Lordship Title of Maidenhatch or Maydenhethe ID1553

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MAIDENHATCH (Maydehethe, Maydenheth, xiii cent.) was held of the abbey of Reading as of the manor of Pangbourne. It is first mentioned in the 13th century when Hereward of Maidenhatch and his two brothers Peter and William were witnesses of a charter contained in a cartulary of Reading. The manor may be identified with the land held by Walter of Maidenhatch, who in 1281 paid a subsidy of 22s. on his goods. In 1289 he settled tenements in Maidenhatch, Bradfield and Pangbourne on himself and his wife Alice. William of Maidenhatch was living in the reign of Edward III, but no subsequent owner of the property appears till 1410–11, when Gilbert Holloway held the manor of Maidenhatch, and his name appears in the list of gentry in the county in 1434. He was succeeded by his son Thomas, whose son Alexander was in possession in 1497–8. Alexander settled the manor on himself and his wife Elizabeth. The latter survived her husband and held the manor at the time of her death in 1539. It passed to their grandson and heir John, a minor, whose wardship was granted by Henry VIII in 1541 to John Stafford, together with an annuity of £8 from the manor and other tenements. Over forty years later John Holloway, on an occasion subsequent to the marriage of his son Thomas with Margaret daughter of John Buttes, settled Maidenhatch Manor on himself and his wife Helen for life, with reversion to his son and daughter-in-law and their heirs male. He died at Pangbourne in 1593, and his widow claimed the manor in 1596 against Francis Weldon, then lord of the manor of Pangbourne, who had seized it on the death of John on the ground that the heir was a minor holding of him by military service. A rental of the manor of Pangbourne of earlier date describes Maidenhatch as held freely of the lords of Pangbourne by knight service. In 1595 Margaret Buttes, relict of Thomas Holloway, married Richard Pottinger at Burghfield. Thomas Holloway having predeceased his father, the manor passed on the death of John Holloway to his grandson John Holloway, justice of the peace for Berkshire in 1601. In 1615, however, John sold it to his mother and her second husband Richard Pottinger of Burghfield. They were succeeded by their son and grandson, both Richard Pottinger by name. The third Richard Pottinger was holding the manor in 1686, and in 1716 it was still in his hands or had passed to a fourth Richard Pottinger. Another estate in Maidenhatch was held by the Breedons, lords of Pangbourne, who are said to have held the manor uninterruptedly from 1671 to 1894, when Colonel Walter Thornton, J.P., the present owner, bought the property. On the king's holding in Pangbourne in the Domesday Survey there was a mill worth 20s. a year, and on that of Miles Crispin another worth 10s. a year. One mill came with the manor to Reading Abbey. It was held in the early 13th century by John son of Hugh de Bendinge, but after his death before 1230–7 its possession was disputed between the children of his first and second wife. The mill was afterwards held by the lords of Tidmarsh Manor (q.v.), John Tidmarsh dying seised of it in 1382. In the 15th century Robert Leynham and his wife Margaret held the manor and mili and were succeeded by their son Hugh. Tidmarsh came into the possession of Sir Peter Vanlore in the 16th century, and it is possible that the mill at Pangbourne may have been one of the three water-mills which were divided between his son and daughters and their descendants. Another of these mills may have been Maidenhatch Mill, which stood in the meadows by the dairy. At the present day there is one mill at Pangbourne.
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