A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



order that the tenants and their successors ' might on 

 all occasions rightly know the customs of the manor.' 40 

 They claimed ordinary copyholders' rights, right to 

 demise customary lands by copy ; to pay a fixed fine 

 on admittance ; to let their tenements for a year 

 without licence ; to have sole right to fell trees on 

 their tenements except oak, and even oak for repairs ; 

 to have sole pasture and feeding on the lord's heaths 

 and wastes, and in the three coppices of South Holme, 

 Healc Coppice, and Holman Coppice. Oliver Crom- 

 well had ignored these customs on several occasions, 

 as for instance when he brought an action against 

 Mrs. Elliot for leasing her copyhold for a year, and 

 against Thomas Lloyd for cutting down some oak 

 trees for repairs on his copyhold of Nevil's Close and 

 Hiltingbury 4l In 1705 Oliver died before the suit 

 was finished, and a dispute arose concerning the 

 Hursley estate. Richard Cromwell, who had allowed 

 his son's right to the manor, now disputed the right 

 of his daughters, who considered themselves the heirs 

 of their brother. The case was heard and decided in 

 Richard's favour, 4 * and after this he seems to have 

 lived partly at Hursley and partly at Cheshunt. 43 In 

 1712 he died at Cheshunt, and was buried at Hurs- 

 ley with much pomp. 44 His two surviving daughters, 

 Elizabeth and Anne, succeeded 

 to the estate, but only lived at 

 Merdon for a few years, selling 

 the whole manor in 1718 to 

 Sir William Heathcote. 46 Sir 

 William pulled down the old 

 mansion-house, then in ruins, 

 and built the modern house. 

 He died in 1 75 1,* 6 leaving his 

 eldest son Thomas as heir. 

 On the death of Sir Thomas 

 in 1787 the manor descended 

 to his son William, whose 

 great-grandson, Sir William 

 Percival Heathcote, sold the estate in 1899 to Joseph 

 W. Baxendale, who sold it in 1905 to Sir George 

 Cooper, bart., the present owner. 



Hursley House is a fine building, the central part of 

 which dates from the early part of the eighteenth 

 century, while the wings are modern additions. The 

 great attraction of the house is the splendid oak panel- 

 ling and fittings formerly in Winchester College 

 Chapel, and most unfortunately removed at the disas- 

 trous ' restoration ' of the chapel by Butterfield. The 

 work is of the time of Charles II, the carving being, 

 as usual, attributed to Gibbons ; in this case it is at 

 any rate worthy of him. The site of the former 

 house lies behind the present building on lower 

 ground, and its foundations may be seen in the turf, 

 though no part is now above ground. 



CRdNBURT seems originally to have been an 

 important hamlet of Hursley, 47 and to have consisted 

 of many distinct tenements or copyholds, 48 but now 



HEATHCOTE. Ermine 

 three roundels vert with 

 a cross or upon each. 



the name belongs only to Cranbury House and Park. 

 Of the proprietors of Cranbury, who held of course 

 of the bishop as of his manor of Merdon, the first 

 mentioned seems to be a certain Shoveller, who sur- 

 rendered to a Roger Coram before 1580. The latter, 

 according to Marsh, seems to have been ' a zealous 

 assertor of the tenants' rights against the lords of the 

 manor.' 49 On the death of this Roger Coram Sir 

 Edward Richards seems to have held the property 

 until 1640-3," when he let it, with the lord's con- 

 sent, to Dr. John Young, dean of Winchester, who 

 lived in quiet retirement at Cranbury during the 

 Commonwealth. His widow, Mrs. Young, was hold- 

 ing in 1650, and probably resigned the house to Sir 

 Charles Wyndham, who married her daughter in 

 1665. Sir Charles, who seems also to have been 'a 

 zealous assertor of the tenants' rights,' and ' of a most 

 respectable family,' died in 1706, before his wife, who 

 survived him until 1720." On her death the house 

 and estate were sold to Jonathan Conduit, who sold 

 the whole in 1737 or 1738 to Thomas Lee Dummer. 

 The latter died in 1765, leaving a son and heir 

 Thomas, from whom the estate devolved to Sir 

 Nathaniel Holland." On the death of Lady Hol- 

 land, widow of Sir Nathaniel, 

 the estate passed into the 

 Chamberlayne family, and is 

 held at the present day by Mr. 

 Tankerville Chamberlayne. 



Cranbury House is a large 

 eighteenth-century red-brick 

 building, with a projecting 

 entrance porch on the south 

 front, the main rooms being 

 arranged round a central hall 

 and staircase. There is a good 

 deal of fine plaster decoration 

 in the Adam style, especially in 

 the saloon on the south front, 

 which has a circular domed ceiling. The house con- 

 tains a good number of valuable paintings, there being 

 one very fine Romney, of Lady Hamilton as a maenad, 

 and several of less merit. In the rooms on the east 

 front are a number of pictures by Richter and Westall, 

 and a curious unfinished subject painting, said to be 

 by Romney. 



The site of the house is well chosen, the ground 

 falling steeply on the north, in well-wooded slopes. 

 Some way down the slope is a spring, over which a 

 domed well-house has been built, and on the higher 

 ground to the west of the house is a circular earth- 

 work. To the north of this is a summer-house and a 

 stone sun-dial, said to have been designed by Sir Isaac 

 Newton ; its gnomon is supported by a monogram in 

 openwork, apparently I.L.C. for Jonathan Conduit. 

 In the park, at some distance to the south-west 

 of the house, is a gamekeeper's cottage, masked by 

 a sham ruin made up of fragments from Netley 



CHAMBERLAYNE. 



Gules a caeireron en- 

 grailed or between three 

 scallops argent. 



40 Imber, The Case and Customs of the 

 Manor of Merdon. - Ibid. 



<" Mark Noble, Mem. of the House of 

 Cromtvell. The censure passed by Mark 

 Noble on the conduct of Richard's 

 daughters seems justifiable on the sur- 

 face. However, his correspondence with 

 his daughters continued on friendly terms 

 during the suit. In one letter he says : 

 * To trouble 8c tare me aboute my estate 

 is a feeling to the flesh, but I have spirit 

 as well as flesh . . . whoe dare to break 



that knot of love and faithfulness which 

 time hath of oe many years experienced.' 

 48 Engl. Hist. Rev. (1898), 122. 



44 Mark Noble, op. cit. 176-7. 



45 Feet of F. Hants, East. 5 Geo. I. 



46 Gent. Mag. (1751), Juci, 236. Here 

 the heir is given as his eldest son William, 

 evidently a mistake. See G.E.C. Complete 

 Baronetage, v, 75. 



4 ' Tenements in Cranbury are in- 

 cluded in the extent given of the manor 

 of Merdon when granted to Sir Philip 



42O 



Hoby in 1551. Pat. 5 Edw. VI, 

 pt. 6. 



48 See Marsh, Mem. of the Parish of 

 Hursley, 36. Evidence of the number of 

 houses in Cranbury having at one time 

 reached at least eleven is here deduced 

 from the manorial court rolls. 49 Ibid. 



60 Ibid. 37. In 1640 he was fined 

 20 for cutting timber in Cranbury with- 

 out licence from the lord of the manor. 



61 See tablet to their memory in Hurs- 

 ley church. 52 Marsh, op. cit. 37. 



