St ~Albans Court park land has a complex historiy associated with various divisions of the surrounding landscape. From a 2017 review by the Kent Gardens Trust:

"CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
The property, now known as St Albans, in Anglo Saxon times formed the eastern
part of Oeswalum, a small estate of some 1200a. It is named as Eswalt in the
Domesday Book, the name implying a wooded district.

Eswalt and Eswelle to the west were two of the many manors in Kent held by
Odo, Bishop of Bayeaux, given by his half-brother William the Conqueror. The
Domesday survey of 1086 records Eswalt and Essewelle and Bedesham (aka
Beacham), further to the west as separate estates. When Odo's lands were
forfeited after his second rebellion against his brother, Eswalt was given by
William to Nigel de Albini, Earl of Albermarle; Eswelle (the spelling has varied and
evolved into the current name, Easole) was acquired by bishop Walchelin
Mamignot.

In 1096, Eswalt was gifted by Nigel de Albini to St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire,
where his brother, Richard, was the abbot. This link with the abbey led to the use
of St Albans in the property name.

Harris in his History of Kent, 1719, p221 says 'at a place called Beacham near
this St Albans, the tradition goes that there was a nunnery.' In what is known as
‘Ruins Field’ an area between the current mansion and Beauchamps Wood,
there are the remains of substrate flint and rubble walls, once thought to be this
nunnery. However, these have been excavated by the Dover Archaelogical group
2007-2016 and are now thought to be the manor of Eswelle.
The name Beauchamp is thought to have come from the renting of the land
(including Eswalt later known as St Albans) by Sir John Beauchamp from 1300 to
1360. Beauchamp was Royal Standard bearer at Cressy, close to the Black
Prince, Commander at Dover, later Governor of Calais and one of Edward III's
most successful generals. He made his base here at the manor of Eswelle
because it is conveniently equidistant from Sandwich where his supplies and
ships docked, and Dover which was the port of entry for significant persons.
The manor house foundations of Old St Albans Court date from C14 but the first
known reference to the property under the name St Albans is in a will of 1509.
As part of the Dissolution, in 1538 Henry VIII transferred the manor to Sir
Christopher Hales, MP for Canterbury. In 1551, the manor passed to Alexander
Culpepper, Hale's son-in-law, and then to his elder brother who sold it to Thomas
Hamon[d], thus beginning a long association with the Hammond family.
This purchase amalgamated the Hammond family’s holdings – they were already
local landowners - and they went on to buy the portion of what was Eswelle up
the hill further to the north-west. The rest of Eswelle became what is now
Fredville.

From 1556, the Hammond family fashionably converted the early manor house to
a south-east facing brick mansion, and allowed the Eswelle Manor to fall into
ruin. A porch with the Hammond arms over it bears the date 1556.
A probate inventory for Edward Hammond, dated 1616, lists St Albans Court as
having twenty-six rooms.

Anthony Hammond came of age and into possession of the estate in 1633. A
deed of covenant from this time documents St Albans Court as having two barns,
two stables, one dove house, two orchards, one garden and 225a of arable land,
19a meadow and 165a pasture with an additional 8a of arable and 7a of pasture
in different occupation.

An indenture of 1663 records 'reserved for William Hammond all the brick part of
the manor house with the kitchen garden lying behind it ---- with the coach house
at the upper end of the apple orchard.'

Circa 1665 there was again major rebuilding with a new front being added on the
north-east side of the manor house.

Further land purchases were made during the early C18 by the brothers William
and Anthony Hammond, who farmed on a large scale. In a lease dated 8 March
1716, William granted Anthony part of St Albans for an annual rent of £230; he
was to have use of the courtyard and two walled gardens to the front of the
manor house and half of the kitchen garden (KAS – PMP box 27).

The tithe map of 1801 suggests that by that date, William Osmund Hammond
owned in excess of 1,205 acres of land, occupying and farming just over 268a.
In 1808, he purchased Easole Farmhouse with 123a thus further increasing his
land holdings.

St Albans Court’s land comprised 6a of garden, 62a of paddocks, 21a of
woodland and 7a plantation. There was also a walled kitchen garden further to
the south, established in 1790 behind the malthouse which had been built in
1704 and later purchased by Hammond. This is now divided from the estate by
the Sandwich Road.

In 1792, Hammond records spending £3,000 on ornamenting and enlarging 'his
house and place'. A print of 1792 shows the octagonal additions to the front of the
house and heated greenhouses in the walled garden date from around this
period. These were demolished during the Nonington College occupancy.
In 1869 Wiliam Oxenden Hammond commissioned George Devey, a friend and
an established gentleman architect who had designed other manors locally, to
build a stable block and a home farm to the south-west of St Albans Court house
and to refurbish the existing house. The architect's drawings of the stable block
are held in the RIBA library. These stables and associated buildings appear on
the 1873 Ordnance Survey map linked by a series of walls. Photographs from
1870 depict a neatly laid out formal garden in the area surrounded by these
buildings. Fruit trees and other edible crops are evident along with herbaceous
borders. Some form of hot house or green house appears situated near the south
wall of the house.

A further five designs of cottages for Hammond by Devey are held at Sheffield
University. It has yet to be established if these were all built on the estate. Devey
built at least ten sets of cottages for Hammond, all in pairs except for the one by
the church which was designed to house six widows.
By 1875, William Oxenden Hammond had decided to build a new house as the
old one had 'fallen into a decayed state' (Hammond diaries held by P Hobbs). He
commissioned Devey to design the new house, which took the name St Albans
Court. Thought by many to be the best of Devey's later mansions it was built
between 1875-8 on the hill 95m to the north-east of the existing house.

Once the new mansion was complete, the 1665 part of the old house was pulled
down leaving an L shaped building with a tower at the angle. Devey considered
this picturesque when seen from the new mansion (Hobbs).
The work reduced the size of the old house by more than half, and it became a
servants' house. This smaller building became known as Tudor Cottage then, in
1995, with the renaming of the main mansion as Beech Grove, it took the name,
Old St Albans Court.

Devey's general plan shows proposed gardens that do not seem to have
eventuated.

In October 1875 Hammond ordered work be done to prepare for tree planting
near the new St. Albans Court house. During this work fifteen skeletons were
discovered in shallow graves cut into the underlying chalk on an east to west
alignment. The skeletons were later reburied to the north-east of their place of
discovery under a stone pyramid with a plaque with a Latin inscription on its
western face, highlighting the mistaken belief in a battle involving the Romans
having taken place there.

From 1903 to 1930s the estate was rented out, first to the Slazenger family and
then to the O’Brien family, noted equestrians who bred Alsations and Foxhounds.
There is a cemetery on the estate where some of the dogs were buried.
After Hammond's death in 1903, the estate passed to his nephew William
Egerton Hammond (died 1923). W E Hammond’s only son died in 1915 (and is
commemorated on the Ypres Menin Gate). His widow Mrs Ina Hammond sold by
auction, in 1938, the estate of some 1,000 acres divided into 80 lots. This ended
the almost 429 year association of the Hammond family with the property.
St Albans Court estate was advertised (1938) and featured in Country Life
magazine. Photographs from this period show well-kept gardens with terraces
laid to lawn and edged with brick walls. Stone steps lead to lower terraces and
herbaceous borders are planted at the base of the walls. Specimen trees and
shrubs complete the mature garden.

St Albans Court, with some 50a of parkland plus two Tudor cottages (the former
manor house), were bought by Miss Gladys Wright on behalf of the English
Gymnastics Society as its headquarters and a training centre for women
interested in becoming teachers of movement and gymnastics. The resulting
establishment was named Nonington College. The ‘Swedish Dance Theatre' was
built during Wright’s tenure. The many photographs from this period record the
beautiful gardens around Tudor cottages and the C19 mansion.
During the Second World War, part of the mansion was used as offices for Eastry
Rural District Council. The former manor house was used as the headquarters of
the Dover YMCA. All William Oxenden Hammond's sweet chestnut plantings in
Ruins Field were chopped down for the war effort and the field used for tank
driver training.

Miss Wright retired in 1952 and sold the college to Kent County Council who took
the building over, founding Nonington College of Physical Education for the
training of PE teachers. There was substantial new building including flats as
student accommodation (1960), a new Arts centre, and staff bungalows. A new
gymnasium was built in 1959 and shortly after that a swimming pool.
After some 35 years as one of the top teacher training colleges, NCPE was
closed in 1985 by KCC owing to a declining birth rate, lower demand for PE
teachers, and financial cut-backs. KCC failed to find a buyer other than for the
Old Court House (the Dower House on Pinners Hill). This had been an annexe of
the college, and in 1986 it became the Promis Recovery Centre, a once
renowned private rehabilitation clinic which went into liquidation in 2008. This
house was then left empty and subsequently was badly damaged by fire in late
August 2009.

In 1991 the remaining site was sold to developers who, failing to secure planning
permission for housing, divided it up so that the main buildings went eventually to
the Christian Bruderhof, whilst the former manor house, stables and cottage were
sold individually as private residences in 1993.

The Tudor Cottage [now Old St Albans Court] was renovated by the Hobbs
Family between 1997 and 2001.

Since 1995 the 1870s mansion, St Albans Court, has been known as Beech
Grove and used to house the religious community; a school run by the Bruderhof
is housed on the site in purpose-built buildings. Much of the land is farmed by
them. Some of the former college sports facilities have been replaced by
industrial units." (1)

<1> Kent Gardens Trust, 2017, The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Dover: St Albans Court (Unpublished document). SKE51718.