Wilderness (or Wildernesse Park), previously called Stiddulphs, was one of the three country houses of the Pratt/Camden family, the others being Bayham Hall and Camden Place. Wilderness was purchased by Sir John Pratt in about 1700 and according to a note in the catalogue of the Pratt MSS (at the Centre for Kentish Studies) 'it was designed by George Dance, the elder (1700-68) and built probably in the mid eighteenth century' but this authorship has not been corroborated.

The younger Dance was asked to extend the house in or after 1811, the watermark date of a copy of James Wyatt's plan of Dodington Park which was the source for a part of one of the designs for Wilderness. It was natural that Dance, as an intimate friend of the Pratt family who had worked on other of their houses, should be asked to extend the existing compact villa with its low office wing. The need was for more bedrooms and service accommodation and Dance drew out various proposals that included adding another floor to the two-storey house and to the single-storey offices. The intermediate Design C employed a conservatory on a quadrant plan to link the old house with new apartments - the idea borrowed from Dodington. Less costly proposals followed but it seems from later evidence that none of Dance's designs seen in these drawings was carried out.

Neale's engraved view of Wilderness (published in 1819), shows a seven-bay, three-storey entrance front in which the centre three bays have been filled in by a door (approached by a few steps) and side windows, over which runs a balcony. This does not suggest Dance's hand and neither do the keystoned windows. A survey plan made in 1858 inscribed 'Plan of the Wildernesse House' (Centre for Kentish Studies, U840 EB217) shows the earlier house enlarged with, for example, the centre three bays of the principal (west) front now slightly projecting instead of recessed, and with a porte-cochere. Behind this new entrance is a shallow hall and beyond this a billiard room and a staircase hall. The south side still has the original large apartment but now with a screen while the north side retains the study on the west side with a secondary stair (as before) and pantry and plate closet instead of a single family apartment. The house has been extended on the east side by a drawing room and dining room behind the old house, and northwards by 'Lord Brecknock's sitting room', a secondary stair and 'young ladies school room'. The east side of the house has a formally laid out garden, conservatory and orangery. The offices to the north have been considerably extended and include a stable for 15 houses, coach house, laundry, brewhouse, dog yard and kitchens. The alterations and additions, which may not have been built all at the same time, are more extensive than those proposed by Dance.

Wilderness Park was bought in 1886 by Sir Charles Henry Mills who greatly enlarged it. Between the Wars, it was a country club and latterly has been used as a school for blind children.

LITERATURE. J. P. Neale, View of seats, vol.II, 1819, pl.52; Stroud p.245; J. Newman West Kent and the Weald, 1980, p.509.

OTHER SOURCES. Information form the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone. The attribution of the mid-18th century Wilderness to the elder Dance is given under 'Title Deeds' [p.9] in the introduction to the typescript catalogue of Pratt MSS U840, compiled 1961. Miss Anne Oakley, past archivist (correspondence, 9 September 1998), thinks that the information must have come from internal evidence but this has not been traced.

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