VCH Draft Texts (Gloucestershire Vol. 12): Oxenhall, Manor - © University of London 2008
1
MANOR AND OTHER ESTATES. Oxenhall formed a separate manor from before the
Norman Conquest, and for most of its history the manor estate included the bulk of the
ancient parish. Some independent freeholds1 had emerged by the late Middle Ages,
including a block of land on the east side of the parish owned by the Porter family of
Newent and the Newark, near Gloucester. Most of those lands were, however, bought in
later by the Foley family of Stoke Edith (Herefs.), which acquired Oxenhall manor in
1658, and during the 18th and 19th centuries the only farm of any size in the ancient
parish outside the manor estate was the rectorial glebe based on the farmhouse called
Oxenhall Court. The pattern of landholding changed radically with the sale of the manor
estate in 1913 when most of the farms were bought by their tenants. Also traced below is
the ownership of lands in the detached portion of Pauntley parish which was added to
Oxenhall in 1883. There, the most significant unit was Crooke’s farm, which belonged to
the Hooke family by the early 15th century and remained in its possession in the early
21st.
OXENHALL MANOR
In 1066 Oxenhall manor was held from King Harold by Thorkell. In 1086 it was part of
the extensive Gloucestershire estates of Roger de Lacy,2 having presumably belonged to
his father Walter (d. 1085). After Roger’s rebellion and banishment in 1096 his lands
were forfeited and granted to his brother Hugh de Lacy.3 Oxenhall had apparently been
subinfeudated by 1202 when the tenants of Walter de Lacy’s honor included the ‘lady of
Oxenhall’,4 and in 1236 the widow of Stephen of Evreux held it from Walter.5 The
overlordship has not been found recorded again until 1335 when the manor was held
from the heirs of Geoffrey de Genevyle.6 By 1358 the overlordship had passed to Roger
Mortimer, earl of March, and it descended with his earldom7 to be assumed by the Crown
on the accession of his descendant as Edward IV.8
By 1251 Oxenhall manor had passed to William of Evreux,9 after whose death at
the battle of Evesham in 1265 it was granted for life to his widow Maud.10 She retained it
in 1292 when she approved a grant by a younger William of Evreux of his reversionary
right to William de Grandison and his wife Sibyl.11 William de Grandison was in
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
In 1522 a tax assessment on Llanthony priory, Gloucester, for £8-worth of lands
was included under Oxenhall but it appears to be a misplaced entry for Okle
Clifford manor in Newent: Military Surv. of Glos. 1522, 62.
Domesday Book (Rec. Com.), I, 167v.
W. E. Wightman, Lacy Family in Eng. and Normandy (1966), pedigree at end.
Pipe R. 1202 (PRS N.S. 15), 179.
Book of Fees, I, 439.
Inq. p.m. Glos. 1302–58, 253.
Ibid. 366–7; Cal. Close 1396–9, 457; TNA, C 139/164, no 16.
TNA, C 142/357, no 21.
Cal. Chart. 1226–57, 369; Close 1254–6, 36.
Cal. Pat. 1258–66, 462.
Glos. Feet of Fines 1199–1299, p.192.
VCH Draft Texts (Gloucestershire Vol. 12): Oxenhall, Manor - © University of London 2008
2
possession of the manor in 131612 and died c.1335 to be succeeded by his son Peter.13
Peter (d. 1358)14 settled the manor on his nephew Thomas de Grandison (d. 1375) with
remainder to Elizabeth le Despenser, whose son Guy de Brian succeeded at Thomas’s
death.15 After Guy’s death in 1386 his widow Alice retained Oxenhall manor16 until her
death in 1435, when the heir was Elizabeth Lovell.17 Elizabeth died in 1437, leaving as
heir to Oxenhall her grandson Humphrey FitzAlan, earl of Arundel,18 who died a minor in
1438. In 1445 Oxenhall was settled on James Butler and his wife Amice, evidently in her
right. She died in 145719 and James, who had been created earl of Wiltshire in 1449,
retained the manor until his execution and attainder after the Yorkist victory at Towton in
1461. The following year it was included in an extensive grant of forfeited Lancastrian
lands to Walter Devereux, created Lord Ferrers, who may have retained it until his death
at Bosworth in 1485.20 The manor passed to Henry Percy (d. 1489), earl of
Northumberland, perhaps by virtue of his marriage to Devereux’s niece, Maud Herbert.21
In 1492 it was in the hands of the Crown during the minority of the earl’s son and heir,
Henry,22 who came of age in 1499. That Earl Henry (d. 1527) was succeeded by his son
Henry, who sold Oxenhall to the Crown with other Gloucestershire possessions in 1535.23
In 1544 the Crown mortgaged Oxenhall to a group of London merchant tailors,
one of whom, Thomas Broke,24 owned it at his death in 1546. He left it to Richard Tonge,
but his will was voided and it was given to his sister Joan Arrowsmith.25 Joan conveyed
Oxenhall in 1547 to William Grey, Lord Grey of Wilton.26 Grey conveyed it in 1551,
with his manor of Kempley, to William Pigott (d. 1553), whose widow Margery27
retained it until 1579 or later.28 In 1579 Leonard Pigott, William’s son, settled the
reversion on the marriage of his daughter Anne to Samuel Danvers29 of Culworth
(Northants.), and the couple had apparently succeeded to Oxenhall by 1586.30 Anne and
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Feudal Aids, II, 265.
Inq. p.m. Glos. 1302–58, 252–3.
Ibid. 366–7.
Ibid. 1359–1413, 102; Cal. Close 1374–7, 481.
Inq. p.m. Glos. 1359–1413, 146; Cal. Close 1385–9, 190.
TNA, C 139/70, no 34.
Ibid. C 139/87, no 46.
Ibid. C 139/164, no 16.
Cal. Pat. 1461–7, 153, 486; Complete Peerage, V, 322–4.
Cal. Inq. p.m. Hen. VII, I, p. 231; Complete Peerage, X, 401, 718.
Cal. Pat. 1485–94, 388.
L&P Hen. VIII, VIII, p. 147; TNA, SC 6/Hen. VIII/6044A.
L&P Hen. VIII, XIX (2), pp. 78–9.
TNA, C 142/75, no 3; Cal. Pat. 1547–8, 142–3.
Cal. Pat. 1547–8, 166.
TNA, C 142/111, no 74.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/9, copy of ct. roll 3 Mar. 20 Eliz. I; G/15, lease 18 Nov. 1579.
Cal. Pat. 1575–78, p. 417; MCA, G li, bdl. 172A, no 18, p. 29.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/11, Weyhouse grove and Gyles Croft deeds (deed 4 July
VCH Draft Texts (Gloucestershire Vol. 12): Oxenhall, Manor - © University of London 2008
3
her second husband Henry Finch, of Little Horwood (Bucks.) and later of Kempley, were
dealing with the manor in 1600,31 and two years later Finch bought out the reversionary
right of Samuel Danvers, Anne’s son by her first marriage.32 Finch (d. 1631) was
succeeded by his son Francis,33 later of Rushock (Worcs.), who in the late 1640s and
early 1650s held manor courts for Oxenhall and granted leases jointly with John Blurton
of Redditch (Worcs.), perhaps a mortgagee.34 Francis Finch, who set up ironworks at
Ellbridge in Oxenhall, had incurred large business debts by 1655, and in 1658 he sold the
manor to the ironmaster Thomas Foley.35
Thomas Foley shortly afterwards bought the adjoining manor of Newent, with
which Oxenhall descended in the Foleys and their successors, the Onslows, for the next
two and a half centuries.36 In 1775 the Oxenhall estate comprised 1,668 a.,37 and in the
mid 19th century there were eight principal tenant farms totalling 972 a., various
smallholdings, and 480 a. of woodland.38 The estate was put up for sale by Andrew
Richard Onslow in 1913 and most of the farms, including Holder’s, Winter’s, Peter’s,
Pella, White House, and Waterdynes, were bought then by the sitting tenants.39 In 1914
639 a. of woodland in Oxenhall and Dymock was sold, with Little Pound farm, to
Archibald Weller of Malvern; he sold the woods in the same year to the Crown,40 and
they were subsequently managed, as part of the large tract of woodland known later as
Dymock Woods.41 A.R. Onslow (d. 1950) retained the manorial rights of Oxenhall.42
As suggested below, the original manor house of Oxenhall may have been at
Hilter Farm, but a capital messuage recorded on the manor in 135843 and again in 1435,
when it was waste and worth nothing,44 was more likely in Oxenhall park in the northeast corner of the parish. About 1700 it was said that a house in the park had once been a
residence of the de Grandisons.45 A field called Moat field, north-east of Waterdynes
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
1607).
J. Maclean, ‘Excerpts from the Feet of Fines in Glos.’, Trans. BGAS 17 (1892–3),
186; above, Kempley, manor.
Worcs. RO, 705:99 (BA 3375), Kempley deeds 1602–66.
Inq. p.m. Glos. 1625–42, I, 158–9.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/9; G/24, leases 4 Oct. 1647, 1 May 1651, 14 Sept. 1652.
Ibid. G/13; MCA, F 4iii, deed 1050; below, econ. hist. (Ellbridge furnace).
Above, Newent, manors.
GA, D 2528.
GDR, T 1/137.
GA, SL 79.
TNA, CRES 38/674.
Below, econ. hist. (woodland management and woodland crafts).
Kelly’s Dir. Glos. (1923), 276; (1939), 285; Burke’s Peerage (1963), 1863.
Inq. p.m. Glos. 1302–58, 366–7.
TNA, C 139/70, no 34.
Notes on Dioc. of Glouc. by Chancellor Parsons, 182; according to Atkyns (Glos.
594) a part of the house remained standing at the start of the 18th cent. but his
account confuses entries taken from the preceding source concerning it and Hilter
Farm.
VCH Draft Texts (Gloucestershire Vol. 12): Oxenhall, Manor - © University of London 2008
4
Farm, may have been its site.46 After the 14th century probably no lord resided on the
manor until the time of the Onslows in the 19th century. Before 1841 Richard Foley
Onslow, who succeeded his aunt Elizabeth Foley in the manor estate in 1861, took up
residence at the house called the Furnace at Ellbridge.47 That house (in 2006 called
Oakdale House) had probably originated as the residence of the manager of the Ellbridge
ironworks and was occupied later by the agents of the Foleys’ estate, Edward James (d.
1768)48 and William Deykes (d. 1827).49 In the mid 1860s R.F. Onslow leased the
Furnace to a tenant and moved to Stardens, near by in Newent parish,50 but his son A.G.
Onslow returned to live at the Furnace before 1889 and was followed there by his son
A.R. Onslow.51
Hilter Farm
A man called Roger of the Guildhall (de la Ghildhalle) witnessed Oxenhall deeds in
131652 and Roger ‘atte Yeldhalle’ and two others similarly surnamed were assessed for
tax in the parish in 1327.53 Those men evidently occupied a building or buildings at the
prominent site near the centre of the parish where in the 17th century stood the farmhouse
called Yeldhall; the name later mutated to Illto or Ilthall and finally, by the early 19th
century, to Hilter (or Hilters) Farm.54 If the name Guildhall was being used here in its
original sense — as a building where payments or dues were rendered55 — it seems likely
that the site was that of the original manor house, perhaps alienated or leased away by the
lords before the early 14th century. The existence of a dovehouse among the buildings at
the site in the 17th century and a coney warren in one of its fields56 further supports the
suggestion of former manorial status.
By 1596 Yeldhall (later Hilter) Farm had passed to John Hill, who sold it that
year, together with his Hill House estate in Pauntley, to Sir Edward Winter, owner of
Newent manor.57 The Winters sold Yeldhall in 1657, with 25 a. of land adjoining, to
Thomas Rogers. In 1668 Rogers sold it, with other lands he had acquired, to the lord of
Oxenhall manor Thomas Foley, who as part of the transaction granted it back on a lease
for lives. Rogers died in 1671 and his son William surrendered his life interest to Paul
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
GA, photocopy 5.
GDR, T 1/137; TNA, HO 107/1960.
Bigland, Glos. II, 303; Herefs. RO, E 12/G/29, receipts 1756, 1761.
TNA, RAIL 836/3, p. 139; GDR, V 5/226T 6; inscr. in Newent churchyard.
TNA, RG 10/2607; above, Newent, manors.
Kelly’s Dir. Glos. (1889 and later edns); Burke’s Peerage (1963), 1863.
‘Cal. of Earlier Heref. Cathedral Mun.’ (TS, Nat. Libr. of Wales 1955), II, pp.
761, 767, 769.
Glos. Subsidy Roll, 1327, 35.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/11; GDR wills 1671/150; Notes on Dioc. of Glouc. by
Chancellor Parsons, 182; OS Map 1”, sheet 43 (1831 edn).
OED.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/11, deed 19 March 1656/7.
GA, D 421/T 34; and see ibid. E 13, f. 16; M 81 (s.v. ‘Oxenhall’).
VCH Draft Texts (Gloucestershire Vol. 12): Oxenhall, Manor - © University of London 2008
5
Foley in 1680.58 The house, which was assessed for tax on six hearths in 1672,59 was
apparently then the largest in the ancient parish. It remained the centre of one of the
principal farms on the manor estate until the sale of 1913,60 but ceased to be a farmhouse
in the 1970s when the farmland was sold to a fruit farmer, who built a new house near
by.61
Marshall’s and Winter’s Farms
An estate called Marshall’s farm, based on a house near Ellbridge, may have derived
from an early medieval subinfeudation: at the death of its owner in 1612 it was said to be
held from the lord of Oxenhall manor by fealty and suit of court but a second inquisition
revised that finding to tenure by knight service from the Crown as overlord of the
manor.62 Roger le Mareschal who was assessed for tax at a high rate at Oxenhall in 132763
was presumably an early occupant, but the estate has not been found recorded before
1525, when with Winter’s farm it belonged to Arthur Porter.64 Possibly the two farms had
been acquired by his father, Roger Porter (d. 1523) of Newent, who was steward of
Oxenhall manor under the earl of Northumberland.65 Arthur settled them on himself and
his wife Alice, and they descended with his extensive estate in Newent to his son Sir
Thomas and grandson Sir Arthur.66 In 1604 Sir Arthur with others, presumably trustees or
mortgagees, sold Marshall’s farm, comprising 110 a., to Christopher Hooke, who had
been its tenant since 1586.67 Christopher died in1612 and, subject to his widow Anne’s
third share in dower, the farm passed to his son Thomas.68 Thomas sold it in 1634 to
Edward Clarke of Newent, a haberdasher; it then included Ellbridge mill which later,
under a lease by Clarke, Francis Finch converted to form part of his ironworks. In 1647
Clarke settled the farm on the marriage of his son Edward with Mary Chinn.69 By 1659
the farm had been dispersed among several owners, and the farmhouse, then styled
Marshall’s or Ellbridge, was said to belong to William Chinn.70 In 1672, however, the
younger Edward Clarke confirmed to Paul Foley a grant he had formerly made of the
house and Ellbridge mill to Paul’s father Thomas.71 The house was evidently the
remodelled 15th-century farmhouse72 that was known later as Furnace Farm from the
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/11; and for Rogers’s death, GA, P 241/IN 1/1.
TNA, E 179/247/14, rot. 36.
GA, SL 79.
Information from Ms E.M.Goulding of Newent.
TNA, C 142/348, no 121; C 142/357 no 21.
Glos. Subsidy Roll, 1327, 35.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/11, bdl. marked ‘Winter’s’.
Military Surv. of Glos. 1522, 62.
Above, Newent, manors (Boulsdon manor).
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/32.
TNA, C 142/348, no 121; REQ 2/297, no 8.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/13.
Ibid. G/9, rental 1659.
Ibid. G/13.
Above, introd. (buildings).
VCH Draft Texts (Gloucestershire Vol. 12): Oxenhall, Manor - © University of London 2008
6
nearby ironworks, though it stands some way north of that site on the west side of
Furnace Lane. Furnace Farm remained part of the manor estate after the mid 17th
century. It was attached to Winter’s farm in 177573 and later, reduced in size, it was
occupied as farm cottages.74 In 1913 the house with a farm of 105 a. was bought by the
widow of the former tenant James Lodge,75 and in 2006 it was owned and farmed by Mr
R.G. Heath. Another former part of Marshall’s farm passed to a branch of the Hill family,
which sold it to the Foleys in 1758,76 and another former part, adjoining Coldharbour
Lane west of the Dymock road, acquired its own small farmhouse, which assumed the
name Marshall’s Farm. The latter was owned by members of the Clarke family in the mid
19th century,77 but in 1890 was added to the Oxenhall manor estate.78
Winter’s farm, based on a farmhouse on the lane running between Oxenhall
church and the Newent–Dymock road and originally including a second farmhouse called
Gillhouse, was sold by Sir Arthur Porter in 1604 to Roger Hill. It passed to Roger’s son
Arthur Hill of Highnam, who settled the 70-acre farm in 1635 on the marriage of his
daughter Martha and Henry Stranke of Highnam.79 In 1659 Winter’s was held by a
lawyer William Sheppard80 and in 1677 and 1688 by Joseph Morwent of Ledbury
(Herefs.).81 Nevertheless, it descended to the Strankes’s grandson, John Rawlinson of
Dartmouth (Devon), who sold the farm in 1718 to Thomas Foley, the lord of the manor.82
From that time until the sale of 1913 it remained one of the principal farms of the manor
estate.83
THE RECTORY ESTATE AND OXENHALL COURT
Oxenhall church, with all its tithes and profits, was appropriated in the early Middle Ages
and belonged by 1291 to the Knights Hospitaller,84 who attached it to their preceptory of
Dinmore (Herefs.). In 1338 the church, including four ’bovates’ of glebe land, was let at
farm under the preceptory for £10 a year.85 Following the Dissolution the rectory estate
was held for some years by the Crown before being granted in 1548 to Robert Curzon,
one of the Barons of the Exchequer.86 He conveyed it the same year to John Bridges (d.
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
GA, D 2528, p. 9; photocopy 5.
GDR, T 1/137.
GA, SL 79.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/12, bdl. marked ‘writings of lands purchased of William
Hill’.
GDR, T 1/137; GA, D 1882/5/2.
GA, SL 79 (notes of title).
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/11; GDR wills 1640/155.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/9, rental 1659.
Ibid. G/24, lease 20 Feb. 1677; GA, D 1791/8.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/11.
GA, SL 79.
Tax. Eccl. 161; Reg. T. de Charlton, 53.
Knights Hospitallers in Eng. Ed. L.B. Larking (Camden Soc. 1st ser. 65, 1857), p.
30.
Cal. Pat. 1547–8, 383–4.
VCH Draft Texts (Gloucestershire Vol. 12): Oxenhall, Manor - © University of London 2008
7
1561), with whose Boyce Court estate, in Dymock, it passed to his nephew Humphrey
Forster and then to Humphrey’s son Giles.87 Giles incurred debts in his post of royal
receiver for several Midland counties, leading to the Crown taking possession of the
rectory estate88 and conveying it in 1610 to feoffees to use the profits for repayment.
Nevertheless the same year Giles made a conveyance of the estate to William Burrows,
who in 1612, together with Sir Clement Throckmorton, assignee of the Crown’s feoffees,
sold it to Sir Robert Baugh (also known, apparently, as Sir Robert Banister), John
Worsley, and Launcelot Salfield. Those parties sold it in 1625 to Nicholas Roberts,89
from which time until 1801 ownership descended with the manor of Westbury-on-Severn
in the Roberts and Colchester families.90
The rectory included all the tithes of the parish with a glebe farm, described in
1613 as comprising a parsonage house (the house later called Oxenhall Court), a tithe
barn, three orchards, seven inclosed fields, and a meadow; there were also some outlying
parcels of land and woodland leased separately,91 as was the case later. The whole rectory
was valued at £30 in 1600,92 and in 1629 Nicholas Roberts granted a lease to John Beale
at the rent of £70.93 In 1708 the rectory was leased to John Dobbins, who then also
tenanted the adjoining Hilter farm on the Oxenhall manor estate.94 In 1738, when
Oxenhall Court farm comprised 74½ a., it was leased to Arthur Clarke, whose family
remained lessees until some time in the mid or later 19th century.95
In 1801 the trustees of John Colchester sold the rectory estate to Samuel Beale, an
attorney of Upton upon Severn (Worcs.). Beale died in 1840, having entailed it on his
daughter Mary Symonds and her descendants,96 and in 1841 she was awarded a corn rent
charge of £440 a year in place of the rectory tithes.97 In 1857, following litigation over
Samuel Beale’s will initiated by his son Thomas, Mary with other family members and
Samuel’s trustees sold Oxenhall Court and the rectory lands to R. F. Onslow, heir to the
Oxenhall manor estate.98 At the sale of that estate in 1913 Oxenhall Court farm was
bought by George Gurney,99 who owned and farmed it in 1931. By 1939 the farmer was
John Cummins,100 and the Cummins family sold it in 1982 to Dr and Mrs P.H. Wright,
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
TNA, C 142/129, no 99; Hockaday Abs. xlvii, 1576 visit. f. 118; for Bridges and
the Forsters, above, Dymock, manors (Boyce Court).
GA, D 36/E 56.
Ibid. E 1, ff. 122–3; and for Banister, GDR, V 5/226T 1.
Inq. p.m. Glos. 1625–42, II, 44, 161; GA, D 36/E 56; VCH Glos. X, 87.
GA, D 36/E 12, ff. 40v.–41; GDR, V 5/226T 1; T 1/137.
GA, D 36/E 1, f. 122v.
Ibid. E 3, p. 55.
Ibid. E 11, ff. 29v.–30; Herefs. RO, E 12/G/9, rental 1683/4.
GA, D 36/E 12, ff. 40v.–41; E 7/10; GDR, T 1/137; Glouc. Jnl 23 Feb. 1801.
GA, D 1882/1; GDR, V 5/226T 6.
GDR, T 1/137.
GA, D 1882/1.
Ibid. SL 79.
Kelly’s Dir. Glos. (1931), 279; (1939), 285.
VCH Draft Texts (Gloucestershire Vol. 12): Oxenhall, Manor - © University of London 2008
8
the owners in 2006.101 The tithe rent charge was retained by Mary Symonds (d. 1859) and
passed to her daughter Mary Tennant (d. 1903) and grandson Edmund William Tennant
(d. 1923), whose trustees held it until tithe redemption in the 1930s.102
ESTATES IN THE DETACHED PART OF PAUNTLEY
In 1086 Ansfrid of Cormeilles, lord of Pauntley manor, held a manor called Kilcot,
extended at 1 hide.103 Later evidence suggests that it included the whole of what became a
detached part of Pauntley parish, lying south of Oxenhall, together with adjoining lands
in Gorsley that belonged to Newent parish, though the evidence is rendered difficult to
interpret by the overlapping, and probably changing, application of the place names
Kilcot and Gorsley. In the late 12th century William de Solers, probably then lord of
Pauntley manor,104 made a grant of ½ yardland and 10 a. in Kilcot, which a later owner
gave to Cormeilles abbey, lord of Newent.105 In the mid 13th century Roger de Solers,
granted to Cormeilles all the rents and services owed by four tenants ‘in Kilcot in the
parish of Pauntley’ as well as remitting to the abbey the rent from the estate alienated by
William. Later, Richard, son of Walter de Solers of Pauntley, remitted all right in the
lands the abbey held from him, except for royal service and a rent of 8s.106 Those lands
presumably comprised the 1/3 knight’s fee ‘in Gorsley’ that in 1398 the prior of Newent,
administrator of Cormeilles’s Newent manor, was said to have held from the earl of
March, the overlord of the de Solers family in Pauntley.107 By that time the 8s. rent
reserved to the lords of Pauntley under Richard’s grant was paid from land on Newent
manor known as the ‘court of Gorsley’, which adjoined and was sometimes itself
regarded as lying within the detached part of Pauntley parish.108 It is clear, however, that
the rights that the abbey had acquired from the de Solers family extended also over the
whole western part of the detached lands of Pauntley, for in 1419 farms there called
Hill’s Place (later Hill House) and Kew’s, together with land called ‘freres’, were held
from Newent manor as free tenants by a family surnamed Hill,109 whose estate
presumably included holdings once of John ‘de Monte’ and Roger ‘le Frere’, two of the
four tenants mentioned in Roger de Solers’s grant. The eastern part of the detached lands
of Pauntley, forming Crooke’s farm, was probably not covered by the de Solers’ grants to
Cormeilles, for that farm’s owners held it directly from the lords of Pauntley.
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
Information from Dr and Mrs Wright.
Kelly’s Dir. Glos. (1885 and later edns); Burke’s Landed Gentry (1937), II, 2200,
2219–20.
Domesday Book (Rec. Com.), I, 170.
Below, Pauntley, manor.
BL, Add. MS 18461, ff. 118v.–119.
Ibid. f. 122 and v.
Inq. p.m. Glos. 1359–1413, 212.
Above, Newent, manors (Kilcot: Gorsley and Brassfields).
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/2, ct. roll 6–7 Hen. V.
VCH Draft Texts (Gloucestershire Vol. 12): Oxenhall, Manor - © University of London 2008
9
Hill House Farm
Hill House farm, in the west part of the detached lands of Pauntley, was owned by Walter
Hill who died c.1419. Kew’s farm, lying further south, was then in the same
ownership,110 but in later centuries usually followed a different descent. James Hill owned
Hill House in 1539,111 and in 1596 John Hill sold it to Edward Winter, lord of Newent
manor.112 Members of the Hill family occupied it, however, as lessees until 1640 or
later.113 The Winters sold Hill House, probably in the late 1650s, to John Brock, a
carpenter. Brock died in 1668 leaving it to his wife Margery and then to his two
daughters,114 of whom Margery, wife of John Hill (d. 1687), later succeeded. Margery
Hill and her son Thomas Hill both died in 1712, leaving apparently as heir to the farm
Margery’s young grandson John Warr. John came of age c.1717, and in 1731 he settled
Hill House, with the farm adjoining called Lower House, on his marriage with his wife
Anne.115 He died in 1734 and she in 1765, when the property was evidently divided
among the families of John’s sisters, Mary Mayo, Margery Wood, and Margaret
Phillips.116 In 1780 Mary Mayo and her son Thomas sold a third share to Thomas
Wood,117 presumably Margery’s heir, and in 1795 parts were owned by Thomas Wood
and John Phillips, Margaret’s heir.118 Later Hill House farm in its entirety was acquired,
together with the neighbouring Kew’s farm, by Samuel Beale (d. 1840), owner of the
Oxenhall rectory estate, and in 1857 Beale’s family sold Hill House and 82 a. (including
some fields of Kew’s farm) to R.F. Onslow, heir to the Oxenhall manor estate.119 At the
sale of that estate in 1913 Hill House farm was bought by S. Goulding, 120 whose family
remained owners in 2006.
Crooke’s Farm
Crooke’s farm, which occupied the east part of the detached lands of Pauntley and was
held from the lords of Pauntley by fealty and a small chief rent,121 was recorded from the
early 15th century. A tradition, recorded in the early 18th century, stated that the farm
was given, together with a sword and the right to bear a coat of arms, to a member of the
Hooke family who served in Henry VIII’s French campaign and helped rescue the king
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
Ibid.
Ibid. G/5, rental 1539.
GA, D 421/T 34, where Thos. Baynham and Geo. Huntley acted as trustees for
Winter.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/31, lease 1609; GA, D 421/M 81 (s.v. ‘Pauntley tenants’).
GDR wills 1668/72.
GA, D 1882/1, marr. settlement 1731; P 241/IN 1/1, burials 1687, 1712; GDR
wills 1688/237; 1711/60–1; 1712/327.
Bigland, Glos. II, 304; GDR wills 1734/206.
GA, D 1882/1.
TNA, RAIL 836/3, pp. 155–6, 264, 286.
GA, D 1882/1.
Ibid. SL 79.
Inq. p.m. Glos. 1625–42, III, 84–5; J.N. Langston, ‘The Pastons of Horton’,
Trans. BGAS 77 (1958), 124.
VCH Draft Texts (Gloucestershire Vol. 12): Oxenhall, Manor - © University of London 2008
10
when he became surrounded by the enemy.122 A version of the tradition current by the
mid 20th century maintained, however, that those events featured a Hooke who served
with and aided Henry V at Agincourt.123 An ancient sword which remains in possession
of the family is thought to date from the early 16th century124 but, as the Hookes held
Crooke’s by 1435, the second version seems the more likely to contain an element of
truth.
In 1435 Thomas Hooke and his trustees settled Crooke’s farm, together with the
site of a house called Callowhill (in Compton tithing in Newent), on his son Thomas and
his wife Margaret. The deed was witnessed by his overlord, Guy Whittington of
Pauntley,125 said to be the father of Margaret in family pedigrees, which trace a later
descent in direct line to Guy Hooke (fl. 1470) and Richard Hooke.126 Richard Hooke was
a large taxpayer in Pauntley parish in 1522,127 and Christopher Hooke of Crooke’s died
c.1579, leaving his lands to his son Thomas.128 The son was apparently the Thomas who
had three servants in Pauntley at the muster of 1608129 and died in 1628, holding
Crooke’s and 60 a. in Pauntley parish and another 193 a. in adjoining parishes, including
Callowhill farm and land at Mantley and Picklenash in Newent. He was succeeded by his
son Edward130 (d. 1651) and Edward by his son John,131 who died in 1705, devising
Crooke’s to his grandson Philip Fincher and his heirs on condition they adopted the
surname Hooke.132 John’s widow Anne may have retained the farm until her death in
1722,133 and Philip was in possession in 1734.134 It apparently passed later to Edward
Hooke (d. 1762), who was succeeded by his brother Benjamin Hooke of Worcester, and
from that period Crooke’s farm was leased while its owners lived in Worcester or on their
estate at Norton, near that city. From Benjamin (d. 1771) Crooke’s passed in succession
to his sons John (d. 1795) and Benjamin (d. 1796). John, son of the last Benjamin,
succeeded but in 1826 he sold the farm to his younger brother, Benjamin,135 who also
acquired lands near by in Newent, including Briery Hill farm,136 a gift from his mother
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
GA, D 412/Z 3, Nourse MS, p. 12.
Burke’s Landed Gentry (1952), 1277.
Letters from D.T.H. Hooke and J.N. Taylor to Dr K.H. Tomlinson, 1957: in
possession of Dr Tomlinson, of Newent.
GA, D 2245 (acc. 7541), envelope no 8 (copy of deed 7 July 1435).
The descent given here is based on the pedigree in Burke’s Landed Gentry (1952),
1277–8, and on GA D 2245 (acc. 7541), envelope containing copies of Hooke
fam. wills.
Military Surv. of Glos, 1522, 61.
GDR wills 1579/16.
Smith, Men and Armour, 66.
Inq. p.m. Glos. 1625–42, III, 84–5; GDR wills 1628/155.
TNA, PROB 11/217, ff. 112v.–113v.; GA, D 2245/E 5.
GDR wills 1706/49.
Langston, ‘Pastons of Horton’, 124.
Herefs. RO, E 12/G/23, lease D 30.
GA, D 2245 (acc. 7541), envelope no 4.
GDR, T 1/126, 140.
VCH Draft Texts (Gloucestershire Vol. 12): Oxenhall, Manor - © University of London 2008
11
Elizabeth Hooke (d. 1823).137 Benjamin (d. 1848) left his Gloucestershire estates to his
second son John Brewer Hooke, but they passed later to his eldest son Thomas T.B.
Hooke (d. 1898). Crooke’s then passed in direct line to Thomas C.B. Hooke (d. 1942),
Douglas T.H. Hooke (d. c.1971), Michael R.D.H. Hooke (d. 2004), and Richard Hooke.
The family returned to live at Crooke’s Farm in the 1970s, but in 2006 the farmland,
comprising c.100 a., remained on lease.138
137
138
GA, D 2245 (acc. 7541), envelope no 10A.
Information. from Mr Richard Hooke.