“The College of Cobham” is now only a collection of almshouses, to which presentations are made—of old people, without restriction to either sex—as vacancies occur, by the parish and ten other parishes adjacent. It lies immediately south of the church, and is entered by a small Gothic gateway. Its occupants are twenty aged men and women, who have each a little dwelling, with a neat garden and an allowance monthly, sufficient to secure the necessaries of life. It is a quadrangular building, of stone, measuring about 60 feet by 50; and contains a large hall, with painted windows, a roof of blackened rafters, an old oak screen, and a fire-place of cut stone. The history of the college is curious and interesting. A college or chantry was originally founded here, about the year 1362, by John de Cobham, thence called “the founder,” in the reign of Edward III. In the Church is a brass to the memory of William Tanner, Master of the College, who died in 1418. The brass consists of a half-length of the master, in clerical costume, with the inscription in black letter:—“Hic jacet Willmus Tannere qui prim obiit magister istuis Collegii xxii. die mensis Junii Anno Dni. M°CCCC°XVIII. cujus anime propicietur deus Amen.” Towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth it was rebuilt, as appears by a record—“finished in September 1598”—inscribed over the south portal, under the arms and alliances of the Brokes, Lords Cobham. The endowments of the old foundation were ample, and were, with the college itself, bestowed by Henry VIII., at the dissolution, upon George, Lord Cobham, who had the “king’s roiall assent and licence by hys grace’s word, with any manner of letters patent or other writings, to purchase and receyve to his heires for ever, of the late master and brethren, of the college or chauntry of Cobham, in the countie of Kent, now being utterly dissolved, the scite of the same colledge or chauntry, and al and singular their heridaments and possessions, as well temporall as ecclesiasticall, wheresoever they lay, or were, within the realm of England.” The walls of the ancient college may be clearly traced, and a small portion still endures, comparatively uninjured. It is a gateway, surmounted by the arms of the Cobhams, luxuriantly overgrown with ivy, forming a fine example of picturesque antiquity. The present structure was erected pursuant to the will of Sir William Broke, Lord Cobham, who devised “all those edifices, ruined buildings, soil and ground, with the appurtenances which some time belonged to the late suppressed college for the use of the ‘new’ college.” By an act of the 39th of Elizabeth, the wardens of Rochester Bridge for the time being were made a body corporate, and declared perpetual presidents of the new college, the government of which they retain to this day.
The College.
The dependent village of Cobham is one of the neatest and most pleasant of the fair villages of Kent. There are, no doubt, many nobler and more perfect examples of the domestic architecture of “old” England than is supplied by Cobham Hall, but it would be difficult to direct attention to any that affords so rich a recompense at so small a cost; taking into account its genuine remains of antiquity, the magnificent works of Art that decorate its walls, its easy access from the metropolis, and the primitive character and surpassing beauty of the locality in which it is situated.
MOUNT EDGCUMBE.
WE cannot say in what month these details will be read, but they are written on a morning of May, in one of the loveliest spots of the fairest of our English shires: a mild and genial day of mid-spring—