Having covered the BAPL event at Highland Court over the last three weeks, The English Apple Man retells the history of Highham House at Bridge central to Highland Court Farm.
But for a hospital appointment The EAM would have been at ST.LAWRENCE & HIGHLAND COURT Cricket Ground on Sunday 20thSeptember celebrating the 'coming of age' of my friend and former colleague Mike Green as he celebrated his 80th Birthday.
We both served time at Home Grown Fruit (HGF) - Mike as Sales Director for many years, and me as Technical Director (UK) as the company went trough various transitions before finally becoming Worldwide Fruit Ltd in the year 2,000.
Mike reflects on this landmark birthday with typical good humour: "I now understand this puts me into an elite group of 3% to 5 % of the UK population - a bit of a worry as I think the figure only goes down from here on !
Mike also reflects on a question asked by many at his birthday party: "I was asked by many people about 'The House' adjacent to the top of the Ground and also about The Club itself which I will outline briefly below.
THE HOUSE
Mike's words:
'The House' was originally called Higham Park and it's only real 'claim to fame' is that it was the home of 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'.
Below: Higham House
Count Zborowski in the 'original Chitty Bang Bang
This was a car developed by a Count Zborowski who was a British racing enthusiast who had the ingenious idea of using aeroplane engines in the design of his car !! Therefore when the car was started up to be taken out rumour had it that every home within a 10 mile radius of the house could hear it and one of these people happened to be the very well known author of CCBB who lived in the area at the time and the apocryphal story is that the story originated because his son was ill so he told him this story about a car that could fly! The Count himself came to an inevitable end on the Monza circuit in Italy aged only 28 !
Below: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Mike said: I will leave you to find out the Author yourself if you do not know him !
St. Lawrence &HIGHLAND COURT CC
The amalgamation of the two Clubs came about by circumstance. St Lawrence CC a Canterbury side that used the County Ground every Thursday
The current situation is that the original ground was expanded to give a lower ground as well so that now we have 17 Men's and Women's sides that use the two pitches that run through all the age groups from Under 11 to seniors. However the secret to all sporting Clubs is early recruitment and perhaps the most popular session is the Kwik Cricket session on Friday nights where youngsters are bought up and handed over to the Coaches whilst parents, and often Grandparents sit and enjoy a drink and something to eat in a very congenial atmosphere this will often have well over 100 children involved !
The English Apple Man comments: Mike is a very fine 'natural' sportsman, and coaches young people at various sports like cricket and tennis, he is passionate about Highland Court CC and puts many hours into the club.
Mike asks: Get in touch if you have Children/Grandchildren that want to play cricket !
"Once again my sincere thanks for your brilliant support for what is now an Old Man!"
Welcome to - St Lawrence & Highland Court CC
We are a friendly, sociable and inclusive cricket club.
If you have any queries or would like to join, then please get in touch with us today
St. Lawrence and Highland Court Cricket Club
............................................................................................................................................................................................
Higham Park is a Grade II* listed neoclassical country house and estate located in Bridge, Kent, England, approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Canterbury, featuring an 87-room mansion built around 1768 with 20th-century alterations and extensive Edwardian gardens designed by Harold Peto. The estate, originally ceded to the de Hegham family by Edward II in 1320, has a rich history of ownership by notable figures, including 16th-century courtier Thomas Culpepper, 18th-century rebuilders Ignatius and Mary Geoghegan, and 19th-century banker James Hallett, before passing through families like the Hughes-Halletts.1
The house gained prominence in the early 20th century under Polish nobleman Count Louis Zborowski (1910-1924), who used it as a base for developing pioneering high-speed racing cars, including the Chitty Bang Bang series on modified Mercedes-Maybach chassis, which inspired Ian Fleming's children's book Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang.
Zborowski's fatal 1924 accident at Monza marked a motorsport legacy; the estate also hosted early speed record attempts by friend John Parry-Thomas. Later owners included merchant banker Sir Walter Whigham, who renamed it Highland Court in the 1930s and added a model farm, followed by wartime use as a War Office facility and post war hospital until 1981.
Highland Court
In 1928, Zborowski's widow sold the estate to Walter Whigham, chairman of Robert Fleming & Co. merchant bank. Changing the estate name to Highland Court to avoid confusion with the pronunciation of his surname, Whigham's weekend guests included his friend Ian Fleming, who had watched Zborowski's racing cars as a school boy at Brooklands. Whigham's wife, part of the Moet family, remodelled the staircase of unpolished white Italian marble to resemble that of the Hotel Ritz in Paris. She did however preserve the original wrought ironwork, which had been made by Messrs. Bramah, the same company who produced the gates for the Grand Entrance of Hyde Park, London. In 1929 Whigham built a model farm on the estate, which still exists today as part of the Highland Court Conservation Area.
Past Seat / Home of: SEATED AT EARLIER HOUSES: De Hegham family, 14th century. Thomas Culpepper, 16th century. Sir Anthony Aucher, 17th century. SEATED AT CURRENT HOUSE: Ignatius Geoghegan, 18th century. James Hallet, 18th century; Charles Hughes-Hallet, 19th century. William Gay, 1901-10. Countess Margaret Zberanska, 1910-11; Count Louis Vorrow Zborowski, 1911-24. Sir Walter Whigham, 20th century. Patricia Gibb and Amanda Harris-Deans, 1995-2005.
That is all for this week, If anyone want's to contact Mike Green about Cricket make contact with me at The English Apple Man and I will pass any messages onto Mike!
Take care
The English Apple Man