Franklins Manor

Information from Victoria County History, Vol. II, 1908

The manor of FRANKLINS probably owed its name to the family of Franklin, for in 1463 a protection granted to John Franklin of Haynes for one year, to go to Picardy on the king's service, was revoked as he delayed in Westminster on his own business. No other record of this family, however, is found relating to Haynes, although the Franklins were landowners in Thurleigh. The manor of Franklins is first mentioned in 1563, when Sir John Gascoigne and Margaret his wife and their son and heir George conveyed it to Peter Grey, who sold it in 1564 to Simon Leaper and Katherine his wife, an arrangement being made by which the purchase money was to be paid in the form of a rent for a certain number of years, and in 1570 an action was brought against the latter for refusing to pay the rent after her husband's death in 1568. The manor passed to Thomas, son of Katherine and Simon, and he, on the occasion of his son Thomas's marriage with Judith Saunderson in 1601, settled it on them and their heirs. Thomas the father died in 1604, and the son with his second wife Peregrine sold the manor in 1622 to Thomas Field, who, two years later, with his wife Anne, conveyed it to Sir Oliver Luke, who had already purchased Haynes manor. The manor continued to be held by the Lukes, and the last mention of it occurs in 1704, when Nicholas Luke was the owner. From this date the descent of the manor is lost.