Barham Court, a large country house, has now been converted into offices and apartments. It was once the home of
Randall Fitz Urse, one of the knights who murdered
Thomas Becket in 1170. It passed to the de Berham family now called the Barhams, and then the Boteler (or Butler) family. They were
Royalists, William Butler was imprisoned for supporting the
Kentish Royalist Petition 1642, which indirectly led to the
Battle of Maidstone in 1648. Sir Philip Boteler, baronet of Teston, died without issue in 1772, bequeathing Teston House to his cousin Elizabeth Bouverie. When
Edward Hasted visited in the 18th century, it was owned by the Bouveries. After that it passed to the
Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham. Barham Court has been recognised by historians as the birthplace of the British
evangelical slavery abolitionist movement, one influential group being called the
Testonites. It was in the house in the 1780s that a young
Thomas Clarkson pledged his life to the cause, and where
William Wilberforce agreed to bring the matter before the
House of Commons for the first time. In 1789,
Hannah More described the village as the "
Runnymede of the negroes". The
parish church is dedicated to St Peter and St Paul. On one wall of the church, under a window, is a memorial tablet to a former vicar, the
Rev James Ramsay; he was the Rector of Teston and
Nettlestead from 1781 until he died in July 1789. Ramsay was a friend of
Charles Middleton,
William Pitt and
William Wilberforce, and he worked with them for the
abolition of slavery. James Ramsay had served as a surgeon under Middleton aboard in the
West Indies but later took holy orders and served on the
Caribbean island of
St Christopher (now St Kitts), where he observed first-hand the treatment of
slaves. He briefly lived with the Middletons at Barham Court, then was given the living of the Teston and Nettlestead, by Middleton. Nestor Court is named after Ramsey's servant and companion.
William Cobbett passed through Teston on Friday 5 September 1823. ==Amenities==