WILLYBROOK HUNDRED 



COLLYWESTON 



the persecutions of Alva in the Netherlands.' Peter 

 died in 1660, leaving CoUyweston to his second son 

 Samuel.' Samuel was succeeded by his son John, 

 who left an only daughter who married Richard 

 Dickson Skrine, to whom she brought the manor. 

 Mrs. Skrine died in 1 800.' The Marquis of Exeter 

 is now lord of the manor. 



There is a good deal of information in the public 

 records relating to the condition of CoUyweston at 

 various periods of its history. In Domesday the only 

 building mentioned is a mill, and the amount of land 

 covered by woodland must have been proportionally 

 very large. There is no other detailed account of 

 the manor until the end of the reign of Edward I, 

 when on the death of Elias Hauvill there was a 

 capital messuage, a watermill, and a fishery, and the 

 lord was allowed to take toll of the vill. This toll, 

 which henceforth appears in all accounts of the manor, 

 is called about 1330 the 'Thurghtol,' or through toll, 

 and was taken of everyone passing by roads which 

 extended from the 'Cleverying' to the fields of 

 Duddingdon carrying merchandize or victuals to be 

 sold. John de Hotham, the lord of CoUyweston, 

 could claim no other title to this right than pre- 

 scription.* He was granted free warren in his 

 demesnes of CoUyweston in 1328,' but no park there 

 is mentioned until the latter part of the reign of 

 Edward IV, and it was therefore probably not en- 

 closed until the building of the mansion house of 

 CoUyweston in the 15 th century. This house was, 

 according to Leland, the most nearly contemporary 

 witness, begun by Sir William Porter. He says ' the 

 House of Colly Weston as 

 some say was first begun by a 

 gentleman that gave three silver 

 bells in a field of sables to his 

 arms and that he was first a 

 paroche clerke as it said of 

 CoUpveston itself or there- 

 about.' Three bells are the 

 Porter arms, they appear on 

 the church of CoUyweston. 

 Leland does not seem very sure 

 of his account ; in another 

 place he says that CoUywes- 

 ton ' is for the most part of a 



new Building by the Lady Margaret, mother to 

 Henry VII,' and that the Lord Cromwell had before 

 begun a house there.'' There were considerable build- 

 ings at CoUyweston at the end of Edward IV's 

 reign, before it came into the possession of Lady 

 Margaret. The park is then mentioned and many 

 payments to carpenters and workmen for repairs.' 

 Nicholas Vicary was granted in 1478 the office of 

 keeper of the inn or site of the lordship or manor of 

 CoUyweston with the gardens pertaining to it and the 

 parks of CoUyweston.' Accounts of 1509 and the 

 following years give fuUer details. The fishery in the 

 WeUand is always accounted for, and profits from the 

 slate pits begin to appear. In I 5 10 one shop near 

 the inn caUed the ' Swan,' then occupied as a prison 



Porter, 

 bell) argent. 



Sable three 



house for the safe custody of vagabonds, is mentioned.' 

 In the reign of Elizabeth an interesting detaU is 

 supplied by the complaint of Robert Hornby, the 

 queen's bailiff, of Christopher Lewis that ' he lopped 

 the great walnut tree in the outward court of the 

 manor under the shade of which her majesty's ser- 

 vants were wont to sit when she repaired thither.' '" 

 Camden in 1607 noted the handsome and elegant 

 house built by Margaret of Richmond," but by that time 

 the days of its greatest glory were over. Perhaps they 

 would have returned if Sir Robert Heath had had a 

 less disturbed career; in 163 1 he obtained leave to 

 enclose a new park from the woodlands not exceeding 

 500 acres, because in the grant to Patrick Mawle it 

 is covenanted that 1 00 deer shall be kept in the old 

 park 'which is of but 108 acres and has no covert.'" 

 Before Bridges wrote in 1720 the house had been 

 almost entirely puUed down and the park disparked, and 

 now only traces of the gardens and fishponds remain. 

 The miU in CoUyweston, though appearing in the 

 early surveys of the manor, is not generally mentioned 

 in the royal accounts ; in the reign of Elizabeth, 

 however, the millers were presented and fined at the 

 view of frankpledge for taking excessive toll." A 

 mill in CoUyweston was granted about 1 61 3 to 

 William Whitmore and others.'* 



View of frankpledge for this manor appears to 

 have been kept in the hands of the crown. It is 

 never included either in the grants of the manor or 

 in the surveys of the possessions of the lords. The 

 only court roUs remaining belong to the reign of 

 Elizabeth, when the view would in any case have 

 been in the hands of the queen. 



The advovvson of the church of 

 jIDVOWSON St. Andrew " followed the descent of 

 the manor until the grant of the 

 manor to Patrick Mawle in the 17th centur}', when 

 the advowson was not included. Since then the 

 crown has presented to the living. 



The church stands back from the main 

 CHURCH street of the village, being approached by 

 a path with walls on either side. The 

 churchyard is small, and lies chiefly on the south, 

 and the ground faUing steeply from east to west, it is 

 banked up on the west to a height of 6 ft. above the 

 adjoining land and the small road which forms the 

 boundary on the north. 



The church consists of chancel, 25 ft. 6 in. by 

 1 3 ft. 2 in., with large south chapel, known as the 

 Tryon chapel ; nave 3 5 ft. 6 in. by 1 8 ft. 8 m., with 

 north aisle and south porch, and west tower 1 3 ft. 

 square inside. 



The tower, chancel, and part of the south wall of 

 the nave are faced with wrought stone, the rest of the 

 building being of stone rubble with wrought stone 

 buttresses and dressings. 



There are no architectural features older than the 

 first quarter of the 13 th century, but it is possible 

 that the west and south walls of the nave may belong 

 to an earlier date, as western quoins of an aisleless 

 nave are to be seen, and may be of the 1 2th centurj-, 



^ Morant, Essex, ii, 252, 



' P. C. C. 276, Nabbs. 



8 Simpson, Rec. and Obituary for Linc^ 

 Rutland, and Northants, p. 5 ; Manning 

 and Bray, Surrey, ii, 651. 



* Quo Warr. R. (Rec. Com.), p. 58+. 



' Chart. R. 2 Edw. Ill, m. 9. No. 30. 



* Leland, Itin. (ed. Hearne), i, 23, 

 vi, 28. 



" Mins. Accts. bdle. 64.0, No. 103S8. 

 8 Pat. 17 Edw. IV, pt. ii, m. 13. 

 ' Mins. Accts. Exch. Northants, 24 

 Hen. VII-i Hen. VIII, No. 4; Ibid. 

 1-2 Hen. VIII, No. 26. 



10 Chan. Proc. (ser. 2), bdle. 114, 

 No. 9. 

 " Britannia, iil, 473. 

 " Cal. of S. P. Dom. 1629-31, p. 4S9. 



553 



l» Ct. R. (Gen. Ser. P. R. O.), bdle. 

 195, No. 13. 



" Pat. 10 Jas. I, pt. XXV. 



" Richard Dyx (151 5) leaves his body 

 to be buried in the churchyard of St. An- 

 drew in CoUyweston (Bk. A, fol. 287). 

 See also Bk. B, fol. 102. Wills in North- 

 ampton Probate Office). 



/' 



