A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



the mill was granted to Felix Wilson and Robert Morgan 

 and their heirs for the rent of 60/.'°' Soon after, 

 however, James I gave the mill to James Beverley and 

 the grant was confirmed in 1627.""" Probably James 

 Beverley sold his rights in the mill to Amabel, dowager 

 countess of Kent, at the same time that he sold her the 

 manor of Clophill and Cainhoe, as there is a Hater-mill 

 on this estate at the present day. 



The castle of Cainhoe, situated in the 

 CASTLE parish of Clophill, was the head of a 

 Bedfordshire barony known as that of 

 d'Aubigny (de Albiniaco) of Cainhoe to distinguish 

 it from those of the d'Aubignys of Belvoir, and the 

 d'Aubignys of Arundel. It represented the Domesday 

 fief of Nigel de Albini, which comprised lands in 

 Husborne Crawley, Tingrith, Priestly, Harlington, 

 Shelton, Marston Moretaine, Millbrook, Ampthill, 

 Southill, Maulden, Westcott, Silsoe, Pulloxhill, 

 Streatley, Milton Ernest, Carlton, Radwell, Turvey, 

 Wyboston, Holme, Harrowden, Clifton, Henlow, and 

 Arlesey, as well as in Clophill and Cainhoe, with a few 

 outlying manors in Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire, 

 and Leicestershire ; it was held by the service of 25 

 knights.™ Its principal tenants were Nigel de Wast 

 in 1086, and the Pirot family m 1 166, and subse- 

 quently St. Albans Abbey was the house which en- 

 joyed the favour of the barons, who were benefactors 

 . to Sopwell, and founded the priory of Beaulieu as a 

 cell to St. Albans. 



The history of these barons is uneventful until the 

 extinction of their male line in or about 1233,'°^ 

 when the barony was divided among the three sisters 

 and co-heirs of Robert, the last baron, of whom Joan, 

 wife to Geoffrey de Beauchamp, died without issue 

 not long afterwards. The barony was then divided 

 into moieties between the two heirs Isabel, wife of 

 William de Hocton, who obtained Clophill and Cain- 

 hoe, and whose heirs have been traced above, and 

 Azeline, whose marriage was granted in June 1234 to 

 Aimery de St. Amand for his son Ralph,'" a favourite 

 of Henry III. To the heirs of this marriage her share, 

 which included Millbrook and Ampthill, descended, 

 and these St. Amands were summoned as barons by 

 writ until their extinction in the male line (1402). 

 The barony of St. Amand was revived for Sir William 

 de Beauchamp who had married their eventual heiress 

 Elizabeth Braybrook in 1449, but some years pre- 

 viously, in 1 44 1, the Beauchamps had parted with 

 Millbrook, Ampthill, and other lands to Sir John 

 Cornwall, who was thereupon (1442) created baron 

 of Millbrook. After the death of the last male Albini, 

 the castle, following the same descent as the manor, 

 came to the de Greys, earls of Kent.""" Its site is 

 marked by the fine earthworks already noticed, but 

 there are no remains of masonry ; it is stated that the 

 castle hill was used for military purposes during the 

 Civil War. 



The old church of ST. MART, now 

 CHURCHES used as a mortuary chapel, is situated 



on a hill about half a mile from the 

 present church in a north-easterly direction, and consists 

 of an aisleless nave and a western tower. There was 

 formerly a chancel of plain character, and said to 

 have been modern ; it was pulled dovim after the 

 building of the new church in 1850, 



"a Pat. 9 Jas. I. pt. 5. 

 "»a Ibid. 4 Chas. I. pt. 32. 

 '"» Liber Rubem, 324; Tesia de Nevill 

 (Rec. Com.), 250. 



1031 Fof pedigree see Mr. Round's paper 

 on 'The origin of the Shirleys and of 

 the Gresleys ' in Derb, Arch, and Nat. 

 Hist. Soc. Journ. 1903. 



The walls of the nave are older than the tower, 

 but nothing more precise can be said in the absence 

 of any details of an earlier date than the middle of the 

 fifteenth century, to which time the three two-light 

 windows of the belfry, the two-light west window and 

 the tower arch belong. Recent repairs have also helped 

 to destroy any evidence which might have been gathered 

 from the walling. The entrance is by a door at the 

 south-west of the nave, and at the south-east is a pro- 

 jecting stair to the rood-loft, the upper doorway 

 being blocked up ; the stair is continued up to the 

 roof Beyond a poor modern east window with 

 wooden tracery, the only windows in the nave are 

 two disproportionately large five-light fifteenth-cen- 

 tury windows, one on each side ; in the southern one 

 are some fragments of fifteenth-century stained glass, 

 among other things a shield bearing azure a saltire 

 argent, and in the east window are some further 

 fragments of glass. The roof is old, but patched 

 with rough modern timber ; the two tie-beams at 

 the west are moulded, and might be as early as the 

 thirteenth century, while the eastern tie-beam is 

 enriched with a vine pattern of sixteenth-century 

 character. There is one bell bearing only the initials 

 ' R.C.' 



The parish church of ST. MART was built in 

 1848 by public subscription and consists of a chancel, 

 small vestry, nave, south aisle, and porch and western 

 tower. 



There are two bells which were removed from the 

 old church ; the treble by Emerton of Wootton, 1 774, 

 and the second dated 1623. 



The plate consists of a chalice presented in i860 

 and dated 1855, and a paten dated 1897, presented 

 by the present rector. There is also a plated flagon, 

 salver, and chalice. 



The earliest register extant begins 1568, the first 

 book continuing to 1635 and containing baptisms, 

 marriages, and burials. The second book begins 

 1579 and the third 1653. 



There used to be an old stone in the church which 

 is not now to be found, and upon which the following 

 inscription was engraved, according to Hone's year 

 book : — 



Death do not kick at me 

 For Christ hath taken thy sting away. 

 1623. , 



There is another old stone still existing upon 

 which the epitaph is written in the following quaint 

 manner : — 



Hear 



lies the 



Bodey of 



Thomas 



Dearman T 



Hat gave 6 P 



ound a year 



to th e labe 



rers o F Cloph 



ill. 1 63 1. 



J.R. 



Between 1140 and 1 146 the 

 ADVOIVSON church of Clophill with two virgates 

 of land was given to Beaulieu Priory 

 by Robert de Albini ; at the same time he bestowed 

 upon it fifteen acres of land for the service of Cainhoe 

 chapel three days a week."' The church and the 



"» Cal. of Pat. 1232-47, p. 53. 

 UMa Mackenzie, Castlts of England, i, 

 139. 



"» Dugdale, Mon. iii, 276. 



