From the 2011 review:

"SUMMARY OF HISTORIC INTEREST

A garden comprising compartmentalised formal areas, notable specimen trees and informal lawns dating from the C18, C19 and C20 surrounding an early C18 house with C19 additions. The painter Samuel Palmer (1805 -1881) and a fellow artist from his circle, known as the ‘Ancients’, lodged at Underriver House and Shoads Farm (the former Shoads Manor), Palmer referring to the location as “The Golden Valley”; his painting ‘Farm Buildings’ c1840 may depict Shoads Farm. Rosemary Hume, the internationally-known Cordon Bleu cook, was born at the house in the early C20.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Underriver House is a ‘Plain but pleasing seven-bay house of c 1700, built for Richard Goodhugh in 1697’ (Newman 2012). It was built on the footprint of a previous building and incorporated a Kentish hall house dating to c 1640. It replaced a much earlier house of the Manor of Shoads just to its south which fell into ruin at the end of C19. The name Underriver derives from the Saxon sub le ryver meaning ‘under the hill’ and is not connected to the word river.

The Andrews, Drury and Herbert map of 1769 records a Mrs. Goodhugh as owner of ‘Little Underriver’, which includes the area of Underriver House, and shows it surrounded by a substantial compartmentalized garden including an orchard, with the earlier Manor of Shoads still visible in the grounds to the south. In 1790 Henry Woodgate of Riverhill House, which lies approximately 2km to the west, bought the property but never occupied it himself. By 1840 the Tithe map shows the owner as Francis Woodgate (his son) letting the house to a Charles Townsend. About this time Francis Woodgate (the grandson) occupied the now renamed Shoads Farm. Charles Townsend was still in occupation when Samuel Palmer described him in a letter dated 1840 as ‘that blessed farmer and yeoman Mr. Townsend’ whose property ‘teems with fruit poultry cyder milk cream and fine spring water’. The authors of ‘Underriver, Samuel Palmer’s Golden Valley’ suggest that the painting ‘Farm Buildings’ c1840 by Samuel Palmer could well be of Shoads Farm, then tenanted by ‘old Mr. Featherstone’ with whom he lodged. Francis Woodgate (the grandson) moved into Underriver House c1841. Woodgate died in 1855 and the house was eventually sold in 1862 with the estate agent’s sales’ particulars describing ‘lawn and pleasure grounds, walled garden, orchard … the whole abundantly supplied with abundant spring water.’ The house and 970acres (Sales Particulars) was bought by John Davison QC, later Judge Advocate General. Davison paid for the building of St. Margaret’s Church in the village, designed
by George Gilbert Scott in 1865. The house was also enlarged around this time with a substantial extension to the south façade reputedly (pers.com) under the direction of the same architect. This replaced the large greenhouse or conservatory on the south wall, recorded in one of the earliest photographs of the house (dating from approximately 1860) showing Francis Woodgate sitting on the steps up to the porch, and mentioned in a letter from a relative, Mrs. Anne Nouaille, in 1846: ‘Everything is so nice and so very comfortable at Underriver. I walked around their garden; they have a beautiful greenhouse and all the flowers most gay and splendid but alas! The disease is amongst the potatoes and it was very sad to look at them’. Davison died suddenly in 1871 and in 1897 the family sold much of the estate including just under 1000 acres of the surrounding land although they retained the house, garden and adjacent outbuildings. From 1907 the house was let to the Peploe family who with their Hume cousins all lived in the house until 1917. Rosemary Hume, the Cordon Bleu cookery writer, was born there in 1907. In an early C20 photograph a replacement conservatory is visible to the east of the loggia against the south wall of a wing added in the C20 , all now (2012) demolished (sales particulars). In 1917 the Davisons were forced to sell and the property was bought by a Colin Campbell. In 1924 he was able to buy back about 130 acres of the original estate land including a farm known as Goldings (now Underriver Farm) which lies to the south on the west side of the road, as well as further land, bringing the total to over 339 acres. According to Winnie Peacock, a housekeeper to Mr Campbell from 1917-1934, the whole of the rear garden was turned over to fruit and vegetable growing to feed local farm workers during the Second World War (pers.com). The estate remained in the Campbell family until 1978 when it was broken up and sold off. Underriver House with its lodge and around five hectares were sold to a Mr di Nova, an Italian tomato baron, and his English wife who started to replant the garden. A domestic tragedy forced the sale again in 1986 when John Coletta bought the house. A music producer, he managed various bands including Deep Purple, Whitesnake and Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. The bedroom areas of the house were remodelled to accommodate celebrity guests including Charlie Drake who was a friend of Coletta. Coletta sold the property to a Mr. Davies, a local house builder and developer. Davies went bankrupt shortly after this and the house was repossessed by Barclays Bank and sold again in 1993, at this stage the garden being in a largely derelict state. Two cedar of Lebanon trees, brought down in the 1987 storm, were still lying where they fell (pers.com). The house remains in private ownership."(1)

<1> Kent Gardens Trust, 2011, Underriver, Sevenoaks: The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Sevenoaks District (Unpublished document). SKE30617.