Boughton Place, formerly Bocton Place or Bocton Hall, is a country house in

Boughton Malherbe Boughton Malherbe ( ) is a village and civil parish in the Maidstone district of Kent, England, equidistant between Maidstone and Ashford. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 428, including Sandway and Grafty Green, inc ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. It is the historic home of the Wotton family and birthplace of Sir

Henry Wotton Sir Henry Wotton (; 30 March 1568 – December 1639) was an English author, diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1614 and 1625. When on a mission to Augsburg, in 1604, he famously said, "An ambassador is an honest gentlema ...

(1568–1639), ambassador to Venice under

James I James I may refer to: People *James I of Aragon (1208–1276) *James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327) *James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu *James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347) *James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...

History

A fortified

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

was built on the site in the 1340s by Robert Corbie. Through the marriage of his grand daughter Joan to Nicholas Wotton, Lord Mayor of London in 1415 and 1430, the house became the property of the Wotton family. The Wottons retained ownership of the house until it passed into the Stanhope family in 1683 when it was willed by Charles Kirkhoven, 1st Baron Wotton to Charles Stanhope, younger son of his half brother

Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield PC FRS (1634 – 28 January 1714) was a peer in the peerage of England.G. E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors. The Comp ...

. Charles Stanhope changed his name to Wotton and on his death in 1704, the house passed to his elder brother

Philip Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Chesterfield Philip Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Chesterfield (3 February 1673 – 27 January 1726) was an English nobleman, the eldest son of Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield, by his third wife, the former Lady Elizabeth Dormer. In 1692, Stanhope married ...

. The fourth earl sold the house in 1750 to Galfridus Mann, twin brother of

Sir Horace Mann Sir Horatio (Horace) Mann, 2nd Baronet (2 February 1744 – 2 April 1814) was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1774 and 1807. He is remembered as a member of the Hambledon Club in Hampshire and a patron of Kent county ...

of nearby Linton Hall in

Linton Linton may refer to: Places Australia * Linton, Victoria Canada * Linton, Ontario * Linton, Quebec United Kingdom England * Linton, Cambridgeshire * Linton, Derbyshire * Linton (near Bromyard), Herefordshire * Linton (near Ross-on-Wye), Her ...

. On Galfridus Mann's death, it passed to his son

Sir Horatio Mann Sir Horatio (Horace) Mann, 2nd Baronet (2 February 1744 – 2 April 1814) was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1774 and 1807. He is remembered as a member of the Hambledon Club in Hampshire and a patron of Kent cricket ...

MP, who also inherited his uncle's

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

cy and Linton Hall in 1786. In 1771, Sir Horatio's sister Catherine married James Cornwallis. Cornwallis later became

Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry The Bishop of Lichfield is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Lichfield in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers 4,516 km2 (1,744 sq. mi.) of the counties of Powys, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and West M ...

and was briefly the 4th Earl Cornwallis. His son,

James Mann, 5th Earl Cornwallis James Mann, 5th Earl Cornwallis (20 September 1778 – 21 May 1852), known as James Cornwallis until 1814 and as James Mann between 1814 and 1823 and styled Viscount Brome between 1823 and 1824, was a British peer and Tory politician. Background ...

, inherited Boughton Place and it remained in the Cornwallis family until it was sold by

Fiennes Cornwallis, 1st Baron Cornwallis Colonel Fiennes Stanley Wykeham Cornwallis, 1st Baron Cornwallis, (27 May 1864 – 26 September 1935) was a British Conservative politician. Early life Lord Cornwallis was born 27 May 1864 at Chacombe Priory, Banbury, Oxfordshire, the eldest s ...

to John Kitchin in 1922.

Building

The house is the remaining part of a larger courtyard house, much of which has been demolished. The first part was constructed in the 1520s and was added to and enlarged in the 1550s and 1580s and alterations were made in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a two-storey building aligned roughly north-south with an

attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

floor in the roof. It is built mostly of local

rag-stone Rag-stone is a name given by some architectural writers to work done with stones that are quarried in thin pieces, such as Horsham Stone, sandstone, Yorkshire stone, and the slate stones, but this is more properly flag or slab work. Near London ...

with a tiled roof and stone framed windows in a variety of sizes, but also has later sections constructed of red brick. The interior features some 16th-century moulded plaster ceilings, but historic timber

panelling Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to make roo ...

dating from the 1520s was removed from the house in 1923 and taken to the United States. The house is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

and an adjacent cottage and

oast house An oast, oast house or hop kiln is a building designed for kilning (drying) hops as part of the brewing process. They can be found in most hop-growing (and former hop-growing) areas and are often good examples of vernacular architecture. Many re ...

are listed Grade II.

Notes and references

Notes

References

{{reflist Borough of Maidstone Grade I listed buildings in Kent Country houses in Kent

History

Building

See also

Notes and references

Notes

References