D.

HADLOW, was part of those vast possessions with which

the conqueror enriched his half brother Odo, Bishop of Baieux, * and whom afterwards he created Earl of Kent, under the title of his lands it is thus entered in the record of Domesday.

Richard de Tonebridge holds of the Bishop (of Baieux) Hastow. It was taxed at six sulings. The arable land is twelve carucates. In demesne there are three, and fortyseven villeins, with fifteen borderers, having fifteen carucates. There is a church and ten servants, and two mills of eleven shillings, and twelve fisheries of seven shillings and sixpence, and twelve acres of meadow, wood for the pannage of sixty hogs. In the time of King Edward the confessor, and afterwards, and now, it was and is worth thirty pounds. Eddeva held it of King Edward.

that they quitted the field of battle: they were pursued by the militia and some of them taken, who expiated their enormities on the gallows.

General STURT, was for some time prior to his death, master of the poorhouse at this place.

* Of the liberality of the conqueror, an opinion may be formed, from the following statement: “for instance, he granted to Hugh de Abrinces, his sister's son, the whole county of Chester, which he erected into a palatinate, and rndered by his grant almost independant of the crown. Robert, Earl of Mortaigne, had 973 manors and lordships: Allan, Earl of Britanny and Richmond, 442: Odo, Bishop of Baieux, 439 (principally in the county of Kent) Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutance, 280: Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham, 107: William, Earl Warrenne, 298, besides 28 towns or hamlets in -Yorkshire: Todenei, 81: Roger Bigod, 123: Robert, Earl of Eu, 119: Roger Mortimer, 132, besides several hamlets: Robert de Stafford, 130: Walter de Eurus, Earl of Salisbury, 46: Geoffrey de Mandeville, 118: Richard de Clare, 171: Hugh de Beauchamp, 47: Baldwin de Ridvers, 164: Henry de Ferrars, 222: William de Percy, 119: Norman D'Arcy, 33.” (Hume). ・・

The parish of HADLOW, or as in old deeds it was sometimes written Haudelo, and in Domesday, Hastow (as above) lies northward of Tunbridge, and is bounded on the north by West-Peckham, on the south by the Medway, and extends westward to the North-frith woods and the parish of Tunbridge. THE BOROUGH OF HADLOW, within the Lowy of Tunbridge, contains the parish of Hadlow, with the church, except a small district in the northern part of it, which is in the hundred of Littlefield.

The country about Hadlow is by no means pleasant, it is in general flat, low, and in some parts swampy, the enclosures small, and the hedge-rows broad. The soil towards the upper part of the parish is poor, inclining to gravel, but the lower grounds are fertile producing good corn, and esteemed particularly kindly for hops, of which there are considerable plantations in the neighbourhood; the grass lands, especially towards the river, are very rich, and capable of fatting beasts of the largest size. The rivulet called the Sheet, which flows from Plaxtol by Oxenhoath, crosses this parish, and unites with the Medway a little above Brand-bridges.* The highroad from Maidstone through Mereworth to Tunbridge, crosses this parish over Hadlow-common, at the northern boundary of it, whence it goes through the town or village of Hadlow; between which and the river is Fish-hall and Hadlow-place; and more eastward the small hamlets of Goldwell-green, Barnes, and Mill-street.

On the bank of the Medway, at the west end of the parish, is a wharf and landing place, called Hadlow-stairs, for the la ding and unlading of timber, coals, and other merchandize.

Near Brand-bridges, and at the east end of the parish, is what is here called a flowing bolt, being an ingenious contrivance to pen up the water to certain height, by which means it is capable of being let out in dry seagons, to flow over and moisten the adjoining meadows, which is at such times of the greatest advantage to them.

A fair is yearly held in Hadlow town on Whit-Monday.... The seignory of this manor was in the time of Henry HI, claimed by the archbishop of Canterbury, and in the forty-se cond year of that reign, an agreement was entered into between archbishop Boniface and Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, concerning the customs and services which the archbishop required of the earl, on account of his possessions in Hanlo, &c. when it was required of the earl, that he should do homage to the former, the service of four Knights' fees, and suit to his court at Canterbury, and that he should be the highsteward of him and his successors at their great feast, whenever it should happen that the archbishop should be enthroned. By marriage with a daughter of Gilbert, earl of Gloucester, (grandson of the above Richard de Clare), Hugh de Audley became possessed of this manor, and as a further consequence of such marriage, was created earl of Gloucester, in the eleventh year of King Edward III. dying without male issue, it became the property of his only daughter Margaret, who carried it in mar riage to Ralph Stafford, Lord Stafford, with whose descendants it remained until the 13th of Henry VIII. when on the execution of Edward, Duke of Buckingham for high trea son, his estates were seized by the crown, and about threet years afterwards, the manor of Hadlow with other possessions of the late duke, were granted by the King to Sir Henrys Guildford, comptroller of his household, to hold by knights" service.

On his death in the twenty-third of King Henry VIII. this manor reverted to the crown, and in the fourth of Edward VI. was granted to John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, after wards created Duke of Northumberland, and who in the seventh of the same reign exchanged this and other premises with the King for lands in several other counties. In the first of Elizabeth it was granted together with the park called North-fryth to her kinsman, Henry Carly, Lord Hunsdon, to hold in

capite, in which family it continued until about the 16th of James I. when this manor was conveyed to James Faircloth, M. D. of London.*

This manor holds a court leet and court baron, and is wholly independant of the court leet of the manor of Tunbridge.

HADLOW PLACE, a seat and estate in this parish was in early times possessed by a family of the same name, of whom Nicholas de Hadlow, is found on the list of those Kentish gentlemen, who were with King Richard I. at the siege of Acon, in Palestine, and John de Hadlow, a descendant of the above, attended Edward I. in his expedition into Scotland, in the 28th year of his reign and who for his remarkable services there, particularly at the siege of Carlaverock, was made Knight banneret by that Prince.

FROMONDS, is a manor here, which in the 43d of Henry III. was in the possession of Simon Fromond, who in that year was chosen one of the twelve jurats on the part of the Earl of Gloucester, to determine the bounds of the Lowy, in a dispute between him and the Archbishop. His successor in it was Peter Fromond, whose house is mentioned in a perambulation of the Lowy, taken in the 8th year of Edward I. being just within the boundary of that district.

CROMBURY, alias EAST CROMBURY, is another manor which according to the archives of the church of Rochester was at one time called Crancheberi, and afterwards Crongeberi. This place was soon after the conquest in the possession of William, son of William de Horsmundenne, who gave the tenths of it to the monks of St. Andrew's priory, in Rochester, (for which a composition of five shillings a year was agreed to) at which time it was accounted an appurtenance to the manor of Mereworth, and afterwards came into the possession of a fami

* The present owner of this manor, Walter May, Esq. has lately erected a castellated mansion, near the church, of which it is unnecessary to make any further mention.

ly of that name: John de Mereworth, in the 20th year of Ed-ward III. paid aid for the manor of Mereworth with Cronge bury, held of the Earl of Gloucester as one Knight's fee. Beside the above is

FISH-HALL, formerly the residence of John de Fisher, so called from his being invested by Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, Lord of the Lowy of Tunbridge, with the privilege of fishing freely and without controul within his jurisdicAnd

tion.

BARNES-PLACE a considerable estate belonging to Francis Motley Austen, Esq. of Sevenoaks.

The church* (dedicated to ST. MARY) is a small building with a low pointed steeple standing on the east side of the town, and as early as the reign of King John, it was part of the possessions of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, commonly called the Knights hospitallers; for in the last year of that reign, anno 1216, Benedict, bishop of Rochester, at the presentation of the prior and brethren of that hospital, admitted and instituted Adam de Fontibus to this church, saving to the prior and brethren the ancient pension of two shillings yearly paid to them from it; and the right likewise of the church of Rochester in all matters, and the right of those who were ac

* On the north side of the tower, is exhibited one of the most indecent notices we ever remember to have seen: had such an one been placed against the meanest tap-house, or in any other situation where there was merely a possibility of its ever meeting the eye of decency, it would have been justly censurable: such at least is our opinion; but it is evident the people of Hadlow have not indulged such fastidious notions, since they have allotted it the most conspicuous situation on their parish church, where it has been suffered to remain nearly a century!! If there is any sense of decency remaining, we trust, after these observations, it will be exerted to remove the reproach to which the inhabitants of this place have rendered themselves obnoxious.