Longney: Manors and other estates

MANORS AND OTHER ESTATES.

King Edgar in 972 confirmed to Pershore Abbey various lands and privileges, including 5 mansi at Longney. (fn. 1) That was evidently the same estate as the 5 hides which Elsi, one of the king's thegns, held in 1066 and 1086. (fn. 2) Elsi died or forfeited the estate in 1086 or 1087, for Osbert son of Pons later held it by grant from William I. (fn. 3) Osbert may have been aware of Pershore Abbey's former title, for c. 1115 he granted to the abbey, where his son Ralph was a monk, a fishery in Longney and the reversion of the church there. (fn. 4) Pershore continued to hold land and fisheries in Longney, (fn. 5) but in 1127 (fn. 6) Osbert gave Longney, with the church and all appurtenances, to Great Malvern Priory, (fn. 7) which retained the manor of LONGNEY (fn. 8) until the Dissolution. (fn. 9) In 1591 the Crown granted the manor to Richard Lewknor and others, (fn. 10) on behalf of John Lumley, Lord Lumley, (fn. 11) and the same grantees in 1592 acquired the remainder of a lease made in 1591. Between 1597 (fn. 12) and 1602 Henry Smith was joined with Lord Lumley as lord of the manor, (fn. 13) and in 1604 Lumley and others conveyed the manor to Smith. (fn. 14) Smith, an alderman of London who died in 1628, used the manor as part of the endowment of the charity which he founded for the benefit of various parishes, mostly in Surrey. (fn. 15) Smith's trustees held the manor and over 1,200 a. in 1968. (fn. 16)

Manor Farm presumably stands on the site of the manor, the hall of which may, by 1327, have given Richard atte Hall his surname. (fn. 17) The surviving house was built of brick in the earlier 18th century. A dovecot belonging to the house was recorded in 1291 (fn. 18) and c. 1553. (fn. 19)

The rectory estate of Longney, held by Wulfwin the priest c. 1115 when it was granted in reversion to Pershore Abbey, (fn. 20) passed with the manor in 1127 to Great Malvern Priory, (fn. 21) to which it was confirmed by the pope in 1216. (fn. 22) In 1606 Francis Moore, possibly a descendant of William Moore, who held the rectory by lease from Great Malvern Priory at the Dissolution and in 1564, (fn. 23) received a grant of the rectory, but not the advowson of the vicarage, in fee farm from the Crown. (fn. 24) Between 1628 and 1633 the trustees of Henry Smith's charity bought the rectory from Ralph Horniold, Edmund Barnes, and Thomas Suffield, (fn. 25) and the estate, including 15 a. allotted in place of tithes at inclosure in 1815, (fn. 26) became merged with the manor.

Although Pershore Abbey lost the reversion of Longney church, it received from Osbert son of Pons, perhaps in compensation, two fisheries called Hineweir and Boneweir and ½ hide of land which four villeins held, apparently in Longney. Walter son of Richard son of Pons, later called Walter Clifford, confirmed his uncle Osbert's gift to Pershore of the two fisheries and ½ hide, and also of the church of Longney which had by then passed to Great Malvern Priory. Ralph son of Ernisius held a yardland in Longney for which he owed the abbey 1 mark a year and hospitality for the abbot and cellarer or kitchener on their visits to Longney; (fn. 27) in 1221 he settled half the yardland on Ellis Bythewater and Edith his wife for their lives. (fn. 28) In 1273 the abbot had two free and four unfree tenants in Longney. (fn. 29) The abbey appears to have received only fixed rents amounting in 1291 to 40s., (fn. 30) the same as in 1535. (fn. 31) That fact and the hospitality owed by one of the tenants make it likely that the house in Longney where the Bishop of Worcester spent a night in 1340 was not the Abbot of Pershore's manor-house (fn. 32) but the house of one of the abbot's tenants or the manor-house of the Prior of Great Malvern.

Pershore Abbey's estate in Longney was linked with that in Cowley, and was granted with it to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster in 1542, 1556, and 1560, being regarded as a manor or part of a manor. (fn. 33) In the early 17th century the dean and chapter's income from the estate was still 40s. (fn. 34) The principal holding on the estate was described in 1788 as a copyhold of 37½ a. called BRIDGEMACOT manor. (fn. 35) In 1678 a yardland called Bridgemacot was occupied by Anselm Howman, (fn. 36) and in 1689 it was granted to Anne Lysons. Daniel Lysons of Hempsted (d. 1736) (fn. 37) held Bridgemacot by copyhold in 1705 and 1733, and his son Daniel (d. 1773) in 1749; the younger Daniel's son, also Daniel (d. 1800), held both Bridgemacot and another copyhold of the Westminster estate in 1788, and his title passed to his nephew Samuel Lysons (d. 1819), who apparently bought the freehold of both estates between 1804 (fn. 38) and 1812. (fn. 39) Samuel's nephew, Samuel Lysons (d. 1877), sold Bridgemacot manor to S. A. Beck in 1846. (fn. 40) In 1848 the farm was in the hands of B. Land, (fn. 41) and Joseph or Mary Land was presumably farming it in 1856. In 1869 it belonged to Richard Vimpany, the farmer in 1885; Richard Land Vimpany, farming Bridgemacot in 1935, died in 1938, when Annie Vimpany, apparently his daughter, sold it to J. C. Camm, of Elmore Farm, (fn. 42) whose widow owned it in 1968. (fn. 43) The farm-house, which was then let without any land, was built of brick in 1770 with a Lias stone extension of 1848. (fn. 44) A timber-framed part of the house extant in 1803 (fn. 45) was not visible in 1968.

John Hathemere, recorded as a taxpayer in 1327, (fn. 46) had a freehold estate of a house and yardland in 1356, when John Hathemere the younger and Robert Hathemere had each a smaller estate. All three estates were held of the Prior of Great Malvern, and all three passed to John Hathemere, fishmonger of London, from whom William Saunders held them at farm in 1383. (fn. 47) John Hathemere's sister and heir Janet married Thomas Gorst and had a daughter Agnes, wife of Lawrence Prowe, whose daughters Joan and Cecily married respectively John Lawrence and Robert Dowdeswell. The Lawrences' only child Thomas died without issue; the Dowdeswells' son Edmund (fl. 1461) had two daughters, of whom one died childless and the other married Robert Foswell and had a daughter, wife of Thomas Farr or Currer and mother of Richard Farr or Currer, who as a kinsman and heir of Walter Hathemere (perhaps a predecessor of the John Hathemere of 1327) quitclaimed his estate in Longney to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1545. (fn. 48) In 1801 and 1808 the college leased a house and land called Hamars to Richard Land, (fn. 49) who in 1815 held 39 a. of college land. The farm-house was Hill Farm, (fn. 50) called Halmer's Farm in 1880. (fn. 51) The college agreed to sell the farm to Urbane Land Hawkins, the occupier in 1885, (fn. 52) at whose request it conveyed the farm in 1887 to Thomas Hawkins. In 1920 Thomas Hawkins sold Hill Farm with 69 a. to R. C. and G. F. Butt, who in turn sold it in 1926 to Henry Chamberlayne, whose grandson, T. H. Chamberlayne, owned and occupied Hill Farm with c. 75 a. in 1968. (fn. 53) The two-storied house, long and rectangular on plan and having a central chimney between the entrance doorway and the staircase, was built in the earlier 17th century; most of its timber-framing has been hidden by brickwork, but it retained its thatch in 1968.