The house at The Grange was built by Edward
Drewe’s son, Sir Thomas Drewe, who was knighted at the coronation of James
I as King of England in 1603.
Sir Thomas Drewe built The Grange early in the reign of James I, between 1603
and about 1610. The lands surrounding the house, which would have been used
for farming under lease to tenant farmers, consisted of 3,668 acres, growing
wheat and other food crops, and raising livestock.
Families such as the Drewes were expected
to support the King in all things. The house of a family such as theirs was
meant to proclaim their social position as owners of the land and members of
the gentry class (minor nobility). They needed the house to demonstrate their
sophistication, wealth, and status. The paneled room was an impressive showpiece
on which to solidify their place in Jacobean society. While the Drewes were
not the wealthiest of their class, their home was a prosperous example of a
substantial country house.
There were about 4,500 families of the gentry class in King James’ England,
of a total population of about four million people. The age in which they lived
was also the age of Shakespeare, who arrived in London in the 1580s and began
writing plays and poems to be performed and published up until his death in
1616.
This was also the age of exploration, when English ships explored the coast
of North America. Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in what
is now America was founded and named for King James and was built in the same
decade that The Grange home was built.
