Copy map of Stephen Penkhurst's Buxted Park estate in Buxted and Wadhurst by John...

This map is a copy, drawn in ink and colour on the back of a will of George Augustus William Shuckburgh Evelyn dated 19 Nov 1796. It has however all the characteristics of a Pattenden map, and there is no reason to suppose that it is anything other than an accurate, albeit rather amateurish, copy of a genuine original. The copy may have been produced as a memento on the sale of the estate in 1930; the original awaits discovery

The manor of Buxted was settled on the marriage of Stephen Penkherst with Elizabeth, daughter of John Marsham of Cuxton in Kent in 1652; he had purchased it from Richard Lindsey in 1651. The Wadhurst property was probably old Penkherst land. Stephen Penkherst compounded with his creditors in February 1656 and in June 1656 agreed to sell a large proportion of his estate; the manor of Buxted was however retained. The Wadhurst land was among property which had been conveyed to a trustee for sale in June 1655. Penkherst died in 1657 and the estate descended to his children John and Ferdinando in succession. On the death of Ferdinando Penkherst in 1708 the estate was mortgaged to Thomas Medley of Coneyborough in Barcombe, who purchased the reversion in 1712. The estate was partitioned between Medley and John Hutton, husband of Penkherst's co-heir Dorothy Dyke, in 1724. George Augustus William Shuckburgh acquired the estate on his marriage with Annabella, daughter of James Evelyn of Felbridge and Ann Medley, in 1785. He changed his name to Shuckburgh-Evelyn in accordance with his father-in-law's will in 1794 and died in 1804

An extended pedigree showing the descent of the Buxted estate was published in Sussex Archaeological Collections vol 47 (1904) opposite p 108

The Wadhurst property, marked on the map as sold to Gregory Dyne on 8 July 1656, was almost certainly that conveyed to George Courthope and David Holland by a deed of the same date. It is shown by a map of 1795 as part of Little Shoesmiths Farm, although the building shown in 1654 had disappeared: see AMS6363. For the deeds of the Shoesmiths estate, including deeds of Brookland from 1485, see CKS U840 T109

The archive of the Buxted Park estate is dispersed. For its ownership by the Penkherst family, including details of Stephen Penkherst's debts, see DYK 615-628, 818-835 and 878-881. For its ownership by the Medley, Shuckburgh-Evelyn, Jenkinson, Harcourt and Portman families, see SAS/PN 1-118, AMS6270, 5896, 5897 and 6334

The present whereabouts of the many component parts of the Portman archive were very usefully summarised by Richard Olney in the Annual Review for 1988-89 of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (HMSO, 1989), pp 25-27

Document purchased 3 January 1995 (ACC 6362)