SHRUBLAND, 



SUFFOLK, 



THE SEAT OF SIR WILLIAM FOWLE FOWLE MIDDLETON, BARONET. 



qHRUBLAND, in the hundred of Bosmere and Claydon, in early records is written " Scrobeland." The 

 first individual of this name that occurs is Robert de Shrubeland, as witness to a deed (without date) of 

 Hugh de Reckingale, when he first granted the manor of Veysey's to the Prior and Convent of Royston. 

 In the 2nd of King Edward III, John de Shrubeland was owner of these lands. It is supposed he 

 was one of the sons of Godmanston, and became possessed either by purchase or marriage, and if so, 

 according to the practice of the times, discarded his paternal name, and assumed the local one of his 

 residence. It was, however, but of short duration, the male line having failed in William, his son. The 

 Estate passed to William at Oake by his marriage with the heir general of the above William de 

 Shrubeland ; and it continued in his descendants for four generations, when Catherine, daughter and heir 

 general of Philip Oake, by marriage with Thomas Bothe, brought it into that family, where it continued 

 no longer than it did in the Shrubland family, for it ended in Sir Philip Bothe, his son, " who left an 

 only daughter and heiress, Audey, who married Sir Robert Lytton, of Knebworth,* in Hertfordshire, 

 K.B., and had three daughters only. Elizabeth, the second daughter, married to Thomas Little, of Bray, 

 in Berkshire, Esq., by whom he had issue, an only daughter, and heir ; Helen married Edward Bacon, 

 Esq., third son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Knight, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England to Queen 

 Elizabeth, and brought it into that branch of the Bacon family. This Estate was purchased soon after 

 the decease of the Rev. Nicholas Bacon, M.A., by William Middleton, of Crowfield, Esq. ; who was 

 created Baronet in 1804, and assumed by Sign-manual in 1822, the surname of Fowle, in addition to 

 and before that of Middleton. Sir William was a native of South Carolina, and eldest son of William, 

 son of Arthur Middleton, Esq., Governor of that Colony." 



In 1782 he served the office of High Sheriff of the County, and was in 1784 M.P. for Ipswich, 

 and in .1806 he was returned to Parliament as a Baron, for the Cinque Port of Hastings. In 1829, Sir 

 William Fowle Fowle Middleton, his only son, and the present owner of Shrubland, succeeded his father? 

 and in 1 830 he commenced the improvements ; and since that time Sir William has devoted 

 much time, money, and thought upon the house and grounds of the now far-famed Shrubland. The 

 house was one of those square blocks of building which were at one time very numerous, but it now 

 wears a very different aspect, having been remodelled by Sir C. Barry, who has carried out the wishes of 

 Sir William — which were to make it a perfect Italian villa— and travellers say he has succeeded. In 



* Knebworth: the seat of the present Sir E. Bubver Lytton. 



