Bisham Abbey & Manor, Berkshire, England

Sir Henry Vansittart Neale,KCB was one time resident of "'Bisham Abbey"'. The nucleus of the house formed the preceptory of the 13th Century Knights Templars.

In 1337 the monastic buildings of the house of Austin Canons were founded by William de Montacute Earl of Salisbury but were later demolished before the site and manor were granted to Sir Philip Hoby in 1553.' It seems that the Priory and the buildings occupied by the Templars were seperate.

Margaret Pole Countess of Salisbury at the time of her attainder in 1539 used the Templar's buildings as her manor house. It probably had been utilized as a residence by the Earls of Salisbury soon after the suppression of the order. When the abbey church was destroyed the tombs of the earls who were buried at Bisham (including that of Warwick the Kingmaker)were supposedly removed to the hall although there is no evidence supporting this supposition.

Sir Thomas Hoby recorded in his diary that by 1557 a new building had been started and continued after the death of Sir Philip in 1558 by his brother Sir Thomas.

There was little work carried out between the time of the rebuilding by the Hobys in the 16th century and the acquisition of the abbey by George Vansittart

During restoration taking place in 1859 blackened rafters were discovered in the centre of the roof showing that the hall was originally wamred by a central grate.James I gave Lord Windsor a stone fireplace in about 1605 for his house at Worcester. At the time of the sale of that residence the eighth Earl of Plymouth made a gift of it to Bisham Abbey where it was sited in the south wall.

In the Council Chamber some interesting heraldic glass, including shields of Anne of Denmark, Queen of James I; a 15th-century shield of Montagu impaling Grandison; a Jacobean shield in six quarters of Cecil Earl of Exeter surrounded by a garter and surmounted by a coronet;a 15th-century quartered shield of Richard Nevill Earl of Salisbury surrounded by a garter; a Jacobean shield in six quarters of Cecil Earl of Salisbury; and a shield of Pole impaling Margaret of Clarence Countess of Salisbury surrounded by a garter

Representations occur in the building of Sir Thomas Hoby and his wife Elizabeth Cooke.

To the south of the Abbey Miss Kelly lived in Bisham Grange, a red brick building of two stories with tiled roofs.

Mrs Owen WIlliams, widow of Lieutenant-General Owen Lewis Cope Williams was a resident of Temple House, a three storied mansion of stucco dating to the early 19th Century. She enjoyed views of a beautiful park on the river bank.

On the banks of the river to the north of the church a timber gabled mansion called Stoney Ware was the residence of Mrs. Taylor

The nearby hamlets to Bisham comprising Stubbings, part of Pinkneys Green, Temple, including houses around Temple Park and Temple Mills, Common Wood and Cross Roads and some houses bordering on Hurley. In 1856 Stubbings was formed into a separate ecclesiastical parish with part of Chookham being included within it. The church of St. James the Less wasthe work of Mr Henry Skrine of Stubbings in 1850. Mr Henry Mills Skrine owned Stubbings House to the south-west of the church. This was property was in the ownership and occupied in 1806 by the Earl of Dorchester following his time in Canada. Previously it had been the property of Elisha Biscoe and before her, in 1759 it was the seat of Charles Ambler, a couoncillor at law.

MANOR

Bondi held the Manor of Bisham in the time of Edward the Confessor. By 1086 Henry de Ferrers held it as part of his great possessions. His Grandson, Robert de Ferrers, Earl of Derby granted the manor in free alms to the Knights Templars who establised a preceptory there during the reign of Stephen.
Until the forfeiture of Robert de Ferrers Earl of Derby in 1266 when the lands passed to the king who granted i as part of Tutbury to Edmund Crouchaback Earl of Lancaster, it had remained in the overlordship of the Ferrers family.

King Henry II confirmed the charter of King Stephen to the Knights Templar and added a grant of 40 acres of assart land. In 1199 King John made a further grant of quittance of assart.

The manor was granted in 1307 by Edward II to Robert de Hanstede jun. and to Roger de Winkfield in 1311. Also in 1307 an order was issued to the keeper of the manor to see that John de Upleden had his allowance of food, with a robe, and 5s. yearly for necessaries, and another to pay Adam de Char a corrody of 3d. a day for food, with 10s. for a robe, fodder for two horses (like the palfrey of the preceptor), and the keep of two grooms at the table of the esquires.

In 1310, while BIsham Manor was in the King's hands, Elizabeth wife of Robert Bruce was confined there in the custody of John de Bentley, the king's yeoman, and in 1313 it was the residence of Edward Prince of Wales. At this time although Edward II, in accordance with the ordinance of Pope Clement V, ordered the property of the Knights Templars in England to be transferred to the Knights Hospitallers, this order was not carried through and it wasn't until 1320 under a provision of Pope John XXII who succeeded Pope Clement in 1316, that the Hospitallers obtained the lands. Thomas Earl of Lancaster held the lands in the meantime as he was holding it in 1316. He was overlord until his execution in 1322 at which time it was given to Hugh le Despenser the younger by the king. In 1324 the Hospitallers, whether willingly or unwillingly, quitclaimed their right to Hugh le Despenser. He was executed in 1326 and the manor escheated to the Crown.

Having be broken down by floods William de Langeford, the keeper,was in 1328 ordered to repair the water-mills with such expenses continuing with repair of houses, mills walls and ponds needed the king granted to his watchman, John de Hardyng, for his long service. A previous grant of £10 per annum made out of the manor by the Earl of Lancaster to Michael le Armerer was also confirmed.

Queen Isabella was granted the manor in January 1331 as part of the lands assigned to her on the surrender of her dower following the death fo Mortimer however by the following February it was granted to the widow of the late Earl of Lancaster, Alice, wife of Ebulo Lestrange and in 1334 the grant was enlarged to cover the term of Ebulo's life. In 1335 following the death of Ebulo the reversion was granted to WIlliam Lord Montagu (later Earl fo Salisbury) Lestrange died a few months later, and his widow, who survived until 1348, apparently quitclaimed her life interest in the manor, as the earl seems at once to have entered into possession of it, securing his title by a quitclaim from' Sir Hugh son of Hugh le Despenser the younger."'

In April 1337 the grant of the manor and a royal charter were the result of the Earl of Salisbury founding a house of Austin Canons in the Manor of Bisham with full liberties within the lands and in 1339 the king also bestowed thre rent from the messuage and the land previously granted for life to his watchman John Hardyng and the reversion of the same.

The priory surrendered in 1536, but in 1537 the king founded a Benedictine abbey of Holy Trinity there, transferring to it the abbot and monks of the dissolved monastery of Chertsey and endowing it with the lands and revenues of its predecessor, including the manor of Bisham. This new foundation on a larger scale of a house already surrendered, the only instance of the kind that has been found, lasted however only six months, and surrendered to the king in June 1538. Sir Richard Riche, chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, was anxious to obtain a lease of the demesne lands of Bisham, which he claimed that the abbot had promised him 'when first moved to surrender,' and Margaret Vernon coveted Lady Salisbury's house there. Neither of these appears to have been gratified. In 1541 the king granted the manor for life to Anne of Cleves, and the reversion of it in 1544 to Thomas Persse for the sum of £138 6s. 8d In 1552 Edward VI ordered Anne of Cleves to exchange the manor for some other of equal value, and sent a letter to Sir Richard Sackville, chancellor of the Augmentations, authorizing him to take it into the king's hands. Anne acceded to the king's request, but there was evidently some delay, as Sir Philip Hoby, to whom the manor and site of the monastery were later granted, wrote to Sir William Cecil asking his aid for the completion of the arrangements, 'as the Lady Anne was dissatisfied.' The transaction appears to have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion in the January of 1553, as at that date Anne wrote to the Princess Mary saying that the manor of Westropp (Westhorpe) in Suffolk had been granted to her in exchange for Bisham. In March 1553 Sir Philip Hoby, the last English legate to Rome, was granted the site of the monastery, with a close called le Covent Garden, a grange within the site then held with the demesne lands by Thomas Weldon, the manor of Bisham, lands called Warderobes and Barkefordes or Bekfordes and the capital messuage formerly parcel of the lands of Margaret Countess of Salisbury. He was succeeded on his death in 1558 by his brother Sir Thomas, ambassador to France at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. Sir Thomas died at Paris in 1566, being succeeded by his son Edward, who took a prominent part in the theological disputes of the day. He was a scholar and diplomatist and was sent on many confidential missions, but the favour shown him by James VI of Scotland so much incensed Elizabeth that he had to absent himself from court. In 1592, however, the queen and court were at Bisham. Hoby was in favour with James I, whom he often entertained at the abbey. He held the manor until his death in March 1618. He had made his illegitimate son Peregrine Hoby his heir, and Sir Thomas Posthumus Hoby, brother of Sir Edward Hoby, apparently quitclaimed the manor of Bisham to Peregrine in 1620. Edward son of Peregrine, who predeceased his father in 1675, was created a baronet in 1666, with special remainder, failing issue. to his brothers. John, his brother, succeeded to the title in 1675 and inherited Bisham at the death of Peregrine in 1679. He died in 1702 and was buried at Bisham. Thomas, his eldest surviving son and heir, suffered a recovery of the manor in 1708. His son Thomas, who succeeded in 1730, was M.P. for Great Marlow in three Parliaments. At his death in 1744 he left no issue, and his brother and heir, the Rev. Sir Philip Hoby, chancellor of St. Patrick's, Dublin, and Dean of Ardfert 1748–66, also died without issue in 1766, when the baronetcy became extinct. Sir Philip left Bisham to his maternal first cousin John Mill, second son of Sir Richard Mill, fifth baronet, on condition of his taking the name of Hoby. He succeeded his brother as seventh baronet in 1770 and died without issue in 1780, having bequeathed the manor to his wife Elizabeth, who in 1780 received a quitclaim from Sir Henry Mill of Woolbeding, co. Sussex, brother and heir of Sir John Hoby Mill. Elizabeth Hoby Mill sold the manor soon afterwards to George Vansittart, sixth son of Arthur Vansittart of Shottesbrook, for twenty-eight years M.P. for Berkshire. He was succeeded in 1824 by his grandson George Henry Vansittart, M.P. for Berkshire from 1852 to 1859. The latter dying without surviving issue, the property passed in 1885 to his cousin Edward Vansittart Neale, Christian socialist and founder of the first co-operative stores,whose son Sir Henry James Vansittart Neale is the present owner.

The water-mills at Bisham are mentioned in 1328, when they were broken down by floods. In September 1544 the reversion of a messuage beside Marlow Bridge, 3 acres of meadow, a 'wynch' and an 'eight' in the Thames, the Temple Mills 'under one roof,' and fishing from Temple Lock to the 'over ende de le Westmeade,' and from the end of 'le Severne' and Westmeade to 'le Stonehouse in Bisham and Cookham,' and of a meadow called Severne and land between it and the mills, late belonging to the monastery and then held by Anne of Cleves, was granted to Thomas Persse. Thomas Persse conveyed the property in the same month to John Brinkhurst, who died seised of it in 1572. His heir, John Brinkhurst, entailed it in 1590 upon his brother Richard, who predeceased him, dying in 1612 and leaving a son John, who succeeded his uncle in 1614. In 1669 he and his son John were parties to a fine dealing with the free fishing, and in 1697 the latter made a settlement of the mill and the free fishery. In 1723 he and his son of the same name dealt with the fishing, probably to bar the entail, as in 1759 the mills were in the possession of William Ockenden. They were bought in 1788 by Thomas Williams of Llanidan, Anglesey, M.P. for Great Marlow 1790–1802, who built Temple House and used the mills for smelting copper brought from his mines in Wales. His son Owen Williams of Temple House, M.P. for Great Marlow, died in 1832 and was succeeded by his son Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Peers Williams, M.P. for Great Marlow, who died in 1875. His son Lieut.-General Owen Lewis Cope Williams represented the same borough from 1880 to 1885 and died in 1904. The mills are now the property of Mrs. Owen Williams of Temple House.

A family of Blunt held land in Bisham in the 12th century. Adam le Blunt of Bisham was yeoman to Eleanor, the king's mother, in 1282.