MANORS.
The manor of EDGWARE is first mentioned in 1216. (fn. 2) Edgware does not occur in Domesday Book; either it was omitted by accident or
included in Kingsbury or Stanmore. One possibility
is that Edgware was reckoned part of Stanmore at
the time of the Survey, although later in its history
the manor certainly had close connexions with the
manor of Kingsbury. (fn. 3) Stanmore was part of the
barony of Roger de Rames at the time of Domesday.
Roger's son William had two sons, Roger and Robert,
between whom the Stanmore property was divided
at some time before 1130. Adeliza de Rames, probably the daughter of the younger Roger, married
Edward of Salisbury as his second wife, possibly
bringing with her part of the Domesday manor 'in
Stanmera' east of Watling Street, that is to say the
greater part of Edgware. Edward's grandson Patrick,
created Earl of Salisbury in 1149, was the first of the
Salisbury family definitely known to have owned
land at Edgware. (fn. 4) The Rames family continued to
own the north-west corner of the parish together
with the northern part of Little Stanmore. (fn. 5)
A royal writ of 1216 ordered that Eleanor, Countess of Salisbury, mother of Isabel, should be permitted to hold her manor of Edgware in peace. (fn. 6) Eleanor
died in 1232 or 1233 and Ela (or Isabel), Countess of
Salisbury, succeeded. (fn. 7) She had married William
Longespée (d. 1226) and some time before 1240 she
gave the manor to her fourth son Nicholas Longespée, later Bishop of Salisbury, at a quit-rent. (fn. 8) In
1261 Ela died and five years later Nicholas Longespée
devised the manor to the money-lender Adam de
Stratton, who in 1272 obtained their interests in the
manor from Henry de Lacy and his wife Margaret,
daughter and coheir of William, eldest son of the
Countess Ela. (fn. 9) After the disgrace of Adam in 1290
the manor was forfeit to the king who regranted it to
Henry de Lacy. (fn. 10) Henry de Lacy died in 1311 and
the manor passed to his daughter Alice, who had
married Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, in 1294. (fn. 11) After
the death of Thomas in 1322, following the battle of
Boroughbridge, the king took the manor into his
own hands and regranted it to Alice de Lacy. (fn. 12)
Before 10 November 1324 she married Ebulo Lestrange, and in 1325 a licence was granted to them to
enfeoff Hugh le Despenser of the manor and for
Hugh to regrant it to them for the life of Alice. (fn. 13)
In 1328 Isabel and Mortimer, who, in order to consolidate their authority, were attempting to gain the
allegiance of the partisans of the late Earl of Lancaster, granted the manor, among other estates, to
Ebulo for his life if he survived Alice. (fn. 14) However, in
1330 Ebulo and Alice found it necessary to petition
the king and council to consider their case, and eventually they secured a grant of some of their lands on
condition that they quitclaimed all the rest. (fn. 15) The
agreement was embodied in a charter in 1331 whereby Edgware manor, amongst others, was granted to
Ebulo, Alice, and Ebulo's heirs to hold as Henry de
Lacy had held it of the king. (fn. 16) This grant was perhaps a recognition of Ebulo's contribution to the
overthrow of Isabel and Mortimer. (fn. 17)
On the death of Ebulo Lestrange in 1335 the
manor of Edgware with the hamlet of Kingsbury
was said to be held in chief, as parcel of the earldom of Salisbury, at half a knight's fee. Roger
Lestrange, Lord Strange, son of John Lestrange VI,
Lord Strange (d. 1311), the brother of Ebulo, was
his heir. (fn. 18) In 1336, however, Sir Hugh de Frene
eloped with Alice, now aged 55, and the king, displeased, took their lands into his hands; but by 23
March 1336 they had married and had made peace
with the king, receiving back their property, and on
27 September 1336 they had licence to convey Edgware and other lands to themselves for life with remainder to Roger Lestrange. (fn. 19) In 1337 Hugh de Frene
died, and Roger granted his interest in the manor to
Nicholas de Cantilupe to remain with him for life after
the death of Alice, (fn. 20) who by a deed of 25 June 1337,
the day before Roger's grant, divested herself of all
her castles and goods as a gift to her cousin, Nicholas
de Cantilupe, although she probably retained actual
possession until her death in 1348. (fn. 21) Nicholas died in
1355 and left Roger Lestrange, Lord Strange (d.
1382), son of the heir of Ebles who had died in 1349,
in full possession of the manor. In 1377 he granted it
for life to his son Roger, (fn. 22) who still held it in 1412. (fn. 23)
In 1413 a grant of the reversion of rent in Edgware
was made by Richard, Lord Strange (d. 1449), (fn. 24)
and in 1422 he granted the reversion of the manor
to Richard Ulverston, Richard Colfox, and John
Wythyton, (fn. 25) presumably feoffees, for when Roger
Lestrange died in 1426 the manor reverted to Lord
Strange. (fn. 26) He held it only until 1430, however, for in
that year he granted it to William and Elizabeth
Davell. (fn. 27) This grant was supplemented by another
in 1431, which gave a rent of 100 marks from
Richard's manor of Dunham (Ches.) to Davell and
his wife, not to be paid as long as they held the manor
of Edgware. (fn. 28) In 1441 the manor was sold by the
Davells to Thomas Chichele and other feoffees, (fn. 29)
who surrendered it in 1442 to the king; in the same
year the king granted it to All Souls College, Oxford,
in whose hands it has remained ever since. (fn. 30) In 1475
a manor of Edgware was granted by the king to
Queen Elizabeth, the Bishop of Salisbury, and the
Dean of Windsor; (fn. 31) in 1483 the Dean and Chapter of
Windsor enfeoffed the king of the manor of 'Eggeware', (fn. 32) but there is no indication in either transaction which of the Edgware manors was concerned
nor how it came into the possession of the grantor.
There is no evidence among the documents at All
Souls that the college relinquished and regained the
manor at any time during the reign of Edward IV.
On the other hand, if the manor concerned was
Edgware Boys, it must have returned to the Knights
Hospitallers between 1483 and 1535, when it appears among the possessions of the Grand Priory of
Clerkenwell. (fn. 33)
From the 13th to the 18th century the manor of
Edgware included the greater part of the parish.
Throughout this period the manor had appurtenances in Kingsbury parish; the close connexion
between the manors of Edgware and Kingsbury,
which led to the intermingling of details of the
manors in court rolls, rentals, and surveys, makes it
impossible to determine the extent of these appurtenances. It would seem, however, that the
acreage in Kingsbury belonging to the manor of
Edgware was never greater than one-fifth of the total
acreage of the manor, (fn. 34) and was for the greater part
of the history of the manor under one-twentieth. In
the early 17th century two small manors in other
parishes were stated to be held as of the manor of
Edgware at quit-rents: the manor of Coffers in
Kingsbury, (fn. 35) 100 a. held by knight service, and the
manor of Tokyngton in Harrow. (fn. 36)
It has been estimated that in 1277 the manor of
Edgware contained 453 a. of demesne, 270 a. held by
free tenants, and 814 a. held by customary tenants,
but this can only be an approximation to the actual
extent of the manor. (fn. 37) The rents for the Earlsbury
farm in 1436 (fn. 38) suggest that all the demesne was
farmed out in one portion; in 1443, a year after the
manor was acquired by All Souls College, the 'manor
farm' was leased to Richard Kynge of Aldenham
(Herts.), husbandman, for ten years at a rent of £8 a
year. (fn. 39) An unstated amount of woodland was reserved to the lords, and in 1454 the demesne underwent a further division when the George Inn was
leased to Henry Abell for ten years at a rent of
£5 6s. 8d. a year, together with 200 oak faggots, on
condition that the horse-mill and millstones at the
inn were kept in repair. (fn. 40) This seems to have been
the beginning of the George farm, which continued
to be leased until the 19th century. A lease of 1532
states that the lessees had fire- and plough-bote;
they were to keep in good repair the vessels of the
brewhouse there and to provide food and drink for
the manorial court. (fn. 41) A lease of 1541 included the
same terms, but added that no fire-bote was to be
expended in the common brewhouse. (fn. 42) In 1548 the
rent was increased to £8 (fn. 43) but in 1583 it was reduced
to £5 6s. 8d. and the balance made up with 4 qr. of
wheat and 5 qr. and 3 bu. of malt. (fn. 44) This rent continued unchanged until at least 1800. From 1554
leases ran for 20 years, although until at least 1625
they were always renewed well before they fell due.
Earlsbury, a name which first occurs in 1436 and
whose origin seems to have been as a complement to
Kingsbury, (fn. 45) remained the chief demesne farm. The
next surviving lease after that of 1443 is one dated
1540, when the rent was £6 15s. 4d. (fn. 46) Thereafter the
rent rose slightly until in 1584 it stood at £8 a year
plus 6 qr. of wheat and 8 qr. of malt, (fn. 47) at which
figure it remained until 1826, when it was increased
to £25 with 8½ qr. of wheat and 11 qr. of malt. (fn. 48) The
fine for entry in 1805 was £367, and by 1826 it had
risen to £800. (fn. 49) Other parts of the demesne were
leased in the 16th century, notably the so-called
'common wood' let to Robert Strensham of Wilton
(Wilts.) in 1575. (fn. 50) The woods were leased to Christopher Hovenden, brother of the warden of the
college, at £20 a year in 1580; the almost immediate
surrender of the lease did not prevent the queen
from citing it as a precedent when in 1587 she asked
for a lease of the Middlesex woods of the college in
favour of Jane, widow of Sir Robert Stafford. After
a long and acrimonious dispute the college maintained its right not to lease the woods unless it
wished to do so. (fn. 51)
There was no manor-house as such at Edgware.
Edgwarebury always seems to have been the centre
of the manor and of Earlsbury Farm, and a condition
of the lease of Earlsbury in 1602 was that the lessee
should lodge the lords or their representative when
they came to the manor on college business, (fn. 52)
although the manor court seems to have been held
at the 'George'. (fn. 53) The house at Edgwarebury is
mentioned in 1548, (fn. 54) and a house and farm buildings
are shown on the map of 1597, (fn. 55) north and east of the
pond. The existing house on the site, known as Bury
Farm, has an older portion which probably dates
from the early 17th century; this is partly timberframed with external weather-boarding and a jettied
upper story. A projecting brick wing was added on
the west side in the 18th century. (fn. 56) Dick Turpin is
said to have stolen the silver, raped the daughter of
the householder, and poured boiling water over her
father. (fn. 57) A second farm-house, which stood to the
west of Bury Farm until after the Second World War,
was an 18th-century brick building known as Edgwarebury Farm.
The origins of the manor of EDGWARE BOYS
or EDGWARE AND BOYS are obscure, (fn. 58) but
they may possibly be found in a grant by Henry
Bocuinte to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem
(Knights Hospitallers) between 1231 and 1238 of
land in Edgware. (fn. 59) In 1277 the order held land as
free tenants of the manor of Edgware, paying a rent
of 7s. 7d., (fn. 60) but the earliest mention of a separate
manor of Boys occurs in a terrier of 1397. (fn. 61) In a
rental of the manor of Edgware dated 1425-6 and in
some later documents belonging to that manor the
manor of Boys is said to have been formerly held by
the Earl (or Countess) of Lincoln, but there is no
other evidence that either Henry de Lacy or his
daughter Alice ever had possession of the manor of
Boys. (fn. 62) Lysons states (fn. 63) that this was the manor
granted by the Dean and Chapter of Windsor to the
king in 1483, but there is no evidence for this identification, and the order still held the manor at the
Dissolution. (fn. 64) In 1543 it was granted to Sir John
Williams and Anthony Stringer at a rent of 20s. a
year, (fn. 65) but it was immediately alienated by them to
Henry Page of Harrow. (fn. 66) Henry's son John disposed
of it to John Scudamore c. 1631, and it was sold to
Thomas Coventry, Lord Coventry, in 1637. (fn. 67) It
continued in the Coventry family until 1762, when
it was sold to William Lee of Totteridge Park, (fn. 68)
from whom it descended to his son William, who
in pursuance of the terms of the will of Richard
Antonie of Colworth (Beds.) took the surname of
Antonie. (fn. 69) From Antonie it passed to his nephew
John Fiott (son of Harriet, second daughter of
William Lee of Totteridge Park), who assumed the
name of Lee under the will of William Lee Antonie. (fn. 70)
The descent of the estate after the death of John Lee
in 1866 is obscure.
A terrier of the manor of Edgware Boys made in
1397 estimates the extent of that manor at 288 a. (fn. 71)
About one-sixth of the manor appears to have been
in Hendon. It contained one field of 60 a., three
fields of 40 a. each, and thirteen smaller fields. No
court records seem to be extant. The estate continued
to be called a manor until after 1741, (fn. 72) but from the
time of its acquisition by William Lee in 1762 it
appears to have been known as the Edgware
Estate. (fn. 73) In 1764 the estate yielded £180 in rent,
which rose to £500 in 1780 and to £570 in 1797. (fn. 74)
In 1845 the estate contained 216 a. (fn. 75) John Lee, the
owner of the estate, was the impropriator of all
tithes of corn, which were worth £25 a year. There
does not appear to have been a manor-house at any
time.
Part of the north-eastern corner of the parish,
around the village of Elstree, belonged to the manor
of Titburst and Kendalls in Aldenham (Herts.). (fn. 76)
In 1845 the estate in Edgware amounted to 90 a.;
the owner, William Phillimore, younger brother of
the lawyer Joseph Phillimore, (fn. 77) lived in his mansion
at Deacon's Hill, just on the Elstree side of the parish
and county boundary. (fn. 78) The house was demolished
after the Second World War. By 1175 the Priory of
St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, held a small amount
of land in Edgware, (fn. 79) which soon after became part
of their manor of Wimborough in Little Stanmore. (fn. 80)