A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



and 'improved' the estate 

 Ralph Freeman died in 174 

 His ion William died 



Westmill and partly in Braughing. The mill it 

 Braughing mentioned above as part of the estate ii do 

 longer working. 



The origin of the manor of FRMRSm Braughing 

 is obscure, as no continuity can be traced between it 

 and any monastic estate. It seems possible, however, 

 that it represents the land held by the Priory of 

 Haliwell in Braughing. Lands at Gatesbury wejegiven 

 to the nuns there in the reign of Richard I by John 

 de Gatesbury, 47 and by a deed witnessed by John de 

 Gatesbury Ralph de Langeford gave them all hi* 

 land lying in the field called Sibbedcllersfield.* 8 in 

 1200 Henry Fumeaux was in mercy for having 

 unjustly disseised the prioress of her free tenement in 

 Gatesbury. 15 The prioress contributed 10/. 4U, 

 asses-ed on her goods at Braughing, towards a lay 

 subsidy in 1307. 60 At the time of the Dissolution 

 the convent had property at Braughing assessed at 

 £4.." There seems to be no grant of this estate by 

 Henry VIII, but if it maybe identified with the manor 

 of Friars" it had come by the end of the 16th 

 century into the possession of the Newport family, 

 uftered a recovery of Friars in 

 wport in 1586." In 1603 

 of Uphall was holding it and 

 at year to William Whettell of 

 »lk. 0B It is then described as the 

 in Braughing and Albury, and as 

 :orn-mill with the stream belonging 

 j i acres in a field 



7+9. 



.vhen the 



issed to the latter's brother, 

 the Rev. Dr. Ralph Freeman, 11 

 prebendary of Salisbury. He 

 devised them to his great- 

 nephew Philip Vorkc, son ol 

 Catherine daughter of William 

 Frecran, who had married 

 the Hon. Charles Yor.e, for 

 three days Lord Chancellor 

 of England,^ and had died 

 in 1763. Philip Yorke, third 

 Earl of Hardwire, sold the pi 

 John Mcllish of Albemarle Strc 

 afterwards fell a victim to an as: 

 Hounslow Hcaih » His daught< 

 Mellish" survived until 1880. 

 to the Rt. Hon. C. P. Yillicr 

 Mr. H. F. Gladwin, and they it 

 a sale of the manors of Hamells c 

 and Westmill to Mr. H. ^hc-phu 





Robert 1 



1580" and Edw..rd Ne; 

 Thomas Hanchei 

 mortgaged it in 

 Thetford, co. N01 

 manor of Friar 

 including* wate 



aghing ; 



■perty in 1796 to bl 



u'.t by footpads on at 

 Catherine Martha 

 She left the estate 



1, Milkley 



led Sibdale. "The latter is evidently the 'Sibbe- 

 dellcrsfield ' of the grant mentioned above, which 

 forms one link in the identification of Friars with 

 the land held by Haliwell. The manor seems to 

 have been conveyed by Thomas Hanchett to John 

 Stone together with Gatesbury, for John Stone died 

 seised of it in 1 640, 0D and it then descended with 

 Gatesbury (q.v.). The house called Hraughing Friar* 

 is situated on the south-east of the parish. 



The manor of HOTOFTS was the holding of the 

 family of Hotoft, who had lands in Braughing in the 

 13th and 14th centuries.* 7 In the 16th century it 

 was held by a family named Greene. Richard Greene, 

 son and heir of a John Greene, died in 1561 and 

 was buried in the church. 58 Richard Greene, also 

 iried in the church, died in 1610 seised of the 

 anor of Hotofts, a capital messuage called Hotofts 

 and another called Rotten Row, and 200 acres of land. 69 

 He was a bachelor, aged seventy-eight at the time of 

 his death, and had bequeathed his property to his 

 brother Henry Greene, with remainder to Ralph h» 

 brother and Francis Harvey, Justice of the King's 

 Bench, his kinsman. These were both dead before 

 the death of Henry in 1635, and Sir Stephen Harvey, 



