Marrin's Bookshop

Synopsis

Note. the settled estate colored green the freehold estate colored pink.

Item Description

Folding linen map. 67.5 x 37 inches. Hand drawn and coloured.

Notes

A beautifully drawn and coloured estate map relating to a number of agricultural properties, largely in the Stour valley and levels, east of Canterbury, extending to the estuary at Richborough. They include Littlebourne Village ( the parishes of Littlebourne and Ickham); Grove Ferry Meadows (parish of Wickhambreux), Land at Ickham; Richborough Castle Farm (parish of Ash); Meadow in Ash parish and Marley Wood, Kingston (a small parish in Barham Downs, several miles away to the south east). Topographical features shown, include Ickham village centre, Grove Ferry Station of the South Eastern Railway, Richborough Castle and amphitheatre and the River Stour at Grove Ferry and Richborough. The names of the tenants of the properties, e.g.. Mr. George Solley, are also indicated. The estate was the former property of the Oriental Banking Company. This was founded in Bombay in 1842, although its HQ was moved to London in 1845. It became one of the leading eastern exchange banks in India and China, but fell into difficulties because of a downward swing of world markets affecting commodity prices and trade. In 1884 it went into liquidation, which is why these property assets were sold the following year, by which time it had been reconstituted as the New Oriental Banking Company (final closure was in 1892). As, apart from its London HQ, all its business and branches were overseas, it is not known how it came to own agricultural land and woods in East Kent. The Westminster firm of Land Agents and Surveyors who handled this sale was a partnership between Alexander Milne Dunlop, Arthur Millington Naylor and Francis Lowry Lightfoot, Naylor retiring from the partnership in 1889. This hand-drawn estate map was the original which would then have been lithographed and printed in the descriptive particulars for an auction sale.