The Noble and Gentle Men of England / or, notes touching the arms and descents of the ancient knightly and gentle houses of England, arranged in their respective counties.

by Evelyn Philip Shirley

Present Representative, St.Andrew Beauchamp St.John, 14th Baron St.John.

* "Hungry Time hath made a glutton's meal on this Catalogue of Gentry (the List of Gentry of the reign of Henry VI,) and hath left but a very little morsel for manners remaining." Fuller, Worthies of Bedfordshire.

Gentle.

Polhill of Howbury, in the parish of Renhold.

This family is of ancient Kentish extraction, and is a branch of the Polhills or Polleys of Preston, in Shoreham, in that county, descended from John Polhill, eldest son of John Polhill and Alice de Buckland, the heiress of Preston, in the reign of Henry VI. The Rev. Richard Polwhele, the Historian of Cornwall, was of opinion that the Polhills of Kent were a branch of the Cornish Polwheles, which emigrated from the western into the eastern counties at a very early period; they were certainly seated at Detling in Hollingbourne, in Kent, at or previous to the reign of Edward III. In the time of Elizabeth, the Polhills were of Frenches, in the parish of Burwash, in Sussex. The immediate ancestor of the present family was Nathaniel Polhill, of Burwash and Howbury, an eminent merchant, who died in 1782.

See a very minute account of all the branches of this ancient family in the Topographer and Genealogist, i. pp. 180 and 577. See also Hasted's History of Kent, vol. i, p. 365, and vol. iii. p. 4.

Arms.—Or, on a bend gules three cross-crosslets of the first. It appears by the Roll of Arms of the reign of Richard II., that Monsr. Rauff Poley bore a coat nearly similar, viz, Argent, on a bend gules three crosses patée or.

Present Representative, Frederick Polhill, Esq.

BERKSHIRE.