KENTISH LOVE STORY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 111, 23 April 1936, Page 12

KENTISH LOVE STORY

Waited 40 Years For Chorus Girl SENT GIFTS FOR 30 YEARS (From Our Special Correspondent).. (By Air Mail). LONDON, March 28. Forty years ago Mr J. T. Hedley, wealthy bachelor, bought Longcroft, s magnificent mansion at Hayes, Kent, and prepared it for his young bride. She was to be the famous Gaiety actress, Miss Phyllis Broughton, toast of London in her day. A few days before the wedding the romance was shattered. Miss Broughton sent a telegram cancelling the engagement. From that day the mansion, emptied of its bridal suite, has been shuttered aud closed. Six gardeners have tended its fourteen acres of lawns and meadowland.

Offers to purchase Longcroft have been refused. Its quaint towers and ornamental balconies, sheltered by fir trees, have stood amid the rapid growth of modern houses around its site iu Pickhurst-lane. Ten-feet high spiked railings, a fierce watch dog, and a moat on the south side, still secure its isolation. In 1926 Miss Broughton died, unmarried. She had been engaged again—to Earl Cowley. She sued him for breach of promise and was awarded £2500.

To the end of her days Mr Hedley, an old man, was still her suitor, never seeing her, but sending her weekly bus kets of fruit and flowers cut from the gardens at Longcroft. But now the sad love story is rapidly drawing to a close. Mr Hedley never married and became almost a reeluse, leaving his house at Beckenham only to pay visits to Longcroft—three miles away, where lie would speak to his gardeners and sometimes walk through the empty rooms.

He is now eighty-two. It is feared ha will never rise again from his bed. The photographs of Miss Broughton remain in his room.