QUEENDOWN WARREN

(1) The House

The house, known as Queendown Warren, is 400 years old this year; at least the front, timbered part, is. It was built in 1566 by Gilbert Fremlin, then lord of the manor of Yaugher, near the site of Dick Stevens' grain-dryer. It later passed into the possession of one John Palmer - from whom it is presumed to have been acquired by an Osborne, very probably John, who was an Auditor of the Exchequer in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and who considerably extended the old Hartlip Place, originally Crux Hill (or Hall). Part of this old house still stands as Place Farm. On John. Osborne's death his youngest son, Robert, received Yaugher estate and other properties round Hartlip. Robert had no sons and his property passed to his daughter, Mary, whose third husband was the Rev. Thomas Gibbon. Mary survived him and in her will charged the Yaugher Estate with an annuity of £10 for the benefit of the Village School.

Nothing more is known about Yaugher until 1800, when William Bland, who had inherited part of the Osborne Estate, tried to buy it back from a Macnamara. Their respective sons completed the deal in 1840. In that same year William Bland, the younger, built a grain store at the site of the new Queendown Warren Farm (two trowelmen and three labourers at £3 a rod for labour), built stables, started digging the well and moved the barn up from the bullock yard behind what is now Place Corner. William and Thomas Hales ("thrasher" and waggoner) spent the winter in the granary into which a temporary fire-place had been put. Difficulty was experienced in getting adequate water from the well which was eventually deepened to 271' 9" with a water level at 241', which is where it still is today.

On 17th May, 1841, dismantling of Yaugher Manor and its re-erection on the present site was started. On the 7th, 8th and 9th of October in the same year Thomas Hales moved his family in from Petty Place. Little is known about subsequent additions to the house until the kitchen wing was added in 1878. Though some timbers have had to be renewed, the house stands a memorial to the skill of our ancestors and to the beauty and strength of English oak.

O.I.R.O.

(2) The Nature Reserve - The Wild Orchids

Visitors to Queendown Warren during the past summer may have seen two unusual-looking plants surrounded by a protective barrier of wire netting. They were rare Lizard Orchids and this was the first year they had been found there.

There are about fifty different kinds of orchids native to the British Isles, and over a third are to be found at Queendown Warren. Although the British orchids lack the size and. splendour of some of the tropical kinds, they have a charm unsurpassed by any other group of wild plants. Some have flowers which bear a remarkable resemblance to insects and spiders, and such examples as the Bee Orchid and Early Spider Orchid flower at Queendown Warren every year. The magnificent lady Orchid is almost restricted to Kent and several grow in the more shaded areas where their conspicuous flowers are usually picked by visitors who probably would not do so if they knew that orchids take many years to reach the flowering stage.

Now that the Lizard Orchid has come to the Warren there is no reason why an observant visitor should not be the first to discover such extreme rarities as the Monkey Orchid, Late Spider Orchid, or Red Helleborine.

Owen Davis (late Warden).