Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/571

 n s. vi. DKC. 14, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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WESTENHANGER ix KENT (11 S. vi. 409). MB. WIXLCOCK will find a full account of Westenhanger in Hasted's ' History of Kent,' iii. 322. A note on p. 326 describes the house with a moat round it. This place is near Hythe, and is spelt Westenhanger. In ' The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales,' by J. M. Wilson, Westenhanger is thus described :

" A railway station and a quondam parish in the S.E. of Kent. The station is on the South- eastern Railway, 2 miles N.W. of Hythe, and serves for Hythe. The quondam parish lies around the station, and retains a remarkable fragment of a moated, fortified thirteenth-century manorial seat, which belonged to the Aubervilles, and passed to the Criolls, the Poynings, the Smiths, and the Champneis. Queen Elizabeth visited the seat in 1573."

I know of no " Westonhanger. "

HARRY B. POULND. Inner Temple.

Writing in 1818, Mr. L. Fussell gives the following description of Westenhanger House in his book ' A Journey round the Coast of Kent,' which will answer some of the queries of MR.

" Westenhanger House was a royal palace in the reign of Henry. II. The mutilated statue of a royal personage, one|hand grasping a sceptre, was found among the ruins, and supposed to represent that monarch. Part of the ancient building was also called Rosamond's tower, from the celebrated beauty of' that name, who is reported to have inhabited Westenhanger palace, previously to her removal to Woodstock ; and a room denominated Rosamond's prison or gallery, an hundred and sixty feet in length, is said to have been destroyed in the course of those altera- tions, which at different periods have nearly removed all the traces of its pristine splendour. In the reign of Richard I. this mansion was the property of Auberville, a follower of the Con- queror ; afterwards belonged to the Criols, one of whose descendants obtained license from King Edward III. to endow a Chauntry in the Chapel of St. John in Westenhanger, and to embattle and make loopholes in his house there. In later times it was in the possession of the family of Fagge, and next of Sir Edward Poynings, Gover- nor of Dover Castle, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Knight of the Garter. It subsequently reverted to the Crown, and, after passing through various hands, was partly demolished by Mr. Champneys, who converted that part of the building that remained into a neat and com- fortable residence ; but within a few years that also yielded to the taste of the present proprietor, was taken down, and a yet smaller house erected upon its site. The old house was moated round, had formerly a drawbridge, gate-house, and portal, of w.hich the arch was lofty and strong, springing from polygonal pillars, and secured by a portcxillis. The outer walls were high, and strengthened with towers ; some square, others circular, and the whole embattled. Over the door was a carved figure of St. George on horseback,

and under it four shields, one bearing the arms of England, and another a key and crown sup- ported by angels. A flight of steps led to the chapel erected by Sir Edward Poynings in the reign of Henry VIII. and vaulted with stone. The great hall was fifty feet long, having a gallery at one end, and at the other cloisters, which com- municated with the chapel and principal apart- ments, of which there are reported to have been an hundred and twenty-six in number, with the old story of as many windoics as there are days in the year. There was also a park, which extended over the rising grounds to the South and East, as far as the road leading from Ashford to Hythe, near the handsome modern seat of Mr. Deedes at Sandling. All that at present remains of this once princely mansion, and the buildings which belonged to it, are the masses of its towers sinking into the moat, and portions of its walls covered with ivy, or half hidden by the gloomy shade of large trees, which have sprung out of the dust of its ruins, and spread their tortuous branches as if to guard them from future encroachments." HAROLD MALET, Col.

There is a vast amount of most interesting information available regarding this ancient manor in Kent. It is about four miles from Hythe, and has a railway station close to the remains of the old moated castle. Phili- pott in his ' Villare Cantianum,' 1659, p. 302, traces the history of the manor from 1242, when Bertram de Crioll, Sheriff of Kent, was written in the Pipe Roll as its lord. Even before that time Philipott is able to tell us that Sir William de Auberville lived at Westenhanger when he founded the abbey of West Langdon. A great-grand- daugjiter of this Sir William " carried it away " on her marriage to Nicholas de Crioll. By marriage of a daughter of this family it passed to Sir Richard de Rokesley, who accompanied Edward I. into Scotland, and for his bravery at the siege of Caerlaverock was made a knight -banneret. By the marriage of the knight's daughter in 1323-4 to Thomas de Poynings the manor came first into that distinguished family, where it remained for over two centuries, when, direct issue failing, it reverted to the Crown, and was by Edward VI. , 1547, granted to John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, afterwards Duke of Northumberland. At his attainder it again passed into the hands of the Crown, and Queen Elizabeth made a grant of it to her kinsman Sir Thomas Sackville, who sold it to Thomas Smith, Esq., " vulgarly called Customer Smith, who much enhaunced the beauty of the Fabrick, which had been empaired and defaced with Fire." " Customer Smith's " great-grandson became Philip Smith, Vis- count Strangford. Burke informs us that " Thomas Smythe, Esq.," was " farmer of