Pauline Moore and Sutton House (2005 interview)
Pauline cutting the ribbon to open the new paths in July 2009
Pauline Moore came to Bearsted as a two-year old child in 1925. Her father bought Sutton House and a small piece of grazing land. Previously the property was described as a "Gentleman´s Pleasure Farm" and included buildings and an oast for drying hops (some from the land she now owns). Sutton House, in Sutton Street, is situated in a part of the village known as Roundwell. At that time, Walter Thomas Fremlin of Fremlin´s Brewery lived at the many-propertied Milgate Park and owned a large part of Bearsted. After his death, the land was divided and all the houses and cottages were sold. The land that ran from Bearsted turning to Mote Hall and the Church Landway (now the Bearsted Woodland Trust) was also split up.
Pauline´s land was used for farming and shows traces of a sand quarry said to have been used for making glass for the Crystal Palace. Until quite recently, caves, thought to be linked underground to her land, could be seen at the Caves Cafe on the Ashford Road at Hollingbourne. No caves are open now, but she remembers being ticked off for creeping too far into one of them. The Ashford Road was considerably widened around 1920. The 700 year-old oak tree must know!
After school and war days in the land army, Pauline started a very small riding school in 1946. She had an old horse and a borrowed pony and taught riding until 2004 when she gave up teaching with great regret. Her ponies were grazed on nearly every piece of land in the village, including the BWT land adjacent to Holy Cross Church.
The land adjoining her home was sold to her about 1964. The owners had tried unsuccessfully to obtain building permission. The sandy soil made good going for the horses, and especially for equestrian cross-country and competitions. She says, "It was all wonderful fun and so good to have horses grazing near home." She would like to think that much pleasure has been given to many riders, pony club and riding club members and hopefully, that good instruction has provided much happiness on the land.
Pauline remembers floods of 3 feet in depth coming through her house in 1967, her friends in Gore Cottage rowing their boat to Cross Keys (a situation which helped no end to stop the proposed building!) and the hurricane in 1987 when only the oaks stood firm. She also remembers Doug and Rene Terry´s lovely market garden on the east of the Church Landway and dog walks across their land to the lake and field owned by Michael R. Ireland-Blackburne of Mote Hall. Milgate Park, when farmed by the Betts, was used for hunter trials twice a year and now gives pleasure to golfers. Sadly, she remembers many homes spoilt by bad planning. Preservation of all our open land is much in her mind. She wishes that it to remain so for the pleasure of the present and the future community.
As Pauline says, "The horses are still around and so am I"
(Later in 2005 Pauline Moore announced that she was bequeathing 12 acres of her land between the A20 and Roundwell to BWT on her death, so that it will "never be built on, but kept for Bearsted Village, its people, including its children, animals and those who enjoy an open space")
