In 1635 Philip Packer (age 16) matriculated University College, Oxford University.

Evelyn's Diary. 03 Jan 1666. Mr. Packer's (age 47), and took an exact view of the plaster statues and bass-relievos inserted between the timbers and puncheons of the outside walls of the Court; which must needs have been the work of some celebrated Italian. I much admired how they had lasted so well and entire since the time of Henry VIII., exposed as they are to the air; and pity it is they are not taken out and preserved in some dry place; a gallery would become them. There are some mezzo-relievos as big as the life; the story is of the Heathen Gods, emblems, compartments, etc. The palace [Map] consists of two courts, of which the first is of stone, castle like, by the Lord Lumleys (of whom it was purchased), the other of timber, a Gothic fabric, but these walls incomparably beautiful. I observed that the appearing timber-puncheons, entrelices, etc., were all so covered with scales of slate, that it seemed carved in the wood and painted, the slate fastened on the timber in pretty figures, that has, like a coat of armor, preserved it from rotting. There stand in the garden two handsome stone pyramids, and the avenue planted with rows of fair elms, but the rest of these goodly trees, both of this and of Worcester Park adjoining, were felled by those destructive and avaricious rebels in the late war, which defaced one of the stateliest seats his Majesty had.

Evelyn's Diary. 06 Aug 1674. I went to Groombridge, Kent [Map], to see my old friend, Mr. Packer (age 56); the house [Map] built within a moat, in a woody valley. The old house had been the place of confinement of the Duke of Orléans, taken by one Waller (whose house it then was) at the Battle of Agincourt, now demolished, and a new one built in its place, though a far better situation had been on the south of the wood, on a graceful ascent. At some small distance, is a large chapel, not long since built by Mr. Packer's father, on a vow he made to do it on the return of King Charles I out of Spain, 1625, and dedicated to St. Charles, but what saint there was then of that name I am to seek, for, being a Protestant, I conceive it was not Borromeo.