Manor of Birling and Birling Farm in Eastdean, purchased by Charles Gilbert from...

1 Manor of Birling, messuage where Edward Paine lived, barns, stables, buildings and land in Eastdean, Eastbourne and Friston, formerly occupied by Christopher Darcy, kt, Henry Porter, gent and [blank] Bodle, with a piece of land (10a) in Eastdean occupied by James Dippre, before Nicholas Austen (1707)

2 Messuage, barn and 14 acres land in Eastdean called Dunweeke, barn and 12 acres land called The Shabb, 5a called The Shabb near the demesne land in Eastdean, all copyhold of Birling manor (1693)

3 1½ acres customary land in Alchins Laine in Eastdean and 25 sheep-leazes, copyhold of Birling manor (1738)

4 Messuage, stables and garden in Eastdean, three pieces of land in Church Laine, Eastdean (6a) and eighty sheep leazes, belonging to part of Grove Farm, copyhold of Birling Manor (1771)

5 Two pieces of arable (2a 1r) in the Church Laine and Tenant Laine, common of pasture for sixteen sheep on Eastdean tenant down and 3r of customary land at the Knowle, all copyhold of Birling manor (1743)

The manor and farm of Birling

On 8 May 1652 the manor of Birling was mortgaged by Mary Offley. On 23 January 1684 Joseph Offley and Thomas Offley mortgaged it for £5000 to John Whatton, kt, who subsequently assigned to his son-in-law Thomas Hackett, DD, bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland, who had married Whatton's daughter Katherine in 1676 (settlement 28 November). Thomas Offley let the bishop into possession of the farm, and in 1686 he obtained a judgement in ejectment, agreed with Offley's tenant Elizabeth Baldy, widow, for a further term, and spent £400 on a new barn and other repairs. Mrs Baldy married Storer Bythwood and execution of the judgement was attempted against him in 1688 and the stock of the farm purchased from him (7). Bythwood was defendant in an action heard in common pleas in 1690 concerning the lord of the manor's right to the best anchor and cable of stranded ships (69).

By his will of 1693, the bishop left his property to his wife Katherine. He died in 1697, the will was proved in 1699 and that of Katherine, bequeathing it to their daughters Conway Hackett of East Sheen, Surrey, spinster and Mary the wife of John Cross of London, merchant, in 1704 (1, 2). In 1705 Conway paid Mary £400 for a release of her entitlement under their parents' settlement (3). In 1707 Conway Hackett married Trafford Smyth, eldest son of Robert Smyth of Upton in Westham, Essex, bt.

As well as Birling, the settlement includes former Whatton property in Leicester, Thurnby and Little Glen, Leicestershire, and freehold, copyhold and leasehold property in the city of London, Islington in Middlesex, Chislet in Kent, and Smythe property in Chadwell and Westham, Essex, Hackney and the city of London. The settlement makes provision for the redemption of the mortgage of Birling. Conway Hackett also brought into settlement mortgages on The Saracens Head in Carter Lane, London, and on other property in Islington and Kent, and debts owed by merchants of Lisburne and other places in Antrim (4-6).

The bishop had rented a neighbouring farm to improve the estate and Birling was run by bailiffs from 1688 to 1706, when Conway Hacket let the farm (excluding the manor and The Underhill House) to James Dippery, to whom the stock was sold for £700 (7).

As early as 1702 Thomas Offley of the Middle Temple had charged the manor for an unspecified sum to Thomas Webster of Copthall in Essex, esq, in order to discharge the mortgage and for £500 with which to stock the farm [see BAT 1043-1045].

In 1707 a chancery action was begun by Thomas Offley's nephew Edward Lawrence, kt, mortgagee of the equity of redemption, to enforce redemption. He claimed that the mortgagees had received more than the mortgage-debt from the estate, and by a decree of 14 August 1717 an account was ordered to be taken (7). No action was taken on the decree. Thomas Offley died unmarried in May 1722 and his sister Sarah Nettewill's rights in the equity of redemption were bought by Lawrence in 1726 (14).

Trafford Smyth died in January 1732, the whole estate was resettled in 1733 and Birling mortgaged for £4000 in the same year (8-13). The suit was revived against his son Trafford Smyth, esq and another decree for an account made on 5 July 1734 (14, 15). Owing to a fire in the chambers of Simon Michell in Lincoln's Inn in 1735 the Sussex estate was again resettled in January 1737 (16-20).

By his will of 1747, Sir Edward Lawrence bequeathed his interest in Birling to his nephew Edward Bewick, who renounced it by a chancery answer sworn at the New Kings Head at Louth in Lincolnshire in 1750. Smyth revived the bill against Lawrence's exector in 1750 and against his widow in 1752, in which year Smyth mortgaged the Birling estate to the tenant James Dippery for £5500, of which all but £875 was paid to mortgagees (21-29).

In May 1753 the suit was revived against Isaac Lawrence Woollaston, bt, an infant. An account was taken by Thomas Lane, master in chancery, whose report of 3 August 1754 consists of a minutely detailed income and expenditure account for Birling between 1686 and 1754. As well as details of agriculture, the account includes repairs to buildings, income from wrecks (and the cost of burying their victims), and the sums expended on the various lawsuits to which the estate was subject. It concluded that the sum owed by the plaintiff mortgagors exceeded the income received by the mortgagees by £13,092, which sum the mortgagees were called upon to pay if they wished to recover the estate (31). The plaintiff's objections were heard before the lord chancellor on 6 June 1755 and a compromise, by which Smyth was paid £1000 and the suits dismissed without costs, was approved by Master Lane and confirmed by the lord chancellor on 27 March 1756 (30-35).

In 1763 Sir Trafford Smyth sold the property to Arthur Jones and Isaac Bargrave who then re-conveyed it to James Dippery, with whom Smyth executed a mutual release of actions (36-46).

Dunweek and The Shab, copyhold of Birling manor

Premises 2 above and other property late Mary Marden were mortgaged in 1693 by William Marden and his wife Ann to John Frankwell, who was admitted in 1694. His son William Frankwell was admitted on his death in 1713 and mortgaged to the tenant John Dippery in 1714 and to Thomas Willard the elder of Eastbourne, gent, in 1728 (47, GIL/2/26/1). Frankwell died in about 1730 and in 1733 his only sister Gillian, wife of Richard Russell, clerk, and Thomas Willard sold the property to James Dippery (48).

Land in Alchins Laine and 25 sheep-leazes

Premises 3 above were bequeathed in 1724 by Edward Buckwell the elder to his wife Elizabeth for life with remainder to his grand-daughter Elizabeth daughter of Ann Read [for a copy of the will see GIL/1/35/2 below]. His widow died in 1726 and Elizabeth Read was admitted in 1738 (49). She and her husband William Bishop the younger sold the property to James Dippery in 1741 (50). The land, automatically enfranchised by Dippery's purchase of the manor in 1763, was exchanged with George Medley in 1771 (51-53).

Messuage, land and 80 sheep-leazes in Eastdean

In 1768 James Dippery contracted to make and exchange with George Medley of Buxted within six months of the death of Medley's mother Arabella. The exchange was effected in 1771 and Dippery acquired premises 4 above in return for land (specified) acquired by Medley (51-53).

Land in Church Laine and 16 sheep-leazes in Eastdean

Richard Read, a minor, was admitted to premises 5 above as youngest son of his mother Ann wife of Thomas Read in 1743. In 1763 Read mortgaged the property to Grace Dippery for £10, and sold it to James Dippery in 1766 (62).

The whole estate

By his will of 1786, James Dippery bequeathed Birling to his nephew Nicholas Willard and the newly-built house where he lived, four houses and a stable, a little barn and a copyhold house [?4 above] to his nephew Milward Rowe. On 24 and 25 January 1792 Milward Rowe of Kensington Palace, esq, sold 18 acres of the estate bequeathed to him to his cousin Nicholas Willard of Birling for £1700 (54-56). In 1804 Willard mortgaged the estate for £3000 to John Farncombe of Bishopstone, gent, who reconveyed in 1807 (57-58, 60-61). Part of the estate was mapped by William Figg in 1806 (59); the map omits 66 acres of land called The Croppen, which Willard sold to Lord George Henry Cavendish at about that time (62).

On 22 and 23 December 1807 Nicholas Willard conveyed part of the Birling estate, described as the Manor of Birling, a capital messuage called Birling House, a messuage called Underhill House (divided into five tenements), and lands known as Birling Farm (1404a) to Charles Gilbert; the property was subject to an Endlewick Rent of 10s (61-66). A map of the estate, duplicating that drawn in 1806, is included in the conveyance (64), which also specifies the former copyhold property, surrendered at various dates to previous owners of the manor, which was not included in the sale. The estate is also included in a book of maps (GIL/3/151/16). In 1813 James Dippery's niece Elizabeth Ingram of Chailey, widow, released Birling and the Eastdean parsonage tithes (for which see GIL/1/34) from an annuity granted her in his will (67).

In 1819 a piece of land near the coast at Birling Gap (shown on map) was leased by Davies Gilbert and his tenant James Hodson to the customs for service of the coast blockade (68).

Davies Gilbert added to the bundle transcripts of the pleadings and of a law report in James Simpson v Storer Bythwood, heard in common pleas in Michaelmas term 1690, by which the right of the lord of the manor of Birling to the best anchor and cable of stranded ships was settled in favour of the lord. The extracts are on paper watermarked between 1814 and 1820 (69).

<p>For portions of the estate retained in 1808 and sold to Davies Gilbert in 1837, see GIL/1/63 below.</p>