As family fortunes prospered, house and park took shape
The story of Oakwood Park begins with the story of the Wigan family.
John Alfred Wigan was the founding father who made it big. He had a profitable business as a hop merchant. He had 15 children by his wife Elizabeth (Eliza) Wigan, nee Lewis.
They lived in Clare House in East Malling.
Among his sons, Lewis Davis Wigan was to become a partner in the Kentish Bank in Maidstone.
It was he who commissioned the construction of Oakwood House and the creation of Oakwood Park, from the farmland on which it stood.
He took out a mortgage for its construction with his own bank in 1868. The building took around a year.
Lewis was married to Mary Gretton and they had six children, (including another Lewis David Wigan).
Five were listed in the 1871 census, which shows them living at Oakwood House. They were Frances Mary born 1859, John Alfred born 1860, Clara Jane born 1861, Lewis Davis born 1861, and Percy Frederick born 1867. They later had another child, Mary Mabel, who was born at Oakwood on January 10, 1876.
Lewis Wigan senior died on February 21, 1886, but his widow Mary continued to live in the house until her death on January 1,1900, when the property passed to their eldest son, John Alfred Wigan.
For some reason not known today, John changed his surname by deed poll in 1896 and became John Alfred Graham. In later years, he was known as John Alfred GrahamWigan.
He married Ida Lacon in 1896, but they had no children and divorced in 1908. He never remarried and had no heirs.
He was appointed a Justice of the Peace (JP) in 1905 and soon after set about extending the property.
A community-minded fellow, in December 1913 he granted rights to Maidstone Golf Club to use part of the park as a golf course.
During the Second World War, he also saw part of the property taken over by the military.
John Alfred Graham-Wigan died on January 21 1948, aged 87. His brother Lewis had predeceased him in 1935.
His executors put the property up for sale. The inventory showed it had 17 bedrooms, servants’ quarters and stabling.