There were two important families that originally made their homes in Hackington, the Manwoods and the Hales. It is important for genealogists because here you will find one of the very few Catholic Chapels in this part of the country. "Place house", subsequently "Hales Place" had its own chapel and as far as I know was actually the only Catholic place of worship in Canterbury before the construction of the Church of St. Thomas in Burgate in Canterbury c.1856. When the main house passed from the Hales family, they were allowed to retain a Little Chapel in the grounds.

The story of influential families in Hackington starts with Sir Roger Manwood who was granted these lands by Queen Elizabeth I. Sir Roger built himself a tudor residence just to the North of St. Stephen's Church where there now stands a small group of shops. This was called "Place House". Sir Roger was also responsible for the original construction of the beautiful row of Alms Houses opposite the Church Hall and (bless his cotton socks) one of my old watering holes, "Ye Olde Beverlie" public house. Title to the house and land passed through his second son to Thomas Culpepper to the Third Baronet, Sir Edward Hales in 1675. The Hales were a Catholic family, a fact that they tried to hide with various degrees of success, and it seems, from what I have seen, that they were not particularly well liked in the district.

Because of the problems of being a Catholic in England, the Fourth Baronet, Sir John, converted and became a Protestant. In old age he became extremely eccentic and lived as complete recluse. He was found in his bedroom completely on his own in the great house, some time after he died in 1745. A famous intellectual of the time, a Miss Elizabeth Carter, (who actually came from amd lived at Brabourne), commented a the time, "so he died, quite alone, and not discovered for some time after his death".

After this the Fifth Baronet, Sir Edward, (once again, back to being a Catholic) built the great house of Hales Place and pulled down the apparently beautiful "Place House". Hales Place was huge and was desribed as being more fitting for a monarch than a country gentleman. To give some idea of the size of the place, when it was eventually broken up, which I shall come to later, there were a total of three million bricks sold. (As a comparison, the 235 foot Bell Harry Tower of Canterbury Cathedral contains a mere half a million bricks).

The new residence was built on the area which is now known as "The Terrace" and had a remarkable view of the City and the Cathedral. The Chapel at the house, which was a superb structure, regularly held Catholic services for over a 100 people out of a total of 300 Catholics in the County at that time. The house was constructed between 1766 and 1768 but never completely finished by Sir Edward. In fact, the cost of construction of such a large building caused him financial difficulty and gradually other parts of the family estates in Kent were sold off to meet the bills. Among the other titles possessed by the family were, Earl of Tenterden, Viscount Tunstall and Baron of Elmley. The estate passed to the Sixth Earl, another Sir Edward, but he died without issue and the land and building passed to the French family of de Morlaincourt who subsequently changed their name back to Hales but, of course, could not also take the hereditary titles. There was a problem of continuing diminishing issue in this family too and the Estate went through several other changes of ownership through this family and an attempt to turn it into a Benadictine Priory before eventually being bought by a French order of Jesuits in approximately 1885. At this time the Chapel was enlarged further but the monks only stayed for about 40 years before being allowed to return to France after previously having been exiled by the Third Republic.

The property was sold for development and was demolished in 1928 by a Mr. R.A. Dagnall. When I grew up there which was many years after the main house had been torn down (but prior to the construction of the Meadow Way housing estate) many of the fields around the area still had large chunks of walls here and there which were overgrown by brambles. At that time the whole area was known by the local children, including myself, as "The Jesuits". The woods that must have once formed part of the estate were also a haven for the Green Woodpecker which seemed to disappear after the trees were torn out for housing. I was extremely pleased to see, two years ago, a whole family of Green Woodpeckers again on the grounds on the new University of Kent, which is situated at the top of St. Stephen's Hill.

It is interesting to note that when I was young enough to go to the local County Primary School at St. Stephens, the "Houses" that the children were divided into were:
Hales (colour - blue), Manwood (colour - green), Culpepper (colour - yellow, and Glebe (colour - red).
So, even in the 20th century, the old family names were still kept alive.

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In addition to the references to the Hales family mentioned above, there is an impressive Elizabethan monument to Sir James Hales in the North Aisle of Canterbury Cathedral. Sir James died during the Naval engagement at Cadiz in 1589 and was buried at sea. The monument also mentions his wife, Alice, and his son, Chenies, who died very soon after his Father in 1596.

An earlier Sir James Hales was a Judge and was involved in receiving Ann of Cleves at Dover. He eventually fell out of favour with Queen Mary which drove him mad. As a result of this unbalanced state of mind, he drowned himself in a shallow stream at the opposite end of the City in Thanington. As a result of this action, his widow sued for the trespass done to a leasehold estate. (This lady was well ahead of her time!) For anyone reading this page that has to be involved in legal matters, the following extract from the contemporary Plowden's report might prove amusing:

"Sir James Hale was dead, and how came he to his death? It may be answered by drowning; and who drowned him? Sir James Hales; and when did he drown him? In his life-time. So that Sir James Hales being alive caused Sir James Hales to die; and the act of a living man was the act of a dead man. And then after this offence it is reasonable to punish the living man who committed the offence and not the dead man".

See, even in those days lawyers tied the English language in knots just to extract exorbitant fees!