In the year 1835 the little village of Brasted, situated between the Kentish hills, was very thinly populated. It was nothing but a long winding way, straggling and picturesque, with willow trees and a trickling stream which ran to Riverhead.

The Manor House was occupied by the Tippings - the squire. His lands stretched for miles running upwards into dense wood which was inhabited by wild birds and hares and foxes, rendering great sport for the young nobles visiting there.

The mill lying back from the village was owned by Frances Haynes. He had sons and daughters - one of whom was so well known, she was called the ’Miller’s daughter’. Her name was Amy Ann.

For many a long day Frances Haynes had secretly planned to buy some of the squire’s acres, being very ambitious and having ideas of ownership.

There were narrow pathways through the wood which led to a place called the Chart - I have no knowledge why it was called so - the long winding path leading to it was but a narrow slit scarcely wide enough for one man to pass along.

Frances used to take his jack-knife and cut his way through the wild bramble and fir trees which grew in their thousands. Up - up he used to go, cutting his way along through the woods, which gave forth that grand aroma that peat and bracken give. Hairbells with their black thread-like stems grew in their bounty and the huttleberry, so sharp and sweet, grew about a foot high and the berries ripened along the banks between the pathways.

Frances eventually built himself a shack on one side of the wood. He pegged out more land and then, having built himself a comfortable little house, he made bold to go to the Squire and found no difficulty in presenting his plans.

The Chart had never had anything built upon it. The only pathway had been across Hosey Common - leaving French Street on the right and passing though Major Pym’s and Lord Stanhope’s grounds which were all open country; not a fence of any description divided it - only keepers and stalkers passed occasionally - each knowing their territory.

After some time Frances Haynes sold his mill. This was when his wife died and his children were all grown up. Amy Ann, his youngest daughter had gone to Ramsey to live with her grandmother.

There was another grandmother^[1] at Hever Castle, and Amy Ann had ridden backwards and forwards, meeting her cousin Polly Doubell - whose family farmed there - riding too and fro from Hever and Brasted Chart to Westerham.

Frances Haynes bought land piece by piece, first building Vine Cottage - a white square house situated amid heather and yellow gorse on Brasted Chart. The Star Inn followed, and his sister Sophie married and lived at the inn.

Frances Haynes went on building right along the Chart - white square houses with portals over the windows and people came for afar and lived in them and found peace. Frances lived later at Vine cottage and went on building. The council which had formed at a later date at Sevenoaks, made up the road and very dirty and muddy it was too.

Mr Stanhope, later Lord Stanhope, bought extensively and married a beautiful Russian lady.

1. ↑ her grandfather, Henry Arnold II's wife

 Springtime was a heavenly month to go there. Primroses were hidden in the woods; hips and hews on the hedges; buds were bursting into life and one could almost fancy the bluebells were singing, and always the murmur of the spring which ran right through Cut Mill to down below French Street. On and on it went and met again at Brown Oven below the toll at Toys Hill on the farm which looked away from Four Elms.

Toys Hill stood out above ‘The Fox and Hounds’ where the gentry fox-hunted in their red coats and packs of dogs.

The ‘Tally-ho’ below the hill was occupied by Mrs Woodham - a widow with five grown up daughters. Her husband had been the licensee. When he died - the house belonged to Watkins the brewer at Westerham - but the brewer allowed her to carry on living there.

Frances Haynes was at his zenith. He had built nine lovely houses with park-like grounds with acres of land to each - all let well with orchards bearing fruit. One could stand on the balconies of any of them and have views for miles around. The fir trees were thick and lovely to see. At the topmost height shone the White Phillipines - enclosed with enormous rhododendrons. It seemed as though you looked at a mountain of colour.

At one time Sir John Lubbock lived there, a friend of Charles Middleton, the writer.

Frances Haynes got tired of being without wife or daughters. His four sons died, so he made love to the widow of the Tally-Ho and married her. She wound him round her fingers and got him to mortgage all his property one by one, and give each of her daughters a dowry when they came of age. He made settlements on them all - Emily who married George Smith, and Alice and so on until all five were well fixed up. George Smith was Lord Stanhope’s bailiff.

The old man Frances Haynes was left a poor man when he died. Everybody loved him who knew him.

Amy Ann, his youngest daughter had gone to Ramsey to live with her grandmother but, on a visit home, she had gone to see Mrs Sutton who owned the ‘Bell’ at Bromley. Mrs Sutton had told Amy Ann that she could introduce her to a very fine, handsome man who was a writer who had lost his first wife. When she was eventually introduced to him he fell in love with her and she married him.

So Charles Middleton and Amy Ann Haynes came to Brasted Chart to see her father and Charles Middleton went into raptures over the country scenery; the trees, the wood and the wildness of it all entered his blood. They lived there but, through business, they had to leave it all. He took his wife and children to Bombay and he was editor of the ‘Times of India’ for some years.

A correspondence went on with Sir John Lubbock and he pined to come back which he did towards the end of his life.

His second daughter, Rosie, was born at ‘Rose Cottage’ on Brasted Chart. She was destined to be the wife of Harry Watkins, the second son of John Watkins, the brewer who had succeeded his father James Watkins at the Signet Cottage at Westerham.

I remember my father coming in and telling my mother that a solicitor named Major Pym had bought up half the Chart and was having a wire put all round his land - he was sad for weeks about it - saying that it was no longer the wide open country that it was in 1894.