The Grape Escape

What started as a hobby for entrepreneur Richard Balfour-Lynn quickly became an expanding family based wine and cider business. 

- Sarah Sturt

RICHARD and LESLIE BALFOUR-LYNN first came to Kent in 1986, just before they got married and were in search of a family home.

They found the perfect one in Tudor-framed Hush Heath Manor, nestling into a hill, with magnificent views across the Weald of Kent. Built in 1503, the manor served as a pair of wealthy weavers’ cottages, in an era when Kent was the centre of Europe’s textile industry. By the 1980s, however, it was in need of extensive restoration and the next four years entailed a full restitution, inside and out.

Richard takes up the tale: “In about 1870 the manor owned all this land but they ran out of money and sold it to the Days, a big Kent farming family, who owned it right up to 2001.

“The Day children had farms all over Kent but the child who owned this farm decided to sell it as a series of lots. We went to the auction and ended up buying the land simply because it surrounded our house. Then a year later Leslie said to me ‘why don’t you plant a vineyard?’ – expecting a few rows…”

Richard, who has been in the property industry for more than 30 years, wasn’t going to be put off by the challenge, although he admits: “When you plant your first vineyard you really don’t know what the microclimate is going to do.

“We are very fortunate that we are almost in a valley surrounded by woods and have a really great microclimate because it’s so protected and sheltered.

“It’s luck, I can’t say we planned it, but what I can say is that we are in the Garden of England and this is a major fruit-growing area and we have this wonderful Wealden clay.