Wicken: Manors

MANORS.

The seven hides at Wicken possessed before 1066 by Eddeva the fair were by 1086 held in demesne by her successor, Count Alan, lord of Richmond. (fn. 1) Soon after, that manor was granted to Wimar (Wihomarc), steward of Alan's honor of Richmond. (fn. 2) Wicken manor continued to be held of that honor throughout the Middle Ages, in the 13th and 14th centuries as one knight's fee, (fn. 3) and into the early 17th century. (fn. 4)

From Wimar the steward (fl. to c. 1125), (fn. 5) WICKEN manor was inherited by his (elder) son Warner the steward, still its tenant in the 1160s. (fn. 6) His son and successor Wimar, (fn. 7) who died shortly before 1204, was succeeded by his daughter and heir Beatrice and her husband, the Yorkshireman Hugh Malebisse. (fn. 8) In the 1220s Hugh and Beatrice gave part of the manor to endow their foundation of Spinney priory, (fn. 9) and other Wicken land to Fordham priory. (fn. 10) Hugh died 1228 × 1232. Soon after 1232, (fn. 11) Beatrice died leaving no issue, so that Wicken had passed by c. 1235 to Wimar of Thornton, greatgrandson in the male line of her grandfather Warner's brother Roger. (fn. 12) That Wimar died between 1240 and 1243, leaving a minor son Matthew, (fn. 13) of age by 1253, who was granted free warren at Wicken in 1256. (fn. 14) Matthew of Thornton was dead by 1261, also leaving minor heirs. (fn. 15) In 1279 John of Thornton, perhaps his son, (fn. 16) released Wicken manor to Matthew's daughter Mary, later reported as his heir, (fn. 17) who had married by 1271 Humphrey Bassingbourn the younger of Abington (Northants). (fn. 18)

After Humphrey's death in 1298, (fn. 19) Mary, who retained Wicken, (fn. 20) married, after 1303, Sir John de Lisle, probably of I. Wight (Hants). Named as lord in 1316, (fn. 21) he was apparently dead by 1322. (fn. 22) Having granted more land to Spinney priory, (fn. 23) Mary probably died after 1323. In 1327 her executors made Wicken over to Sir Humphrey Bassingbourn, her son and heir, (fn. 24) who died in 1349. He had in 1343 entailed the reversion of his estates upon the marriage of Margaret, daughter of his eldest son Sir Giles, to Walter, the infant son of Robert de Colville (d. 1368), lord of Bytham (Lincs.). If their issue failed, Sir Humphrey's lands were to go to Robert in fee simple. (fn. 25) Accordingly, following the successive deaths in 1367 of Walter, lord since 1349, and in 1369 of Robert, his 5-yearold son by Margaret, Wicken passed to the elder Robert de Colville's heirs, descended from his aunts. It was assigned to one aunt Alice's son, Sir John Gernon of Essex. (fn. 26) He died in 1384, having settled Wicken in 1382, from his widow Joan's death, on his surviving daughter Margaret and her husband Sir John Peyton. (fn. 27)

Sir John was dead in 1400, (fn. 28) and their son John Peyton in 1402-3. Margaret (d. 1414) settled Wicken c. 1407 on the marriage of that son John's son John Peyton to Grace Burgoyne. (fn. 29) After John Peyton (III), of age in 1414, died in 1416, his minor son John's guardian, Grace's father John Burgoyne (d. 1435) of Dry Drayton, (fn. 30) occupied the manor into the 1430s. (fn. 31) John Peyton (IV) having died, just under age, in 1432, Wicken was inherited by his posthumous brother Thomas, of age in 1438. (fn. 32)

Thomas Peyton eventually removed to the Isleham estate that he acquired by marriage in the 1460s, (fn. 33) leaving Wicken to his son and namesake (d. v.p. 1476 × 1483). Before his death in 1484 the elder Thomas had settled Wicken in 1476 on the marriage of his son's son, another Thomas (d. s.p. 1490). The next brother Robert Peyton, however, took possession c. 1490. (fn. 34) From Sir Robert Wicken manor descended with his Isleham estates in the Peyton male line for four more generations until the 1630s. (fn. 35) His son Sir Robert's widow, Dame Frances Peyton, occupied Wicken manor as her jointure between 1550 and her death in 1582. (fn. 36)

Having been settled in 1620 on her greatgrandson Sir Edward Peyton's second marriage, Wicken was excluded from the Peyton land sales of the 1630s, being claimed by Thomas Peyton, the only child of that marriage. (fn. 37) Thomas remained in possession in the 1650s. (fn. 38) He was allotted 380 a. of Wicken's fens for his manorial rights in its waste in 1664, (fn. 39) but, almost at once, debt obliged him, under an agreement of 1661, to convey Wicken to Thomas Richardson, Lord Cramond. (fn. 40)

In 1665 Richardson transferred the Wicken lordship to his second son William, a lawyer. (fn. 41) William sold it in 1675 in trust for James Margetson, archbishop of Armagh, named as lord from 1677. Dying in 1678, the archbishop was succeeded at Wicken by his son John (d. 1690), (fn. 42) who devised Wicken to his widow Alice for her life. (fn. 43) Remarried from 1694 to George Carpenter, she possessed the manor until it was transferred in 1704 to Brabazon Ponsonby, the second husband of Alice and John Margetson's daughter Sarah (fn. 44) (d. 1733). Ponsonby, an Irish peer from 1724, was created earl of Bessborough in 1739. In 1751 he transferred Wicken to his son William, who succeeded as earl in 1758 and died in 1793. His son Frederick, the third earl, (fn. 45) was still lord of Wicken (fn. 46) in 1800 when he offered the manor and its lands for sale. (fn. 47)

The purchaser, lord from 1802, was John Rayner, who in 1798 had succeeded to his deceased father Robert's long tenancy of Wicken Hall farm. (fn. 48) Dying without issue in 1813, John Rayner left his Wicken estate absolutely to his widow Sarah, who owned it until her death in 1832. (fn. 49) The estate was then split up. Her trustees sold the lordship separately after 1834. From 1835 to 1842 it belonged to C. B. Dryden as trustee, between 1846 and 1852 to James Cuddon, and from 1853 to James Thornton (d. 1880). (fn. 50) In 1881 the manorial rights with almost £20 of quitrents were sold to Messrs. Paine and Brettle of Chertsey (Surr.), owners until the early 1920s. By 1929 and in the 1930s they belonged to R. H. Edlestone. (fn. 51)

Wicken Hall farm, 411 a., including c. 275 a. of ancient several closes in the south-east corner of the parish, was sold in 1835 to the Revd. Richard Samuel Dixon, who was allotted at inclosure 49 a., which was shortly after sold separately. After Dr. Dixon died in 1845 (fn. 52) Hall farm passed to his sister Jean's husband, Samuel Amy Severne of Poslingford Hall (Suff.), who in 1860 settled it upon the marriage of their only child, Elizabeth Julia (d. 1902) to (Lord) Henry Fitzwarrine Chichester (d. 1928). In 1901 the Chichesters sold the 275-a. Hall farm to Frederick Appleyard Johnson, then of Soham Hall, (fn. 53) who had c. 1875 succeeded at Hall farm his father, J. A. Johnson, its tenant since 1840. The younger Johnson owned 325 a. in Wicken by 1910, (fn. 54) when he sold Hall farm, for smallholdings, to Cambridgeshire county council, which still owned almost all that farm, called Chancel farm, in the 1990s. (fn. 55)

Wicken manor house, probably recorded c. 1200, (fn. 56) may originally have stood in a moated site of 200 by 100 ft., slightly east of the village and a little south of the church and the modern Wicken Hall. The shallow moat, 12 ft. wide, was still wet in the 1930s. (fn. 57) Wicken Hall, by 1800 used as the Hall farmhouse, (fn. 58) probably dates from c. 1575-1625. Largely timber-framed though standing on clunch foundations, it has at the west end a gable wall in red brick, possibly early, the upper part rebuilt in grey brick c. 1760. The house, formerly L-plan with a stair turret in the angle, has two storeys under a highpitched, tiled roof. Its three-bayed north front, remodelled c. 1760, then received a pedimented Doric doorcase. Inside, two original late 16thor early 17th-century chimney stacks retain on both floors contemporary clunch fireplaces with four-centred arches. (fn. 59) In 1967 the house was separated by sale from the farmland. (fn. 60) Mr. R. Swingler, the new owner, having lodged American airforcemen there in the 1970s, had the Hall expensively converted for opening as a 10-bedroom hotel in 1981. (fn. 61) Again sold in 1987, the Hall was a private residence in the 1990s. (fn. 62)

Mrs. Sarah Rayner had in 1832 left her other Wicken property to her sister, Miss Mary Hatch. (fn. 63) She received the extensive former fenland in the north-west of the parish, allotted in 1664, by 1770 covering c. 343 a. as High Fen farm, together with Upware farm. At inclosure in the 1840s Miss Hatch was also allotted 149 a. for open-field and common land, probably once the Rayners' copyhold. (fn. 64) She died in 1858. At her land sale that year, her kinsman William Hatch Cropley bought Upware farm, then 150 a., (fn. 65) which was broken up when again sold in 1899. (fn. 66) When High Fen farm was sold in 1881, it had been split into two farms, Padney, 244 a., and High Fen, 232 a.; the latter was owned by 1910, possibly since 1882, by Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, who resold in 1918. (fn. 67)

High Fen farmhouse is probably 17thcentury, timber-framed on brick foundations, with service and parlour wings, the latter extended southward in the 18th century, each side of a hall range. (fn. 68)

In 1228 Hugh Malebisse and his wife Beatrice had given 55 a. in Wicken to endow the Augustinian priory which they founded at Spinney, then a fen islet a mile north-west of the village. In 1232 Beatrice added another 55 a. with 'the place called Spinetum'. (fn. 69) Her successor Wimar of Thornton had added another 10 a. by 1243. (fn. 70) By 1279 the priory also had 50 a. held in free alms of Wicken manor, possibly the former rectorial glebe. (fn. 71)

To support certain charities, Wimar's granddaughter Mary Bassingbourn granted Spinney more Wicken land, c. 90 a. in 1302 and 86 a. c. 1322. (fn. 72) The poverty-stricken and sometimes turbulent priory (fn. 73) was eventually annexed and appropriated between 1449 and 1453 to Ely priory, (fn. 74) which retained the Spinney estate until its surrender in 1540. (fn. 75)

The patronage of Spinney priory, originally attached to Wicken manor, was not formally released with it to the Colvilles in 1348 by the heir male, John Bassingbourn, lord of Badlingham, son of Mary Bassingbourn's younger son Matthew. (fn. 76) John also inherited from Matthew a 280-a. appanage, perhaps given by Mary before 1324, including 110 a. in Wicken, which in 1344 he entailed on his own son Richard. (fn. 77) Both the Wicken land once Matthew's, called 'a (half) manor', and the Spinney priory advowson were claimed in the late 1410s by Richard Athelwald whose wife Maud was a Bassingbourn coheir. In 1419 he conveyed the advowson to feoffees, (fn. 78) probably for the lords Tiptoft, who in 1453 consented as patrons to the appropriation to Ely. (fn. 79) Others of Athelwald's feoffees had released his Wicken 'manor' in 1438-9 to Thomas Peyton. (fn. 80)

George Carleton of London, who in 1539 had obtained a 99-year lease of the SPINNEY estate from Ely, (fn. 81) obtained in 1542 a Crown grant of the freehold, (fn. 82) to be held by knight-service. Carleton, the king's apothecary, died in 1547 and his brother and heir, John Carleton, of Brightwell Baldwin (Oxon.), (fn. 83) in 1551, leaving Spinney to John's second son George, who in 1552 granted it to Henry Payne. (fn. 84) In 1556 that manor was conveyed to Sir George Somerset (d. 1560), of Wickhambrook (Suff.), who in 1557 settled it on his son Charles's marriage. (fn. 85) In 1563 Charles sold it to Sir Ambrose Jermyn of Rushbrooke (Suff.). (fn. 86) Jermyn, dying in 1577, devised Spinney to his eldest son Robert, (fn. 87) shortly after knighted. In 1582 Sir Robert sold it to the physician Philip Barrow, who moved from Isleham to Wicken. (fn. 88) On his death in 1600 Barrow was succeeded by his eldest son Isaac (d. 1642). (fn. 89) In 1639 Isaac Barrow and his son, heir, and namesake sold Spinney to Sir William Russell, Bt. (d. 1654), of Chippenham. (fn. 90)

Spinney was possibly then intended to support Sir William Russell's youngest son William, cr. Bt. 1660 (d. 1714). (fn. 91) Spinney Abbey was actually occupied, until his death in 1664, by the younger William's elderly uncle Killiphett Russell. (fn. 92) Probably in 1662, (fn. 93) the estate was transferred from Sir William to his sister Elizabeth's husband Henry Cromwell, lately governor of Ireland. (fn. 94) Henry, settled at Spinney Abbey from 1664, (fn. 95) suffered an ironical visit there from Charles II, probably in 1669, (fn. 96) and died in 1674, leaving his estates to his widow Elizabeth (d. 1687). Their eldest surviving son and heir Henry, (fn. 97) overwhelmed by debt, sold the Spinney Abbey estate in 1692 to Admiral Edward Russell. (fn. 98)

Russell, created earl of Orford in 1697, (fn. 99) left Spinney at his death in 1727 with his Chippenham estate to his niece Dame Anne Tipping (d. 1728), whose daughter Letitia, wife of Samuel Sandys, succeeded to it. (fn. 100) Acquired, probably by 1732, by Charles Seymour, duke of Somerset (d. 1748), Spinney was assigned, when his Cambridgeshire lands were divided c. 1762 between the daughters of his second marriage, to Charlotte, the younger (d. 1805), and her husband, Heneage Finch, earl of Aylesford (d. 1777). In 1811 their son, Heneage, the fourth earl, (fn. 101) offered his Spinney Abbey estate, then including a 374-a. farm, along with Upware farm and 30 a. of open-field land, for sale. (fn. 102)

Spinney was finally sold in 1820 to Thomas Whittred who died soon after, perhaps by 1825. (fn. 103) Following inclosure Whittred's trustees owned 375 a., including 64 a. just allotted for open-field land, in the 1840s. Sold in 1858, the estate was bought by Richard Chambers Golding, (fn. 104) who died in 1889. His eccentric son, Chambers Waddelow Golding, initially resident at the Abbey, died soon after 1900. The Golding trustees sold their Wicken estate, altogether 781 a., in 1918; the 78-a. Grays farm north of Thornhall went to its tenant, while Spinney Abbey farm, then 406 a., was bought by Robert Llewellyn Fuller, of a family established since the 1690s, partly as copyholders, on Padney farm in Wicken fen; they had owned over 60 a. by the 1840s. Fuller's father Thomas, tenant of Spinney from 1892, had passed on its lease to him in 1903. (fn. 105) R. L. Fuller (d. 1953) was succeeded at Spinney by his son Thomas Llewellyn Fuller (d. 1977), who in 1972 transferred the estate, by then 526 a., to his sons, one of whom, Mr. R. J. Fuller, occupied Spinney Abbey farm from 1987. (fn. 106) In the late 20th century the senior line of the Fullers at Padney owned and worked c. 400 a. in Wicken. (fn. 107)

The post-Dissolution farmers and owners of the Spinney estate had converted for their residence the remains of the medieval priory buildings, presumably first built in the 13th century. The priory church had in its gable a traceried, possibly rose, window containing the arms of Malebisse, as the founder, Colville, and Sir John Gernon, who was buried there. About 1476 Thomas Peyton complained of Ely priory's destroying that armorial glass. (fn. 108) In 1403 the canons' domestic buildings included a hall near the church. (fn. 109) About 1432 a dwelling nearby, across a great garden, was assigned to a corrodian. (fn. 110) When leased in 1541 the domestic buildings included a new hall and kitchen and a parlour and a chamber over it. (fn. 111)

Called Spinney Abbey by 1609, (fn. 112) the house was a gentleman's seat from at latest the time of the Barrows until the 1690s: (fn. 113) between 1666 and 1674 Henry Cromwell probably remodelled it, increasing the number of hearths from 10 to 29, (fn. 114) and his son Henry occupied it until 1692. (fn. 115) In 1769 that old house still had two main parts, a lower southern range with a blocked arcade of at least three Gothic arches, perhaps once part of the priory church, and a square threestoreyed block, possibly 16th-century, to the north-east, which had a massive chimney breast in its north wall between mullioned and transomed windows. A steeply roofed porch occupied the angle. That house was pulled down in 1775 (fn. 116) and replaced by the existing farmhouse, twostoreyed with an attic. Its main south-west front, of Barnack ashlar probably reused from its predecessor, has three broad bays, the two outer ones with steep gables dressed in brick. The garden contains numerous fragments of carved stonework from the priory, 14th-century or earlier, including sections of quatrefoil piers, capitals, pinnacles, and a wheel-cross. Six male skeletons, perhaps from a monastic graveyard, were dug up under the house in 1935. (fn. 117)

In the mid 13th century Henry of Upware held land in Wicken of Walter, son of Richard, of Little Isleham. Walter with his son William confirmed that property near Spinney, including half Thornhall croft, to Henry's daughter Cecily on her marriage to Thorold, brother of a prior of Anglesey. (fn. 118) In 1272 Cecily and her second husband, Joseph of Bottisham, gave Anglesey priory the messuage called Thornhall and 20 a. in Wicken. (fn. 119) Anglesey retained that holding, (fn. 120) presumably based, as later, on Thornhall farmstead which stood within ancient closes a little east of Spinney priory, until it was surrendered in 1536. (fn. 121) Its immediate fate is uncertain.

In 1639 Sir William Russell acquired THORNHALL 'manor' from the Barrows along with Spinney, (fn. 122) with which it passed until the Sandyses inherited it in the 1720s. (fn. 123) When selling Spinney, they reserved its sheepwalk, with closes lying along the north-eastern and north-western edges of the Spinney inclosures, later worked from Thornhall farm. The 125-a. farm thus owned by Samuel, by then lord Sandys of Ombersley, and later by his widow and daughters, included 45 a. of closes in the 1720s. (fn. 124) The trustees under the will of their remote kinsman and eventual successor, the Hon. Thomas Windsor (d. 1832), (fn. 125) owned altogether 129 a. of closes in the 1840s and were then allotted another 94 a. at inclosure. (fn. 126) In 1918 the Golding trustees sold to R. L. Fuller of Spinney Abbey 36 a. of that farm, including Thornhall farmstead, which remained with his family in the 1980s. (fn. 127)

Other land linked with the Little Isleham fee, at Upware, (fn. 128) may have come to Sir John Lovetot, who acquired 41 a. in Wicken in 1282 and 1287 and at his death in 1295 held of Wicken manor an estate partly at Upware. (fn. 129) That holding perhaps became the 'manor' of UPWARE, based around that hamlet, which Sir Robert FitzWalter (d. 1326) of Essex settled in 1303 on his then second son Sir Robert, later lord FitzWalter (d. 1328). (fn. 130) About 1320 Sir John Howard granted that manor to Sir Thomas Pecche, still in possession 1331 × 1345. (fn. 131) Although Pecche left two daughters, Joan and Anne, as coheirs, in 1348 his widow Joan and her next husband, John Avenel of Gunthorpe (Norf.), successfully resisted an attempt by those daughters' husbands, Sir William la Zouche of Lubbesthorpe (Leics.) and Sir William Malory, to recover Upware and settled its reversion on Joan's son Edmund Howard. (fn. 132) Upware manor, though conveyed between feoffees connected with Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1366, was apparently possessed in 1381 by John Sibill (d. 1393). (fn. 133)

When executed in 1470, John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, held Upware manor of Thomas Peyton. (fn. 134) The eventual successor to the earl's Cambridgeshire lands, Sir Thomas Lovell (d. 1524), (fn. 135) devised that Upware manor to his nephew, (Sir) Francis Lovell (fn. 136) (d. 1552), whose son Sir Thomas owned Upware at his death in 1567. His son, namesake, and heir (d. 1604) sold it in 1587 to Roger Rebell, (fn. 137) who in 1588 resold it to Henry Seaman. Isaac Barrow, who had already acquired the lease of Upware in 1603 and expensively repaired its decayed manor house, bought out Seaman and his prodigal son Richard in 1606-7. (fn. 138)

Upware manor, not sold by Isaac Barrow with Spinney, was conveyed in 1650 by his son Philip to Mary Goodrick, widow, (fn. 139) apparently married by 1653 to John Povey (d. 1658). (fn. 140) When Mary, the owner in 1667, died, still a widow, in 1679, she bequeathed to her nephew William Chaplin land in Wicken, including Upware manor and 300 a. of Adventurers' allotments just east of it in Broad meadow and Sedge fen, bought from Richard Gorges, lord Gorges of Dundalk, a vigorous promoter of the fen drainage. (fn. 141)

Upware farm was part of Lord Aylesford's Wicken estate by 1811 when its 114 a., mostly old inclosures, was offered for sale with Spinney. (fn. 142) It was bought in 1813 with Wicken rectory by John Rayner and shortly afterwards styled the Tithe farm. (fn. 143) From the 1830s that Upware farm was included in that part of Rayner's estate which passed to Miss Mary Hatch and was sold after her death. (fn. 144)