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VCH • Texts in Progress • (May 2017) • © Univ. of London • Manors. • p. 1

VCH Oxfordshire Texts in Progress

NEWNHAM MURREN

Manor and Estates

A 10-hide estate encompassing the whole of the later parish existed by 966,1 having probably been separated from a larger Anglo-Saxon estate focused on North Stoke. Certainly Newnham (with ) remained ecclesiastically dependent on North Stoke until the 20th century.2 In the 12th century the estate was held by the Morins, who may have initiated the manor’s break-up: the separate manor of English existed probably by the early 13th century, and the Turner’s Court estate (partly in Benson) by the 14th, while several smaller freeholds (including a few parcels held by local religious houses) were also of medieval origin. By the 1840s Newnham manor covered only 730 a. (two-fifths of the parish), stretching from the Thames to the Icknield Way, while the Turner’s Court estate covered 390 a. bordering Nuffield, and English 350 a. east of Timbers Lane. The remaining fifth was scattered among various owners, the largest part concentrated in the far south-east around Newnham Hill.3 The parish’s lords were mostly local gentry with estates elsewhere in the county, but were intermittently resident. Medieval manor houses were located at Newnham Farm (next to the parochial chapel) and English Farm, while Newnham’s lords from the late 18th century lived at Newnham House on the Wallingford–Henley road.

Newnham Murren Manor

Descent to 1501

In 966 King Edgar gave Newnham to Ælfgifu, the divorced wife of King Eadwig (d. 959), Edgar’s brother and predecessor.4 By her will, made between 966 and 975, Ælfgifu left Newnham to ‘the ætheling’, probably Edmund (d. 971) or Æthelred (‘the Unready’), Edgar’s sons by his second wife.5 In 1066 it was held by Ingelri, possibly a royal priest, and in 1086

1 Sawyer S.738; above, intro. (par. bdies); below. 2 Below, relig. hist. (paroch. organization). 3 OHC, tithe award and map; below (other estates). 4 Sawyer S.738; ODNB, s.v. Ælfgifu. 5 Sawyer S.1484; L. Tollerton, Wills and Will-Making in Anglo-Saxon (2011), 96. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Newnham Murren (May 2017) • © Univ. of London • Manors. • p. 2

(of the king) by Miles Crispin,6 as part of Miles’s extensive honor of Wallingford. The latter was reconfigured in 1540 as the honor of ,7 and Newnham Murren tenants attended the honor’s frankpledge courts from the Middle Ages until the 19th century.8 In 1086 the manor also included 20 houses in Wallingford, probably reflecting pre-Conquest links.9 Miles Crispin (d. 1107) or his successors seem to have granted Newnham to the Morin family: Morevanus held two fees of the honor of Wallingford in the mid 12th century, of which Newnham was probably one, while Geoffrey son of Morin (possibly Morevanus’s son) was a knight of the honor in 1170.10 By 1196 Geoffrey’s son Richard Morin held a knight’s fee of the honor, which he surrendered to his son William on entering a monastery in 1221.11 William died the following year, when Newnham (still reckoned at a knight’s fee) passed to his nephew Richard.12 Soon afterwards he gave it to Ralph Sanzaveir on his marriage to Richard’s sister Matilda,13 and before 1242 Ralph granted it to Walter Mauclerk (d. 1248), bishop of Carlisle, with reversion to William son of William de Huntercombe, the lord of neighbouring Huntercombe manor.14 William (d. 1271) was succeeded first by his son Walter de Huntercombe (d. 1313), who held two carucates at Newnham as a knight’s fee jointly with his wife, and then by Walter’s nephew Nicholas.15 In 1316 Nicholas de Huntercombe sold the manor to Sir William Bereford (d. 1326) of .16 He was succeeded by his widow Margaret and son Edmund,17 who in 1335 was granted free warren in Newnham.18 Following Edmund’s death in 1354 the manor passed successively to his illegitimate sons Sir John (d. c.1356) and Sir Baldwin (d. 1405),19 and to Baldwin’s widow Elizabeth (d. 1423). Thereafter it was divided under an earlier settlement between descendants of Baldwin’s aunt Agnes: Maud, wife of the Dorset MP Sir Ivo FitzWaryn, and Sir Baldwin St George (d. 1425), MP for Cambridgeshire.20 FitzWaryn’s share passed to his daughter Eleanor and her husband Ralph Bush, while in 1432 another

6 VCH Oxon. I, 418; K.S.B. Keats-Rohan and D.R. Roffe (eds), The Origins of the Borough of Wallingford: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives (BAR Brit. Ser. 494, 2009), 59–60. 7 Cal. Inq. p.m. III, p. 480; VCH Oxon. VIII, 3–4; XVI, 16. 8 Below, local govt. 9 VCH Berks. I, 325; below, social hist. (Middle Ages). 10 Red Book Exch. (RS), I, 309; Pipe R 1170 (PRS 15), 34; Boarstall Cart. p. 304. 11 Chanc. R 1196 (PRS n.s. 7), 160; Red Book Exch. I, 145; II, 599; Cal. Fine 1216–24, 197; Pipe R 1221 (PRS n.s. 48), 65; Cur. Reg. X, p. 188. 12 Cal. Fine 1216–24, 261, 285; Reading Abbey Cart. I, p. 387. 13 Cal. Chart. 1226–57, 132; Oxon. Fines, p. 67; Pipe R 1224 (PRS n.s. 54), 231; Cal. Fine 1224–34, 291; Cur. Reg. XIV, pp. 163–4. 14 BL, Egerton Ch. 632; Cur. Reg. XVIII, pp. 13–14, 88, 243, 327–8; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 348. 15 Cal. Inq. p.m. I, p. 245; V, p. 224; Rot. Hund. II, 42, 777; Feudal Aids, IV, 154, 171. 16 TNA, E 210/8069; E 210/8988; Abbrev. Plac. 324. 17 Cal. Inq. p.m. VI, p. 471; Cal. Close 1323–7, 614. 18 Cal. Chart. 1327–41, 339. 19 Cal. Inq. p.m. X, pp. 212–13, 273; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 98. 20 OHC, E123/D/1; TNA, CP 25/1/290/59, no. 32; Cat. Ancient Deeds, VI, C.6977; Hist. Parl. s.v. Sir Ivo FitzWaryn, Sir Baldwin St George; VCH Cambs. VIII, 34; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 96–7. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Newnham Murren (May 2017) • © Univ. of London • Manors. • p. 3 of Agnes’s descendants, Margaret, and her husband Robert FitzRalph, surrendered their interest to Thomas Chaucer of Ewelme.21 Chaucer already held land in Newnham as part of the Turner’s Court estate,22 which after his and his wife Maud’s deaths (in 1434 and 1437 respectively) passed with the reunited manor to their daughter Alice, the wife of William de la Pole, earl (and later duke) of Suffolk.23 In 1475 she was succeeded by her son John (d. 1492), 2nd duke of Suffolk, whose son Edmund fled abroad in 1501, prompting seizure of his estates.24

Descent from 1501

By 1515 the Crown had leased Newnham to Ralph Adeane (d. 1534), who settled there and in 1519 secured a further 21-year term.25 The lease continued despite the granting of the manor to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, from 1525–35,26 and was evidently renewed in favour of Ralph’s son Richard; the reversion, however, was granted in 1565 (initially for 21 years) to Sir John Fortescue (d. 1607), master of the wardrobe, and was renewed in 1582 for a further 60 years.27 In 1590 Fortescue sold the lease, which passed through several hands until bought in 1622 by Sir Francis (d. 1625) of . Thereafter it passed to Sir Francis’s son Sir William Stonor (d. 1650), whose son Thomas sold it to Roger Gregory of in 1654 to help meet the family’s recusancy fines.28 It eventually expired in 1660.29 Ownership otherwise remained with the Crown until 1628 when, having formed part of the Prince of Wales’s endowment from 1619–25, the manor was sold as part of an extensive disposal of Crown lands.30 In 1630 it was bought by the London merchant and future lord mayor Christopher Clitherow (d. 1641), passing with nearby Benson to the merchant John Highlord, to the Pauls, and (with Greys) to the Stapletons, all of whom lived elsewhere.31 Thomas Stapleton (d. 1831), Lord le Despenser, sold it in 1797 to Thomas Toovey (d. 1834), one of an influential and widespread family from the Watlington

21 TNA, E 210/5007; ibid. CP 25/1/191/27, no. 50; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 98. 22 Feudal Aids, IV, 201; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 41; below (other estates). 23 Cal. Inq. p.m. XXIV, pp. 257–8, 474–5; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 203. 24 Cat. Ancient Deeds, V, A.10953; Cal. Pat. 1494–1509, 265; Complete Peerage, XII (1), 448–53. 25 TNA, SC 6/HENVIII/2910; L&P Hen. VIII, III (1), p. 57; OHC, MS Wills Oxon. 178, f. 96. 26 L&P Hen. VIII, Addenda 1509–37, p. 160; TNA, SC 6/HENVIII/6899; cf. VCH Oxon. XVIII, 203, 373. 27 Cal. Pat. 1563–6, 350; 1580–2, 200; TNA, C 2/JASI/C15/61; ibid. LR 2/224, f. 152. 28 Berks RO, D/ESt/T24; Cal. Cttee for Compounding, IV, 3070; ODNB, s.v. Fortescue. 29 Berks RO, D/ESt/E17. 30 LMA, CLA/044/03/007/013, p. 34; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 37. 31 Berks RO, D/ESt/T21; D/ESt/T64; TNA, PROB 11/319/413; PROB 11/337/150; VCH Oxon. XVI, 276; XVIII, 37. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Newnham Murren (May 2017) • © Univ. of London • Manors. • p. 4 area, who already owned land in the parish and occupied Newnham House.32 He was succeeded by his daughter Ann Wells Toovey, who married her relative William Toovey (d. 1848).33 In 1855 their son William and daughter Mary sold their two-thirds share to their brother-in-law Charles Hedges, a Wallingford solicitor and husband of their sister Ann.34 He died in 1901, and the following year the manor was sold to William Henry Herbert, who sold it in 1908 to the London lawyer J.G. Hossack.35 Hossack broke up the estate in 1913,36 having earlier (c.1910) sold the lordship, Newnham House, and 40 a. of grounds to Major George Inverarity Walsh (d. 1913), whose widow Ethel lived there until the early 1920s.37 By 1924 Newnham House was occupied by the Australian businessman and soldier Frederick Valiant Cotton Livingstone-Learmonth (d. 1945), who remained there until the Second World War when it was let by Henley Rural District Council to the Royal School for Deaf Children.38 From the 1950s it belonged to Guy Betts (d. 1989), who established a touring caravan park and poultry farm in the grounds, and whose family retained it in 2017.39 The lordship passed in the early 1930s from Walsh’s trustees to William Frank Young of Newnham Farm,40 but no later references have been found.

Manor Houses

Newnham Farm Nothing is known of the Morins’ manor house, while the Huntercombes lived in Nuffield parish.41 Walter de Huntercombe (d. 1313) nevertheless maintained a barn, cattle byre, and sheepcote at Newnham, which Sir William Bereford (d. 1326) replaced with a ‘capital messuage’ and garden, even though the family lived apparently at Brightwell Baldwin.42 William’s grandson John (d. c.1356) maintained the house,43 but no later lord is likely to have lived there until Ralph Adeane (d. 1534), and it is not clear whether he

32 Berks RO, D/EH T81; Oxf. Jnl, 20 Sept. 1834; TNA, PROB 11/1839/169; VCH Oxon. VIII, 214, 221, 228, 239; below (other estates). 33 OHC, par. reg. transcript; TNA, PROB 11/2087/139. 34 OHC, SL183/2/D/1. 35 Sale Cats, Newnham Manor Est. (1902 and 1908): copies in Bodl. GA Oxon. b 6 (35); NMR, SC00842; The Times, 1 Mar. 1902, 27 June 1908. 36 Sale Cat., Newnham Murren Est. (1913): copy in OHC, PC181/D1/1; ibid. PC80/C1/1. 37 OHC, DV XII/18; Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1907–24 edns); The Times, 14 Aug. 1913. 38 Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1924–39 edns); Australian Dictionary of Biography (accessed online); OHC, RDC8/3/F9/19; RDC8/3/F9/25. 39 OHC, RDC8/3/F7/6; ibid. par. reg. transcript; SODC planning docs, P59/H0813; P67/H0502; P96/W0115; P08/W0785; P12/S1223/FUL; P16/S3852/FUL (accessed online). 40 Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1931–9 edns). 41 VCH Oxon. XVIII, 348. 42 TNA, C 134/30/4; C 134/102/6; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 98–100. 43 TNA, C 135/134/9. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Newnham Murren (May 2017) • © Univ. of London • Manors. • p. 5 occupied a newly built house or a much older structure.44 In 1606 the house was timber- framed and tiled, and with its adjoining barns, stables, and outbuildings probably occupied the site (next to the parochial chapel) of the present-day Newnham Farm, which was rebuilt or extensively remodelled in the 17th century.45 Some work was undertaken by Edward Cliffe, who secured a 31-year lease in 1611 and complained of the estate’s ruinous condition;46 in 1628 the house remained ‘old’ and ‘somewhat decayed’, however, and it is unclear whether the present structure dates from Cliffe’s tenancy or later.47 In 1662 the tenant Edward Sadler was assessed on seven hearths there.48 The house was improved by the Tooveys and Charles Hedges in the 19th century, when it was extended and new windows were inserted.49

Newnham Farm showing the south and east fronts.

In its present form the house comprises a two-storeyed double pile of painted brick on a flint base, with a plain-tile roof and prominent gables decorated with bargeboards. Its irregular three-bayed north entrance front has a central two-storeyed porch with ogee archway, a flat-sided bay window to the ground floor, and gabled dormers to the first floor and attic, while on the east front two canted bay windows light the dining and drawing rooms. Two ground-floor casements in the south front, facing the church, have segmental brick

44 OHC, MS Wills Oxon. 178, ff. 96–97v; below, social hist. (1500–1800). 45 TNA, LR 2/224, f. 152; cf. ibid. E 315/388/1, f. 34. 46 Ibid. C 2/JASI/C15/61. 47 LMA, CLA/044/03/004/004/001, f. 133; CLA/044/03/007/013, p. 34. 48 TNA, E 179/164/504; ibid. PROB 11/312/210; Berks RO, D/ESt/Z6. 49 Bldgs List, IoE 247243. For the plan, OHC, tithe map; ibid. SL183/2/D/1; OS Map 1:2500, Oxon. XLIX.11 (1878–1912 edns). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Newnham Murren (May 2017) • © Univ. of London • Manors. • p. 6 surrounds with projecting keystones, connecting to a flat band between the storeys which is broken by a round-headed sash window lighting the stairs.50 In 1913 several timber and thatched farm buildings lay to the north and west, together with a 16th-century timber-framed cottage which retains unusual carpentry marks on a chamfered spine beam to the ground floor, but which has otherwise been much renewed and extended.51

Newnham House Newnham House was built probably in the 1760s–70s by William Toovey (d. 1786) of Wallingford, whose son Thomas purchased Newnham manor in 1797.52 The house occupies a site on the Wallingford–Henley road which Toovey may have acquired in 1757 as part of the ‘capital messuage’ called ‘Brownch’ (later Cresswells or Home Farm), formerly the chief house of one of the parish’s freeholds.53 The site’s earlier history is obscure, although it is likely that Toovey either removed or remodelled existing buildings.54 The house was enlarged and modernized by Charles Hedges, and at its sale in 1902 consisted (on the ground floor) of several south-facing reception rooms separated by a central hall, corridor, and staircase from the domestic offices, which abutted the main road to the north. In 1908 one of the reception rooms boasted a mantelpiece by (or in the style of) Robert Adam, and opened into a conservatory with a dome-shaped roof. The drawing room was decorated in Louis XV style.55 The imposing twin-gabled, west-facing entrance front is five-bayed and three- storeyed, of grey bricks with red-brick dressings, and has a central battlemented porch with a four-centred archway beneath a hoodmould.56 Narrow brick bands separate the lower two storeys, lit by six-over-six sash windows, while above the smaller second-floor windows is a stone cornice topped by a battlemented parapet. Behind the main range (only two rooms deep) are several single- and two-storey ranges, all with separate slate roofs, over which tower a number of large brick stacks. The complex roofline is most visible on the north front (facing the street), where the brickwork (red and grey bricks in a Flemish bond) is plainer and the fenestration more irregular. To the west of the house a 19th-century five-bayed red- brick stable block with a hipped slate roof has a central doorway beneath a large decorative

50 Illust. in Sale Cat., Newnham Manor Est. (1902): copy in Bodl. GA Oxon. b 6 (35); ibid. MS Top. Oxon. c 485/2 (photos by P.S. Spokes, 1964). Not yet visited by VCH. 51 D. Clark, ‘“Cellular Markings” at the Cottage, Newnham Murren’, Oxoniensia 70 (2005), 337–8; Bldgs List, IoE 247242; Sale Cat., Newnham Murren Est. (1913): copy in OHC, PC181/D1/1. 52 TNA, PROB 11/1148/31. Thos Toovey was probably resident in the parish by 1778: Berks RO, D/P 161B/5/1. 53 Berks RO, D/EH T81; below (other estates). 54 Bldgs are shown on Bodl. MS Maps Oxon. a 1 (1740s) and Jefferys, Oxon. Map (1767), but not on Davis, Oxon. Map (1797). ‘Mr Toovey’s house’ is marked on a plan of 1803: OHC, QSH/1803/T8–12. 55 Sale Cats, Newnham Manor Est. (1902 and 1908): copies in Bodl. GA Oxon. b 6 (35); NMR, SC00842. 56 Bldgs List, IoE 247238. Not yet visited by VCH. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Newnham Murren (May 2017) • © Univ. of London • Manors. • p. 7 fanlight and triangular pediment,57 while at the southern entrance to the grounds is a half- timbered and gabled lodge with oriel windows.

Newnham House showing the west and north fronts (left) and east front (centre), with the 19th-century lodge (right).

English Manor

During the Middle Ages a separate manor in the south-east of the parish was held by the English family from the lords of Newnham Murren.58 Its origins are unknown, but possibly it included lands held by the Dene family in the early 13th century,59 since in 1418 English Farm was also known as ‘Deneplace’.60 Geoffrey English was already a tenant of the Morins by 1220, however.61 Later members of the family included Richard, an attorney to William de Huntercombe in 1270, and Geoffrey, a juror at Huntercombe’s inquest post mortem the following year;62 Beneit English was mentioned in 131063 and regularly thereafter,64 and in 1348 settled English manor (so called for the first time) on his son Richard and his heirs.65 A charter of 1340 bears Beneit’s seal with the family arms,66 and a small monumental brass commemorating him was installed in Nuffield church c.1360.67 Richard English probably succeeded his father c.1356, when he was granted free warren at English and permission to crenellate.68 In 1359 he established a chantry in Nuffield

57 Bldgs List, IoE 247239. 58 For another account, P.M. Briers, The History of Nuffield (1939), 107–38. 59 Oxon. Fines, p. 83; Sandford Cart. I, pp. 30–1. 60 Cal. Inq. p.m. XXI, p. 3. 61 Reading Abbey Cart. I, p. 384. 62 Cal. Pat. 1266–72, 443; TNA, C 132/39/8; cf. Rot. Hund. II, 777; Cat. Ancient Deeds, VI, C.5156. 63 Cal. Close 1307–13, 269. 64 e.g. TNA, C 134/30/4; Cal. Pat. 1321–4, 253, 258; Boarstall Cart. pp. 24–8, 35. 65 TNA, CP 25/1/190/20, no. 16; ibid. CP 40/356, m. 3. 66 T.R. Gambier-Parry (ed.), A Collection of Charters relating to Goring, Streatley, and the Neighbourhood, 1181–1546, Vol. I (ORS 13, 1931), pp. 129–30. 67 Stephenson, Brasses, 410; Briers, Nuffield, plate opposite p. 108; N. Saul, English Church Monuments in the Middle Ages (2009), 254–6. 68 Cal. Chart. 1341–1417, 148; cf. VCH Oxon. XVIII, 315. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Newnham Murren (May 2017) • © Univ. of London • Manors. • p. 8 church, and was resident at English in 1361.69 In 1368 he was succeeded by his son William (d. 1418), who held a carucate at English jointly with his wife Plesewe (d. 1427).70 Thereafter the manor probably descended to their son Richard (d. 1460) and grandson William,71 whose successor Thomas English ‘of Newnham Murren’ took a lease of Hayden farm in Nuffield in 1495, and was buried at Ipsden in 1525.72 English manor passed to Thomas’s daughter Anne (d. 1547) and her husband Richard Eton (d. 1540), who lived there;73 after their deaths it passed to Cuthbert Warcopp, Anne’s son by her first husband Michael Warcopp.74 Cuthbert Warcopp, a London mercer, died in 1557, when he held English in free socage of the Crown as of the manor of Newnham Murren.75 He was succeeded by his widow Anne (d. 1571) and their son Ralph (d. 1605), an Oxfordshire MP whose brother and heir Leonard was declared insane the following year.76 Leonard’s son Rudolph (d. 1649), sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1639, fell into debt, and in 1646 sold the manor for £1,300 to his nephew Robert, whose father Samuel (Rudolph’s brother) died at English in 1662.77 Rudolph’s son Cuthbert (d. 1673), who married Samuel’s daughter Bridget (d. 1669), also lived at English and claimed rights to it, but on Robert’s death in 1684 the manor, by then heavily mortgaged and disputed by Cuthbert and Bridget’s daughter Anne, passed to Robert’s younger brother Sir Edmund Warcopp (d. 1712) of Northmoor, a prominent magistrate under Charles II.78 He probably sold it to Francis Holloway (d. 1739), who moved to English and occupied Warcopp’s former pew in Nuffield church, where he provided a reading desk and pulpit in 1732.79 In 1743 Holloway’s son Richard sold the manor for £620 to Thomas Revill, probably an agent of Abel Dottin (d. 1759), the son of a Barbados plantation owner, who took possession in 1748.80 He was succeeded by his son Abel (d. 1783), sheriff in 1764, and grandson Samuel (d. 1797),81 who must have sold the estate since by 1792 it belonged to Joseph Grote (d. 1814) of Badgemore. His successor was his half-brother George, after

69 Cal. Pat. 1358–61, 253; BL, Harl. Ch. 49.H.8; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 364. 70 Cal. Inq. p.m. XII, p. 334; XXI, p. 3; Cal. Close 1413–19, 493; Cal. Fine 1422–30, 187. 71 Cal. Inq. p.m. (Rec. Com.), IV, 286; TNA, C 1/41/139. 72 Magd. Coll., 43A; Pevsner, Oxon. 663. 73 TNA, C 1/629/44; ibid. PROB 11/28/71; PROB 11/31/632. 74 Oxon. Visit. 163. 75 TNA, E 150/823/3; ibid. PROB 11/42B/535. 76 Hist. Parl. s.v. Ralph Warcoppe; Oxon. Visit. 163; TNA, PROB 11/106/187; ibid. C 142/289/32. 77 Cal. SP Dom. 1640, 253; Cal. Cttee for Money, I, 160; Par. Colln, III, 235–6; OHC, Nuffield par. reg. transcript; TNA, CP 25/2/474/22CHASIEASTER; ibid. PROB 11/309/73. 78 Berks RO, D/ELl/L2; TNA, C 7/256/26; ibid. PROB 11/371/18; ODNB, s.v. Warcup. 79 OHC, Nuffield par. reg. transcript; TNA, PROB 11/530/255; PROB 11/696/309. 80 TNA, CP 25/2/1187/17GEOIIMICH; CP 25/2/1188/21GEOIIHIL; ibid. PROB 11/852/57; Oxf. Jnl Syn. 18 Dec. 1759. 81 Hist. Parl. s.v. Abel Rous Dottin; Oxf. Jnl Syn. 12 Nov. 1763, 22 Dec. 1783; TNA, PROB 11/1112/280. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Newnham Murren (May 2017) • © Univ. of London • Manors. • p. 9 whose death in 1830 the manor was bought by its tenant farmer, Thomas Deane.82 By 1841 it was occupied by his son George Deane (d. 1893), who lived at English until the 1870s,83 and by 1910 it belonged to the Scottish financier Robert Fleming (d. 1933), with whose estate it subsequently descended.84 Tenant farmers included (from c.1901) John Densham Morris, from c.1915 William Horsford, and from 1924 Robert Purdie and his descendants.85

English Farm

The Englishes were probably continuously resident from the 13th century, occupying the apparently stone-built manor house called ‘Deneplace’. Richard English was licensed to crenellate a chamber of his house there ‘with a wall of stone and mortar’ in 1356.86 The house was replaced c.1585 by a timber-framed building on the site of English Farm, for which Cuthbert Warcopp paid tax on 13 hearths in 1662, the highest assessment in the parish;87 the same year Samuel Warcopp left 5s. each to two named ‘workmen’ there, suggesting alterations or improvements.88 The present double-pile house, with its elegant Georgian façade, reflects remodelling by the wealthy Dottin family in 1750 and 1770. The symmetrical south-facing garden front is three-bayed and three-storeyed, of red brick under a hipped plain-tile roof with lead ridges and brick stacks, and has a central pedimented porch and part-glazed door beneath a fanlight. The less imposing entrance front is of brick and flint with an irregular arrangement of sash windows, masking the 16th-century timber-framing of which fragments remain visible under the stairs.89 The farm’s outbuildings, of broadly similar date to the remodelled house, include a seven-bayed aisled barn with a queen-post roof, two further barns and a stable all likewise timber-framed and weatherboarded, with plain-tile half- hipped roofs, and a cattle shed of knapped flint and red-brick dressings. A red-brick coach house and stable block were added in the late 19th century.90 Substantial modifications to

82 OHC, QSD/L/94; ibid. Cal. QS, III, 605; ibid. tithe award and map; TNA, PROB 11/1557/415; PROB 11/1773/380; VCH Oxon. XVI, 186. 83 TNA, HO 107/882; HO 107/1690; ibid. RG 9/741; RG 10/1273; OHC, P402/2/M/1. He retired to Caversham: TNA, RG 11/1490; RG 12/1158. 84 OHC, DV XII/18; ibid. RDC8/3/F7/6; VCH Oxon. XVI, 208, 311–12; XVIII, 281. 85 TNA, RG 13/1140; OHC, DV XII/18; Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1903–39 edns); Oxon. Dir. (1958–9); Blair’s Dir. Oxon. (1967); A. Spencer-Harper, Dipping into the Wells (1999), 307. 86 Cal. Chart. 1341–1417, 148; Cal. Inq. p.m. XXI, p. 3. 87 Unpubl. South Oxon. Project report (2014) by Sally Stradling and OBR; TNA, E 179/164/504. 88 TNA, PROB 11/309/73; cf. Northants. RO, L(C) 398, 2445 (the ‘new house’ in 1666). 89 Bldgs List, IoE 247867; unpubl. South Oxon. Project report (2014) by Sally Stradling and OBR; Spencer-Harper, Dipping into the Wells, 307. 90 Bldgs List, IoE 247868–71; National Heritage List, no. 1389590. For the plan, OHC, tithe map; ibid. P402/2/M/1; OS Map 1:2500, Oxon. LIII.1 (1878–1913 edns). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Newnham Murren (May 2017) • © Univ. of London • Manors. • p. 10 both house and outbuildings were undertaken by the owner Robert Laycock in the early 21st century.91

English Farm showing the south- facing garden front.

Other Estates

Eight medieval religious institutions held land or rights in the parish. In 1219 Reading abbey was given 64 a. by Richard Morin, increased to over 150 a. by gifts from his son William and from Nicholas of . In 1223 the abbey let the whole to Ralph Sanzaveir for 6½ marks (£4 6s. 8d.) a year, reduced to 5 marks (£3 6s. 8d.) in 1227;92 the rent was later paid by the Huntercombes and Berefords as lords of Newnham manor,93 and was received by the abbey until the Dissolution.94 A 4-yardland holding belonging to St Nicholas’s chapel in Wallingford castle in 1279 originated probably in an early endowment of prebends by Newnham’s Domesday lord Miles Crispin. The estate most likely remained with the chapel until its suppression in 1548,95 and by 1685 may have been held with Turner’s Court.96 The Knights Templar received an 11-a. holding from Stephen de Huntercombe, including 7 a. given him by William Morin (d. 1222),97 while annual rents worth 20s., formerly

91 SODC planning docs, P01/S0003; P01/S0780; P09/E1133 (accessed online). 92 Reading Abbey Cart. I, pp. 382–6; Oxon. Fines, pp. 67, 233. 93 Reading Abbey Cart. I, pp. 387–9; BL, Egerton Ch. 632; Rot. Hund. II, 777; Cal. Inq. p.m. V, p. 224; VI, p. 471; Tax. Eccl. 45. 94 TNA, SC 6/HENVIII/6899. 95 Rot. Hund. II, 777; VCH Berks. II, 103–5; K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, N. Christie and D.R. Roffe (eds), Wallingford: the Castle and the Town in Context (BAR Brit. Ser. 621, 2015), 53–4. 96 OHC, MS Oxf. Archd. Oxon. b 41, f. 57. 97 Sandford Cart. I, pp. 29–32. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Newnham Murren (May 2017) • © Univ. of London • Manors. • p. 11 held by the nuns of Kington priory (Wilts.), were left by Robert Burnell (d. 1292), bishop of Bath and Wells, to his nephew Philip.98 Other holdings belonged to the hospital of St John the Baptist in Wallingford99 and to Goring priory,100 while Bec abbey held Newnham manor’s demesne tithes.101 Endowments formerly belonging to Wallingford’s Holy Trinity priory were given to Thomas Wolsey, archbishop of York, in 1528,102 while a separate smallholding anciently belonging to the porter of Wallingford castle was let by the Crown in 1590.103 The descent of most other medieval freeholds cannot be traced, although the Huntercombes were freeholders in the parish before they acquired the manor in 1248, and Richard Morin (presumably a descendant of the former lords) was one of several free tenants in 1279. Most held a yardland or less.104 A later freehold was built up by John James (d. 1396) of Wallingford, for which he obtained free warren in 1394,105 and which passed to his son Robert (d. 1432).106 An 18th-century freehold called ‘Brownch’ belonged to the (by then) non-resident Smith family before its purchase in 1757 by William Toovey, whose son Thomas paid more than a tenth of the parish’s land tax in 1786.107 The Turner’s Court estate extended into Newnham from the 14th century, and by 1846 included a 322-a. farm in Newnham held with an isolated farmstead called Woodlands, and a further 69 a. of woodland.108 Another 73 a. belonged in 1846 to Gifford manor, and 53 a. to Huntercombe manor in Nuffield.109 Newnhamhill farm in the far south- east of the parish belonged by the 18th century to the Chessalls of Highmoor (who owed a quitrent to Benson manor), and in the early 20th became (with English) part of the Flemings’ Nettlebed estate. Lords of Newnham retained a separate 20 a. at Newnhamhill Bottom until the 20th century.110

98 Cal. Inq. p.m. III, p. 48; Rot. Hund. II, 777; HMC Dean & Chapter of Wells, I (1907), 151–2; VCH Wilts. III, 259–62; TNA, SC 6/HENVIII/6899. 99 Rot. Hund. II, 777; Abbrev. Rot. Orig. I, 143; Cal. Pat. 1301–7, 373; 1557–8, p. 134; Cal. Close 1318–23, 707; VCH Berks. II, 100. 100 Rot. Hund. II, 777; Tax. Eccl. 45. 101 Below, relig. hist. (tithes). 102 Rot. Hund. II, 777; Tax. Eccl. 45; Cal. Pat. 1391–6, 97; L&P Hen. VIII, IV (2), pp. 1957–8; N. Denholm-Young (ed.), Cartulary of the Medieval Archives of Christ Church (OHS 92, 1931), 182. 103 Cal. Pat. 1589–90, p. 185; Keats-Rohan, Christie and Roffe, Wallingford, 150, 190. 104 Sandford Cart. I, pp. 29–32; Oxon. Fines, p. 81; Rot. Hund. II, 777; below, social hist. (Middle Ages). 105 Cal. Inq. p.m. XVII, p. 312; Boarstall Cart. pp. 234, 242–3, 245–6, 259, 268–9; Cal. Close 1369– 74, 561; Cal. Chart. 1341–1417, 349. 106 Cal. Close 1396–9, 17, 125–6; Boarstall Cart. p. 262; cf. VCH Oxon. XVIII, 38. 107 Berks RO, D/EH T81; OHC, QSD/L/94. 108 TNA, E 210/9020; OHC, tithe award; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 41. 109 OHC, tithe award; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 348; above, , manor. 110 Oxon. Poll, 1754, 77; OHC, MS dd Cooper and Caldecott c 6 (2--3); c 65 (7); ibid. E31/33D/12; ibid. DV XII/18; ibid. BOR/3/D/III/1, p. 7; Sale Cat., Newnham Manor Est. (1902): copy in Bodl. GA Oxon. b 6 (35).