Dadd's Hole, Cobham Park

[kyn]

Dadd's Hole is a shallow depression next to a public footpath in Cobham Park.  The depression was nicknamed Dadd's Hole after the body of Richard Dadd's father, Robert Dadd, was found here.

Richard Dadd was an artist, born in 1817 and educated at King's School in Rochester.  this is wear he discovered his talent of sketching and painting.

In 1842 Sir Thomas Phillips took Richard to the Middle East.  During his time away he wrote to friends about his concern of his own mental health.  Several of his siblings also suffered from similar problems so it seems there was a genetic disorder within the family.

Richard returned home in the summer of 1843 and began to sketch horrific portraits of his friends.  To help calm him down his father took him to Cobham t stay for a few days.  Richard had sketched pictures in the area as a child.  The father and son booked themselves into a nearby inn and went for a walk through Cobham Park.  It was then that Richard stabbed his father to death using a knife and razor before cleaning himself up and fleeing the country.  Richard was caught trying to stab someone else in France and was brought back to England after admitting to his fathers murder.

After returning Richard was admitted to Bedlam, he was not expected to live a long life but lived another 42 years.  He died whilst in Broadmoor in January 1886 at the age of 69.  His painting are still very popular, especially the ones he painted while incarcerated.

[ellenkate]

An old thread posted by Kyn, but very interesting..
I was interested to hear there is a "Dadd's Hole" named after the place where Charles Dadd's body (murdered by his son Richard) was found.
Some years ago I saw one of his well known paintings (featuring daisies, fairies and gnomes),   in the Tate Gallery, London,   
 - another of his paintings, a  “desert scene” was discovered on the Antiques Road Show some years ago after being missing for many years.

Some references refer to the case:
Richard DADD 'paracide'    (Dover Telegraph 10 Aug 1844 page 6, the famous artist)
Richard DADD (Royal Academist) son of Charles DADD.  Patricide at Cobham, Kent, 1843, mentally disturbed.  (Crime and Criminals in Victorian Kent by Gray 1985 pages 7,14,15,16,17) 

[ellenkate]

Re Richard Dadd:
"Dadd was suffering, we are now told, from a manic-depressive or bipolar disorder....
Essentially, Dadd had become convinced that he was being called upon by divine forces to do battle with the Devil, who could assume any shape he desired .... Plagued by this.... Dadd continued working and living in Newman Street, where he subsisted largely on hard-boiled eggs and ale. Dadd's brother George was at this time also showing signs of mental illness, and Richard's father, although maintaining publicly that nothing was wrong with Richard, had Alexander Sutherland of St. Luke's Hospital examine Richard: Sutherland concluded that Dadd was non compos mentis.
In spite of this diagnosis, Robert Dadd accompanied Richard to Cobham on August 28, 1843, during which Richard had promised to "disburden his mind" to his father. The two traveled down to Cobham, ate dinner in a local inn, and then walked out into the countryside. At abut 11:00 PM, near a chalk pit called the Paddock Hole, Dadd attacked his father with a knife and razor, and killed him. "

selection of his pictures, including the one with fairies and daisies seen at Tate Gallery:
http://www.google.com/search?client=gmail&rls=gm&q=%22Richard%20Dadd%22

and
http://www.noumenal.com/marc/dadd/

Ellenkate

[merc]

I've just read in a Cobham local history book: "The hole has now been filled in an is now untraceable".

One of my favourite bands, 'Queen' wrote a song about one of Richard Dadd's most famous paintings, 'The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke'

[JohnT]

My late grandfather (who was landlord of the Ship Inn in Cobham in - I think - the 1920s) always used to point-out a clearly-visible depression in the ground on the East side of Halfpence Lane as Dadd's Hole - and also tell me that although many attempts had been made to fill it in, the ground always subsided - which I think (as a child) I was meant to assume was down to the site's macabre past.

John

[kevin payne]

my father grew up in cobham and like my grandparents,also worked for lord darnley at cobham hall,dadds hole is still there,i took some photos there a few years back,it had become a pond due to much rain,it has always been rumoured to be haunted by the murdered victim,hence not many people go near there.The last time i went,there was barbed wire along the roadside,and couldnt see a way in,strangely,an old crow flew down right in front of me,i say old as its feathers were nearly all grey,it perched there satring at me for a while,then flew over to the barbed wire and went through a large hole in the fence which i hadnt seen,i followed it and found i could just squeeze through the hole,so i managed to get some photos,which i shall dig out once i have learnt how to put them on this forum.Incidently,after the murder,richard dadd made his way to the crown at rochester and cleaned himself up there!.