became his not far distant neighbour after her marriage at Hadlow in 1692 to John Gladdish of Ash. Mary died, only months short of her Golden Wedding, in 1741 and her husband six years later. Theirs is the handsome altar tomb in Ash churchyard near to the south wall the church.
   A family event that John and Mary Gladdish had lived to see had been the marriage, at Southfleet in 1732, of their daughter Elizabeth to her cousin, Thomas Allen. The wedding would have been a quiet one, for it took place little more than a month after Thomas had succeeded at Scadbury on the death of his father, Robert Allen. Thomas Allen was the only head of the Allens of Scadbury who was not named Robert, that honour being reserved in his generation for his brother Robert, who lived for many years at Fawkham Court Lodge. In so far as he could, Thomas put matters right by naming his own eldest son Robert. This Robert married, in 1763, Eleanor, daughter of James Deane 

and his wife, Mary who had also been born a Gladdish.^13a  They had three children, a son, Robert, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Ann, of whom more will be said in a later chapter.
   In the meantime, Thomas Allen’s third son, John Allen, had settled at Idleigh, whither in 1768 he brought his young bride, Elizabeth Winson of Ridley. Their son John, later of Darenth, and their daughter Mary, who became Mrs William Selby and the mother of John Allen Selby, were both christened at Ash in 1770, John in January of that year and Mary in the following December.
   John Allen’s uncle, John Allen of Milton, lived to be ninety-two and amongst this uncle’s descendants, who included later generations of the Edmeades family of Nursted Court, longevity was not uncommon. Neverthless, the Allens were not generally a long-lived family. John’s eldest brother, Robert of Scadbury, died at forty-