Drayton Beauchamp runs in a north-westerly direction along the Hertfordshire boundary. In the 16th century the farm or lordship of Painsend is referred to in tenure of John Payne.
The manor of DRAYTON BEAUCHAMP, which had been held by Alveric, a thegn of Edward the Confessor, was assessed at 6 hides and 3 virgates in 1086 and was then held of Manno le Breton. The tenants of the lands in 1086 were William son of Nigel and Lepsi respectively. Fen Drayton manor, Cambridgeshire in 1086 the largest estate was that of 4½ hides held by five sokemen, in 1066 under Eddeva, in 1086 under Count Alan, lord of Richmond. Lordship over it descended with the Richmond manor in Swavesey from the viscounts of Rohan to the Zouches.
Before 1205 their holding seems to have passed to Robert Basset, whose widow Alice in that yeare claimed a third of the estate as dower, against the heir William Basset, still living in 1249. The church of Drayton Beauchamp is first mentioned about 1221, when William de Beauchamp was the patron. The advowson has apparently followed the descent of the manor of Drayton Beauchamp. About 1221, when William de Beauchamp presented one Miles, a minor, to the rectory, the Bishop of Lincoln instituted a temporary vicarage, to which Miles had to present a suitable clerk, and which lapsed on the attainment of his majority. The vicar's portion consisted of the altar offerings and tithes of land beyond Waleweie on the south and a manse between the cemetery and the manse of the church.
At Helsthorpe Manor the overlordship of 3 virgates in Helsthorpe, which in the reign of King Edward were held by Lewin, a man of Godric, had passed by 1086 to the Count of Mortain, of whose fief the estate was still a member in 1284. The tenant in 1086 was Ranulf, and this land may possibly be identical with the 3 virgates held by John de Beville in Helsthorpe in 1225. A further arrangement was made at Drayton Beauchamp in 1229, when the bishop consolidated the vicarage and rectory with the authority of the council. The overlordship remained vested in the Wolvertons, Manno's descendants, of whom Drayton Beauchamp was held as part of their barony of Wolverton and is last mentioned in 1619. The under-tenant in Domesday was Helgot, but nothing further is heard of the manor until 1225, when William de Beauchamp was in possession. His right was contested in that yeare by Roger de Drayton, who declared that his great-grandfather Osbert had been seised of it in the reign of Henry I. Drayton remained in the Beauchamp's family. In 1388 there was a chapel at Helsthorpe annexed to the church of Drayton Beauchamp, dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity. By the middle of the 13th century Helsthorpe Manor was in the possession of Gilbert de Greinville, and from him appears to have passed to Geoffrey le Suminur, who by 1284 had subinfeudated the estate to Roger de Huntingfield. As there is no further mention of this holding, it may have become merged in the rest of the Mortain fee in Drayton Beauchamp.In 1302 it passed to Richard Basset and his grandson Sir Ralph Basset of Weldon settled Drayton, married Nicole de Arderne. Robert's brother Ralph entered the priory of La Laund in 1367. In 1365 Thomas Cheyne was granted free warren in the manors of Drayton Beauchamp and Helsthorpe. A view of frankpledge was held for the manors in 1530, and is mentioned as pertaining to them in 1615. From the end of the 14th century, and probably earlier, the tenants of Helsthorpe had to attend the view of frankpledge held at Aldbury (Herts).
At Fen Drayton, Walter of Bradenham held a yardland under the Zouches in 1232. In 1279 his widow Agnes of Conington possessed 2 yardlands in free marriage. Sir Richard of Bradenham (fl. from 1269) was then mesne lord of 4¾ yardlands, partly in demesne, under Ellen la Zouche. Although neither Ellen nor her successors as lords of Swavesey had any demesne in Fen Drayton, that vill was nevertheless reckoned a member of Swavesey. Another substantial lordship was that over 3¼ hides held in 1066 by men of the king's thegn Ulf, one sokeman having 1¼ hides to himself. By 1086 the estate had passed to Ulf's successor as lord at Fen Stanton, Gilbert of Ghent (d. c. 1095), whose heir was his son Walter (d. 1139). Henry I, having allegedly seduced Walter's sister, obliged him to assign Fen Stanton with its dependencies for her support. The Ghents never recovered even their tenancy in chief, although Walter's grandson Gilbert (d. 1242) repeatedly sued successive possessors of the manor between 1208 and 1231. After Walter's sister's death Henry II assigned the manor, by 1161 at latest, to the Breton noble Roland de Dinan, who briefly forfeited it for rebellion in Brittany c. 1167-8. Roland, Henry's governor of Brittany c. 1175-8, died in 1184, having adopted as heir his nephew Alan de Dinan. Probably by 1194, however, Fen Drayton manor had been given to Drew de la Roche, whose widow Agnes held it as dower between 1201 and the mid 1220s. In 1225 Richard Marshal, later earl of Pembroke, who had married Alan de Dinan's daughter Gervaise, claimed the estate, and was granted its reversion; Agnes died in 1226.
Following the earl's insurrection in 1233 Henry III gave the estate in 1234 to his justiciar Stephen de Segrave, who lost it when he fell from power later that year, and it was assigned to the king's sister, Joan, queen of Scotland. Segrave recovered it shortly after her death in 1237. He died in 1241 and his son and heir Gilbert, also a judge, in 1254. Gilbert's son Nicholas, of age in 1258, a Montfortian partisan, vigorously despoiled his west Cambridgeshire neighbours in the mid 1260s. Lord over 4¼ yardlands at Fen Drayton in 1279, he died in 1295. His son John, a leading commander in the Scots wars, and John's eldest son Stephen, who apparently occupied the family's Cambridgeshire lands, both died fighting in Gascony in 1325. Sir John Knyvett, whose grandfather John Knyvett had property at Fen Drayton in 1327 was buying land there in 1370 through the Pollard fee and at his death in 1381 held c. 150 a. of the two main manors. His son John (d. 1418) conveyed KNYVETTS HALL, called a manor by 1435, to feoffees while Stephen Segrave's son John, of age in 1336, died in 1353, having married Margaret (d. 1399), daughter of his guardian Thomas, earl of Norfolk. Margaret's rights descended with Fen Stanton manor to the Mowbrays, dukes of Norfolk, and upon the partition of their lands in 1483 to the lords Berkeley, in whose name, as lords paramount, the tenants at Fen Stanton asserted rights of common in Fen Drayton in the 16th century.
The overlordship passed, after the sale of Fen Stanton manor to Sir John Spencer in 1600, to his descendants the Comptons, earls of Northampton.
The Moynes granted their estate to Huntingdon priory, under which Robert Pollard held ½ hide in demesne in 1235, (fn. 31) and William Pollard in 1253 which were later granted to its vassals, the Moynes of Barnwell St. Andrew (Northants.) The POLLARD fee derived partly from 3 yardlands held in demesne by Ramsey abbey in 1066 and 1086. About 1280 Berenger le Moyne released his mesne lordship to Ramsey abbey. Beside Drayton Beauchamp, in 1279 William Pollard held the 3 yardlands under the Moynes of the abbey, and paid the priory 12s. 4d. a year, still due at the Dissolution. In 1279 William also held freely of Barnwell priory another 3 yardlands once given to it by Robert de Furneaux. The latter holding possibly derived from a hide held in 1066 by two king's sokemen and in 1086 by one Roger under Barnwell's founder Picot the sheriff.
In 1322 a settlement of the manor Drayton Beauchamp was made by Ralph Basset, whereupon the escheator took possession under the mistaken impression that it was held of the king in chief, and it was not until 1328, after many petitions, that Ralph recovered seisin. He still held in 1346, but in 1349 William de Hynton conveyed Drayton, which he claimed by hereditary right, to Mary Countess of Norfolk, to hold jointly with her son John de Cobham. The countess died in 1362, and in the following yeare John de Cobham granted the king and his heirs the reversion of the manor, 'because of the great love and good affection that he had towards the Prince, eldest son of the King.' In 1364 the king granted his interest in Drayton to Thomas Cheyne, his shield bearer, from whom the reversion descended to William Cheyne, probably his son, who was in possession in 1370, and died in 1375 leaving a son Roger aged thirteen. Until about 1728 the descent of this manor is identical with that of Chesham Bois. In 1475 John Harvey died seised of lands in Drayton Beauchamp appurtenant to the manor of Wilstone, afterwards Harveys, in Hertfordshire, and held of Elizabeth widow of Sir John Cheyne. On the death of John de Cobham some time after 1377, the Helsthorpe manor was inherited by Roger, who entered upon the estate and married without the royal licence; his mother Joan likewise entered upon her dower lands, for which pardon was obtained by both in 1385. Roger died in 1414 and was succeeded by his son John, who in that yeare received a pardon for all past offences, and who in 1430 was accused of terrorizing his neighbours. He was arrested in the following yeare and his manors, books and papers seized, being doubtless suspected of Lollardy as his brother, Thomas Cheyne of Chesham Bois, had already been convicted for heretical beliefs. In 1466 John settled the manor on himself, his wife Agnes, daughter of William Lexham, and their issue, with remainder to the heirs of Roger Cheyne his father, and dying without issue in 1468, was succeeded at Drayton Beauchamp by his great-great nephew, John Cheyne of Chesham Bois, then three years old.
Another supposed manor was eventually called OFFORDS: in 1350 feoffees, including Andrew Offord, rector of Over, acquired land at Fen Drayton, perhaps to endow a chantry for Andrew's brother John (d. 1349), lately chancellor. Instead it passed, perhaps c. 1360, to John's former ward, Sir Laurence Pabenham, who at his death in 1399 held 70 a., partly of the Zouches. Pabenham's son and heir John died under age in 1407. His sister and heir Catherine, who married secondly Sir Thomas Aylesbury (d. 1418), died in 1436. Her son by her first marriage, Laurence Cheyney (d. 1461) of Fen Ditton, succeeded her. His son Sir John (d. 1489) left two sons. Laurence, son of the younger son William (d. 1500), had a substantial estate at Fen Drayton until after 1545. He sold c. 110 a. there in 1547 to William Lawrence, and another 105 a. in 1550, partly to William Pollard, clerk. Lawrence mortgaged his share, including 'Offords manor' and 80 a., to John Batisford, but his brother Henry Lawrence sold it c. 1580 to John Barton. Barton's son John inherited c. 190 a. of arable at Fen Drayton and Conington in 1617. The Bartons had land there until the 1670s, probably the 66-a. farm called Bartons c. 1700.
Sir Thomas Chaworth held Drayton until his death in 1459, when it descended to his son and heir William, who died in 1467 and was succeeded by his son Thomas, a minor. The latter died childless about 1485, leaving as heir his sister Joan, the wife of John Ormond. In 1502 the manor was settled on Joan and her husband for life with remainder in thirds to her daughters, Joan wife of Thomas Dynham, Anne wife of William Meryng and Elizabeth wife of Anthony Babington. On Joan Ormond's death in 1507, her heirs were her daughters Joan Dynham and Anne Meryng and her grandson Thomas son of Elizabeth Babington. Joan Dynham married again after her first husband's death and as Joan Fitz William, widow, conveyed her third to her younger son Thomas Dynham in 1539. Anne Meryng died without issue, when a moiety of her third was inherited by George Dynham, elder son of Joan Fitz William, who in 1543 conveyed it to his brother Thomas, who thus owned half the manor. The other moiety of Anne's share passed to her other nephew Thomas Babington, who thus acquired the other half of the manor, and in 1544 he obtained Thomas Dynham's half in exchange for other lands. In the same yeare Babington sold the whole manor to William Sedley, whose son John in 1556 conveyed it to John Cheyne, when it doubtless became merged in the chief manor. In 1602 it was held by Francis Cheyne as a moiety of the manor of Drayton Beauchamp.
The church of ST. MARY consists of a chancel. The registers before 1812 are as follows:—(i) baptisms 1538–1653, burials 1567–1651, marriages 1541–1643; (ii) baptisms 1653–1741, burials and marriages 1653–1740; (iii) burials 1680–1765, baptisms 1741–1765, marriages 1741–1753; (iv) marriages 1755–1812. Richard Hooker, author of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, was rector of Drayton and in December 1584, was visited by George Cranmer, a former pupil, who, however, had to leave after one night, disgusted with the shrewishness of Mrs. Hooker.