From the Gardener to the Chauffeur

The first Gardener’s Cottage was built in Dane John in 1812 by John Simmonds (James Simmons in some records), a banker and city alderman who had obtained permission to improve the public land of Dane John Field as an “ornament to the city, conducive to the pleasure and health of all the inhabitants”.  He did so at considerable personal expense, and for his trouble was rewarded by being summoned to court for non-payment of a small debt!  He returned the land to the city in anger, whereupon it fell into disrepair until the city took over its upkeep in the second half of the century, building the current cottage for the head gardener in 1877.

The cottage became the home of Kay Seymour (above) in 1975.  Kay, who had driven ambulances in WWII in heavily-bombed Portsmouth and had always loved driving, found herself bored and struggling to make ends meet in retirement, so when she saw a job advertised for a chauffeur to the Mayor of Canterbury, she applied for the job (fibbing slightly about her true age) and became the first woman civic chauffeur in England.  She lived in the house until her death in 2006, when her daughters renovated the cottage as you find it today.