PUXLEY & CIRCENSTER

Most of Passenham formed a large royal manor in 1086, which included some land at Puxley, on the edge of Whittlewood, where there was a second estate held by the bishop of Bayeux. In 1086, half a hide at Puxley belonged to the manor of Passenham which was held by David, King of Scots for Henry I's reign. Henry I was a great benefactor of the Order of Augustinian canons, which was first established in England in 1108. At Cirencester, as in a number of other minsters, they were introduced in place of the secular canons. In 1117 Henry I began to build a new church and monastery at Cirencester. Though the church was not dedicated until 1176, the buildings were so far advanced in 1131 that Serlo was consecrated as the first abbot, and the Augustinian canons entered into possession of them. In 1133 Henry I gave a charter to the abbot and convent, granting them all the possessions of Regenbald.

The endowment included two hides in Cirencester, a third part of the toll from the Sunday market, two-thirds of the tithe of the royal demesne of Cirencester, and the whole tithe of the parish; the churches of Preston, Driffield, Ampney St. Mary, and Cheltenham, besides lands in those places, and at Norcote, Driffield, Wadle, Aldsworth, Elmstone, and Wick in Gloucestershire; the churches of Latton, Eisy, Penesey, and Avebury, with lands in those places, and two houses in Cricklade in Wiltshire; the churches of Milborne, Frome, and Wellow, and lands in Somerset; the church of Pulham with ten hides, wood and meadow in Dorsetshire; the churches of Cookham, Bray, Hagbourne, Shrivenham, besides ten hides at Eston in Berkshire; Boicote, with one hide and a mill in Oxfordshire; the churches of Rowell and Brigstock in Northamptonshire; and three messuages in Winchester. The king added from his own demesne 'the sheriff's hide,' in Cirencester, for gardens and a mill; a stream and the wood of Oakley, reserving to himself the right of hunting and of making assarts. He also reserved among Regenbald's possessions the life interests of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, William FitzWarin, and Nicholas, nephew of the bishop of Winchester; and he safeguarded the life interest of the secular canons in their prebends.

During the greater part of the reign of Henry II the abbot and convent held the manor of Cirencester of the crown at a fee farm. Henry II granted by charter the manor to Broneman, a piece of demesne called La Haye. It passed to his son Osmund and then to Alan, Hugh, another Hugh. Agnes de Stratford, the widow of Hugh was in dispute with Alan in the 1220s. Another half hide in Puxley had been held by Almar, and a half by William Peveril from the bishop of Bayeaux by the same decent as Cosgrove and Furtho. In 1328 was held of the heir of the earl of Warwick.

In 1086 the king held one hide in Passenham in demesne, and half another hide was held of him by Rainald, his almsman. There was also half a hide at Puxley belonging to the royal manor of Passenham in 1086. Passenham was later incorporated into the honor of Tutbury (Staffs.), possibly after the foundation of Cirencester abbey in 1131, to which the advowson of Passenham was given.

Although there is no reference to a church in Passenham in Domesday Book, the royal estate there had soke over part of Cosgrove from the dedication to the 8th-century Mercian saint Guthlác, suggest that the church at Passenham had once been the centre of a larger Anglo-Saxon parochia. From at least the early 17th century most of the population of the parish lived at Deanshanger, rather than Passenham, the Deanshanger Inclosure Act of 1772 was held to be the authority under which that township maintained its own highways, supported by the evidence of separate accounts from 1773, Passenham became part of Potterspury union. 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. The new house for the overseers in Stony Stratford in 1807 was soon in use and in the early 1830s the Passenham overseers were recovering the cost of keeping there the vestry who had settlements in Haversham and North Crawley (Bucks.).

The advowson was granted to Cirencester abbey on its foundation in 1133, an arrangement later disputed by an undertenant of the manor of Passenham, William de Passenham, who was forced to acknowledge the abbey's right to the advowson. The advowson itself was leased in 1582 for 50 years to Francis Flower, (fn. 93) who assigned the lease to Sir Robert Banastre.

The advowson was reunited with the lordship of the manor, then parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster, following the suppression of Cirencester abbey. The distinction between Duchy and Crown created problems in 1626, when it was found that the appointment of John Aris to the living was invalid because he had been presented by Charles I as king, not as duke of Lancaster. In 1623 Banastre purchased the manor and advowson and both passed on his death in 1649 to his grandson Banastre Maynard