10 Jul Lordship Title of Blewbury of Great Manor ID1387
Posted at 20:03h
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Land in Blewbury, which probably afterwards formed the GREAT MANOR, belonged to King Edmund, who in 944 granted 100 'mansae' to Ælfric the priest. The latter is said to have given them to the abbey of Abingdon, but the grants were not made in perpetuity, the manor being held by Edward the Confessor. It remained in the Crown after the Norman Conquest, and was granted to Reading Abbey by the Empress Maud about 1145 and confirmed by Stephen, his son Eustace and Henry II. The manor was held by the abbey of Reading in frankalmoign until the Dissolution. From that time it remained with the Crown, until James I granted it to Prince Henry and afterwards to Prince Charles. In 1628 King Charles granted the Great Manor to Edward Ditchfield and others, who probably sold it to Francis Lord Cottington, whose estates descended in 1653 to his nephew Charles Cottington. It passed before 1707 to his son Francis Cottington, who was succeeded on his death in 1728 by another Francis, his son, who was a minor. The latter owned the Great Manor till 1754, when it was sold by Francis Cottington of Freemantle Park, Hants, to Oliver Edwards, who held the manorial courts till 1762. John Phillips, the king's carpenter at Windsor Castle, then bought the manor, holding his first court in October 1763. He died about 1775, and the Great Manor passed under his will (dated 28 December 1775) to his brother William Phillips for life and then to his nephew John Phillips, lord of the manor in 1802. The latter left it in trust for his son John Shawe Phillips of Culham, Oxon., who sold it in 1872 to Lord Overstone, whose daughter, Lady Wantage, is the present lady of the manor.
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Listed in the Domesday Book:
Yes