The Manor of Lawrence

Arms of the Knights Hospitaller

Volume III of The Victoria County History for Bedfordshire was published in 1912 and details the history of manors in Riseley. The Manor of Lawrence can first be identified in 1279 when William Lawrence held it from the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John of Jerusalem. The manor comprised 2¾ virgates.

The next certain reference is not until 1489 when Robert Broughton died whilst holding the manor from the knights. In 1514 his grandson of the same name sold the manor to Bishop of Winchester Richard Fox and others. By 1530 the manor had come into the possession of William Holgyll who quitclaimed it to Sir Anthony Oughtred. Two years later Outhtred's brother-in-law Sir Edward Seymour, later Lord Protector to Edward VI (1547-1553) and Duke of Somerset until his execution in 1552 alienated the manor to Sir John Saint John and others.

The manor remained in the possession of the Saint John family, Barons Saint John of Bletsoe from 1559, into the 20th century. A succession of Law of Property Acts in the 1920s effectively abolished manors in all but name. Notes by Bedfordshire and Luton Archive and Record Service staff [CRT130Riseley3] indicate that the site of the manor house may have been at a moated site called Machams Meece, the present Lodge Farm up a lane leading north-west from the join of Rotten Row and the Butts.

The arms of the Saint John family