From Hasted's survey of 1798 when this was part of the parish of Thurnham.
BINBURY, antiently written Bingebery, is an eminent manor in this parish, lying on the summit of the chalk-hills at the north-west extremity of it.
This manor is included in the description in Domesday recited before, as part of the bishop of Baieux's possessions, and coming into the king's hands, was granted to Gilbert Magminot, to hold as beforementioned in capite, by barony. After which it passed with the manor of Thurnham, to the family of that name, and afterwards to the Northwoods; during the time of its continuance in which family, in king Edward the IIId.'s reign, a melancholy accident happened at Binbury as appeared by the old evidences of the lord Wotton's family: the lady Northwood standing on a precipice of the hill, to see a fox dug out, the earth, being loose and sandy, sunk under her, and the hanging hill shooting down upon her, she was stisled to death with the pressure, before any assistance could be given to her. In this name of Northwood this manor continued down to Roger de Northwood, who died possessed of it in the last year of Henry V. His heirs, in the beginning of the next reign, passed it away to Thomas Thwaits, who in the 8th year of it, conveyed his interest in it to William Gascoigne, of the family of Gascoigne, of Gawthorpe, in Yorkshire, who bore for their arms, Argent, on'a pale sable, a demi lucy, or, in whose name it continued till the beginning of king Edward IV.'s reign, and then it was alienated to Cutt, or Cutts, for the name was spelt both ways, whose descendant Sir John Cutt, possessed this manor in the reign of king Henry VIII. He was treasurer of the houshold, and resided at Horeham hall, at Thaxsted, in Essex, which house he had built. He had a younger brother Richard, from whom descended John Cutt, created in 1690 lord Cutt, of Gowran, in Ireland, and died s. p. They bore for their arms, Argent, on a bend ingrailed, sable, three plates, in each a martlet of the second; those of this county bore this coat within a bordure, argent, and gules. (fn. 3) He died in 1520. Sir Henry Cutt, his grandson, was of Cambridgeshire, and died in 1603 s. p. very soon after which, his heirs alienated this manor to Sir Samuel Lennard, of West Wickham, in this county, who died possessed of it in 1618, and was succeeded in it by his eldest son, Sir Stephen Lennard, created a baronet in 1642 After which this manor passed in his descendants in like manner as that of West Wickham described in the second volume of this history, down to Miss Mary Lennard, who marrying John Farnaby, esq. he became in her right possessed of it. They joined in the sale of it in 1785, to authorize which an act passed that year, to James Whatman, esq. of Boxley, who exchanged it for other lands elsewhere, with Heneage, earl of Aylesford, and he is the present owner of it.
From: 'Parishes: Thurnham', The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 5 (1798), pp. 520-532. URL:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=62929 Date accessed: 30 November 2008.
