Leonard Stanley: Manor and other estates

MANOR AND OTHER ESTATES.

Three hides at Leonard Stanley, held in 1066 by Godric and Wisnod, had passed by 1086 to Ralph of Berkeley. (fn. 1) Ralph's nephew Roger of Berkeley held the manor of STANLEY c. 1131 when he founded the priory there. (fn. 2) Roger died soon afterwards and the manor passed to his son Roger (d. 1170) and his descendants the Berkeleys of Dursley. (fn. 3) Roger son of the second Roger was dead by 1191, and his son, also Roger, some of whose land at Stanley was mortgaged to the Jews in 1207, (fn. 4) was dead by 1221 when his son Henry (fn. 5) granted dower in the manor to his widow Letuaria. Henry died the same year, and Engelard de Cigogne, as guardian of his son John, was recorded as holding Leonard Stanley c. 1228. (fn. 6) John of Berkeley came of age c. 1240 but was dead by 1245. John's son Henry held the manor in 1285 (fn. 7) and died c. 1287, (fn. 8) when it passed in dower to his widow Joan who held it in 1316. (fn. 9) By 1327 it had passed to her grandson, John of Berkeley, (fn. 10) who died in 1349, when the manor was held for the few months she survived him by his widow Hawise. (fn. 11) It then passed to their son Nicholas, who died in 1382 and was succeeded by his sister Maud who married Robert de Cauntelo. (fn. 12) Maud died c. 1403 and was succeeded by Elizabeth, daughter of her son Robert and wife of Richard Cheddar. (fn. 13) Jane, daughter of Elizabeth and Richard, married Thomas Wykes who held the manor in 1442 and died in 1473 (fn. 14) when it passed to his son John (d. 1485). (fn. 15) John's son Edmund (d. 1514) succeeded to the manor; (fn. 16) it then passed to his son Nicholas (fn. 17) (d. 1558) and to Nicholas's grandson, Robert Wykes, who held it in 1568, (fn. 18) but apparently sold it soon afterwards. (fn. 19)

The manor had passed to the Crown by 1611 when it was bought by Sir William Whitmore (fn. 20) (d. 1649). It passed to Sir William's son, Richard Whitmore of Lower Slaughter (d. 1667), (fn. 21) and was held in 1671 by Richard's widow Catherine who married John Wheeler, but by 1674 the manor had passed to her son Richard Whitmore. Richard was dead by 1690 when his wife Anne held the manor during the minority of her son William, who had succeeded by 1700 and died in 1725. (fn. 22) William's widow Elizabeth held the manor in 1726. Her son William Whitmore (fn. 23) sold the estate between 1736 and 1738; it was divided among more than twenty purchasers but the manor and a large part of the land were bought in 1738 by Robert Sandford of the Priory. (fn. 24)

Robert Sandford died in 1769, and was succeeded by his son, also Robert (d. 1804), (fn. 25) who devised the manor to Robert Timbrell (d. 1811). It passed to Robert Timbrell's sisters, Rebecca Holland (d. 1815) and Amy Timbrell (d. 1818). (fn. 26) Land-tax for the estate was paid until his death c. 1825 by the Revd. Richard Denison Cumberland, the husband of a third sister Susannah, and until 1832 by his widow, (fn. 27) but in 1830 the estate was said to be held by trustees under the will of Amy Timbrell and Rebecca Holland, who were the owners at inclosure in 1834. (fn. 28) In 1856 it was owned by the Revd. John Price Jones who had married Susannah Willet Cumberland, the daughter of Richard and Susannah. Jones was dead by 1863 and his widow held the estate until her death c. 1875. The manor passed to her son Richard Denison Jones (d. 1903), (fn. 29) whose son Richard Denison Cumberland Jones (d. 1916) was succeeded by his sisters Katherine Anna (d. 1940) (fn. 30) and Lucy Elizabeth who c. 1959 sold Priory Farm with 310 a. to F. E. Pullin, the farmer since 1932. (fn. 31)

Leonard Stanley Priory was granted to Gloucester Abbey in 1146. It was leased to Sir William Kingston from 1538, (fn. 32) and in 1544 the Crown granted it to his son Sir Anthony Kingston, (fn. 33) who sold it in 1548 to Anthony Bourchier. (fn. 34) Anthony Bourchier sold it the next year to John Sandford, (fn. 35) a Stonehouse clothier, (fn. 36) who in 1554 made it over to his son William (d. 1570). (fn. 37) The estate, which included the rectory of Leonard Stanley, had been leased to Richard Selwyn before 1548; in 1558 William Selwyn was the lessee and in 1563 and 1572 Leonard Burge. (fn. 38) The freehold passed to William Sandford's son Anselm (fn. 39) (d. 1611), and to Anselm's son William (fn. 40) who died in 1632 having settled it on his second son John. (fn. 41) John Sandford died in 1684 and was succeeded by his son Robert (d. 1719), (fn. 42) whose son, another Robert, acquired the manor, as mentioned above, in 1738. (fn. 43)

A house belonging to the manor was recorded in 1287 and 1486, (fn. 44) but not, apparently, later; it may have stood in the field to the west of the priory site where indications of a moated site were visible in 1967. The Whitmore family apparently never lived at Leonard Stanley. (fn. 45) The former house of the priory, which became the manor-house in 1738, had 19 hearths in 1672. (fn. 46) It was rebuilt by Robert Sandford c. 1750, (fn. 47) and is a three-story house with wings projecting to the rear. The front is faced with ashlar and has a central pediment bearing a prominent blazon of the Sandford arms, a pedimented doorway, and sash windows. The rest of the house is of rubble with ashlar quoins and a facing of roughcast on the rear walls, and has stone-mullioned windows with dripmoulds, perhaps re-used from the earlier house. Robert Sandford (d. 1769), described as of Stratton, (fn. 48) and his son, described as of Cirencester, (fn. 49) perhaps never lived there; the interior of the house was still unfinished c. 1775. (fn. 50) From 1856 and probably earlier the house has been occupied by the farmer of Priory farm. (fn. 51)

In 1738 Charles Brown, the tenant, bought the estate known as DOWNTON LIVING from William Whitmore. (fn. 52) In 1792 and 1798 it was owned by Giles Brown, (fn. 53) and after inclosure in 1834 Samuel Brown had an estate of c. 100 a. in the north-east of the parish. (fn. 54) Between 1856 and 1870 the estate was owned by the Misses Brown, (fn. 55) and in 1967 it was owned and farmed by Mr. H. G. Godsell. The house, which was called Downton Farm in 1967, stands at the corner of the road to Beard's Mill, (fn. 56) and was described in 1736 as a large farm-house in very bad repair; (fn. 57) it was rebuilt in stone in the late 18th or early 19th century.

A house called TOWNSEND HOUSE, facing the north end of the Street, apparently belonged to a branch of the Clutterbuck family in 1580. (fn. 58) In 1672 it was occupied by John Barnes (fn. 59) and in 1695 by William Holbrow. By 1729 it had passed to John Holbrow (fn. 60) who bought part of the manorial estate in 1736, (fn. 61) and was presumably the John Holbrow who died in 1747. (fn. 62) In 1778 the estate was owned by another John Holbrow (d. 1780), who was succeeded by his son William (d. 1803), who devised the estate to his brother Samuel (d. 1814). Samuel's son William Holbrow succeeded him (fn. 63) and owned c. 50 a. in 1834. (fn. 64) By 1852 the estate was owned by William Marmont of Peckstreet, King's Stanley, whose trustees sold it after his death in 1862. (fn. 65) The house, renamed the Grange, was occupied from 1889 by the Jones family, owners of the manor; (fn. 66) in 1967 it was occupied as flats. It is a late-16th- or 17th-century stone house comprising a block with two gables and a gabled cross-wing on the west; the east and north sides are faced with rough-cast. In the 18th century sash windows were added on the two lower floors on the south and west, but the other sides and the gables on the south retain the original stone-mullioned windows with dripmoulds.

A small farm-house, later called STANLEY DOWNTON FARM, west of the road at Downton, apparently occupies the site of the house of Richard Clutterbuck of Downton, yeoman (d. 1629), (fn. 67) and was apparently rebuilt in the 1660s by his third son, John Clutterbuck (d. 1677). (fn. 68) By 1701 it had probably passed to John's nephew, Richard Clutterbuck of Peckstreet House, King's Stanley, who then had property in Leonard Stanley, (fn. 69) and in 1830 Richard's descendant, John Clutterbuck of Peckstreet House (d. 1839), owned Stanley Downton Farm with 68 a. (fn. 70) The house is of coursed rubble with a gable and some stone-mullioned windows on the west; the windows on the east were replaced in the 19th century. In the late 19th century extensive stables in variegated brick were built north of the house.