Farmhouse rises to university challenge

When the University of Kent first opened in 1965, there were comparatively few modern, purpose-built campus structures compared with today.

Therefore, much activity, at the time, was centred around the small group of older buildings on the wider site – one of which was the former farmhouse to Beverley Farm. Other buildings in St Dunstan’s also had to be pressed into service.

The first picture dates from a cold winter’s day in 1899, when the photographer paused to capture his or her companion in front of Beverley Farm. The farmhouse, of undoubted medieval origin, is perched atop the sloping ground to the north west of Canterbury, and situated about half-amile from St Thomas’ Hill.

Access to the farm could be gained via a long track, lined on both sides with high hedges, which wandered up from the outskirts of the city, beginning at the end of what would later become Salisbury Road. The turn-of-the-century occupant of Beverley Farm was Mrs Hawkins, with Mr John Green as bailiff.

The second photo shows Beverley Farmhouse, as it was in the early 1960s, during the final years of agricultural use. A large wing, added in the Edwardian period, can be seen on the left.

When the University of Kent authorities took over the area, in December 1963, this was the only habitable building on the site. The farmhouse had to be abandoned in the 1970s, due to its poor state of repair. Full restoration followed in 1985.

Beverley Farm, in the winter of 1899, and the farmhouse in the early 1960s – around the time it was pressed into service by the University of Kent