Add MS 78611-78629

ESTATE PAPERS: DEPTFORD

78611-78629. EVELYN PAPERS. Vol. CCCCXLIV-CCCCLXII. Estate papers, account-books and plans relating to the tenure of the Browne and Evelyn families of the manor of Sayes Court, Deptford; circa 1545-1877. The manor of Sayes Court belonged to the crown and in the 16th and early 17th centuries was used by the Board of Green Cloth to pasture cattle for the royal household at Greenwich Palace. Sir Richard Browne (circa 1538-1604), grandfather of Sir Richard Browne, Bart. (father-in-law of John Evelyn), was Clerk of the Green Cloth and (1596) Comptroller of the Household. According to a petition of his son, Christopher Browne, of temp. Charles I (in Add. MS 78612 below), the lease had first been granted to him under Elizabeth I, and together with the house he built there, was his `onely estate and Livelihood'. The present documents indicate that on 7 July 1604 Christopher Browne was appointed keeper of the King's Pastures at Sayes Court, and granted the mansion house, with the adjacent gardens and orchards, on certain conditions of repair and care of the stock. The lease was renewed in 1610 for a term of 41 years, and on later occasions; see CSPD, p. 618, Hasted, History of Kent, I, p. 4, and records in Add. MSS 78611 and 78612 below. On his death in 1645 it passed to his son Sir Richard Browne, Bart. After the execution of Charles I in 1649 the manor was vested in trustees in order to be sold, the house and adjacent land being then occupied by Sir Richard's brother-in-law, William Pretyman. John Evelyn, having married Browne’s daughter, bought it in 1653, but continued to share the house with Pretyman until April 1655. At the Restoration the manor again became crown property and Evelyn secured a renewal of the lease, though not in fee farm, as Charles II had promised. He lived there until 1694, and made a famous garden adjacent to the manor house. His grandson, Sir John Evelyn, 1^st Bart., was able to purchase the manor from the crown and the Evelyns continued to own it into the 19^th century. For a summary of the Browne-Evelyn ownership of the property, see Evelyn, Diary, II, pp. 537-538, n. 6, and III, p. 59, n. 1.

Nineteen volumes.