Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/167

Rh the yearly oblations, "wholly from the mansion of Penshurst—"de hospicio de Penshurst integre" at the four holy seasons; also all confessions, baptisms, &c. And if at Easter mass should not be celebrated in the said chapel, the whole family should receive "Christ's body" in the mother church of Leigh. Again, we find an authorised encroachment upon the above reservations about 150 years from the foundation by John Belemeyns; for license to hear confessions and enjoin penance in "the great chapel, capella magna," of Penshurst "from all and singular persons inhabiting the said manor" was granted by the bishop A.D. 1393, "on account of the distance from the parish church of Leigh." Hasted, disregarding the date, quotes the confirmatory charter as that of the original foundation, and earlier than 1239, though alluding either to the same instrument, or to one of the same date, 1249, as a totally independent one. He also adduces the grant to Belemeyns in 1239 as "afterwards" with reference to the primary institution of the chapel, which he imagines to have been by Thomas de Penshurst; whereas the above extracts clearly attribute it to John Belemeyns, from whom probably the estate descended to the Penshursts, Hasted mentioning a Stephen de Penshurst as nephew of John Belemeyns, and the proprietor had been changed between 1239 and 1249: compare the charters.

The parish church of Penshurst stands near the mansion and is now dedicated to St. John Baptist; which last circumstance however does not invalidate the above argument, because churches, when re-edified, which has happened to this, often received different dedications, from what they bore previously.—The existing church of Penshurst was generally rebuilt in the debased Gothic style, but the piers and arches between the nave and north aisle, with a small part of the northern side of the chancel, are remnants of an older structure; E.E. and Dec.? of which the former portion certainly might well belong to the building of John Belemeyns.—Stone effigy of Sir Stephen de Penchester, temp. K. Edward I. Brasses: seven children of Watur Draynocott and two wives (W. D. lost), 1507; man and woman, 14—; Pacole Yden, wife, and child, 1564. (Reg. Roff.)—Penshurst Place retains many vestiges of its early origin and importance.

259., Thanet.—Originally a chapelry to Minster, afterwards made parochial, like St. John's, and St. Laurence.—At Broadstairs, a short distance from the gate leading inland 9