Cobham Hall. Cobham is an historic manor in the county of Kent, England, largely co-terminous with the ecclesiastical parish of Cobham. The surviving grade I listed manor house, known as Cobham Hall, is one of the largest and most important houses in Kent, re-built in the Tudor style by William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham. The central block was rebuilt 1672-82 by Charles Stewart, 3rd Duke of Richmond, 6th Duke of Lennox. Today the building houses a private boarding school for girls, known as Cobham Hall School, established there in 1962, which retains 150 acres of the ancient estate. St Mary Magdalene Church, The parish church of Cobham, contains famous monumental brasses of members of the de Cobham and Brooke families, lords of the manor, which are reputedly the finest in England. William Belcher in his Kentish Brasses stated: No church in the world possesses such a splendid series as the nineteen brasses in Cobham Church, ranging in date between 1298 and 1529. In the church also survives the sumptuous chest tomb and alabaster effigies of George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham and his heiress wife Ann Bray. To the immediate south of the church is the building known as Cobham College, now an almshouse, which originally housed the five priests employed by the chantry founded in 1362 by John Cobham, 3rd Baron Cobham, who also built nearby Cooling Castle on his estate at Cooling, Kent, acquired by his ancestors in the mid-13th century. In the former deer park survives the Darnley Mausoleum, a pyramid-topped structure built in 1786 as ordered by the will of the 3rd Earl of Darnley. Several of the holders held the office of Constable of Rochester Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, the holder of the latter office being ex officio Constable of Dover Castle. The lords of the manor of Cobham were Hereditary High Stewards of nearby Gravesend and held the right to charge that town pontage in relation to theuse of the landing stage, bridge or causeway on the River Thames, on the ceremonial route from the Palace of Westminster to Dover. Cobham was not a manor in 1086 as it is not listed in the Domesday Book. In 1208 the manor was acquired by the de Cobham family, of unknown origin, which took their name from their seat, as was usual. The later descent of this family is as follows: John de Cobham, of Cobham and of Cooling, Constable of Rochester Castle in Kent and one of the Barons of the Exchequer, who married Joan de Septvans, a daughter and co-heiress of Sir Robert de Septvans of Chartham in Kent. A monumental brass, laid down in 1320, survives in St Mary Magdalene's Church, Cobham, of Joan Septvans which displays one of the earliest known specimens of a Gothic canopy. The inscription, in Longobardic letters and Leonine verse is as follows:. John's younger brother was Sir Henry de Cobham, of nearby Randall in the parish of Shorne Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, who by his wife Joan Pencester, was the father of Stephen de Cobham, 1st Baron Cobham of Rundale, which title was created in 1326. Henry Cobham, 1st Baron Cobham, son and heir of John de Cobham and Joan de Septvans. He was summomed by writ to Parliament in 1313, when he is deemed to have been created Baron Cobham. In 1303/4 he was appointed Constable of Rochester Castle for life; in 1314/15 he was Constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports. He married Maud de Moreville, widow of Matthew de Columbers and a daughter of Eudes de Moreville. He died at his daughter-in-law's home at Hatch Beauchamp in Somerset, the seat of the Beauchamp family's feudal barony of Hatch Beauchamp, and was buried in the Beauchamp Chapel at Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Somerset. John de Cobham, 2nd Baron Cobham, son and heir. Elected six times a Member of Parliament for Kent, served as Constable of Rochester Castle. From 1335 he was Admiral of the Fleet from the Thames westward. He married firstly Joan Beauchamp, a daughter of John Beauchamp, 1st Baron Beauchamp of Hatch Beauchamp in Somerset; and secondly to Agnes Stone, a daughter of Richard Stone of Dartford. He was buried in Cobham Church, where survives his monumental brass, inscribed in rhyming French: You who pass round this place pray for the soul of the courteous host called John de Cobham May God grant him entire pardon He died the day after the feast of St Mattew and the Almighty took him to himself in the year of grace 1354 and cast down his mortal enemies. John Cobham, 3rd Baron Cobham, son and heir by his father's first wife.