Dorton House, formerly known as Wildernesse, is a Grade II listed Georgian mansion house in
Seal, Kent
Seal is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. The parish is located in the valley between the North Downs and the Greensand ridge, and to the north-east of the town of Sevenoaks in West Kent.
History
In early do ...
, near Sevenoaks; until 2013 it was used as the headquarters for the
Royal London Society for the Blind
The Royal London Society for Blind People (RLSB) was a UK charity that existed for 175 years to help blind and partially sighted young people in London and the South East through a blend of sports, education, and creative and developmental service ...
(RLSB) and as housing for the blind and partially sighted children who attended its school.
History
The house dates to the mid-eighteenth century and is Grade II
listed
Listed may refer to:
* Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm
* Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic
* Endangered species in biology
* Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...
.
There is a late nineteenth-century extension, and at the same time the interior was remodelled "in a very rich style, leaving little original work behind".
There is a further extension built when the house was a school, which is not part of the listing.
An earlier house on the site was built by Sir Charles Bickerstaffe in 1669. In 1884, the house was bought by Charles Henry Mills of Hillingdon who later became
1st Baron Hillingdon. Baron Hillingdon built his own gasworks as well as a laundry and an orphanage from where he employed many of his staff. He was a philanthropist and eventually gave the allotments, recreation ground and village hall to Seal.
In 1923, Wildernesse was sold to a syndicate, becoming a Country Club and Golf Course which had, as an early brochure states, “probably the most palatial nineteenth hole in England”. After use as a sector hospital during the Second World War, Wildernesse continued as a Country Club until 1954. It was used as a children's convalescent home called Oak Bank until it was sold to the RLSB and became known as Dorton House, named after the Society's previous home in a Grade 1 listed Jacobean Mansion in
Dorton
Dorton (or Dourton) is a village and civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire. It is in the western part of the county, about north of the Oxfordshire market town of Thame.
Manor
The village toponym is derived from the Ol ...
,
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
.
On the Dorton campus the RLSB ran its Nursery and Dorton College as well as a support service for the families of visually impaired children. The age range of the school was 5 to 16 and the last headteacher was Dorothea Hackman.
The RLSB closed Dorton House School in 2013.
Dorton House served as a shooting location for the 2012 TV adaptation of
Ford Madox Ford
Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review'' were instrumental in ...
's ''
Parade's End
''Parade's End'' is a tetralogy of novels by the British novelist and poet Ford Madox Ford, written from 1924 to 1928. The novels chronicle the life of a member of the English gentry before, during and after World War I. The setting is mainly ...
''.
References
External links
Royal London Society for the BlindDorton House School on EduBaseHistory - Wildernesse Residents' Association
{{authority control
Country houses in Kent