Groombridge, United Kingdom

The next firm evidence is of two Royal Charters. One was granted in 1239 to William Russell and his wife to build a Chantry Chapel to their house at Gromenbregge, endowed with a Priest. This chapel was dedicated to St John the Evangelist. This indicates another house had been built on the site of the Saxon one. The second Royal Charter, granted to Henry de Gobham in 1286, was to hold a weekly market and a fair once a year on the eve, day and morrow of the feast of St John before the Latin Gate, which translates into 5, 6 and 7 May each year. Groombridge must have been important in the area to have been granted a market. Originally it was held on and around the Green but in Victorian times it moved over the stream to a site in Withyham Road opposite the garage and became a fortnightly cattle market until the 1950s when it closed for good. The fair had died out much earlier in the 1900s. According to legend the finale of each Fair was the rolling of a blazing tar barrel down the hill.

The Waller family bought the Manor in 1360 and owned it for about 240 years. In 1604 the estate was sold to Thomas 1st Earl of Dorset. He owned the Buckhurst estate at Withyham and his land, including Pollies Hall, run up to the stream on the Sussex side. In 1610, for Pollies Hall Nicholas Pennyale paid £10 and 2 fat capon alive each year on 1 November.

Thomas 1st Earl Dorset died suddenly in 1608 and his grandson Richard 3rd Earl inherited the manor. Richard was profligate and by 1618 he had sold the manor to John Packer. It may have been that sale that brought the lands on the Sussex side, closer to the river, into the manor. Certainly at some time they became part of the estate and some still belong to Groombridge Place today.

The new owner, John Packer, was a wealthy man, owner of 3 other manors, and a Clerk to the Privy Seal. He would have been familiar with the intrigues of the day and made it clear he did not approve of Prince Charles' somewhat harebrained scheme, encouraged by his father James 1, to go to Spain, in disguise in 1623, in an attempt to woo and wed the Spanish Infanta. John Packer said if Charles failed he would build a chapel on his land at Groombridge as a thank-offering to God for escaping a union with a Catholic country. Charles' plan did fail because the Princess had entered a convent and refused to have anything to do with him. True to his word John Packer built his chapel in 1625. At first it was known as St. Charles' chapel then Groombridge chapel and finally, after 1872, it was dedicated to St John the Evangelist.