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occasion that previously the same John de Southesse had
held from the manor of Kemsing and that manor from the Earl of Leicester.
At the time, the Kemsing manor was held by Sir Otho de Grandison, whose
uncle of the same name had acquired it many years before.
The subsequent history of the manor of South Ash is simple
enough. From the family of Southesse it passed, somewhere about the turn
of the fourteenth century, to the family of Hodsoll. It remained with the
Hodsolls for more than four hundred years.
There was another manor in Ash, variously called Halywell,
Holywell, Holiwell or Holliwell, which belonged to and. took its name from
the Benedictine nunnery of Halywell at Shoreditch; according to Hasted, it
was also sometimes known as the manor of Hodsoll, being at one time leased
to the Hodsoll family. The first positive reference found in relation to
this manor comes from the reign of Edward II, during which the
prioress |
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of the nunnery was granted certain liberties for it.
However, a much earlier provenance is suggested by the fact that in the
year 1259 Mabel de Torpel had made to Christiana, then Prioress, and her
church of St John the Baptist the handsome gift of 66s.2d. of rent and the
rent of one hundred and thirteen eggs, a somewhat curious number, and of
ten hens and three ploughshares in Ash. Whatever happened to the rents,
the manor was still with the good nuns when their order was dissolved at
the time of the Reformation.18
About the year 1302, a certain William Latimer was granted a
Thursday market at his manor of Ash, a Fair on the Feast of the Apostles
Peter and Paul and free warren within his demesne lands. Latimer died
possessed of this manor ca. 1327. Twenty years later, it was held
by his grandson of the same name from Roger de Mowbray at the fourth. part
of a knight’s fee, Hasted’s conclusion that |