Birling, Kent
Acquired: ca. 1522
The manor of Birling was owned by Lord Bergavenny, who hosted the king in 1513, 1515 and 1519 while Henry was on royal progress. When Bergavenny fell from favor in the early 1520s, the king forced him to sell the manor to the Crown. Henry visited the property in 1527, and the keeper of the manor, the Marquis of Exeter, prepared the manor for the king’s visit. Apart from this no building or repairs seems to have been undertaken by the king. Lord Bergavenny was allowed to repurchase the estate in 1530.
The eighteenth-century Victoria County History description refers to the estate as an obscure farmhouse, and no remnants of it appear to have survived to the present day.