PENSHURST  , a

village in the south-western parliamentary division of Kent, England, at the confluence of the Eden and Medway, 41 m . S.W. of Tonbridge . Pop . (1901), 1678 . The village is remarkable for some old houses, including a timbered house of the 15th century, and for a noted factory of cricket implements . The church, chiefly late Perpendicular, contains a large number of monuments of the Sidney family and an effigy of Sir Stephen de Penchester, Warden of the Cinque Ports in the time of Edward I . Penshurst Place is celebrated as the home of the Sidney family . Anciently the residence of Sir Stephen de Penchester, Penshurst was granted to Henry . VIII.'s chamberlain, Sir William Sidney, whose grandson, Sir Philip Sidney, was born here in 1554 . It passed to Sir Philip's younger brother Robert, who in 1618 was created earl of Leicester . On the death of the seventh earl in 1743 the estates devolved upon his niece Elizabeth, whose only child married Sir Bysshe Shelley of Castle Goring . Their son was created a baronet in 1818 as Sir John Shelley-Sidney, and his son was created Baron de L'Isle and Dudley in 1835 .

The

mansion is quadrangular, and has a fine court, chapel and hall (c . 1341) with open timber roof and a minstrels' gallery . The various rooms contain an interesting collection of portraits, armour and other family relics . The praises of the park and the house have been sung in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, and by Ben Jonson, Edmund Waller and Robert Southey .