Whilst looking for that “out of London, quaint village” place, I came across Ightham and Ightham Mote. It’s a very do-able distance, and we have Derek Tarr to get us there and back to the Montague on the Gardens in Bloomsbury!
We’ll be ready-to-roll in Derek’s mini-coach at 9 AM. We’ll motor out of London and visit Ightham Mote first, then lunch at The George & Dragon Pub on our way through Ightham Village. Ightham Mote was first lived in by Sir Thomas Cawne from 1340 until his death in 1374 and the Great Hall dates from this period. Thereafter, it passed through various owners until it was bought in 1591 by Sir William Selby whose family lived there, for the next three hundred years. In 1953 the Mote was bought by an American, Henry Robinson, from Portland, Maine, who had first been attracted to it while on a cycle tour as a young man. He died in 1985, having bequeathed the Mote to the National Trust.
After lunch we will head over to Hever Castle, once owned by the Humphrey family…possible ancestors of ours! Hever Castle is the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, beheaded at the Tower by order of her husband, King Henry VIII.
