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The Estate can trace its history back to 968AD, when its sale for the sum of 1450 pence was personally approved by King Edgar, arguably the first King of all England.
In ‘Tenterden. The First Thousand Years’, local historian and former Mayor Hugh Roberts, records this event as follows:

‘In the year 968 , King Edgar, first King of all England, approved with the sign of the Cross the conveyance of this parcel of land at Heronden in the Weald of Kent from Aethelflaed and Eadwold to Aelfwolde, in return for the payment of 1450 pence. The document was signed by the King himself, Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, and about 20 reeves, ministers and countrymen …

‘This charter has survived and contains the first recorded reference to the presence in this part of the Weald of the men of Thanet – the Tenetwara – who were to give their name to Tenterden’

The charter describes the Estate’s boundaries as follows: ‘This den (or wood-pasture) is named Hyringdaenn (Heronden) surrounded by these boundaries: on the east, from the stone pillar to the water meadows of the men of Thanet (Tenetwara Brocas) and to the Hyring-brocas, on the south to the Hyringbourne as far as the Ashbourne (a river now known as the New Mill Channel), on the west the Ashbourne as far as Ashbourne Bridge (Aescbrygge), on the north open country from Ashbourne Bridge to the stone pillar again.’

This amounted to approximately 1000 acres, and in the ensuing time, the Estate’s boundaries have waxed and waned with the fortunes of its owners. Over the past century in particular, previous owners have added several small farms with names such as Bulleign, Cole, Winser, Lower Woolwich and Puddingcake – a name which refers directly to the iron industry in the Weald and the suspected presence of a furnace at Rolvenden Layne, some two miles from the former Puddingcake Farm. The acquisition of Bulleign farm is also of particular interest, as it extended the Estate as far as Smallhythe, where in the early 15th century, Henry V supervised the construction of ships for the Royal Navy.