09 Feb Lordship Title of Midgham or Hall Court ID14156
Posted at 08:41h
in
County:
Parish:
Title Type:
Previous Lords:
The manor of MIDGHAM or HALL COURT can be identified with the holding of John Hall, who was assessed for a subsidy in the reign of Edward I. In 1335 it had passed to Thomas Hall, but from that date the manor is lost sight of till 1506–7, when Sir William Norreys died seised of Hall Court Manor, which was held in chief. The Norreys family held it till the death of Francis first Earl of Berkshire in 1621–2; his heir was his daughter Elizabeth the wife of Edward Wray, who alienated it in 1628 to Christopher Monck, the steward of the late earl. Monck appears to have held it till his death in 1661, when it apparently passed to his great-nephew Christopher the second Duke of Albemarle, son of General Monck. The duke died childless in 1688, and Hall Court came into the possession of his two cousins Mary and Elizabeth, daughters of Nicholas Monck, Bishop of Hereford. Mary married Arthur Farewell of Westminster, and was in possession of a moiety of the manor in 1689, when she was a widow. This moiety of Hall Court seems to have come into the ownership of Peter French in 1821. Elizabeth Monck married Curwen Rawlinson of Cark Hall, Lancs. She died in 1691, and left her share of Hall Court to her younger son Christopher, who a few years later came into possession of the Rawlinson property as well. He was an antiquary and scholar of considerable fame. He died unmarried in 1733, when all his property passed to his five cousins, the descendants of his two aunts, Anne the wife of Christopher Crackenthorpe of Newbiggin Hall and Catherine the wife of Roger Moore. The cousins were two granddaughters of Anne Crackenthorpe, Deborah, who died unmarried, and Anne the wife of the Rev. Adam Askew, D.D., and three daughters of Catherine Moore, Anne the wife of William Aylmer, Mary the wife of Charles Blake and Catherine the wife of Clement Rigge. The whole Crackenthorpe share of the moiety of Hall Court came to the Askew family, but it seems to have been further divided amongst the children of Anne Askew, since Adam, one of her sons, had a fourth of the moiety of the manor in 1782. It seems difficult to ascertain how the share divided between Catherine Moore's daughters descended. Her share of the Rawlinson property at Cark finally came to the Rigges, since Anne Aylmer in 1760 and Mary Blake in 1768 both died childless, but the Rigges seem only to have inherited a third of the moiety of Midgham. Catherine Rigge died in 1761, and was succeeded by her grandson Fletcher, who seems to have left his third to his two daughters, Ann the wife of Dr. John Heys and Jane the wife of Edward Moore, since in 1823 Jane's son, Stephen Roger Moore, had one-sixth of a moiety of the manor. The fact that these small portions of the manor are mentioned at so late a date suggests that no actual division had taken place of the moiety of the manor of Midgham, which is the more probable since the Cark property was not divided amongst Christopher Rawlinson's heirs till 1860. Some years before this, however, the house at Hall Court, and presumably part of the manor, had come into the possession of the lord of the main manor, since it was put up to auction in 1856 with the manor (q.v.) and bought by Mr. B. B. Greene. Possibly this represented the Farewell moiety of Hall Court only, and not the moiety shared by the Rawlinson heiresses. When the ecclesiastical parish of Midgham was formed in 1857 Hall Court was converted into the vicarage-house.
Other Information:
Listed in the Domesday Book:
No