1900s-1945
On the evening of 28 November 1940, Hall Place, the great house at the heart of the Leigh estate, was struck by a serious fire that tested the resolve of everyone connected with the property. The alarm was raised at 6.15pm, and within hours the blaze had drawn fire crews and onlookers from across the surrounding towns and villages. Sirens sounded in Tonbridge, Southborough, Tunbridge Wells, Edenbridge and Sevenoaks, spreading word of the emergency far beyond the parish boundary.
The outbreak began in a bedroom on the second floor of the house. There had been warning signs beforehand: the chimney serving the housekeeper's room had been giving trouble, though nobody could have foreseen the scale of what followed. Among the first to find himself in danger was a gardener who had been bathing and became trapped in the tower. The tower was no easy place from which to escape, for a spiral staircase of 167 steps wound up inside it, and with the fire taking hold below, the way down was effectively cut off. His rescue came by way of an extension ladder, put up to a window of the tower so that he could be brought out to safety.
Leigh's own fire brigade reached the scene by 8pm, but they arrived poorly equipped. They had neither adequate hose nor sufficient engine power to tackle a blaze of this size, and the water supply soon became a pressing problem. The fountain pond in the garden was pressed into service, but the pond eventually ran dry. The district fire brigade then turned to the estate's 13 acre lake, drawing water from there to keep the pumps supplied. The National Fire Service also responded in force, bringing eight engines to the grounds.
While the firemen fought the flames, a parallel operation was underway inside the house: the saving of its contents. An order was given to clear the building of furniture, and a remarkable salvage effort began. Lord Hollenden took charge of removing his library, overseeing the rescue of his books from the threatened rooms. Among those helping were a dozen London evacuees who had been staying at Hall Place, together with employees of Morley and some of their wives. The Morley firm's London staff were at Hall Place on their Rest Weeks, a scheme that gave workers respite from the bombing then afflicting the capital. Their presence that night proved a fortunate accident of timing.
Precious documents were saved as well as furniture. The insurance policies for the estate were transferred to the pocket of Alfie Houghton, who knew better than anyone what was at stake. Houghton was the Estate Manager of Hall Place, and it was he who, years later, set down the story of that night in an article for Threads, the staff magazine of I and R Morley Ltd. He did not work alone in the rescue: together with Jim Hansell, he carried a grandfather clock out of the house. In the process the clock cracked in half, though it was later repaired and restored. In the dining room, paintings were cut down from the chains on which they hung, carried out one by one as the fire pressed closer.
Not every rescue was entirely successful, but some came close. Miss Elspeth's trousseau was stored in one of the worst affected rooms, yet she managed to rescue the bulk of it before the fire did its work. As for the building itself, the house owed its survival to a quirk of the blaze: the burning roof let out the heat, which saved the main fabric of the house from being consumed from within.
The night grew more complicated still when an air raid began while the fire was burning. An RAF machine circled overhead to ward off enemy planes, adding the sound of engines to the roar of the fire below. The blaze itself was being driven by a south east wind, pushing the flames onward through the building. Out in the grounds, the rescued goods were covered with tarpaulins to protect them from the frost, but the cold of that late November night was relentless, and before long the hoses themselves became frozen. The raid finally ceased at about 2 o'clock in the morning, allowing those fighting the fire to concentrate on their task without interruption from the skies above.
Through the small hours, Lord and Lady Hollenden were given coffee and biscuits as they watched their home under assault, a small kindness amid the chaos. By 4 o'clock the fire was more or less out. The couple, having lost the use of their house, stayed with a friend while the aftermath was assessed. The damage inside told its own story: a two inch layer of water was found in the mansion kitchen, the residue of a night's desperate pumping from pond and lake alike.
The story of that night might have been lost to memory had it not been for Alfie Houghton's account, published in Threads in April 1946. The article came to light more recently through Jennie James, who passed it on to the local history archive. Jennie James is descended from Albert Humphrey, who lived at 2 Waterworks Cottages, a connection that brings the story back into the fabric of the village itself. The article is now held in the village's local history society archives, where it remains a vivid first-hand record of one of the most dramatic nights in the history of Hall Place.
It is a story worth retelling: of a house saved by the courage of its people, of a brigade that fought on with frozen hoses, and of a community, from evacuees to estate workers, that came together when the flames took hold. The fire of 28 November 1940 could have ended Hall Place; instead, thanks to those who were there that night, it became another chapter in its long history.