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The Manor of Potton Much Manured

Volume II of The Victoria County History for Bedfordshire was published in 1908 and contains histories of all the manors in Potton. The overlordship of Potton was held by the Earl of Huntingdon. This was because Potton was held in 1086 by Countess Judith, and her daughter Maud married the King of Scotland, David, who was also Earl of Huntingdon. The last Earl of Huntingdon, John le Scot, died without issue in 1237 and the overlordship of the various Potton manors was divided between his sisters Margaret, Isabel and Ada.

Potton Much Manured was created by this division of the overlordship in 1237 and the overlord was Margaret. Her daughter Devorgilla married John de Balliol and her daughter Ada married a member of the Clavering family.

The Braybrooke family coat of arms
The Braybrooke family coat of arms

The first recorded tenant of the manor was a William Quartremars who held it in the 13th century. By 1284 the manor had passed to Fulk of Bath. His daughter Joan married John d’Eyville who held the manor in 1306. Before 1316 d’Eyville transferred the manor to Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. On his death in 1322 the manor passed to his nephew Edmund Peverel. In 1354 the manor was held by William de la Pole who had married Peverel’s daughter. Their son, John, married Joan, daughter of John de Cobham and, at her father’s death, she became Baroness Cobham in her own right. After her husband’s death she married Sir Reginald Braybroke who held Potton Much Manured in 1403. Joan’s daughter, also Joan, married Sir Thomas Brooke and died about 1442. Her daughter married Robert Tanfield.

The Tanfield family coat of arms
The Tanfield family coat of arms

The Tanfields held the manor until 1564 when Clement Tanfield alienated it to John Burgoyne, re-uniting it with the principal manor of Potton Regis, with which it shared its subsequent history, ending up in the hands of the Whitbread family. A succession of Law of Property Acts in the 1920s extinguished all manorial incidents, courts and copyhold tenure of land. This effectively abolished manors in all but name.

The Whitbread family coat of arms
The Whitbread family coat of arms