Catalogue description Deeds of Goodsoal Farm in Burwash, purchased by James Philcox before 1840

These deeds record the descent of what was originally Nether Goodsoal Farm, and were presumably handed over on the purchase of parts of the farm in 1933 (see AMS 6779/3/1). As well as the title to the farm itself, the bundle includes a conveyance of the manor of Burghurst in Burwash (from which the major portion of Goodsoal was granted as a freehold tenement in 1452) in 1538 (AMS 6779/1/18), and several extraneous documents, including a conveyance of Wallis in Mayfield, 1528 (AMS 6779/1/16).

The manorial structure of Goodsoal was complicated.

1 The house and part of the land formed a freehold tenement of the manor of Ittington called Goodsoles, Hayfields and Blacklese, Upper and Nether Furlongs, held by a payment of a castle-guard rent of 15d and two pounds of cumin every year (ASH 4501/517).

2 Part was held as three separate tenements of the manor of Burghurst called Chellesworth (20a), quitrent 4s 0d, Nether Goodsole (35a), quitrent 6s 8d, and Skengs (3a), quitrent 8d. For a survey of the manor including detailed boundaries of these three tenements, 1539-1540, see AMS 5692/1. These tenements were enfranchised in 1923: see AMS 6779/3/1.

3 A further unspecified part of the estate was held of the Prior of St John of Jerusalem by an unknown quitrent; this tenure is apparent only from its mention in the will of Stephen Goodsole in 1550 (AMS 6779/1/20). The tenement was in the hands of the Goodsole family in 1452, when the lords of the manor of Burghurst granted a freehold tenement of the manor to John and Robert Goodsole (AMS 6779/1/11).

Earlier deeds in the bundle refer to parts of the tenement called Witheris, and to a tenement called Birchett. For a map of 1726 showing Witheris, lying considerably to the North of Goodsoal and now called Ponts Farm, see AMS 6525/1. For a map of c1595 showing both Goodsoal and The Birchett Coppice to its East, see AMS 6794. The holding descended in the Goodsole family until the beginning of the 17th century. In 1599 and 1615 parts were sold off to members of the Coney family (for whom see AMS 5744), and in 1624 John Goodsole sold the remaining house and land to Robert Thatcher, who in 1629 sold the same property to Nicholas Manser of Hightown in Wadhurst, who did fealty to the manor of Ittington in 1630 (ASH 4501/517). In 1673 his grandson Nicholas Manser, who then lived at Goodsoal, bought back part of the land which had been sold to the Coneys. These 17th-century transactions are represented only by a final concord and by bonds. Nicholas Manser was dead by 1688 when his heir was presented as his sister Constance, wife of William Crouch (for the settlement of Milkhurst in Heathfield on their marriage in 1673 see AMS 1946, and for their mortgages of this estate in 1680 and 1693 see DUN 34/4). His death, in respect of Milkhurst, was presented at a Burghurst court in 1706, when his heir was said to be his daughter Constance Crouch. She had already married a Mr Wall, clerk, since in 1702 the beneficiary of William Crouch's will was their under-age daughter Constance Wall (W/A 45.63). Constance Wall married Joseph Weller of The Castle in Dallington in 1717, and the settlement included the grant of a rent-charge of £10 in favour of a parish school, which was to come into effect only after the death of the parties. The rent-charge was revoked on the sale of Goodsoal Farm to William Constable in 1728. Constance Weller retained Milkhurst and the Hightown Estate in Wadhurst, and died in 1761 (SAS/B 839). William Constable's second son William Constable was presented as owner on 1760, and his nephew John Constable in 1765. The death of James Buss, who seems to have acquired the property in 1793 (Land Tax), was presented in 1821, when his heir was said to be his daughter Elizabeth Frances, wife of Thomas Borradaile, esq. In 1826 she seems to have sold the property to James Philcox and John Baldock, the partners in a solicitors' practice in Burwash; the transfer was recorded by the manor of Burghurst in 1839, by which time Baldock had sold his interest to Philcox.