Family > Dingley > IoW > Descendants of John Dingley & Mabel Weston > Cresswell connections
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CRESSWELL connections
I do not have much on the family of CRESSWELL from Chislehurst in Kent. However, from the information below, it seems clear that they are the same family as CRESSELL which owned Frognal (near Chislehurst) from the early 14th century.
Richard Cressel of Chislehurst, Kent. He died in 1508 without male issue. In his Will dated 25 Aug 1508, he mentions:
The Will was proved on 16 March 1508 by his widow Amy.
Frognal. The mansion of Frognal, near Chislehurst, is now an old people's home and hospital (map). See Frognal House.
In Hasted's History of Kent, the following history of Frognal is given:
| In the reign of king
Henry III this place [Frognal] was owned by a family of
the name of Barbur, one of whom, Thomas Le BARBUR,
obtained a charter of free-warren for his lands in
Chesilhurst in the 38th year [1263-4] of that reign, but
this family was extinct here before the latter end of Ed.
II's reign [1307-26] and then it came into the possession
of the CRESSELs. John DE CRESSEL is recorded, in an old
survey of Rochester, to have been a liberal benefactor to
the church of Chesilhurst in the Reign of Ed. III., on
which account most probably his arms - Sable, a fess
argent, between three chaplets or - were put up in the
windows of it; and hence a descendant of his of the same
name, in the 7th year of king Henry V [1418-9], is
registered among those who bore an ancient family coat-of-arms.
After this mansion had continued for many descents in this family [CRESSEL], it was about the latter end of king Henry VII's reign [1509-1546] conveyed by sale to DYNELEY, whose descendant, Sir John DYNELEY, in the reign of king James I [1603-25], passed away his interest in it to Mr William WATKINS." [Hist. Kent] |
In the above,
Mark DINGLEY's Will dated 1555 states that "James Dingley shall have and hold to hym and his assignes during his naturall lief my Chamber over the new celler within my house called frognall". History of Chislehurst says the new cellar is "probably the existing one at Frognal, which is entered by a Tudor archway from the inner courtyard".