A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



built by Archbishop Warham c. \ 500, has been 

 much modernized, but shows a few traces of work as 

 early as the I4th century, though the main part of 

 the building appears to be of I yth-century date. In 

 the cellars, under the present drawing-room, is a 

 curious structure apparently designed to support a 

 projecting fireplace above (the present fireplace is over 

 it), and constructed of arched ribs of stone stiffened 

 by horizontal slabs, and springing from corbels carved 

 with the masks characteristic of 1 3th and 14th-century 

 Gothic work. 



The plan is quite abnormal, the situation, on the 

 side of a fairly sharp southerly slope, probably 

 accounting for this. It is possible that there were at 

 one time wings extending northwards at either end of 



DINTON HALL : THE STAIRCASE 



the existing house, which runs east and west, and is 

 entered from the north. The north face has been 

 much restored in modern times and little or none of 

 the old masonry, whether stone or brick, remains. 

 The entrance doorway opens to a corridor running 

 east and west, at either end of which is a I yth-century 

 staircase. On a level with the corridor are two 

 rooms facing south, the western of which is panelled 

 from floor to ceiling with very fine moulded oak 

 panels of large size and late 17th-century date. In a 

 bedroom over these rooms is a mantel of 16th-century 

 date, with carved ornament which seems a later addition. 



East of this central portion are the kitchen and 

 offices, on the north elevation of which is a brick 

 cloister with plain three-centred arches. West of the 

 hall, and at a higher level, is the drawing-room, 

 which has been completely redecorated in compara- 

 tively modern times. Opening out of it to the west 

 is a small room of one story, once used as a chapel, 

 and probably mediaeval, though its open timber roof 

 is of 18th-century date, and there are no masonry 

 details of an earlier period now visible. Above the 

 drawing-room is a large room partly in the roof, ex- 

 tending from north to south of the house, in which 

 are preserved a number of curiosities more or less 

 connected with the Hall. 



The south front was largely rebuilt in the i8th 

 century, a contemporary drawing show- 

 ing it fitted with sash windows. In 

 comparatively recent times, however, this 

 front was restored to what must have 

 been, approximately, its original con- 

 dition, with stone mullioned casements. 



Upper Waldridge, now a farmhouse, is 

 a picturesque example of early i yth-cen- 

 tury design. The main feature of the 

 plan as it now exists is a large central 

 stack of chimneys, the shafts of which 

 are set anglewise above the tiled roof. 

 Round this the rooms are grouped, open- 

 ing out of each other with no attempt 

 at corridor or suite planning, the staircase 

 being on the south side. As the house 

 evidently extended farther to the east, it 

 is possible that what remains is one wing 

 and half the main block of an H-shaped 

 house. The original work is all half- 

 timber filled wilh herring-bone brick- 

 work, but the south and west faces have 

 been refronted later in the iyth century 

 with a thin skin of brickwork, with stone 

 mullioned and transomed windows set in 

 projecting brick panels with ribbed brick 

 cornices and base-moulds. The north 

 gable remains in its original state, and 

 has a very pretty projecting gabled window 

 on the first floor, of five latticed lights 

 with wooden mullions and a transom. 



In the time of Edward 

 MANORS the Confessor DINTON was 

 held by Avelin, one of his 

 thegns, but after the Norman Conquest 

 it was granted to the Bishop of Bayeux. 4 

 It was assessed in Domesday Book at 

 1 5 hides of land.' Bishop Odo lost all 

 his lands under William Rufus, and 

 many of them afterwards came into the possession 

 of the family of Munchesney. Dinton presumably 

 followed the history of Swanscombe in Kent, which 

 belonged to the barony of the Bishop of Bayeux, and 

 was held by the same under-tenant, Helto, in io86. 6 

 Swanscombe was the head of the honour of the 

 Mi nchesneys, and in the early izth century was held 

 by Geoffrey Talbot. 7 He died in 1140 during the 

 civil wars of the reign of Stephen, 8 and his barony 

 passed to Walter of Meduana. Walter's widow, 

 Cecilia, Countess of Hereford by her first husband, 

 Roger Fitz Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford, 



4 V.C.H. Buck,, i, 234*. 

 Ibid. 



See V.C.H. Kent, iii, Topog. 



1 Red Bk. ofExcb. (Rolls Ser.), 195. 



272 



Chron. of Sufi,. Hen. II, and Ric. I 

 (Rolls Ser.), iii, 37, 38, 68. 



