MANORS.
The seven hides at Wicken possessed before 1066 by Eddeva the fair were by
1086 held in demesne by her successor, Count
Alan, lord of Richmond. (fn. 20) Soon after, that
manor was granted to Wimar (Wihomarc), steward of Alan's honor of Richmond. (fn. 21) Wicken
manor continued to be held of that honor
throughout the Middle Ages, in the 13th and
14th centuries as one knight's fee, (fn. 22) and into the
early 17th century. (fn. 23)
From Wimar the steward (fl. to c. 1125), (fn. 24)
WICKEN manor was inherited by his (elder)
son Warner the steward, still its tenant in the
1160s. (fn. 25) His son and successor Wimar, (fn. 26) who
died shortly before 1204, was succeeded by his
daughter and heir Beatrice and her husband, the
Yorkshireman Hugh Malebisse. (fn. 27) In the 1220s
Hugh and Beatrice gave part of the manor to
endow their foundation of Spinney priory, (fn. 28) and
other Wicken land to Fordham priory. (fn. 29) Hugh
died 1228 × 1232. Soon after 1232, (fn. 30) Beatrice
died leaving no issue, so that Wicken had passed
by c. 1235 to Wimar of Thornton, greatgrandson in the male line of her grandfather
Warner's brother Roger. (fn. 31) That Wimar died
between 1240 and 1243, leaving a minor son
Matthew, (fn. 32) of age by 1253, who was granted
free warren at Wicken in 1256. (fn. 33) Matthew of
Thornton was dead by 1261, also leaving minor
heirs. (fn. 34) In 1279 John of Thornton, perhaps his
son, (fn. 35) released Wicken manor to Matthew's
daughter Mary, later reported as his heir, (fn. 36) who
had married by 1271 Humphrey Bassingbourn
the younger of Abington (Northants). (fn. 37)
After Humphrey's death in 1298, (fn. 38) Mary, who
retained Wicken, (fn. 39) married, after 1303, Sir John
de Lisle, probably of I. Wight (Hants). Named
as lord in 1316, (fn. 40) he was apparently dead by
1322. (fn. 41) Having granted more land to Spinney
priory, (fn. 42) Mary probably died after 1323. In
1327 her executors made Wicken over to Sir
Humphrey Bassingbourn, her son and heir, (fn. 43)
who died in 1349. He had in 1343 entailed the
reversion of his estates upon the marriage of
Margaret, daughter of his eldest son Sir Giles,
to Walter, the infant son of Robert de Colville
(d. 1368), lord of Bytham (Lincs.). If their issue
failed, Sir Humphrey's lands were to go to
Robert in fee simple. (fn. 44) Accordingly, following
the successive deaths in 1367 of Walter, lord
since 1349, and in 1369 of Robert, his 5-yearold son by Margaret, Wicken passed to the elder
Robert de Colville's heirs, descended from his
aunts. It was assigned to one aunt Alice's son,
Sir John Gernon of Essex. (fn. 45) He died in 1384,
having settled Wicken in 1382, from his widow
Joan's death, on his surviving daughter
Margaret and her husband Sir John Peyton. (fn. 46)
Sir John was dead in 1400, (fn. 47) and their son
John Peyton in 1402-3. Margaret (d. 1414)
settled Wicken c. 1407 on the marriage of that
son John's son John Peyton to Grace
Burgoyne. (fn. 48) After John Peyton (III), of age in
1414, died in 1416, his minor son John's guardian, Grace's father John Burgoyne (d. 1435) of
Dry Drayton, (fn. 49) occupied the manor into the
1430s. (fn. 50) John Peyton (IV) having died, just
under age, in 1432, Wicken was inherited by his
posthumous brother Thomas, of age in 1438. (fn. 51)
Thomas Peyton eventually removed to the
Isleham estate that he acquired by marriage in
the 1460s, (fn. 52) leaving Wicken to his son and namesake (d. v.p. 1476 × 1483). Before his death in
1484 the elder Thomas had settled Wicken in
1476 on the marriage of his son's son, another
Thomas (d. s.p. 1490). The next brother Robert
Peyton, however, took possession c. 1490. (fn. 53)
From Sir Robert Wicken manor descended with
his Isleham estates in the Peyton male line for
four more generations until the 1630s. (fn. 54) His son
Sir Robert's widow, Dame Frances Peyton,
occupied Wicken manor as her jointure between
1550 and her death in 1582. (fn. 55)
Having been settled in 1620 on her greatgrandson Sir Edward Peyton's second marriage,
Wicken was excluded from the Peyton land sales
of the 1630s, being claimed by Thomas Peyton,
the only child of that marriage. (fn. 56) Thomas
remained in possession in the 1650s. (fn. 57) He was
allotted 380 a. of Wicken's fens for his manorial
rights in its waste in 1664, (fn. 58) but, almost at once,
debt obliged him, under an agreement of 1661,
to convey Wicken to Thomas Richardson, Lord
Cramond. (fn. 59)
In 1665 Richardson transferred the Wicken
lordship to his second son William, a lawyer. (fn. 60)
William sold it in 1675 in trust for James
Margetson, archbishop of Armagh, named as
lord from 1677. Dying in 1678, the archbishop
was succeeded at Wicken by his son John (d.
1690), (fn. 61) who devised Wicken to his widow Alice
for her life. (fn. 62) Remarried from 1694 to George
Carpenter, she possessed the manor until it was
transferred in 1704 to Brabazon Ponsonby, the
second husband of Alice and John Margetson's
daughter Sarah (fn. 63) (d. 1733). Ponsonby, an Irish
peer from 1724, was created earl of Bessborough
in 1739. In 1751 he transferred Wicken to his
son William, who succeeded as earl in 1758 and
died in 1793. His son Frederick, the third earl, (fn. 64)
was still lord of Wicken (fn. 65) in 1800 when he
offered the manor and its lands for sale. (fn. 66)
The purchaser, lord from 1802, was John
Rayner, who in 1798 had succeeded to his
deceased father Robert's long tenancy of Wicken
Hall farm. (fn. 67) Dying without issue in 1813, John
Rayner left his Wicken estate absolutely to his
widow Sarah, who owned it until her death in
1832. (fn. 68) The estate was then split up. Her trustees sold the lordship separately after 1834.
From 1835 to 1842 it belonged to C. B. Dryden
as trustee, between 1846 and 1852 to James
Cuddon, and from 1853 to James Thornton (d.
1880). (fn. 69) In 1881 the manorial rights with almost
£20 of quitrents were sold to Messrs. Paine and
Brettle of Chertsey (Surr.), owners until the
early 1920s. By 1929 and in the 1930s they
belonged to R. H. Edlestone. (fn. 70)
Wicken Hall farm, 411 a., including c. 275 a.
of ancient several closes in the south-east corner
of the parish, was sold in 1835 to the Revd.
Richard Samuel Dixon, who was allotted at
inclosure 49 a., which was shortly after sold separately. After Dr. Dixon died in 1845 (fn. 71) Hall farm
passed to his sister Jean's husband, Samuel Amy
Severne of Poslingford Hall (Suff.), who in 1860
settled it upon the marriage of their only child,
Elizabeth Julia (d. 1902) to (Lord) Henry
Fitzwarrine Chichester (d. 1928). In 1901 the
Chichesters sold the 275-a. Hall farm to
Frederick Appleyard Johnson, then of Soham
Hall, (fn. 72) who had c. 1875 succeeded at Hall farm
his father, J. A. Johnson, its tenant since 1840.
The younger Johnson owned 325 a. in Wicken
by 1910, (fn. 73) when he sold Hall farm, for smallholdings, to Cambridgeshire county council,
which still owned almost all that farm, called
Chancel farm, in the 1990s. (fn. 74)
Wicken manor house, probably recorded c.
1200, (fn. 75) may originally have stood in a moated
site of 200 by 100 ft., slightly east of the village
and a little south of the church and the modern
Wicken Hall. The shallow moat, 12 ft. wide, was
still wet in the 1930s. (fn. 76) Wicken Hall, by 1800
used as the Hall farmhouse, (fn. 77) probably dates
from c. 1575-1625. Largely timber-framed
though standing on clunch foundations, it has
at the west end a gable wall in red brick, possibly
early, the upper part rebuilt in grey brick c.
1760. The house, formerly L-plan with a stair
turret in the angle, has two storeys under a highpitched, tiled roof. Its three-bayed north front,
remodelled c. 1760, then received a pedimented
Doric doorcase. Inside, two original late 16thor early 17th-century chimney stacks retain on
both floors contemporary clunch fireplaces with
four-centred arches. (fn. 78) In 1967 the house was
separated by sale from the farmland. (fn. 79) Mr.
R. Swingler, the new owner, having lodged
American airforcemen there in the 1970s, had
the Hall expensively converted for opening as a
10-bedroom hotel in 1981. (fn. 80) Again sold in 1987,
the Hall was a private residence in the 1990s. (fn. 81)
Mrs. Sarah Rayner had in 1832 left her other
Wicken property to her sister, Miss Mary
Hatch. (fn. 82) She received the extensive former fenland in the north-west of the parish, allotted in
1664, by 1770 covering c. 343 a. as High Fen
farm, together with Upware farm. At inclosure
in the 1840s Miss Hatch was also allotted 149 a.
for open-field and common land, probably once
the Rayners' copyhold. (fn. 83) She died in 1858. At
her land sale that year, her kinsman William
Hatch Cropley bought Upware farm, then 150
a., (fn. 84) which was broken up when again sold in
1899. (fn. 85) When High Fen farm was sold in 1881,
it had been split into two farms, Padney, 244 a.,
and High Fen, 232 a.; the latter was owned by
1910, possibly since 1882, by Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, who resold in 1918. (fn. 86)
High Fen farmhouse is probably 17thcentury, timber-framed on brick foundations,
with service and parlour wings, the latter
extended southward in the 18th century, each
side of a hall range. (fn. 87)
In 1228 Hugh Malebisse and his wife Beatrice
had given 55 a. in Wicken to endow the
Augustinian priory which they founded at
Spinney, then a fen islet a mile north-west of
the village. In 1232 Beatrice added another 55 a.
with 'the place called Spinetum'. (fn. 88) Her successor
Wimar of Thornton had added another 10 a. by
1243. (fn. 89) By 1279 the priory also had 50 a. held
in free alms of Wicken manor, possibly the
former rectorial glebe. (fn. 90)
To support certain charities, Wimar's granddaughter Mary Bassingbourn granted Spinney
more Wicken land, c. 90 a. in 1302 and 86 a. c.
1322. (fn. 91) The poverty-stricken and sometimes
turbulent priory (fn. 92) was eventually annexed and
appropriated between 1449 and 1453 to Ely
priory, (fn. 93) which retained the Spinney estate until
its surrender in 1540. (fn. 94)
The patronage of Spinney priory, originally
attached to Wicken manor, was not formally
released with it to the Colvilles in 1348 by
the heir male, John Bassingbourn, lord of
Badlingham, son of Mary Bassingbourn's
younger son Matthew. (fn. 95) John also inherited
from Matthew a 280-a. appanage, perhaps
given by Mary before 1324, including 110 a. in
Wicken, which in 1344 he entailed on his own
son Richard. (fn. 96) Both the Wicken land once
Matthew's, called 'a (half) manor', and the
Spinney priory advowson were claimed in the
late 1410s by Richard Athelwald whose wife
Maud was a Bassingbourn coheir. In 1419 he
conveyed the advowson to feoffees, (fn. 97) probably
for the lords Tiptoft, who in 1453 consented as
patrons to the appropriation to Ely. (fn. 98) Others of
Athelwald's feoffees had released his Wicken
'manor' in 1438-9 to Thomas Peyton. (fn. 99)
George Carleton of London, who in 1539 had
obtained a 99-year lease of the SPINNEY estate
from Ely, (fn. 1) obtained in 1542 a Crown grant of
the freehold, (fn. 2) to be held by knight-service.
Carleton, the king's apothecary, died in 1547
and his brother and heir, John Carleton, of
Brightwell Baldwin (Oxon.), (fn. 3) in 1551, leaving
Spinney to John's second son George, who in
1552 granted it to Henry Payne. (fn. 4) In 1556 that
manor was conveyed to Sir George Somerset (d.
1560), of Wickhambrook (Suff.), who in 1557
settled it on his son Charles's marriage. (fn. 5) In 1563
Charles sold it to Sir Ambrose Jermyn of
Rushbrooke (Suff.). (fn. 6) Jermyn, dying in 1577,
devised Spinney to his eldest son Robert, (fn. 7)
shortly after knighted. In 1582 Sir Robert sold
it to the physician Philip Barrow, who moved
from Isleham to Wicken. (fn. 8) On his death in 1600
Barrow was succeeded by his eldest son Isaac
(d. 1642). (fn. 9) In 1639 Isaac Barrow and his son,
heir, and namesake sold Spinney to Sir William
Russell, Bt. (d. 1654), of Chippenham. (fn. 10)
Spinney was possibly then intended to
support Sir William Russell's youngest son
William, cr. Bt. 1660 (d. 1714). (fn. 11) Spinney Abbey
was actually occupied, until his death in 1664,
by the younger William's elderly uncle
Killiphett Russell. (fn. 12) Probably in 1662, (fn. 13) the
estate was transferred from Sir William to his
sister Elizabeth's husband Henry Cromwell,
lately governor of Ireland. (fn. 14) Henry, settled at
Spinney Abbey from 1664, (fn. 15) suffered an ironical
visit there from Charles II, probably in 1669, (fn. 16)
and died in 1674, leaving his estates to his widow
Elizabeth (d. 1687). Their eldest surviving son
and heir Henry, (fn. 17) overwhelmed by debt, sold
the Spinney Abbey estate in 1692 to Admiral
Edward Russell. (fn. 18)
Russell, created earl of Orford in 1697, (fn. 19)
left Spinney at his death in 1727 with his
Chippenham estate to his niece Dame Anne
Tipping (d. 1728), whose daughter Letitia, wife
of Samuel Sandys, succeeded to it. (fn. 20) Acquired,
probably by 1732, by Charles Seymour, duke of
Somerset (d. 1748), Spinney was assigned, when
his Cambridgeshire lands were divided c. 1762
between the daughters of his second marriage,
to Charlotte, the younger (d. 1805), and her
husband, Heneage Finch, earl of Aylesford (d.
1777). In 1811 their son, Heneage, the fourth
earl, (fn. 21) offered his Spinney Abbey estate, then
including a 374-a. farm, along with Upware
farm and 30 a. of open-field land, for sale. (fn. 22)
Spinney was finally sold in 1820 to Thomas
Whittred who died soon after, perhaps by
1825. (fn. 23) Following inclosure Whittred's trustees
owned 375 a., including 64 a. just allotted for
open-field land, in the 1840s. Sold in 1858,
the estate was bought by Richard Chambers
Golding, (fn. 24) who died in 1889. His eccentric son,
Chambers Waddelow Golding, initially resident
at the Abbey, died soon after 1900. The Golding
trustees sold their Wicken estate, altogether
781 a., in 1918; the 78-a. Grays farm north of
Thornhall went to its tenant, while Spinney
Abbey farm, then 406 a., was bought by Robert
Llewellyn Fuller, of a family established since
the 1690s, partly as copyholders, on Padney
farm in Wicken fen; they had owned over 60 a.
by the 1840s. Fuller's father Thomas, tenant of
Spinney from 1892, had passed on its lease to
him in 1903. (fn. 25) R. L. Fuller (d. 1953) was succeeded at Spinney by his son Thomas Llewellyn
Fuller (d. 1977), who in 1972 transferred the
estate, by then 526 a., to his sons, one of whom,
Mr. R. J. Fuller, occupied Spinney Abbey farm
from 1987. (fn. 26) In the late 20th century the senior
line of the Fullers at Padney owned and worked
c. 400 a. in Wicken. (fn. 27)
The post-Dissolution farmers and owners of
the Spinney estate had converted for their residence the remains of the medieval priory buildings, presumably first built in the 13th century.
The priory church had in its gable a traceried,
possibly rose, window containing the arms of
Malebisse, as the founder, Colville, and Sir John
Gernon, who was buried there. About 1476
Thomas Peyton complained of Ely priory's
destroying that armorial glass. (fn. 28) In 1403 the
canons' domestic buildings included a hall near
the church. (fn. 29) About 1432 a dwelling nearby,
across a great garden, was assigned to a corrodian. (fn. 30) When leased in 1541 the domestic buildings included a new hall and kitchen and a
parlour and a chamber over it. (fn. 31)
Called Spinney Abbey by 1609, (fn. 32) the house
was a gentleman's seat from at latest the time of
the Barrows until the 1690s: (fn. 33) between 1666 and
1674 Henry Cromwell probably remodelled it,
increasing the number of hearths from 10 to
29, (fn. 34) and his son Henry occupied it until 1692. (fn. 35)
In 1769 that old house still had two main parts,
a lower southern range with a blocked arcade of
at least three Gothic arches, perhaps once part
of the priory church, and a square threestoreyed block, possibly 16th-century, to the
north-east, which had a massive chimney breast
in its north wall between mullioned and transomed windows. A steeply roofed porch occupied
the angle. That house was pulled down in 1775 (fn. 36)
and replaced by the existing farmhouse, twostoreyed with an attic. Its main south-west front,
of Barnack ashlar probably reused from its predecessor, has three broad bays, the two outer
ones with steep gables dressed in brick. The
garden contains numerous fragments of carved
stonework from the priory, 14th-century or
earlier, including sections of quatrefoil piers,
capitals, pinnacles, and a wheel-cross. Six male
skeletons, perhaps from a monastic graveyard,
were dug up under the house in 1935. (fn. 37)
In the mid 13th century Henry of Upware
held land in Wicken of Walter, son of Richard,
of Little Isleham. Walter with his son William
confirmed that property near Spinney, including
half Thornhall croft, to Henry's daughter Cecily
on her marriage to Thorold, brother of a prior
of Anglesey. (fn. 38) In 1272 Cecily and her second
husband, Joseph of Bottisham, gave Anglesey
priory the messuage called Thornhall and 20 a.
in Wicken. (fn. 39) Anglesey retained that holding, (fn. 40)
presumably based, as later, on Thornhall farmstead which stood within ancient closes a little
east of Spinney priory, until it was surrendered
in 1536. (fn. 41) Its immediate fate is uncertain.
In 1639 Sir William Russell acquired
THORNHALL 'manor' from the Barrows
along with Spinney, (fn. 42) with which it passed until
the Sandyses inherited it in the 1720s. (fn. 43) When
selling Spinney, they reserved its sheepwalk,
with closes lying along the north-eastern and
north-western edges of the Spinney inclosures,
later worked from Thornhall farm. The 125-a.
farm thus owned by Samuel, by then lord
Sandys of Ombersley, and later by his widow
and daughters, included 45 a. of closes in the
1720s. (fn. 44) The trustees under the will of their
remote kinsman and eventual successor, the
Hon. Thomas Windsor (d. 1832), (fn. 45) owned altogether 129 a. of closes in the 1840s and were then
allotted another 94 a. at inclosure. (fn. 46) In 1918 the
Golding trustees sold to R. L. Fuller of Spinney
Abbey 36 a. of that farm, including Thornhall
farmstead, which remained with his family in
the 1980s. (fn. 47)
Other land linked with the Little Isleham fee,
at Upware, (fn. 48) may have come to Sir John
Lovetot, who acquired 41 a. in Wicken in 1282
and 1287 and at his death in 1295 held of Wicken
manor an estate partly at Upware. (fn. 49) That holding perhaps became the 'manor' of UPWARE,
based around that hamlet, which Sir Robert
FitzWalter (d. 1326) of Essex settled in 1303
on his then second son Sir Robert, later lord
FitzWalter (d. 1328). (fn. 50) About 1320 Sir John
Howard granted that manor to Sir Thomas
Pecche, still in possession 1331 × 1345. (fn. 51)
Although Pecche left two daughters, Joan and
Anne, as coheirs, in 1348 his widow Joan and
her next husband, John Avenel of Gunthorpe
(Norf.), successfully resisted an attempt by
those daughters' husbands, Sir William la
Zouche of Lubbesthorpe (Leics.) and Sir
William Malory, to recover Upware and settled
its reversion on Joan's son Edmund Howard. (fn. 52)
Upware manor, though conveyed between
feoffees connected with Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge, in 1366, was apparently possessed
in 1381 by John Sibill (d. 1393). (fn. 53)
When executed in 1470, John Tiptoft, earl of
Worcester, held Upware manor of Thomas
Peyton. (fn. 54) The eventual successor to the earl's
Cambridgeshire lands, Sir Thomas Lovell (d.
1524), (fn. 55) devised that Upware manor to his
nephew, (Sir) Francis Lovell (fn. 56) (d. 1552), whose
son Sir Thomas owned Upware at his death in
1567. His son, namesake, and heir (d. 1604) sold
it in 1587 to Roger Rebell, (fn. 57) who in 1588 resold
it to Henry Seaman. Isaac Barrow, who had
already acquired the lease of Upware in 1603
and expensively repaired its decayed manor
house, bought out Seaman and his prodigal son
Richard in 1606-7. (fn. 58)
Upware manor, not sold by Isaac Barrow with
Spinney, was conveyed in 1650 by his son Philip
to Mary Goodrick, widow, (fn. 59) apparently married
by 1653 to John Povey (d. 1658). (fn. 60) When Mary,
the owner in 1667, died, still a widow, in 1679,
she bequeathed to her nephew William Chaplin
land in Wicken, including Upware manor and
300 a. of Adventurers' allotments just east of it
in Broad meadow and Sedge fen, bought from
Richard Gorges, lord Gorges of Dundalk, a
vigorous promoter of the fen drainage. (fn. 61)
Upware farm was part of Lord Aylesford's
Wicken estate by 1811 when its 114 a., mostly
old inclosures, was offered for sale with
Spinney. (fn. 62) It was bought in 1813 with Wicken
rectory by John Rayner and shortly afterwards
styled the Tithe farm. (fn. 63) From the 1830s that
Upware farm was included in that part of
Rayner's estate which passed to Miss Mary
Hatch and was sold after her death. (fn. 64)