Barn Elms replaced the earlier one occupied by Sir Francis Walsingham, "Elizabeth's Spymaster". Queen Elizabeth I would visit Barn Elms to see her Spymaster. Barn Elms features in English literary history from the time the royalist poet Abraham Cowley moved to the house belonging to John Cartwright in 1663. In the 1660s Barn Elms became a fashionable destination for boating picnics. Samuel Pepys, who arranged many a Sunday afternoon or moonlit evening boating party to Barn Elms himself, recorded that on 26 May 1667: "I walked the length of the Elmes, and with great pleasure saw some gallant ladies and people come
Thomas Walsingham (MP) when King Charles I decided to rule without parliament for eleven years. He was made vice-admiral of Kent in 1627. In April 1640, Walsingham was re-elected MP for Rochester for the Short Parliament and again in November 1640 for the Long Parliament when he sat until 1653, surviving Pride's Purge. He sold the family property of Scadbury in around 1655. Walsingham died in 1669 and was buried at Chislehurst on 10 April 1669. Walsingham married twice, his first wife being Elizabeth Manwood, daughter of Sir Peter Manwood. Thomas Walsingham (MP) Sir Thomas Walsingham (c. 1589 - April 1669) was an