servants.

The Simpsons move to Rose Hill

Bagshaw's Directory of 1847 clarifies matters. Rose Hill was now the seat and property of the Revd. George Simpson. He was one of two principal landowners in Bobbing and was lord of the manor. The living of Bobbing was a vicarage in the patronage of the Revd. George Simpson and his son the Revd. George Stringer Simpson was vicar. Bagshaw describes Rose Hill as a neat Gothic residence on an eminence a short distance from the London Road. The Munn family must have departed. Mrs Sarah Simpson, the elder George's mother, resided down the hill at Key Street.

The census of 1851 confirmed that the Simpsons remained at Rose Hill and that the father was a landed proprietor while the son was the vicar of Bobbing. They had the same two female house servants who were at Glovers. Old Mrs Sarah Simpson now 98 and Mary Hopper now 88 who proved to be her sister, were in a house in Key Street, with two female house servants. The elder George Simpson died in April 1854. Both the elderly ladies at Key Street seem to have died by the time of Melville's Directory of Kent of 1858.

In the 1861 census George S Simpson was still the vicar of Bobbing and unmarried and his address has become Rose Hill House. He has a female house keeper and house servant and some visitors. There is also a Rose Hill Cottage, which was the home of Richard Callaway the gardener and his wife Elizabeth. In the 1871 census George was termed vicar and land owner. Both dwellings were called Rose Hill and George was assisted by a cook and a housemaid. He resigned the living of Bobbing the following year 25.

The Return of Owners of Land of 1873 is a brief tabulation26, but showed the Revd. George S Simpson and one Percy Simpson owning just over 713 acres of land in Bobbing, with an estimated rental of £1,958. George and Percy were listed in Kelly's Directory of 1882 as two of the principal landowners in Bobbing parish and in fact a Percy Simpson was on the Sittingbourne electoral register from 1838-9 to 1851-2. Percy is not shown in Kent in the 1881 census and at Rose Hill there were just the Revd George, a cook, a parlour maid and a housemaid. The Revd. George S Simpson's death was registered at nearby Milton in 1888 and the house passed to a relative, the Revd William H Simpson.

In December 1898 an official Exchange of Lands was registered under the Inclosure Acts 1845-8227. The farm lands which were exchanged are not of interest here, but the effect was that "Rose Hill" House, Cottage, Premises, Gardens and Avenue occupying some 4¼ acres were transferred from the ownership of the Revd William Hilton Simpson, of Frant, Sussex to that of Sybilla Lucy Hilton of East Farleigh, Kent, a widow. Sybilla proved to be a younger sister28 of George Stringer Simpson mentioned above. Her husband Henry Hilton was rector of Milstead just south of Sittingbourne in the 1881 census and the 1891 census showed the Revd William Hilton Simpson as his successor at Milstead. Possibly he was a nephew of George and Sybilla.

Tenants at Rose Hill

The 1891 census found new occupants at Rose Hill, Walter Stagg aged 42, a wool-stapler [grader of wools] and fell-monger [dealer in animal hides] and his wife Rose 10 years younger. The Staggs had a full household with two young sons and a daughter, a nurse, a cook, a housemaid and Walter's niece Kate Fidler aged 22. Given that the Revd William Simpson still owned Rose Hill in 1898, the Staggs must have been tenants. By the date of the 1901 census, Walter and Rose Stagg, their elder son Wilfred, now 20 and the cook and the housemaid remained but their younger son Cecil and the daughter are absent. A Sittingbourne directory of 190829 showed Walter Stagg and his wife still at Rose Hill, but by the 1911 census they had moved to Rose Hill, Sandhurst Road, Tunbridge Wells, taking their cook with them.
   In the 1911 census, Guy de Mattos and his naturalized Maltese wife Melita were at Rose Hill. Guy was a coal contractor and colliery agent aged 36. His wife was 29. They had two young daughters and a chauffeur, a nurse (who was away on census night) an under-nurse, a cook and a housemaid. They also had a visitor, Annie Nye. Percy Pearson, the gardener and his wife Emma, Percy's sister Emily, two daughters and a son occupied what perhaps were Richard Callaway's old quarters at Rose Hill. It is not known when the Simpson family did sell Rose Hill, but as Admiral Doyne (see below) eventually sold some adjoining lands, perhaps it was he who had purchased the freehold.

Twentieth century owners

For the remaining history of Rose Hill, I am indebted to the Kent historian John Clancy30. In 1926 the Sittingbourne Directory showed Admiral Herbert Doyne, a retired naval surgeon, in residence. He had served in the Royal Navy for 35 years, reaching the rank of Surgeon Rear Admiral on September 13th 1919 and retiring the following day. Admiral Doyne's gardener and chauffeur, Bill Culmer, lived in the gardener's cottage with his wife Ivy. It was Herbert Doyne who sold parts of the grounds to the Watling Trust in 1929 for use as a cricket and hockey ground. He died in 1936 aged 75.

The next owners of Rose Hill were Mr and Mrs Stocker from Key Street who purchased the house from the executors of Admiral Doyne about 1938. However Mr Stocker apparently died soon after moving to Rose Hill, leaving his widow to live on alone in the house for the another 29 years. At some period a Miss Brown lived nearby in the gardener's cottage. Mrs Stocker suffered a bad fall in 1969 when she was about 96 and she moved into Milton Regis Hospital for the Elderly. After her death her niece inherited Rose Hill but sold it to a property developer who proposed building a number of residential dwellings on the site. This plan clearly did not proceed. In the last years of the house, there was said to be a lady caretaker living at Rose Hill. She died about 1975. Once it had become empty, the house was damaged by vandals and by fire. A child is said to have been injured when he found a shotgun cartridge in the house and in 1976 local residents requested Swale Council to demolish it. The Council responded that the house was owned by a Tenterden man and applications had been made to develop the site. However it was finally decided to demolish it.

In retrospect

Rose Hill was an idiosyncratic house built by wealthy men for their enjoyment. Arthur Gore built his hunting seat c1770 and Booth Gore made his improvements soon after. Frances Montrésor spent 25 sad years in the house, even if she partially rebuilt it. William Fairman, William Munn and the elder George Simpson succeeded her but none stayed very long there. But then the younger George Simpson spent 34 years at Rose Hill and the Stagg family occupied it for some 20 years. The de Mattos family were there for a shorter time. Mrs Stocker was there for 30 years after her husband died, but from her time onwards, Rose Hill entered into its long final decline.

To the Gore cousins Gore Hill alias Rose Hill was a country cottage, but it impressed recent generations as a mansion house. Given its odd design, the old shooting seat might best be considered as a genteel cottage ornée. However we think of it, Rose Hill was a unique house and it is sad that someone thought fit to destroy it as recently as 1976.

Roger A C Cockett, 16 September 2015

NB. I should like to thank Richard Emmett of the Historical Research Group of Sittingbourne for his encouragement of my researches into Rose Hill, and in particular for locating the website of Lord Belmont in Northern Ireland and the land tax records at Maidstone Archives (KHLC) and also for a number of other research leads. I hope that this revised note will complement his excavation work on the site of the house.

RACC

References

1   Arch. Cantiana Vol XVII p290
 2   The History of Kent, John Harris DD, 1719 p45
 3   The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, Edward Hasted, 1798. The Rose Hill site is not mentioned in Hasted's 1st Edition published in 1782, where the parish of Bobbing is covered at pp635-40 in Vol II. Rose Hill is only mentioned in the 2nd Edition published in 1798, where it appears at pp193 & 198 of Vol VI. The house and elm avenue are only shown on the map for the 2nd Edition.
4   This substantial revision for the 2nd Edition must have been written after the year of Colonel William Tyndale's inheritance (1783, mentioned at p198) but before April 1790 when Hasted went to France for 3 years. He was then in hiding in London until his imprisoment in the King's Bench from 1795 to 1802 [these dates from A Scholar and a Gentlemen, Shirley Burgoyne Black, 2001].
 5 Dictionary of Archaic Words, J O Halliwell, 1850 p879 gives Sussex dialect "tole" = a mass of large trees (though here meaning an avenue)
6  Website: http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/lissadell.html
7  KHLC Bobbing duplicate land tax assessment ref Q/RPl/35
8  The Island of Sheep Chap II, J Buchan, 1936
9   KHLC marriage licences 1801-2
10   The National Archives PCC Wills ref prob 11/1446/238
11   Family-search website
12   KHLC deeds: lease 27 Sep 1796 ref U1285/T9; conveyance 28 Sep 1796 ref  U1877/T1
13   KHLC letter 31 Mar 1803 ref U1877/T1
14   KHLC deed: lease 25 July 1815 & reconveyance 28 July 1815 ref U1877/T1
15   KHLC small paper "Advertizement" U1877/T1
16   Online DNB "Montresor, John (1736-1799)" R Arthur Bowler
17   KHLC Conveyance U624 T4/1  
18   Kent Archaeological Society website: Bobbing Tithe Award schedule May 1839
19   The National Archives PCC wills ref prob 11/1714/425
20   An Epitome of County History, Vol 1, Kent, C Greenwood 1838 Plate opp p283
21   The National Archives PCC Wills ref prob 11/1807/52
22   Arch. Cantiana Vol XVII p291 Church Plate in Kent W A Scott Robertson
23   Arch. Cantiana Vol XXVI p188 Church Plate in Kent C E Woodruff
24   The History & Occupancy of Rose Hill, John Clancy,2013, p4
25   W A Scott Robertson op cit
26   Return of Owners of Land 1873
27   KHLC deed ref U1877/T1 2nd bundle: Order of Exchange sealed 30 December 1898
28   Familysearch website: Marriage of Henry Hilton son of Henry Hilton and Sibylla Lucy Simpson
         daughter of George Simpson at Bobbing, Kent 8th Oct 1840
29   Clancy op cit p5, Sittingbourne Directory for 1908
30   Clancy op cit 2013