Waterbeach: Manors and other estates

Manors and other estates

. Of the two principal manors one derived from 1 1/2; hides, of which half was in 1066 possessed by Blacwine, sheriff of Cambridgeshire, the rest by four king's sokemen. By 1086 the whole was held of Picot the sheriff by Osmund, perhaps Osmund of Stretham. (fn. 1) It passed later to the Picots of Quy, descended from one of the sheriff's younger sons, possibly by gift from Henry I following the forfeiture of Picot's son Robert c. 1106: later it did not depend on Picot's barony of Bourn, (fn. 2) but was held in chief by the lords of Quy until the 1280s. (fn. 3)

From Henry Picot, tenant before 1135, WATERBEACHmanor had passed by 1166 to his son Aubrey, who held it until the 1170s. (fn. 4) His son Robert was just of age and knighted in 1185, when his mother Mabel's uncle, the justiciar Ranulph de Glanville, occupied his carucate as guardian. (fn. 5) Robert held the manor until he died in 1218. (fn. 6) When his lands were divided between his two coheirs, probably his daughters, Waterbeach was assigned to Amice and her husband Richard the Butler, (fn. 7) said to hold c. 1235 of his brother-in-law William of Hobridge, (fn. 8) but in 1242 in chief. (fn. 9) Richard (d. 1251) was succeeded by his elder son Robert, (fn. 10) who married in the late 1250s Denise, widow of William de Munchensy. (fn. 11) Robert died without issue in 1263. His brother and heir Richard, (fn. 12) who was in holy orders, agreed that Denise should have Waterbeach for life as her dower. (fn. 13) In 1268 he granted her the fee simple at a nominal rent (fn. 14) and in 1281 released his lordship over it, so that she could hold immediately of the Crown for a rose at Midsummer, the knight service being cancelled. (fn. 15) She granted Waterbeach, under licence of 1294, to the convent of Franciscan nuns, whom she brought from France to occupy her foundation, Waterbeach abbey. (fn. 16) The manor, held in 1346 as earlier in free alms, remained with that abbey (fn. 17) until the nuns were transferred to Denny in the 1340s. The advowson of the abbey passed, when the aged Denise de Munchensy died in 1304, to her granddaughter Denise (d. s.p. 1311), wife of Hugh de Vere. The next heir was found to be Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke (d. s.p. 1324), son of the elder Denise's stepdaughter Joan. His niece and coheir Elizabeth Comyn and her husband Richard Talbot (fn. 18) conveyed it in 1346 to Aymer's widow, Countess Mary de St. Pol, (fn. 19) who moved the nuns from Waterbeach to her new foundation at Denny in 1342. A few nuns remained in the buildings at Waterbeach or escaped back to them, but in 1350-1 royal and papal authority was invoked to compel them to leave for Denny. (fn. 20)

The Waterbeach buildings were deserted by 1359. (fn. 21) Extensive earthworks are visible in the 15 ½-a. Hall Close, south-east of the parish church, which still belonged to the manor in 1814. (fn. 22) Excavations in 1963 discovered traces of wall foundations in clunch and limestone, with fragments of wall plaster, glass, and tiling, and some early 14th-century pottery. (fn. 23) About 1760 the close was still remembered locally as the site of an abbey, following the finding of foundations there before 1700. (fn. 24)

The new abbey also possessed the other main manor, DENNY, derived from c. 4 ½ hides owned by Eddeva in 1066, and from 1 yardland then belonging to a sokeman of the abbot of Ely. By 1086 Count Alan, lord of Richmond, had given that estate to his man Walter. (fn. 25) By the mid 12th century it belonged to Robert the Chamberlain, of the family who were hereditary chamberlains to the lords of Richmond. (fn. 26) Under his patronage the monks of Ely established a small cell, ruled by 1150 by the monk Reynold, on the isle of Elmney; Robert gave two thirds of Elmney and his neighbour Aubrey Picot probably the rest, each also contributing 9 a. and 6 a. of arable in the village fields, while Robert later gave a tenanted half yardland there. Elmney proved too liable to flood, and the monks removed to the higher isle of Denny, where Aubrey gave them 4 ½ a. upon which to build, the site being consecrated c. 1160, shortly before Robert's death as a monk at Ely. (fn. 27)

The monks did not remain long at Denny. By 1169 Ely priory was treating for its transfer to the Knights Templar, to whom, following disputes, Denny and Elmney were granted in 1176 for an annual rent of 4 marks, (fn. 28) still being paid in the early 14th century. (fn. 29) 3 Ely released it to Denny abbey in 1362. (fn. 30) Denny manor had meanwhile descended to Robert's eldest son George (d. s.p. 1175), from whom the Templars acquired it c. 1171. After 1175 they bought out his brother Niel's claims for 100 marks. (fn. 31) They later enlarged their holdings in Waterbeach by purchasing small freeholds, as in 1206, (fn. 32) including one of c. 43 a. between 1237 and 1241. (fn. 33) By the 1230s they were said to hold their estate in free alms of the fee of Ely, (fn. 34) but in 1279, although 3 hides owing rent to Ely were supposedly held of the bishop, their 80 a. of demesne arable, presumably George the Chamberlain's grant, owed castle guard to Richmond castle. (fn. 35) The preceptory possessed the manor until the Templars were arrested by the king in 1308. (fn. 36)

Denny manor was occupied by the sheriff and royal keepers for over five years from 1308. (fn. 37) About 1315 the king permitted Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford (d. 1322), to take it over. The earl then proposed to give Denny by exchange to Henry Chamberlain, lord of Landbeach, (fn. 38) but later apparently gave it instead to his client John Walwayn, treasurer in 1318 and later principal escheator (d. 1326). (fn. 39) Mean while the Knights Hospitaller, as successors to the Templars, had formally ceded Denny, of which they had had at best nominal possession, to the king in 1324. (fn. 40) It had then already been assigned to support the king's chamber, as between 1309 and 1313, and remained one of Edward II's Chamber manors until 1327. (fn. 41)

In 1327 Denny was one of three former Templar manors granted for life to Mary de St. Pol, dowager countess of Pembroke, in an exchange. (fn. 42) Mary bought the inheritance in 1336, intending to use it to endow Waterbeach abbey. (fn. 43) By 1339, however, she had decided to transfer the nuns from their inadequate buildings to the former Templar house at Denny. The convent refounded there in 1342 at once received her grant of Denny manor in free alms (fn. 44) and in 1346 the advowson of Waterbeach abbey. (fn. 45) In 1360 the king released the new abbey and all its lands from all forms of taxation then known, (fn. 46) and in 1368 granted it free warren on its demesne lands and confirmed its tenure in free alms. (fn. 47) He also in 1364 licensed acquisitions of c. 60 a., mostly in Waterbeach and Landbeach. (fn. 48) Countess Mary often visited the abbey until her death in 1377, when she requested burial before the high altar. (fn. 49)

The united manors, usually styled WATERBEACH WITH DENNY, to which almost the whole parish belonged, remained with the abbey until its surrender in 1539. (fn. 50) They were sold that year to Edward Elrington. (fn. 51) Having profitably leased the whole demesne, he returned the manors in 1544 by an exchange to the Crown, (fn. 52) with which the manorial rights remained until 1628. (fn. 53) Used by James I to endow his sons Henry and Charles, (fn. 54) the manor was included among the estates transferred to the City of London in 1628 to repay debts. (fn. 55) The transfer was subject to a fee farm of £134, equivalent to the former rent, (fn. 56) which Tobias Rustat gave in 1671 to endow scholarships at Jesus College, Cambridge. (fn. 57) Charged after 1856 upon Winfold farm, the rent remained payable to the college out of the airfield until compulsorily redeemed in 1986. (fn. 58)

Long before 1630 Denny abbey's demesne lands in Waterbeach had been divided into four, later three, substantial leaseholds on a pattern used by Elrington in the 1540s, probably following earlier precedents. Each was later enfranchised. The first comprised the open-field arable around the village, farmed from the abbey's farmstead there, the second the ancient inclosures around Denny, the third and smallest other closes at Elmney. (fn. 59)

The manor farm was held under a lease by the abbey of 1533 at a £12 rent to Robert Hasell and other villagers, which the Crown renewed in 1554. Reversions for 21-year terms were granted in 1584 and 1594 to John Spurling, the manorial steward by 1577. (fn. 60) Probably by 1599, (fn. 61) that lease had come to John Yaxley, who succeeded Spurling as steward, (fn. 62) and, controlling the reserved manorial rights, was virtually lord of the manor. His abuses as steward and demesne farmer were under investigation in 1610. (fn. 63) By 1617 Yaxley also had the lease of c. 250 a. of arable further north, called the Denny ground, (fn. 64) leased separately in 1540 and 1558. (fn. 65) In 1617 Yaxley bought out the royal interest in the 150 a. of open-field manorial demesne which he occupied, but not in that of Denny, nor in the Denny ground, which remained on lease. He was to hold in socage, subject to a fee farm equal to the traditional £12 rent. (fn. 66) The fee farm sold by the Crown in the 1670s was acquired by Sir George Downing, passing eventually to Downing College, Cambridge, (fn. 67) which still received £12 from Hall farm in 1913. (fn. 68)

By the 1620s Yaxley also possessed the beneficial lease under the see of Ely of Waterbeach rectory. (fn. 69) At his death in 1624 he left the manor and rectory with his other property there to his elder sister's daughter Anne, wife of John Robson (d. 1630), an alderman of King's Lynn (Norf.). The estate was subject to a £100 annuity settled on Mary, wife of the Cambridge lawyer, Robert Spicer, Yaxley's executor. (fn. 70) Spicer would not surrender the title deeds until Robson agreed in 1625 to let the Spicers retain the lease of the Denny ground, and himself take only that of the rectory. About 1631 Spicer's son Thomas still contested Anne's right to the latter. (fn. 71) By 1650 the rectory and presumably Waterbeach manor farm had descended to Anne's son John Robson (fn. 72) (d. 1680). (fn. 73) In 1650 the parliamentary commissioners sold him the freehold of the confiscated rectory estate. His family were later impoverished by lawsuits with claimants to it under a lease made by the bishop in 1661. (fn. 74) Robson's son John sold his Waterbeach lands, heavily mortgaged by 1694, in 1701 to the London merchant Josiah Bacon, (fn. 75) under whose heirs Waterbeach and Denny manors were substantially reunited.

The lease of the closes around Denny, later c. 450 a., granted by Elrington in 1543 to three local men, was shortly acquired by Robert Chester (kt. c. 1550) of Cokenach (Herts.), who in 1558 obtained a 60-year Crown lease of them at c. £74 a year. (fn. 76) He was also steward and bailiff from 1545 to his death in 1574, when his lease passed to his widow Magdalen. (fn. 77) A reversionary lease of 1595 for 50 years from 1618 (fn. 78) was acquired by the Cambridge carrier, Thomas Hobson, who by 1617 had procured the earlier one. (fn. 79) In 1628 he claimed extensive royalties over the fenland around Denny. (fn. 80) At his death in 1631 he left the Denny lease to his daughter Anne (or Agnes) (d. 1646), who already lived in the abbey, wife of William Knight (d. by 1640). (fn. 81) Anne left much land to her daughters and younger son John, (fn. 82) who with his elder brother William, who possessed the lease in 1650, had their Waterbeach lands under sequestration c. 1654 as alleged royalists. (fn. 83) William Knight (d. c. 1660) bequeathed his rights to his son and namesake, (fn. 84) whose mother Anne lived at Waterbeach in 1666, when John probably occupied the abbey. (fn. 85) The Knights retained after 1668 a family vault at Waterbeach and were sometimes benefactors to the parish. (fn. 86)

Meanwhile the City of London had in 1630 sold its reversionary freehold rights over Denny to Alderman George Whitmore (kt. 1632, d. 1654). (fn. 87) His son William (d. 1678) took possession only when the Knights' lease expired in 1668. After his son William, a minor, died accidentally in 1684, the estate remained with trustees, headed by the earl of Craven, until its sale in 1706 under a Chancery order to Thomas Sclater, as trustee for the deceased Josiah Bacon. (fn. 88) Having married Bacon's heir Elizabeth (d. s.p. 1726), Sclater occupied the reunited Waterbeach manorial estate until his death in 1736. It then passed under Elizabeth's will to her half-brothers John and Peter Standley. In 1742 her Waterbeach property, including the manorial rights and farm, the Denny closes, the rectory lease, and probably most of the Adventurers' Fen (c. 465 a. by 1760), was assigned upon a partition to Peter. (fn. 89)

At his death in 1780 Peter devised all his estates to his protégé Henry Poynter, later Standley, who in 1781 settled his 1,914 a. at Waterbeach as the jointure of his intended wife Persis Lens. (fn. 90) The Standleys gradually broke up the estate, Adventurers' Fen being sold by 1800. (fn. 91) After Henry's death in 1812 Persis was allotted 925 a. in 1814, besides her 750 a. of old inclosures. (fn. 92) In 1818 she and their son Henry Peter Standley sold the manorial rights with all the Denny closes and other farmland north of the village, in all c. 1,610 a., besides the manorial rights, to the retired China merchant Samuel Peach, then of Idlicote (Warws.). (fn. 93) The Standleys retained the rectory lease, Hall Farm, and c. 60 a. of arable south of the village. Persis died in 1823, and H. P. Standley without issue in 1844. Under his will that land was sold soon after. (fn. 94)

Samuel Peach, who in 1823 settled his Waterbeach property absolutely upon his second wife Amelia, died in 1832. (fn. 95) She married secondly the elderly Adm. Sir John Poore Beresford (d. 1844). (fn. 96) In 1855-6 she offered all her 1,583 a. in Waterbeach for sale. (fn. 97) The manorial rights were sold to the London surveyors' firm of Francis Thomas Cuddock, which enfranchised most of the copyholds (fn. 98) and sold the manor c. 1860 to the Mossops of Long Sutton (Lines.), a firm of solicitors. Robert Mossop had those rights until his death c. 1883, Richard Peter Mossop until c. 1925. (fn. 99)

Of the three large farms into which Peach divided his Denny estate in 1829, (fn. 100) the two to the north, Denny Abbey farm (600 a.) and Denny Lodge farm (375 a.), were purchased in 1856 by the Cambridge bankers, George Ebenezer Foster (d. 1870) and Charles Finch Foster (d. s.p. 1866). (fn. 101) Their heirs were G. E. Foster's sons, Ebenezer Bird and Charles Finch Foster. (fn. 102) The latter retained Denny Abbey farm into the 1920s. It was bought in 1928 by Pembroke College, Cambridge, and in 1952 by Chivers Ltd., who offered it for sale with 433 a. in 1959. (fn. 103) Denny Lodge farm probably belonged after 1870 to Ebenezer Foster (d. 1875) and Edmund Foster and c. 1900 to G. E. Foster. By 1904 it had been bought (fn. 104) by Maj. A. S. W. Stanley of Great Chesterford (Essex). In 1910 he also owned two other farms of c. 350 a. in Joist Fen. He sold Denny Lodge farm to the tenant in 1912. Winfold farm, 526 a., to the south, was acquired in 1856 by Joseph Toller (d. 1861), (fn. 105) whose son James, the parish's leading dissenter and radical, (fn. 106) occupied it until his death c. 1914. His son Joseph sold it (fn. 107) in 1920 to the county council, which sold all but 22 a. to the R.A.F. for the airfield in 1941. (fn. 108)

In 1846 Hall farm was bought from the Standleys by Edward Mason, whose great-grandfather Edward had been tenant there and under-tenant of the rectory since the 1760s. (fn. 109) By his death in 1805 he also owned c. 80 a. of copyhold, (fn. 110) for which his grandson Edward was allotted 219 a. in 1814. (fn. 111) Edward died in 1835. His son Edward (fn. 112) had a beneficial lease of the rectory in his own name in 1849 and in 1868 bought the freehold of the rectorial glebe allotment, 324 a. south of the village. (fn. 113) After his death in 1882, (fn. 114) his family gradually sold off his 545 a.: one farm of 87 a. was sold in 1903. (fn. 115) Hall farm, 345 a., which belonged by 1910 to the duke of Wellington's trustees, (fn. 116) was sold in 1913 to the county council, which still owned 325 a. in 1986. (fn. 117)

Waterbeach Hall stands north of the church opposite Hall close, so named by 1800. (fn. 118) An Lplan, timber-framed structure of the 16th and 17th centuries, it was remodelled in the 18th century and later, being refaced in brick except on the main south front. That front has gabled ends and a central two-storeyed porch with a carved head to its outer doorway. The interior contains a carved chimney piece said to be from a reredos. In the grounds stands a timber-framed barn of c. 1600. (fn. 119)

The 63 a. of pasture closes around Elmney, once part of the Denny demesne, were leased separately by 1560 for £9 rent. (fn. 120) In 1614 the Crown sold the freehold to the lessee, Edward Angier. The £9 rent charge then imposed (fn. 121) was given in 1677 by Dr. Thomas Holbeach, master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to his college, which still received it in 1873. (fn. 122) The closes, owned from the 1680s by the Clark family of Godmanchester (Hunts.), were sold in 1769 to the Frohocks, their then tenants, (fn. 123) who owned and farmed them into the 1840s. (fn. 124)

Two other considerable modern estates derived from copyholds. The Wiles family, yeoman farmers by the 1660s, possessed 42 a. by 1712. (fn. 125) John Wiles (d. 1781) left 53 a. to his son William (d. 1800), whose son William (fn. 126) in 1814 claimed 80 a. and emerged with 231 a. (fn. 127) The land descended in 1827 to three sons: William Smith Wiles, who bought out his brothers in 1839 and 1851, (fn. 128) enfranchised 170 a. in 1859. (fn. 129) He died c. 1880. His son Harold Henry (fn. 130) in 1906 offered for sale his 226-a. farm, (fn. 131) including the Rookery, the family home since the early 19th century. Probably built in the late 17th century, it is of brick and has two gabled wings towards the high street, framing a central court later filled in with an entrance hall. (fn. 132)

Another large holding belonged from the late 18th century to the Hall family. William Hall (fl. 1764) was succeeded in 1789 by his son Thomas (fn. 133) (d. 1817). His land, formerly 62 a., for which 220 a. had just been allotted, was inherited by his nephew William Hall, then of Landbeach. (fn. 134) After his death in 1847 his kinsman William Wilson Hall, also of Landbeach, bought c. 100 a., the rest being divided among seven Waterbeach farmers. (fn. 135) Some 120 a. remained with the Hall family until after 1910. (fn. 136) Their former Waterbeach home, Denny House, east of the high street, is basically 17th-century. Of two storeys on a half-H plan, it has gabled wings of differing patterns projecting east towards the street. (fn. 137) Sold by 1880, it was occupied into the 1920s by the doctors who successively practised at Waterbeach. (fn. 138) From the 1840s until 1897 the Halls, not working farmers after 1860, inhabited Waterbeach Lodge, a substantial grey-brick house in 8 a. of grounds west of the turnpike. (fn. 139)

A large holding was created by the allocation, in two portions, of 750 a. of fenland to the Adventurers of the Bedford Level in 1637. (fn. 140) The Drainers' Ground, 112 a. north-east of the village, was by 1800 divided among local men. (fn. 141) The 638 a. Adventurers' Fen at the north end of the parish was originally divided into lots of 250 a., 250 a., and 207 a. (fn. 142) By 1760 they mostly belonged to Peter Standley, (fn. 143) but by 1806 had been acquired by Philip Yorke, 3rd earl of Hardwicke (d. s.p. 1834), who in 1827 shared 702 a. with his brother Adm. Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke (d. 1831). (fn. 144) The latter's son Philip Charles, the 4th earl, retained North Fen until his death in 1873. His son and namesake offered 700 a. for sale in 1874. (fn. 145) Sold in 1875, they were thereafter divided into four or five distinct, often owner-occupied, farms. (fn. 146)