Links to 1380: My Home, a Castle and an Ancestor

Links to 1380: My Home, a Castle and an Ancestor

Simon Mallett explores three places connected by the year 1380: his home, Vine Farmhouse; Sudbury Tower in Canterbury; and the Disney Manor at Norton Disney, excavated by Time Team in 2024. Their stories intersect with that of his ancestor, Sir William Disney V, his eighteenth great-grandfather.

A longtime Sandwich resident, Simon Mallett grew up with Richborough Castle as his playground before a varied career that took him from Harwell to the Gulf of Mexico, Egypt, London, Paris and Pakistan with the oil industry, IT, the Foreign Office, the British Council and Cable & Wireless.

In the 1970s, he rescued a set of metal trunks from decay, rediscovering them decades later and revealing centuries of family history. Now back at Vine Farm, he is converting barns, planting trees and continuing his exploration of the past.