A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Knyvet. Urgent a 

 bend table and a border 

 sable engrailed. 



was probably followed by a son of the same name, 

 for one John Knyvet of Southwick, about 1 258, gave 

 up all right in the advowson of the church there to 

 the prior of Huntingdon,' and another in 1306 

 released to Godfrey, abbot of 

 Peterborough, 20/. rent from 

 that meadow in Perio which 

 the abbey had held from the 

 lords of Southwick.' John was 

 living as late as 1 3 16, when he 

 was returned, with Humphrey 

 de Bassingburne, heir of the 

 Lisurs' fee, as lord of South- 

 wick.' He was succeeded by 

 Richard, who married Joan, 

 daughter and heir of John 

 Worth, and who, about 1324, 

 was granted by the king the 

 custody of the forest of Clive for life.* John the 

 eldest son and heir of Richard laid the foundations 

 of the future greatness of his family. He was bred 

 up to the law and was spoken of by Sir Edward 

 Coke in the 17th century as a man 'famous in his 

 profession.' He was made Justice of Common Pleas 

 in 1 36 1, in 1365 Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 

 and in 1372 the second lay Chancellor of England.' 

 John married Eleanor, one of the co-heirs of Ralph Basset 

 of Weldon, which brought a great accession of wealth 

 to his family.* He died in 1381 holding the messuage 

 and land in Southwick called Knevetts' place of the 

 earl of Warwick, some land in the same place of 

 the earl of Cambridge, lord of Fotheringhay, to 

 which manor some land in Southwick had always 

 been attached, two assarts in Southwick in chief 

 which had been granted to John Knyvet by Edward II, 

 and various other estates in Northamptonshire and 

 elsewhere.' His heir John, like his father, made 

 a fortunate match, marr}ing Joan the daughter and 

 heir of Sir John Botetourt of Mendlesham. His son 

 John married Elizabeth, sister and at length heiress 

 of Sir John Clifton of Buckenham in Norfolk, which 

 henceforth became the home of the Knyvets.* John 

 Knyvet, son of the Chancellor 

 sold the manor of Southwick 

 about 1442 to John Lynnc, 

 who had married his daughter 

 Joan.' 



Southwick was the home and 

 principal estate of the Lynne 

 family until late in the 1 8th 

 century. Southwick Hall, built 

 by them, is the present resi- 

 dence of the lord of the manor. 

 They lived during the three 

 centuries of their tenure of 

 Southwick as country squires 

 in no way remarkable, except 

 perhaps for the largeness of 

 their families ; one George Lynne had twenty-two 

 children.'" John Lynne at the time of the Great 

 Rebellion fought for the king, and had to compound 



Lynne. Gyronny or 

 and gules a demi-lion 

 ermine tvith a martlet 

 gules on bis sboulder in 

 an orle of rings counter- 

 coloured. 



for his estates by a fine of ^^24 1 and settling £\o ai 

 year on the minister at Southwick." The last Lynne 

 of Southwick was Martha, wife of Francis Broade, 

 sister and heiress of George Lynne. She died child- 

 less in 1796, leaving her estates to her kinsmaa 

 George Francis Johnson, who took the surname and 

 arms of the Lynne family. He was succeeded by 

 his nephew Walter Johnson, who also took the name 

 of Lynne, from whom the manor of Southwick was. 

 purchased in 1 840 by George Capron, father of the 

 present owner, the Rev. G. H. Capron." 



The court-leet and view of frankpledge of South- 

 wick belonged, like several of the neighbouring 

 villages, to the honour of Gloucester. After that 

 honour came into the hands of Henry VIII it 

 passed with that of Cotterstock and Glapthorn to the 

 Brudenell family." 



Two mills at Perio, held like Southwick manor of 

 the earl of Warwick, were granted by John Giffard 

 to his college of Cotterstock.'* After the dissolution 

 of the college they came into the hands of Mountjoy 

 earl of Newport, lord of the manor of Fotheringhay, 

 who in 1658 leased 'two corne mills, one wheat and 

 one fulling mill as the same now are under one 

 roof,' with cottages and land in Southwick, to Richard 

 and Thomas Whitehead." The sole representative 

 of these at present is the corn mill at Perio, but 

 there was until 1721 also a paper mill, which was 

 burnt down in that year." 



Southwick Hall is an interesting building pos- 

 sessing architectural work of every century from 

 the 14th to the 19th. The oldest part of the house 

 is the square block containing what is now called the 

 * Gothic Room,' beneath which is a vaulted cellar or 

 store room. This block dates from about the middle 

 of the 14th century or a little earlier. The vaulting 

 ribs are widely chamfered, and spring from corbels- 

 consisting of grotesque heads carved with much spirit, 

 but endowed with a somewhat melancholy expression. 

 The windows of the lower room are as usual small. 

 The room over this groined apartment has a flat 

 ceiling supported by moulded beams. It has a small 

 east window of two lights projecting beyond the 

 face of the waO and carried on solid masonry from 

 the ground upwards. In each side of the square 

 bay thus formed is a recess, that on the south side 

 being furnished with a piscina indicating that the 

 room served the purpose of a chapel. In the wall 

 opposite to the window is a fireplace of about the 

 same date, with moulded jambs and grotesque heads- 

 corresponding with those in the room below. There 

 are two other two-light windows in which are pre- 

 served some pieces of ancient heraldic glass. Attached 

 to this building is a smaller one of somewhat later 

 date, perhaps fifty years later ; the lower floor of this 

 is also groined, but the work is not so good as that 

 in the larger room. At the junction of the two 

 buildings there is a circular staircase within a half 

 hexagonal projection, the date of which is contem- 

 porary with the smaller rooms. It has an outside 

 door at the foot, and a door communicating with the 



1 Feet of F. Northants, 42 Hen. Ill, 

 No. 711. 



» Cott. Cleo. C. ii, 28. 



^ Pari. IVrits. ii, Div. iii, 391. 



* Chan. Inq. p.m. 5 Edw. II, No, 25 ; 

 Orig. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 280. 



* Foss, Judges of England, iii, 451 ; 

 Diet. Nat. Biog. 



» G. E. C. Peerage, i, 261. 



7 Chan. Inq. p.m. 4 Ric. II, No, 32 ; 

 Orig. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 218. 



8 Blomefield, Norfolk, i, 378. 



9 Feet of F. Northants, 20 Hen. VI, 

 No. 107 ; Genealogist, i, 345, where there 

 is a good pedigree of Lynnes. Also Bridges, 

 ii, 470. 



1" Genealogist, i, 345. 

 ^^ Com. for Compounding, ii, I 3 52. 

 ^^ Document in possession of the Rev* 

 G. H. Capron. 



^ See Cotterstock. 

 " Harl. 45, I, 9. 

 1* Harl. III. H. 18. 

 " Bridges, ii, 474. 



