26 Feb Lordship Title of Coley ID14158
Posted at 09:12h
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The hamlet of COLEY is to the south of the town of Reading in St. Mary's parish. Its history is bound up with that of the Vachell family. It first appears in the persons of Walter Vachell or Fachell, who was one of the jurors for the borough of Reading at the assizes of 1261, and of Susanna his wife. John Vachell and Roger Vachell filled the same office a few years later; Roger in 1326 held a messuage in Reading. John Vachell in 1297 was appointed one of the commissioners to buy wool in the counties of Oxford and Berkshire. In 1301 he granted a tenement in Old Street to Roger le Dubbare, at the hands of whose son Walter he apparently met his death in 1303. It was probably his son John who started the connexion of his family with Coley by buying land in 1309 of Thomas Syward, and who was M.P. for Berkshire in 1324 and 1329. Sir John Vachell, his son, held land in Tilehurst, Reading and Coley and had a house at Coley; his two sons, it is said, died without issue and his brother Nicholas became his heir. The latter's son William is mentioned in a document of 1411 as 'William Vachell de Colle'; his name appears in a list of Berkshire gentry returned by commissioners in 1433. He died in 1481 and was succeeded first by his son Thomas and then by his grandson of the same name. This Thomas Vachell did much to increase the wealth and importance of the family. He was a zealous Protestant, a friend and correspondent of Thomas Cromwell; in 1540 he was made overseer of the possessions of Reading Abbey and of Leominster and bailiff of the town of Reading, receiving a salary of 40 marks. He also received large grants of lands in Reading, Coley and elsewhere. He died in 1553 and his eldest son Thomas, who died in 1610, became a recusant. The family estates were regranted to his nephew and heir Sir Thomas Vachell, son of his brother Walter. Sir Thomas, who was Sheriff of Berkshire in 1610, lived at Coley. He died in 1638 and was buried on 20 July of that year in St. Mary's, Reading; his 'great funerall' did not take place until more than a month later on 30 August. His third wife, who survived him, was Lettice daughter of Sir Francis Knollys, who in 1641 married John Hampden; she continued to reside at Coley House, which at the time of the Civil War is described as belonging to Hampden in right of his wife. Charles I slept a night there in 1644 when Reading was in the occupation of the Royalist troops. Sir Thomas's heir, his two sons having predeceased him, was his nephew Tanfield, the son of his brother John, a recusant, who died in 1640. Tanfield, the son of a Protestant mother, was himself a staunch Protestant. While Lady Vachell held 265 acres at Coley he only held 197; he lived in Reading at a house on the site of the ancient Grey Friars. He sat as member for Reading in the Long Parliament, and the king made him Sheriff of Berkshire, but he left his service and 'went to rebellion,' for when in November 1642 'Oneale, the serjeantmajor to Count Robert,' sent him a letter ordering him in the king's name 'to raise the power of that county to conduct the King through it' he refused, 'doubting lest by that wile the Trained bands might be disarmed as in other counties they have bin.' Tanfield Vachell died in 1658 and was buried in St. Mary's, Reading; he left no son and the Coley property went to his cousin Thomas Vachell, son of a colonel in the Royal army and the grandson of Francis Vachell, who married Anne daughter of Robert Tanfield, a direct descendant of Thomas Vachell the first; he died in 1683. His son Tanfield was M.P. for Reading in 1701 and 1705, in which latter year he died, leaving a large family and an estate heavily mortgaged. He left his property in trust to his wife for their son Thomas, who was a minor, but who died unmarried in 1719, the family estates passing to his brother William, who in 1727 disentailed and sold Coley. The purchaser was Colonel Richard Thompson, one of whose daughters, Anne Thompson, married Sir Philip Jennings Clerke. This Dame Anne Jennings Clerke and Frances Jennings, her daughter, granddaughter of Richard Thompson, sold the estate in 1792 to William Chamberlayne, solicitor to the Treasury. It passed to William Chamberlayne the younger, who in 1802 sold it to Thomas Bradford. In the same year Bradford sold it to John McConnell, who sold it in 1810 to John Berkeley Monck. He took a prominent part in the life of Reading, especially in the Parliamentary reform movement at the beginning of the last century. On account of the scarcity of money during the wars on the Continent, for the benefit of the townspeople he issued in 1812 three sorts of tokens, one in gold of the value of 40s. and two in silver (value 2s. 6d. and 1s. 6d.). Mr. John Berkeley Monck, who died in 1834, left the estate to his son Mr. John Bligh Monck, whose son Mr. William Berkeley Monck succeeded in 1903. He did good service to the town, was twice mayor in 1887 and 1897, chairman of the Education Committee and member of the Thames Conservancy Board. He died in 1905 owing to a shooting accident and was succeeded by his son Mr. George Stanley Stevens Monck, who at the present time resides at Seaford, Sussex.
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