BAMPTON MANOR was held in 1156, apparently at pleasure, by Thierry (d. 1163), count of Flanders, from c. 1167 by Thierry's son Matthew, count of Boulogne, who forfeited his lands in 1173, and from c. 1175 by Matthew's brother Philip (d. 1191), count of Flanders, whose lands were held in custody from 1180 by William de Mandeville, earl of Essex. (fn. 43) On Philip's death the manor was briefly held by the sheriff of Oxfordshire towards ward of Oxford castle, and was granted in 1196 to John, count of Mortain, and in 1198 to Reginald de Dammartin, count of Boulogne, who had married Count Matthew's daughter. (fn. 44) Following Reginald's defection in 1203 it passed in custody to Geoffrey FitzPeter, but was restored in 1212. Though still regarded as part of Reginald's honor of Boulogne after his capture in 1214 at the battle of the Bouvines, it was granted at pleasure in 1217 to Fawkes de Breaute, and in 1227 for life to Philip Daubeny, who in 1235 granted it to Cirencester abbey for three years. (fn. 45) Philip died before 1238, when the land in Aston and Cote was granted to Imbert de Pugeys, and in 1248 Henry III granted the rest of the manor, in Bampton, Weald, Lew, and probably Lower Haddon, to his half-brother William de Valence, earl of Pembroke. On William's death in 1296 that reduced manor, later BAMPTON EARLS, KING'S BAMPTON, or BAMPTON TALBOT and assessed at 1 knight's fee, passed to his son Aymer (d. s.p. 1324).
CASTLE. The castle, later Ham Court, was built on the town's western edge by Aymer de Valence c. 1315, in which yeare he received a licence to crenellate. Despite its size, the castle seems to have been used only as an occasional residence. Aymer stayed at Bampton in 1307 and 1312 but is not known to have visited after 1315, (fn. 87) and Gilbert, Lord Talbot (d. 1387), leasing the manor to Sir Robert Tresilian in 1382, reserved the right to stay for a day and night if the lessee and his wife were absent. In 1397 and 1420 the west gatehouse and rooms adjoining were included in tioned. Other parts of the castle and its associated buildings may already have been derelict, since in 1422 the remaining two-thirds of the manor included a stone house with granges and other 'ruined' buildings.
Ham Court was let from the later 17th century to resident farmers. The gatehouse's upper half was demolished perhaps before 1789, when the Coventrys' tenant was no longer accommodated there: by 1821 the gatehouse comprised only the lower two storeys with attics lit by dormer windows, the upper stage having been replaced by a steep-pitched roof of stone slate. From the late 14th century the manor was let in parcels, resulting in the emergence of two, and later three, distinct estates. That later called the 'parsonage' or 'rectory', made up wholly or partly of former demesne and including the medieval manor house, was let from 1398-9 or earlier, and was estimated at c. 200 a. in 1662. Fifteenth-century lessees included bailiffs and vicars or their relatives, but from the 16th century the estate was held by local gentry, notably the Mores of Lower Haddon from 1538, in the early 17th century the Peisleys, from c. 1624 the Dewes, and from 1778 to c. 1813 the Hawkinses, all of whom seem to have sublet the land to local farmers.
The manor of BAMPTON DEANERY or BAMPTON EXETER, otherwise the rectory manor, originated in King Eadwig's grant to Bampton minster between 955 and 957 of lands in Bampton, Aston, and Chimney. Before 1066 the estate was granted probably by Edward the Confessor to his clerk Leofric (d. 1072), later bishop of Exeter; he gave it in 1069 to the newly founded Exeter cathedral chapter, and in 1086 it was assessed at 6 hides. Three additional ploughlands, which paid no geld and were later held in demesne, were claimed in the 13th century to have been given by King Athelstan (d. 939), but there is no evidence that the cathedral or its predecessors owned land in Bampton before Leofric's gift, and probably the whole manor derived from the former minster estate.
In 1086 Robert Losinga, bishop of Hereford, held the 6 hides and possibly all 9 at farm. In the mid 12th century probably the whole estate, including tithes and other ecclesiastical revenues, was used to endow two prebends in Exeter cathedral, but before the 1180s there was some reorganization: a 'prebend' or farm mentioned from 1189 X 96 and confirmed to the chapter before 1220 seems to have been the later rectory manor, which included the glebe and house, some tithes, and half the offerings, and in the early 13th century the remaining ecclesiastical revenues were used to endow perpetual vicarages. The manor was leased until 1382, when all the chapter's estates were taken in hand; early lessees included the royal clerks Godfrey de Lucy and Richard Marsh, but from the 1220s all were canons of Exeter.
The rest of the manor, in Bampton, Aston, Cote, Chimney, and Clanfield, was let with the manorial rights in 1549 to John Southcott of Bovey Tracey and Thomas Deane of Dartington (Devon), who in 1552 assigned their right to Thomas More (d. 1561), lord of Haddon. It descended with Haddon until 1617 when John More sold the lease to William Hanks of Aston and Robert Veysey of Taynton. Chimney was held by the Veyseys and their successors thereafter, and the rest of the manor by the Hankses and their successors, manorial rights being shared until 1838 when it was agreed to lease them with the Bampton moiety only.
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