Eastwell Park

Over time, successive buildings have served as homes to Sir Thomas Moyle, the Earls of Winchilsea and Nottingham, and others.

[2][3] The park at Eastwell used to comprise about 2000 acres of some of the finest land in Kent, having a very varied surface of hill and dale, its elevated part give it a commanding prospects, both north and south extend for many miles, from sheerness on one side to the lake and France on the other, it is tastefully laid out by the earlier Earls of Winchilsea and contained some noble forest famous for its majestic deer.

Between 1793 and 1799 the original manor house was replaced by one built in the neo-classical style for George Finch-Hatton and his wife Lady Elizabeth Murray, daughter of 2nd Earl of Mansfield to designs by Robert Adam's former draughtsman, Joseph Bonomi (1739–1808).

[8] By the mid-1860s, the 11th Earl of Winchilsea, a chronic gambler, experienced serious financial difficulties due to his gambling addiction, which eventually forced him to leave the property.

On 4 December 1868, trustees appointed under the Winchilsea Estate Act (1865) entered into a contract to let Eastwell Park, together with its furnishings and effects, to the Duke of Abercorn for a period of five years.

Lord Winchilsea had been obliged to vacate the property sometime prior to December 1868,[9] and he was formally adjudged bankrupt on 5 October 1870.

Prince Alfred's older brother, the future King Edward VII, and Queen Alexandra were frequent visitors.

At the appointed date, the earl and countess went back to Eastwell and were astonished to find that the duchess's room was filled with"precious stones; the bed, the tables, the chairs were covered with cases containing tiaras, ropes of pearls, necklaces, bracelets, brooches of rarest lustre and beauty and inestimable value.

In her memoirs, she recalled fondly:"Beautiful Eastwell with its big great gray house, its magnificent park, with its herds of deer and picturesque Highland cattle, its lake, its woods, its garden with the old cedar tree which was our fairy mansion Eastwell, the house where I was born, with its many rooms, explored and unexplored, our nurseries, our schoolroom, and Mamma’s cosy boudoir where she read to us of an evening and allowed us to finger the treasures on her tables; the breakfast-room, the drawing-room, and the dear big library where the Christmas tree always stood and out of which a passage-like conservatory led into the garden.

The Eastwell breakfast room, meanwhile, always reminded her of her uncle Duke of Albany and King Carlos I, the former would pretend to break his front tooth, making the whole table panicked.

[14] In 1884, another of Alfred's children, Princess Beatrice – who later married into the Spanish royal family – was also born at Eastwell Park.

[17] In 1920, Lord Gerard put Eastwell for sale, later it was bought by Sir John Pennefather in 1924, who decided the 18th century house was too large and demolished it.