Tea at Trianon: The Paper Mill Estate

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, May 6, 2025

The Paper Mill Estate

Images of the Old Paper Mill, Kent

From Country Life:

Property Market returns to Kent, where Alastair Hancock of Jackson-Stops in Cranbrook is handling the sale of The Paper Mill near Benenden, one of hundreds of Wealden hall houses built by prosperous yeoman farmers on the back of the wool trade between about 1450 and 1530.
Originally built in about 1500, the lovingly restored, Grade II*-listed house is surrounded by its 51 acres of farmland and ancient woodland that have changed little over the years. According to research provided by the owners, the original house consisted of seven rooms and was extended over the years before being divided into two cottages.
Although little is known of the early occupants of the house, there is thought to have been a mill there in the 14th century and, in about 1755, one William Blackwell and his family started making paper in a mill in a riverside field near the house.
At that time, the house, known as Hinksden Mill, was shared with the Croft family, who owned Mill Farm next door. The Blackwells and Crofts lived there until 1908, when the Blackwells left, having ceased to make paper in 1854. In 1909, Gunther of Tongswood, Hawkhurst (now Saint Ronan’s School), bought the farm from Lord Rothermere, the owner of the surrounding Hemsted estate (now Benenden School), and the Crofts also departed. (Read more.)

Paper Mill Estate