Godinton Park
Godinton House, standing in its own parkland, is a fine looking house with a Jacobean exterior built around a medieval great hall which has been dated to the end of the 14th century. At that time the Lords of the Manor were the de Godynton family. William de Godynton was living there in 1381.
At the turn of the century the Estate was sold to three brothers; Richard, Simon & John Champneys. They sold it on in 1405 to John Goldwell of Great Chart who installed his son, Thomas as resident at Godinton. Thomas died in 1417 and the estate passed on to his son William.
Following William’s death in 1485 his inheritances, including Godinton were left to his daughter Joan who, in 1474, had married a Thomas Toke. The Estate was to remain in the Toke family for 411 years. [The family of Toke, Tooke, or Tucke, as they have at different times been variously spelt, are supposed to be descended from Le Sire de Touque, called in some copies Toc, and in others Touke, mentioned in the Battle Abbey Roll, having among others, attended William the Conqueror in his expedition hither, and being present on his behalf in the memorable battle of Hastings. - The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 7. Originally published by W Bristow, Canterbury, 1798.]
The last member of the Toke family to own Godinton, Colonel John Leslie Toke, presided over the Estate in decline. It was increasingly encumbered by debts due to the agricultural depression and in 1896 the Colonel had to bow to the inevitable and sold the Estate to George Ashley Dodd.
The Ashley Dodds carried out much needed extensive structural alterations and renovations, the first for over 100 years. They employed Sir Reginald Blomfeld RA, an architect and garden designer, to remodel several rooms in the House and re-design the gardens.
George Ashley Dodd was appointed High Sheriff of Kent in 1911. He died in 1917 and, in 1918, the Estate was sold once again this time to The Hon. Lillie Bruce Ward, the eldest daughter of the 1st Lord Doverdale, who had married Robert Bruce Ward JP in 1897.
Mr Bruce Ward died in 1943 but Lillie continued living there until her death in 1952 when the Estate was passed on to her grandson, Major Alan Wyndham Green, the son of her daughter Geraldine. [Lillie’s son, Edward Bruce Ward had turned down the Estate as he was already a very wealthy man having married into the Swiss Nestle family but had no children of his own.]
Alan Wyndham Green never married and had no heirs so he established the Godinton Charitable Trust to provide endowment to preserve Godinton for the nation. He died in 1996.
