The Manor of Ion

Volume II of the Victoria County History for Bedfordshire was published in 1908. It states that the Manor of Ion derived from “numerous small holdings in Eye in Lower Gravenhurst” and may never have been a fully-fledged manor, certainly no manorial documents are listed by the Manorial Document Register except an account book of 1702 shared with other manors [L26/22].

The arms of Lord Saint-Amand

In 1362 Robert de Kirkby granted to Nicholas, son of Roger de Aspley a messuage in Eye. In 1508 a messuage, perhaps the same messuage, was left by Richard Beauchamp, 7th Baron Saint Amand to his illegitimate son Anthony, who held it under the name of the Manor of Ion in 1531.

Arms of the de Grey family, Earls and Duke of Kent

William Whitehead held Ion House in in 1639 when it was sold to William Allen. Allen’s daughter Elizabeth married John Sabine who was made a baronet in 1672 and sold the property that year to Morgan Hinde, from whose family it was purchased by the Duke of Kent in 1724.