MRP: Acrise
Acrise
The parish of Acrise is located just to the south of the parishes of Denton and Barham, and is thus close to the homes of Henry Oxinden of Barham at Great Maydekin, Barham, and to the home of the Dixwell family and of Sir Thomas Peyton. It is a few miles to the south of Deane in the parish of Wingham, where Sir James Oxenden and later his son, Sir Henry Oxenden, had there home, and where Elizabeth Dallison and Sir George Oxenden were born.
The merchant Thomas Papillon, friend to both Elizabeth and George, purchased Acrise place in 1666. This was a few months after the death of Elizabeth Dallison in March 1665/66 and while Sir George Oxenden was in Surat, from where he was not to return before his death in 1669.
An engraving of Acrise Place as it was in 1793 was published in the Kentish Register and Monthly Miscellany, August 1793. The accompanying article in the Register stated that the house had recently been much altered at great expense, but that the front of the house reproduced in the engraving was the old one, rather than the new facade. The article claimed that the building dated back to the period of Henry VII and had been built by the Cossenton family. It had been acquired by Thomas Papillon (Sir George Oxenden's commercial contact and friend) in 1666 from the Lewknor family. The article noted that "the principal front of the house is opposite to that which is given in this view; and the grounds, which are bold and well-wooded, have been lately entirely modernized, and extended."
Sources
'A short account of Acrise-Place' in the Kentish Register and Monthla Miscellany (August 1793), p. 69
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