OUR HISTORY

The Knowlton estate has a rich and varied history. The Estate was first recorded in the Domesday Book, during which time, like a number of Kent's great Estates, it belonged to Bishop Odo of Bayeux, the half-brother of William the Conqueror.

Knowlton Court is now in the stewardship of the Fox-Pitt family, one of Britain's best-known equestrian families.

A RICH HISTORY

The Estate was inherited in 1544 by John Peyton, MP, and the current house was built in 1585.

The imposing red-brick Queen Anne façade which is much admired today, was added in 1715. The Grade II listed Dower House is Elizabethan.

During the late 17th century, Knowlton Court was home to Sir Thomas Peyton, Member of Parliament for Sandwich. Sir Thomas was removed from Parliament after a spell in prison in 1643 and charged, among other offences, with being a 'malignant'. After leading a (failed) Royalist rising in Kent in May 1648, Sir Thomas was taken prisoner near Bury St Edmunds and committed to the Tower; Knowlton Court was ransacked. After his death in 1684, Sir Thomas' four daughters sold the Knowlton estate to Admiral Sir John Narborough.

Sir John died at sea, leaving a widow and two sons. His widow remarried Sir Cloudesley Shovell, who, together with his stepsons, died at sea in the Scilly naval disaster of 1707. All are commemorated in St Clement's Church, the private chapel on the Knowlton Estate.
The estate passed to the D'Aeth family in 1707 and it was owned by the family until 1904, when it was bought by the High Sheriff of Kent, Major Francis Elmer Speed. Speed commissioned Edwin Lutyens to design a gatehouse, in 1912 and made considerable alterations to the properties on the Estate.