Holly Bowers

Holly Bowers was built by 1884, designed by George Lethbridge. It was a magnificent house with two wings, the largest in the road after Foxbury. It sat quite close to the road in 7.6 acres of grounds and had a lodge on Kemnal Road and stables adjacent to the footpath to Green Lane. The lodge and driveway into the house was at the point where the northern-most block of Eaton Court is now.
The print above is taken from The Building News in 1879, which has the following description of the new house: ‘This house is now in course of erection for Mr David J Chattell, of 29A Lincoln’-inn-fields and Chislehurst, Kent, from the designs and under the superintendence of Mr George Lethbridge, architect, of 7, Draper’s-gardens, Throgmorton avenue, EC. The walls are of red brick, the mullions, transoms, and heads of windows in moulded Doulting stone, the cornices, plinths, &c., of moulded red brick, and the panels of carved red brick. The screen in hall and windows of porch and staircase, and upper portions of windows of drawing, diningrooms, and library and principal bedrooms, are glazed with stained glass in leaded lights, the other windows being glazed with plate-glass. The roofs are covered with Broseley tiles, with red terra-cotta ridges and terminals. The hall, and the borders of the reception rooms are laid with parqueterie. The porch and entrance-hall are to be laid with tessellated pavement. Great care has been taken in the sanitary arrangements, both as regards drainage and water supply, a separate service being provided for drinking purposes. The house contains, on the ground floor, hall, drawing-room and library, communicating by sliding doors, and dining-room, lavatory, cloak-room and w.c., servants’-hall, serving pantry, china closet, and usual domestic offices. In the basement, ample cellar accommodation is provided. The upper floors are approached by two stair-cases, the principal one being constructed of pitch-pine and polished oak, and comprising seven good bed-chambers, day and night nurseries, bath-room, and two dressing rooms, box room, w.c., and linen closets. The mantel-pieces are to be of polished wood. The house has been planned with the view of adding, at a future time, billiard-room, with bedrooms over, and conservatory, thus completing the original plan. The house occupies an attractive and well-timbered site, commanding extensive views. The works are now being carried out by Mr Robert A Lowe, builder of No.1, Lower Camden, Chislehurst.’
At least until 1927 the residents were tenants, since the owner of the property, James Hugh Somers, was entitled to vote in local elections as a result of his ownership of Holly Bowers.
Mr J Schwarts is the first identified resident, in 1884. He had left by 1891, by which time the house was occupied by Henry James, a fifty year-old coal merchant from Cornwall. His wife, Helen, was five years older than him, and was born in Berkshire. On the date of the census in 1891 they had their married daughter, Edith Jesse, with them. She had been born in 1868, and her two daughters, Stella and Wynifried, were 4 and 3 years old respectively.
There were three more of James’ children living with them, all of whom were born in Croydon, Somers (born in 1872), Squire (1873) and Margaret (1876). Somers was a student of law, and was later to become a barrister, while Squire was studying medicine. Squire was still a student in 1901; one wonders when he completed his studies! There were two visitors in the house at the time of the 1891 census, Isabella Harris (18) from Bickley, and John Dinham (38) a coal factor from Cornwall. John died before the next census, and his widow, Charlotte, was staying at Holly Bowers at the time of the 1901 census. Was she Henry’s sister? Henry died in 1903, but his widow, Helen James, stayed at the house for another 26 years until her death in 1929. Somers, Edith and Stella appear to have continued living with her during this time.
Wynifried, the younger granddaughter, became a writer, using the name Fryn Tennyson Jesse. She was born at Holly Bowers, as was her sister, and spent much time there. She recounted some of her memories of living at the house to her biographer Joanna Colenbrander.

Major John Lawrence Benthall had taken up residence by 1930, with his wife Henrietta, and at least one son, Robert. Benthall was born in 1868, and was 62 when he moved here. He had been married twice, and had four children by his first wife. There is no reference to any children by Henrietta. The Benthalls stayed at Holly Bowers throughout the war, leaving in 1947.
There was extensive blast damage from the bombs during the war that hit Mulbarton, and it obviously took time for the repairs to be completed. After the Benthalls there is no record of residents until 1954, when Betty and Harold Jones moved into the house. They were to be the last residents of this dark and forbidding house, as Mrs Harding (of Woodheath Cottage) described it. Harold was a consultant at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup. He and his family were to remain there until 1964.

The Holly Bowers story had an interesting turn. In the early 1960’s, Doctor Jones applied for planning permission to demolish Holly Bowers and replace it with three blocks of four storeys, with a total of 72 flats. This application was rejected. Following the rejection of Doctor Jones’ planning application, Holly Bowers caught fire and was damaged beyond repair. After this event, there was nothing to prevent development! This was on a smaller scale. What was left of Holly Bowers was demolished to make way for one apartment block, which curiously adopted the name, not of the house it replaced, but of its stables, Mapledene. The apartments were first occupied in 1966.
There were two other buildings in the grounds of Holly Bowers and a third one was built in 1957:
Holly Bowers Lodge
The Lodge was situated where the northern-most block of Eaton Court is today, directly opposite the entrance to Mulbarton Court. The entrance to Holly Bowers grounds was a little further to the north. Edward Ramsome, aged 29, identified Holly Bowers as his residence in 1881. However this is likely to be what is later described as the Gardener’s Lodge. Edward was born in Great Yarmouth. His wife, Bithiah, aged 28, a dressmaker, was born in Horwell, Berkshire, and living with them was their niece, Edith Ramsome, aged 10. Ebenezer Piper lived at the lodge in 1891. He was then 45 and a gardener from Buxted in Sussex. His wife Amelia was 55, and from London. There were no children living with them. In 1901, Luke Marjan (53) a cowman, lived here with his 52 year-old wife Elizabeth. They were both born on the Isle of Wight. He was replaced in 1902 by a J Morgan, about whom we know nothing. He in turn had moved on by 1908, when 45 year-old Charles Nicholson from Sussex, and his wife Eliza moved into the house. He was a cowman, and she a dairy maid. They were to stay at the Lodge until 1921, when William and Mary Ann Wood moved in. The Benthall family had no residents in the Lodge.
Once the Benthalls left, Hugh and Gladys Frampton moved in to the lodge in 1950, with at least one daughter, Patricia. By this stage the Lodge had become independent from the house, and had its own large garden. The Framptons celebrated this by renaming the house ‘Green Hayes’, but when Herbert and Mary Bagshaw moved here in 1954, they restored most of the name, calling it Holly Lodge. They stayed here for 8 years, until Cecil and Alma Burton occupied the Lodge in 1962. Their son Andrew has provided us with memories of living in Kemnal Road, and his comments can be found regarding Holly Bowers, Kemnal Manor and Kemnal Wood in the relevant chapters. Andrew also knew many of the host of children who were now living in Kemnal Road, and he refers to them in his notes.
The Lodge was demolished in 1973 to make way for Eaton Court, which was first occupied in 1980.
Holly Bowers stables
The stables were built in 1899, according to a plaque on the building. For the first time, in 1901, there were residents above the stables at Holly Bowers. The stables were at the north edge of the grounds backing onto the footpath to Green Lane. Charles Firmin (57) had taken up residence, with his wife Emily (48). They were both from Essex. They had two daughters: Edith (24) a nurse, born in London, and Kate (21) born in Croydon. Kate was a dressmaker. The Firmin family were to remain at the property until 1925, when Charles was 81. After the Firmin family left there is no record of residents until after the war, when, in 1951, it is called Mapledene. The former stables had by now been bought in 1950 by Herbert and Violet Westwood and redeveloped into a sizeable house, just like Woodheath stables and Westerland stables. They had been notified of the availability of the stables by close friends, Hugh and Gladys Frampton, who lived at Holly Lodge.

Herbert and Violet Westwood lived at Mapledene until Holly Bowers was demolished. Their son John has provided information and photographs of Mapledene and Holly Bowers. Before redevelopment, the building comprised stabling on the ground floor with hay lofts above, with simple living accommodation.
After redevelopment the house had four bedrooms and sat in nearly two acres of garden. There was a greenhouse in the garden, whose northern brick wall can still be seen on the left on the footpath from South Lodge to Green Lane
When Dr Jones at Holly Bowers seemed determined to demolish Holly Bowers and develop a large area of flats, Herbert Westwood, who didn’t much like the idea of living next to a block of flats applied for planning permission to erect a small number of properties in the Mapledene grounds. The application included demolishing Mapledene.
With the planning permission granted, Mapledene was sold to a developer for £18,500 in 1964. In 1975 Acorn Close was built on the Mapledene site.
Forest Ridge
Forest Ridge was a new house, with a large garden to the rear, built around 1957 to the south of Holly Bowers Lodge. It is one of the shorter lived properties in the road, since it was demolished sixteen years later, in 1973, to make way for Eaton Court. Only one family lived at this house, Charles and Gwendoline Goldsmith. They set up a small golf course at the bottom of their large garden, according to Andrew Barton.
Domestic servants at Holly Bowers
The James’ family had five servants in 1891: Sarah Price (44), a cook from Paddington, Charlotte Shelmerdene (30) a nurse from Lancaster, Georgina Casey (28) a housemaid from Clerkenwell, Katherine Broom (20), a parlour-maid from Roehampton, and Julia Davis (16) a kitchen-maid from Farnborough, Kent. In addition, there was a school governess, Harriet Bendelock (21), appropriately from Cheltenham. They had five different servants in 1901: Mary Barrett (35) a cook from St Ives; two housemaids, Emily Casey (38) from Clerkenwell, and Florence Chamberlain (21) from Berkshire; Ellen Hirions (20) a parlour-maid from Birmingham; and Margaret Roberts (19) a kitchen-maid. There were six servants in 1911: Emily Casey (48) was still housemaid, as was Emma Love (19), Margaret McNaughton (38) and Daisy Reed (19) were parlourmaids, Alice Maddox (35) was the Cook, and Ellen Brown (19) was kitchen-maid There were four or five servants in the Benthall household between 1930 and the outbreak of war. Peculiarly, with one exception, they were all men – Rosa Gomersall being the exception, and she stayed for less than a year. Indeed there were few servants who stayed for more than one year. In the six years from 1934 to 1939 they got through eighteen servants!
More about Holly Bowers: