LOCAL TRADITION tells how Julius Caesar once ; ' gave a house on the site to the De Higher: fa." 1 descendants of Norman invaders who helped William Amanda and Patricia have found Tudor brickwork in 1 the basement and a priest’s hole from a time when ,, residents included the Culpeper family of famous. , herbalists, one of whom, ll the Conqueror subdue the area. Present owners . Thomas, was later fatally ( implicated in Mary Queen of I. Scots’ final conspiracy against Elizabeth l. The house passed through many hands, until in 1901, a i banker called William Gay , added a portico and I gardens inspired by his A grandson’s glowing account of his Grand Tour of Europe. determined to buy Higham l as an English estate for her son, Louis. William Gay was reluctant to sell -- until Margaret, who owned . much of Manhattan, made an offer he couidn’t refuse. ; Just as the Countess moved in, in 1911, she died of i ’flu, leaving Louis, her '1 6-year-old son, to live there alone with his £11.5 million pound legacy. Louis, a reat- , life Great Gatsby, married a Gaiety Girl called Violet Leicester, one of an elite group of stunning music-hall i dancers who wed into the upper classes. He raced A y miniature trains round the garden, and built fast cars. A l neighbour, James Bond creator tan Fleming, watched camped on land now‘ in Higharrfs grounds, finding it a arid‘: aeroplane ertgrra — J ___ H _ W lg days rnarch am; h . HlGHAM PARK’S ‘Ian Fleming watched am mitriihigiitiawi ‘ as Louis created three racing cars with aeroplane engines l mitmtiéiémmii, and sailed Them Chiilv Bflmv a famous relative, Margaret agog as Louis created three extraordinary racing cars l . O FLAMBGYANT AND GENEROUS. C-:1-..;.~: l.ZIJS presented the villagers of Bridge with the fastest fire engine of its day. But his fascination with speed brought him misery. ‘A neighbour remembers him burying a Mercedes in a chalkpit here,’ says Patricia. Apparently, Count Louis had had the car built for his best T friend, John Hartsthorne- Cooper. ‘Jorhn was killed in speed trials driving it, and the Count decided to bury the car ‘ and never to speak of him i again.’ Count Louis was killed 1 in 1924, racing a Mercedes ll just like his father. Violet married into another weaithy 1 changed the name to Highland Court because he didrft want to be known as “Whigharn of Hlg-ham”; explains Amanda. Higham was home to Walter’s most Duchess of Argyll, notorious for the divorce case brought by her husband after he discovered a photo of her, wearing only her pearls, with a ‘headless man’ said to 1 be the actor Douglas Fai‘rbanks Junior. C IN 1939 THE HOUSE was used by the Army as a barracks, and in 1942 it became Free French headquarter for General do Gaulle. After the War, it was sold and became a hospital, then a children’s A home. in 1988, its turnbledown state led to closure and it was boarded up. Finally came rescue and a new 3 lease of life with Amanda and Patricia. motorbikes that he could reproduce in his garage the tiny metal hinges on each window in Higham’ s facade, which had been hanging off after storm damage. ‘We do everything by gut feeling,’ says Patricia. ‘We planned the flower beds in shades of apricot and it was right, to judge by a picture from the 1900s brought to us one day by a former butler here.’ ICI was particularly helpful, designing —- frcc — a special sealant to stop the paint bubbling on the plaster. Furniture came by luck when Ban"y’s bank moved to modem officcs and didn’t want antiquated items such as a 28-foot table. The idea of opening the house for formal tours occurred by accident when an old man came around and asked if he could sec the garden. ‘Loads of people kept arriving to look round,’ says Amanda. This is their first year of offering what they call proper tours, in which one of them relates the triumphs and problems of living at Higham. Though they love their visitors, they also have unnerving ones. Amanda, Patricia and Barry have all hoard ccric footsteps in one overhead room. Around tho kitchen, an invisible man has whistlcd a tune -— which the ladies both heard — and former staff and patients coming back to visit (in one of its previous incarnations, the house had been a hospital), have recounted tales of hearing invisible ambulances driving up the gravel drive to the front door, then drawing away a fcw minutes later. Other terrifying visits have come from all-too-solid men clutching iron bars, hoping to raid the house for imaginary treasures. Ono, when cornered, ran his van into Amanda in his haste to escape, but she wasn’t badly hurt. They now have floodlights, and the police arrive within two minutes of an alarm call. Amanda took a snapshot of ofic intruder, a man in black they saw coming across a field. They ran after him — only to find he had vanished into thin air. The developed film showed nothing but a cloudy haze in the field, with the outline of someone in its midst. A scientist found nothing wrong with the film, nor did any image appear on the photograph frames either side of the cloud. They concluded that the man was yct another ghost. Five years after moving in, they can make plans for the future. When the upper floors are fixed, they want to put in eight apartments, rented out to like-minded people, who can help to pay for the housc’s upkeep. They will restore garden follies, such as a temple they have seen in old photos, and reinstate the pretty peacock-shaped topiaty, whose outlines they uncov- ered. Then, perhaps, a little light horse-breeding once again. And -—- who knows? ---~ one day, they might have time to change into evening frocks for drinks on the terrace like ladies to the manor born. Higham Park, near Bridge, Canterbury, Kent, is open 11am-6pm, Sunday to Thursday, until October 31. House, £1.50; gardens, £2.50 (children £1). Tel; 01227 830830, or visit www.higham-park.c0.z.rk r 26 August 2000 - Weekend 21.