My forefathers, their history from records & traditions - Tracey/Tracy ...

BRADHURST, BROADHURST, de BRADEHURST 5
of Sussex. In 1574 Drewe Barentyne disposed of a further "moiety
and half part of the Manors of Brodehurst and Horsted Keynes " to
the said Thomas Lewknor's son, Nicholas Lewknor, of Horsted
Keynes, and to Richard Michelborne, of Ditchling. In 1581 the
lands appear to have been subdivided, some being held by Margaret,
widow of Nicholas Lewknor, and some by his sister Jane, wife of
Anthony Sheldon, of Worcester. Other owners about this date were
Edward Nevill, of Knowle in Kent ; Robert Middlemore, and Thomas
Coppley, of Breedon, in the County of Worcester.
The Manor House itself, however, was now the abode of Richard
Michelborne, of Ditchling and Broadhurst, who died in 1583.' His
son Richard Michelborne, of Broadhurst, contributed ;^ioo to the
defence of the country against the Spanish invasion in 1588. He was
buried at Ditchling in 1607, and was the father of Sir Richard
Michelborne, Knight, of Bradhurst and Stanmer, Sheriff for the
Counties of Surrey and Sussex in 1620, who died in 1638, leaving a
son William, who, dying in 1656, was succeeded by his son, Edward
Michelborne, of Stanmer and Broadhurst, the last of his family.- He
died in 1700, and in the following year Sibilla and Bridget Michelborne
sold Stanmer to Peter Gott, who resold it, in 1713, to Henry
Pelham, Clerk of the Pells in the Exchequer, grandfather of Thomas,
2nd Lord Pelham of Stanmer, who was created Earl of Chichester.
The Pelhams had intermarried, some generations earlier, with the
Lewknors of Broadhurst.
The Michelborne heiresses disposing of their family estates,
Broadhurst Manor again changed hands, and became the property of
Edward Lightmaker, of whose wife a tablet on the south side of the
chancel of Horsted Keynes Church speaks in the following quaint
terms
' He was the son of John Michelborne, of Westminster, who died in 1575, by
Joane, daughter of Richard Hether, of Ditchhng, and uncle of Sir Edward Michel-
borne, who died in 1610, having been knighted in Dublin, in 1599, by Robert, Earl
of Essex, Lord Lieutenant.
^ A branch of the Michelbornes of Bradhurst settled in Ireland at Ballyarthur,
CO. Wicklow ; but they also became extinct in the male line a few years later. To
them belonged Colonel John Michelborne, Governor of Londonderry, who died
1721.