BROKEN ROMANCE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 52, Issue 3756, 15 May 1936, Page 5

BROKEN ROMANCE

LOVE STORY OF KENTISH MANSION. London, March 28. Forty years ago Mr. J. T. Hedley, wealthy bachelor, bought Longcroft, a 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 and closed. Six gardeners have tended its 14 acres of lawns and meadowland. Offers Refused. Offers to purchase Longcroft have been refused. Its quaint towers and ornamental balconies, sheltered by fir trees, have stood amid the rapid growth of modem houses around its site in 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 swarded £250. To the end of her days Mr. Hedley, an old man, was still her suitor, never seeing her, but sending her weekly baskets of fruit and flowers cut from tile gardens at Longcroft. But now the sad love story is rapidly drawing to a close. Mr. Hedley never married and became almost a recluse, leaving his house at Beckenham only to pay visits to Longcroft —three miles away—where he would speak to his gardeners and sometimes walk through the empty rooms. He is now eighty-two. It is feared he will never rise again from his bed. The photographs of Miss Broughton remain in his room.