BRENCHLEY, ITS CHURCH AND ANCIENT HOUSES. BY J. F. WADMORE. BRENCHLEY is situated partly in the Hundred of Watchlingstone, but its north-eastern part is in the Hundred of Twyford. In ancient muniments the name is sometimes spelt as Bræncesle or Branchesle. The parish is one of the largest in Kent, and formed a portion of the vast estate with which William I enriched his ungrateful relative, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. On his disgrace it passed to Gilbert de Clare, ancestor of that Earl of Hertford who gave the Church of Alding (Yalding) with the Chapel of Brenchesle and all appurtenances, in pure and perpetual alms, to the Priory of Tonbridge, which he had previously founded. Together with Leigh it formed a benefice of Tonbridge Priory up to the time of its suppression in the seventeenth year of Henry VIII. Brenchley contained the manors of Criols,* which was held by the Criol family as half a knight's fee; Mascals† otherwise Marescalls, with the two appendant ones of Copgrove and Chekeswell;‡ Parrocks; Catlets; Stokshill; Studmore; Barnes and East Bokenfold. Mascals was held temp. Edward II by the family of the Colepepers, under the Lord Hugh de Audley, by the service of paying yearly to his larder eight hogs and a half, value 15s. Copgrove with Chekeswell was held by the family of Copgrove, but Henry de Hoese or Hoesendene had held Chekeswell temp. Edward I. John de Copgrove sold these manors, temp. Edward II, to John de Vane, who also became the owner of Mascals. Robert de Vane, as heir of John, paid 20s. as "Aid" in the * Hasted, 8vo, vol. v., p. 283. + Ibid., p. 284. twentieth of Edward III, for all three manors as half a knight's fee at Chykeswell, formerly held by John de Copgrave.* Parrocks† in the Hundred of Twyford (now better known as Paddock Wood), was anciently a manor appendant to West Malling, and was given by Bishop Gundulph of Rochester, in the fourth year of William Rufus, to the Benedictine monastery founded there by him. It was for many years leased out by the abbess and convent to the family of Heckstalls of East Peckham, one of whom had married a coheiress of Richard Grofherst. Ultimately it passed to Thomas Fane of Badsell. In an Inquisition taken on the death of Richard de Clare, forty-seven Henry III,§ mention is made "of a certain market which is called Brenchelse, the assized rent thereof" is given as "value 21s. 94d. The stallage and shops are extended at 24s." Mention is made of Brenchesle in the time of Edward I, when|| an encroachment on the highway at Brenchele by Isabella de Charlton, to the extent of half an acre, is recorded. In 1347¶ the Prior of Tonebrigge was assessed for onefourth of a knight's fee in Brenchley, at East Bokynfelde, which included the Rectory of Brenchley and some lands called Barnes. The Parish Register commences A.D. 1539, and although well and faithfully kept, has nothing of particular interest worthy of record. Brenchley Church is dedicated to All Saints. It was anciently esteemed a Chapelry of the adjoining parish of Yalding, which with its appurtenances Richard de Clare, Earl of Hertford, gave to the Priory of Tonbridge, which he also founded. Afterwards it was considered no longer a chapelry but an independent church. Henry de Sandford,** Bishop of Rochester, who came to that See in 1227, and held *Arch. Cant., Vol. X., p. 150. + Hasted, 8vo, vol. v., p. 286. An assessment made in 20 Edward III, records that William de Knol had formerly held half a knight's fee at Parrock in Brenchley, for which the heirs of Richard de Grofherst were assessed in 1347. Arch. Cant., X., 150. § Inq. p. m., Arch. Cant., Vol. IV., p. 313. Furley's Weald of Kent, vol. ii, part 1, p. 131. Extract from Hundred Roll. Hugo de Sanford held two fees in Pettes, Chekeshull, and Horsmonden at a value of £15. Inquisition post mortem, 47 Henry III, 1263. Arch. Cant., IV., p. 315. it until the year 1235, confirmed the grant of this church to the Prior* and Canons of Tonbridge, "to be possessed by them as an appropriation for ever, saving a perpetual vicarage for a priest, to be presented to it by them, to serve in it and to have the whole altarage and all small tithes, obventions of the altar, and tithes of curtilages and all the tithes of corn, pulse, and hay, of Westroterindene (Witherindene) which was of the fee of the Abbess of Malling, between a road from Yalding to Condingebury, and the land of Hamon de la Doune, and extended from Badshulle to Matfield, together with four acres of land which lay adjoining the messuage of Simon de Wahol towards the north, near the road which leads to the house of the Parson of Brencheley; and further that he should have yearly from the barns of the Prior and Canons at Brenchelse two seams of oats and two seams of crowe for his palfrey, paying yearly to the prior and canons from the Vicarage two wax tapers of 4 lbs. each; but that the Vicar should sustain all episcopal burthens and other accustomed dues." In this state, we learn from Hasted, the rectory with the advowson of the vicarage continued together with the appendant manor of Barnes, till the dissolution of the Priory of Tonbridge, when it passed in the seventeenth of Henry VIII to Cardinal Wolsey for the better endowment of his college at Oxford. Unfortunately the inventory of Church goods which was taken by a commission appointed in the twentyseventh and twenty-eighth Henry VIII, and again in the thirty-seventh of Edward VI, is amongst those which are missing, and is therefore not to be found in the interesting catalogue given in Vols. VIII., IX., and X. of Archæologia Cantiana. On the fall of the great prelate above mentioned, in the year 1529, the advowson and vicarage were forfeited and came into the hands of the King, and he granted them in the thirty-first year of his reign to Paul Sydnor,† gent., to * Hasted, vol. v., p. 291. The Prior of Tonbridge has the Church of this manor [Yalding] to his own uses. Inquisitio post mortem, 1263. Vide Arch. Cant., Vol. IV., p. 313. † Hasted, vol. v., 292. VOL. XIII. K hold in capite by knightly service. His son William succeeded him circa 1563, and Hasted says that he shortly afterwards alienated them to William Waller, of Groombridge, who married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of Sir Walter Hendley. She married again, and died in the year 1596, but a handsome monument, erected to her memory in the Chancel of Brenchley Church, by a remarkable error of the stonemason, bears the date 1566 instead of 1596. Her grandson Sir Thomas Waller, of Groombridge, alienated the manor of Barnes and the rectory of Brenchley, with the advowson of the vicarage, to John Courthope, Esq., afterwards of Brenchley, the youngest brother of Sir George Courthope, of Whileigh in Sussex, who died possessed of them in 1649, and in whose family they still remain. Geo. Campion Courthope, Esq., of Whileigh, is their present owner. The Vicarage was valued in the King's books as being worth £12 18s. 9d., and the yearly tithes at £1 5s. 101d. The Church is a fine building, with a massive square Tower at the west end, of Bishop Sandford's time, 1233; the labels and drip-stone to the west doorway are in good preservation. The walls and buttresses of the tower are six feet thick, except at the east end, where the wall is built up in a solid mass of masonry ten feet thick, pierced with an arched opening into the church, and containing on the south side a circular stone staircase which leads to a gallery and to the successive floors. The tower has had square-headed belfry windows inserted, and is surmounted by a turret of Tudor date. Although still picturesque, it is much altered from its original design. On a fine day the following churches are seen clustered around:-Horsemonden, Goudhurst, Lamberhurst, and Marden; further off are Yalding, Cranbrook, and Staplehurst. There is a good peal of six bells. The tenor bears on one side the inscription, Joseph Hatch made me 1610, and on the other William Hunt C. W. The second and third bells were also cast by Hatch. The fourth, fifth, and sixth bells were cast in 1813, 1720, and 1863 respectively. The plan of the Church is cruciform, with north and south aisles, and transepts which project from the body of the church about twenty-five feet. The nave is sixty feet by thirty feet, with aisles ten feet wide, and on its north side there is a good sized porch. It is to be remarked that the columns of the nave, which are round with Early English caps and bases, are spaced differently on the north and south, although there appears to be no sufficient cause for this, unless indeed they were completed at different times, or by different workmen. In the north-east corner of the south transept there is a circular stone staircase, pierced with opening into the church; it led to a rood-loft, which was handsome, if we may judge from the excellent carved panelling which remains in situ, and which is worth attention from the freedom and vigour of its execution. The upper rail is ornamented with carved work of scrolls and figures, supporting a panel on which is to be seen the date A.D. 1536. The nave has a clerestory, pierced with double lights. The roof is supported by carved brackets springing from stone corbels with a moulded and cambered tie beam and king posts. The rafters and timbers are framed and braced together so as to form a septagonal open timber roof. The transept roofs are similar to that of the nave, but the aisles are low and have flat roofs. The church has been carefully restored by Mr. Joseph Clarke, the Diocesan Architect, and has some handsome tracery in several windows. There are piscinas both in the north and south transepts, and a bold Early English arch, springing from restored shafts and caps, opens into the chancel, forty by thirty, terminated at the east end with a handsome five-light window. There are the remains of sedilia and piscina and credence in the chancel, and a priest's door also on the south side, and side lights both on the north and south. The chancel has an open framed timber roof, with curved braces, principal and hammer beams, terminating in well executed figures of angels; the seats are of oak. At the west end of the nave is a gallery approached by a circular turret staircase; it is a curiously designed erection, and may possibly have been constructed out of materials supplied by the demolition of the rood-loft. The octagonal font is plain. |
