BADSELL MANOR

                                            Brass plaque in memory of Thomas and Marion Stydolph 

When Thomas died he was buried in Tudeley Church. In the floor of the chancel (hidden under a rug, presumably for protection) there is a small but very attractive brass, dated 1457, showing a man and woman and a narrative ‘Hic jacet Thomas Stydolf Gentilman et Mariona uxor eis q quide Thomas obit 1 die mes Nomeb Ao dni MCCCCLVII’. (Roughly translated this means ‘Here lies Thomas Stydolf Gentleman and Marion wife Thomas died first day November 1457’.) 
Badsell was inherited by Thomas and Marion’s son Henry. There is a document (untraced) which states that Henry ‘enfeoffed John Sampson and others of the Manor of Badsell with 200 acres of land, 60 acres of meadow and 100 acres of wood in Tudeley, Hadlow, Capel, Brenchley and Pembury.’’ 

Henry had at least two children, Thomas and Agnes. In due course the estate passed to his son Thomas Stidulf. When this second Thomas passed away he had no issue and as a result Badsell Manor passed to his sister Agnes, who through marriage in 1511 brought the estate into the Fane family. At the time of her marriage Agnes would have been 30 years old and as the sole heiress would have made an attractive marriage proposition. It is therefore unsurprising that she married into the up and coming Fane family. They and their descendants were to be the owners of the Manor for the next 400 years!