North Greehow Hundred: Quarles

QUARLES.

In the book of Domesday, it is wrote Guervelei, and was then held by Turstin, son of Guido, of Roger Bigot, and was a beruite belonging to the manor of North Creke, with one carucate of land, and 5 borderers, and valued in Creke.

The King's manor also of Wighton extended into this township, to which there belonged half a carucate of land; but at the survey it is said there was no land belonging to this part, and that there might be one carucate; the whole was 4 furlongs long, and 4 broad, and paid 6d. gelt, and called Huerveles. (fn. 1)

Turstin abovementioned, son of Guido, was enfeoffed by Roger Bigot of North Creke manor, with this. He was ancestor of the family of De Creke, and in the beginning of Henry the Third's reign, the tenants of Robert, son of Ralph Quarles, held one half fee of the Crekes, and they of Bigot Earl of Norfolk; (fn. 2) and Maud, late wife of Martin de Quarveles, in the 41st of that King, recovered seisin of certain tenements here, against Thomas de Burgo; and in his 43d year, a fine was levied between Petronilla de Orwell, of Cambridgeshire, and Nicholas de Wharfles and Amabilia his wife, by which Petronilla conveyed the advowson of the church of this town to Nicholas, and his wife, and Petronilla had rent here, granted to her. William Quarles was, in the reign of Henry III. a benefactor to Creke abbey.

Sir John de Thorp was Lord in the 35th of Edward I. and in the 4th of Edward III. Edmund de Baconthorp held it of Robert de Thorp, he of the Bygots Earls of Norfolk.

Sir Stephen de Hales aliened this manor with 145 acres of land, &c. in Holcham, and Burnham, with the rent of 10 marks, to Creke abbey, and in the 3d of Henry IV. the said abbey was found to hold a quarter of a fee, their temporalities, in 1428, being valued at 5l.

At the dissolution of that abbey, it was granted with it, Ao. 22 of Henry VII. to Margaret Countess of Richmond, the King's mother, and on her founding of Christ college, in Cambridge, was settled by her on that society, and is held of that college, by lease, at this day.

Here is now a farm, or manor-house, only remaining, and was valued in the reign of King William III. at 120l. per ann.

The Church has been demolished many years, and was in ruins in 1571.

It was anciently a rectory, valued at 5 marks, and the vicarage, after its appropriation to Creke abbey, so valued, and in the patronage of that convent: Peter-pence were 7d.

Vicars.

Richard Buckenham occurs vicar about 1300.

1310, sequestration of it granted to Ed. Birston, and in the said year, instituted vicar, presented by the abbot, &c. of Creke.

1330, John Staloun.

1339, Ralph Pecks.

1344, Edmund de Birston.

1393, Nicholas Walsingham; after this I find no institutions.

In the 35th of Henry III. Ralph, son of Silurus gave 28 acres of land to Symon, the prior, &c. of Petreston, and in the 12th of Edward II. William Bulman and Cecilia his wife, sold lands to them. The prior in the 20th of Edward III. held half a fee of Beatrix de Creke, as said, which the tenants of Robert, son of Ralph de Quarles formerly held, and their temporalities were valued at 47s. 10d. in 1428.