Estates of the Cavendish family, Dukes of Devonshire, in East Sussex

SAS/CP 1-236: manorial documents from Compton Place, Eastbourne, relating to various Eastbourne Manors and the Manors of Jevington, Pevensey and Wilmington, listed by the Revd Walter Budgen and transferred to ESRO by the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1984

SAS/CP 237-257: similar documents listed by the Record Office

SAS/CP 258-356: copies acquired by the Record Office of documents belonging to the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, previously held in the Devonshire Estate Office in Eastbourne but now held at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire

In the 1880s, at their greatest extent, the Sussex estates of the Cavendish family amounted to some 11,000 acres. The family had acquired lands in Sussex through the marriage in 1782 of Lord George Augustus Henry Cavendish, second son of the Duke of Devonshire, to Lady Elizabeth Compton, daughter and heiress of the Marquess of Northampton. Cavendish enlarged the estate and in 1858 it passed to the seventh Duke and so joined with the other extensive lands of the family. Compton Place in Eastbourne was the great house from which the Sussex estate was managed.

The archive at Compton Place was listed in 1920 by the Revd Walter Budgen in 'Deeds and documents belonging to His Grace the Duke of Devonshire at Compton Place, Eastbourne' (copy of typescript available at ESRO). Some of these documents were subsequently deposited with the Sussex Archaeological Society and are listed here; the remainder were later transferred to Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. The present list has not been collated against the 1920 list.