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"acceptance thereof by the Corporation of
Maidstone my Trustees shall hold the said Portraits UPON THE TRUSTS of
the Bradbourne Estate or as near thereto as may be as heirlooms
therewith AND I DIRECT my Executors to permit the Trustees of the
National Portrait Gallery the Kent Archæological Society and the
Corporation of Maidstone to inspect and take extracts from the notes and
memoranda which relate to the said portraits or the history or
authenticity of them or any of them."
The Kent Archæological Society accepted this bequest on
June 9th, 1938, and under an agreement made with the Kent Incorporated
Society for Promoting Experiments in Horticulture (better known as the
East Malling Research Station) the portraits remain at Bradbourne,
Larkfield (Plate I), lately the seat of Sir J. R. Twisden, Bart., but
now the property and headquarters of the Research Station. On hearing
that the rest of the family portraits were to remain at Bradbourne, the
Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery returned the six portraits
especially bequeathed to them in order that the collection might remain
complete in its most appropriate setting (Plate II).
Bradbourne is open to members of the Kent Archæological
Society on special application to the Society's Librarian, Dr F.
Panton for the purpose of seeing the portraits.
The principal references in Archæologia Cantiana to
the Twysden and Twisden family are as follows: |
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"Sir Roger Twysden's Journal," I,
184; II, 175; III, 145;
IV, 131.
"Will of Roger Twysden" (1464), III, 200.
"Will of Thomas Twysden" (1500), III, 203.
"A Chapter of County Gossip," V, 87.
"A Passage in the History of the Twysden Family,"
VIII, 50.
"The Diary of Isabella Twysden," LI, 113-36.
"The Family of Twysden and Twisden" (Review),
LI, 221-4.
NOTES ON "THE FAMILY OF
TWYSDEN AND TWISDEN"
AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE PORTRAITS.
Bradbourne, for the past 280 years the
home of the Twisdens, was a moated house in the time of Queen Elizabeth.
It belonged to George Catlyn—himself
a connection of the Twysdens through his Roydon wife and mother. He had
no heir and sold the property to Richard Manningham, who died in 1612,
and whose effigy is in East Malling Church. The fourth Manningham,
Richard the younger, sold Bradbourne about 1656 to Thomas Twisden, more
of whom anon.
There were Twysdens established in Kent, both at Sandhurst
and Goudhurst—where there
is still a farm house of that name—at
least in |