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Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Kenyon, Katherine Mary Rose (known as ‘Kitty’)

17.07.1887 - 18.03.1981

Although her birth was registered in Medway, Kent, Katherine came from an old Shropshire family of lawyers and military personnel. Census records indicate that in 1891 the family were living in Gillingham and in 1901 in Devonport. It is not known precisely when but shortly thereafter, her father Major-General Edward Ranulph Kenyon C.B., C.M.G, the second son of John Robert Kenyon inherited the family home of Pradoe House, situated in West Felton near Oswestry, because his elder brother died without issue. This impressive Georgian property was immortalized in a book written by Katherine. Entitled A House That Was Loved it was published in 1941. 

Katherine never married. During the First World War she initially served in the Beatrice Hankey Home Huts, established for Kitchener’s Army and then for two years as a VAD in the No 4 General Hospital in Camiers, just south of Boulogne. After the War she worked for the Industrial Christian Fellowship and the Guild of Health.

Moving to Hampshire in 1934, Katherine’s interest in heritage was evident though her involvement with the newly-formed Council for the Preservation of Rural England. She was Secretary of the Winchester Branch from 1937 to 1957 and subsequently a Vice-president of the Hampshire branch. As a campaigner she was reknown for her ‘idefatigable fighing qualities’, having a high profile in campaigns to preserve, for example, Gilbert White’s Selborne and St Catherine’s Hill, Winchester.

She was also a member of the Hampshire Field Club and served as Secretary of the Hampshire Local History Council during the 1950s. At the time of the 1939 Register she was living in Winchester at Yew Tree Cottage, Colden Common, and by the late 1940s in Twyford, her home for the rest of her life and where she was closely involved with the Women’s Institute. It would appear that she had sufficient ‘private means’ to have the time and financial resources to pursue her interests

Sources

  • Compton & Shawford Local History Society

  • Hampshire Chronicle, 27 March 1981, p.9; and 3 April 1981, p.2.

  • Doren Pearce and Stanley Crookes, Twyford Ringing the Changes (George Mann: Winchester, 1999) p.83

Portrait

Cover of Kenyon's book on Keats in Winchester

Cover of her book on Keats in Winchester.

Contribution to county’s history

As the titles below indicate, Katherine’s publications were many and varied. She was a prolific writer of articles, short essays and letters which appeared in the Hampshire Chronicle, The Times, and Country Life. Many of these formed the bases of her more substantial works. Some of her published articles and newspaper cuttings on archaeology and local history, many relating to the Twyford area, are now lodged in the Hampshire Records Office. There are, for example, some Hampshire Chronicle articles about Brambridge House and Mrs Fitzherbert from the 1950s (Ref: TOP 41/3/2) and Twyford Village Scrapbook, dating from 1951 and produced by the WI, to which Katherine contributed an introductory poem. She also served as a historian and donator of illustrations (Ref: 26M89/16). In addition, there is an interview she recorded on 12 June 1975 with Austin Whitaker, Winchester City Archivist (Ref: W/K6/1/46; transcript, AV12/46/51). This covers a variety of topics but was primarily about efforts to prevent the demolition of Segars House, built at the end of the 16th Century but extended in the 17th and 18th. In 1955 these achieved some success but 7 years later the house was demolished, catching fire in the process.

Relevant published works

  • Benjamin Franklin at Twyford (Warren and Son, 1946)

  • Keats in Winchester (Warren and Son, 1948)

  • Walking Around Selborne (details not known)

  • Here and There but Mainly in Hampshire (Gilbert’s Bookshop, 1966), which includes:
    • The Church at Stoke Charity
    • Winchester College War Memorial Cloister
    • Jane Austen Out of Doors
    • Gilbert White’s Selborne

Critical Comments

Other Comments

Something of Katherine’s motivation and approach can be gauged from these comments on the dust cover of Here and There but Mainly in Hampshire: ‘England is changing. It has always known change, but never so rapidly or so ubiquitously as now. The gentle beauty of its landscape was largely created during the eighteenth century. The industrial revolution and the coming of the railways brought dramatic alterations. The inevitable changes of today are bringing more, these essays record time present and time past, which are meant for all who love the countryside.’ She described her ‘mental companions’ for the second half of her life as Jane Austen, John Keats and Gilbert White

Contributor

Roger Ottewill (7 June 2024)

Key Words

Council for the Preservation of Rural England, Womens Institute, Twyford, Jane Austen, Gilbert White

Any queries or further suggestions for this part of the list should be addressed to celebrating@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

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