MANORS AND OTHER ESTATES.
The
manor of EASTHORPE was held in 1066 by
Edric, a free man, as a manor and 1 hide and 25
a., and in 1086 by Eustace, count of Boulogne,
with Hugh holding the whole as undertenant. (fn. 6)
The overlordship was still in the honor of
Boulogne in the 14th century, but by 1407 the
manor was held of the king in chief. (fn. 7)
In 1194 the demesne tenancy, which de-
scended with that of Birch manor, was held by
Roger de Planes and in 1203 by William de
Planes. The de Planes were Normans and in
1204 their lands escheated to the Crown on the
separation of England and Normandy. Eas-
thorpe manor was given at first temporarily, and
only in 1228 in fee to Ralph Gernon (d. 1248),
son of Osbert of Gladfen (in Halstead). (fn. 8) The
manor descended in Ralph's branch of the
Gernon family, passing to his son William (d.
1258), whose son Ralph (d. 1274) briefly for-
feited it in 1265 for his support of the barons. (fn. 9)
Ralph's son William (d. 1327) succeeded, then
William's son John (d. 1384), then John's
daughter, Margaret (d. 1414), wife of John
Peyton. (fn. 10) She was succeeded by her grandson,
John Peyton (1393-1417). John's widow Grace,
whose second husband was Richard Baynard of
Messing, held the manor until her death in 1439
when it passed to her son, Thomas Peyton. (fn. 11)
Thomas (d. 1484) was succeeded in turn by his
grandson Thomas Peyton (d. 1490), Thomas's
brother Robert (d. 1517), and Robert's son
Robert, all sheriffs of Cambridgeshire and
Huntingdonshire, and then by the last Robert's
son Robert Peyton, (fn. 12) who sold the manor to Sir
Thomas Audley in 1536. Audley sold it in 1542
to Robert Forster and his son George. (fn. 13) Robert
died in 1545 and George in 1556, leaving
George's daughters, Mary and Joan, both
minors, as coheirs. (fn. 14) In 1564 Mary and her hus-
band Robert Waldegrave sold their moiety to
Henry Golding and in 1570 Joan and her hus-
band Robert Spring sold the other moiety to
John Bacon who sold it in 1576 to Henry
Golding. (fn. 15)
Henry Golding (d. 1576) was succeeded as
lord of Easthorpe manor by his brother Arthur,
translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses; they were
half brothers to the countess of Oxford, mother
of Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford. (fn. 16) In
1577 Arthur Golding (d. 1606) sold the manor
to Richard Atkins who sold it in 1594 to Sir
George Kingsmill (d. 1606). (fn. 17) George was suc-
ceeded by his cousin Sir William Kingsmill of
Southampton, whose third son George (d. 1656)
lived at Easthorpe. The manor came to Thomas
Green (d. 1698), and then his son Thomas, who
died in 1726 without issue. (fn. 18) Thomas's heirs
were his brother Richard's three daughters,
Elizabeth, Anne, and Sarah. Elizabeth's hus-
band was John Blandford who in 1713 or 1714
was convicted of highway robbery. He was later
pardoned and transported, and Elizabeth and
John's third share of the manor fell to the Crown
which leased it to George Baker, and from 1755
to George's son John, and in 1804 sold it to
Nathaniel Hillier of Stoke Park (Surrey). In
1727 the lordship was exercised by Sherard
Wimberley and his wife Frances in her right,
and in 1737 by George Baker. (fn. 19)
By 1826 the manor was held by Hillier's
daughter, Susannah Elizabeth (d. 1852), and her
husband, Col. Thomas Cranley Onslow (1778-
1861), M.P. The manor apparently sub-
sequently passed to a reletive, Henry Cranley
Onslow, son of Sir Henry Onslow. By 1912 it
was held by N. N. Sherwood of Prested Hall,
Feering, (fn. 20) and it continued in the Sherwood
family until 1998.
Easthorpe Hall is an H-plan two-storeyed
timber-framed house, with plastered facades
and tiled roofs. The earliest parts seem to be the
east wing, later 16th-century with a crown-post
roof of slender scantling, and a few smoke-
blackened rafters re-used in the three-bayed hall
range when it was rebuilt with two storeys in
the 17th century. The west wing, which has a
brick cellar under the south end, and the east
and west chimney stacks, which each have three
diagonal shafts, also seem to be 17th-century. In
the late 17th or early 18th century the classical
shafts of the central chimney stack were built
and a north range added to make the centre
of the house double-pile; bolection-moulded
panelling was fitted in several rooms. The sash
windows and pedimented doorcase of the main
front are early 19th-century. A north-east stair
tower was added in the late 1990s. (fn. 21) The barn
and one cartlodge are probably 17th-century.
The estate of BADCOCKS, sometimes called
a manor, was held by the Badcock family which
included John Badcock, recorded in 1365, and
Richard Badcock in 1418. (fn. 22) Richard gave the
estate to Robert Tey (d. 1426) and it remained
in the Tey family until 1585, after which it
descended with Bottingham Hall, Copford, until
1654 when Badcocks was sold to Henry Mild-
may and Thomas Wharton. (fn. 23) Thomas's son
Andrew Wharton inherited the estate c. 1683.
John Smith sold it, with other land, to James
Burnett in 1733. In 1768 it belonged to George
Shepherd of Springfield, and in 1807 to W. E.
Fitzthomas of Tettenhall (Staffs.). (fn. 24)
Badcocks is an H-plan, two-storeyed timber-
framed house. Its west cross wing, which has
part of a smoke-blackened crown-post roof and
possible remains of an inserted timber chimney,
seems to have originated as a late 14th- or early
15th-century hall with at least one storeyed end
on the north. A two-storeyed hall range, which
is jettied along the north side and has a brick
chimney stack backing onto the cross passage
and decorated with a series of niches, was added
in the late 16th century; the date 1585 is carved
on the bressumer on the jettied north side. The
north ends of both wings, which have moulded
brick plinths, seem to have been rebuilt then,
though the east wing appears mainly 18th- or
19th-century. On the west range, the south end
and a west projection are 20th-century and part
of the hall range roof has been raised. The south
part of the medieval moat survives. (fn. 25)
Spicers, amounting to 7 a., belonged in the
Middle Ages to Haynes's chantry of St. Peter's
church Colchester; in 1550 the king sold it to
the bailiffs of Colchester. (fn. 26)