The Manor of Eastbourne Medsey

Although sometimes confused in the public mind simply with a 'Manor House', a 'Lordship of the Manor' is a title dating from Anglo-Saxon / Norman England, referring to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (eg: the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seignory, the right to grant or draw benefit from the estate. The title continues in modern England and Wales as a legally recognised form of property that can be held independently of its historical rights - known as an incorporeal hereditament.

From the Manorial Society of Great Britain (established 1906) website: “In 1922, the Government of the day enacted the most thoroughgoing legislation touching property in England and Wales. So far as the Lord of the Manor was concerned, the Law of Property Act abolished copyhold tenure, taking away his right to be Lord of the soil save that which he owned directly. ... But the Act went on to confirm many of the historic rights, general and special, long enjoyed by the Lord of the Manor: the right to market and fair, mineral excavation (subject to the enfranchisement of the copyhold, the subsoil still belongs to the Lord of the Manor), fishing rights, sporting rights, manorial waste (principally the verges of the road and those areas in rural Manors which do not appear to belong to anyone), common land rights (subject to the Common Land Registration Act 1965), the village green.   

 The Lordship of Eastbourne Medsey, also formerly known as Meades, Meads, or Medes, is an ancient manor forming a division of the parish of Eastbourne, (now in East Sussex) predating the Norman Conquest of 1066

Eastbourne Medsey lies in the area, of the town of Eastbourne, now known as the Village of Meads, which is south of the town centre between it and the famous cliffs of Beachy Head. 

Medes / Meades/Meads has been referred to as the place "Where the Downs meet the Sea" and in this we might find a clue to the name 'Medsey'. However, one finds in 1296 that the surname De Medese  appears connected to the area. locally. Whether the family name influenced the name of the Manor or the Manor the name is uncertain. Although given that Surnames became more common after the Norman conquest, particularly among the middle and upper classes, the Manor is more likely to have resulted in the adoption of the surname.

Until the middle of the 19th century this was open country with a few farms. Records show that the downlands known as Bullock Down and South Down (which is not to be confused by the geographical area which became the South Downs National Park in the early 1920's).

Later this 'Meads Tenantry Down' was used by the tenants of Medsey to pasture their livestock. Until the town of Eastbourne was developed in the 19th century, this area was distinctly rural. 

In a description for visitors written in 1858,

Homely Herbert writes 

“…the small village at the foot of the lofty hill through which we are passing in The Meads.; it consists, as you see, of a few scattered houses, inhabited chiefly by farmers and fishermen.”

Although the Lordship of a Manor is a feudal title not a noble title, many nobles have held the Manor of Eastbourne Medsey - for example, Ann of Cleves was Lady of the Manor, from 1540 until 1557, as part of her generous annulment settlement from Henry VIII.  

(A more detail history in pdf format may be viewed below).

The Twenty-Fifth Lord of the Manor of Eastbourne Medsey,

Damien Steven Robert Mead. 

A continuing Anglican Bishop, Rector of St Augustine's Church, Painters Forstal, Kent, he was invested as a Knight of the Order of St George, in Rochester Cathedral, on 7th May 2022.

Co-Founder and Chairman of the Independent fostering agency Credo Care Fostering Ltd, which specialises in the care of disabled children and young people and those with complex medical needs.

On 15th November 2022 he was awarded the Cross of Merit by the Internationale Pestalozzi Gesellschaft (International Pestalozzi Society) in Switzerland for services to disabled children.

Philanthropist, Honorary Kentucky Colonel & Aide de camp to the Governor of the Commonwealth and Kentucky, USA, and nominated to receive the Freedom of the City of London on 9th January  2023.

He is a Member of the Guild of Freemen of the City of London.

The Lord of the Manor holds a Fellowship in Theology from Victoria College, London and an Honorary Doctorate in Divinity from the Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi Christian University, Miami, Florida, USA.

He also hold a   Honorary Fellowship in Religious Studies  from the National College of Music and Arts, London.  

He is a member of the Royal British Legion's St James Branch, a Life Member of the Royal Society of St George, a Governor Member of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute.

In November 2024 he became Chairman of The Crown Society. 

A Long standing member of the British Institute of Directors

In February 2024  he was invested as an Honorary Knight Grand Officer of The Royal Order of the Tiger and Hawk (“Ɔsebɔ ne akrɔma” in the native Akan language) of the Kingdom of New Sawereso-Seinuah, Ghana.

The Grandmaster for the Order is HM Nana Agyemang Duah Katakyie  III of New Sawereso-Seinuah, and His Majesty made the award in gracious recognition for his support of the building of a maternity clinic in the Kingdom.

He lives in a house circa 1420, some 30 miles along the south coast of England, from Eastbourne, in the ancient Cinque Port Town of Lydd, on the Romney Marsh, Kent.

He has two miniature Jack Russell dogs: Daisy and Minnie, and also keeps a flock of 12 Chickens. 

The Manorial Documents Register (MDR) is the official index to English and Welsh manorial records. It provides brief descriptions of documents and their locations in public and private hands.

Manorial documents recorded in the MDR are defined by the Manorial Documents Rules as ‘court rolls, surveys, maps, terriers, documents and books of every description relating to the boundaries, franchises, wastes, customs or courts of a manor’. Title deeds are not included in the MDR.

 Read more about manorial documents and the legislation that explains why these are maintained on behalf of the Master of the Rolls.

A non-exhaustive list of sources for Eastbourne Medsey include:

1571-1668: survey, annotated to 1668 British Library 

1613: estreats, with other manors (1 vol) Kent History and Library Centre 

1618: rental, with 17th cent copy 

1654-1656: rental 

1656: list of quit rents 

1618-1619: rental of demesne leases, with other manors East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office (ESBHRO)

1682: rental 

1751: minutes 

1829: rental, with other manors

The documents above are referenced as “Eastbourne Medsey Sackville Manor” in the records to avoid confusion with the Duke of Devonshire’s Manor of the similar name which are referenced “Eastbourne Medsey Burton Manor (Cavendish)” or “Eastbourne Medsey otherwise Lamport, Clapham otherwise Chambers, Meads otherwise Brode and Sessingham otherwise Sands. Devonshire Manors”

Another useful resource for The Manor of Eastbourne Medsey, and indeed other local Manors,  is the book published in 1912 'Old Eastbourne - its Church, Its Clergy, Its People' by The Rev. Walter Budgen, MA. (Appendix A pp329-334).