Sir Harry Vane's Fountain

From the Plough Inn. at Ivy Hatch in the parish of Ightham a way known as the Coach Road runs a little west of north to Seven Wents, where it joins the Maidstone-Sevenoaks main road under the south end of Oldbury Hill. On the west side of this way, 350 yards from the inn, stands a small house called the Pump House, a name that is much older than the existing dwelling. Half a furlong north of the Pump House, on the same side of the way, the grass verge widens into a triangular recess, some twenty-five yards long and one-third as deep, backed by a bank. The writer and other local residents remember a bricked archway in the bank giving access to a wayside spring, which had been hollowed out to form a dipping well. This spring occurs at the outcrop of the Sandgate Beds. Before main water was available the occupiers of neighbouring dwellings drew their water from the well, but the site has been used for many years as a dump for road material, and the archway is now obscured by soil and vegetation.

Evidence has recently come to light that the spring served a wider purpose than that of a water supply for the immediate locality.

Among the estate maps of John Bowra is one made in 1765 of “Merryman’s Farm . . . belonging to John Children, Esqr. ;’. .” which “ shows the site of the Pump House and traces the course of a conduit which runs from it across the farm.”[fn1] The pipe is marked as running from the spring (D on the map) in a south-easterly direction across four fields—The Moors, Doll Field, Windmill Field and Old Mead—and thence beyond the limits of the farm. A branch pipe ran from the spring in a curving southerly course to a pump house (A). Between D and A, a little west of the line of the branch pipe, were two wells, C and B.

Points marked on the line of the main pipe are as follows :

F and G (Posts). “ Where pipes come.”

K. “ here the pipe goes a Cross ’’—that is, across land outside the bounds of Merryman’s Farm.

Between F and G is a point marked “ for the use of Ivy Hatch street.”

[fn]1|Arch. Cant., LUI, 139.[/fn][pg10]

So much for John Bowra’s map. The information it gives if supplemented by a lease of the farm granted in 1778 by George Childrei to “ Thomas Streaton of Ivy Hatch in Ightham, Blacksmith.” Th< lessor excepted and reserved from the letting a “piece of grounc containing in breadth [blank] feet of assize . . .” through the fou: named fields “in which ... is a pipe or pipes laid for the conveyanct of certain springs or wells of water on Ightham Common to the sea of the Rt. Hon. William, Lord Viscount Vane, called Fair Lawn.”

This passage establishes the use of the pipe. The distance from tin source of supply to the mansion house at Fair Lawn is 1-^ miles in ; direct line and half as long again by the nearest practicable route, whicl had to avoid the crest of the Ivy Hatch ridge above the level of th spring. Inspection of the ground suggests that the course of the pip' was kept as high as possible in order to shorten the route.

A chance find enables a date for the making of these waterwork to be named with some confidence. After the death, in 1901, o Colonel D. W. G. James, Lord of the Manor of Ightham, numerou ancient books and loose papers were removed from the Court Lodg by a local dealer—at one shilling a barrow-load, it is said I Among then was a fragment of a draft or copy of a deed dated 1646 containing th following passage :

“ All that triangular piece ... of Waste land called Ivy Hate Plane being parcel of the Common of Ightham, containing . . . eigh acres, wherein the Fountain, wells and springs of waters are late foun and made by the said Sr Henry Vane. . . .”

This triangular piece of land includes the sites of the Pump Hous and spring.

Sir Harry Vane bought several hundred acres of Ightham Commo: in 1633[fn1] and between that, year and 1646 he had “ found and made his “ Fountain.” Whether these expressions cover the laying of th pipe to Pair Lawn is uncertain, but the inference that all the work were done soon after Vane added Ightham Common to his estate, an while the pride of ownership was still strong,' is reasonable.

The relation of a pump house to the works is obscure. Its site wa behind the modern dwelling-house, a few feet above the level of th spring and off the line of the main conduit. The marking of “ th Cistern ” on John Bowra’s map may give the key. The spring woul fail or its flow be greatly reduced in dry weather, and a storage cister filled by pumping from a well at the pump house might be needed t ensure an adequate supply of water to Pair Lawn in all seasons.

In conclusion it may be noted that the field called The Mooi adjoins Rose Wood,[fn2] Doll Pield is also known as Dowies,[fn3] and o [pg11]Windmill Field, now a sand pit, the foundations of a vanished windmill, “ a large levelled circular place a few feet below the surface,” are believed to have been found when the ground was dug for sand. The forge of Thomas Streaton, Blacksmith, built on a piece of manor waste that was inclosed in 1739,[fn1] may still be seen in “ Ivy Hatch street.” By the inclosure the hamlet lost an actual or potential village green— nearly half an acre in extent.

* Arch. Oant., XLV, 162, and XLIX, 76, 79.

’ Arch. Oant., XLIX, 71.

[fn]1|Arch. Cant., XLVIII, 211.[/fn]