Kippington House" Kent - after J. P. Neale 1819

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An Antique Line Engraving of "Kippington House" (Kent) Engraved by S. Lacey from an original painting by J. P. Neale Produced by Sherwood, Neely & Jones, Paternoster Row, London. 1st Februaryu 1819 This item comprises the portrait as described above in good condition for its age. This is a genuine antique being over 150 years old - NOT a modern reproduction. This item is being offered, suitably mounted, ready for framing. FORMAT Overall Size:- 8" x 10" including the mount. Image Size:- 4 1/2" x 6" approx About the Subject... At the time of the Domesday Book, Sevenoaks did not exist at all except as a market at the meeting of cross-country routes and some sort of wayside chapel. The Holmesdale Valley was far more suitable for farming and therefore for settlement. It was the pressure of increased population during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries which drove individuals to move southwards, up on to the ridge, to clear patches of woodland and create new farmsteads. Great and Little Kippington are both likely to have been established in this way. The whole area still formed part of the Manor of Otford, whose lord was the Archbishop of Canterbury.The 268 acre Kippington estate was formerly the house and parkland called Kippington House, and covered the area between Oak Lane in the south, Brittains Lane in the west and London Road in the east and north. It is first referred to in 1362 but by 1636 when it was acquired by the Farnaby family, it had been divided into Great Kippington, centred on Kippington House, and Little Kippington, now known as Clenches Farm.It is not known whether Jane Austen ever came to Kippington, but she probably did. Several times she visited West Kent when many of her relatives lived in Kippington House. Unfortunately on her death in 1817 her sister Cassandra destroyed most of her letters and notes so that many details of her life are lost.The first time Jane visited Sevenoaks she was 12 years old. She and her close family came to stay with Francis Austen, her 90 year old great uncle, the solicitor living at the Red House in the High Street. Francis made his money by hard work, buying and speculating on land, and on his marriages with two wealthy women. It is thought that Jane met some of her cousins of about the same age who soon after moved into Kippington House. These cousins were her great uncle's grandchildren, the children of Francis Motley Austen, who was to inherit his father's wealth. One of these cousins, John Austen, became Rector of Chevening in 1813, the year that Jane published 'Pride & Prejudice', her most famous novel. There is much evidence to show that 'Pride & Prejudice' was a satire on some of the people at Chevening. She called Chevening Hunsford, a village near to Westerham. The Chevening Estate becomes Rosings Park and she disguised the Dowager Lady Stanhope (named Catherine Burghill) as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. The topography of the old parsonage and the grand house and park are almost exactly the same as those in the novel. Old Francis Austen had bought property in Chevening and it is likely that Jane and some of her close family visited it on several occasions. It has been established that Jane and Cassandra visited it in 1796.It is known that Jane, her parents and siblings travelled a number of times between their home at Steventon in Hampshire and Godmersham in East Kent, and that one of Jane's brothers, Edward, lived with relatives there. Chevening and Kippington would have been good places to stop for the night on the long coach journeys, especially as Sevenoaks was a coaching stage.Jane died in 1817 at the age of 41, but her relatives continued to own the Kippington estate until 1865. In 1820 the house was vandalised by a mob from Sevenoaks town. That was the year that King George IV brought a Bill of Pains and Penalties against his wife Caroline, who George accuse... read more

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