MANORS AND OTHER ESTATES.
The 2½
hides held by Phin the Dane in 1066, that later
became the manor of LANGHAM HALL, were
held in 1086 by Richard son of Gilbert de Clare
as part of his honor of Clare. (fn. 7) The estate
descended with the lordship of Clare until 1368
and then passed to the earls of March whose
overlordship is recorded until 1432. (fn. 8)
The demesne tenant in 1086 was Richard's
son in law Walter Tirel. (fn. 9) His son Hugh sold
Langham to Gervase of Cornhill in 1147. (fn. 10) The
daughter of Gervase's son and heir Henry of
Cornhill married Hugh Neville (d. 1234). (fn. 11)
Hugh was succeeded by his sons John (d. 1246)
and Hugh (d. 1269), then by Hugh's son John
(d. 1282), by John's son Hugh (d. 1335), and by
Hugh's son John (d. 1358). (fn. 12) In 1357 John
Neville and his second wife Alice (d. 1394)
settled the reversion on William de Bohun, earl
of Northampton (d. 1360). (fn. 13) He was succeeded
by his nephew Humphrey de Bohun, earl of
Hereford, Essex, and Northampton (d. 1373).
Humphrey's executors and feoffees granted the
manor to Michael de la Pole, earl of Suffolk (d.
1389), to whom Alice Neville had earlier granted
her life interest. (fn. 14)
The manor descended with the earldom, later
dukedom, of Suffolk, passing to the crown on
the attainder of Edmund de la Pole in 1504. (fn. 15) It
was held successively by Henry VIII's queens
Katherine of Aragon (fn. 16) and Jane Seymour, (fn. 17) then
granted with the duchy to Charles Brandon who
sold or exchanged it with the Crown in 1538. (fn. 18)
It was granted to Thomas Cromwell in 1540, (fn. 19)
and to Anne of Cleves in 1541 in consideration
of her willingness to remain in England and
renounce her marriage to the king. (fn. 20) On Anne's
death in 1557 the manor reverted to the Crown. (fn. 21)
Ownership probably remained with the
Crown (fn. 22) until 1628-9 when Charles I apparently
granted Langham to Edward Ditchfield and
other trustees of the City of London in repayment of a loan. The trustees held courts until
1650 and probably later, (fn. 23) but the descent
cannot be traced until 1662 when the manor had
passed to Thomas Sleigh who in that year sold
it to Humphrey Thayer. (fn. 24) Humphrey (d. 1682)
was succeeded by Samuel Thayer (d. c. 1732)
then by another Humphrey Thayer (d. 1737). (fn. 25)
The second Humphrey was succeeded by
Samuel Thayer (d. 1750), presumably his
brother, (fn. 26) then by Samuel's daughter Anne. In
1756 Anne married Jacob Hinde (d. 1780), (fn. 27) and
she retained a life interest until her death in
1803. (fn. 28) Charles Hinde, presumably their heir, in
1829 sold Langham Hall to Thomas Cooke who
sold it the following year to Alexander Baring,
Baron Ashburton (d. 1848). (fn. 29) It then descended
with the barony of Ashburton. (fn. 30) F. D. E. Baring,
the fifth baron, sold the estate in 1894 to William
Nocton (d. 1921). (fn. 31) Nocton sold it in 1913 to Sir
Robert Balfour, M.P. It was sold c. 1927 to
Alfred Melson, (fn. 32) and before 1933 to C. E.
Maturin-Baird, (fn. 33) whose family retained the
manorial rights in 1999. (fn. 34)
Figure 40:
Langham Hall, c. 1772
No trace of the manor house recorded in 1282,
1335, and 1557 survives, (fn. 35) but it was presumably
small as it only had five hearths in 1671. (fn. 36) It
probably stood on the site of the later house
whose farmyard contains a possibly 13th-
century barn with passing braces, much rebuilt,
and another of c. 1600. The stuccoed front range
of the surviving mid 18th-century house is of
two storeys over a basement and has an attic lit
from dormer windows. It can probably be attributed to Jacob Hinde, but the traditional date
of the late 1730s is too early; (fn. 37) the work can only
have been done after his marriage to Anne
Thayer in 1756. The central two bays project
slightly and have a thermal window in the gable.
The projecting porch is an addition, probably
of the 19th or early 20th century. The house was
substantially extended and renovated c. 1900.
The front hall was then modified and the house
was extended at the rear with a high single-
storeyed billiard and smoking room complex
which has 16th-century panelling and beams
taken from Valley House. (fn. 38) The brick lodge at
Gun Hill was built by 1838. (fn. 39)
In the later 18th century and the 19th Langham Hall had 'beautiful and extensive prospects'
down the river Stour. (fn. 40) The enclosed park and
gardens immediately north of the Hall in 1777
were probably laid out by Jacob Hinde. In 1782
there was a 16-a. park. (fn. 41) The gardens designed
in the 1930s by Percy Cane for the Maturin Bairds included a terrace, a semi circular rose
garden, an herbaceous walk, and a glade. (fn. 42)
The RECTORY was also a manor, apparently
called OVERHALL before c. 1730. (fn. 43) It descended with the advowson, but may have
become separated from it before 1858 when the
trustees of the will of J. Y. Wyles sold it to H.
Folkard (d. 1907), later of Park Lane Farm. (fn. 44)
St. Botolph's priory, Colchester, held a small
portion of the tithes c. 1291. After the dissolution of the priory in 1536 they passed to Sir
Thomas Audley; their later history has not been
traced. (fn. 45)
The estate known as LANGHAM VALLEY
in 1777, formerly Valley mansion as in 1679, (fn. 46)
was held by Robert Vigerous in the early 14th
century. His daughters, Alice and Mabel,
granted it to his son Thomas in 1338. It descended from father to son in the Vigerous
family, being held successively by John (d.
1435), Thomas (d. 1484), John (d. 1528), John
(d. 1555), and Robert (d. 1629). The last was
succeeded by his grandson Robert Littlebury,
who sold the estate to James Cardinal in 1638.
Cardinal in 1653 sold it to William Umfreville
of Stoke by Nayland (Suff.). Umfreville died in
1679 but his second wife Isabel (d. 1711)
retained a life interest. The surviving trustee of
the estate sold it in 1714 to William Umfreville's
grandson Thomas Wyncoll. He sold it in 1724
to John Potter of Wormingford, who in 1737
sold it to Elizabeth Potter Everard (d. 1790). (fn. 47)
About 1791 Thomas Sadler of Great Horkesley
bought it from the heirs of Elizabeth and the
heirs of her husband Henry Bevan (d. 1766). (fn. 48)
It then descended in the Sadler family, being
held by W. S. Sadler (d. 1856) and R. S. Sadler
(fl. 1873), (fn. 49) before being bought by an owner of
Langham Hall in the later 19th century or earlier
20th. William Nocton sold it to G. H. Tawell
in 1913. The house and land was bought in the
1920s by the South Essex Waterworks Co., and
its successor, Essex and Suffolk Water, retained
the estate in 1999. (fn. 50)
Valley House, part rendered over timber
framing and part brick, has two storeys and
attics with a large stair tower on the north rising
through three full storeys. It is probably a fragment of a formerly larger house. The south-west
room has early 16th-century moulded cross
beams and a dragon beam; the brick underbuilding of the jetty is exposed on the west side. The
house was extensively remodelled, and probably
largely rebuilt in brick, in the later 16th century,
perhaps by the lawyer Robert Vigerous. (fn. 51) The
jetty was underbuilt, the facade apparently
remodelled, and the stair tower and stacks with
polygonal shafts and star-shaped tops added.
The well stair has heavy turned balusters and
newel posts with Franco-Flemish style carving.
A term, now lost, which once adorned the lowest
newel post. (fn. 52) is similar to figures on the screen
of 1574 at the Middle Temple Hall, as are terms
and other carved wooden elements, probably
from a screen or chimney piece, reused in the
19th-century porch. The passage leading from
the porch to the stair tower appears to be contemporary with it, and there are doors of two
chamfered orders with four-centred heads,
probably in stone (now rendered), leading into
the stair tower on all floors. The ground and
first floors on the south front have crossmullioned windows with hood moulds and there
are other mullioned windows on the upper floor
of the stair turret and on the north and east sides.
The south front has five irregular bays with a
porch containing carved timbers, apparently
reused from the interior.
The house was apparently renovated in the
early 19th century; by 1838 it appears to have
had a canted bay and large extension on the
north-east. The bay had been removed before
1913, by which time the roof had been rebuilt
and small Gothic dormers and the porch added.
Earlier, in the 18th century, the whole estate
could be viewed from a turret on the house, and
there is evidence that the house was formerly
higher at the back (north); an older house sited
there may have been lost in the 1884 earthquake
and later replaced by low, mostly one-storeyed
service accommodation. The brick buttresses on
the south front were probably added at that
time. The house was unoccupied between 1902
and 1913 and panelling was removed to
Langham Hall. Restored c. 1913, it had decayed
again by the 1970s, and was restored c. 1980 for
Essex and Suffolk Water by Gerald Shenstone
and Partners. (fn. 53)
The freehold estate known as WENLOCKS,
but by 1861 as Hill farm, (fn. 54) apparently held of
the honor of Clare by the service of a knight's
fee, (fn. 55) was recorded between 1255 and 1257 when
Nigel the chamberlain and his wife Alice sold it
to Adam Wenlock. (fn. 56) It was probably the land
that Thomas Wenlock bought from Richard
Wenlock in 1326. (fn. 57) The estate remained in the
Wenlock family from the 14th to the 18th centuries, except for the period 1652-3 when the
estates of the royalist John Wenlock were
sequestered. (fn. 58) About 1719 Wenlocks was bought
by Thomas Wyncoll who added it to the Langham Valley estate. (fn. 59)
Wenlocks is an L-shaped house, the earliest
part of which is the hall, probably 15th-century
or earlier. A two-bayed cross wing with an external stack was added to the hall, probably by R.
and A. Wenlock, whose initials and the date 1556
are recorded on ceiling and wall paintings on the
ground and first floors. (fn. 60) The hall was probably
floored after 1578 and the wall posts extended
to create a full second storey and large attics
with a side-purlin roof. (fn. 61) The inserted stack has
fireplaces originally serving the ground and first
floor rooms on both sides. The cross wing was
extended to the rear by one bay in the 17th century, and the house was largely refenestrated in
the 18th century. It was divided into two at some
point, perhaps in the 19th century, but was a
single house in 1999.