Southborough, Kent - Christ Church - postcard by Speediq c.1905-10

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Southborough is a town and civil parish in the District of Tunbridge Wells, in Kent, England. It lies immediately to the north of Tunbridge Wells itself and includes the district of High Brooms, with the A26 London road passing through it. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 11,124. The town is within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The Southborough Society’’^[5] (“the civic, heritage and amenity society for Southborough”) is the main source for many of the facts in this part of the article

The remains of an Iguanodon (135 million years ago) was discovered in High Brooms. Before the first millennium AD the land here was heavily forested; however some significant finds have revealed that it was inhabited. Arrowheads and stone axe heads provide evidence of ‘’’prehistoric’’’ habitation of Southborough while burial sites from both the Bronze and Iron Ages have also been unearthed. The site of the Castle Hill Iron Age Fort, dating back to 315 BC, lies in the Eastern valley. Routes linking other forts are still part of the town’s road network. Little is then known about the district until the Norman Conquest as it was the most sparsely populated part of the Weald due to the almost impenetrable forest.

Richard Fitz Gilbert (later de Clare) was rewarded for his part in the conquest with land;^[6] one such grant was the Lowey of Tunbridge, an area of land equating with the holdings of a manor, which covered some 20,660 acres (8347h) on the Weald and across the River Medway valley. He was also granted the right to build a castle at Tonbridge.

The Manor of Southborough was one part of the Lowey. Over the following seven hundred years it had a chequered history. After Richard de Clare, it was held by the Audley and Stafford families until 1521, when Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, was beheaded on Tower Hill and the estates reverted to the Crown. Henry VIII gave the (now separated from Tonbridge) estate to George Boleyn, brother of Anne Boleyn, whose fate he also suffered. It was then passed to John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who later exchanged it for other estates. Under Elizabeth I it had again reverted to the Crown: she bestowed it on Sir Richard Sackville who sold it to Thomas Smythe of Westernhanger. He was commonly known as Customer Smythe, a “farmer” of the collection of customs and excise dues. In 1790 when Lady Smythe died the Manor was split up and sold; the Manor House of Great Bounds and the Manorial rights being purchased by the Earl of Darnley who in turn parted with it to James Alexander.

The whole area was part of the Royal forest of Southfrith until about the middle of the 16th century, reserved by royalty for hunting. The settlement consisted of a number of isolated hamlets including Nonsuch Green, Holden Corner, Modest Corner and a few houses near the Common. High Brooms was a desolate tract inhabited by Romany Gypsies, very many of Kent's population today will have Gypsy heritage - whether they choose to admit this is another matter.^{[citation needed]}

From 1639, lodging houses appeared in Southborough to accommodate visitors to the newly discovered chalybeate spring at The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells. During the reign of King Charles I, the Cavalier faction tended to stay at Southborough, whilst nearby Rusthall tended to attract visitors from the Roundhead (puritan) faction.^[7]