Ven House

A Memory of Milborne Port.

The entrance to Ven House had two phoenix on the gates, I believe we adopted the phoenix to our college badge. We were evacuated from Eastbourne during the Second World War, as a molotove cocktail bomb burnt down the building. We were sheltering in a dug out in the school grounds. Virtually overnight a convoy of charabancs took us to Milbourne Port and Ven House. Opposite Ven House was a hill we called Babylon. We used to semaphore from the roof of Ven House to the top of the hill in our school Scout movement. A stream ran throughout the grounds, also under the verandah leading to the gardens and lily pond where we assembled each day for roll call. There was an orangery at the end of the verandah. The grounds had a vast collection of trees and shrubs imported by Sir Hubert Medlycott, the owner of Ven House. Mr Cottingham was our principal, till he stepped down for a Welsh ex-army officer who took over. Rugby was introduced to replace football, which did not go down too well with us, but we accepted it. The Sunday march to church, having lined up for the penny we were given for the collection, we did run the gauntlet with the village boys, but the girls were much more receptive. We had turns to pump the church organ, and I believe my name was scratched on the pump woodwork. Cross country runs were a regular thing. I remember collecting Cordite from outside an army camp. The secret panels, large oil paintings and crystal chandeliers were magnificent, but not treated too well by us, I believe many of us got prisms from them. I believe that during the war large buildings such as Lord Willingdon's Ven House had the choice of either the army or a school to occupy them. I don't believe they fancied tanks ripping up their gardens and chose a school instead. We didn't have a swimming pool at Ven House, so we undertook a project to dig one out in the grounds where the stream opened out. I do not believe we ever finished it. The stream ran throughout the village, I believe that a glove manafacturing business tipped its waste into the stream, making the water rather dark. I believe in 1945 we returned to Cliftonville in Margate where we originally started from.