10 Jul Lordship Title of Bradfield ID1390
Posted at 20:03h
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The first mention of BRADFIELD is in the 7th century in the reign of King Ini, the lawgiver of Wessex. Eadfrith the son of Iddi had given 45 cassati of land in Bradfield and other places on the altar of the church (presumably at Abingdon) for the good of his soul, and this land King Ini granted to Hean, afterwards Abbot of Abingdon, and to Ceolswith for the building of a monastery. This charter, which is anterior to the founding of the abbey of Abingdon, may be assigned to the 7th century, and seems to be the only genuine charter of the three attributed to King Ini. Another alleged charter confirms to Abbot Hean 15 cassati of land in Bradfield. Still another charter of Ini, given amongst the Abingdon charters, but of very doubtful authenticity, states that a monastery had been built at Bradfield, but of this there is no further evidence. According to his spurious will, Abbot Hean directed that 48 cassati of land in Bradfield should pass after his death to his sister Cillan, if she were still living, and finally revert to 'that monastery,' presumably meaning the monastery of Abingdon. No further mention of the abbey holding land in Bradfield has been found. At the end of the 10th century land at Hagbourne (q.v.) and Bradfield was said to have been given by the ealdorman Ælfric to a certain Wynflaed. Later Bradfield was in the hands of Horling, who was the tenant of King Edward the Confessor. At the time of the Domesday Survey it was held in demesne by William Fitz Ansculf, whose castle was at Dudley. His lands passed to the Paynells and their successors, the Somerys, who held the manor of Bradfield in demesne as part of their honour of Dudley of the king in chief, for the service due from one knight's fee. John de Somery was the last male member of the family to hold the manor, and on his death in 1322 his honour and lands were divided between his two sisters, Margaret the wife of John de Sutton and Joan the widow of Thomas Botetourt. Bradfield belonged to the moiety assigned to Margaret, but she and her husband lost the manor in the troubles of the reign of Edward II. John de Sutton was accused by the king's favourites, the Despensers, of being a partisan of Thomas of Lancaster, and in consequence he was seized and imprisoned in 1324–5. To save himself from death he assigned to the younger Hugh le Despenser his wife's inheritance, including the manor of Bradfield, but after the fall of the Despensers and the accession of Edward III the unfortunate John petitioned the Crown for justice, and his lands were restored to him. In 1327 John de Sutton and Margaret obtained licence to enfeoff their son and heir, another John de Sutton, and his wife Isabel in fee-tail of Bradfield Manor. The younger John de Sutton obtained leave in 1338 to approve and cultivate those wastes of the manor which were not within the bounds of the forest, and to build on and make leases of them, saving to the tenants of the manor and others their common rights. Two years later he granted the manor of Bradfield to Sir Nicholas de la Beche, the latter paying him a rent of 50 marks out of the manor during the lifetime of the grantor. From this date the manor followed the descent of the manor of La Beche in Aldworth (q.v.). On the death of Sir Reade Stafford in 1605 the property went to his nephew Sir Edward Stafford, who in 1614 married Mary the daughter of his powerful neighbour at Aldermaston, Sir William Forster, and the manor was settled on this lady and her husband's heirs. Sir Edward died in 1623, leaving his son Edward, a minor, as his heir; his wife became for her lifetime the lady of the manor of Bradfield. She afterwards married Thomas Hamly, and, on his death, Sir Thomas Mainwaring, the Recorder of Reading. On becoming a widow a third time she made a match with a famous person, who was very obnoxious to her sons and also to her brother Sir Humphrey Forster of Aldermaston, probably because they considered him beneath her in rank. This was Elias Ashmole, who, if his diary is to be trusted, was so bitterly hated by Lady Mainwaring's second son Humphrey Stafford that the young man attempted to murder him in a base way, 'suspecting he should marry his mother,' and even went so far as to give information which led to the sequestration of the Bradfield estates. The marriage, however, took place on 16 November 1649, and afterwards Ashmole spent a good deal of time quarrelling with his wife's relatives, the Forsters. He had a lawsuit with Sir Humphrey, which he seems to have won, as the former paid him considerable sums of money, and when he presumed to come to the court which Ashmole held in 1653, as lord of the manor of Bradfield, the antiquary promptly arrested him. Ashmole's wife died in 1668, but she does not seem to have held the manor at the time of her death, since her grandson and heir Charles Stafford was dealing with the property on coming of age in 1667, and at that time the manor was said to have belonged formerly to his elder brother Edward, who had died in 1661. In 1676 Robert Stafford and Edward Stafford dealt with the manor by recovery, and three years later they, together with their father William Stafford, sold the manor to Sir William Thomson of London, from whom it descended to Samuel Thomson, who was in possession in 1714. In 1752 Samuel Thomson and his son and heir William settled the manor. In 1754 William son of William Thomson sold it to Robert Palmer who in 1755 conveyed it to Henry Stevens, whose grandson, the Rev. Henry Stevens, was lord of the manor in 1802. It afterwards passed to the Rev. Thomas Stevens, the founder of Bradfield College. Besides endowing the school he also rebuilt the parish church, and this vast expenditure impoverished him. In 1881 he was declared bankrupt and his estates were sold to different purchasers. The chief landholders in Bradfield at the present time are Mr. Benyon of Englefield, Mr. George Blackall-Simonds, Mrs. Stevens, Mr. Arthur Radford and Dr. Herbert Watney, who is also reputed lord of the manor. In the 13th and 14th centuries a quarter of a knight's fee in Bradfield was held under the Somerys by a family of the name of Butler. Nicholas Butler was the tenant early in the 13th century. He was succeeded by William Butler, who granted 46 acres of land, with meadow and wood, to Adam Butler for life. The last member of the family mentioned is John Butler, who sold the property to Roger de Somery, lord of Bradfield, before 1291.
Other Information:
Listed in the Domesday Book:
Yes