John Bowra: Land Surveyor and Cartographer - Archaeologia Cantiana

   Plain land, woods, shaws, and waste, 75 acres. House, garden, and Filberd Plot indicated. In a field named Hazemead a tree is depicted: "The leaves of this tree is of all colours."
        Boundaries: Stony Fields, Mr Skinner, occupier.
                              Nizel's Hoath, Mr Geo. Children
                              Thomas's Wood,
                              Land belonging to Mr John Children, senr
                              Kent's land Farm, Mrs Streatfield's

1776. Land lying in the Parishes of East Peckham, Tudeley and Hadlow, in the County of Kent, Belonging to Mr Richd Stanford and Mr Jno Hatch.
   Plain land, Rough, Shaws & Waste, 40 acres. Owners of adjoining properties, Widdw Kipping, Lady Twysden, Mr Thos. Martin, Mr Samuel Mills, Mr John Cheesman, Stephen Craddock, late Thomas Lambard, Esqr.

1780. Land in Tudely and Waternbury in the County of Kent belonging to Mr Isacc Hatch.
   Plain land, rough and waste, 5 acres. House and garden shown. Neighbours, Mr Ambrose Mercer, Lord Le Despencer, Mr Willm Cheesman.

N.B. Derivation of the name BOWRA.

   Enquiries have often been made to the writer of this note about the origin of this name, which is uncommon, and in this form seems to be almost entirely localized in West Kent. The following note, therefore, may not be without interest.
   The name Bowra (locally pronounced Boarer) is a

variant of the Wealden name Borer or Borrer, which is believed to be entirely of Kent or Sussex origin and not originally to be found in any other English county. There are many spellings: Borrer, Boreer, Boorer, Borer, Boarer, Bourer, Bowrah, Bowrer, Bowra, etc., the last form having been adopted by Thomas Bowra, chirurgeon, of Sevenoaks, some time late in the seventeenth century. He changed it from his previous spelling of Boorer or Bowrer, forms which he seems to have used alternately as fancy dictated. Thomas Bowra, who was born in East Grinstead, Sussex, in the time of the Commonwealth, came as an immigrant into Kent as a young man, and died in Sevenoaks in 1690. The relatives he left behind him in Sussex continued to retain the various old forms of spelling, but the Kentish form thus became Bowra and has since remained so.
In the Sussex Archæological Collections, Vol. VIII, p. 274, some account is given of the Borrer family, and the name is there derived from OE boehr = hill, with the suffix -er, with which so many surnames, often through an intermediary stage of atte, are formed. But on the question being referred some years ago to the late Professor A. Mawer, author of Problems of Place-Name Study, he gave the authoritative opinion that the derivation was OE bûr = dwelling, bower, and -er. (On the suffix -er, particularly in Sussex, v. Mawer, Problems of Place-Name Study, p. 68.) This would give the meaning of a man who either