Gastlyns or Gastlynbury Manor
Norman Overlords
In 1066 sixteen freemen held certain land and resources in Southill as one manor. These had passed through the hands of at least one Norman tenant-in-chief by 1086 when they were held directly from the king by William Spec and two unnamed Frenchmen shown as lords of the manor. The land was inherited by Walter Espec (son or nephew of William) and when he founded Wardon Abbey in 1135 he gave assarts (land cleared for cultivation) and woodland in Wardon and Southill to the Cistercian monks. The charter showing the boundaries has been lost but it seems likely that the founder’s gifts in Southill were used as the basis for Rowney Grange, Rowney Warren, and a parcel of demesne called an inlōnd [now Ireland]. After his death in 1155 the remaining portion in Southill passed to Geoffrey de Trailli (eldest son of Albreda, Walter’s middle sister).
The Trailly family coat of arms
The Influence of Falkes de Bréauté
Almost 60 years later Walter de Trailli held land in Southill from the Crown and Falkes de Bréauté held it from Walter. It seems to have been held from Falkes by Gilbert de Clare, 1st Earl of Gloucester, and from him by Walter de Godarville (probably from Goderville, a commune in the Seine-Maritime département of Normandy, less than 2 miles north-west of Bréauté). Being a follower of Falkes de Bréauté, Walter was deprived of all his lands after Falkes rebelled in 1224, only regaining royal favour in 1225 subject to a £100 fine and the commission to accompany Richard, earl of Cornwall, on the re-settlement of Gascony. Southill was restored to Walter de Godarville in 1229 when he secured a permanent tenure. It is, however, as a Wiltshire knight that he appears to have been best known.
The Gascelyn family
Gastlings is named after the Gascelyn family, who probably came from Gacé in Normandy. By 1247 GEOFFREY GASTLYN had married Joan, the teenage heiress of Walter de Godarville, and on Walter’s death at the end of 1249, his manors of Chippenham and Sheldon (Wilts) and the assets in Southill automatically passed to Geoffrey as Joan’s husband. Geoffrey spent his life in the service of Henry III for which he was rewarded with personal gifts including wine, oak trees, and robes. Given his focus on royal duties and interests in Wiltshire, it is unlikely that he ever visited Southill. Geoffrey died in 1282, JOAN recovered her lands, and died five years later.
In 1287 Joan was succeeded by her son EDMUND GASCELYN (born 1252) who conveyed the manor in Southill to Hugh de Osevill in 1301. Hugh returned it to Edmund and his wife Isabel in 1302, and to John, their younger son ‘in tail’ (entail), a step that would seal its fate for the next 67 years. Edmund died in 1307, ISABEL recovered her lands, and died between 1313 and 1316.
JOHN GASCELYN, younger son of Edmund and Isabel, had been born in or soon after 1286. He was the only secular lord documented in Southill in 1316, the others being the abbot of Wardon, the prior of Newnham, and the prior of Chicksands. In 1322 four messuages were granted to John Gascelyn and Alice his wife. Sometime after 1327 John claimed right of free warren in Gastlyns and was able to produce the charter by which the same right had been granted to his grandmother Joan in 1250/51. In 1332 John was required to pay tax of 9s 3¼d for ‘Villata de Souhgyuel’. He was dead by 1346 when his widow ALICE jointly held half a [knight’s] fee in Southill with John Barat because the unnamed Gascelyn heir was a minor. VCH Beds, vol. 3 (1912) observes that by 1363 ‘the manor had been alienated to John Creuker for his life, with reversion to GEOFFREY GASCELYN, Alice’s son, which reversion the latter granted that year to Richard Gregory and others in trusteeship’. The arrangements suggest that Alice had died and that Geoffrey (by now in his thirties) had no heir.
The Abbot of Wardon
Geoffrey Gascelyn must have died by 16 November 1369 when the abbot of Wardon paid £100 to Edward III for a licence to acquire ‘Gascelynesbury’ manor in mortmain from Geoffrey’s trustees. In return the abbot was to provide two chaplains to celebrate divine service daily at the altar of the Blessed Mary in the abbey church for the souls of Geoffrey Gascelyn, Alice Gascelyn, their ancestors and all faithful departed.
Once in monastic hands, Gastlings is lost to view until 1532 when Abbot Augustine London leased the messuage called Gastlings and ‘the messuage called Deys howse in Southill’ to John Gardener for 31 years (effective 29 Sep 1534) at £10 pa. The present-day Gastlings may be on or near the site of the medieval manor house, but the location of Day’s house has not been traced. In 1535 ‘Eastlynbury’ [sic] was valued at £10.
The arms of Warden Abbey
Beyond the Dissolution
Wardon Abbey surrendered to the Crown on 4 December 1537 but this had no impact on the fixed terms of the lease and the rent remained unchanged. The Court of Augmentations accounts also noted in 1538 that Clement Est. held 15 acres of land and 3 acres of meadow in Southill ‘reserved from ind[enture]. of farm of Gasclyns’ for 24s yearly.
Edmund Gostwick took on the lease of Gastlings manor after 1538 and illegally laid claim to the neighbouring Warden warren on 23 July 1541. He threatened to beat and lock up the warrener if he took any of the rabbits which Edmund now claimed as his by right. On 15 August 1541 Edmund, together with James Webster, William Steward and about six or eight more forcibly entered the warren armed with bows and arrows, billhooks and other weapons which they deployed to kill and injure the animals. He subsequently attacked the warren numerous times, destroying an estimated 100 or more rabbits, worth about £350 in today’s money.
Edward Peke, who held Warden warren from the king, complained to Sir John Gostwick of Willington JP (Edmund’s eldest cousin) asking him to stop the incursions. Sir John called a meeting on the warren between Peke, Edmund and four elderly local men who knew the extent, limits and bounds of the warren well. The villagers testified that the land had always been part of Warden warren and Sir John ruled that Edmund had acted unlawfully. He ordered Edmund and all of his servants to keep the peace and to cease hunting or taking rabbits until the matter had been examined further by the king’s officials. Edmund ignored him. On his orders, at around 10pm on both Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th November 1541, Anne Gostwick (Edmund’s wife) together with about ten or twelve others entered the warren, assaulting and seriously injuring the warrener and his servants who feared for their lives. The gang then seized about forty couples of rabbits using ‘heyes’ (long nets erected between the rabbits and their burrows) and other nets.
Peke claimed that unless speedy reparation was made, such losses meant that he was neither able to pay his cash rent nor provide the king with the customary rabbits while the royal household was at the king’s manor of Ampthill. Peke urged Sir Richard Rich, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, to call Edmund before him and ensure that he made good the damage. No records survive to say what happened next.
On 19 November 1544 Rowney Grange and Rowney Warren, farm of Gastlings, Day’s house, and Beales Grove in Southill were sold by the Crown to Francis Piggott of Stratton. After his death, his widow Margery surrendered her life interest in them to Thomas Piggott, her late husband’s son. On 4 May 1566 John Gyfford and Thomas Pygott purchased a licence allowing them to sell the manors of Rowney and Gastlings to Hugh Cartright of West Malling, Kent.
On 9 February 1569 Hugh Cartright leased the manor of Rowney to local yeoman Nicholas Thurgood for 41 years. On 14 October 1587 William Cartright sold Rowney to Richard Thurgood of Rowney and by May 1599 Nicholas Thurgood the elder of Rowney, gentleman, had ‘solde or conveyed away’ to ‘sondry persons’ Gastlings and Day’s house, along with the 13 acres of land and 15 acres of meadow once held by Clement Est. Seventeenth-century parish registers and records of marriage settlements confirm that the Thurgood family retained a presence at Gastlings until 1667 when John Thurgood sold the manor to Sir John Keeling.
Further information can be found in Gastlings, Southill 1066-1667.
The above text was written by Margaret Roberts, Volunteer Historian at Warden Abbey Vineyard.