Trailly's Manor

The de Trailly coat of arms

According to the Victoria County History a second Ravensden, or Trailly’s Manor was held during the 13th and early 14th centuries of the Gascelins,  but by 1401 the overlordship had passed to the Mowbrays, Dukes of Norfolk,  as part of their barony of Bedford, the overlordship being last mentioned in 1525. 

The property was held from the Gascelins by the Trailly family, of whom the first to hold this manor was John Trailly, who was in possession when he died in 1272.  The descent of the Trailly family can be found in the entry for the Manor of Yelden , with which their Ravensden property was held until around  1401.

In 1276 Walter de Trailly claimed to hold view of frankpledge and have assize of bread and ale in Ravensden, and these privileges were again asserted by his descendant, another Walter, in 1330.  The view of frankpledge was held once a year, after Michaelmas, and both it and the assize were claimed by prescriptive right; but as Walter had punished the transgressors of the assize of bread and ale by a fine of 12d., instead of by tumbril and pillory, he was obliged to pay half a mark in order to retain his privileges. 

The manor, consisting of one messuage and 140 acres of arable land, was settled on William de Woodhull by John Trailly, but on the latter's death in 1360 it reverted to his son, another  John Trailly.  Reginald, the last of the Traillys in the direct line, alienated most of his property, but retained Ravensden Manor, which at his death in 1401 was said to be worth only 33s. 4d. per annum, as five marks of its annual revenue had been granted by Reginald to John Harteshorne for life.  At this date it acquired its distinctive name of Trailly's Manor and passed to Margery wife of William Huggeford and cousin and heir of Reginald Trailly.  

Until 1569 the descent of Trailly’s Manor is identical with that of the manor of Wilden, which Margery had inherited from her father Sir James Pabenham. In 1569 Thomas Lucy conveyed both manors to Thomas Rolt, but, although Wilden continued in the Rolt family for over 160 years, there is no further mention of Trailly's Manor.

Plan of Trayles Field Farm 1877 [Z65/16]

Part of the property, called Great and Little Traillys Closes, came into the possession of John Rawlins, who held them at his death  in 1599. He left them in his will to his son Stephen, after whose death Great Traillys was to revert to John, Stephen's eldest son, and Little Traillys to Robert, his second son.  Robert died, while still under age, in 1607, when Little Traillys passed to his elder brother John, then aged eleven.  John died in 1617, leaving a younger brother Francis, to whom the property, called 'lands in Woodend’, then descended.  The freehold estate of John Rawlins, consisting of a messuage and 100 acres of pasture, which in 1657 was forcibly entered by Edmund Cosen of Ravensden, yeoman,  is presumably identical with Great and Little Traillys Closes. The present Traylesfields Farm, in the north-west corner of the parish near Wood End, may stand on the site of Rawlins’ property, and establishes the location of this estate.