Smallhythe Place

Charming Tudor home of Victorian actress Ellen Terry.

This Kentish farmhouse is best known and loved as the country retreat of Dame Ellen Terry from 1899 until her death in 1928. Its early history is a little sketchy, but in the late 15th century the town of Tenterden was a busy port on a tributary of the River Rother, and Smallhythe Place is believed to have housed the harbourmaster. Though this navigable waterway has long since diminished to a trickling stream, the half-timbered house remains a fine example of a comfortable period home.

Externally, the farmhouse is a substantial rectangular building with a red-tiled roof and a homely chimney stack. Inside, the dwelling bears resemblance to a theatrical museum with the large, heavily beamed farmhouse kitchen given over as a memorial room featuring portraits and treasures from past stars of the stage. The well-preserved upstairs rooms contain a collection of Ellen's lavish costumes and play memorabilia from The Lyceum theatre. It is only in the simple low-ceilinged bedroom that we are awarded a glimpse of Ellen Terry the woman, not the actress. The room stands as she left it, with bare floorboards, patterned rugs and pastel portraits of her family. Most revealing is the worn, annotated copy of the Globe Shakespeare which rests on the bedside table.

Ellen Terry was an acclaimed Shakespearean actress, immortalised as Lady Macbeth by American painter John Sargent and famed for her professional partnership with Sir Henry Irving. She held great affection for Smallhythe Place, her last home, and her rose garden survives to bloom in the cottage grounds alongside the orchard, nuttery and exclusive Barn Theatre.

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