Bampton and Weald: Other estates

OTHER ESTATES.

Land and a fishery in Weald granted to Osney abbey c. 1170 descended with the abbey's estate in Lew, and are treated below. (fn. 1) The Hospitallers held an estate in Weald and Burroway, attached to their preceptory at Clanfield, by 1279, when they owed 40s. a year and suit of court to the lord of Bampton Earls. (fn. 2) In 1575 the Crown granted the land in Burroway to speculators; (fn. 3) a house and two freehold yardlands in Weald which owed quitrent to the Hospitallers in 1513 were owned in 1565 by Christopher Cheverell and his wife Isabel, who leased them, (fn. 4) but no further references have been found.

The Laundels family had land in Bampton by 1302, (fn. 5) and in the earlier 14th century a freehold and leasehold estate in Bampton, Weald, Lew, and elsewhere was built up probably by John Laundels (d. 1361), sheriff and escheator of Oxfordshire, and his son John, a commissioner of the peace. (fn. 6) Following Nicholas Laundels's death his lands passed to his relict Eleanor and her second husband John Hill of Burford and later of Bampton, who were in dispute with Laundels's trustees in 1421-2 and 1433. (fn. 7) The estate was acquired before 1455 by the Levels of Minster Lovell, passing on Francis, Lord Level's forfeiture in 1485 to Jasper Tudor (d. s.p. 1495), duke of Bedford; (fn. 8) his lands reverted to the Crown, which probably in 1514 granted a part, including land in Lew, to Thomas Howard (d. 1524), duke of Norfolk, but that estate has not been traced further. (fn. 9) Laundels or Landells farm (58 a.) in Weald, acquired by John Dudley (d. 1553), earl of Warwick, may have been the house and 54 a. which John Laundels held of Bampton Earls manor in 1361 for service of a rose, though its location suggests that it was taken originally from Exeter cathedral's rectory manor. (fn. 10) Following Dudley's forfeiture the Crown granted it in 1557 to Thomas Vavasour of Copmanthorpe (Yorks. W.R.) with 72 a. in Aston, and in the later 16th century and the 17th it changed hands frequently, passing by 1645, without the Aston land, to John Loder of Hatford (Berks.) (fn. 11) and later to the Dewe family of Bampton and their successors the Hawkinses, lessees of the parsonage estate. The farm was sold after Charles Hawkins's death in 1813, and was split up. (fn. 12) The homestead, which in the 18th century and early 19th lay on both sides of Landells Lane west of Bampton Manor, was presumably the site of Laundels' court mentioned in 1465, (fn. 13) associated perhaps with late 13th-century fortifications excavated on the lane's north side. (fn. 14) The buildings, of unknown date, were demolished after 1899. (fn. 15)

In 1687 Jesus College, Oxford, acquired from the Wood family of Oxford a freehold of c. 4¼ yardlands in Bampton and Weald, built up during the 17th century by John Palmer (d. 1650) and Bartholomew Coxeter (d. 1664), and by Coxeter's son-in-law John Gower (d. by 1684). (fn. 16) In the later 19th century and early 20th the college's estate was increased to c. 650 a. by the acquisition of, in particular, Backhouse, Castle, and Ham Court farms, formerly part of Bampton Earls manor, and of several cottages; (fn. 17) all except Ham Court farm and some of the cottages was sold in the later 20th century. (fn. 18)

College Farm, at the junction of Clanfield road and Weald Lane, was the house for the original college estate, and is a U-shaped building of limestone rubble with stone-slated roofs. It was apparently that held in the late 16th century with Roger Cook's 2 yardlands, and seems to have been inhabited successively by Palmer, Coxeter, and Gower. (fn. 19) In 1695 it was let with a kiln and malthouse to a Bampton mercer, reserving the great parlour, the dining room, the little room over the parlour, and use of the kitchen; (fn. 20) about that time it was rebuilt or entirely remodelled, re-using or retaining earlier features, (fn. 21) and by the late 18th century it was let to tenant farmers. (fn. 22) The north range, of two storeys, contained the parlour and hall, and the west wing the kitchen, with beyond it a broad passage entry from the road into the central courtyard. The east wing, attached only at its north-west corner, has a large ground-floor fireplace, and in the mid 19th century was used as a brewhouse. (fn. 23)