POULETT ESTATE DOCUMENTS

These form more than half the contents of twenty odd sacks received from Raper & Co., Solicitors, 55 West Street, Chichester, on 24.11.1948, the remainder relating to Sussex and a few other counties. The only apparent links between the Somerset, Devon and Dorset documents and Sussex seem to be two marriages in the seventeenth century. Elizabeth, daughter of Christopher Kenn, married first John, 1st Baron Poulett, and after his death in 1648[-9], John Ashburnham of Ashburnham. Later Elizabeth Poulett, daughter of the above-mentioned Elizabeth by her first marriage, married William Ashburnham, son of the above-mentioned John Ashburnham by his first marriage to Francis Holland.

The manors held by the Pouletts of Hinton St. George lie in three groups, one in the south of Somerset round Chard and Crewkerne overlapping into Dorset, the second in the north of Somerset round Kingston Seymour, and the third - a smaller one - in Devon round Sampford Peverell. There are also properties scattered elsewhere in the three counties.

The bulk of the accumulation is seventeenth and eighteenth century leases for lives, but there are twelve Court Rolls 1552-1687, a fair number of thirteenth to sixteenth century deeds in good condition, and a few estate books and papers.

<span class="wrapper"><p>See also DD\DT &amp; DD\X\SSX 1.</p> <p>For transcript of chard manor &amp; borough court rolls 1563-1573 see DD\X\HSK 3.</p></span>

C/348; S/1865