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Alan March’s Family History
This site is a work-in-progress. There is a massive amount to cover. I have included both male and female lines, and some go back many generations. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from Alan’s as (1)
RICHARD SMITH and MELISANT DRULY (15)
RICHARD SMITH. In 1780, the unmarried Elizabeth Leigh of Brasted in Kent gave birth to a daughter whose father was John Smith. He came from a long line of farmers and millers, whom we have traced back to his great-great-great-great-grandfather Richard Smith in the early 17th century.[1]
From the start of the registers, there are many Smiths in Westerham, where Richard brought up his family, but we have not found his baptism there. There are possible baptisms in nearby Shoreham in 1573 and in Sundridge in 1577.
Baptism. Shoreham.
1572/3 Mar 7 Richard Smith son of Robert Smith.
Baptism. Sundridge.
1577/8 Jan 6 Richard son of Michael Smith.
Robert is a recurring name among Richard’s descendants, while Michael does not appear, making the Shoreham baptism the more likely. But his true baptism may be in Westerham, in an entry now too faded to be read.
Richard Smith was a miller who owned the Valance mill in Westerham. This is a village 6 m west of Sevenoaks. The River Darent provided power for there for three water-mills.
Since he married in Westerham in1601, he was probably already a young man when the following event changed the appearance of Westerham:[2]
“In the year 1596, the following astonishing scene happened in this parish, in two closes, separated from each other only by a hedge, about a mile and a half southward from the town, not far from the east side of the common highway, called Ockham-hill, leading from London towards Buckhurst, in Sussex; where part of them sunk, in three mornings, eighty feet at the least, and so from day to day. This great trench of ground, containing in length eighty perches, and in breadth twenty-eight, began, with the hedges and trees thereon, to loose itself from the rest of the ground lying round about it, and to slide and shoot all together southward, day and night, for the space of eleven days. The ground of two water pits, the one having six feet depth of water, and the other twelve feet at the least, having several tufts of alders and ashes growing in their bottoms, with a great rock of stone underneath, were not only removed out of their places, and carried southward, but mounted aloft, and became hills, with their sedge, flags, and black mud upon the tops of them, higher than the face of the water which they had forsaken; and in the place from which they had been removed, other ground, which lay higher, had descended, and received the water on it. In one place of the plain field there was a great hole made, by the sinking of the earth, thirty feet deep; a hedge, with its trees, was carried southward; and there were several other sinkings of the earth, in different places, by which means, where the highest hills had been, there were the deepest dales; and where the lowest dales were before, there was the highest ground.
The whole measure of the breaking ground was at least nine acres.”
MELISANT DRULY. In the marriage register her surname is spelt Drowley, but the baptismal register has her as Druly. This is by far the most common spelling of the name at this time. There were Drulys in Limpsfield from at least the 1540s, and probably long before that.
Baptisms. Limpsfield.
1569 May 3 Melisant daughter of Saunder Druly.
Saunder, or Sander, is an abbreviation of Alexander. It is how he appears in all the records we have of him, except his burial, where he is Alexander.
Melisant’s mother was Joane, but we do not know her surname.
Since we do not know when and where her parents married, there may have been older siblings in a parish whose registers do not go back that far. Melisant is the oldest of four children baptised in Limpsfield.
Limpsfield is a village 3 miles west of Westerham, and a short way east of Oxted. It lies just inside the Surrey border, while Richard’s parish of Westerham is in Kent.
Marriage. St Mary the Virgin, Westerham.
1601 Oct 25 Richard Smith miller and Mellisent Drowley
This was two years before the death of Elizabeth I.
We know from the parish register that that Richard’s mill was at Valence. This name still survives in Westerham, notably in the 18th-century mansion of that name. It lies on the boundary between Westerham and the neighbouring parish of Brasted to the west. We have not found a Valence Mill, but on the border of Valence house gardens is Cutmill Pond.
Five children were baptised at St Mary the Virgin church.
Baptisms. St Mary the Virgin, Westerham.
1602 Jul 4 ?Robert the sonne of ?Richard Smith
The ink is badly faded, but Robert seems the most likely reading.
1603/4 Feb 6 Joanne daughter of Rychard Smith.
1604 Dec 10 Theaffila
In 1605, we find Richard on a jury list for Westerham.
1607 Jul 19 George
1610 May 1 Richard
In 1615 the manorial records tell us that Thomas Smith brewed beer and sold bread. He occupied a windmill and cottage and certain lands as the tenant of Thomas Potter. Richard Smith is a miller. The document also mentions the heirs of William Smith and of Edward Smith. Among these names may be Richard’s father
In 1619 the manorial records have a reference to Thomas Smith, Francis Smith, Thomas Smith II, heirs of Edward Smith, Edmund Smith, heirs of William Smith, Richard Smith.
Mary Smith, prosecuted for a felony, has fled, abandoning various goods and chattels. These goods are to be seized for the use of the lord.
1620 Richard Smith allowed his hedge to overhang Baviners Lane to the nuisance of all lieges and is to trim it or be fined 4d a rod.
1624 Richard Smith was again indicted for not cutting his hedge against Bavinders Lane.
King Charles I was nearing the end of his reign when Richard died.
Burial. St Mary the Virgin, Westerham.
1624 Nov 30 Richard Smith the millar of Valence.
Melisant stayed on at Valence until her death. Possibly one of her sons took over the mill, though we have no record of this.
Tensions were growing between Charles II and Parliament, but she died before the Civil War broke out in 1642.
Burial. St Mary the Virgin, Westerham.
1638 Dec 21 the body of Widow Smith of Valince.
[1] I am indebted to the detailed research of the StamboomOnderzoek website https://www.stamboomonderzoek.com/parkhoward/getperson.php?personID=I36405&tree=parkhoward
[2] Edward Hasted, ‘Parishes: Westerham’, in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 3( Canterbury, 1797), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp158-179 [accessed 30 November 2024].
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