VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 1
VCH Oxfordshire Texts in Progress
Checkendon
Landownership
In the late Anglo-Saxon period all or part of the parish belonged to the Benson royal estate, demonstrably so in the case of Wyfold in the uplands (granted to Thame abbey in the 1150s), and nearby Neal’s farm, a medieval freehold still attached to Benson manor in the 1780s. Checkendon and Littlestoke formed independent 5- and 3-hide manors by 1066,1 held together (chiefly by the Marmion and Rede families) until 1551 when they became permanently divided. Wyfold manor, too, descended in two parts from 1546, centred on Wyfold Court (now Wyfold Grange) and Hook End Farm (now Hook End Manor); a new mansion house (to which the name Wyfold Court was transferred) was erected on a greenfield site in the 1870s, when the attached estate covered 1,367 acres. The separate Braziers estate (c.1,100 a. in 1774) was amassed by the Blackall family in the 18th century, centred on Braziers House or Park, while sizeable medieval freeholds included the rectory estate and probably Hammond’s farm.
Checkendon Manor
Descent to c.1400
Checkendon (like Littlestoke) was held in 1066 by Wulfræd, and in 1086 by Wigod of Wallingford’s nephew Alfred.2 Both manors apparently reverted to the Crown, passing with Stanton Harcourt from Henry I’s wife Queen Adeliza to her kinswoman Milicent, who c.1130 married Robert Marmion (d. 1144).3 His son Robert (d. c.1181) gave the advowson to Coventry priory in the 1170s,4 and the overlordship descended with the Marmions’ honor of Tamworth (Staffs.) throughout the 13th century.5 By 1489, however, Checkendon was held of the honor of Wallingford, and from 1540 of its successor the honor of Ewelme.6 Robert (d. c.1181) subinfeudated the manor c.1175 to Geoffrey Marmion and his brother William, who held it together as half a knight’s fee, and each occupied a third worth
1 DB, f. 160. 2 Ibid. 3 Boarstall Cart. p. 1; Reading Cart. I, pp. 405−6; VCH Oxon. XII, 274. 4 Boarstall Cart. p. 4; Complete Peerage, VIII, 505−9; below, relig. hist. (advowson). 5 Book of Fees, II, 829, 841; Rot. Hund. II, 42, 779; Cal. Inq. p.m. III, 19. For the honor, Sanders, Eng. Baronies, 145; VCH Staffs. XII (forthcoming). 6 Cal. Inq. p.m. Hen. VII, I, 198; II, 157; TNA, C 142/140/155; ibid. WARD 2/9/28A/1. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 2
£5. Geoffrey later gave his portion to William,7 who was perhaps still living in 1200.8 An intermediate lordship was inserted above him c.1205, when Robert’s son Robert granted Checkendon and Littlestoke to his own son William (a clerk), and c.1218 transferred that interest (with William’s assent) to the family’s Norman foundation of Barbery abbey (Calvados), which also took over an obligation to pay Thame abbey 2 lb of wax a year as rent for 20 a. of woodland, presumably in Wyfold. Beneath Barbery abbey, another William Marmion (a knight) was tenant c.1205 and c.1218, paying £8 rent as well as Thame abbey’s wax.9 Sir Geoffrey Marmion (probably his son) succeeded on the same terms before 1222, but in 1246 was freed from the rent for a payment of 115 marks (£76 13s. 4d.), provided he still paid the wax.10 Barbery abbey’s interest was last recorded in 1279.11 Sir Geoffrey was succeeded before 1255 by his son William, whose relative John Marmion (perhaps his brother and tenant) was granted free warren in Checkendon and Littlestoke in 1258.12 The two manors together were then reckoned at one knight’s fee.13 William died by 1266 leaving a 6-year-old son John, during whose long minority a part was granted to Geoffrey’s widow Rosamund for £19 a year. The rent (and by 1272 John’s wardship) were acquired by the royal administrator and moneylender Adam de Stratton, who recovered the advowson and in 1273 sold the wardship and marriage to Sir Henry Nottingham for £240. Nottingham married his daughter Margery to John, and returned the manor to Stratton on her behalf.14 On Rosamund’s death c.1273 Stratton let her land to two of her sons for £34 a year, reserving their revenues for the first six months;15 John was called lord in 1279, however, and came of age in 1281.16 John and Margery were succeeded between 1313 and 1331 by their son John (fl. 1331–46),17 then by John’s son Geoffrey (fl. 1354).18 Geoffrey died before 1359 when his
7 Boarstall Cart. pp. 12–13. Their relationship to the lords of Tamworth is unclear (ibid. p. 2), but possibly they were Robert’s nephews: T. Stapleton (ed.), Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniæ sub Regibus Angliæ, II (1844), p. xcix. 8 Thame Cart. II, no. 166. 9 Boarstall Cart. pp. 14–16; N. Vincent (ed.), Norman Charters from English Sources (PRS n.s. 59, 2013), pp. 196−7. 10 Boarstall Cart. pp. 2, 16; Oxon. Fines, p. 132; Vincent (ed.), Norman Charters, pp. 196−7. 11 Rot. Hund. II, 779; cf. Boarstall Cart. p. 16. 12 Rot. Hund. II, 42; Cal. Chart. 1257−1300, 5. Boarstall Cart. pp. 19–20 (no. 37) names John as Wm’s son, but cf. ibid. p. 20; Placit. in Domo Capit. Abbrev. 182; and below. 13 Rot. Hund. II, 42, 779; cf. Book of Fees, II, 829; Feudal Aids, IV, 176, 200. 14 Boarstall Cart. p. 19 n. 2; Cat. Anct. Deeds, II, A.3177, A.3179, A.3181; IV, A.9184; TNA, E 42/59; E 42/77; ibid. SC 6/750/13; Placit. in Domo Capit. Abbrev. 182; ODNB, s.v. Adam de Stratton. 15 Cat. Anct. Deeds, II, A.3180; V, A.10444. 16 Rot. Hund. II, 779; Boarstall Cart. p. 19 n. 2. 17 TNA, CP 25/1/189/14, no. 97; Boarstall Cart. pp. 25–6; Feudal Aids, IV, 176; cf. Goring Charters, I, pp. lviii, 71. 18 Boarstall Cart. p. 27; TNA, CP 25/1/190/19, no. 49; Cooke, ‘Docs’, 4–5. (Despite Boarstall Cart. p. 2 and Goring Charters, I, p. lviii, there is no evidence that John was alive in 1355.) VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 3
son was a minor in the Black Prince’s wardship;19 he evidently died soon after, however, and the manor was divided between the daughters of Geoffrey’s uncle Thomas Marmion: Margaret (who married Walter Smith of Woodcote), and Alice (wife of William Halyngrigge). Following Alice’s death before 1367 her half-share was further divided between her daughters Cecily (wife of John Rede) and Margaret,20 the manor being reunited only in the mid 15th century.
Memorial brasses in the chancel of the parish church to (left) John Rede (d. 1404) and (below) his wife Cecily (d. 1428).
Descent from c.1400
John Rede of Checkendon (d. 1404), holder of a quarter share, was a lawyer and twice MP for Oxfordshire. His widow Cecily married Sir Thomas Sackville (d. 1406) of Fawley (Bucks.), and retained the share until her death in 1428 when it passed to her son Edmund Rede (d. 1430). His son Edmund (d. 1489) was then a minor, and from 1434 the share was briefly held by the elder Edmund’s widow Christine (d. 1435), daughter and heir of Robert James of Wallingford.21 In 1440 Edmund acquired the separate half-share through an exchange with Richard Marmion of Littlestoke (preceded probably by his father Richard),22 and added the remaining quarter c.1457–9.23 That had earlier been held by William Halyngrigge (in 1393),24
19 Black Prince's Reg. IV, 296. 20 Boarstall Cart. pp. 2, 25–8; Cooke, ‘Docs’, 4−5; TNA, CP 25/1/190/22, no. 16. 21 Hist. Parl. s.v. John Rede; Boarstall Cart. pp. vii−ix, 30–2; Cal. Inq. p.m. XXIV, pp. 276–7; Cal. Close 1435−41, 4; OHC, Marmion I/i/13. 22 Boarstall Cart. pp. 3, 33; cf. VCH Oxon. VIII, 9; OHC, Marmion III/i/1; Cooke, ‘Docs’, 58−60. 23 TNA, C 139/163/15; Boarstall Cart. p. 39 (no. 120), the apparently reunited manor. 24 Berks. RO, D/EH/T64/6. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 4
then perhaps by William atte Dene (fl. 1398),25 Sir Gilbert Wace (d. 1409), and Sir Richard Camoys (d. 1416),26 followed by Robert Radmylde (d. 1457).27 Edmund served as MP for Oxfordshire and was knighted in 1465, leaving the reunited manor (together with Standhill manor in Pyrton) to his second wife Katherine, widow of John Gaynesford of Crowhurst (Surrey). Both manors were to support masses and ‘charitable deeds’ for ten years with reversion to Edmund’s heirs,28 and on Katherine’s death in 1498 they passed to her and Edmund’s grandson Sir William Rede (d. 1527) of Boarstall (Bucks.).29 In 1547 his son Leonard sold the manor (reckoned at c.500 a. in 1505) to his son- in-law Thomas Dynham of Piddington,30 who in 1552 sold half-shares to William Keate (d. 1554) of Hagbourne (Berks.) and Roger Ponsonby, rector of Checkendon.31 Keate’s son John acquired Ponsonby’s half after the latter’s death in 1555,32 and died in 1563 leaving an infant son also called John.33 Custody of the manor during the son’s minority belonged to his mother Frances, who before 1565 married Leonard Lidcott.34 John Keate came of age in 158335 and died in 1618, leaving an adult son Leonard (d. 1622/3). Leonard’s coheirs were his daughters Mary and Dorothy, both minors in the wardship of their mother Dorothy and her father Sir Richard Moore of Bledlow (Bucks.).36 The younger Dorothy died childless before 1639, when her share probably reverted to Leonard’s brother John Keate;37 by 1650, however, it belonged to Richard Blount of Ewelme, who enfranchised copyholds and in 1655 sold his remaining estate to William Dormer (d. 1683) of Ascot in Great Milton, whose son John retained it in 1686.38 Like Dormer’s Warpsgrove manor it was acquired by Richard Blackall (d. 1743) of Wallingford, possibly in 1704,39 and formed part of the Blackalls’ Braziers estate until at least 1822.40 Mary Keate entered on the remaining half (which included the manor house) in 1639 on her marriage to Anthony Lybbe (d. 1674), heir to the Hardwick estate in Whitchurch. Their
25 Ibid. D/EH/L1; cf. C.T. Flower (ed.), Public Works in Medieval Law, II (Selden Soc. 40), 126. 26 Boarstall Cart. pp. 9–11; BL, Harl. Ch. 54 I 34; below (other estates). 27 TNA, C 139/163/15; cf. VCH Oxon. V, 50, 110; VII, 11, 123. 28 Boarstall Cart. pp. ix−x, 292−3; Oxon. Wills, 42−6; VCH Oxon. VIII, 153. 29 Cal. Inq. p.m. Hen. VII, II, 156−7; Cal. Fine 1485−1509, 278; VCH Oxon. VIII, 153. 30 Boarstall Cart. p. x; BL, Harl. Ch. 79 G 13; for acreage, TNA, C 131/252/23. 31 TNA, WARD 2/9/28A/9−10, 13; cf. Cooke, ‘Docs’, 61; below, relig. hist. 32 VCH Berks. III, 477; TNA, PROB 11/36/405; PROB 11/37/248 (requiring proceeds of the sale to Keate to fund masses, dirges, and charities). 33 TNA, C 142/140/155. For a 1564 manorial survey, ibid. SP 12/34, no. 25; Pearman, ‘Notices’, 42−4. 34 TNA, WARD 2/9/28A/12 and 14; Oxon. Visit. 122. 35 TNA, WARD 2/9/28A/11. 36 Ibid. C 142/370/89; ibid. PROB 11/141/147; OHC, E372/D1/1. 37 OHC, E1/5/1D/9, calling Mary ‘sole daughter and heir of Leonard Keate’; ibid. E1/14/1D/2; ibid. E372/D1/6. 38 TNA, C 5/519/13; C 8/263/77; C 8/637/51; C 10/77/35; ibid. CP 25/2/588/1655EASTER; VCH Oxon. VII, 127. 39 TNA, CP 43/484, ro. 124; VCH Oxon. XVIII, 425. 40 OHC, SL146/4/D/2−21; ibid. Vor XXV/i/1; below (Braziers). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 5
eldest son Richard settled it before 1682 on his brother the Revd Anthony Lybbe (d. 1703), rector of Checkendon, who was succeeded by his son Anthony (d. 1731) and by that Anthony’s nephew John Breedon of Pangbourne (Berks.).41 He sold it in 1765 to the naval admiral Sir Charles Hardy (d. 1780) of Woodcote House in South Stoke, who acquired half of Wyfold manor by marriage,42 and whose son George sold the Woodcote and Checkendon estates to John Peter Auriol in 1788. He sold them in 1801 to Henry Calverley Cotton, whose Checkendon land covered over 775 a.,43 and who sold both estates in 1819 to Capt. Thomas Fraser (d. 1823).44 His daughter Eleanor married the Scotsman Adam Duff, who owned 290 a. in Checkendon in 1841 and built Heath End as a new residence,45 his predecessors having remained at Woodcote House.46 Duff (called lord in 1852)47 died in 1870 and Eleanor in 1876, succeeded by their son Thomas Fraser Duff (d. 1877) and by Thomas’s son Robert Fraser Duff. He lived at Checkendon Court by 1887,48 and before 1891 sold Heath End with 45 a. to the timber merchant Elisha Hunt. From him it passed to his relative Henry Hunt,49 in 1900 to the artist Arthur Hacker,50 and in 1903 to the solicitor Sir Edward Busk, who acquired some of Duff’s other lands along with manorial rights.51 Following his death in 1926 the estate was retained by his widow Marian (d. 1941),52 who left it (still with the lordship) to her nephew Lewis Balfour;53 he died in 1974, and the 207-a. estate was broken up.54 Duff himself retained Checkendon Court with 125 a. until 1905, when he sold it to the draper and polemicist Frederick Scott Oliver.55 The house’s later owners included the businessman Herbert Rothbarth (d. 1959),56 the army officer Harold Phillips (d. 1980),57 and the businessmen Sir
41 OHC, E372/D1/4, 10−15, 17−22; ibid. E1/5/1D/9; E1/13/1D/8−10; TNA, PROB 11/644/169; VCH Berks. III, 304; below, relig. hist. (Reformn to 1820); Whitchurch, landownership. Three sisters of Anth. (d. 1731) surrendered an interest in 1744. 42 OHC, E1/16/1D/1; ODNB, s.v. Hardy, Sir Chas; VCH Oxon. VII, 97; below (Wyfold). 43 OHC, E1/16/1D/1; ibid. SL199/D/33−4; UCA, E24/E1/1; Sale Cat., Woodcott or Rawlins Estate (1800): copy in Bodl. G.A. Fol. A 266 (43). 44 The Times, 31 Aug. 1816; OHC, PAR61/9/MS1/2, ff. 63−6; Fraser mem. in church. 45 A.N. and H.A.H. Tayler, The Book of the Duffs, II (1914), 322, 327; OHC, tithe award; below (manor houses). 46 e.g. OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c 658, ff. 104–6; Fraser mem. in church. 47 Gardner's Dir. Oxon. (1852). 48 Tayler and Tayler, Duffs, II, 322; OHC, par. reg. transcript s.a. 1876; PO Dir. Oxon. (1877); Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1883−1907 edns). 49 TNA, RG 12/1157; Berks. RO, D/EX2277/1/7; D/EX2277/1/8/1−2; Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1891−9 edns). 50 The Times, 17 Nov. 1900; Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1903 edn); ODNB, s.v. Hacker, Art. 51 OHC, RDC8/8/Y1/4/2; RDC8/8/Y1/4/5; The Times, 1 Nov. 1926. Duff was still lord in 1904: OHC, PAR61/10/C/1. 52 The Times, 1 Nov. 1926; 31 Mar. 1941; Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1928−39 edns). 53 Check. scrapbk, p. 87; The Times, 10 Feb. 1939. 54 The Times, 10 May 1974; Reading Evening Post, 24 May 1974. 55 Check. Hist. 18; ODNB, s.v. Oliver, Fred. Scot. 56 Check. scrapbk, p. 81; Check. Hist. 18; Checkendon Court [c.1955]: pamphlet in Checkendon Hist. Group Archive. 57 Reading Mercury, 1 Dec. 1962; The Times, 19 Dec. 1980; Check. Hist. 18; Check. Echoes, 68−9. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 6
Nigel Broackes (d. 1999) and John Robinson (d. 2013),58 the attached land covering only 47 a. by 1962.59
Manor Houses
Checkendon Court A manor house mentioned in 1269−70 (when building repairs cost 10s.) stood probably on the site of Checkendon Court.60 John Rede may have remodelled it c.1400,61 and in 1406 his widow Cecily was licensed to have a chapel or oratory there.62 The buildings were later replaced with the surviving red brick house of three bays and 2½ storeys, with three gables to front and back, brick chimneystacks, tiled roofs, platbands, mullioned-and-transomed windows, and an off-centre two-storey entrance porch on the principal (north-east) façade;63 work was presumably begun by Leonard Keate (d. 1622/3), who asked that his executors should ‘finish and perfect and make up the building of my house at Checkendon which I have now begun and intended to have perfected’.64 In the 1660s the house had eight hearths,65 and in 1703 (when recently occupied by the Revd Anthony Lybbe) five chambers, two parlours, a study, and a nursery. A contemporary summer house was presumably that illustrated with the main house’s principal façade in 1711, occupying one corner of a geometric walled garden containing a central sundial and four rectangular beds. The neighbouring field-name Kiln Close may indicate that bricks and tiles for the house were made onsite.66 Eighteenth-century remodelling included insertion of sash windows, new fireplaces, and panelling.67 Alterations for F.S. Oliver c.1906 (by the architect Maxwell Maberly Smith) included remodelling the north-east façade, which acquired a single-storey entrance porch and an eastern extension with a loggia and bedroom above; a smaller western extension was also added, and the main staircase rebuilt, while a row of cottages was erected immediately north-west. Before 1921 the Olivers also redesigned the previously ‘very
58 Check. Hist. 18; The Times, 1 Oct. 1999; ODNB, s.v. Broackes, Nigel; John Robinson gravestone. 59 The Times, 7 Apr. 1962; ibid. 15 Feb., 10 Mar. 1960. 60 TNA, SC 6/750/13. 61 For the Redes’ occupancy, below, social hist. (Middle Ages). 62 Reg. Repingdon, I, 61. 63 NHLE, no. 1047434; Pevsner, Oxon. 534; J. Steane, ‘Checkendon Court’, SMA 16 (1986), 124−5. 64 TNA, PROB 11/141/147. 65 Occupied by Ric. Howse: TNA, E 179/164/504; Hearth Tax Oxon. 6; below, social hist. (1500−1800). 66 TNA, PROB 4/22693; Checkendon Ct estate map (1711), in private possession. For Kiln Close, cf. UCA, E24/M1/1. 67 ‘Historical Appraisal: Checkendon Court’ (2000): copy in Checkendon Hist. Group archive. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 7
elementary’ gardens, which had included a ‘bowling green’.68 In the early 1980s Chapman Taylor Partners enclosed the loggia and added a drawing room (with dressing rooms above) in the south corner,69 while changes by Crawford & Gray Architects c.2001 were mainly internal.70
Checkendon Court: (left) as illustrated on the 1711 estate map, and (right) as photographed for a c.1955 pamphlet.
Heath End Built of brick and flint with tiled roofs, Heath End was erected for Adam Duff c.1851 in woodland north of Hook End, becoming his residence until his death.71 In 1902 the artist (and new owner) Arthur Hacker commissioned Ormrod Maxwell Ayrton to design an adjacent studio cottage known as Hall Ingle, which Hacker decorated with murals,72 and c.1905−12 Ayrton enlarged the main house (which also contained a Hacker mural) for the Busks, extending the dining room and hall, and adding a loggia, library, and stables.73
68 Country Life, 3 Dec. 1921, 754−6; The Garden 85 (1921), 576−8; OHC, RDC8/8/Y1/4/6−7; OS Maps 1:2500, Oxon. LIII.9 (1890 and 1913 edns), showing remodelling completed by 1913. NHLE, no. 1047434 and Pevsner, Oxon. 534 wrongly attribute the work to Guy Dawber in 1920. 69 SODC, online planning docs, P81/S0464/LB; ‘Hist. Appraisal’. 70 SODC, online planning docs, P00/S0758/LB; www.crawfordandgray.co.uk/house-in-oxfordshire (accessed Dec. 2019). 71 Gardner’s Dir. Oxon. (1852); TNA, HO 107/1725; OHC, par. reg. transcript (burial 1870). The architect is unknown. 72 The Builder 82 (1902), 638. 73 Country Life, 22 June 1912, 7−9; OHC, RDC8/8/Y1/4/5, 18−19, 22. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 8
Littlestoke Manor
Three hides at ‘Stoch’, held with Checkendon by 1066, comprised the later manor of Littlestoke or Stoke Marmion.74 The two (held as a single knight’s fee) descended together until 1551,75 when Thomas Dynham sold Littlestoke to the Wallingford clothier Ralph Pollington, who served as MP and town mayor, and owned half of Wyfold manor.76 Following his death in 1587 ownership passed to his son Thomas (d. 1613) and to Thomas’s son Francis (d. c.1642), who left Littlestoke to his half-brother Robert Southby of Appleton (Berks.).77 A claim that Richard Wintershall (d. c.1610) had inherited a half-share from his father is probably false,78 although the Wintershalls certainly lived at Littlestoke manor house by 1566, probably as demesne farmers.79 Around 1650 the manor was bought from the Southbys by the tenant Francis Hildesley, one of a Roman Catholic family formerly of Crowmarsh Gifford and East Ilsley (Berks.).80 Two thirds of Francis’s Oxfordshire estate was sequestrated for recusancy in 1654,81 and in 1685 (soon after Francis’s death) his son William still held only one third.82 William died before April 1705 when his widow Mary (d. 1713) was wife of John Grimsditch (d. 1715), and left as coheiresses his daughters Mary (who married Robert Eyston), Frances (married Robert Vernon), Agnes Teresa (married Peter Webbe), and Emerita Letitia.83 A joint sale of the family’s East Ilsley manor was made in 1718, and draft sale particulars suggest a similar (but undocumented) sale of the 385-a. Littlestoke manor around the same time.84 The manor later belonged to Richard Blackall (d. 1743) of Wallingford, whose widow Mary retained it for life and, having married John Goodenough, was succeeded in 1766 by her granddaughter Anne Blackall, with whose Braziers estate it descended until 1787.85 That year it was sold to Thomas Parker, 3rd earl of Macclesfield, and Thomas Reade of Ipsden,
74 DB, f. 160; for the name Stoke Marmion, PN Oxon. I, 45. 75 Rot. Hund. II, 42, 779; Feudal Aids, IV, 176, 200; Boarstall Cart. passim. 76 Berks. RO, D/EH/T64/7; Hist. Parl. s.v. Ralph Pollington; below (Wyfold). 77 TNA, C 142/217/130; C 142/341/51; C 142/370/29; ibid. PROB 11/189/252; Pearman, ‘Notices’, 44−7. For Southby’s relationship, H.W. Rylands (ed.), The Four Visitations of Berkshire, I (Harl. Soc. 56, 1907), 284−5; II (Harl. Soc. 57, 1908), 162; VCH Berks. IV, 456. 78 TNA, C 142/313/74; ibid. WARD 7/43/12; cf. OHC, MS Wills Oxon. 186.153; TNA, C 142/217/130; C 142/370/29. 79 Oxon. Visit. 184; OHC, E1/9/16D/8; E1/18/2D/1; E1/18/4D/1; below, econ. hist.; social hist. 80 TNA, PROB 11/378/1; VCH Berks. IV, 28−9; above, Crowmarsh Gifford; below, social hist.; relig. hist. 81 Cal. Cttee for Compounding, I, 705; V, 3186; T. Hadland, Thames Valley Papists (2nd edn, 2004), 129−30. 82 Cal. Treasury Books 1685−8, 454; TNA, PROB 11/378/1. VCH Berks. IV, 29, incorrectly gives Francis’s date of death as 1665. 83 TNA, PROB 11/481/216; OHC, S. Stoke par. reg. transcript (burials 1713, 1715); Stapleton, Hist. Cath. Missions, 305, citing HMC, 10th Rep. IV, Stonyhurst, p. 181; VCH Berks. IV, 29. 84 VCH Berks. IV, 29; Berks. RO, D/EB/T13 [c.1720]. 85 TNA, PROB 11/726/232; OHC, SL146/4/D/1−23; Berks. RO, D/EB/T13; below (Braziers). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 9
who acquired sole ownership in 1788 by Act of Parliament.86 Following Reade’s death in 1804 half passed to his daughter Elizabeth (d. 1816), who married John Reade (d. 1814), an army officer and distant cousin, and whose daughter Penelope Harriet died a minor in 1825. She was succeeded by her cousin John Reade (d. 1849), lord of Ipsden, who left it to his widow Anna Maria (d. 1863) with remainder to their son William Barrington Reade. The other half passed in 1804 to Thomas’s widow Mary (d. 1846), life occupier of the manor house and its farm, then to his nephew Coventry Henry Litchfield (d. 1872), with remainder to W.B. Reade.87 The reunited manor and 392-a. farm was sold between 1873 and 1883 to the longstanding tenant William Charles Dodd (d. 1916).88 Thereafter it passed to various owners and occupiers until bought in the early 1930s by Noel Blake Ducker (d. 1978), followed by his son Philip (d. 2001) and granddaughter Catherine, the owner in 2019.89
Manor House (Littlestoke Manor)
Members of the Marmion family lived at Littlestoke in the Middle Ages, and a manor house was mentioned in 1331.90 The surviving brick and tiled house may have a 17th-century core,91 and was perhaps that inhabited by Francis Hildesley in the 1660s, when its ten hearths made it the largest in the parish.92 Two reset datestones imply building work for Francis and his son William in 1681–2,93 and c.1720 the house was ‘good and large’. By then there was also a separate ‘very large farmhouse’ (perhaps the later bailiff’s house), and outbuildings included a pigeon house, malthouse, coach house, barns, and stables.94 Three surviving timber-framed barns include at least one of 17th-century construction, set on a
86 Oxf. Jnl Syn. 13 Jan. 1787; OHC, MM II/51; MM II/53; Berks. RO, D/EB/T13; UCA, E24/E1/1; Complete Peerage, VIII, 335; Reade and Macclesfield Estates Act, 28 Geo. III, c. 6 (Private Act). For Reade (a son of the lord of Ipsden), C. Reade, A Record of the Redes of Barton Court, Berkshire (1899), 61, 70. 87 Reade, Record, 71; TNA, PROB 11/1426/88; PROB 11/2103/219; OHC, Penn. III/1−2, 5; ibid. E1/9/11D/5−6, 8; cf. ibid. enclo. award. 88 Return of Owners of Land: Oxfordshire (1873); Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1883); Reading Mercury, 27 May 1916; Sale Cat., Littlestoke Estate (1901): copy in Bodl. GA Oxon. b. 92(2). Dodd was tenant by 1851: TNA, HO 107/1725. 89 Sale Cat., Littlestoke Estate (1917): copy in Bodl. GA Oxon. b. 92(3); Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1920–35); Cheshire Observer, 4 Aug. 1978; Henley Standard, 29 Oct. 2014; www.thecoachingbarn.com (accessed Dec. 2019). 90 Below, social hist. (Middle Ages); Berks. RO, D/EH/T64/2. 91 Hadland, Thames Valley Papists, 105. Interior not inspected by VCH. 92 TNA, E 179/164/504; Hearth Tax Oxon. 6 (reading ‘Widdesly’ for ‘Hildesley’). 93 Reset in a barn and garden wall, one reading ‘F 1681 H’: Hadland, Thames Valley Papists, 129−30. 94 Berks. RO, D/EB/T13. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 10
brick base, and with weatherboarding and a double queen-post roof. The others may be 18th-century.95 Around 1800 the manor house was enlarged and given a brick-built Georgian front probably for Thomas and Mary Reade, creating a six-bayed south façade of two storeys with a hipped roof, sash windows, and an off-centre entrance portico on Doric columns. The paved entrance hall was flanked in 1901–17 by drawing and dining rooms featuring corniced ceilings and marble mantlepieces, while the separate brick-and-flint bailiff’s house had four first-floor bedrooms.96 Both dwellings were in poor repair when the Duckers arrived in the 1930s, and have since been modernized. The brick and flint stable cottage may incorporate part of a former malthouse.97
Littlestoke Manor: (left) as photographed for the 1917 sale catalogue, and (right) in 2019.
Wyfold Manor
Wyfold remained part of the royal manor of Benson until c.1153, when the Crown lessee Geoffrey d’Ivoi gave land at ‘Wyfold and Rumerhedge’ (formerly held by Nigel Chure) to the Cistercian abbey of Thame. The gift was confirmed by Stephen and Henry II, and in 1189 Richard I extinguished an annual 60s. 4d. quitrent due from the estate.98 William son of Geoffrey added half his lands in 1181, and William and Robert Marmion gave 20 a. of woods and 10 a. of land respectively in 1200,99 the expanded estate being called a grange by 1179
95 NHLE, nos. 1059266−7, 1193900; cf. M. Kift, P. Preece, and M. Fallowfield, ‘Parish Survey of Checkendon’ (unpubl. typescript (1987) in SOAG Archive), pp. 37−42. 96 Sale Cats, Littlestoke Estate (1901 and 1917). 97 Kift et al., ‘Survey’, pp. 34−6; cf. Berks. RO, D/EB/T13; OHC, SL146/5/D/2. 98 Thame Cart. II, pp. 115–16, 120−2; Reg. Regum Anglo-Norm. III, pp. 320−1; Pipe R 1196 (PRS n.s. 7), 204. Quitrent for the original grant was 23s. 4d. For Benson manor, VCH Oxon. XVIII, 36. 99 Thame Cart. II, pp. 117−19. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 11
and a manor by 1452.100 In 1279 it included two ploughlands (c.240 a.) in demesne and 176 a. of woodland, the last perhaps to be equated with 200 a. of royal demesne woods at Kingwood in Rotherfield Peppard said in 1276 to have been appropriated by the abbey.101 The monks received free warren at Wyfold in 1365.102 Following the abbey’s Dissolution in 1539 the manor was granted in 1543 to Sir John Williams and Anthony Stringer,103 who in 1545 conveyed it to William Birt.104 He sold it in 1546 to John Petty and Ralph Pollington, each holding half-shares centred respectively on Wyfold Court (the ancient abbey grange site) and on Hook End Farm.105
Wyfold Court Share In 1576–7 John Petty (then of Tetsworth) settled his ‘manor of Wyfold Court’ on his third son Robert,106 who c.1612 sold it to Roger Knight (d. 1635) of Reading.107 His son Thomas (d. 1674) was succeeded by Nathan Knight (d. 1694), MP for Reading, and by Nathan’s widow Margaret (d. 1705), subject to a grant of woods at Wyfold to their son Walter (d. 1701).108 Walter left the reversion to his widow Naomi and son Walter, to whom Naomi leased her share in 1733, and who was owner in 1754.109 Only Thomas lived at Wyfold, his successors living at Ruscombe (Berks.).110 By 1761 the estate belonged to Henry Paget (d. 1769), 2nd earl of Uxbridge,111 followed before 1770 by Charles Sloane Cadogan (d. 1807) of Caversham Park, later Baron Cadogan of Oakley and (from 1800) Earl Cadogan.112 Cadogan’s son Charles (d. 1833) owned 470 a. in the parish in 1820,113 and in 1836 his son George sold Wyfold Court and manor to the London bookseller David Gale Arnot with 850 a. in Checkendon, Rotherfield Peppard, and Caversham.114 Following Arnot’s death in 1842 that estate was sold to the army officer George David Donkin (d. 1857),115 whose son George Rufane Donkin died in 1870. The following year his trustees sold the then 1,367-a. ‘manorial’ estate (recently expanded to include Hook End) to the Lancashire-
100 Ibid. pp. 145−8; Cal. Close 1341−3, 268; Lincs. Arch. REG/20, f. 3v. 101 Rot. Hund. II, 33, 764; cf. VCH Oxon. XVI, 307. 102 Cal. Chart. 1341−1417, 192. 103 L&P Hen. VIII, XVIII (1), p. 130; VCH Oxon. II, 86. 104 L&P Hen. VIII, XX (2), p. 455. 105 Ibid. XXI (2), p. 346. 106 Cal. Pat. 1575−8, 235; TNA, C 142/186/52; Wood’s Life, I, 32. 107 TNA, C 3/278/7; C 2/JasI/K8/40; C 142/530/165. 108 TNA, PROB 11/346/454; PROB 11/420/421; PROB 11/462/187; OHC, MS Wills Oxon. 52/2/19 (inv.); Hist. Parl. s.v. Nath. Knight. 109 TNA, PROB 11/462/187; ibid. C 104/269; Oxon. Poll, 1754, 75. 110 e.g. TNA, PROB 11/346/454; Hearth Tax Oxon. 40; VCH Berks. III, 204. 111 TNA, CP 25/2/1388/1GEOIIITRIN; Complete Peerage, XII (2), 200. 112 TNA, CP 25/2/1389/10GEOIIITRIN; Hist. Parl. s.v. Chas Sloane Cadogan; above, Caversham, landownership. 113 OHC, PAR61/17/E/1 (cf. map in UCA, E24/M1/2); Complete Peerage, II, 462. 114 TNA, PROB 11/1965/6; Reading Mercury, 18 May 1835; The Times, 10 Jun. 1842; cf. London Metropolitan Arch., MSS 11936/550/1215779; 11936/551/1250253; Complete Peerage, II, 463. 115 The Times, 10 Jun. 1842; TNA, PROB 11/2256/291; OHC, par. reg. transcript (burials). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 12
based MP and cotton magnate Edward Hermon, who built a new Wyfold Court on a virgin site.116 Hermon (d. 1881) was succeeded by his daughter Frances Caroline (d. 1929) and her husband Robert Trotter Hodge (later Hermon-Hodge), a Conservative politician created a baronet in 1902 and Baron Wyfold of Accrington in 1919. Having sold Hook End in 1921, in 1929 he moved to Wyfold Grange (on the site of the old Wyfold Court), which he retained with 139 a. at his death in 1937.117 The rest of the 1,191-a. estate (including 863 a. in Checkendon) was broken up between 1929 and 1932, Wyfold Court being sold in 1932 (with 231 a.) to the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Reading Joint Board for the Mentally Defective. The board converted the house into a psychiatric hospital closed in 1993.118
Hook End Share On Ralph Pollington’s death in 1587 his share passed possibly to his son Michael,119 and in 1610 was held with Littlestoke by another son Thomas, who died in 1613 owning farms and cottages at Wyfold and 126 a. of woods called High Kingwood.120 By 1618 the estate belonged to Thomas Simeon of Brightwell Baldwin, whose proposed sale to Zachary Allnutt of Ibstone (Bucks.) was apparently abandoned,121 and who was eventually succeeded by the Knapps of Woodcote (or Rawlins) manor in South Stoke, the Simeons’ relatives through marriage.122 Henry Knapp (d. 1674) left the estate (charged with a parish charity) to his daughter Mary,123 who married Sir Richard Temple (d. 1697), Bt, of Stowe (Bucks.), and was succeeded in 1726 by her nephew Temple Stanyan (d. 1752), politician and author. His widow Grace (d. 1768) was followed by their daughter Catherine, wife of Sir Charles Hardy (d. 1780) of Woodcote House, the lord of half of Checkendon manor.124 Hardy’s estates descended together until 1819, when the Wyfold lordship was sold with Checkendon to Thomas Fraser,125 while the actual Hook End estate (416 a.) was retained by Henry Calverley Cotton (d. 1837). It passed through sale (perhaps c.1844)126 to
116 OHC, H9/C4/3, abstract of title; The Times, 23 Apr. 1870; Oxf. Jnl, 14 May 1881; below (Hook End). 117 OHC, H9/C4/3, abstract of title; ibid. E289/2/E/1; Complete Peerage, XIII, 304; The Times, 9 Feb., 7 Oct. 1929; below (Hook End). 118 OHC, H9/C4/3, conveyance 1932; Sale Cats, Wyfold Court Estate (1929), Remaining Portions of the Wyfold Court Estate (1930): copies in ibid. H9/C4/4; below, social hist. (welfare). 119 Cal. Pat. 1583−4, 187; TNA, C 142/217/130. 120 TNA, C 142/341/51; Pearman, ‘Notices’, 44−7. 121 TNA, C 8/27/7; C 3/330/24 (identifying Thos as bro. of Sir Geo. Simeon, lord of Brightwell Baldwin: cf. VCH Oxon. XVIII, 98). 122 Oxon. Visit. 1669−75, 14; VCH Oxon. VII, 97. 123 TNA, PROB 11/346/270. For her sister Susannah Newman’s possible interest, VCH Oxon. VII, 97 n.; TNA, PROB 11/552/226. 124 OHC, SL199/D/33−4 (sched. deeds); ibid. E1/16/1D/1; VCH Oxon. VII, 97; ODNB, s.v. Stanyan, Abraham; above (Checkendon). 125 OHC, PAR61/9/MS1/2, ff. 63−6; Oxf. Univ. & City Herald, 30 Sept. 1820; cf. Sale Cat., Woodcott or Rawlins Estate (1800); The Times, 31 Aug. 1816; above (Checkendon). 126 OHC, PAR61/17/E/1; Reading Mercury, 7 Sept. 1844; ODNB, s.v. Cotton, Ric. Lynch. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 13
the MP Thomas Duffield (d. 1854), whose son Charles Philip Duffield (of Marcham Park, Berks.)127 retained it until 1870, when it became part of the Wyfold Court estate.128 Lord Wyfold sold it in 1921 (with 514 a.) to the businessman Lawrence Hignett (d. 1944),129 and it was subsequently bought by the financier Charles Clore, whose 833-a. estate was broken up in 1955.130 Later owners of the house (renamed Hook End Manor) included the rock musicians Alvin Lee and David Gilmour, and the record producers Trevor Horn and Mark White.131
Wyfold Grange (formerly Wyfold Court) as shown on the 1840 tithe map (in OHC). Note how the parish boundary with Rotherfield Peppard diverts specially to take in most of the manorial site.
Manor Houses
Wyfold Grange (formerly Wyfold Court) Thame abbey’s grange or manor house stood presumably on or near the site of the present-day Wyfold Grange, within an undated earthwork enclosure straddling the parish boundary with Rotherfield Peppard.132 Called Wyfold Court by 1577, it had six hearths in 1665 when occupied by Thomas Knight.133 A drawing of 1762 shows a gabled house behind a high stone wall, while one of c.1860 shows a large barn next to a house featuring twin castellated towers, with a large arched window or doorway in between;134 assuming that the towers were post-medieval, they had perhaps been added by David Arnot or George Donkin, resident lords after a long succession of tenants.135 In 1870 Wyfold Court remained ‘an old-fashioned manor house in good order’,
127 Oxf. Chron. 10 Dec. 1853; OHC, South Stoke enclo. award and map; TNA, PROB 11/2189/352; VCH Berks. IV, 356; F.C. Loder-Symonds, A History of the Old Berks Hunt from 1760 to 1904 (2013), ch. 12. 128 OHC, enclo. award; The Times, 26 Mar. 1870; 23 Apr. 1870; cf. PO Dir. Oxon. (1869 edn). 129 OHC, DV/XII/13; The Times, 5 Sept. 1921, 9 Apr. 1944; Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1924−39 edns); above (Wyfold Ct). 130 The Times, 2 Jun. 1955; Sale Cat., Hook End Estate (1955): copy in HE Arch., SB00463; ODNB, s.v. Clore, Chas. 131 Sunday Times, 30 Sept. 2007; Check. Echoes, 69. 132 Above, landscape etc. (boundaries; settlement). 133 Cal. Pat. 1575−8, 235; Hearth Tax Oxon. 40. 134 Bodl. GA Oxon. a 117, p. 130 (‘Wifold Priory’); ibid. MS Top. Oxon. c 521, p. 42. 135 OHC, QSD/L/72; ibid. par. reg. transcript (burials 1842, 1857). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 14
with four sitting rooms, six bedrooms, five attics, and kitchens and offices;136 soon after, however, it was replaced with the present brick and half-timbered house featuring tiled roofs, diaper work, mullioned windows, and massive brick chimneystacks, designed for Edward Hermon by George Somers Clarke, and re-named Wyfold Grange following the transfer of its older name to Hermon’s new mansion nearby.137
Wyfold Court A woodland site for a replacement mansion was prepared by George Rufane Donkin (d. 1870),138 the project being taken over by Hermon as his successor. Somers Clarke (a pupil of Sir Charles Barry) was appointed as architect before 1872, the resulting Wyfold Court comprising a 40-bedroom mansion since described as ‘a Nightmare Abbey in spirit, [and] French Flamboyant Gothic, with a touch of Scottish Baronial, in style’. Work began by 1874,139 and the Hermons entertained their first guests there in February 1877.140 Stone carving was supervised by L.T. Carter, and the gardens and parkland were landscaped by Edward Milner, comprising lawns, terraces and slopes, fruit and vegetable gardens, a rosery, an ornamental fountain, and a tennis court.141 Built mainly from red bricks made on the estate, with blue-brick diaper work, yellow stone dressings, and plain tiled roofs with ornamental ridge tiles, the house has two full storeys and a complex C plan, comprising a south-east facing principal range, flanking east and west wings, and services off the west wing.142 Externally the north-west entrance front is the most elaborate, featuring mullioned and Gothic windows, a large stone carriage porch with two-centred arches and parapet, and two great towers (the western one a belvedere containing a clock), the whole enriched with corner turrets, finials, and gargoyles. The irregular south-east front has massive stone-mullioned bay windows, crocketed gables with heraldic beasts, and a corner turret, while the west (garden) front includes a stone porch and elaborate oriel window, and the staircase hall features an immense mullioned-and- transomed window decorated with stained glass shields of the sovereigns of England. Interiors feature parquet oak floors, walnut panelling, elaborate Gothic fireplaces, ornate carved Gothic woodwork in the staircase hall, and stone rib vaults springing from marble wall-shafts with foliate capitals in the main corridor, while the east range’s entire ground floor
136 The Times, 26 Mar. 1870. 137 OHC, E289/2/E/1; The Builder 43 (1882), 94; Pevsner, Oxon. 738. 138 The Times, 26 Mar. 1870. 139 Pevsner, Oxon. 738; P. Howell, ‘Wyfold Court’, in H. Colvin and J. Harris (eds), The Country Seat: Studies in the History of the British Country House (1970), 244−51; Sale Cat., Wyfold Court Estate (1929). 140 Henley Advertiser, 10 Feb. 1877. 141 Daily Telegraph, 11 Apr. 1882; Country Life, 20 July 2000, 80−1. 142 Para. based on: Howell, ‘Wyfold Court’; Country Life, 20 Jul. 2000, 78−81; Pevsner, Oxon. 738; NHLE, no. 1180805 (Borocourt Hosp.); Daily Telegraph, 11 Apr. 1882; Sale Cat., Wyfold Court Estate (1929); online images (Feb. 2020). For brickworks, below, econ. hist. (trades). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 15
was originally taken up by a 100-ft long picture gallery lit by a large skylight. The interiors mostly survived the house’s 20th-century use as a hospital, and in 1999 it was restored and divided into 11 privately-owned apartments by the P.J. Livesey Group, in association with English Heritage. External changes included a new central bay window inserted into the former picture gallery on the east.
Wyfold Court: (left) from the south-east, showing the former picture gallery on the east front, and (right) the western tower from the north-west.
Hook End Farm (Manor) Hook End Farm was perhaps the house at Wyfold taxed on five hearths in 1665, and in 1835 was ‘a good brick-built farmhouse’.143 The existing house may incorporate parts of those buildings,144 but in its current form reflects a substantial Jacobethan remodelling and enlargement for Lawrence Hignett in the 1920s, to designs by Colcutt & Hamp.145 Brick-built with tiled roofs, and on an irregular plan, it features multiple tall chimneystacks, wooden mullioned windows, hanging tiles, and half-timbered gables (some jettied), infilled with herringbone brickwork. Several rooms are panelled, including a grand staircase hall with exposed timber framing, and in 1955 the house contained five reception rooms and nine bedrooms.146 Two barns were converted into a sound recording studio in the 1970s and an indoor swimming pool in the 1990s.147
143 Hearth Tax Oxon. 40 (occ. John Stevens); Reading Mercury, 16 Mar. 1835. 144 Not inspected by VCH, but cf. Check. Hist. 23; Check. scrapbk, p. 83; OS Map 1:2,500, Oxon. LIII.13 (1913 edn); SU 6681 (1964 edn). 145 OHC, RDC8/8/Y1/4/25. 146 Sale Cat., Hook End Estate (1955); Country Life, 7 Jul. 1955, 5; online images (Feb. 2020). 147 SODC, online planning docs, P73/H0236, P97/S0179; www.rpaarchitects.co.uk/architecture- projects/conservation/hook-end-manor (accessed Dec. 2019). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 16
Other Estates
Goring priory acquired 10 a. of woodland in Checkendon before 1279, known by 1612 (when it was owned by Richard Lybbe) as ‘Priors Hanging’.148 Fourteenth-century lay freeholds included ‘Rowdens’ and ‘Hawmans’, held respectively by John Rowden and John Hawman. The latter was perhaps the four-yardland estate held in the 13th century by the Budifords (in
1 1235 as /5 knight’s fee), and continued as Hammond’s farm, comprising a ploughland (c.120 a.) and 18 a. of woods. In 1388 it was acquired by John Rede, and descended with Checkendon Court until 1800 or later.149 Goring manor included land in Checkendon by 1674, vested in Goring Heath almshouse with the rest of the manor c.1730.150 The almshouse retained 141 a. (including Lackmore wood) in Checkendon in 1826,151 but the property was sold in 1917.152
Neal’s Farm Neal’s (so called by 1362)153 originated as a freehold of Benson manor, to which it owed 10s. annual quitrent still payable in 1780.154 In 1236 (when held by Ernald Neel) it comprised a hide (c.120 a.), but only half a hide by the 1270s.155 John Neel conveyed it in 1332 to the royal administrator John de Alveton (d. 1361), who acquired Checkendon’s advowson,156 and in 1362 Alveton’s daughter Margaret and her husband Sir Thomas of Williamscot sold both to Sir Thomas Blount with other Oxfordshire property. Before 1377 he conveyed Neal’s and the advowson to Sir Gilbert Wace of Ewelme,157 who retained them in 1394.158 Nothing further is known until the 1530s when Neal’s belonged to John Goswell,159 whose family remained there until at least the later 17th century.160 In 1606 it comprised the house and 62 a. of enclosed arable, pasture, and wood, with another 42 a. (including 3 sublet cottages) in Ipsden.161 The farm passed later to Richard Blackall (d. 1743) of
148 Rot. Hund. II, 779; Valor Eccl. II, 206; OHC, E1/13/1D/3−4; cf. Cal. Pat. 1566−9, 20; 1572−5, 367. 149 Boarstall Cart. pp. 28–32; Cooke, ‘Docs’, passim; Checkendon Ct estate map (1711); Sale Cat., Woodcott or Rawlins Estate (1800). For the Budifords, Book of Fees, I, 450; II, 841; Rot. Hund. II, 779; below (social hist.). 150 OHC, O15/4/M2/1; O15/2/1D/6−7; O15/2/2D/1−6; below, Goring, landownership. 151 OHC, P402/1/M/1. 152 OHC, O15/1/C/11; cf. ibid. DV/XII/13. 153 Black Prince's Reg. IV, 419 (Neeles). 154 Rot. Hund. II, 752; OHC, BOR/3/D/III/1, p. 6. 155 Book of Fees, I, 588; Rot. Hund. II, 31, 752 (also mentioning tallage and suit of court). 156 Cooke, ‘Docs’, 3; below, relig. hist. (advowson); Hist. Parl. s.v. John Alveton. 157 TNA, CP 25/1/190/21, no. 64; ibid. E 210/9199; VCH Oxon. VIII, 24−5; Hist. Parl. s.v. Gilb. Wace. 158 Boarstall Cart. p. 9. 159 TNA, LR 2/224, f. 2; Valor Eccl. II, 206. 160 OHC, MSS Wills Oxon. 179.121; 188.164; 25/5/21; 26/1/51; TNA, C 142/301/15; C 142/750/95; Oxon. Visit. 1669−75, 4 (mistakenly naming Ric. (d. 1626) as Wm); Par. Colln, I, 87; monument in church. 161 TNA, LR 2/224, f. 34. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 17
Wallingford,162 descending with his Braziers estate until 1788 when it covered 247 a. including 126 a. of woods. It was retained by C.B. Massingberd’s trustees, who in 1800 vested it in Massingberd’s daughter Harriet (of South Ormsby, Lincs.).163 She immediately sold it,164 and by 1844 it belonged to the Wyfold Court estate, with which it remained until sold in 1930 to the property speculator George Shorland. His 600-a. estate across several parishes (including the then 87-a. Neal’s farm) was broken up after his death in 1938,165 later owners including the actor and author Evan John Simpson (d. 1953) and, from 1968, the barrister David Trustram Eve (d. 2005), 2nd Baron Silsoe, whose widow Bridget lived there in 2019.166 Neal’s had a ‘capital messuage’ in 1606, when outbuildings included a dovecot, granary, stable, and hay house,167 and in 1636 the farmhouse contained eight rooms including four chambers.168 A new brick and flint farmhouse of three bays and two storeys was built c.1844, designed in Georgian style by Henry Drake of Reading, and featuring sash windows and a hipped slate roof. The owner Edward Hermon made additions at the rear in 1871.169
Neal’s Farm from the south-west.
162 Ibid. PROB 11/726/232. 163 OHC, MM I/1; MM II/16; ibid. SL146/4/D/1−23; Oxf. Jnl Syn. 1 Jul. 1786; Berks. RO, D/EB/T13. 164 Oxf. Jnl, 12 Apr. 1800; cf. ibid. 23 Jan. 1819, 2 Jun. 1827; Morning Post, 19 Jul. 1824; OHC, tithe award and map. 165 OHC, H9/C4/3, abstract of title (1930); Sale Cat., Remaining Portions of the Wyfold Court Estate (1930); Sale Cat., Geo. Shorland’s Estate (1938): copy in OHC, E299/D/2; The Times, 6 Sept. 1938; VCH Oxon. XVI, 249. 166 The Times, 29 Dec. 1953; Who’s Who 2020 (accessed online); The Independent, 10 Jan. 2006; Peppard News (spring 2006); www.nealsfarm.com (accessed Dec. 2019). 167 TNA, LR2/224, f. 34; cf. ibid. C 142/750/95. 168 OHC, MS Wills Oxon. 26/1/51. 169 Reading Mercury, 23 Mar. 1844; NHLE, no. 1285270 (medallion inscribed ‘EH 1871’). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 18
Braziers Estate Braziers farm (187 a. c.1740) existed by 1635, occupied then or soon after by Thomas Goswell (d. 1646).170 Ownership passed probably to William Blackall (d. 1704), gentleman, who owned property in Checkendon and Ipsden,171 and to William’s son Richard (d. 1743) of Wallingford, who built up a much larger estate including Littlestoke manor, half of Checkendon manor, and Neal’s. His nephew and heir William Blackall (formerly of London) had already inherited the 226-a. Bottom farm from his uncle Joseph Blackall (d. 1739),172 and made Braziers his home, purchasing further Checkendon property (including Beechwood farm) in 1757−8.173 In 1763 most of the c.1,100-a. estate passed to his daughter Anne, who came of age in 1769 and in 1774 married Charles Burrell Massingberd of South Ormsby (Lincs.), who moved to ‘Braziers House’.174 After Anne died in 1785175 Massingberd sold the estate piecemeal to settle his debts, moving back to South Ormsby. Littlestoke (c.400 a.) was sold in 1787, Beechwood farm (29 a.) in 1788, and Neal’s in 1800, while 339 a. comprising Braziers, Bottom farm, and half of Checkendon manor was sold in 1788 to William Cunliffe Shawe of Preston (Lancs.),176 perhaps in trust for his brother-in-law Samuel Pole of Southgate (Middx), who held the Checkendon manor part by 1789.177 In 1791 the combined property passed to Samuel’s sister Frances and her husband Isaac George Manley, a future admiral, who remodelled Braziers House and owned 420 a. in the parish in 1820.178 Both he and Frances died in 1837, and in 1851 their son John Shawe Manley (of Manley Hall, Staffs.) sold Braziers to the London businessman Frederick Keats (d. 1865),179 succeeded by his son Frederick (d. 1872).180 In 1879 his trustees sold the then 560-a. estate to the tenant Augustus Garland, an army captain and the younger Frederick’s brother-in-law. By 1883 he let the house and grounds (renamed Braziers Park) to the Wallingford banker, brewer, and MP Edward Wells.181
170 OHC, MS Oxf. Archd. Oxon. c 141, p. 15; ibid. MS Wills Oxon. 297/3/72; for acreage, ibid. MM II/1; MM II/6. See also C. Cross, Braziers Before the Community (1982): copy in OHC. 171 TNA, PROB 11/481/174. 172 Ibid. PROB 11/726/232; PROB 11/697/424; OHC, MM II/8. Bottom fm was formerly part of the Dormers’ Checkendon manor: TNA, C 8/637/51. 173 OHC, SL146/1/D/10; SL146/2/D/1−3. 174 TNA, PROB 11/886/305; OHC, SL146/4/D/1−23; ibid. MM II/10−41; ibid. par. reg. transcript (baptism 1748). Littlestoke remained with Anne’s grandmother Mary until 1766 (above). For a lease of the house before Anne’s marriage, Oxf. Jnl Syn. 18 Aug. 1770; OHC, MM I/2. 175 Oxf. Jnl Syn. 24 Dec. 1785; plaque in church. 176 OHC, MM II/25−72; Berks. RO, D/EB/T13; UCA, E24/E1/1; above (Littlestoke; Neal’s). 177 Oxf. Jnl Syn. 5 Sept. 1789, 11 Sept. 1790; TNA, PROB 11/1266/160. 178 OHC, QSD/L/71; ibid. PAR61/17/E/1; UCA, E24/M1/2; Reading Mercury, 7 Mar. 1791; Cross, Braziers, 6−10; below. 179 TNA, PROB 11/1886/382; OHC, Vor XXV/i/1; Vor XXV/ii/1; The Times, 5 Aug. 1865; Cross, Braziers, 10−11; plaque in church. 180 PO Dir. Oxon. (1847−69 edns); Reading Mercury, 19 Oct. 1872; Cross, Braziers, 15. 181 Reading Mercury, 10 May 1879, 7 Aug. 1886; Cross, Braziers, 11–12, 15; Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1883−7 edns, wrongly naming Adolphus Garland). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 19
Wells’ son Alfred lived at Braziers by 1889, and in 1897 (having changed his surname to Arding) bought the 640-a. estate from Garland.182 Arding later sold it piecemeal, Braziers Park passing in 1909 to the future Henley MP Valentine Fleming,183 who sold it in 1914 to the barrister Sir Ernest Moon (d. 1930). Moon’s widow Emma died in 1947,184 and in 1950 Braziers was sold with 55 a. to Norman Glaister (d. 1961), a sociologist and educationalist, who the same year established a private adult education college (the School of Integrative Social Research) and a resident secular community there. Both continued in 2019.185 The existing Braziers Park (formerly Braziers House) reflects a Gothick remodelling of the 1790s, but incorporates (as suggested by a 1688 datestone reset in the cellar) an earlier, possibly late 17th-century core.186 The house was probably enlarged for William Blackall, who in 1763 occupied a well-furnished ‘mansion’ containing cellars, services, a staircase hall, three parlours, four bedrooms, a first-floor dressing room, and four garrets,187 very similar to the layout in the 1780s.188 That building (with its dormers, hipped slate roofs, and dentil cornice) largely survives, its sash windows replaced with arched ones presumably when the house was remodelled in flamboyant Gothick style for Isaac Manley, to designs by Daniel Harris of Oxford. Their new south front of grey stuccoed brick features battlements, arched windows with Y tracery, and large semi-circular east and west bays, while the central embattled tower has a rose window and crocketed pinnacles, and the arcaded and castellated veranda a central porch with mock portcullis. A few Gothick fireplaces and plaster friezes survive, but most interiors (including French panelling in the dining room) date from c.1910, when the house was remodelled and enlarged for Valentine Fleming to designs by Walter Mills of Oxford. His large rear extension features a Gothick north-west bay to match the south-west one, lending symmetry to the west front.189 Later alterations were mostly remedial.190
182 Reading Mercury, 26 Oct. 1889, 30 Oct. 1897, 6 Nov. 1897; London Gaz. 21 Feb. 1890, pp. 955−6; cf. Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1897−1907 edns). The increased acreage included Payables fm in S. Stoke. 183 Henley & South Oxon. Standard, 28 May 1909, 10 Sept. 1909; OHC, DV/XII/13; Cross, Braziers, 13−14. 184 Berks. & Oxon. Advertiser, 2 Jun. 1914, 6 Jun. 1930; The Times, 2 Jun. 1930; OHC, par. reg. transcript; Cross, Braziers, 14. 185 www.braziers.org.uk (accessed Aug. 2019); Cross, Braziers, 14; cf. D. Glaister, Braziers: A Personal Story (1973): copy in OHC. 186 Inscribed ‘W/EA/1688’; the initials have not been identified. 187 Oxf. Jnl Syn. 9 Jul. 1763; OHC, MM II/10−11. 188 Reading Mercury, 18 Apr. 1785; OHC, MM II/40; MM II/70. 189 NHLE, no. 1059531 (Dec. 2019); Pevsner, Oxon. 663; H.M. Colvin, Biog. Dict. British Architects 1600−1840 (3rd edn, 1995), 461−2; Cross, Braziers; Baker, Ipsden, 54−6; OHC, RDC8/8/Y1/4/10 (Mills plans, 1909). 190 OHC, RDC8/8/Y1/4/24; M. Roth, ‘Braziers Park – The Buildings’, [Braziers Park] Research Communications 19 (1999), 4−19 (available at www.braziers.org.uk). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Checkendon (March 2020) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Landownership • p. 20
Late 17th- or early 18th-century outbuildings include a brick and timber-framed granary on staddle stones and a weatherboarded timber-framed barn on a brick base.191 By 1785–90 there was a garden house, stabling for eight horses, three coach houses, and a (surviving) large kitchen garden east of the house, then ‘newly made, walled, and planted’, and approached along shrubbery walks.192 ‘Majestically-timbered’ pleasure grounds were mentioned in 1879, when ‘two large productive kitchen and fruit gardens’ contained a vinery, hothouse, and melon pits,193 and in the 1890s the Ardings erected a timber-framed and weatherboarded schoolroom with a tin roof for their Sunday school.194 Fleming converted it into a squash court c.1910, adding a garden house and tennis courts, and creating a water garden east of the house and a paved terrace to its west.195
Braziers Park: (top left) the Gothick south front of the 1790s; (top right) the west front, showing the north-west bay on the left added c.1910 to lend symmetry; and (bottom left) the late 17th- or early 18th- century granary on staddle stones.
191 NHLE, nos. 1059532, 1059534; M. Kift et al., ‘Parish Survey of Checkendon’ (unpubl. typescript (1987) in SOAG Archive), p. 29. 192 Reading Mercury, 18 Apr. 1785; OHC, MM II/40, 70; NHLE, no. 1059533 (garden wall). 193 Reading Mercury, 10 May 1879. 194 Baker, Ipsden, 55; below, relig. hist. (since 1820). Used in 2019 as a community hall. 195 Cross, Braziers, 13.