Manor for other estates
In 1086
COMBE,, assessed at 1 hide, was the smallest of
the four Oxfordshire manors held in demesne by
Odo of Bayeux. It was said to have been held
formerly by Alwin and Algar, the latter perhaps
being Aelfgar (d. 1062), earl of Mercia. (fn. 92) By the
earlier 12th century Combe was royal demesne, (fn. 93) presumably having escheated to the
Crown on Odo's death in 1097. Thereafter
Combe was sometimes administered directly by
royal officials, and was sometimes, with other
demesne towns, the subject of grants for life or
for term of years. It formed part of the grant to
John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, in 1705,
and was held by his successor in 1987. (fn. 94)
Manorial farm buildings, including a grange,
a granary, and a dairy, were under repair from
the earlier, and the King's hall from the later,
13th century; (fn. 95) they are likely to have been near
the church in the valley below the present
village. (fn. 96) By the beginning of the 17th century
the site of the manor house had been moved,
perhaps to the walled close of 8 a. later known as
the Grove or Alma Grove: in 1606 a close
adjacent to the manor house was known as le
grove, and in 1609 the house and its grounds
were said to comprise 8 a. (fn. 97) The house, but not
the manor, may in the later 15th century have
been in the possession of the Harcourt family:
Christopher Harcourt was said to be of Combe
in the 1470s, and c.. 1515 Sir Richard Elyot (d.
1522), the royal justice, brought an action
against Simon Harcourt for the detention of title
deeds to the house, (fn. 98) which had been Elyot's
since 1508 and possibly earlier. Elyot was succeeded by his son Sir Thomas, author and
diplomat, (fn. 99) who seems c.. 1538 to have sold the
house to Richard Andrews, from whom it was
bought by the Crown in 1541. (fn. 1) Known as
Combe House, it was leased to a succession of
notables, including Sir William Sharington (d.
1553), attainted for fraud at the Bristol mint and
for participation in the conspiracy of Thomas,
Lord Seymour. Subsequent lessees included, in
1558, John Herle, a royal equerry, and, in 1586,
Sir Christopher Hatton. None of them seems to
have lived at Combe, preferring to sublet the
property. (fn. 2) The house was said in the mid 16th
century to comprise a hall, parlour, and six or
seven chambers, and to require much repair. (fn. 3) In
the earlier 17th century, when it was held by
John Pollard, it was referred to as a great house
(domus magnus mansionalis) and as a fair house
with gardens and orchard as well as the grove. (fn. 4)
By 1621 the property, described as Combe
house and grove, had been bought by Michael
Harris, who sold it in that year to Thomas
Pokins. (fn. 5) By 1691 William Pokins, a descendant,
had sold it to John Hurst (d. c.. 1731). It was
called Place House in 1701, (fn. 6) and the Grove in
1778, when it was owned by William Sotham of
Wootton, possibly a relation of Hurst. (fn. 7) Sotham
sold the Grove in 1796 to James Long, who was
succeeded on his death in 1833 by his grandson
Philip, son of his daughter Elizabeth (d. 1831)
and her husband Philip Paine. George SpencerChurchill, duke of Marlborough, bought the
estate in 1855, and his successor retained ownership in 1988. (fn. 8) The older part of Alma Grove, as
the house was known by the later 19th century, (fn. 9)
is a plain, two-storeyed farmhouse of the 18th
century; the slightly lower block on the north
was added in 1828 by James Long. (fn. 10)
Ownership of the manor house carried with it
an obligation, doubtless fulfilled by the copyholders, to clean the privies at the royal palace of
Woodstock whenever the king came there. Recorded in 1551, (fn. 11) the custom was almost certainly much older. In 1649 cleaning of the
chimneys also was said to be due, but by then
the service had been commuted for a payment of
10s.. a year. (fn. 12)
A freehold estate later known as
FORESHAW'S
in the possession of Sir Thomas Elyot
in the earlier 16th century and leased by him
first to John Colles and then to Thomas Rippingall, was bought
c.
1538 by Richard Andrews
and formed part of the Crown purchase of 1541.
In 1558 John Herle bought a reversion of the
leasehold, due to fall vacant on the expiry of
Rippingall's lease in 1579.
(fn. 13)
In 1606 the tenant
was Henry Blagrave, and the estate was said
then to include a house of 10 bays, three cottages, 77 a. of arable, 10 a. of pasture, and 8 a. of meadow.
(fn. 14)
It was sold by Charles I in
September 1631 to Sir Henry Browne and John
Cliffe, who resold it in November to Rice Jones
of Asthall. In 1687 Richard Lumley, Lord
Lumley, and his wife Frances, daughter and
heir of Sir Henry Jones of Asthall, sold the
estate to John Foreshaw of Maiseyhampton
(Glos.). Foreshaw had been succeeded by 1734
by his son John who survived in 1760 but who
had died by 1791 when his sons John and
William sold the estate to George Spencer, duke
of Marlborough.
(fn. 15)
A fee-farm rent of £5 6
s.
8
d.
due from the estate was in 1651 sold to Francis
Martin of Ewelme. The rent reverted to the
Crown at the Restoration and was sold in 1672
to Sir John Banks of Aylesford (Kent), who
resold it in 1673 to Joseph Hornby. In 1704 it
was owned with other Combe fee-farm rents by
Sir Robert Dashwood, who sold them in 1721 to
John Campbell, duke of Argyll. They later
passed to Henry Scott, duke of Buccleuch, from
whom they were bought in 1778 by the duke of
Marlborough.
(fn. 16)
The farmhouse was probably
that standing south of the Stonesfield road,
towards its eastern end, referred to in 1792 as
Middle Farm, later as Foxhole Farm.
(fn. 17)
The eastern end of the house retains a cruck roof and
evidence of jettying suggestive of timber-frame
construction. That bay, probably medieval, was
left to provide service accommodation when, in
the early 18th century, the house was rebuilt on
a two-roomed plan with central stack and rear
staircase turret. Later in the century a low back
wing was built behind the old east bay. The
house was sold in 1982.
(fn. 18)
The property sold by Richard Andrews to
Henry VIII in 1541 also included a farm known
as
BELSON'S
said to comprise a house, 200 a.
of arable, 30 a. of pasture, and 24 a. of meadow.
The arable seems in reality to have been about
half that amount. The farm passed for long with
the manor house, and in 1606 was held by John
Pollard.
(fn. 19)
By 1625 it was in the tenure of
Michael Harris,
(fn. 20)
and it was subsequently
bought by him or by his heirs, for in 1687 it was
sold by Francis Harris to Robert French of
South Newington. Robert died in the same year,
devising the estate to his younger sons Robert
and Thomas. Thomas died while still a minor,
and after a prolonged family dispute his
moiety passed in 1711 to his brother William's
son Robert (d. by 1735), whose wife Joanna
(d. 1740) ordered that it be sold. No sale, however, was made and in 1773 the moiety was
settled on her granddaughters Sarah, wife of
George Coles, and Hannah, wife of Thomas
Whetton, and on William Coles, widower of
Elizabeth, a third granddaughter. In 1775 Jonathan Ordway the younger, presumably Joanna's
grandson, bought the shares of Hannah and
William, selling them in 1779 to George Spencer, duke of Marlborough. The other sixth was
bought by the duke in 1795 from Sarah's and
George's son William.
Robert French's moiety passed on his death in
1730 to his son Robert, who by will dated 1764
devised it to Mary Matthews and Sarah and
Susannah Short. Sarah and Mary sold their
shares to the duke in 1778; Susannah had died
by 1797, when her husband Anthony Watts and
their children Thomas and Susannah sold her
share to the duke.
In 1769 the entire estate, tenanted by William
Horne, was said to comprise two houses, two
cottages, and 310 a. in Combe, Wootton, and
South Newington. The principal house, Belson's, may have been that which stood east of
Middle Farm, at the junction of the Stonesfield
road with that from the village centre. The
house, apparently still standing in 1806, had
gone by 1863.
(fn. 21)
A fee-farm rent of £12 11
s.
4
d.
from the estate
may have formed part of the Crown rents purchased in 1672 by Sir John Banks. Sir Robert
Dashwood owned it in 1704 with rents due from
Foreshaw's and other freeholds, and it passed
with those rents thereafter.
(fn. 22)
In 1399 Combe
RECTORY
was appropriated
by Eynsham abbey, which reserved to itself
tithes of corn and hay, and fees. Glebe land, of
unspecified extent, was divided, the vicar taking
arable and meadow land, the abbey a croft
known as Great Croft near the rectory house. In
1451 the rectory and vicarage were consolidated
and all the church's income was taken by the
abbey. The consolidated rectory was granted in
1478 to Lincoln College, Oxford, which paid
Eynsham an annuity of £3 for Combe and two
Oxford properties; the payment was compounded for
£60 in 1534.
(fn. 23)
The rectory's valua-
tion in 1536 of £10 7
s.
10
d.
net was an
underestimate since it assumed that the £3
pension was still being paid;
(fn. 24)
moreover, the
college was able to obtain a rent of
c.
£20, and,
from the mid 16th century, a rent of £12 6
s.
8
d.
and a payment of £10 to the chaplain appointed
to serve the church. From 1703 the college
introduced a scheme of low annual rents and
high entry fines, based on an estimated true rent
of £120 a year. Leaseholders were usually local
farmers, notably members of the Pokins family
from 1613 to 1742. In 1791, when the glebe
comprised c.. 22 a., the college surrendered 8 a.
to George Spencer, duke of Marlborough, in
exchange for Upper and Lower Church closes,
comprising 10 a. adjoining Parsonage close
(15 a.), which was presumably the Great Croft
of 1399. In 1792 tithes were commuted for an
annual corn rent of £200, rising to £325 by the
1870s. (fn. 25) Lincoln College retained the rectory in
1987, but the house and land were sold in
1950. (fn. 26)
The rectory house, mentioned in 1399 and
1451, (fn. 27) presumably stood then, as later, southwest of the church. Part of what appears to have
been a moat survived in 1778 south and west of
the house. (fn. 28) The two-storeyed range forming
the north front of the house was probably built
in the later 16th century, and has a conventional
three-roomed plan with traces of a cross passage. A wing was built against the south side of
the west end in the 17th century, and another
wing at the east end may be of the 17th century
or early 18th. A south range, almost closing the
courtyard, had been added by 1778, (fn. 29) but in
1812 Edward Tatham, rector of Lincoln College, replaced it with a tall range in a Gothic
style praised as 'highly ornamental' and in keeping with the existing character of the house. (fn. 30)
Tatham's successor, John Radford, continued
the Gothicization along the house's east and
west fronts. (fn. 31) The name Combe House, used of
the manor house in the 17th century, was acquired in the early 1930s. (fn. 32)
St. John's hospital, Oxford, was said in 1279
to own a house and 6 a. given by King John. (fn. 33)
The estate passed to Magdalen College, presumably on the appropriation of the hospital in
1457, and remained the college's property thereafter. (fn. 34) By 1813 the house seems to have gone
and there were only 5 a., in West field. (fn. 35) No later
reference has been found.