Dane Court Parkland was subject to a review of the historical evidence by the Kent Gardens Trust in 2017. From the report:

" SUMMARY OF HISTORIC INTEREST
The name Dane Court derives from the Old English denu meaning a valley (The
Place Names of Kent by Judith Glover) and the site dates back to at least 1310
being in the Index to the Charters and Rolls in the British Museum. The current
mansion dates to around 1724 (Pevsner) and is on the site of an earlier manor
house. It sits in a natural bowl at the south end of a valley with both ancient and
more recent woodland clothing the shallow slopes to west and east. Although
currently in arable use, The Park, a 21.5ha area visible from the south side of the
house on the far side of the once private road, was already established as
parkland at the time of the 1841 Tithe map and still retains an island clump of
trees and other specimen trees. To the north of the house a long open vista was
maintained with pasture fields along the valley bottom allowing for glimpses of
the sea nine miles away.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
The Manor of Dane Court lies in the parish of Tilmanstone which was recorded in
the Domesday Book of 1086. The name of the village has Anglo-Saxon origins
(farmstead or village of a man called ‘Tilman’ with the suffix ‘tun’) and has since
appeared under various spellings: Tilmanestun, Tilneston, Tilmerston and
Tylmeston. According to Hasted, and then Ireland in his History of the County of
Kent, 1828-30, the manor and seat of Dane Court had anciently the same owners
as North Court, in the same village, and continued to do so until 1974 when North
Court was sold off separately in advance of the sale of the rest of the estate and
was bought by Lord Pender. Following Lady Pender’s death in 2013, the
property changed hands again. Dane Court passed through various owners
including the Cox family until 1559 when it was acquired by Richard Fogge. His
descendants sold Dane Court to Major Richard Harvey around 1724. The latter
rebuilt the seat but it was sold on to Gervas Hayward in 1763, then to Michael
Hatton in 1765 who further improved the building. In 1818, the widow of Mr.
Aislabye, who had married into the Hatton family, sold the property to Edward
Royds Rice (1790-1878), Magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant of the County and
MP for Dover. The latter married Elizabeth Knight née Austen (1800-1884),
daughter of Jane Austen’s third brother Edward Knight (formerly Austen) who
lived nearby at Godmersham (qv). Edward Austen changed his name to Knight
as a condition of inheriting the Godmersham estate from a wealthy benefactor, a
distant relative named Thomas Knight. Other prominent members of the Rice
family during the C19 were four of his sons, two of whom were knighted: Admiral
Sir Edward Bridges Rice (1819-1902), Lt. Col. Cecil Rice (1831-1917), Major
General Walter Brook Rice (1837-1892), and Admiral Sir Ernest Rice (1840-
1927).

The first known illustration of the mansion of Dane Court dates to around 1838,
and appears in Greenwood’s An Epitome of County History. [fig 4] It shows the
south elevation of a white stucco building incorporating a large glasshouse built
into the corner formed by a substantial extension at the back (east elevation) of
the rebuilt C18 west-facing house. The entrance porch on the west façade is
clearly visible.

Throughout the C19, Improvements and additions continued to be made to the
mansion including stripping off the stucco and re-facing the whole edifice in red
brick in 1887, when the hotchpotch of roofing at that stage was replaced by a
single roof on the principal part of the building. The considerable outlay left the
family in a relatively impoverished state at the time of the death of Admiral Sir
Edward Rice in 1902. As a result, his son, Henry Edward Harcourt Rice, never
lived at Dane Court, instead letting the mansion out. The nearby coal mine,
opened in the early C20 and called Tilmanstone Colliery but actually close to the
village of Eythorne, had many seams which ran deep under the Dane Court
estate which thereby owned part of the mineral rights. The resulting revenue
provided much of the funds needed to keep the Dane Court estate going during
the early part of the twentieth century and also allowed H E R Rice to pay for his
son, Edward Denis, to attend Eton. The latter came to live at Dane Court in
1927 on the occasion of his marriage, when the then tenant, another relative, had
died. His wife was a very wealthy heiress so enabling further alterations and
modernisations. The glasshouse had already been rebuilt and reduced in size at
least twice, but eventually disappeared altogether around this time, to be
replaced with a brick built infill. E D Rice also landscaped much of the wider
grounds. During the Second World War, the house was requisitioned by the
Canadian army. The family returned to Dane Court after the war and E D Rice
continued to reside there until his death in 1973. His son, Henry (H J B),
inherited, but, for financial reasons, in 1975 put the estate up for sale.
Although at one point in the C19 the estate had grown to 2864 acres (1159ha)
(Wynne Baxter, republished Domesday Book for the County of Kent, 1877), by
1975 the estate had shrunk to 494ha at Tilmanstone, with a further 82.5ha of
marshland at nearby Worth. This included about 48.5ha of woodland and a dairy
herd of 170 head of cattle based at the adjacent New Purchase Farm which the
first Rice owner had bought in 1821.

Dane Court was purchased by a Mr. Sweeney. After lying empty for about five
years, however, with plans to turn it into a country club being considered, the
mansion was again advertised as being for sale in the summer of 1981. At this
point the estate comprised only the house with its ancillary outbuildings and
immediate grounds, an area of about 63 acres (around 25ha), most of the
farmland having been acquired in the interim by surrounding farms. It was
purchased by Tom and Pat Lyons who moved in during August 1981, but in spite
of carrying out considerable restoration work it was back on the market two years
later. A developer eventually bought the site and planning permission was
granted to divide the house into twelve apartments with a further eight homes
converted or built from the outbuildings at the rear. The site remains in multiple
private ownerships.

SITE DESCRIPTION
LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING
Dane Court lies on the north-western edge of Tilmanstone village in the District of
Dover, about 9.5km equidistant from the Port of Dover to the south and Sandwich
to the north-east, and about 32km from Canterbury to the north-west. The
western boundary of the site is formed by Pike Road to the west, field boundaries
marking the northern end of Garden Wood and of Long Meadow to the north,
with Nightingale Wood forming the boundary on the eastern side. To the south of
School Road, the shelter belts enclosing the 21.5ha field known as The Park
mark the edge of the site to west and east, with a field boundary defining the
southern edge of the site. The site is bisected, west to east, by School Road.
The mansion occupies a natural shallow bowl at the south end of a long valley,
on the western edge of Tilmanstone village, with gently wooded slopes to west
and east and, at least formerly, uninterrupted views north-east to the coast at
Pegwell Bay

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES
The present (2017) main entrance to Dane Court is on School Road about 600m
west from its junction with Upper Street in Tilmanstone village. A 5m gap in the
informal boundary hedge along the north side of the road, although there is no
longer a gate, is marked by two square brick gate pillars surmounted by moulded
coping stones topped with ball finials, the whole 5m high. These are flanked by
a brick wall extending to 3m on either side. [fig 10] From here, since at least the
time of the 1841 Tithe map, the gravel drive curves down the slope for about
100m to the flat semi-circular turnaround and parking area beside the entrance
porch on the west façade of the mansion. Until the 1920s (OS 3rd edition), the
main drive continued north past the house towards the southern end of Lord’s
Meadow before turning east behind the house into a rear yard, where the stables
were situated.

A second approach to the house (no longer visible), shown on historic maps from
the Tithe map to mid C20 mapping, lay along the bottom of the wooded east
slope. The area now bears a carpet of snowdrops in late winter below a line of
lime trees running north to south planted mid-century, probably following the line
of this earlier drive. It led off the estate road at a point some 80m east of the
primary drive, running directly north across the slight slope from the road to the
corner on the south-east boundary of the yard to the east of the house. This
latter area is shown on the Tithe map to include a pond, no longer in existence,
as well as various outbuildings.

Also on School Road, nearer the village and about 200m to the east of the main
entrance, stands Dane Court Lodge (originally known as East Lodge).
Constructed in the late C19 and influenced in style by the Devey cottages in the
area, this is a single storey timber framed house white plastered with a tiled roof.
From here, a tarmac drive curves northwards down the slope to join with the
former middle drive, and so once serving the rear of Dane Court and now (2017)
providing access to the properties known as The Mews, mainly converted from
the outbuildings at the back of the mansion. The Tithe map shows this to be the
principal access to the rear of the house for staff and tradesmen beginning at the
point where the public road finished and became an estate road. The start of the
drive today is marked by square brick gate pillars hung with metal gates recently
(2016) painted white, standing beside the Lodge. A curved brick wall about 5m
long is attached to the front face of the westernmost pillar, starting near its top
before dropping down in a curve to about half its height to finish in a square pillar.
The wall is finished in tile and brick coping. At the time the gate was painted,
white coping stones were placed over both gate and the wall pillars to carry
modern white cast ornaments. Up until the late 1920s the stretch of road
between the Lodge and its junction with Pike Road to the west was private.
However, it was adopted as a public road possibly after Edward Denis Rice
moved to the property in 1927 (OS 2nd and 3rd edition) and became an
extension of School Road. The brickwork at both the remaining entrances is likely
to date from the 1930s, contemporaneous with other landscaping works done at
that time.

Opposite the junction of School Road with Pike Road, stands Keeper’s Cottage,
which was sometimes referred to as North Lodge, which is in a similar style and
construction to Dane Court Lodge. The 1861 census lists the Dane Court
gamekeeper as living in Keeper’s Cottage with his family.
Although never part of the estate, the National School, dated 1857, after which
School Road is named, has similar elements to the two Dane Court cottages and
probably predates them (HER entry).

PRINCIPAL BUILDINGS AND STRUCTURES
Dane Court (listed grade II*) is the principal residence of the old parish of
Tilmanstone. Built around 1724, probably on the site of an earlier house, the
mansion was first extended between 1765 and 1776 and then again at various
times during the C19. Although originally constructed with a whitewashed
stucco finish this was stripped off and replaced with red brick in 1887 when the
roof and attic space was substantially rebuilt as a single roof on the principal part
of the building. It comprises two rectangular blocks at right angles with
extensive rear wings. The entrance façade is two storeys and an attic with three
hipped dormers and stacks to left and to right. There is a large projecting one
storey central porch with plinth and parapet. To the right is the return elevation
of the mid-C18 extension, also of two storeys and attic with three hipped dormers
and stacks to centre and rear left and rear right. There is a later one storey wing
connecting to the outbuildings as well as a water tower. Mainly along the west
side of the yard beyond, running north to south in a line beyond the staff
accommodation at the back of the house, were a number of outbuildings
including laundry, stables, offices and so forth as seen on the Tithe map.
Following the family’s return to the house at the end of the Second World War, E
D Rice had a line of garages built against the east bank flanking this area to
house farm machinery and workshops. The previous gap between the
outbuildings, once access to the yard from the front of the house, was filled in by
an extension to the servants’ wing at the time of the redevelopment in the 1980s.

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS
Below the south and west fronts of Dane Court lies a narrow border planted with
shrubs and perennials, beyond which, on the south side, lies a 3m wide flagged
York stone path. [fig 11] This was possibly laid after the Second World War at the
time the formal garden was cleared, no photographs prior to this date hinting at
such a feature. From the path, an area of lawn slopes gently upwards towards
the informal hedge along School Road.

The Tithe map shows the main area of pleasure grounds to be on this, the south
side. The grounds occupied about 0.12ha, slightly less than half the space
between the house and the then estate road at the top of the slope about 100m
to the south. They were bounded by the two drives from the estate road to the
house, the western one (today’s principal access drive), and that further to the
east (now vanished) that led northwards to the yard behind the house. As seen
on family photographs [fig 12] (Memoirs of the Rices of Dane Court) the pleasure
grounds featured shrubs and trees fenced off from the more open parkland.
These photographs from throughout the second half of the C19, show a fenced,
and, later, hedged, private garden in front of the south facade [fig 13] with a
variety of scattered formal flower beds, backed by flowering shrubs, and
specimen trees mainly on the eastern side of the area, allowing for an
unencumbered view of the house from the estate road above. A photograph
taken from the house at an upstairs window around 1900 [fig 14], shows the fine
view across the estate road to the parkland beyond. An aerial photograph taken
of the property in the 1940s shows a neatly hedged area, about 30m x 40m, in
front of the south façade, with a semi-circular alcove midway along the southern
boundary, perhaps once holding some piece of garden ornament although at the
time the photograph was taken there was nothing but lawn inside the whole area.
This enclosure was cleared shortly after the photo was taken, however, as when
the family returned to live in the house at the end of the war there was just mown
grass between the house and the road (pers comm). No evidence of gardens or
ornamental plantings survives on the south side of the house, but parch marks
shown on aerial photographs taken in 1995 (in private hands) indicate the original
extent of the pleasure ground.

In the 1950s, the then owner, Edward Dennis Rice had the south end of the main
lawn embanked and an informal hedge planted along the top beside the road to
increase privacy from the growing volume of traffic and passers-by on School
Road. This had the unfortunate effect of blocking the original view from the
house across the parkland to the south, except from the upper windows. [fig 15]
To the west of the house, on the edge of the parking area and opposite the main
entrance, is a 1.5m high red brick retaining wall, ten bricks high with brick coping,
topped by a line of clipped circular conifers. Part of the landscaping carried out
by E.D. Rice in the 1930s (pers comm), a flight of six shallow steps leads up
through the wall to an area of sloping grassland. Two low square brick pillars are
built into the wall half way up topped by a paving slap and white ball finials. [fig
16] Beyond this, extending westwards to Pike Road, lies Garden Wood
(designated Ancient Woodland). The OS 1st to 4th editions show connected
footpaths through the woodland, suggesting walks. These would no longer
appear to be in use, however, and much of the wood is overgrown.
Directly opposite the entrance facade, angled slightly north-westwards through
Garden Wood, is the Broad Walk, a wide lime avenue, laid to grass, which cuts
through Garden Wood to Pike Road. [fig 17] The feature probably dates from the
first half of the C19 and is clearly marked on the Tithe map, the OS 1st edition
showing it lined with an avenue of trees. Some of the existing trees are more
recent plantings. A hedge planted across the gap at the top of the west lawn,
reflecting current (2017) ownership boundaries, interrupts the view along the
avenue, and small electricity pylons occupy the Walk.

To the north of the property is a grassed area known as The Lawn and, beyond
this, Long Meadow, formerly known as Lord’s Meadow. In the 1930s, E D Rice
constructed a grass covered earth ha-ha from the north-east corner of the walled
garden, eastwards along the north boundary of The Lawn to the south-east
corner of Long Meadow. The ha-ha provided, at least until the 1960s, an
uninterrupted view down the shallow valley with its wooded slopes to the sea at
Pegwell Bay about nine miles away (pers comm). It was filled in by the
developer in the 1980s and replaced by post and wire fencing. An aerial photo
taken in the 1960s shows the house and ancillary buildings to be flanked by open
grassland to the west beyond the semi-circular turnaround beside the porch as
far as the woods, as well as between the house and Long Meadow to the north.
A few specimen trees hide the walled garden from the house.
A public footpath starts at the top of the drive by the Lodge and leads through
Nightingale Wood, overlooking the back of Dane Court through the trees, to
continue towards Venson bottom where it joins the minor road to Eastry. Before
Dane Court went into divided ownership, part of this footpath ran through the
courtyard and along the side of the lawn and Long Meadow (pers comm).
To the east of the house are some trees remaining from an avenue of limes
planted by Edward Dennis Rice in the 1960s on what was then an open slope of
rough grass, to line up with Broad Walk on the opposite side of the valley. This
avenue, considerably narrower than the Broad Walk, was overtaken by
encroaching woodland following the sale of the property in 1975 and many of the
limes succumbed to the Great Storm of 1987. Some of the lime trees have
regenerated and the footpath through them towards the church, a view of which
is framed at its east end on the edge of the wood, remains (2017) in use [fig18].
The open grassland, which once separated Nightingale Wood on the eastern
boundary of the site from the immediate environs of the mansion and its service
buildings, has disappeared into self-seeded woodland..

PARKLAND
On gently rising ground on the south side of School Road, is a 21.5ha field
known as The Park (Tithe map). This is bounded on two sides – west and east -
with shelter belts of mixed plantings of broadleaf and coniferous trees, that to the
west containing a drain along its western edge on Pike Road. Historically, there
was no formal barrier across the open grassed space between the house with its
pleasure garden, and The Park, and the stretch along the south side of the road
opposite Dane Court remains without hedging. In arable use (2017), park trees
remain on the land including the main island clump and some singleton
specimens.

KITCHEN GARDEN
The 0.8ha walled kitchen garden is situated on the eastern edge of Garden
Wood, to the north-west of the house, with its north-eastern corner abutting the
boundary between Long Meadow and the line of the former ha-ha, and its south
corner 40m from the house. The whole area is now overgrown both inside the
walls and without, with parts of the walling having collapsed (2016). Aerial
photographs taken in November 1995 suggest some structures may survive in
the south-west area of the garden, albeit in a dilapidated state.
The enclosure probably dates from the first half of C19 and is depicted on the
1841 Tithe map. One of the last members of the Rice family to spend most of
their childhood at Dane Court after the Second World War recalls the space
divided into four by wide grass paths [fig 19]. Greenhouses were erected within
the garden in the north-east section with the potting shed on the other side of the
wall beside a door in the wall near that corner. Apricots and pears were grown
against the inner south facing wall and apple trees lined the central path on the
short, north-west to south-east axis, with an apple store in the southernmost
corner next to the main entrance. Narrow flower beds bordered the path on the
other axis. The main beds had strawberries and raspberries, or vegetables with
some cutting flower beds. A Mr. Kirby from the village looked after this kitchen
garden post war, sometimes aided by Mr. & Mrs. Hoover from another village
who looked after the woods on the estate and had a charcoal kiln in the Garden
Wood (pers comm). Local residents have advised that at the time of the sale to
developers in the 1980s, part of the interior of the garden was bulldozed and the
top soil sold off." (1)

<1> Kent Gardens Trust, 2017, The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Dover: Dane Court Parkland (Unpublished document). SKE51725.