Passenham, Deanshanger, Cosgrove, Furtho
Old Stratford, Stony Stratford - Ouse, Puxley, Circenster
Cleley Hundred, Ashton, Roade
From the late 15th century, the fishing in the Ouse from the ford at Passenham mill upstream as far as CALVERTON MILL was let for an ancient farm. In 1545 Robert Pigott, lord of the manor of Beachampton, Bucks had nets laid across the Ouse where it separated the two manors, having secured the fishing as an upshot from the manor to the Duchy.
A fresh grant for life of the same premises was made in 1553 to Robert Eton and from 1567 the estate, together with the site and demesne lands of the manor of Deanshanger, was leased in reversion, first to William Burnell and then to Sir Thomas Newnsham, both in 1567, and later to Christopher Edmondes in 1573. The reversion of all the leases from that of 1553 was sold in fee by the Crown in 1587 to Sir Francis Walsingham and Francis Mills, who immediately conveyed their interest to William Gerrard of Harrow on the Hill, William Stubbs of Ratcliff (Mdx.), and John Willard of London. The following yeare the reversion passed to Richard Keterich and George Pugh, also of London, who were acting as intermediaries for John Spencer, to whom they conveyed the estate a few months later.
When Queen Mary attempted to re-establish the Hospitallers in 1558, the order's possessions in Passenham included the water-mill, a rent of 4d. a yeare issuing out of the Church House in Deanshanger, and another tenement there in the tenure of Roger Palmer. Palmer's tenement was leased in 1585 to James Scott for 21 years at 6s. 8d. a year; twelve years later the reversion was leased at the same rent for three lives to the sons of Richard Palmer, who was then the tenant. The premises were included in the sale of the manor of Deanshanger to Henry Best and Robert Holland in 1599 and in 1615 the farm, now known as the White House, was held of Robert Lord Spencer at will by William Newcome for £30 a year, subject to a chief rent of 7s., the sum of the reserved rent specified in 1585 and 1597, plus the 4d. due from the Church House mentioned in 1558. Newcome's house was sold with the manor of Deanshanger to William Carpenter in 1617-18 but was not included in any of the later conveyances of the manor. The water-mill was added to the manorial estate at Passenham, apparently in the early 17th century.
A more ambitious building project was that undertaken by Sir Arthur Throckmorton at Paulerspury, who in the 1580s replaced the medieval manor house and laid out gardens on the adjoining closes. Throckmorton inherited Paulerspury (and Cosgrove) from his father, to whom the two manors were granted in 1551 in what proved to be the only significant disposal of lands from the honor of Grafton before Charles I's time.
In 1566 all the houses and cottages belonging to the manor of Passenham at Puxley were decayed and even the number that had once existed had been forgotten. There was similar uncertainty in 1591 as to which closes at Puxley belonged to the manor. At Alderton William Gorges, although only a 21-year leaseholder, also built a new mansion, again with elaborate gardens, in 1582, which was used to accommodate James I or his queen on at least two visits to the honor.
In 1583, with 16 years of the previous lease still to come, the Crown prepared particulars for a new lease in reversion to Robert Fowkes of the manor house and demesnes, together with premises in Wicken parcel of the manor of Deanshanger. In the event, Fowkes's lease was not granted until 1588, when the term was for 21 years from 1604.
In April 1587 the queen granted the reversion in fee of the lands included in William Burnell's lease of 1567 and several other Crown leases in Deanshanger to Sir Francis Walsingham and Francis Mills. In January 1589 Fowkes used his lease as security for a loan for £70 from Sir John Spencer of Althorp, on which he defaulted, and in March the following yeare Spencer assigned the lease to Thomas Watkin of Lincoln's Inn. Deanshanger was previously owned by Hospitallers. The Hospitaller's lands from the time of Henry II, William Earl Ferrers and his sister Letitia made gifts to the preceptory at Dingley. The water-mill was a gift from Letitia to the Hospitallers' preceptory, held yearly by Richard Baligan who acquired together the land of meadow in two moieties in 1243 and held it as of the Hospitallers' manor of Blakesley. The mill was a free tenement of the manor of Passenham in the 16th century and was in the hands of Robert Fowkes in 1566 not including the manor's sale to Sir Robert Banastre in 1623.
In 1600 John Ball of Deanshanger complained to the Duchy Court that although, as a tenant of the manor of Passenham, he was free of toll in all markets in England outside the Duchy, the deputy bailiff of Stony Stratford had cast down his stall in the market there, at which he sold fish, salt and suchlike goods, damaged his wares, and unfairly demanded toll from him. Even in the late 18th century the Maynard estate was still letting the fishing in the river and the flags there for £4 10s. a year.
By 1614 the Passenham and Deanshanger portion of the former Snelshall property was known as the 'Great Farm' and in 1615 was included in Robert Lord Spencer's rental in the two townships, when there was an outgoing of 4d. a yeare due from the Snelshall lands to the Duchy of Lancaster. This payment may have been in respect of a portion of the Snelshall lands in Passenham, Cosgrove and Wicken granted to John Mershe of London in 1576, who had discovered them as 'concealed lands', but which were evidently later reunited with the rest of the property. Of the two other small estates in the south of the hundred, Passenham passed from Sir Robert Banastre (d. 1649) to an Essex family (the Maynards) and the manor house was let as a farm, while Cosgrove remained the home of a resident gentry family (the Mansels) throughout the 18th century and for most of the 19th.
At the time of the purchase, the manor and demesnes at Deanshanger were leased to William Carpenter, who in 1617 bought the house and some (but by no means all) of Lord Robert Spencer's estate in Deanshanger for £1,200. The estate included the manor, two messuages, six cottages, one dovecote, eight gardens, eight orchards, 100 a. of land, 40 a. of meadow, 90 a. of pasture and 3s. 4d. rent in Deanshanger and Passenham. Carpenter also obtained an inspeximus of the grant of 1599. Later in the 13th century John Baligan held the mill and 15 a. of land in Passenham of the Hospitallers' manor of Blakesley. The brethren also had 3s. rent from another tenement, 2s. rent out of a messuage and virgate of land held by John de Wikemill, and view of frankpledge of certain free tenements in Passenham worth 6d. a year. In 1330 the prior defended his view of frankpledge, claiming the privilege had been attached to the manor of Blakesley since time immemorial. By his will, made in October 1624, William Carpenter, then of Tickford in Newport Pagnell (Bucks.) left the Deanshanger property, described merely as a farmhouse and land, to his son Anthony, subject to the payment of £300 to his other son Richard, the Cambridge divine. By a deed of 16 December 1641 Anthony Carpenter of Newport Pagnell (Bucks.), the owner of the Deanshanger manor estate centred on Dovehouse Farm, conveyed four cottages in Deanshanger to feoffees, who were to hold the estate to Carpenter's use during his lifetime, and thereafter to reserve a rent of 8s. on one cottage and 4s. on each of the other three. The estate was then worth about £29 a year. Anthony Carpenter, who settled part of his Deanshanger estate on his second son John in 1652-3, died in 1658 and in 1661 his heir, also named Anthony, sold what was once again called the manor of Deanshanger to John Low. (fn. 88) He appears to have been acting as an intermediary for the Revd. John Palmer of Ecton, who in 1662 borrowed £1,240 from Carpenter secured on the manor of Deanshanger. The estate was re-enfeoffed in 1690, 1715 (when the cottages were still being let for and 1754. By 1786, when new trustees were next appointed, the common rights previously attached to the property had been exchanged for 2˝ acres of new inclosure and the cottages divided into six tenements. There was a further transfer in 1811.
In 1664 William West was living in one of two cottages erected on part of Deanshanger North Field at the Hayes, and had land adjoining on which he was making bricks and tiles and digging stone to make lime. The limekiln was still in use in 1719 but the brick kiln was replaced by a parish workhouse in about 1715, when William Clarke leased the property to the churchwardens and overseers. At about the same date Edward West, perhaps William's son, was making bricks at Wolverton (Bucks.). All the brickmakers appear also to have been involved in limestone quarrying and limeburning. In addition, William Hoare had a limekiln at Deanshanger in the 1830s and early 1840s, which by 1844 was in the hands of Richard Canvin. John Pinfold of Deanshanger described himself as a potashman in 1806 and 1813, although it is not clear whether his kiln was in the village, since a man of the same name had a potash business in Old Stratford in the 1760s and 1770s.
By his will, dated 10 October and proved on 19 November 1683, Daniel Allen of Deanshanger bequeathed to Robert Jarvis and his wife for their lives his house and land (with the goods and chattels); after their death the real property was to pass to Joseph Jarvis for his life, and thereafter was left to the poor of Deanshanger. Four years later the parish resolved that the rector and churchwardens should act as trustees for the charity, when the rector noted that the overseers had rented Clarke's house as a 'parish house' . Allen's original house was also let to the overseers, who had installed an undertenant on condition that he would move to another house provided by the parish if they wanted Allen's house as a 'hospital' for the poor. By the 1820s the two properties had been divided into five tenements, let to the overseers for £10 a year. In 1832 the tenant gave up the field belonging to Allen's and Carpenter's charities, which was converted into allotments, let at 3d. a pole (producing a total of £25), and became known as Poor's Field.
Apart from the mill, Passenham (certainly from the 17th century) was too small to support any tradesmen. By contrast, Deanshanger, especially in the 19th century and probably before, was a mixed village whose economy was based on both farming and a wider range of industry than the usual village crafts. This was the result partly of the open structure of landownership, with numerous small freeholders able to establish businesses on their own property, and partly of the building of the Buckingham branch of the Grand Junction Canal through the middle of the village in 1800, which provided an easier means of transport, especially for heavy goods, than the main road from Old Stratford to Buckingham, turnpiked in 1815.
1715, the churchwardens of the period of Passenham, Deanshanger, Old Stratford and Puxley and overseers took a lease for six years at 30s. a yeare from William Clarke of a newly erected workhouse in Hayes Lane, Deanshanger, built on the site of a former brick kiln. The overseers then completed the fitting up of the building as a 'workhouse or hospital for the poor'. Later in the 18th century the overseers rented other premises, which became known as 'the Hospital', in Church Lane, Deanshanger, which was still called Hospital Lane in 1843. By the 18th century the single constable serving the whole parish (assisted by a headborough) was clearly an official of the vestry, not the manor; in addition the vestry appointed two churchwardens and two overseers of the poor. Unusually for a parish which remained one for poor relief, it was divided into two for highway purposes, with separate surveyors or waywardens appointed (from at least 1773) for Deanshanger (including Puxley) and Passenham (including part of Old Stratford).
Later sovereigns took less personal interest in the honor of Cleley and allowed the mansion to fall into decay. At the same time their officials increasingly granted leases for longer than 21 years and for terms in reversion; under Charles I there were also some piecemeal sales of premises within the honor.
Old Stratford did not, although the portion in Passenham had its own constable. The fields of Deanshanger and Passenham, together with the common meadow along the Ouse belonging to the two townships, formed a continous block of land adjoining the two villages on all sides and occupying roughly the south-eastern third of the parish. Both townships still farmed most of their land in common at the beginning of the 17th century.
Thomas Nichol of London, by his will dated 15 May 1726, charged his messuage and farm in Deanshanger with the payment of £13 4s. to various charities for the benefit of Abthorpe, Paulerspury and Deanshanger. Of the total rent charge, 22s. was to be laid out yearly in 12d. loaves on Easter Monday, to be given to as many ancient poor people of Deanshanger as constantly attended church to hear divine service. (fn. 99) The property charged was the large plot at the north-east corner of the Green, near the Hayes, which appears at an earlier date to have belonged to Snelshall priory. By the 1770s the land had been divided and the rent charge apportioned into two payments of 5s. 6d. and 16s. 6d. The income was stil being spent on 'Easter Bread' in the 1880s, when the charity was included in the scheme that also provided for the management of Carpenter's Charity and Allen's Charity.
From a Dynham relation, Lord Maynard in 1756 let the mill to Thomas Buckingham. The mill itself then had two wheels driving three pairs of stones; there was also a house, stable and a few other farm buildings. George Gates was the tenant from the 1830s until his death in 1860.
By the end of the 18th century Old Sratford parishioners had difficulty identifying the boundary separating Puxley from Passenham and Deanshanger, although they knew that it had once been a township. Passenham and Deanshanger each had their own open fields in the Middle Ages. In the modern parish, the building of the canal to Buckingham appears to have prompted the opening of a new brickfield on its banks near Old Stratford (although there was a good deal of earlier brickmaking in the parish) and encouraged the establishment of an iron foundry in Deanshanger. The larger villages spread out along a main road (notably Paulerspury, and to a lesser extent Potterspury) divide into definite 'ends' with distinctive names in a way more commonly associated with Buckinghamshire. The secondary settlements also show signs of late medieval shrinkage, for example at Heathencote in Paulerspury or Dagnall in Passenham, and in several parishes the smaller, nameless medieval settlements were abandoned altogether. Apart from Watling Street, the only main road through the parish is that which leaves the Roman road just north of the point at which it crosses the Ouse at Stony Stratford (where the road to Northampton also branches off to the north) and runs south-west to Buckingham. Watling Street was turnpiked under an Act of 1707, the road to Buckingham not until 1815.