and it is this which gives information about expenditure on Knole manor. Unfortunately, the series of receiver’s accounts for Otford is incomplete, but enough details remain from the years 1455-6, 1462-3 and 1465-6 to show the sort of activity which was on hand at Knole.
   The indenture of sale was dated 30th June, 1456, and work must have begun very rapidly on the newly-purchased house, as a glance at the account for Michaelmas 1455 to Christmas 1456 will show. The bailiff was, as it were, the archbishop’s "Minister of Works" within his district. He accounted for money received for special purposes from the archbishop’s treasury and elsewhere, and for money spent on materials and labour. If another officer, like Alexander Wood,¹ incurred expenditure for Knole, then such expenditure would be entered both on the receipt and the expenditure side of the Otford balance-sheet. Alexander Wood had some prepared lead carted down to Knole from the store at Lambeth which was under his supervision; accordingly, this item, worth £4 13s. 4d., is entered both under Grymedyche’s "Foreign Receipts" and under his "Costs of the manor of Knole."
   These accounts for the most part speak for themselves, but it is interesting to note that the roll for the first year in three distinct places uses the word reparacio. The manor is to be repaired, it seems, rather than built anew, just as the manor of Otford was in the same year under repair. At the same time, too, a new water-mill was being built at Otford,