A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



following bequest: — ' To my wife Joan, my house that 

 I dwell in called Plentisse till Richard my son come 

 of age of 2 3 years.' '" Richard eventually entered on 

 his inheritance as is proved by a will made in 1551, 

 in which he left to his son William Crawley and his 

 heirs ' the dwelling-house called Plenties with 7 acres 

 of land,' ™ and he in 1 568 sold the manor to Robert 

 Wolley, a draper of St. Albans, for X3°°-"° Richard, 

 son of Robert Wolley, held Plenties manor between 

 1635 and 1656, in which year he conveyed it to 

 Henry Knight alias Brothers.'" By 1688 it had passed 

 to Guy Hillersdon,'" and with its conveyance by him 

 in 1708 into the hands of trustees all further trace of 

 this property disappears.'*' 



The estate afterwards known as the manor of 

 GREJTHAMPSTEJD SOMERIES was held of the 

 manor of Woodcroft (q.v.), and first appears in 1309 

 as the property of Agnes wife of Roger de Somery of 

 Dudley Castle, when it is de- 

 scribed simply as a tenement.'" 

 Agnes was succeeded at this 

 date by her son John, who 

 dying in 132 1 left two sisters 

 as co-heiresses, Joan de Bote- 

 tourt and Margaret wife of 

 John de Sutton of Dudley.'" 

 Greathampstead Someries 

 passed to Margaret, for in 1380 

 trustees conveyed this property 

 to Sir John de Sutton, her 

 great-grandson, who came of 

 age at this date."" No ftirther reference has been 

 found to this estate until 1464, when, called for the first 

 time the manor of Greathampstead Someries, it was 

 transferred by John Aylesbury of Edeston to John, 

 Lord Wenlock.'" From this date until 161 1 it fol- 

 lowed the same descent as Luton manor (q.v.). 



When Sir John Rotherham alienated the latter 

 manor at that date he retained Greathampstead 

 Someries, which he sold to his son-in-law Sir Francis 

 Crawley in 1629,"*' whose family retained it, according 

 to Nichols, until 1724, when it was purchased from 

 them by Sir John Napier, and thus became attached 

 to Luton manor."* 



When the latter was sold in 1763 Someries was 

 called a capital messuage or farm,*" and a farm of this 

 name exists at the present day, but the manor is 

 completely absorbed in Luton."" 



Ruins of Someries Castle, so called 

 SOMERIES from the family who held the manor in 

 CjiSTLE the fourteenth century, still exist. In 

 1 309 this property already included a 

 capital messuage which points possibly to an earlier 

 structure than that erected by Lord Wenlock.'" 

 Leiand thus describes the castle : — ' A faire place 

 with in the Paroche of Luton cauUyd Somerys, the 



SoMiRY. Quarterly or 

 and axure a bend guleu 



which house was sumptuously begon by the lord 

 Wennelok but not finischid. The Gate House of 

 Brike is very large and faire. Part of the residew of 

 the new Foundations be yet seene and part of the Olde 

 Place standeth yet. It is set on a Hille not far from 

 St. Anne's Hill.' »" 



At the present day the ruins consist of a gate- 



SoMERiES Castle, Luton Hoo : Entrance 

 Gateway 



house with a chapel and vestibule to the east, probably 

 forming about two-thirds of the north front of the fif- 

 teenth-century building. They are built of narrow red 

 bricks of excellent quality, ranging five courses to the 

 foot, and here and there dark vitrified bricks are used in 

 the facing, generally as it seems at random, but over 

 the inner arch of the gateway a lozenge of such bricks 

 occurs. The entrance gateway is 8 ft. wide, with a 

 four-centred stone head and jambs, and above it the 

 wall face is set forward on a pretty cinquefoiled arcade 

 of moulded brickwork. The entrance is flanked by 

 half-octagonal turrets, that on the west side containing 

 the entrance to a lobby, from which a small round 

 window commands the approach to the gate. The 

 gateway passage is 20 ft. long, and was covered with a 

 brick vault ; from it doors opened at the south-west 

 to a room with a fireplace, and a window overlooking 



•W Bedi. N. and Q. iii, 24. The name 

 of Crawley appears in 1476 in a Court 

 Roll of Luton manor. 



*" Ibid, iii, 27 ; Crawley Papers. 



»" Crawley Papers, No. 38 ;Recov. R. 

 Hil. II KHz. rot. 149. Robert Wolley 

 made a series of conveyances of the manor 

 between 1570 and 1585 (Crawley Papers, 

 4»> 4^. 44, 63, 65. &<:■)• 



»«" Crawley Papers, No. 279-82. 



«6i Feet of F. Beds. Trin. 4 Jas. II ; 

 Recov. R. Trin. 4 Jas. II, rot. 162. 



w" Recov. R. Trin. 7 Anne ; Feet of 

 F. Beds. Trin. 7 Anne. 



'" Chan. Inq. p.m. 2 Edw. II, No. 58. 



''* Chan. Inq. p.m. 16 Edw. II, No. 

 72 ; G.E.C. Complitt Peerage, vii. 



»«* Close, 3 Ric. II, m. 35,/. 



8«« Ibid. 3 Edw. IV, m. 21. 



'"'' Lysons, Mag. Brit, i, 1 10 ; Cobbe, 

 Hist, of Luton Church ,• Crawley Papers, 

 No. 137. A lease of Someries in 1616 

 included 'the great dovehouse standing 

 within the greate yard at Someries, the 

 smithyes forge and the bellowes, tooles, 

 and implements thereunto belonging. 

 Likewise the new impaled yard lying on 

 the south side of the said farmhouse, one 



parcel of ground called the Hempland, one 

 called Asher Grove, a messuage and pas- 

 ture lying behind the great barn 40 acres 

 more or less,' &c 



«8 Bibl. Tofog. Brit. 31 (ed. Nichols) ; 

 cf. also Haverings manor. 



M9 Close, 4 Geo. Ill, pt 8, No. 

 10. 



''!" Information supplied by Mr. Austin. 



'" Chan. Inq. p.m. 2 Edw. Ill, No. 58. 

 At present there are no traces of earlier 

 architecture than the middle of the fif- 

 teenth century. 



"" Leiand, Itinerary, vi, 66. 



