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A settlement in Pembury almost certainly predates the Norman conquest, as the village church of St Peter is of Norman origin, it is thought to have been built in the early 12C or late 11C, though the earliest it can be dated with certainty is to 1337, when John Culpeper of Bayhall carried out building work to the church. The first recorded mention of Pembury is as "Peppingeberia" in the 12C Textus Roffensis, though it was also known in ancient deeds as "Pepenbery." Richard Amherst (1565-1632) acquired the Bayhall estate at Pembury, a moated medieval manor house of the Culpeper family. It is not clear when he acquired Bayhall, but it was perhaps around 1617, when he first became a JP for Kent. Since he never moved from Lewes to Bayhall, he perhaps intended the estate as a home for his eldest son, Richard Amherst (1600-64). Richard was also a lawyer, and when he retired in the 1650s, he rebuilt Bayhall as a fashionable country house. The painting shows an Artisan Mannerist house. A distinctive feature is the articulation of the main facade by a giant order: something also found at Lees Court. The designer is unidentifiable, but was probably a London bricklayer. Accompanying the house was a walled formal garden with statues & a surrounding landscape of drives & avenues which can still be traced in the landscape. In 1664, Bayhall passed to Richard Jr's eldest son, Charles Amherst (d. 1705)
Jan Siberechts (1627–1703) was born in Antwerp, the son of a sculptor with the same name. After establishing himself as an artist in Flanders, he moved to England during his forties. Siberechts was one of scores of Dutch & Flemish artists who came to Britain in the 17C. He was baptized in Antwerp in 1627. He was elected to the Guild of St Luke in 1648. By 1674, he was in England, apparently at the encouragement of George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, who had seen some of Siberechts's landscapes in Antwerp in 1670. The artist was a Catholic, & one of his daughters became a lace-maker for the Queen. He was best known in England as a painter of topographical views of country houses & more general landscapes. He seems to have traveled widely in Britain, and was in Wales in 1696. He remained in England until his death.
