Crockham Hill and Octavia Hill

Octavia Hill,co-founder of the National Trust, took up her association with Crockham Hill in Kent in 1884, when she took on a cottage there called Larksfield. I visited Crockham Hill today, after taking in two local National Trust properties: Chartwell, and Emmetts Garden. Octavia may have known of both places, though they only came to the Trust in the 1960s.

Hill was fond of Crockham Hill, which she used as her country retreat. As the name suggests, this is a hilly part of the country, with wonderful views across the wooded Weald. Hill was a great lover of the uplands, which took on a spiritual significance in her eyes. Hills brought one closer to God, and enabled God's kingdom to be surveyed and marvelled at. Little wonder that the National Trust acquired so many hills in its early decades - including (in addition to those in the Lake District) several in the vicinity of Crockham: Ide Hill, Toys Hill, Mariner's Hill.

Hill died on 13 August 1912, at the age of 73. She is buried at Crockham Hill church. A simple gravestone marks the plot, though Octavia's name (along with that of her companion Harriot Yorke) follows that of Miranda Hill, her sister, who died in 1910.

Inside the church is a full-length effigy of a recumbent Octavia Hill, to the left of the altar. It is a striking monument. 

In one of the windows is a specially commissioned stained glass, installed in 1995 (the centenary of the founding of the National Trust), commemorating Hill's legacy. 

It is a beautiful, peaceful church, in an idyllic part of the country: so close to the M25, yet it could almost be another world altogether.