Bolles Hall of Chartham, Kent

In his "Records of the Bowles Family" W. H. Bowles refers to the origin of the Bowles of Kent as

"The earliest known settlement of this family was in Shalmesford Street, a hamlet in the parish of Chartham, about three miles from Canterbury. The family house is described in the ancient charters as “Bolles Hall, a Mansion,” which gave its name to a manor of which the Bolles’ were lords."

That Bolles Hall was not only in Shalmsford Street but was actually called the Shalmsford Street Manor is documented by Edward Hasted who wrote in his 1798 'The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent', volume 7:

"SHALMSFORD-STREET is a hamlet in this parish, built on each side of the Ashford road, near the river Stour, and the bridge which takes its name from it, at the western boundary of this parish. It was antiently called Essamelesford, and in the time of the Saxons was the estate of one Alret, who seems to have lost the possession of it after the battle of Hastings; for the Conqueror gave it, among many other possessions, to Odo, bishop of Baieux, his half brother, under the general title of whose lands it is thus entered in the record of Domesday:

In Ferleberg hundred, Herfrid holds of the see of the bishop, Essamelesford. It was taxed at half a suling. The arable land is one carucate. In demesne there is one carucate, and three villeins, with one borderer having one carucate. There are three servants, and eight acres of meadow. In the time of King Edward the Confessor it was valued at sixty shillings, and afterwards forty shillings, now sixty shillings. Alret held it of King Edward.

Four years after the taking of the above survey, the bishop of Baieux was disgraced, and all his lands and possessions were confiscated to the King's use. Soon after which this estate seems to have been separated into two manors, one of which was called from its situation THE MANOR OF SHALMSFORD-STREET, and afterwards, from its possessors, the mansion of Bolles, a family who had large possessions at Chilham and the adjoining parishes. At length, after they were become extinct here, which was not till about the beginning of the reign of queen Elizabeth, this manor came into the name of Cracknal, and from that in the reign of king James I. to Michel, one of whose descendants leaving two daughters and coheirs, one of them married Nicholas Page, and the other Thomas George; and they made a division of this estate, in which some houses and part of the lands were allotted to Thomas George, whose son Edward dying s.p. they came to Mr. John George, of Canterbury, who sold them to Mr. Wm. Baldock, of Canterbury, and he now owns them; but the manor, manor-house, and the rest of the demesne lands were allotted to Mr. Nicholas Page, and devolved to his son Mr. Thomas Page. He died in 1796, and devised them to Mr. Ralph Fox, who now owns them and resides here. The court baron for this manor has been long disused."

The above account does not mention the Petit family but a more recent account, 'Rambles Round Old Canterbury' by Francis William Cross:

"Our way now leads us down the hill through the straggling hamlet of Shalmsford Street. Here at the bridge across the Stour below, there stood an important manor, owned at the time of the Conquest by a noble Saxon named Alret, who fought at Hastings. It was subsequently divided into two separate manors — Shalmsford Street and Shalmsford Bridge, the latter being the most important.

In the reign of Edward II., the daughter and heiress of William de Shamelesford married one John Petit, and various members of the Petit family possessed the manor down to the end of James I."

According to the Kent Historical Society, Shalmsford Street Manor stood near the present day George Public House.