Provender was probably named after its first owner, the 13th-century Elias de Provender. He had become rich in the service of King Henry III, from whom he received a pension of one penny a day – a princely sum for the times.

Just a few beams and roof trusses of Elias’s impressive aisled hall house remain. In the 14th century the de Viennes – wealthy local landowners – bought Provender and added a private wing, including a magnificent vaulted ‘solar’ with beautiful carved crown posts. This, recently restored under the direction of Ptolemy Dean and English Heritage, is now called the Crown Post Room and is at the heart of the current house.

Over the following six centuries, Provender’s architecture reflected England’s history on a human scale. Adventurers, explorers, heiresses and princesses have lived here, each re-fashioning the house or adding wings to make it their own. It was sold to James Huguesson, ‘merchant adventurer’, in 1633, and remained in his family for nearly three hundred years.

The pattern of development in the 18th-century wing, for example, reflects the differing wishes of Sir William Huguesson’s two wives. Sir William died in 1779 leaving his house to his two daughters, Dorothy and Mary. Dorothy married the naturalist Joseph Banks, who planted hickory and chestnut trees and ‘Banksia’ roses at Provender. They died without heirs and the house was inherited by Mary Huguesson’s son, Edward Knatchbull-Huguesson, 9th Baronet and first Lord Brabourne.

Jane Austen would have visited from her brother’s home nearby in Godmersham. Perhaps she was checking out Provender’s Edward Knatchbull-Huguesson as a potential husband for her favourite niece, Fanny Knight. Fanny did indeed marry Edward, and lived at Provender for 30 years after his death, fretting that its 30 rooms would be inadequate for her seven family members and twelve servants. Her son, Lord Brabourne, edited the first edition of Jane Austen’s letters, having found them, along with an original copy of ‘Lady Susan’ in Jane’s hand-writing, ‘in a box at Provender.’

Provender is now the home of Princess Olga Romanoff, the daughter of Prince Andrew Romanoff, the eldest nephew of the Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The Knatchbull-Huguessons rented the house to Princess Olga’s maternal great-grandmother in 1890, and sold it at auction in 1912 to her Finnish grandmother Sylvia McDougall, born Borgström in Helsinki. During the Second World War, Provender was requisitioned, and was one of Field Marshall Montgomery’s Headquarters. Prince Andrew Romanoff married Sylvia’s daughter Nadine in 1942, and after the War Provender was returned to them.

When Princess Andrew died in 2000, the house was almost derelict, but a programme of careful restoration has revealed a wealth of historical and architectural detail. This makes Provender a fascinating record of English life over seven centuries.