heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

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THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
Turnham, one of Richard's chief lieutenants and a commander.
Wheater*
gives a stirring account of his prowess with a powerful Yorkshire contingent,
led by De Ros of Hamlec, Ralph de Granville, Roger de Granville, and
others, who made a desperate and unsuccessful assault on Acre, Nov. 3Oth,
1190. His name is mentioned by Matthew Paris (Hist. Anglorum, vol. ii.,
p. 510) in a list headed Clipei in Angh'a, heu! prostrati A.D. 1245, in which
year therefore I conclude he "died. Robert de Turnham, in the time of
Henry II., was lord of Turnham or Thurnham Castle, which he rebuilt on
the site of an ancient British camp, which crowned the high point of a very
steep spur, which juts
out between a depression on the one side and a very
deep combe on the other, in the great escarpment of the lower chalk,
about four miles east north-east of Maidstone, and which is also called
"Godard's Castle."
Turnham occurs in Domesday,
and was one of the
numerous manors
given by the Conqueror to Bishop Odo, on whose fall it was granted to
Gilbert Maminot, by the tenure of " Castle guard " in Dover Castle.
In Archceologia Cantiana, vol. v., p. 196, two charters are given
containing the confirmation by Walkelin de Maminot, Superior Lord of
Cumbwell Abbey, of the grant of Robert de Turnham to the Abbey of
Cumbwell. So it is possible that Robert or his father may have married
a daughter of Gilbert Maminot, and thereby acquiring the manor of
Turnham, become Robert de Turnham. Cumbwell Abbey, of which more
presently, seems to have been situated at a spot called Henlie, in the
parish of Goudhurst, in Sussex, and was founded by Robert de Turnham
for canons of the order of St. Augustine, and endowed not only with the
manor of Cumbwell but with lands also in Turnham, and with the advowsons
of the churches of Turnham, and of Brickhill in Buckinghamshire.
Dugdale, in his account of the Priory of Cumbwell, gives a charter of
inspeximus of Henry III., dated July 6th, the eleventh year of his reign,
which recites in extenso a Deed of Confirmation by Stephen de Turnham,
son of Robert, the founder of all the grants made by his father and himself
to the Abbey. It seems, however, that the value of these endowments was
by no means great, and about the year 1216, some fifty years after the
foundation of the Abbey, it was thought advisable to reduce it to the less
expensive dignity of a Priory, which was accordingly done, with the consent
of Stephen de Langton, the Archbishop, and Mabel, then patroness, the
eldest daughter of Stephen Turnham, and the wife of Hamo de Gatton.
We learn from Dugdale that 170 years later, in the eighth year of the reign
of Richard II., the revenues of the Priory amounted to no more than
66 2s. 6d.; and when the crash came at the Reformation, in spite of large
benefactions lately made by one of the Lords Dacre, it was amongst the
* Mansions of Yorkshire.