From the 2011 survey report:
"SUMMARY OF HISTORIC INTEREST
A water, woodland and formal terraced garden, laid out in and around a surviving C16, or earlier, moat surrounding a C16 Manor house: the gardens developed from the site of a compartmentalised, probably Tudor, layout, recorded as extant into the early C19, and from a subsequent early C20 Italianate terrace garden. The manor has associations with nationally-important figures including, during the C16, Henry VIII, Sir Thomas Bulleyn (or Boleyn), Sir John Gresham and, in the early C20, Viscount Hudson.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Henden Manor lies in the village of Ide Hill, known as Edythshill before the Norman Conquest, within the ancient parish of Sundridge, known variously as Sondresse (Domesday survey of 1086), Sundrish or Sundrych (early deeds and maps). Between the reigns of Henry III (1216-72) and Henry VIII (1509-47), a manorial court was held at Henden, and the Manor, together with its estate, was gifted by royal consent to high-ranking families for services to the Crown. During this period, it passed variously through the families de Burghersh, le Despencer and the earls of Warwick (Hasted).
In c1517, Henry VIII exchanged Henden Manor and its associated land, including a deer park known as Henden Park, with Sir Thomas Bulleyn (or Boleyn) for Newhall Manor in Essex (Hasted). His daughter, Anne Bulleyn, later became Queen through her marriage to Henry VIII. In 1537, Sir Thomas Bulleyn, now the Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond, leased the manor to Robert Cranwell (lease 24th March 1537). On the Earl’s death in 1539, ownership passed to William Stafford through his marriage to Mary Bulleyn. In 1541, Stafford was forced by Henry VIII to exchange ownership of the manor for land in Yorkshire (title deeds 4th July 1541). In 1543, Henry VIII bequeathed the Henden estate to Sir John Gresham for his services to the Crown, and, according to Hasted, Henden Park was disparked shortly before Gresham’s death in 1556. When Sundridge parish records began in 1562, the Henden estate was recorded as the larger of two substantial farms in Ide Hill, with a ‘sizeable’ population (Ide Hill Society).
The estate remained in the Gresham family until 1590, towards the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, when it was sold in its entirety to Charles Hoskins of Barrow Green Estate, Oxted, Surrey (conveyance 18th July 1590). Although the sale was disputed, it was enforced in a judgement later that year. The description of the property and associated land mentions ‘10 messuages,
including a dove house, 10 gardens, 10 orchards, 400 acres of land, 500 acres of pasture, 120 acres of woodland’ (details of fine, October 6th, 1590).
Henden Manor then remained in the Hoskins family for over 200 years, and for most of this time it was tenanted as a farm, variously described as ‘Hethenden’ or ‘Heathenden’ farm. Evidence shows that, in 1790, the land associated with the Manor remained intact, including the 10 orchards and 10 gardens first cited in 1590 (recovery of default judgement, 1790).
On the deaths of Susannah Chicheley Gorges (née Hoskins) in 1798, and of her husband in 1806, the Hoskins inheritance passed to her aunt, Katharine, widow of the Reverend Legh Master of Newhall, Lancashire, and thereafter descending to the Hoskins-Master family (Sherwen). In 1926, Henden Manor, together with the Barrow Green estate, was sold to the Barrow Green Estate Company by Charles Hoskins Master (conveyance, 2nd October 1926). In 1933, Henden Manor was leased for five years to the well-known Ealing Studios film producer, Sir Michael Balcon (1896-1977).
Evidence shows that between 1910 and 1937 the gardens were expanded to the south-west and west, and kitchen gardens and a tennis court created to the north-west of the house (1910 and 1936/7 OS 6” maps), in the area of the estate formerly known as Barn Field (1809 estate map and apportionment). This evidence also indicates that between 1910 and 1937 the area of the moat had dried up to the north-west and in part to the north-east.
In 1937, the Henden Manor estate was again put up for sale by Robert Spear Hudson, MP, later Viscount Hudson (1886-1957), Minister for Agriculture in the Churchill Government, and in 1939 it was sold to Geoffrey Vincent Philcox (land registry title deeds). According to Philcox, at the time of purchase, the farm was in a ‘derelict condition’ (Philcox), but photographic and documentary evidence from the 1937 sales particulars shows that this description did not apply to the Italianate terrace and the pleasure grounds which formed part the expansion of the garden between 1910 and 1937. During the Second World War, it is understood that the Italianate garden was dug up and replaced with a ‘Home Garden’ for food production to assist the war effort (pers comm.).
Since the War, the Henden Manor estate has passed through several owners, including a Mr Ron Scott who, in 1978, fully restored the moat (pers.comm.). In 1992, when the estate was put up for sale again, the sales particulars of 1992 notably record the gardens and pleasure grounds in very similar terms to the 1937 description.

The present owners purchased Henden Manor in 1997, and it remains in single private ownership." (1)

<1> Kent Gardens Trust, 2011, Henden Manor, Sevenoaks: The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Sevenoaks District (Unpublished document). SKE30604.