West Malling home of inter-county cricket in Kent, and it is known that in 1705, "West of Kent" played Chatham at Malling. The setting for the cricket match between All Muggleton and Dingley Dell in Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers is reputed to be based on an amalgamation of the grounds at West Malling and Maidstone. There is a resemblance to West Malling in the original illustration of the match, a version of which featured on the back of the £10 banknote featuring Dickens, first circulated on 29 April 1992. Dickens, however, was a regular visitor to Dingley Hall in the village of
Manor Farm, West Challow Ascot. On his death in 1828 the manor passed to his relative Daniel Ferard, who died in 1837, leaving it to his eldest son Charles Cotton Ferard. Charles owned the manor for about 50 years, during which time he let it to various tenants. One group who rented the house for many years was the Hunt family. Uriah Hunt (1817–1870) took a lease on Manor Farm about 1860. He had previously been on a smaller farm (about 130 acres) in West Challow with his wife Harriet and six children, but by 1861 he had moved to the Manor House and