Molivers Wood Bromham
Molivers Wood shown in green on Jeffrey's map of 1765
Bedfordshire Historic Environment Record [HER] has entries for every historic building, find and landscape feature in the county. Summaries of each entry can now be found online on the Heritage Gateway site. Mollivers Wood is HER entry 13201 which notes that it is a piece of ancient woodland.
Research [CRT130Bromham10] states: "It seems almost certain that the wood is the remains of ancient woodland, which once covered most of Britain. In the year 1651 it belonged to Sir Lewis Dyve, a prominent Royalist, and therefore was part of his property forfeited for treason in that year [WW15]".
"At the time Sir Lewis was Lord of the Manors of Bromham, and Wakes and so held most of the parish. It has not, therefore, been possible to work out which manor Mollivers Wood was originally part of. It may have been Bowels Manor (the next door piece of woodland, now the scout camp site, is called Bowels Wood) but the only manor mentioned in Domesday Book as possessing woodland was Bromham manor".
"It has not also been possible to trace the origin of the name 'Mollivers'. Jeffery's map of Bedfordshire of 1765 shows the wood but does not name it. On a map of 1798 showing the property in Bromham of Lord Hampden, Maulivers Wood is shown, and sp are two large nearby fields called Great Maulivers and Little Maulivers [X152]".
"In 1708 Sir Lewis Dyve's son, another Sir Lewis, had sold his Bromham property to Sir Thomas Trevor (later Barn Trevor of Bromham). In 1765 the then holder, Robert Trevor, assumed the surname Hampden and in 1776 was created Viscount Hampden. In 1824 on the death of the 3rd Viscount, the property passed by will to his kinsman Hon. George Rice Rice, who succeeded as Baron Dynevor in 1852. The estate then passed to his daughter Miss Rice Trevor and on her death to Mr. Trevor Wingfield".
"The tithe map of 1844 [MAT8/1] shows Maulwers Wood as belonging to George Rice Trevor (George Rice Rice had changed his name to Rice Trevor on inheriting the estate). Today a road in Bromham, running to the wood, is called Molliver Lane".