RESIDENCE: BOUGHTON MONCHELSEA PLACE NR. MAIDSTONE, KENT

(The following was found on the internet by Dayonne Barnum. She has a link to the page at her site Barnum Genealogy Index and Genealogy Resourses)

The recorded history of Boughton Monchelsea begins before the Norman Conquest. It was then called Boltone, later Bacton meaning clearing in a beech wood. Before the Conquest it belonged to the Saxon Earl Godwin. William the Conqueror granted the manor together with many others in Kent to his half-brother Odo Bishop of Bayeux. The Bishop then fell into disgrace and all his property was confiscated. At the end of the 12c Boughton came into the possession of the Montchensies (a Norman family) from whom the second part of the name of the village derives. The Montchensies were an important family, with large possession in Norfolk, Suffolk and Kent. The Montchensies died out when William de Montchensie was killed in a mining operation at the siege of Dryslwyn Castle near Carmarthen in 1287. Williams Daughter Dionysia married Hugh de Vere, son of the Earl of Oxford. From the Montchensies the ownership of the manor passed by inheritance through various Kent families, including the Harpurs and Peckhams, until in 1551 it was bought by Thomas Wyatt the son of the poet of the same name who lived in nearby Allington Castle. Wyat sold it in 1551 to Robert Rudston. The price paid for it together with the manor of Palster in Wittersham was ú1.730. Rudstons descendants occupied the Manor until 1888. Robert Rudston, son of Sir John Rudston (d.1531), scion of a Yorkshire landowning family had come South, made a fortune as a draper, bought more land and was Lord Mayor of London. As a boy Robert was brought up not far away, his mother now widowed married Sir Edward Wotton of Boughton Malherbe (Wotton was Treasurer of Calais and an executor of King Henry VIII). Robert Rudston then married Anne Wotton (his Step-Father's daughter by his first marriage). Anne Wottons and Rudstons arms appear on the righthand side of the southernmost window in the Entrance Hall). In January 1554 - Rudston had only lived at Boughton for 3 years, he joined the revolt against Catholic Queen Mary. This revolt led by his friend Thomas Wyatt was crushed, Wyatt was beheaded, Rudston was locked in the Tower, his land confiscated. He was released in 1555 and allowed to lease Boughton from the Crown and then in the later part of 1555 was allowed to re-purchase the lands for ú1,000. In 1575 Rudston had recovered enough to have the House lengthened eastwards and added the present east wing and two more wings to enclose the Courtyard. An inventory of 1613 shows it contained 14 bedrooms, a hall, a gallery, two dining rooms, three other living rooms and a large number of other rooms connected with the storage and preparation of food. Robert Rudston was a man of culture, but a difficult character. Sir Francis Barnham described him as a 'brave gentlemen and of a very loving disposition, but so furiously cholericks as required a great deal of discretion to avoide the incounter of that humour'. Rudston died in 1590, he left Boughton to his younger son Belknap Rudston. On Belknaps death in 1613 the male line of the Rudstons came to an end, and Boughton passed to Sir Francis Barnham (son of Belknaps older sister who had married Sir Martin Barnham). Robert Barnham was created a Baronet in 1663, was MP of Maidstone from 1660 -1679. He and his father before him had represented Maidstone for 43 years. Robert was a Royalist at heart and took part in the Kentish Rising of 1648 - this rising was sparked off by Parliament clamping down on religious and traditional observances at Christmas. Robert Barnham died in 1685 and passing over his daughters of his first marriage left Boughton to his only child by his second marriage - a daughter Philadelphia, who was married to Thomas Rider from Essex. The Riders came to Boughton in 1685 and the first alterations were made since Rudston's time. The Tudor staircase did not fit in with the more gracious way of life and the wide shallow staircase to the first floor was put in. Little is known of the first Thomas Rider, (d 1698) or of his son Sir Barnham Rider (d 1728) Both were however hard drinkers - Philadelphia who died in 1730 left L400 (pounds) to her grandson another Thomas (aged now 12) to 'educate him as a gentleman so that he might be sensible. How fatal intemperance had been to his Father and Grandfather'.