History Tours at Kentchurch Court

Available year round, by advance booking only, for groups of 5+ people. Tours last around 1.5 hours and tickets are £15 per person.

To book, please email joss@kentchurch-estate.com

Alongside my work in events, I’ve been responsible for leading guided tours of my childhood family home Kentchurch Court, sharing stories of its rich history, remarkable art and beautiful surrounding landscape.

I have been responsible for pulling together the Kentchurch archive, a labour of love that began two decades ago.

The archive came about after a filming project at Kentchurch. At that time, the entire contents of the house were removed, including countless boxes, trunks, and suitcases of old letters, most of which had been badly damaged or stuck together with mud. They were haunting reminders of the great flood that struck the house in May 1959.

A small stream behind the house burst after a build-up of debris + a storm, sending water crashing through three-foot-thick stone walls. The force was so strong it ripped the AGA off its hinges, hurling it across the kitchen. A large section of the house had to be demolished and it took two years to dry the house out.

My grandparents couldn’t have managed the aftermath without the community, who came with tractors to pull out carpets, waded through knee-deep mud, and helped salvage what they could. But due to sheer exhaustion, thousands of papers and letters were left forgotten in trunks, both inside and out.

When I moved back from London, I slowly began the enormous task of unpacking each letter, book, and object, one by one.

Over the years, I uncovered and ordered thousands of letters, revealing a period of family and local history we knew almost nothing about. I learned to recognise every handwriting style and nickname, creating life maps for each individual. I matched faces to letters and spent hours carefully placing documents into chronological order.

My grandmother, Lady Patricia was elderly when I knew her, but still striking, sharp, and with an extraordinary memory for history. Her notes and letters have proved invaluable in helping us understand the bones of our past.