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Haverings Manor Luton

Crawley coat of arms
Crawley coat of arms

Haverings Manor was based in Stopsley and its earliest holders were, as the name indicates, the Havering family, the first mention of them in surviving documents being in 1258 when Richard de Havering and Lucy, his wife, conceded lands in Luton to Andrew de la Brache. Richard's son John acknowledged his father's right to lands in Luton in 1262. John left a son named Richard who, in 1348, was given the right of a free warren for rabbits in Stopsley in a charter.

By 1402 Haverings manor was in the possession of William Butler, who granted it to his son John in that year. When John died in 1430 it passed to his son, also John and so on until in 1525 it was held by a Thomas Butler who in that year conveyed it to trustees. By 1534 the manor was held by a Richard Fermor but he was deprived of it by King Henry VIII (1509 to 1547) in that year for "transgressions and contempts against the king". In 1543 Henry granted the manor to Sir Thomas Barnardiston who died in the same year, his son Thomas succeeding him. This Thomas alienated the manor to John Crawley in 1568 and he was succeeded by his son Thomas in 1599 and he by his son Francis in 1627.

This manor disappears from history in 1684 and seems to have been absorbed into other holdings of the Crawley family in Luton. Interestingly the Victoria County History for Bedfordshire noted that Frederick Davis in his History of Luton of 1855 described Haverings Manor as the ancient seat of the Crawleys. 19th century maps show the site of the manor house as lying between today's Crawley Green Road and Buckingham Drive.