10 Jul Lordship Title of Wadlowes ID1310
Posted at 20:03h
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The priory of Dunstable acquired a considerable estate in the parish of Toddington during the 13th century, and possibly earlier, for among the grants enumerated in the cartulary of that monastery are those of Geoffrey Count of Perche, whose connexion with this parish extended from 1180 to 1203. He confirmed to the monks of Dunstable 5 virgates of land in Chalton and 34 acres of land in Herne, and confirmation of this grant was afterwards made by William Marshal Earl of Pembroke. Other smaller properties were also alienated to them in mortmain by William Swift, Edmund Marshall, Hugh and John de Wadelowe and William de Tingre and Cecilia his wife, and later in the same century they received a royal grant of a hide of land in Chalton. In 1291 their estate in Toddington, which formed the nucleus of the estate known later as WADLOWES MANOR, was valued in lands, meadow and rent at £1 6s. and in fruits and flocks at 13s. 4d. The priory received a grant of free warren in 1323, and in the reign of Edward III claimed a view of frankpledge extending over their property at Toddington. At the Dissolution the lands of Dunstable were valued at £4 13s. 4d., from which 14s. 6d. was paid as an annual rent to the lord of Toddington. The property was subsequently annexed to the honour of Ampthill, and was granted to Nicholas West and his heirs in 1553. The following year it was purchased from him by John Burgess, who was called upon to prove his title to the estate in 1555 and who died before 1559, when Wadlowes Manor was released to his son Thomas. He alienated it by licence in 1564 to William Repyngton, from whom it passed before 1597, being then held in two moieties by the Johnson and Astrey families. Richard Johnson, who died in 1597, left as heir a son Richard, who in 1599 released his moiety to Henry Astrey, son and heir of Ralph, holder of the other moiety. He had probably disposed of the reversion, for he appears to have died seised of half the manor of Wadlowes, to which his son and heir Richard then claimed entry, though unsuccessfully. Henry Astrey of Woodend in Harlington was knighted in 1627 and died in 1630, leaving a son and heir William, then aged fifteen. William died during his minority while at Oxford, and the Astrey estates then passed to his younger brother Francis, who dealt with the manor of Wadlowes by fine in 1640. He was succeeded on his death in 1659 by a son James, who was in possession in 1675, and who was knighted at Harlington in 1683. He and James his son suffered a recovery of the manor in 1701, but the former died in 1709 and the latter in 1716 without issue. Wadlowes Manor then passed to a younger son Francis Astrey, D.D., who left it by will to a kinsman of his mother's, Francis Penyston, who held it in 1801. In 1808 there only remained a few traces of buildings to mark the site of the former manor-house, and these had lately been purchased by John Jennings. His descendants are still large farmers in Toddington.
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Listed in the Domesday Book:
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