[Chat No. 12.]
"I work on,
Through all the bristling fence of nights and days,
Which hedge time in from the eternities."
—Mrs. Browning.
The late Cardinal Manning always felt a great interest in our parish of Brasted. In former times it formed part of Hever Chase, the property of Sir Thomas Boleyn (the father of Queen Anne Boleyn), who lived at Hever Castle, about four miles from Brasted, a fine Tudor specimen of domestic architecture, which is now somewhat jealously shown to the public on certain days. Hever Castle is the original of Bovor Castle, immortalised by Mr. Burnand in his wonderful "Happy Thoughts."
The Cardinal's father, who was at one time an opulent city merchant, and sometime Governor of the Bank of England, owned the estate of Combe Bank, formerly the English location of the Argyll family, whose Duke sat in the House of Lords, until quite a recent date, as Baron Sundridge, the name of the adjacent village.