10 Jul Lordship Title of Southill ID1274
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In 1086 Hugh de Beauchamp held 2 hides 1 virgate of land which later became known as SOUTHILL MANOR. This land appears to have passed from the Beauchamps to Warden Abbey some time in the 12th century, for in 1198 its charter of confirmation contains mention of land in Southill. In 1330 the abbot claimed view of frankpledge and rights of free warren in this manor, which was retained by the abbey till the Dissolution, its value being then estimated at £32 18s. 10d. The manor remained for some time Crown property, but one of the more important estates in Southill which emerged after the Dissolution, Fisher's Grange, which in the previous century had been held by Sir John Fisher and Agnes his wife, by whom they had been granted to Warden in 1506, was acquired in 1542–3 by Sir Michael Fisher. It passed by the marriage of his granddaughter and heir Agnes to Oliver Lord St. John of Bletsoe, who died in 1582. Their son Oliver died in 1618 holding the same land in Southill, but their grandson Oliver, created Earl of Bolingbroke in 1624, had acquired the manor in addition to the grange, probably by purchase, before 1641. He was killed at the battle of Edgehill in 1642, fighting on the side of the Parliament, and was succeeded by his grandson Oliver. It has not been found possible to trace how Southill Manor passed from the Bolingbrokes to the Ongleys, but in 1792 it was in the possession of Robert second Lord Ongley, who still held it in 1797, and whose family had acquired considerable property in Southill at different times. The greater part of his lands in this parish he exchanged with Samuel Whitbread early in the 19th century for an estate in Old Warden. Lord Ongley, however, retained the manorial rights in Southill, and they passed on his death in 1814 to his son Robert third Lord Ongley, who conveyed them to Joseph Shuttleworth, when the latter purchased nearly all the Ongley estates in Bedfordshire between the years 1869 and 1873. After his death in 1883 these rights passed to his son Col. Frank Shuttleworth, who is the present lord of the manor of Southill.
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Listed in the Domesday Book:
Yes