[Illustration] This family is of ancient Kentish extraction, and is
a branch of the Polhills or Polleys of Preston, in Shoreham, in that
county, descended from John Polhill, eldest son of John Polhill and
Alice de Buckland, the heiress of Preston, in the reign of Henry VI.
The Rev. Richard Polwhele, the Historian of Cornwall, was of opinion
that the Polhills of Kent were a branch of the Cornish Polwheles,
which emigrated from the western into the eastern counties at a very
early period; they were certainly seated at Detling in
Hollingbourne, in Kent, at or previous to the reign of Edward III.
In the time of Elizabeth, the Polhills were of Frenches, in the
parish of Burwash, in Sussex. The immediate ancestor of the present
family was Nathaniel Polhill, of Burwash and Howbury, an eminent
merchant, who died in 1782.
See a very minute account of all the branches of this ancient family
in the Topographer and Genealogist, i. pp. 180 and 577. See also
Hasted's History of Kent, vol. i, p. 365, and vol. iii. p. 4.
ARMS.--_Or, on a bend gules three cross-crosslets of the first_. It
appears by the Roll of Arms of the reign of Richard II., that Monsr.
Rauff Poley bore a coat nearly similar, viz, _Argent, on a bend
gules three crosses patée or_.
Present Representative, Frederick Polhill, Esq.