Since the village of Hollingbourne appeared in the Domesday Book, little of note has happened there, save for a 14th-century earthquake and the billeting of New Zealand troops during the dark days of 1940.
But then uneventful is exactly how the 900 residents have preferred life. And so it was, until this week when a different kind of shockwave rocked their prosperous, picture-postcard settlement on Kent’s North Downs to its ancient foundations.
Land Registry documents show that Dudley Wright, a 72-year-old gentleman farmer who has lived at Snagbrook House in the centre of Hollingbourne for most of his life — and much of that alone — has in recent weeks sold the substantial Grade-II listed property and the land around it for a fraction of its true worth.
Farmer Dudley Wright (left, at his wedding years ago) sold his property very cheaply to the family of criminal Henry Vincent Senior (right)
Puzzle: Snagbrook House and its grounds was sold at a startlingly low price
That in itself would have been troubling to those who knew and liked the old man, for all his quirks. That the new owners were members of a notorious crime clan, whose modus operandi was to prey on vulnerable pensioners, and whose activities have made national headlines in the past month was, one villager told the Mail, ‘truly shocking’.
Career criminal Henry Vincent Junior was stabbed to death on April 4 during a struggle with 78-year-old pensioner Richard Osborn-Brooks. Vincent, 37, and his alleged accomplice Billy Jeeves were attempting to burgle Mr Osborn-Brooks’s South London home.
A stand-off ensued between Vincent’s family and friends, who tried to create a shrine to the dead man outside his attempted victim’s home, and Mr Osborn-Brooks’s Hither Green neighbours. Meanwhile, a major police manhunt was underway for Jeeves.
He was finally arrested on April 20 by officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Homicide and Major Crime Command.
Land registry documents show that Mrs Vincent bought the palatial farmhouse called Snagbrook in Hollingbourne, Kent, and 40 acres of land on April 12, for just £325,000 – six times less than its true market value
The Vincents began living on the farm (pictured) two years ago
Not all Hollingbourne’s residents would have read this with the same detached interest as the rest of the country. Yes, the fatal burglary had taken place more than 30 miles away. But some in the village recognised faces and names from the press coverage and previous reports of burglaries in their community.
The dead burglar’s father Henry Vincent Senior — another career criminal who has served time in prison for offences against pensioners — had been living on the Snagbrook House estate for some time with his second wife Rosemary. Some of the villagers say they knew him by another name he used.
It was only this week, however, that the Vincent story really came home to roost in Hollingbourne. It emerged that in the past month the Snagbrook House estate — estimated to be worth £1.7 to £2 million, had been purchased in the name of Rosemary Vincent, the dead burglar’s stepmother, for just £325,000.
Elderly farmer Dudley Wright, who police insist is safe and happy, pictured in recent years
Mr Wright, 72, is reportedly living in this static caravan on the 40-acre site. Locals in Hollingbourne have also raised concern over the well-being of Mr Wright, who was once a vocal member of their community, but is not now often seen in the village
The Mail also reported that it was in the 40-acre grounds of what had been Dudley Wright’s property — next door to Hollingbourne’s primary school — that the suspected burglar Billy Jeeves was finally tracked down and arrested.
What on earth had happened to the eccentric Mr Wright, the village asked. How had he come to be mixed up with such people? And how had they managed to acquire his home for one-sixth of the estimated market value?
On Wednesday, when news of the sale of Snagbrook to the Vincents first broke, there was deep concern for the old farmer’s well-being. For some years, the village had been worried about Dudley Wright and his withdrawal from local life. But at every turn their concern had been rebuffed by him and his strange new friends.
Richard Osborn-Brooks, 78, stabbed Henry Jnr, 37, to death as he burgled the pensioner’s home in Hither Green on April 4. No charges were brought against Mr Osborn-Brooks
The police and Social Services had visited his home, only to be told that everything was fine. But he had not been seen by some neighbours for more than a year. He had ‘disappeared off the face of the earth’, one said.
This week, police officers went to Snagbrook House once again. They found Dudley Wright at the property. He told them he was OK and they left.
On Thursday, when the Vincent family buried Henry Junior in South-East London amid violent scenes as mourners attacked the media — an event which cost £26,000 to police — all was peaceful in Hollingbourne, where many of the houses date back several centuries, and the bluebells and cherry blossom are in full bloom.
At least all was peaceful, save for the baying of dogs from the unkempt grounds of Snagbrook House, where a pack of alsatians — a mother and juvenile litter — could be seen roaming behind the padlocked front gate.
The villagers all know who is living among them now. They are worried; some worried enough by the Vincents’ reputation not to want their names mentioned. But they all wanted to tell what they knew of the strange story of Dudley Wright.
The Wrights have lived in and around Hollingbourne since Victorian times at least. Dudley was an only child who went to a local public school. His father Leonard was a wartime service RAF officer who had a successful garage business.
Henry Jnr (left) died during a botched burglary and was stabbed with his own screwdriver by pensioner Osborn-Brooks
Leonard sold up to buy the 1,700-acre Snagbrook House estate and farm cattle and arable land. He did rather well. In 1961, father and son won best of breed at the Sussex show with their cow Howecourte Zorille. Mr Wright senior died in 1975 and his widow continued to live with her son at Snagbrook House until her death in 1992.
By then, Dudley had married and divorced Winifred, with whom he had a daughter Davina, now 41. He had also sold off much of the land and livestock in Hollingbourne.
In later years he employed a single cowman, called Walter Bratton, who worked for the Wright family for more than 50 years. By all accounts, Dudley Wright had a deep interest in current affairs, was a little odd and like many farmers was ‘asset rich but cash poor’. He was a daily visitor to the village shop. There he liked to buy a pie, pick up his newspapers and discuss the world.
If he was particularly exercised — and he frequently was — he would write to politicians to express his concerns or support. They ranged from the parish council to President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron. If Mr Wright was particularly angry he used red ink.
This week, the Mail saw one of Dudley Wright’s angry letters — one which gives a clue to a sudden estrangement between him and the village which left him isolated in his rambling farmhouse.
Hollingbourne is twinned with the French town of Templeuve-en-Pevele, and each Armistice Day a coach party organised by the local Royal British Legion would travel from Kent to northern France, where they would lay flowers at local war cemeteries and be entertained by their counterparts at a civic reception. Mr Wright enjoyed going on the trips. In return, the French would come over for lunch on the day of the Hollingbourne fete, which was held in June.
According to parish council chair Mike Bedwell, Mr Wright decided that the Templeuve party deserved more lavish hospitality. In 2014 he began, quite unilaterally, to plan a weekend of events, including a dinner at £14 a head and a picnic.
A former neighbour said that three years ago Vincent Snr began work on the property and parked his caravan on the land where he slept while he was there
He wrote to the French mayor to outline his plans, designed his own invitations and consulted a Belgian chef on a proposed menu.
His efforts were charming and sincere. But there was a snag. ‘We already had something arranged,’ says Mr Bedwell.
‘Dudley wrote to all sorts of people about it, complaining.’ In one missive to the mayor of the French town, he wrote with some venom: ‘Le conseil ici dites moi NON.’ (‘The council have told me “no”.’)
‘I believe he felt slighted by everyone concerned and was very upset,’ says Mr Bedwell. ‘After that he withdrew.
‘When he was befriended by Mr Vincent, he withdrew even further and rebuffed any advances from old colleagues and friends. He said he didn’t want anything to do with them.’
Soon after the Vincents moved in around two years ago, Mr Wright’s cattle were sold and a long-serving farm worker, who had lived in a house in the grounds, was duly removed and lost his job
This new allegiance seemed a curious one given that Henry Vincent Senior’s antecedents could not be more different from that of the old farmer. In 2003, he along with his son Henry and five brothers were jailed for more than 28 years in total for a £450,000 building scam.
The family would knock on the doors of elderly people in South London and Kent, telling them they had structural problems with their homes and quoting large fees to fix them.
The victims were then pressured into paying, with some even being marched to the banks to withdraw funds. One woman in her 80s ended up signing over her £150,000 home to cover the cost of guttering and other building work.
Vincent Junior got 4½ years for his part in the scam. His father received a 5½-year term. Once released, father and son went back to the work they knew best. They conned an 81-year-old pensioner out of £72,000 to repair a single tile on his roof. Vincent Senior was jailed for six years in 2011.
It is unclear when Dudley Wright met the Vincents, but we have been told it was through his gardener, who knew the clan.
One villager told us that Henry Vincent Senior began living in a caravan on the property while he ‘repaired’ Snagbrook House’s leaky roof for Mr Wright.
‘The Vincents did some work on his roof, for which they charged about £6,000,’ says a villager.
‘Dudley did not have the cash to pay them and so they said “Give us that field by your house”. It’s the field that goes down to the main road where the school is. So the Vincents took ownership of that plot of land.’
The minutes of the parish council record the growing unease about what was happening in their village. In 2015, Mr Wright’s 76-year-old cowhand Walter Bratton was given a letter by Vincent Senior telling him his services were no longer required and he had to leave.
An Aerial View Of The Grade 1 Listed Mansion And Surrounding Land
Mr Bratton said this week: ‘I was absolutely gutted. I’d been working for his family for 50 years and wasn’t even given a reason for why he no longer needed me.’
So it was that Dudley Wright ended up alone with the Vincents, who were describing themselves as his ‘carers’, villagers say. In the autumn of 2016 the village was spurred to action. A lorry was seen ‘exiting the village with a substantial number of Mr Wright’s old automobiles’. Councillors were very worried that Dudley had not been seen for months.
‘Various people got in touch with the parish council saying they were concerned about Dudley and what were we going to do about this Vincent character befriending him,’ recalls the chairman. ‘They knew about Henry Vincent Senior’s past activities.’
The parish council had no powers to intervene. But the local police community support officer would be contacted to ‘check on his welfare’.
In November the council meeting duly heard ‘PCSO Dave Rowley has visited a local pensioner who had not been seen for some time by neighbours, and he was found to be living with a carer and in good spirits. The police do not have any concerns about his welfare but they will monitor the situation.’
A social worker also visited Mr Wright, and was similarly sanguine about his situation.
This intervention, however, brought a furious response from the old man and a surprise appearance by the Vincents.
The following month, the parish council recorded that it had received a letter from ‘a local resident in the village [Dudley Wright] requesting that the Parish Council do not contact him, otherwise he will instruct his solicitor to take action alleging harassment. The person concerned has also insisted that the village shop owner and others do not contact him either.’
It was also noted that ‘a member of the public in attendance reiterated the request on behalf of the local resident’.
That ‘member of the public’ was none other than the criminal Henry Vincent Senior, confirms parish council chair Mike Bedwell.
‘I said “Has anyone got anything to say?” and Henry Vincent said “I have come here to hear what you’re saying about us.”
‘I said “Why?” He explained that he was the cowhand for Dudley and was helping him. I am not sure if he was his carer, but someone said he was down as his official carer. He was polite at that meeting.’
The Land Registry deeds show that Mr Wright’s property was sold off to Mrs Vincent in five plots. We are also told that Mr Wright had written to his ex-wife, saying that their daughter had been written out of his will.
This week Dudley Wright’s former wife, 72, whom he married in 1972 and split up with four years later, said she was so concerned about his health and safety that she had contacted the police.
‘They told me that as we were divorced they could not tell me anything about him so as not to interfere in his privacy,’ she said. ‘But two years ago I received a letter from Dudley saying that our daughter was being disinherited from his estate. That was a big shock.’
No wonder many of the villagers are angry and concerned. They wonder where the purchase money came from, and how much of it is in Dudley Wright’s own bank account. Did the old man know what he was doing when he signed away his family home for considerably less than its market worth?
‘No one really knows what Dudley’s situation is,’ says Mike Bedwell. You cannot tell someone how to choose their friends.’
Others are less diplomatic. ‘That somehow, somebody can be persuaded to let go of an asset worth in excess of one and three-quarter million for a fraction of that price; what solicitor would allow that?’ said a former friend of Mr Wright.
‘The police are saying that Dudley is alive and well, but are they also saying that there’s nothing for them to investigate? For many people here it’s a complete shock what’s happened. It’s a shock that the police seem to think there’s nothing for them to do.’
One suspects the disquieting story of exactly what has gone on behind the locked gates of Snagbrook House is far from over.