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Home , Abbey (Reading ward), Caversham (Reading ward), Caversham Court, Caversham Park, Crowsley Park, Earl of Warwick

VCH • Texts in Progress • (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 1

VCH Oxfordshire Texts in Progress Caversham Landownership

For much of its history Caversham was divided between a single large manor (assessed in 1086 at 20 hides), and several smaller estates including some of medieval origin. Until the mid 12th century the manor almost certainly included land in nearby ,1 and it seems possible that it originally comprised an even larger area from which was separated following the grant of Sonning (Berks.) to the bishop of Sherborne and Ramsbury in the later Anglo-Saxon period.2 During the Middle Ages it was held by a succession of high-status lords for whom it supplied a base in the Valley within convenient reach of . Sales of land reduced its extent in the 17th century, but it continued to be held by wealthy owners who successively rebuilt the mansion house in Caversham . The estate was finally broken up in the early 1920s. An early estate at Cane End belonged to Notley (Bucks.), and in the 16th century was regarded as a manor. The abbey also owned the valuable rectory estate (comprising tithes and glebe), which at the Reformation passed to Christ , . Several small to medium-sized estates of up to 500 a. were created from the 17th century, partly from land sold by the lords of Caversham.

Caversham Manor

Descent to c.1600

In 1066 Caversham was held freely by a thegn called Swein, and in 1086 by the Norman tenant-in-chief Walter Giffard.3 The Giffard family’s English seat was (Bucks.),4 but probably they maintained a house at Caversham, which was the only Oxfordshire estate they kept in hand. The manor escheated to the Crown in 1164 when Walter Giffard, 2nd of Buckingham, died without issue,5 and was let first to a group of local tenants,6 and then to Henry II’s chancellor and illegitimate son Geoffrey.7 On Richard

1 Below, Shiplake, landownership. 2 Below, Eye and Dunsden, landownership. 3 A. Williams and G.H. Martin (eds.), : A Complete Translation (2002), 432. 4 VCH Bucks. IV, 38; Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, II, 995. 5 Complete , X, 360 n. 6 Pipe R 1168--9, 85. 7 Ibid. 1181--2, 122; 1187--8, 155. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 2

I’s division of the Giffard estates in 1190 it passed to William Marshal (1146/7--1219), who had married Isabel de Clare, a descendant of Rohais Giffard, and who was later made .8 Caversham became one of his favourite English residences, and it was there that he withdrew in his final illness while acting as guardian of for the young Henry III.9 William was succeeded by each of his eldest four sons in turn: William (d. 1231), Richard (d. 1234), Gilbert (d. 1241), and Walter (d. 1245). His fifth son (Ansel) died also in 1245 before receiving possession,10 and with the male line extinct the reversion passed to Richard de Clare (d. 1262), earl of Gloucester and Hertford, and son of William Marshal I’s daughter Isabel.11 Walter’s widow Margaret de Quincy, countess of Lincoln, nevertheless retained the manor in dower until her death in 1266, when it passed to Richard’s son Gilbert (d. 1295), the 6th earl.12 In 1290 he married Edward I’s daughter Joan of Acre, and Caversham was settled on the couple and their heirs.13 Joan later (in 1297) married Ralph de Monthermer, who held the manor in her right until her death in 1307;14 thereafter it passed to her and Gilbert’s son Gilbert, the 7th earl.15 After Gilbert’s death at Bannockburn in 1314 the manor was held in dower by his widow Maud (d. 1320),16 and then inherited by his eldest sister and co-heiress Eleanor, wife of the royal favourite Hugh le Despenser the younger.17 She recovered Caversham and other estates confiscated after her husband’s execution in 1326,18 and married Sir William la Zouche,19 the manor passing on her death in 1337 to her son Sir Hugh Despenser (d. 1349),20 and then to Hugh’s nephew Sir Edward Despenser (d. 1375).21 His son Thomas was an infant at his father’s death, and for the next 19 years the Crown granted the manor to various individuals until Thomas came of age in 1394. Having been created earl of Gloucester by Richard II, he was killed in 1400 attempting to overthrow Henry IV. His widow

8 Complete Peerage, X, 358--60; Sanders, Eng. Baronies, 62. 9 Crouch, William Marshal, 138--40. 10 Complete Peerage, X, 365--77; Sanders, Eng. Baronies, 63; Crouch, Acts and Letters of the Marshal Family, pp. 15--37; B.R. Kemp (ed.), Cartularies (Camden 4th ser. 31 and 33, 1986--7), II, pp. 225--7, 229; Cal. Close 1231--4, 281. 11 Complete Peerage, V, 695--6; X, 377; Cal. Pat. 1364--7, 273--4. 12 Kemp, Reading Abbey Cartularies, II, p. 230; Rot. Hund. II, 38; L.J. Wilkinson, Women in Thirteenth-Century Lincolnshire (2015), 53. 13 Cal. Chart. 1257--1300, 350--1. 14 Complete Peerage, V, 702--12; Cal. Inq. p.m. IV, p. 312. 15 Complete Peerage, V, 712--15; Cal. Inq. p.m. IV, p. 327. 16 Cal. Close, 1313--18, 131; Feudal Aids, IV, 170; Complete Peerage, V, 714--15. 17 Cal. Inq. Misc. VII, 267--8. For the Despensers, Complete Peerage, IV, 267--81. 18 Cal Close 1327--30, 276, 290. 19 Complete Peerage, IV, 270--1. In 1332 the couple made a life grant of the manor to Anth. Cyteroun and Nich. de Salvo for 200 marks: Feet of Fines 1307--1509, ed. M. Yates (Berks. Rec. Soc. 23--4, 2017), I, 85. 20 Cal. Inq. p.m. IX, p. 329. 21 Ibid. XIV, p. 218. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 3

Constance recovered a portion of his lands including Caversham (though briefly lost her custody in 1405--6), and at her death in 1416 the manor passed to her and Thomas’s daughter Isabel, their son Richard having died two years earlier.22 Isabel (d. 1439) married Richard Beauchamp (d. 1422), earl of Worcester, and secondly his cousin and namesake the earl of (d. 1439).23 Warwick and Isabel’s son Henry Beauchamp (d. 1446), duke of Warwick, was succeeded first by his infant daughter (d. 1449), and then by his sister Anne, wife of Richard Neville, earl of Warwick (‘the Kingmaker’).24 After Neville’s death at the of Barnet in 1471 Anne’s lands were confiscated and Caversham granted (in 1474) to Edward IV’s brother George, , husband of Anne’s elder daughter Isabel. On Clarence’s execution in 1478 Caversham was taken into the king’s hands.25 The Crown retained the manor until the mid 16th century, the c.428-a. demesne (excluding the moated ) being leased to Notley abbey for £20 a year in 1493,26 and to Francis (later Sir Francis) Knollys (d. 1596) for £28 in 1542.27 The rest of the manor, covering c.2,686 a. excluding commons and homesteads,28 was kept in hand, the Crown appointing a steward, park keeper, and other officers.29 In 1548 that main part (including 12 of a. meadow in Reading) was granted to Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset and Lord Protector, and then in 1550 to John Dudley (d. 1553), earl of Warwick. He gave it the same year to Edward Stafford, duke of Somerset, who was attainted in 1551.30 The following year Knollys obtained the whole manor in free socage for £56 16s. 1d. annual rent,31 but in 1555 (after Queen Mary’s accession) he went abroad and possession was secured by Dudley’s widowed daughter-in-law Anne (née Seymour), countess of Warwick, who conveyed her interest to Thomas Stafford, one of Knollys’s attorneys, in 1557.32 Knollys, who found favour with , acquired the reversion in 1565,33 and formally recovered the manor on

22 Complete Peerage, IV, 280--1; Cal. Inq. Misc. VII, pp. 267--8; Cal. Pat. 1405--8, p. 4; Cal. Inq. p.m. (Rec. Com.), IV, p. 193. 23 Complete Peerage, XII/2, 382. 24 Ibid. 383--5; Cal. Inq. p.m. (Rec. Com.), IV, p. 228. 25 Complete Peerage XII (2), 392--3; Rot. Parl. VI, 100--1, 391--2; Berks. Feet of Fines, ed. Yates, 92- -4. 26 TNA, E 40/3176. 27 Ibid. LR 2/189, ff. 64--66v.; L&P Hen. VIII, XVII, 636. Knollys struggled to enforce his rights: TNA, E 321/8/47; E 321/7/98. 28 TNA, LR 2/189, ff. 52--64v. 29 For appointments: e.g. Pearman, ‘Historical Notices of Caversham’, 23, 28--30; L&P Hen. VIII, I, 309; XVI, 380. 30 Cal. Pat. 1548--9, 28; 1549--51, 71--4, 351. 31 Ibid. 1550--53, 344--5. 32 ODNB, s.v. Knollys; Archive, C3/46 (power of attorney); Cal. Pat. 1563--6, 231. For Anne (who married Edw. Unton in 1555), VCH Oxon. XIX, 44. 33 Cal. Pat. 1563--6, 231. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 4

Anne’s death in 1588. Possibly he built the mansion (first mentioned in 1601) in the park, replacing the medieval manor house near the river.34

Descent from c.1600

Knollys’s son William (c.1545--1632), who became earl of Banbury in 1626, maintained the fine house at Caversham, and apparently enlarged the park.35 On his death the manor passed to his widow Elizabeth and her new husband Edward Vaux (1588--1661), 4th Baron Vaux of Harrowden,36 who in 1633 sold the bulk of the estate, including Knollys’s mansion, to William Craven (1608--97), baron of Hamstead Marshall (Berks.), for £10,875.37 Another 1,000 a. or so were sold separately, Caversham farm (apparently) to the Sheldon family.38 Craven, the son of a leading London merchant, was one of the richest peers in England, but spent much of his time fighting in the German war.39 His Royalist sympathies led to sequestration in 1651,40 and Caversham was sold to George Vaux in 1653.41 It was restored to Craven in 1660, and in 1665 he was made an earl.42 In 1681 Craven sold the manor to John Fitzgerald (1661--1707), earl of Kildare, for £8,700.43 Fitzgerald made Caversham his main seat44 and was succeeded by his cousin Robert Fitzgerald (b. 1675), who lived in Ireland and in 1718 sold the manor to William Cadogan (1672--1726).45 Cadogan, an army officer and diplomat, was created , Viscount Caversham, and Baron Cadogan of Oakley that same year, and spent lavishly on the house,46 mortgaging the estate heavily. His younger brother and executor Charles secured possession in 1729,47 when the manor covered 1,212 a. including c.200 a. in Eye and Dunsden. Charles was succeeded in 1776 by his son Charles Sloane Cadogan

34 Below (). 35 For the park, McLaren, ‘Stuart Caversham’, 105; Berks RO, R/D88/1/1; Bodl. MS Ch. Oxon. 4308; below, econ. hist. 36 For Vaux, ODNB; Complete Peerage, XII (2), 224--6. 37 Berks RO, R/D88/1/1. For Craven, ODNB. 38 Bodl. MS Ch. Oxon. 2458; OHC, P149/D/1; ibid. SL27/1/D/1; BL, Add Ch. 46163; Cal. Cttee for Compounding, IV, 2717; McLaren, ‘Stuart Caversham’, appendix (pp. 13--17). 39 ODNB, s.v. Craven. 40 Cal. Cttee for Compounding, II, 1617. 41 Ibid. 1624. 42 ODNB, s.v. Craven; J. Thirsk, ‘The Sales of Royalist Land during the Interregnum’, Econ. Hist. Rev., ns 5.2 (1952), 193. 43 Berks RO, R/D88/1/2--7; Complete Peerage, VII, 243--4. 44 Hist. Parl., s.v. Fitzgerald. 45 Berks RO, D/EX258/14; Malpas, Caversham Park, 46--7. Cadogan had been tenant since 1714: Berks. RO, D/EX258/12. 46 ODNB, s.v. Cadogan; Complete Peerage, II, 460--1. 47 Bodl. 4° Rawl. 526; Act for vesting the manor of Okeley and other lands...in trust for Charles Lord Cadogan, 3 Geo. II, c. 8; The St James's Evening Post, 25 Mar. 1729. For Charles, Complete Peerage, II, 461; Hist. Parl. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 5

(1728--1807),48 who in 1784--6 sold most of the then 2,000-a. estate in two parts, retaining woodland and a few houses. The mansion and just over 1,000 a. were bought by Nabob Major Charles Marsack, while David Fell acquired Caversham Grove and a farm.49 Marsack (d. 1820), who was rumoured to be an illegitimate Hanoverian, allegedly installed an exotic retinue including ‘old French women, Swiss valets de chambre, black boys, gentoo coachmen, mulatto footmen, and negro butlers’.50 Marsack’s indebted son Lt. Col. Richard Marsack, who spent much of his time in France, disposed of the estate piecemeal, selling the mansion and 593 a. in 1844 to the Welsh ironmaster William Crawshay, the house’s lessee since the late 1830s.51 Crawshay died in 1867 and was succeeded by his third wife Isabella (d. 1885) and grandson William (d. 1918), who enlarged the estate.52 In 1921, however, when it covered 1,744 a. including c.975 a. in Caversham, William’s nephew Jack sold it to the local investors Lt. Col. R.A. Mudie, William May, and Charles Hewett, who broke it up.53 The house and 52 a. of grounds were bought in 1922 by ,54 which in 1941 sold the premises to the BBC for £55,000. The house was used for the BBC’s monitoring service and (latterly) for its archives and as a base for BBC Radio Berkshire from 1943 to 2017.55

The Crawshay memorial in St Peter’s churchyard

48 Complete Peerage, II, 462; Hist. Parl. s.v. Chas. Sloane Cadogan. 49 Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 8 June 1784; OHC, QSD/L/61; N&Q, 11th ser. IX, 30. For Marsack, J.M. Holzman, The Nabobs in England: A Study of the Returned Anglo-Indian, 1760--1785 (1926), 43, 72, 153 (incorrectly giving his date of death as 1837); Malpas, Caversham Park, 70--1, 75; C. Williams, The Nabobs of Berkshire (2010), 237--43. 50 Oxf. Jnl 11 Nov. 1820; Public Advertiser, 3 Nov. 1784. 51 Berks. RO, D/EX 2144/1--2; ‘Caversham Park Estate’ (sale maps of 1832 and 1835): copies in Reading Central Library; Reading Mercury, 4 May 1829; 7 April 1838; TNA, tithe award and map; Sale Cat., Caversham Park, Oxon. (1920): copy in OHC; Malpas, Caversham Park, 75--7. 52 M.S. Taylor, The Crawshays of Cyfarthfa : A Family History (1967), 164, 168, 175--6 (with some incorrect dates); Malpas, Caversham Park, 86--9. 53 Sale Cat., Caversham Park, Oxon. (1920); OHC, PLU4/AS/A2/4/1--3; Malpas, Caversham Park, 92- -5. 54 Anon., The Oratory School Caversham, Reading [c.1936], 16; M. Read, Caversham Park and its People BC to BBC (2015), 95--102. 55 Read, Caversham Park, 3, 25; below, Shiplake, landownership (). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 6

Medieval Manor House

The medieval manorial complex was located at the later Dean’s Farm south-east of , its low-lying site occupying a gravel ‘island’ approached along a raised causeway.56 A house with a chapel was established there by the 12th century, possibly on the site of an earlier manorial complex.57 William Marshal embellished the chapel,58 and may have also invested substantially in the house and grounds, which in the 1190s included gardens and a fish pond.59 The premises were slighted in 1233 on royal orders, but two years later 100 oaks were given for repairs,60 and in the early 14th century the site (which included a barn and probably a malt-drying oven) was worth 4s. a year with its garden, although by 1375 it was worth nothing beyond reprises.61 A moat mentioned in the 15th century was probably of much earlier origin, and there were buildings within and without,62 presumably organized around two or more courtyards. Outbuildings in 1380 included two timber-framed stables, one of them seven bays long and with a tiled roof,63 while in 1493 the site included a ‘great garden’ and orchards apparently extending to the Thames, near which there was a brewhouse.64

The causeway towards Deans Farm (photo courtesy of David Cliffe)

By then the house -- although reserved to the Crown -- was little used, and in 1542 Francis Knollys was given permission to demolish it.65 Whether he did so is unknown, but the complex, apparently disused, was replaced by a farmhouse before 1632.66 Farm

56 Causeway shown in 1975 photo in Reading Central Library, BRN 4647273. 57 Above, landscape etc. (settlement); below, relig. hist. 58 Below, relig. hist. (Middle Ages). 59 Crouch, Acts and Letters of the Marshal Family, pp. 154--5. 60 Cal. Close 1231--34, 543; 1234--7, 103. 61 TNA, C 133/128/1; C 134/42/1, m. 10; C 135/252/1, m. 30. 62 Ibid. E 40/3176. 63 Cal. Inq. Misc. IV, 59. 64 TNA, E 40/3176; L&P Hen. VIII, XVII, p. 636. For the brewho., Cal. Pat. 1549--51, 72; BL, Add. Ch. 46163. 65 L&P Hen. VIII, XVII, p. 636. 66 Berks. RO, D/EC T77; BL, Add Ch. 46163. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 7

outbuildings demolished in the late 20th century incorporated re-used blocks of dressed stone probably from the site.67

Caversham Park

House and Grounds to 1718 The Dean Farm manor site was replaced from the late 16th century by a house (since twice rebuilt) in the re-landscaped medieval park east of .68 Its origins may have lain in a medieval park lodge mentioned in 1478, which was probably maintained for the royal park keepers appointed until the mid 16th century:69 in 1633 its successor was still described as the ‘mansion house called Caversham Lodge’,70 and the name persisted until the 19th century. The first gentry house was built probably for Sir Francis Knollys (d. 1596), creating the mansion in which his son William entertained Elizabeth I in 1601.71 A description of William’s entertainment for Anne of Denmark in 1613 mentioned a ‘fair’ brick house with an apparently large hall, located on a hillside ‘within view of Reading’, and set above upper and lower gardens linked by steps, while the park incorporated an avenue of trees implying an established residence. The main entrance was via a southern gate directly opposite the house, before which ‘a new passage’ had been ‘forced through arable land… lately paled in’.72 Charles I stayed at the house in 1647 (one of two flanking parkland avenues being later named after him),73 but the estate’s assets were stripped after sequestration, and in 1654 the house was ‘in ruins’.74 William Craven restored it, possibly employing the architect William Winde, who c.1663 was responsible for creating or restoring a tiered garden on the house’s south (or river) side, incorporating a terrace and two parterres with geometric beds.75 In 1665 the house was taxed on 30 hearths,76 making it one of the ten largest in the county.77 For a time it became the residence of William Craven’s kinsman Sir Anthony

67 Info. from David Cliffe, and photos in Reading Central Library. 68 For the park, below, econ. hist. (medieval). 69 Cal. Inq. p.m. Hen. VII, II, p. 172; above (descent to c.1600). For repairs in 1481--2, TNA, DL 29/643/10438. 70 Berks RO, R/D88/1/1. 71 J. Nichols, The Progresses, and Public Processions, of Queen Elizabeth… (1823), III, 567. It has been claimed that works carried out for Knollys before 1568 were probably at Caversham, though appears more likely: ODNB, s.v. Robert Smythson, master mason. 72 J. Nichols, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities, of King James I… (1828), II, pp. 630--9; M. Wiggins, British Drama, 1533--1642: A Catalogue, VI (2015), pp. 314--16. 73 Lords’ Jnl, IX, pp. 317, 327; Nichols, Progresses of James I, 634 n. 74 Below, econ. hist.; The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E.S. De Beer (2006 edn), 304. 75 Bodl. MS Gough Drawings a. 3, f. 8; Malpas, Caversham Park, 41--2; Tyack and Pevsner, Berks (2010), 483. For Winde, Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 902--5. 76 Hearth Tax Oxon. 12. 77 Oxon. Atlas, p. 96. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 8

Craven, Bt.,78 and it was apparently well maintained by the earl of Kildare, who entertained Mary of Modena there on her way to Bath in 1687.79

House and Grounds 1718--1850 In 1718--23 William Cadogan demolished the house and replaced it with a lavish mansion and formal garden described as ‘one of the ‘noblest seats in the kingdom’. The complex formed a ‘conspicuous…object from the Bath road’,80 and in its ambition and aesthetic was influenced probably by and Cliveden (Bucks.).81 No elevation survives, and the architect is unknown, but a contemporary plan shows a centre block with quadrant wings forming an elongated front on the south and a cour d’honneur on the north, the total width c.100 metres.82 The gardens, designed by Stephen Switzer of Newbury83 and created by a Mr Acres, included a 1,200-ft (366-m.) grand terrace adapted from Winde’s terrace, from which two flights of Portland stone steps descended 50 ft to a parterre ‘adorned with statuary, obelisks, urns and vases’, and flanked by two 900-ft canals terminating at Doric temples.84 Extensive kitchen gardens and orchards were accompanied by an 81-a. ‘great ’ below, a 240-a. deer park to the east, and a ‘fine pheasantry, managery, poultry house, and other conveniences’.85 The cost ran into many tens of thousands of pounds.86

Caversham Park in the early 18th century

78 Oxon. Visit. 1669--75, 84; John Loveday, ‘Tour no. 1’, transcription by Sarah Markham, kindly supplied by John Markham, May 2017. 79 Hist. Parl. s.v. John Fitzgerald. 80 Doran, Hist. and Antiqs Reading, 279. 81 Pevsner, Oxon. 398, 692; Oxon. Atlas, p. 98; Malpas, Caversham Park, 50--1. 82 C. Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus, III (1725); Malpas, Caversham Park, 50. 83 Berks RO, D/EX 258/9. 84 Bodl. 4° Rawl. 526; ibid. G.A. Oxon c. 317 (6). 85 Berks RO, D/EX/258/9; Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus, III; Bodl. 4° Rawl. 526; advert of c.1784 in ibid. G.A. Oxon c. 317 (6); NHLE, no. 1000524. 86 Bodl. G.A. Oxon c. 317 (6); Markham, John Loveday, 164; J.P. Neale, Views of the Seats of Noblemen, 2nd ser. vol. 1 (1824). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 9

Cadogan’s brother Charles (d. 1776) much altered the mansion and grounds. Before 1761 (and perhaps as early as the 1730s) he greatly reduced the house’s size, demolishing the wings (or the greater part of them), and making substantial changes to the three-storey central block,87 which is shown in late 18th-century views.88 Further changes followed, and by 1776 the recently completed interior included a new hall, a library formed from the old hall, a drawing room with fine tapestries, and a dining room, saloon, and breakfast room.89 The landscaped grounds were altered in two phases. Before 1761 the terrace was extended westwards, a third canal added in front of the house, and the central avenue of trees largely removed, while a new radial avenue was laid out through woodland to the south-east.90 In the 1760s Capability Brown redesigned the grounds in naturalistic style, retaining the terrace and canals, but removing the parterre and avenues and thinning trees near the house.91 He also replaced the northern approach with a new road curving round the house, passing south-east to the Henley road through a valley in the park.92 An ice-house north of the mansion may have been contemporary, and survived in the 1960s.93 Smaller-scale changes continued in the late 18th and early 19th century. Charles Sloane Cadogan made alterations to the house in 1779 (including turning the north courtyard into an entrance and saloon),94 while in the 1780s Charles Marsack thinned trees in the park, representing for some a ‘disfigurement’ caused by a parvenu’s ‘want of taste’. The opprobrium may, however, have resulted in part from the introduction of a charge for passing through the park.95 In the early 1820s Richard Marsack employed James Bailey to remodel the mansion’s exterior, adding a Doric portico to the north front and a large colonnaded Corinthian one modelled on the Pantheon to the south.96 He also added a separate range of coach houses and stabling around a carriage yard on the north side.97 Soon afterwards the house was unoccupied (its contents being sold in 1826), and by the

87 Rocque, Berks Map (1761); Malpas, Caversham Park, 58--9, 67; Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 360 (mid 18th-cent. drawing for gateway). Tyack and Pevsner, Berks (2010), 482, wrongly claims that the house was destroyed by fire in 1770 and rebuilt on a smaller scale. 88 e.g. Picturesque Views of the Principal Seats of the Nobility and Gentry of England and Wales (1786--8). 89 E.J. Climenson (ed.), Passages from the Diaries of Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys of Hardwick House, Oxon. AD 1756 to 1808 (1899), 161--2. 90 Rocque, Berks Map (1761). A Doric temple stood at the terrace’s western end by 1786 (E.M. Betts, Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book (1944), 112), and may have been erected at the same time. 91 Jefferys, Oxon. Map (1767); Davis, Oxon. Map (1797); Brewer, Oxon. 341--2; D. Stroud, Capability Brown (1975), 132; B. Viljoen, Lancelot Brown and the Landscape of Caversham Park (2016), 9--10; Malpas, Caversham Park, 59--65; Tyack and Pevsner, Berks (2010), 483. 92 T. Whately, Observations on Modern Gardening (1765), pp. 140--4; Viljoen, Lancelot Brown, 9, 11. 93 OS Map 1:2500, Oxon. LVI.11 (1878 edn); Bodl. MS. Top. Oxon. d. 535. 94 Malpas, Caversham Park, 67. 95 Holzman, The Nabobs in England, 25--6; World and Fashionable Advertiser, 5 Nov. 1787. 96 The Henley Guide (1826), 65; Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 81; Pevsner, Oxon. 692; Tyack and Pevsner, Berks (2010), 482; Neale, Views of the Seats of Noblemen (listing the main ground-floor rooms); Bodl. MS Top Oxon b 282, ff. 15, 17--18. 97 Reading Mercury, 4 May 1829; Neale, Views of the Seats of Noblemen. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 10

1830s it was dilapidated.98 It was restored by William Crawshay, who added flanking colonnades (by J.T. Crew) in 1841,99 and who was probably responsible for the present stone gate piers on Road, the three lodges, and the inner park walls.100 The canals were filled in by 1844, save for one south-west of the house.101

Caversham Park in the late 18th century

House and Grounds since 1850 In 1850 the house was destroyed by fire, though the colonnades survived.102 Its replacement, by Horace Jones, is of Bath stone mounted on an iron frame, and was the largest built in the county during the 19th century.103 Its rather conventional Italianate south front includes a seven-bay piano nobile with composite half- columns, and pedimented windows in the outer bays.104 The main feature of the rendered and otherwise plain (north) entrance front is an Ionic porte cochère (now a reception room), which leads to a vestibule, outer hall, and galleried inner hall with tessellated paving and

98 Sale Cat., Effects of Caversham Park (1826): copy in Bodl.; Malpas, Caversham Park, 76. 99 Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 240. 100 TNA, tithe map; OS Map 1:2500, Oxon. LVI.11 (1878 edn); NHLE, nos. 1113561 (walls), 1113559 (gate piers). 101 Davis, Oxon. Map (1797); Bryant, Oxon. Map (1823, showing two canals); TNA, tithe map. For garden works generally, E. Bradshaw, James Jeffrey, Head Gardener at Caversham Park 1888--1894 (2016). 102 Illustrated London News, 26 Jan. 1850. 103 NHLE, no. 1113560; Tyack and Pevsner, Berks (2010), 482; ODNB, s.v. Horace Jones. 104 Pevsner, Oxon. 692; Tyack and Pevsner, Berks (2010), 482; Oxon. Atlas, p. 124. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 11

glazed iron roof.105 The now much altered rooms on the south front included a drawing room, library, and dining room, with a winter garden and orangery behind the western colonnade. First- and second-floor accommodation included a large boudoir, six principal bedrooms, four dressing rooms, seven secondary bedrooms, and eleven servants’ bedrooms.106 To the north-west, a large service block and stable surviving from the earlier house was modernized c.1890. After 1922 the house was adapted for school use and a free-standing chapel was added, but in 1926 the building was again severely damaged by fire.107 The BBC made further alterations during the Second World War, with larger changes following in the 1980s and in 2007--8.108 The park itself was much altered and reduced following the estate’s break-up in 1921. Playing fields and sports facilities were developed to the north of the house, and allotments and a burial ground to the south, while a primary school was built to the south- west in 1950, followed by much encroachment by housing development especially in the 1960s--70s.109 The 18th- to 19th-century brick-walled kitchen garden south-west of the house became a commercial nursery before being turned into a mobile home park in 1951.110

Caversham Park in the early 21st century (courtesy of Wikipedia)

The Cane End Estate

105 For a ground-floor plan, photos, and description, Sale Cat., Caversham Park, Oxon. (1920): copy in OHC. 106 Ibid.; Tyack and Pevsner, Berks (2010), 482. 107 B. Rotheray, A History of Caversham Park (c.2009), 24--5; Reading Mercury, 4 Sept. 1926. 108 Rotheray, Caversham Park, 26--31; Malpas, Caversham Park, 101--5. 109 OS Map 1:2500, Oxon. LVI.11--12 (1932 and later edns); Malpas, Caversham Park, 93--5. 110 OS Map 1:2500, Oxon. LVI.11 (1956 edn); NHLE, nos. 1000524, 1302854; Malpas, Caversham Park, 94. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 12

During the 13th and 14th centuries, Notley abbey built up an estate concentrated in the north-west at Cane End, and in neighbouring Mapledurham. Much of it was apparently obtained through piecemeal grants from local landholders, including 80 a. given by Roger de Condicote in the 13th century.111 The estate was confiscated at the Dissolution and sold in 1544 (for £168 1s. 8d.) to Anthony Brigham (d. 1553), a member of the king’s household.112 By the 1840s it covered 657 a. in Caversham and 74 a. in Mapledurham, with a small amount of land in Reading.113 A manor court was held in the 16th and 17th centuries, although its origins are uncertain.114 The estate remained in the Brigham family until the 18th century, passing from Anthony to his sons Thomas and Christopher, and then to Christopher’s descendants, all called Thomas.115 Thomas Brigham (d. 1742) left two daughters,116 of whom the elder (Elizabeth) married William Vanderstegen (d. 1797), the son of a Dutch merchant.117 They were succeeded in direct descent by William (d. 1831), William (d. 1892), and Henry (d. 1940),118 who expanded the estate to 1,592 a. through purchases in , Shambridge, Basildon (Berks.), Reading, and elsewhere,119 despite sales in 1925 of houses and building sites in Cane End, , Kidmore End, and .120 On Henry’s death the house and the core of the estate were bought by the farmer Milton Harris of Little Milton Manor, who sold it piecemeal,121 the house and 504 a. being acquired in 1947 by Anthony Hordern (d. 1979).122 After his son Edward’s death in 2000 the expanded estate (then 1,082 a.) was sold again,123 the house and a small area around it passing to the businessman Adrian Paine, and most of the rest to Aubrey Adams of Vines Farm. Both remained in possession in 2018.124

Cane End House

111 Rot. Hund. II, 38; ChCh, Notley roll, mm. 5--10; C. Haigh and D. Loades, ‘The Fortunes of the Shrine of St Mary of Caversham’, Oxoniensia, 46 (1981), 66. 112 L&P Hen. VIII, XIX (1), p. 620; TNA, E 318/5/170; ibid. PROB 11/36/192; Pearman, ‘Historical Notices of Caversham’, 36. 113 TNA, tithe award and map; below, Mapledurham, landownership. 114 Below, local govt. 115 Oxon. Visit. 301; Oxon. Visit. 1669--75, 7. 116 TNA, PROB 11/721/303. 117 Smith-Masters, The History of Kidmore End, 32; S. Oliver, ‘The Desire to Metabolize Nature: Edward Loveden Loveden, William Vanderstegen, and the Disciplining of the ’, in N. Heynen et al., In The Nature of Cities (2006), 99. 118 Burke’s Landed Gentry (1937 edn), 2319. 119 Sale Cat., The Cane End Estate (1940): copy in OHC. 120 Sale Cat., Outlying Portions of the Cane End Estate (1925): copy in Reading Central Library. 121 OHC, Acc. 4906/1--3; Sale Cat., The Cane End Estate (1943): copy in HE Arch. 122 OHC, Acc. 4906/3. 123 Sale Cat., The Cane End Estate, (2000): copy in private hands. 124 Local information. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 13

Cane End House is a red-brick, six-bayed, and originally two-storeyed structure of probably 16th-century origin, with 18th- to 20th-century additions and alterations.125 Early features include what appears to be 17th-century painted panelling in the dining room and a first-floor bedroom. The house (assessed on nine hearths in 1662)126 was re-fronted in the 18th century, possibly in stages: sash windows were inserted and dormers with segmental open pediments added to the hipped roof, while other features include dentil cornicing on the north, a parapet to the rear (garden) front, and string courses on both the north and south fronts, as well as an eight-panelled front door with fanlight and flanking Venetian window surround. An irregular, partly single-storey north-east wing was added by William Vanderstegen III (d. 1892) in the mid 19th century,127 the house’s slate roof being presumably of that date. The house was renovated in the early 1940s and again c.1980,128 while interior alterations were carried out in 2001--2.129 An ‘American-barn’-style complex of livery stables replaced modern farm buildings north-west of the house in 2003--4 at a cost of £1.35 million,130 although an older two-storey brick building used as a stable was retained and converted to staff accommodation.

Cane End House

Rectory Estate

Caversham church and its endowments were given to Notley abbey by Walter Giffard in the 1160s, the glebe, tithes, and advowson passing in 1542 (after the abbey’s suppression) to Christ Church, Oxford.131 The glebe comprised land granted mainly by the lords of

125 NHLE, no. 1368957; HE Arch. 4853/32--6 (photos of 1940--1); ibid. MD80/00705 (1979 floor plans); Smith-Masters, The History of Kidmore End, 30, 32, 34; Pevsner, Oxon. 673. 126 Powell, Records of the Hearth Tax for Reading and Caversham, 14; but only 8 in 1665. 127 TNA, tithe map; OS Map 1:2500, Oxon. LVI.2 (1879 edn). 128 OHC, Acc. 4906/1--3; OS Map 1:2500, Oxon. LVI.2 (1965 edn); Sale Cat., The Cane End Estate, South Oxfordshire (2000); local information. 129 SODC planning docs (available online). 130 Ibid.; http://www.woodfieldbrady.co.uk/uploads/cane%20end%20stables.pdf. 131 Below, relig. hist. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 14

Caversham in the 12th and 13th centuries,132 and in 1685 covered c.62 a;133 glebe and tithes together were valued at £10 a year in 1254, and at £16 3s. 4d. in 1291 and 1428.134 Demesne tithes granted to Newington Longeville priory (Bucks.) in 1155 were given to Notley abbey in 1235, in return for a 6-mark (£4) annual payment.135 Both the abbey and Christ Church leased the land and tithes to tenants, many of whom sublet them,136 resulting in occasional disputes over possession.137 From 1554 until the 1790s Christ Church charged lessees an entry fine and £18 annual rent, its early long leases gradually giving way to 21-year terms.138 Otherwise there was marked continuity, the lease remaining in the Loveday family from 1666 until 1799. The estate’s true value was far greater than the rents, and in 1702 Dr Robert South (a canon of Christ Church who lived in Caversham) recommended that the fines be increased, claiming that the tenant received some £335 a year including £250 from tithes and £50 from the glebe.139 By 1799 the real annual value was £700--£800.140 That same year William Blackall Simonds, a Reading brewer and banker, bought the estate for £4,949 12s.141 The college later claimed that he had deceived their surveyor (Richard Davis) about the parish’s extent, and brought an unsuccessful case against him in chancery.142 The Simondses sold some of the tithes, retaining £604 out of the £1,087 commuted rent charge established in 1845,143 and in 1869 Henry Simonds sold additional tithe rent to the governors of Queen Anne’s Bounty to augment the living.144 His son Henry Caversham Simonds (d. 1918) sold the rectory house and the remaining land in the early 20th century.145

132 Crouch, Acts and Letters of the Marshal Family, pp. 80--1, 153--6, 399--401; ChCh, Notley roll, mm. 3--5; Haigh and Loades, ‘Fortunes of the Shrine of St Mary’, 65--6. Some grants were in support of the chapel and shrine of St Mary, which had been granted to the abbey with the church: below, relig. hist. 133 OHC, MS Oxf. Archd. Oxon. c 141, f. 21; cf. ChCh, MS Estates 65, f. 117, measuring it at 78 a. in 1799. 134 Lunt (ed.), Val. Norw. 304; Tax Eccl. 30; Feudal Aids, VI, 372. 135 H.E. Salter (ed.), Newington Longeville Charters (ORS 3, 1921), pp. ix, xxvi--xxix, 2, 6, 54--6, 102, 104. 136 e.g. Mapledurham Archive, C3/6 (mentioning farmer of ‘St Peter’s’). 137 Oxf. Ch. Ct Deposns 1542--50, 24; Pearman, ‘Historical Notices of Caversham’, 44--5. 138 ChCh, Caversham A.1--46. 139 Ibid. MS Estates 65, ff. 20--6. For South, Markham, John Loveday, 105--6. 140 ChCh, MS Estates 65, f. 127. 141 Ibid. ff. 101--103. 142 Ibid. ff. 105--248; ibid. MS Estates 66, f. 247; Berks RO, D/EX 170 L 1. 143 TNA, tithe award; ibid. IR 18/7641; OHC, E30/1/D/4--5; Birch VIII/7. 144 Berks RO, D/P162/3/1/1--7. 145 For early 20th-cent. tenants and owners, Caversham Court Gardens: A Heritage Guide (2012), 51- -9. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 15

Rectory House (Caversham Court)146

The house for the estate stood immediately south of the church, on a site where archaeological finds indicate medieval occupation perhaps as early as the 11th century,147 and where there was a house by the 14th.148 In 1588 the complex included a mansion house, malthouse, barns, stable, and dovecot,149 and the later house, renamed Caversham Court c.1920 and demolished in 1933, may have had 16th-century origins. A datestone of 1551 survives mounted on a section of later walling,150 and a late 18th-century drawing shows timber-framed buildings of apparently 16th- or early 17th-century date arranged around a courtyard.151 A newel-post inscribed with the date 1638152 apparently belonged to stairs inserted by William Milward (alias Alexander) of Caversham, who obtained the lease the previous year,153 and by 1662 the house had 17 hearths.154 Thomas Loveday (d. 1681), a London goldsmith who acquired the lease in 1666,155 may have been responsible for a large walled garden north of the house, which included a two-storeyed brick garden house approached along a raised walkway;156 otherwise the Lovedays seem to have retained the basic arrangement to the end of their tenure in the 1790s, when the house was described as ‘a large and very ancient mansion with a quadrangle in the middle, built partly of brick and partly of timber with lath and plaster’. Outbuildings included a coach house, three brick and timber barns, and surviving brick and tile stables of mid to late 17th-century date. There was also a large high-walled kitchen garden, and a separate house occupied by a subtenant.157 William Simonds updated the house in the early 19th century (demolishing part in 1810),158 and in the 1860s, when Henry Simonds came to reside, it was remodelled in gothic Pugin-style. A billiard room and fernery were added at the rear c.1880, and central heating

146 Sale Cats in Reading Central Library. For a full account with phased reconstruction drawings, Caversham Court Gardens. 147 J. McNicoll-Norbury and D. Milbank, ‘Medieval Occupation at The Rectory, Church Road, Caversham, Reading’, Berks. Archaeol. Jnl 81 (2013), 84. 148 Pearman, ‘Historical Notices of Caversham’, 4. For Romanesque corbels mounted on terrace walk gate piers, Caversham Court Gardens, 14--15; http://www.crsbi.ac.uk/site/505/. 149 TNA, C 2/ELIZ/B25/42. 150 SOAG Bulletin 52 (1997), 30 (giving date as 1550); Caversham Court Gardens, 8 (photo). 151 S. Markham and H.G. Arnold, The Gazebo and Caversham Court, Reading (c.1977). 152 Reading Museum, 1971.86.1. 153 ChCh, Caversham A.2--3. 154 Powell, Records of the Hearth Tax for Reading and Caversham, 14; though cf. Hearth Tax Oxon. 12 (s.v. Sir John Browne), taxing only 13 in 1665. 155 ChCh, Caversham A.9; John Loveday, ‘Tour no. 1’, transcription by Sarah Markham, kindly supplied by John Markham, May 2017. 156 Markham and Arnold, The Gazebo and Caversham Court; H.G. Arnold, ‘The Gazebo, Caversham Court, Reading’, Garden History, 4.2 (1976), 10--13; NHLE, nos. 1000582, 1113447 (garden house), 1154940 (terrace retaining walls). 157 ChCh, MS Estates 65, f. 46; for the stables, NHLE, no. 1321972; Caversham Court Gardens, 36-- 7. 158 Para. based on Markham and Arnold, The Gazebo and Caversham Court, Reading; Caversham Court Gardens; NHLE, no. 1000582. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 16

was installed in the early 20th century, but otherwise the house (by then with 16 bedrooms) was little altered.159 From 1927 it was briefly used as a country club, before being bought by in 1931. The council demolished it two years later, opening the grounds to the public and turning the old kitchen garden into allotments.160 Late 20th-century decay was rectified by a restoration project completed in 2009.161

Other Estates

Several small medieval estates existed particularly in the centre and north of the parish, although few can be traced in detail.162 Reading abbey’s holdings included 72 a. of woodland given by William Marshal II in compensation for damage he had caused whilst fighting against the king, while half a hide of arable land was given by Roger of Condicote.163 Such estates were increased during the 17th and 18th centuries by lands sold off from Caversham manor, creating the fifteen or so substantial freeholds and numerous owner-occupied smallholdings taxed in 1785, one of the largest of them owned by the duke of Marlborough.164 Sizeable estates 60 years later included those of George Dew (the 676-a. Kidmore End estate, owned earlier by Thomas Willats), George Donkin (330 a.), Catherine Fell (282 a.), Ebenezer Maitland (275 a.), Michael Blount of Mapledurham (253 a.), the Revd John Holding (196 a.), and Christ Church (155 a.), the last comprising lands bequeathed to the college by Robert South (d. 1716).165 An estate of 1,246 a. in the north of the parish was built up by the Mackenzie family of Fawley Court (Bucks.) in the later 19th century, but was broken up in 1906.166

159 Sale Cats. in Berks. RO; Reading Mercury, 24 April 1909. 160 Caversham Court Gardens, 59--61. 161 Horticulture Week, 6 Feb. and 21 Aug. 2009. 162 e.g. Oxon. Fines, pp. 68, 242; TNA, C 1/75/68. 163 B.R. Kemp (ed.), Reading Abbey Cartularies (Camden 4th ser. 31 and 33, 1986--7), II, 225--8; Pearman, ‘Historical Notices of Caversham’, 37. 164 OHC, QSD/L/61; above (Caversham manor); below, econ. hist. (1530--1800) . 165 TNA, tithe award and map. For Willats, Bodl. MS Top. Oxon. e 64; for South, ChCh, Caversham B- -F. 166 Sale Cat., The Rose Hill and Gillotts Estates Oxfordshire (1906).