Estate in Hartfield and Withyham, exchanged by the Duke of Dorset in 1795

On 29 July 1721 Thomas Tufton, Earl of Thanet, settled his estate on his nephew Sackville Tufton, son of his late brother Sackville Tufton, esq. Included was the manor of Bolbrook with a messuage and land called the moiety of two barns otherwise Perry Hill Farm, with land called The Beaches, occupied by Thomas Medhurst at £80, before Samuel Rogers, before John Turner, William Napp and Thomas Hammond, with the moiety of South Ridding Wood (12a) in Hartfield and Withyham (1).

By his will of the following day, Thomas Earl of Thanet, having made provision for his five daughters in accordance with the settlement on his marriage with his late wife Catherine, daughter of Harry [Cavendish], Duke of Newcastle, bequeathed his estate in trust for sale for charitable uses. By a codicil of 23 September 1728 he appointed new trustees, including his daughter Mary [Grey] Countess of Harold, who was to be consulted by his other executors in their charitable distribution 'she being best acquainted with his usual methods of distribution'. The earl died on 30 July 1729 (1).

The poor pensioners of the Earl of Thanet brought a relator action in Chancery against his executors, and on 30 March 1732 the matter was referred to Master [Peter] Holford to take an account, and ordered that the remaining estates should be sold for the charitable trusts specified in the Earl's will. In 1770 Master Holford ordered the peremptory sale of the estates in three lots - the manor of Bolbrook, Perryhill Farm (188a 1r 0p) occupied by John Spencer at £80, and the manor of St Tyes - which were conveyed to Thomas Walley Partington, gent, for £8500 on 16 and 17 November 1770, subject to payments to Sackville College in East Grinstead and Hartfield School (1).

On 1 and 2 May 1771 Partington, who had purchased the estate as trustee of Lord George Germain, formerly George Sackville and the third son of the Earl of Dorset, conveyed the estates to the trustees of the settlement made on Germain's marriage to Diana Sambrooke of 30 August 1754 (1).

Lord George Germain, created Viscount Sackville in 1782, died in August 1785 leaving two sons and three daughters. His heir Charles Sackville, Lord Sackville, barred the entail by recovery on 6 January 1792 and conveyed the estates to John Frederick Sackville, Duke of Dorset, for £11,872 10s 6d on 24 and 25 March 1795 (1).

It was these lands which the duke conveyed to the trustees of his marriage settlement in exchange for land in Brighton on 29 and 30 September 1795 (2).