A Genealogy of Brambletye

Introduction

My intention with this article is to narrate an unbroken chain of families and individuals connected with the manor of Brambletye - a 'clearing bordered by brambles' - just outside of East Grinstead, by Forest Row, in Sussex, on the edge of the Ashdown Forest.

It tells a nearly one thousand year story of ownership and tenancy, spotlighting a cast of lords, ladies, knights, politicians, bankers, gentry and royalty who claimed Brambletye as their own, whether they actually made it their home, like the Lewkenors and Comptons, or were largely absent landlords, such as the L'Aigles and Biddulphs.

According to the feudal system of the High Middle Ages, all land was owned by the Crown. The King allocated manors to his vassals who, in turn, could take on tenants of their own. Usually the land was held in return for military service, or maybe - more common later - on a financial basis.

Tenants-in-chief typically held multiple estates, so this article can't help but offer a slightly skewed view by focussing on just a single property, not to mention the fact that we are ignoring, for now, the actual communities who lived and worked there every day. But the wider sweep of historic events provides a context that reflects, informs and shapes the story of this little Sussex plot and its fortunes.

There have been a number of excellent overviews on the ownership of Brambletye, and I couldn't have started this without the hard work of those authors and researchers. Often they must be brief, with gaps, skipping links from one owner to another, and sometimes a little error here or there can get copied and repeated. Some of these errors I've been able to rectify through my own research but I certainly don't claim this piece is error-free, despite my best efforts, and I'd be delighted to hear from anyone who has a correction to offer, with sources.

Speaking of sources, I have not included footnote reference numbers in the text, but I have included a list of selected sources consulted and some notes, by section, at the end.

Domesday and the Honour of the Eagle

1066-1285

Brambletye as it is recorded in the Domesday Book, 1086

The first name we can associate with Brambletye is one Cola, who held 'Branbertei' in the time of Edward the Confessor just before the Norman invasion of 1066. Who Cola was is unknown, a name that appears across England and was doubtless shared by several individuals.

With William the Conquerer came his half-brother, Robert, first Count of Mortain - their mother was Herleva of Falaise. Mortain held nearly a thousand estates for the King, including Brambletye, where his subtenant in 1086 was Radulph (Ralph), who also had the neighbouring Whalesbeech. Like Cola, Ralph cannot be identified with certainty, but it has been speculated his daughter was wife to Aluredus (Alfred) Pincerna, cup-bearer to Robert of Mortain, and tenant-lord at Brambletye after Ralph under William, second Count Mortain.

Brambletye appears to have been one of the most important domains in the 'Grenestede Hundred', with the largest number of households, a mill, and the local priest, who probably served the church that stood on the site of today's St Swithun's. It was Alfred Pincerna who gifted the Grinstead church to the care of Lewis Priory.

Robert Pincerna succeeded Alfred as cup-bearer and he may have had some familial connection to Alfred (Pincerna is a title not a surname), perhaps a brother-in-law through both marrying daughters of Ralph. Robert was founder of the Dene family, his son, Ralph de Dene, was father of Ela de Dene who married Jordan de Saukeville, Jordan taking on the manor of Buckhurst, five miles east of Brambletye. The Sackvilles have held Buckhurst up to the present day and we will meet this important local family at Brambletye in another 450 years or so.

William, second Count of Mortain, lost the lands he'd inherited from his father after his animosity to Henry I turned into armed belligerence against several of the King's holdings and he ended up a prisoner in the Tower of London. The Mortain lands were passed to Gilbert de L'Aigle, whose grandfather Engenulf had been killed at the Battle of Hastings, and they became known collectively as the Honour of Aquila, or of the Eagle.

Gilbert's son and heir was Richer de L'Aigle, and he included 'Brembeltie' among his possessions. The family's fortunes waned when Richer didn't act with enough loyalty to King Stephen, losing his Sussex lands, then waxed when Henry II needed the L'Aigle assets back in his court, upon which their Sussex domains were restored.

From the Bayeux Tapestry, King William sits with his half brothers either side, Bishop Odo to the left, Robert of Mortain to the right

These lands continued with the L'Aigles, sometimes securely, sometimes tenuously, through to Richer's grandson, Gilbert, until he died in 1231 with no heir. The Honour of the Eagle was returned to the King, by that time Henry III, or more specifically to his Queen, Eleanor.

Through much of this time of the lords of Aquila, the descendants of Alfred Pincerna were holders of Brambletye. These lead down through his son, William, and then his son, Richard, and then to his sons John and William who had the surname of Montague.

In the mid to late 1200s a complex dance of family court cases divided the Brambletye stakes at various times between John Montague, his wife Lucy de Bohun, and their estranged daughter, Katherine and her three husbands, also her uncle, William Montague and his wife Agnes, before finally coming together again under William and Agnes's younger daughter, Isabella Montague. Like her cousin Katherine, Isabella had three husbands - first was Ralph de la Haye, after he died, in 1254, she married Thomas de Aldeham, and after he died, in 1275, she married Richard de Pevensey.

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The Aldeham St. Cleres

1285-1445

The marriage of Isabella Montague to Thomas de Aldeham would bring two new names into the annals of Brambletye that would see out the next two-hundred years and more.

When Isabella died in 1285 her son, Baldwin de Aldeham, inherited the manor (held of Queen Eleanor 'of the Honour of the Eagle'). His son with Nichola Wyntershull was Francis Aldeham, and mother and heir took on the manor in turn after Baldwin's death in 1290. Francis had sided with the Marcher rebels against Edward II in 1322 and was hanged, drawn and quartered for his troubles at Windsor in the same year, leaving no direct heir.

With that the de Aldeham lands were seized by the King before they were granted to his Italian physician, Pancius de Controne. Although Controne maintained favour with his benefactor's son and successor, Edward III, when the new King took the throne Francis de Aldeham's heirs petitioned resulting in his cousin, one John St Clere, emerging to restore the family's properties, including Brambletye.

John St Clere was son of Baldwin's sister, Joan de Aldeham, who had married John St Clere of Ightham in 1300. The inheritance was not without objection from a pool of second cousins; John de Lynam, a descendant of Thomas de Aldeham's brother Robert, made a claim, as did Robert de Wynfeld and Robert Huchin, claiming ownership by direct descent from Thomas, but to no avail.

So the manor stayed with the St Cleres throughout the next century and a half or so. Francis Aldeham's heir, John St Clere, seems to have married Alice, possibly a Bereford and sister to Edmund Bereford, the King's Clerk. On his death in 1335 his heir was his son, also John St Clere, husband of the widowed Mary Bellers.

The next generation to inherit the St Clere lands, including Brambletye, is a point of some confusion. Certainly Brambletye and other properties eventually went to Philip St Clere, husband of Margaret Lovayne. Sources differ on whether this Philip inherited from his father John St Clere, above, or whether his father was actually another Philip St Clere with this latter Philip being the son of John.

The inserted Philip St Clere supposedly married Joan Audley, the daughter of James Audley and Margaret Bereford (and either related to the previously mentioned Alice or confused with her). This Philip was said to be MP for Sussex in 1377 - but that post is recorded as being Nicholas Wilcombe, though John St Clere (the father) was High Sheriff of Sussex in that same year - so perhaps another confusion.

There is very little evidence I can find to substantiate this Philip, except for a Sussex Fine of 1396 mentioning "Philip Seyntcler and Joan, his wife ...". This could be a clerical error, as the majority of contemporary mentions give Philip St Clere the wife of Margaret, with a 1397 settlement expressly stating this Philip was the son of John St Clere. A further questionable point is that the supposed father, Philip, is said to have died in 1408 - the same year as the son, Philip, perhaps indicating their biographies have been conflated or misidentified.

On balance, awaiting firmer evidence, I believe the heir to Brambletye was Philip St Clere, married to Margaret Lovayne, and the son of John St Clere and Mary Bellers.

With Philip and his wife, Margaret, both dying in 1408, and their two sons minors, the next heir was his brother, Thomas St Clair. Thomas had given his allegiance to the 5th Earl of Arundel and followed him to France to fight at Agincourt - though the Earl himself fell ill and had to return just after the Siege of Harfleur, dying at home a few days later. Thomas himself died at East Grinstead the following year, in 1416.

English archers at the Battle of Agincourt as depicted by Enguerrand de Monstrelet

He did have at least one child, perhaps more, but none of them appear to have survived as, before long, the line reverts to Philip's descendants and his two children, wards of Sir John Pelham, who had held Brambletye, among others, on their behalf. The eldest, John St Clere, was betrothed to Joan Pelham, daughter of Sir John, but he died in his early 20s in 1419. By this time John Pelham was recorded as having let much of the manor of Brambletye go to waste, though thanks to that we learn that the property included a great hall and chamber, a nursery, a bakehouse, sheep pens, a stable and a (derelict) mill.

Philip's second son, East Grinstead-born Thomas St Clere, inherited the manor by 1423 and is recorded as being the first confirmed owner and occupier of the estate. Like his brother John, Thomas's marriage had been arranged by Sir John Pelham (though without a license), to Margaret Hoo, and the couple had three daughters together.

When Thomas died in France in 1435, the girls were still minors but he had transferred his properties so they wouldn't devolve to the Crown (this is where Geoffrey Motte and Sir William Cheyne come in as owners of Brambletye, the former reconveying it to the latter in 1428). While this 'defrauding' wasn't ultimately successful, in 1445 the possessions were granted back to Thomas's heirs and their husbands, as all three daughters were by now married.

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Lewkenor and the Moat

1445-1509

The name St Clere would not completely disappear from the Brambletye locale, with Senclershoms, later Saint Cleers Inholms, surviving on the edge of the manor's bounds into the eighteenth century (now Court in Holmes). But the family connection faded once Brambletye passed to Thomas's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, who had married William Lovell, perhaps a descendant of the Lovells of Titchmarsh, and after so long a St Clere possession it would see a relatively rapid change in ownership during the next century.

Elizabeth's second husband was Richard Lewkenor, 'of Brambletye', and it is generally believed the old double-moated house was built, or at least greatly modified and expanded, under his watch. His tenure would be relatively late for a moated manor house, so some kind of homestead almost certainly existed there before, likely the abode of the St Cleres or a wealthy tenant of theirs. The moat would have suited Lewkenor's status - he had been an MP for Horsham and Shoreham in the 1450s and 60s, Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1470, and MP for East Grinstead in 1472 and 1478.

The moated house at Brambletye, 1809, by Amsinck and Byrne

Around this time his brother, Roger Lewkenor, inherited the grand moated Bodiam Castle through their mother's Dalyngrigge family. Roger's son and heir, Thomas, supported the Lancastrian side in the War of the Roses, and Richard, a supporter of the Yorkist Richard III, was consigned, alongside others, to raise an army in 1483 to besiege the castle. His nephew quickly surrendered, though it was returned on the accession of Henry VII two years later.

In 1486 Elizabeth Lewkenor (formerly St Clere) became co-heir to properties left by her cousin, Thomas Hoo, alongside descendants of her sisters and another cousin, William Boleyn, Thomas's great-nephew. William would be grandfather to Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Elizabeth I. At this point Elizabeth Lewkenor was said to be "aged fifty upwards", but she must have been in her mid to late 60s by then. After she died, Richard Lewkenor remarried to Katherine Grey, widow of Sir Thomas Grey.

Katherine was the daughter of Lord Scales, a Lancastrian who was in charge of the Tower of London when he was killed escaping its siege in 1460. Only one daughter, Elizabeth, is recognised as Scales' heir, so Katherine was likely an illegitimate child. Elizabeth Scales' sister-in-law was Elizabeth Woodville who became Queen to Edward IV and mother of Edward V. Her first husband was Sir John Grey, perhaps a relative of Katherine's first husband. Another connection lies in the fact that Katherine was a Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Elizabeth (Woodville), and after that to Elizabeth of York, Queen to Henry VII.

Richard died in 1503 and there is some suspicion that his will, as first presented, may have been tampered with by interested parties, but a jury decided that it should be his wife, Katherine, who must inherit his possessions. A will does exist bequeathing Katherine land in East Grinstead as well as several gifts to the church there. The couple also allowed for the set up of an almshouse in East Grinstead, over a century before the more famous Sackville College came into being.

Katherine died in 1505, and was buried at St Swithun's in East Grinstead. A brass effigy, the oldest memorial in the church, survives today to commemorate her and her two husbands, Sir Thomas Grey and Richard Lewkenor 'of Brambilletey'.

The rightful heir of Brambletye throughout this was Henry Lovell, Elizabeth St Clair's only son. He married Constance Hussey, sister of Katherine Hussey ('of Brambletye') who had married the King's most important councillor, Sir Reginald Bray. Henry died just a couple of years before his step-father, Richard Lewkenor (who had no issue), leaving two daughters, Elizabeth and Agnes.

At the time of their father's death the girls were minors, and another of the King's close allies, the notorious tax collector Sir Richard Empson, seems to have put his name in as custodian of the Lovell sisters' inheritance. Indeed his influence is evident in the marriage of Agnes to his own son, John Empson. Meanwhile Elizabeth had married Sir Edward Bray, nephew to Sir Reginald Bray, but their union lasted only a few weeks before they divorced and Elizabeth went on to marry Sir Anthony Windsor.

The inter-connections continue as the Lovell girls' mother, Constance, had remarried to Roger Lewkenor, a great-nephew of Richard Lewkenor of Brambletye, and this Roger's mother was Katherine Pelham, a grand-daughter of the John Pelham who had been ward to the St Clair boys, her aunt Joan having married John St Clair.

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A Tale of Two Moieties

1509-1574

Now a few years into the reign of Henry VIII, Brambletye manor was shared between Elizabeth Windsor and Agnes Empson and their husbands. In 1523 the Empsons granted their moiety (half) to John Wylkinson, John Pawle and William Otley. 'Pawle' could possibly have been 'Pole' and perhaps a relative of Sir Arthur Pole who married Roger Lewkenor's daughter, Jane - Agnes Empson's step-sister.

Anthony Windsor, brother to the 1st Baron Windsor, and Elizabeth had two children, Henry and Constance. Although Henry was married, to Eleanor Burbage, his sister claimed he was an 'idiot' from birth, and inferred he had been persuaded out of some of his holdings by Edmund Ford, perhaps with the collusion of his wife, Eleanor. And so in 1547 the Windsor moiety of Brambletye came to Ford, at that time the MP for Midhurst, marking an end to the over 350-year Montagu-Aldeham-St Clair succession at Brambletye.

The chain of ownership now accelerated, and the following year the Windsor stake was passed into the hands of Thomas Gaynsford and John Shery. Shery was Archdeacon of Lewes as well as sometime rector of Horsham and Worth, and chaplain to the (Catholic) 3rd Duke of Norfolk (at that time a prisoner in the Tower of London).

Thomas was a son of John Gaynsford of Crowhurst who rivalled the recently-deceased Henry VIII for wives but vastly outnumbered him in children (Thomas was one of over twenty). One of Thomas's sisters had been a lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn, while another, Rose, married George Puttenham of Sherfield, and then William Sackville, who had been MP at Bletchingley.

An East Grinstead connection for Gaynsford remains today, now at St Swithun's but previously at Hurst-an-Clays, in the form of an iron fireback commemorating Thomas's daughter, Anne Forster. It's one of at least twelve cast, with the original at her burial place, St George's in Crowhurst, proclaiming her as "heir to Thomas Gaynsford esquire".

But Brambletye did not form part of her inheritance as, not long before his death, Thomas sold his part to John Michelborne of Westmeston, who then sold it to John Shery, so the Archdeacon had the 'whole half'. He didn't hold it for long, however, dying within a couple of weeks of Gaynsford, and leaving the Windsor moiety of Brambletye in his will to James Pickas and his heirs.

In 1560 Brambletye came to Richard Puttenham and the heirs of Peter Vavasour by way of the 3rd Baron Windsor (Edward), Edmund Windsor, and George Puttenham and his wife, Elizabeth, with Edward and Elizabeth continuing to receive rent. Despite the Windsor involvement (Peter Vavasour's wife was Elizabeth Windsor, daughter of the 1st Baron Windsor), this is presumably the Empson moiety, even though Lord Windsor was the great-nephew of Sir Anthony.

Edward Windsor (3rd Baron Windsor), his wife Katherine de Vere, and family, c.1568

George Puttenham was Richard's brother, both grandchildren of the previously mentioned George Puttenham who was brother-in-law to Thomas Gaynsford, though his first wife was Alice Windsor, sister of the 1st Baron Windsor. Grandson George's wife, Elizabeth, was the widow of William, 2nd Baron Windsor, though later the marriage and relationships with the Windsors would sour and George was accused of a number of heinous acts. His larger legacy, however, was a book, 'The Arte of English Poesie', anonymous, but attributed to him.

In 1574 it seems the two moieties of Brambletye were brought together again when James Pickas obtained the other half from Lord Edward Windsor and his wife Katherine de Vere, in the year of the 3rd Baron's death in Venice.

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Enter the Sackvilles

1574-1619

After relatively rapid changes in ownership, Brambletye would see out the rest of the century and more with the Pickas family, whose involvement had begun in 1551 when the Windsor moiety was willed to James Pickas from John Shery.

It's not clear what the relationship between Archdeacon Shery and Pickas was. A reading of Shery's will could be interpreted as James being connected with the church, possibly the 'parson of Horsted Keynes', but it's not certain. He likely wasn't a relative. I know of two sisters for Shery, one, Agnes, who married Robert Monke, and another who married Richard Attree of Wivelsfield. He also had a half-brother, Guy Shery, and various nephews and nieces from all three. A coat of arms for James Pickas of Sussex was recorded but not granted in the late 16th century, a sign of his aspirations as new landed gentry.

James' wife was Katherine, and she would have a role in Brambletye's recorded history in 1579 when she chased off some men of Lord Buckhurst who had arrived to lay claim to the chapel. There had been a chapel as part of Brambletye Manor since the 1200s, but in the wake of the Reformation and dissolution of Lewes Priory under Henry VIII, Lord Windsor retired the chapel at Brambletye and it became a private dwelling. Buckhurst's father, Richard Sackville, had come into possession of many of the Crown's chantry properties in the area, and the family had been buying up more in the following decades. They seemed to have their eye on Brambletye too - though it would elude them just for now.

James Pickas died in 1590 and was buried in East Grinstead, upon which Brambletye passed to his only surviving son, Drew Pickas, who had been baptised in East Grinstead in 1564. Drew was MP for East Grinstead in 1586, but after that he was dogged by money troubles, some of which came courtesy his ownership of Brambletye iron forge. It may also explain why there are several new names associated with Brambletye at the end of the century, though the Pickas family did not give the manor up entirely just yet (James' widow was installed at Court Inholmes until she died in 1598).

In 1594 Thomas Bradfold was attached to the manor and in 1602 Robert Sackville, son and heir to Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, took on Bradfold's stake. By 1597 the Sackvilles held seventeen manors in north-east Sussex alone, including nearby Tablehurst, Imberhorne and Lavertye, the latter since 1591, a manor that often went hand-in-hand with ownership of Brambletye (James Pickas held it himself until 1564).

Sackvilles had been Sussex MPs since the 1300s, with John Sackville MP for East Grinstead in 1542 (his wife was Margaret Boleyn, aunt of Anne Boleyn) with a namesake son and grandson MPs for the town in 1547 and 1563. Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst and another grandson of John, was MP for East Grinstead in 1559 and rose to become Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth in 1599. His son, Robert Sackville, was several times MP for Sussex in the 1590s and into the early 1600s, and it was his endowment that created Sackville College in East Grinstead - though it wasn't completed until more than a decade after his death.

The Earls of Dorset - Thomas Sackville, Robert Sackville, and brothers Richard and Edward Sackville

Drew Pickas was not able to rescue his family heritage and at the end of 1606, having sent his two surviving sons to London on goldsmith apprenticeships, he left his wife and remaining family at Whalesbeech farm of Brambletye and set sail for Virginia as one of the pioneering Jamestown colonists in hope of regaining his fortune. Sadly it was not to be and, like many, he did not survive long, dying at the fort there in August 1607. A year later his widow, Anne, parted from Brambletye for good, with her remaining ownership taken up by Thomas Haddon and Henry Smith, under circumstances that aren't fully clear as she died that year in June.

With Thomas Sackville dying in 1608, and his son Robert the following year, the next generation - brothers Richard and Edward - had charge of Brambletye. Agreements over the property were made in 1611 with the Earl of Northampton, the Earl of Suffolk, the Earl of Arundel and Lord William Howard. In fact all these Earls were Howards, Richard and Edward's late mother's family. Lord William and Suffolk were their uncles, Arundel a cousin, and Northampton a great-uncle, all descendants of Henry Howard and his wife Frances de Vere. Frances was the aunt of Katherine de Vere who had held Brambletye with her husband, Lord Windsor, and to stretch the connections a little further, Henry Howard was the son of Thomas Howard, the 3rd Duke of Norfolk, who had John Shery as his chaplain.

In 1617, Dr Leonard Poe, alongside his Sussex-born wife, Dionisia, came into part ownership of Brambletye. Undeterred by a lack of formal training, Poe had been practicing as a medical man for some years. His unorthodox practices denied him association with the Royal College of Surgeons despite the patronage of a number of earls, but he was eventually admitted, in 1606, thanks to those connections, particularly the Howard family.

Poe's united ownership with the Sackvilles would last only two years, as in 1619 both parties gave up ownership to Sir Henry Compton and John Blund, warrantying the transfer against any future claims from the heirs of Robert Sackville, and the heirs of Drew Pickas, perhaps hinting at some untidiness concerning the ending of the latter's stake at Brambletye just over a decade before.

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The House of Compton

1619-1660

Henry Compton was a son of the 1st Baron Compton of Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire, but his life would become closely linked with the Sackvilles after his father died and his mother, Anne Spencer, became the second wife of Robert Sackville (Anne's third husband) when he was about 8 years old, making Richard and Edward Sackville his step-brothers. His step-sister was Cecily Sackville (b. 1586) and she and Compton would marry at West Horsley in 1607.

Henry Compton was elected MP for East Grinstead for the first time in 1601, aged just 17, a position he would hold seven more times between 1604 and 1640. He was one of many knighted in 1603, at the coronation of James I, and became a tenant at Brambletye in 1616 before acquiring it in 1619, the year following his mother's death. Other local offices he held included Assistant Warden at Sackville College and, later, Ashdown Forest Ranger.

Sir Henry Compton in a 1793 engraving, probably from an earlier portrait (courtesy National Portrait Gallery, NPG D26166)

Cecily's death is uncertain, likely between 1621 and 1624, and by 1625 Henry had remarried, to Mary Browne, daughter of Sir George Browne of Wickhambreaux, and widow of Thomas Paston.

A small note of interest is that in 1629 Henry took on the wardship of William Gage of Bentley - this William happened to be the 5x great-grandson of Eleanor St Clair, who married John Gage, and whose father, Thomas St Clair, inherited Brambletye in 1423 before passing it on to Eleanor's older sister, Elizabeth. Compton also became ward to William's son, Thomas, in 1637. Thomas's son, Henry Gage, was styled 'of Brambletye' into at least the 1680s.

One of Mary's Paston sons, Clement, would marry one of Henry and Cecily's daughters, Anne, around 1631, which was also the year the Comptons built Brambletye House, the ruins of which still stand today. Henry had recently been made 'Custos Brevium', Chief Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, a lucrative position that would have certainly improved his financial position considerably.

But as the Civil War approached, life for the Comptons, as Catholics and Royalists, became rather more fraught. Sir Henry was involved in the King's soap monopoly, a fund-raising scheme that became known as 'Popish soap' and caused Henry to be imprisoned until bailed out by his nephew, Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl Northampton (later killed at the Battle of Hopton Heath), and Henry Carey, Viscount Rochford, a descendant of the Boleyn family who married a descendant of both Pelhams and Sackvilles.

In 1643, a year into the conflict, Henry's estates were sequestered and he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for "assisting the armies raised against the Parliament". Upon release he was barred from entering several counties, including Sussex, and stripped of his office, with his wife and children chastised also for their "Popish religion".

In 1645 the Comptons were allowed to leave for France, seemingly for the good of Henry's health, but in reality he was apparently secretly working as the King's Ambassador in Lisbon. After one more return to England he died in 1649 (possibly in Paris), not long after Charles I was executed.

Sir Henry was already attempting to recover his lands by arguing his case with Parliament when his death complicated matters. His eldest son and heir was Richard Compton, but he was having his own, similar problems with his manor at Bisterne, inherited from his gg-grandmother's Berkley ancestors, and didn't want to take on Brambletye's troubles as well - at least not just yet.

Eventually Sir Henry's son, also Henry, was able to distance himself from Catholic accusations, with the help of local Parliamentarian Robert Goodwin and despite assertions that he had actively aided the late Earl of Holland in his Royalist advance on London. His lands were discharged back to him and his widowed mother, though a number of claims were made by various people against Sir Henry's weakened estate in the following years.

Son Henry did not survive much longer, being killed at Putney during a duel with the 6th Baron Chandos in 1652 (Henry's second was his brother-in-law, the 3rd Lord Arundel of Wardour, married to half-sister Cecily Compton). After a year in prison Chandos was found guilty of manslaughter and died a couple of years later of smallpox.

Sir Henry's widow Mary Compton died in 1656, and son John Compton appears to have been next in line, though he died at Brambletye in 1659 and has his tomb in the Sackville Chapel at Withyham (even though was a son of Mary, not Cecily). The last male heir was George Compton who held what was likely the final court of the Comptons at Brambletye in the year the monarchy was returned, 1660.

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'Bramble' shown on Jan Blaeu's Suthsexia Vernacule Sussex map of 1645

Richards and the Brambletye Plot

1660-1720

George had married Mary Biddulph, daughter of Francis Biddulph and Margaret Preston, and upon his death - around 1674 - Mary's brother, Richard Biddulph, was in charge at Brambletye. This was despite an effort by original heir Richard Compton to return and claim George's estate for himself, an effort that was rejected by the Court to see George's widow and in-laws come into possession of the manor.

Richard Biddulph died around 1679 which is also the year George's widow, Mary, remarried, to Robert Dalton, and by this time had likely moved to his seat of Thurnham in Lancashire. The 1680s saw a new master at Brambletye, though probably a tenant of Richard's heir, John Biddulph, one James Richards.

Mary Biddulph, wife of George Compton and sister of Richard Biddulph

James' father, John Richards of Toulouse, was said to have been part of the extensive retinue from France travelling with Queen Henrietta-Maria to England in 1625. James was knighted for "saving several men of war" at sea, and when he was made a Baronet in 1684 he was described as 'of Brambletye House, Sussex', though by that time he was earning his living as a merchant in Cadiz on the southern tip of Spain.

The tradition attached to James Richards is that he was out hunting in Ashdown Forest when, on suspicion of treason, an armed expedition was sent to the manor house where they found a hidden cache of arms. Richards was warned and instead of returning home he fled the country.

This tale was the catalyst for Horace Smith's 1826 novel, 'Brambletye House', where he rationalised the story to fit more neatly into the era of the Civil War and the time of the Comptons, with the main characters being the fictional Sir John Compton and his son Jocelyn. The tale ends with the cache of arms concealed in the basement exploding, leaving us with the ruin we know today.

Fitting the story to James Richards' life is a little more difficult. Any treason would be unlikely against King Charles II (eg. the Rye House plot) and certainly not against James II (eg. Duke of Monmouth rebellion) as Richards was unquestionably a Catholic - his French heritage and second marriage to a Spaniard giving little other option. His knighthood might fit with him being a man of James, the Duke of York, who was Lord High Admiral and served at sea himself, so it could be that he was hoarding arms as an ardent Jacobite. Of course, it could also just be a story inspired by Titus Oates' 'Popish Plot' conspiracy and the hysteria it entailed (Richards' first wife was Anne Popely, just to add to the intrigue!).

Richards was in Spain at least a few years before King James' attempted return in 1689, marrying Beatrix Herrera in Cadiz not long after his Baronetcy and having children born there in the 1680s and 90s. He died around 1705 and his descendants became noteworthy figures in the Spanish government and military.

Claims and counterclaims continued around Brambletye into the final decade of the 17th century, with even the remnants of the Compton family brought out from Hampshire to give evidence in one case. But while the Biddulphs remained masters of the manor, they spent most of their time either at their seat of Biddulph Hall in Staffordshire (rebuilt after being destroyed by Parliamentary cannon in the Civil War) or at their Sussex base in Burton, and they likely did not occupy Brambletye at all. So as the 1700s ticked by, Sir Henry Compton's grand house began its lapse into ruin, decaying through time, nature and - most destructive of all - scavengers for building material.

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Of Biddulphs and Bankers

1720-2017

For the next 150 years ownership of Brambletye manor followed the line of descent of the Biddulphs of Biddulph and Burton. After John Biddulph died in 1720 his estates went to his heir, Richard, who built a new house at Burton Park in 1740 after the old one was destroyed in a fire (in 1826 that one would go up in flames as well).

Richard did not marry and with no direct heir his properties passed to his brother Charles, and it is during his reign of the Biddulph estates we get the earliest glimpse of Brambletye House thanks to John Lambert jnr's c.1773 painting, showing the building in an advanced state of ruin, though a little more complete than it is today.

Etching made from Lambert's painting, by Samuel Evershed

John Biddulph, Charles' son, was next, inheriting his father's possessions in 1784. He died in Florence in 1835, unmarried and without issue and his properties passed to two cousins - Anthony George Wright, grandson of John's aunt, Ann Biddulph, who had married banker Anthony Wright of Wealdside, Essex, and Thomas Stonor, a great-grandson of his aunt, Mary Biddulph, who had married Thomas Stonor of Stonor, Oxfordshire. In 1839 Thomas Stonor (the g-grandson) had successfully argued that he was the legitimate heir to the extinct title of Lord Camoys, and became the 3rd Baron Camoys.

In 1856 Lord Camoys was the defendant in a case brought by the son of his Biddulph co-heir, Anthony John Wright Biddulph (his father had added the last name in the wake of John Biddulph's will). Camoy's co-defendants were the assignees of Wright's father's estate, as he had been declared bankrupt, and the case was for full ownership of some of the Biddulph properties, including Brambletye.

It was a complicated affair, going back to the intricate chain of heirdom set out in the 1765 will of Richard Biddulph, and rested on the recent discovery that John Biddulph's brother, Thomas, had two previously unknown daughters in France. Although the daughters each only lived a few weeks, the court found that it altered the outcome of the will, and Anthony John Wright Biddulph was able to claim both moieties of Biddulph Hall and The Grange in Staffordshire, and Brambletye in Sussex.

Biddulph would keep hold of Brambletye for another eight years before he sold the lands, but not the manorial rights, to another banker, Donald Larnach. Lanarch was a Scot who emigrated to Australia, aged 17, and became director of the Bank of New South Wales, profiting greatly from the 1851 gold rush before returning to the United Kingdom with his family.

Soon after the purchase he built a new Brambletye House, just over half a mile north-west of Compton's old home, perhaps to move the heart of the estate away from the railway line that had recently opened from East Grinstead to Tunbridge Wells, and ran only 250 metres north of the ruins. Larnach's new house was almost destroyed by a fire in 1903, but was repaired and continued to be lived in by his family (Donald had died in London in 1896) until sold in the 1930s to become the new home for the Rev. John Blencowe's boys' school, now Brambletye School.

The manorial rights, but not the lands, had gone to William Pearless, a solicitor from East Grinstead, then when he died in 1875 it went on to his sons and partners in business, James Richardson Pearless and Reginald Wilson Pearless, the former outliving the latter by six years, dying in 1917 and, remarkably for a solicitor, intestate.

Captain Ronald Olaf Hambro was the next owner, a banker born in Kent but of Danish ancestry. After service in the Great War he bought Kidbrooke Park in Forest Row, and it is under his lordship, in the 1920s, that Compton's old Brambletye House had it's last known resident - a worker at Brambletye Farm called James Hobbs, or 'Old Jimmy' as he was locally known.

Winifred Martin-Smith in 1917, wife of Olaf Hambro, and Jimmy Hobbs in his 'castle' room at Brambletye in 1928

Hobbs occupied the only remaining intact room, complete with its original oak door and a fireplace. As he got into old age, Hambro's wife, Winnie, persuaded him to move into Forest Row and paid for his lodgings. When she died in a boating accident on Loch Ness, the widowed Captain continued to pay his rent until selling up and leaving the county in 1938. It was Hambro who had Compton's old ruin cleared of ivy and stabilised in 1930.

And so this brings us into the modern era. The ruins of Brambletye House, now on private land within the grounds of Brambletye Manor Farm, were surveyed and became a grade II listed structure in 1953, and in 2009 they were added to the English Heritage 'At Risk' register. In 2017 the remnants of the manor house were stabilised by Robin Nugent Architects (whose webpage strangely attributes the building to the pirate Henry Morgan!) under a Scheduled Monument Consent with funding from English Heritage.

| selected sources |

A Genealogy of Brambletye - selected sources & notes

General Histories

Domesday and the Honour of the Eagle

The Aldeham St. Cleres

Lewkenor and the Moat

A Tale of Two Moieties

Enter the Sackvilles

The House of Compton

Richards and the Brambletye Plot

Of Biddulph and Bankers

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