and a fold-course here on Joan, Prioress of Dartford, and her successours, in which house it continued to the Dissolution; and in 1539, was granted to Sir Tho. Jermyn, Knt. and his heirs, to be held in capite. In 1561, it was Edmund Jermyn's; in 1576, Sir Amb. Jermyn of Rushbrook, Knt. died seized, and left Robert his son and heir, but gave this manor to William Jermyn, Esq. his youngest son, who in 1603, settled it on himself and his heirs; it afterwards belonged to George Townsend of Cranworth, second son of Tho. Townsend of Testerton, he married Frances, daughter of Edmund Bacon of Hesset in Suffolk, leaving two sons, Henry the younger, and Thomas the elder, who lived at West Wrotham, where he was buried in 1681, leaving by Katherine Hoo his wife, one son, viz. George Townsend of Wrotham, Gent. who first married a Green, but by her had no issue, and afterwards a grand-daughter of Sir Robert Baldock of Tacolneston, whose mother was sister and heir of Robert Baldock of Tacolneston, Esq. his son and heir, by whom he had the Rev. Mr. Townsend, rector of Shipdham; which of them it was that sold the estate, I cannot say, but am informed that it belongs to the heirs of Sir Nicholas Gerrard, Bart. who died in 1727.
I meet with nothing more concerning these Wrothams, but that the great hundred court is to be annually kept at a place called KettleBridge, between Little Hocham, Illington, and Great Wrotham, on Tuesday after Michaelmas day in the morning, where all the rents due to the hundred are to be paid, and proper warrants issued for all arrears.
In Fabian's Chronicle, (fol. 361,) is this,
"Aboute that Srason, [1418,] the Parson of Wortham in Norfolk, whych longe Tyme had haunted Nuw-Market Heth, and there robbed and spoyled many of the King's Subierts, was nowe with his Concubyne broughte into Newgate, where lastly he dyed."
And in a manuscript in the hands of the Rev. Mr. Baldwin, it is thus related: "In 1418, the parson of Wrotham in Norfolk, which had haunted Newmarket Heathe, and there robbed and spoiled many, was with his concubine to Newgat of London where he died."
It appears by the institutions, that it could not be the parson of West Wrotham, and (if any) must be the parson of East Wrotham, and it looks something like it, there being no time of Swanlond's institution mentioned, who was instituted at the death of this parson; but whether it was De-Lawe, or any other that had it after him, and before Swanlond, I cannot pretend to determine.
