GRAVESENDÂ DISTRICT
STATELY HOMES, CASTLES & TOWERS
Various Stately homes, Country houses, Castles and Towers still exist around our county of Kent and in among the history, some are rumoured to be haunted. These include Sir Winston Churchill and Charles Darwin among others. there is also a few lesser known treasures which have their own surprises in store. check out what we found so far for the District of Gravesend
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It should not be assumed that these sites are all publicly accessible and may be on private property. Please check first and get permission, if necessary....Do not trespass!
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If we have missed any out or you hear of any reports of Paranormal Activity at any of the ruins or the castles that aren't reported here, please get in touch Thankyou
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DENE MANOR Â DEAN LANE MEOPHAM, GRAVESEND DA13
A manor was created at Dene, in the east of the parish, but by the time that surviving manorial records begin, this had become a part of Meopham.
The Dene Manor is situated in Dean Lane in Meopham.
The West end is a service wing of early C15 timber-framed building. Walls are partly flint with rag-stone quoins otherwise brick. Hipped tiled roof, A brick chimney stack was built in the 16th century on site of screen passage was built then more alteration through the 18th Century through to the 1930's which included Casement windows with irregular spacing and another alteration of the refacing of the eastern part. It was given a Grade II listing in Nov 1966. It is a Private Dwelling with no public access.
Dean Manor has certainly seen its share of tragedy. A servant girl was said to have been found hanged in the granary after her mistress accused her of theft and a young French woman, Mlle Pinard, who went mad with grief after following her lover from France to find he already had a wife
Hauntings
The current owners of Dean Manor, in Dean Lane, Meopham, prefer to keep quiet about the fact their home was once the subject of a BBC-broadcast ghost hunt yet the repercussions of those events keep returning to haunt them.
In the 1930's, resident Mr. G Varley claimed he not only heard ghostly footsteps and felt inexplicable blasts of cold air but had once been so terrified by a spectral form he threw a poker at it. He remained in the house only six months.
The two incidents mentioned above, seem to be the cause of the two figures from the past who have been in the building and its grounds.
In 1936, Harry Price, the famous researcher in the Ghost Club, broadcast on the BBC from Dene Manor. During the broadcast, fluctuations in temperature were recorded on his equipment. During the remainder of the night that Price spent in the house with BBC technicians and others, mysterious footsteps were heard and visual phenomena experienced
From 11.45pm until midnight, listeners were to hear the phenomena which had been recorded and possibly even listen to some live ghostly goings-on.
The results were inconclusive and received mixed responses from listeners. No ghosts were seen and all sounds could be attributed to natural causes.
in the 1970's, members of the Ghost Club tried to visit the house for themselves and set up a new investigation. But the manor's owners refused to let them in, saying they did not want the publicity and that's how it currently stands, as far as aware.
Yet the ghostly tales surrounding Dean Manor refuse to die and a book called ''Kent Tales of Mystery & Murder'', by W H "Johnnie" Johnson, takes a fresh look at Harry Price's investigation.