HART, Richard

Hart was probably one of at least two sons of a prominent resident of Bletchingley, William Hart, who was returned to Parliament for the borough on no fewer than eight occasions between 1388 and 1417. Almost nothing is recorded of Richard before January 1422 when he and a mason from Westminster, William Burdon, were commissioned to find transport for men and raw materials which were to be employed on repairs to the nave of Westminster Abbey.1 CPR, 1416-22, p. 420. It is striking that William Hart had been the recipient of two similar appointments in 1414 and 1416, although the precise reasons for Hart family’s involvement in the transportation side of these building projects at the abbey are unclear.2 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 302-3. Perhaps they had a role in supervising the quarrying of ‘Reigate stone’ and ‘Merstham stone’ on the southern slopes of the North Downs near Bletchingley. Later that year Richard was returned to Henry VI’s first Parliament, an event which probably owed as much to the family’s connexion with Humphrey, earl of Stafford, the lord of Bletchingley, as it did to his prominence in the locality. On 10 June 1423 Richard served on the jury at Bletchingley for inquiries about the estates of the late Hugh Stafford, Lord Bourgchier (d.1420), whose heir was his nephew the earl.3 CIPM, xxii. 100. Unlike his putative brother John, however, there is no indication that Richard was appointed by the Staffords to any administrative position in Bletchingley.

Nothing further is recorded of him until 1434 when he and John witnessed a conveyance of local property made by Richard Tyler*. The extent of the family’s lands in the area is similarly difficult to assess, although in 1451 Richard and John were described as former holders of two crofts in Highfields, part of the lordship of Pendell, near Bletchingley, in a rental compiled for William Uvedale II*. Other property held by Richard alone included land known as ‘Le Stok’, situated on the edge of Bletchingley on the road to Merstham.4 U. Lambert, Blechingley, 205, 290, 490.