Shefford Hardwick Manor

Volume III of The Victoria County History for Bedfordshire, published in 1912, gives the history of Shefford Hardwick Manor. The volume states that William de Caron's half virgate of land recorded by the Domesday Book of 1086 must have lain in Shefford Hardwick, as the family was recorded living there in 1298.

The manor is first encountered in the historical record in 1562 when Peter Grey conveyed it to John Whitbread. His son William Whitbread sold it in 1589 to Robert Barbour whose son, another Robert, sold it in 1614 to William Goldsmith of Campton who died around 1640.

In 1650 the manor, called Hardwick Manor, was in the possession of Robert Staunton, whose family still had it in 1672. By the end of the 17th century it seems to have belonged to the Pickering family  and in 1764 half of it was owned by Miss Dorothy Elizabeth Pickering.

The manor is last mentioned in sale particulars of 1810 [WW205] and 1813 [Z575/492]. At the latter sale Shefford Hardwick Farm, perhaps the manorial seat, was purchased by Samuel Whitbread the younger.