A History of Preston
in Hertfordshire
“Rannulf, brother of Ilger, holds one hide in Stagnehou and William holds it of him. There is land for three ploughs (worked by three oxen apiece). On the demense is one (plough) and six villeins have another and there could be a third. There are two cottars and there is woodland to feed 20 swine. The land is worth fifty shillings; when received, it was worth 20 shillings.”
The location of the Stagenhoe mansion/Sue Ryder Care Home today.
The red square depicts 120 acres to illustrate the area of the manor in 1086
- The important St Albans Highway ran over the hill and passed through the manor of Stagenhoe. Passing drovers and pilgrims would have brought news of the outside world – of crusades and revolutions; the rise and demise of kings.
- From 1246 until 1366, Stagenhoe is mentioned frequently in documents – a knight’s fee; rights of warren (to kill game) and rights of hunting, hawking, killing beasts and fowls (provided this was not in the King’s forests). According to a charter of 1268/69 a tradition arose that the owner of Temple Dinsley at Preston had the right to stand on the front door of Stagenhoe on Christmas Day and fire off a gun.
- Toward the end of the thirteenth century, a monthly rental shows six named copyholders paying rents and later Lay Subsidies show a slight increase of tenants – so Stagenhoe had around the same density of population from Domesday.
- According to the Subsidies records from 1306 to 1314, the manor of Stagenhoe had grown by seventy acres. Later Subsidy Rolls show that the number of tenants had also increased by six, including a smith and a shepherd.
- There was an incident in the early fourteenth century when Thomas Horn of Stagenhoe was assaulted and robbed by Thomas Cranmer, William Swayn, Richard Shepherd and Robert Hayward ‘so that his life was despaired of’. They stole six florins worth 30/8d and his goods. Then again, Henry de Bungay and Bartholomew de Burghersh plundered another Stagenhoe tenant, Hugh Veysey and raped his wife. They were chased and caught at Cambridge where they were imprisoned – but later, they escaped.
- During the Black Death of 1349, Stagenhoe, like much of the surrounding Hertfordshire
countryside, suffered grievously -
the number of tenants dwindled and the Lord’s holding was left derelict and untilled.
- Edmund Pilkington lived at Stagenhoe and reared a family of seven there in a manor house that was not on the present site, but ‘at a lower level about the middle of the Park’. Hine suggests that if excavations were made, ‘it would probably be found that the building was of Tottenhoe stone and of modest dimensions’.
- Re: leisure pursuits at Stagenhoe. As the Lords had rights noted earlier they would have hawked and hunted. Some of the field names perhaps hint of archery and country dancing – ‘Butts Mead’ and ‘Morris Croft’
- By the beginning of the 1600s, the Stagenhoe estate had grown to around four hundred acres – probably the result of the Earl of Derby’s acquisitions.
- Richard Hale was a benefactor to the poor people of the parish of ‘Paules Walden’, making a bequest of £3 6s 8d to them in his will.
- Hine mentions that there is a deposit of the Hale Household and Accounts Books at
the British Museum. From these it is possible to follow the day-
to- day life at Stagenhoe and Kings Walden. He writes that it is a remarkable collection that should be transcribed as a record of English estate life in those days.
- During the stay of the Hales family, the estates of Stagenhoe and Kings Walden were administered together. Thus, although the family coach was kept at Kings Walden, the family who lived at Stagenhoe used it for their frequent visits to London. From there, provisions were brought for both houses.
- During the English Civil War, the Hales took little interest in the uprising although they declared themselves as being for the Parliamentary cause. A nephew raised a horse troop and was forever quartering it at Stagenhoe and Kings Walden. This caused Rose Hale and her son Rowland some disquiet and expense – ‘Since the beginnings of April, there is taxed upon this parish near nine score pounds and what is to follow, God knoweth’.
Owners and tenants of Stagenhoe: 1086-
Rannulf -
Simon Fitzsimon of Weston.
John de Verdun and heirs, John, Thomas and John.
Sir John Pilkington and heirs, Edmund and Sir Thomas.
Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby and heirs, Thomas, Edward, Henry and Fernando.
The Hale family: Richard, William and Rose, Rowland and Sir John.
Rose Hale (Sir John’ widow) married Sir John Austen. Their heir -
The Heysham family: Robert, Robert, Giles Thornton, Robert, Robert Thornton the Younger.
Baron Feversham
Henry Rogers
The Fourteenth Earl of Caithness
Sir Arthur Sullivan
William Bailey-
Sir Henry Whitehead
Dorothy Gertrude Dewar
1086
1246
1270
1380
1489
1595
1672
1703
1830
1841
1866
1881
1889
1923
1932
Historical Jottings about Stagenhoe 1246 -
A new mansion at Stagenhoe circa 1650
According to Chauncy, the Hertfordshire historian, John Hale rebuilt the manor house at Stagenhoe in about 1650. There is a surviving bill dated 1648 for charges incurred from the pulling down of ‘the old house’. Capital for the rebuilding was raised in part by the selling of timber in Frydays Wood in 1649 where more than nine acres was cleared.
Some details of the construction of the new house survive: carpenters were employed
for sixty-
A sketch of the new mansion from around 1700 depicts stag hounds in full cry, horns
blasting, whippers-
The plague of 1665 affected Stagenhoe. One of the tenants, Mr Warner ‘and his entire family perished’.
In 1698, the estate had 28 tenants, paying rent of £66. Five were Chalkleys – others included John Slow, Thomas Prudden, John Tuffnayle, Humphrey Manfeilds, Thomas Younge and Father Nutting. The state was sold by Sir Robert Hale to Robert Heysham, a London draper, for £18,284 in 1703.
In 1737, ‘about 12 at night on 29 November a fire broke out at Stagenhoe and in a few hours burnt down this fine seat’. Losses amounted to £10,000. ‘It was occasioned by workmen running of lead for weights in some new buildings just finished’. Only the cellars and lower portion of the stables and parts of the Jaden House (sic) remained.
Stagenhoe rebuilt by 1740
The mansion was rebuilt over three years in the Palladium style and the Heysham’s
returned to it in 1740. Twenty-
Giles successor was Robert Thornton Heysham who married the Pauls Walden girl, Hannah Jepp, daughter of Jonathan. As the Jepps bought property at Preston Green, it is worthwhile mentioning them – Richard Jepp of Stagenhoe bottom Farm is included in the Poor Law accounts between 1768 and 1792.
Perhaps as a result of the smallpox outbreak, Robert had a ‘Pesthouse’ built a short distance from Pauls Walden, in a belt of trees opposite the entrance to the Hoo. Here were taken victims of smallpox who were provided with bundles of straw. It was not easy to make the sufferers go, nor keep them – the accounts record the spending of 4s 11d on the windows that Widow Bailey broke.
The diet was ‘generous’ – if the inmates were to die, they went in style! The standing dish was pork that was washed down with gin and wine. The patients were nursed by Dame Eves (in between her consumption of quarts of beer). Dr Vaudeval bled the inmates and apothecary Joseph Pilgrim ‘physicked ‘them. When the ministrations failed, John Hill made the coffins, and William Jeeves, the shrouds.
The Lord of the Manor was also the local magistrate and heard local cases in the Justices room at Stagenhoe – Sarah Agnell was examined as she was ‘with child’ and Shambrook’s ring, marriage fees and beer at the wedding were financed.
Robert Heysham expanded the Stagenhoe estate acquiring 117 acres in Kings and St Pauls Walden. The field names on the Stagenhoe estate that appeared between 1780 and 1835 were recorded by Hine as follows:
Horse Docks
Scotch Croft
Jaydons Pasture
Fox Fields
Chestnut Piece
Buckwheat Piece
Bushy Close
Lower Nutbeams
Gracious Street
Tayle End
Upper Gawns
Dolesome Mead
Hanging Lands
Great Lunsdown
Huntley Grove
Thistle Croft
Crow End
Great Marrions
Buttrys Close
Squires Wick
Nest Hales
Hither Lye
Curritts
Church Leys
Shacklegate
Lincolns Wood
Peddars Close
Frogmore Head
Great Bummers
Hunting Grove
Hag Dell
Dane Hill
Butts Mead
Popes Croft
Bran Furlong
Cherry Orchard
Puddle Dock
Hungry Hill
Fingles Close
Frydays Crofts
Pinfold Wood
Great Jaydin
Bradley Bury
What follows is another list, this time of Stagenhoe tenants, farm-
Robert Swincoke
Sarah Funeral
John Threepeck
William Honour
Hannah Tapster
Henry Armarous
William Wicketts
John Reason
Neale Adams
Ann Harriott
Eliza Bunn
Martha Lobb
Susanna Thickpenny
Dinah Sewdle
Thomas Maudlin
Robert Tipler
Mary Skippet
William Nightingale
Humphrey Dearne
Elizabeth Pancoast
John Joyner
William Heath
John Haggard
Joseph Pilgrim
Henry Blacknoe
Sykes Pettit
When the purse strings of country gentlemen began to be stretched during the French revolution and the Napoleonic Wars and in order to pay for additions to the estate, Thornton Heysham was forced to execute a mortgage of £11,000, land elsewhere was sold, Stagenhoe Bottom Farm was let out to William Bates of Harpenden and the mansion was taken by the wealthy Carbonell family who were wine importers.
It proved impossible to save the estate which was finally sold to Charles Baron Feversham of Duncombe Park, York for £25,000. After mortgages had been satisfied, Heysham was left with £1,278 – a sad ending for a family that had rebuilt the mansion and improved the land for more than a century.
Included among the farm labourers of the estate during the early nineteenth century were John Bunyan, James Fobler, Luke Church, James Halfpenny and Charles Butter. Some Irish labour was used and old men from St Pauls Walden were used for docking, rat killing, mole catching, hollow draining, bean setting, hulming or yelming and cleaning out the horse pond.
The Lord Feversham owned Stagenhoe for a mere six years. He probably intended that it should be the country seat of one of his sons, but this they didn’t want, so the property was sold in 1841 for £29,500 to Henry Rogers who enjoyed the estate with his four sons.
A new entrance at the Hitch Wood point of entry was constructed (Thornhill’s Lodge); an artificial warth for foxes, built; a lake was dug in the park that contained pike and a light railway was engineered. The brick and lime kilns were put into working order, chalk pits were utilised to lime the land, sand was discovered and dug at Stagenhoe Bottom and an archery ground was laid out beyond the Wilderness. The Rogers’ brothers also played cricket on the home pitch sited on Dovehouse Close (known affectionately as Duffers’ Close)
The Rogers attended St Pauls Walden Church and had two Stagenhoe faculty pews that
stood together on the right-
There was an inheritance controversy following Henry Roger’s death. His eldest son, Henry jnr, swore a declaration that he recalled destroying in a fire three deeds of conveyance from his father to his three younger brothers and that a charge on the estate to his brother Thomas of £200 pa was also burnt. He claimed it was his father’s wish.
The early nineteenth century
Lord Caithness and the Duchess de Medina Pomar
Indemnities and releases were given by Henry Rogers jnr., however, and in 1869, Henry sold the estate (now 606 acres) to Lord Caithness for £37,700. An accompanying declaration to the Abstract of Title revealed some of Stangenhoe’s features: a waterfall and stewponds; a pheasant dell; a melon ground; an ice house and showed the St Albans Highway clearly traversing the estate from the direction of Preston and on to Kimpton.
In 1874, William Henry Darton sold more than 23 acres of Earns (or Herons) Field Wood to Lord Caithness for £1,000. The acreage was certified by George Wright of Preston Hill Farm who was ‘well acquainted with the tenure and position of the said wood’ as he had acted as Overseer and had therefore ‘beaten the bounds of the parish as an annual custom’.
Lord Caithness was accessible and affable – often dropping in on his tenants (and their wives) for a couple of hours chat and to down glasses of whisky. Once a month, the staff was given a dance in the servants’ hall. Hammond, the coachman, would play the fiddle and there were casks of beer on tap. Anyone in the village was welcome.
This gregariousness was possibly born of loneliness as the Lord’s wife died in 1870 shortly after coming to Stagenhoe. In 1872, he married a widow, Maria, the Duchess de Medina Pomar who was the daughter of Senor Don Jose de Mariategui. .
Lord Caithness spent thousands of pounds to bring Stagenhoe up to his new wife’s
standard of accustomed magnificence This renovation included the addition of a third
storey by the Hitchin builder, Jeeves. The Lord’s coat of arms and motto, ‘Commit
Thy Work To God’, was added to the pediment above the windows. The British Museum
has a pencil study by Buckler (25 June 1832) of the two-
Contemporaries describe the Duchess as ‘a massive, rather theatrical looking woman; flamboyant in her dress and liked wearing jewels even in daylight’. She believed in spiritualism and the occult and considered she was the reincarnation of Mary, Queen of Scots – even collecting personal relics of the Queen. The Duchess was possibly the last person to be buried in Holyrood Abbey, as was Mary.
Occasionally, séances were held at Stagenhoe that were attended by villagers and other Hertfordshire adherents. The ceiling of one of the rooms was painted with a pale blue sky, moons, planets and stars.
One of the footmen claimed he was a devotee in order to advance his prospects and was constantly consulted by his mistress about what he referred to (under the stairs) as her ‘fancies’. He was however unable to hide his surprise when the Duchess showed him a plant ‘the Spirit has bought me’ that he recognised as a geranium he had helped the head gardener bring into the house a few hours earlier.
Locals also recalled that she trained animals. At the conclusion of séances, she took her guests to the dining room where her dogs were set dancing and ‘doing all manner of absurd antics on the slippery surface of the mahogany table’.
The Duchess wrote several books about her beliefs and edited a monthly review, ‘L’Aurore du Jour Nouveau’. Stagenhoe was open house for poets, artists, spiritualists, magicians, healers and ‘a whole world of odd people’.
On Christmas Eve, there was a Grand Ball in the drawing room to which the local trades-
Stagenhoe Park in 1905
When Lord Caithness died in 1881, a will could not be found. As a result, his successor let Stagenhoe to Lord Templemore and then Sir Arthur Sullivan. He wrote and produced ‘The Mikado’ and ‘The Golden Legend’. When he entertained ‘as many as thirty young ladies’ at weekends, locals deemed it a scandal and thought him to be a Bluebeard or a Mormon. They later realised he was merely giving the chorus girls a pleasant weekend in the country!
On the death of the 15th Earl of Caithness (and following much pedigree research),
the estate was sold to William Bailey-
The drainage system was also renovated and the sewers were laid along the front of the house under flagstones, down the Lime Avenue and thence into a little wood planted for the purpose. During the excavations, the mansion began to settle and was supported by two iron girders in the cellars. It was during this work that a secret passage was discovered leading (so it was said) in the direction of St Pauls Walden Church. This was bricked up so its destination and purpose are unknown.
Close to the mansion, a cricket ground was laid-
Bailey-
The gardens of Stagenhoe became an attraction and landscape design became a hobby of the new owner. An article in Gardeners Magazine (30 April, 1910) described the layout in detail.
Following Bailey-
However, Sir Henry’s tenure was brief – he died on 29 February 1928 and his wife sold the estate to Dorothy Dewar in 1932.
Stagenhoe is a small settlement located just over a mile south-
The name, Stagenhoe, probably derives from the Old English words, stacgena hoh meaning ‘spur of land of the stags’.
The first recorded historical mention of the manor of Stagenhoe is in the Domesday Book (1086):
So, Stagenhoe was a small community of one hide -
Since this article was originally written, three e-
Dorothy Gertrude Dewar died in June 1943. Marion wrote to say that a friend was born
at Stagenhoe in December 1944. The mansion was then a nursing home -
The birth certificate records that the person attending the birth was ‘E E Hughesdon’
-
Then Rene wrote from France that her parents had sent her Stagenhoe Park -
She reported that the school had eighty to ninety pupils who were aged between six
and twelve. Rene recalls that the school had relocated to Stagenhoe in the previous
year. ‘The park looked half abandoned, the meadow needed to be mown -
The headmaster was Mr Griffith -
Recently, Rene’s recollections were confirmed by Jeremy. He wrote, ‘The school moved
to Stagenhoe Park in 1946 following the war, from Northaw House (near Potters Bar),
becoming Stagenhoe Park Preparatory School. (It was) started by my grandparents in
the late 1920s. The House was rented by my grandfather, Paul Griffith, who ran the
boarding school together with my grandmother, Daphne. The school continued at Stagenhoe
until mid-
‘(The photographs below are of) my grandparents and their family are on the verandah at the top of the steps leading down to the garden (the stone sleeping lions that sit on each side of the steps are there to this day); my grandfather seated with the family dogs, and of myself with my grandparents again on the verandah’.
‘The school continued at Stagenhoe until mid-
‘I have attached an aerial photo of the school taken approximately mid-
‘The Old Boys of the school have planted trees at Stagenhoe in memory of both of my grandparents, and of George Walker who was head teacher at the school for over 40 years.’
The Sue Ryder Foundation at Stagenhoe
In the summer of 1969, The Sue Ryder Foundation acquired the mansion – purchasing
the house, walled gardens, the lawns and shrubbery. The remainder of the estate was
sold separately to local landowners and farmers. The short-
Miss Ryder had married Group Captain Leonard Chesire (well known for his own philanthropic
homes for the disabled) and already held two homes at Cavendish in Suffolk (purchased
in 1951) and Hickleton Hall in Yorkshire. During the Second World War, she had co-
In 1971, Stagenhoe was home to forty-
At first, accommodation at Stagenhoe was somewhat austere – a wardrobe, a chest of
drawers and one carpet. Despite gifts of second-
Later, in 1984, there were seventy-
Today, the Sue Ryder Care Centre at Stagenhoe has forty-
Views of the Stagenhoe mansion circa 1970
Including (above) the lodge gates and (far left) the gates to the kitchen garden. (Note the stags)
Arthur Cook was the under-
Arthur and his wife, Ivy, (right) lived at the Lodge (shown above) which was tied
accommodation. This was divided into two homes -
One of Arthur’s duties was to clean the shoes of boarders when they put them outside their doors at bedtime.
Bundled with the type-
Hine had just finished his History of Hitchin when he wrote on 2 January, 1935, ‘I am glad you feel disposed to have some research done into the history of Stagenhoe.....it is a work that should have been undertaken years ago...’
He continued, ‘But of course the main labour and cost of research would lie in examining the stacks of manuscript material relating to this county and sifting them again for Stagenhoe: Patent Rolls, Close Rolls, Domestic State Papers, Assize Rolls and Papers, Pipe Rolls, Inquisitions, Charter Rolls, Quarter Session Rolls, Manor and Court Rolls, Wills, Feoffments and Title Deeds, Household Account Books, Diaries, letters etc. It means turning over some thousands of documents, but I am inclined to think it would be worth while and you would at any rate know that every possible avenue of information had been explored. A mere casual or surface browsing over the obvious sources would hardly be worth undertaking.’
The following Sunday, Hine travelled to London to meet Major Dewar at Mayflair Place to discuss the details. Following this, he wrote on 15 February, ‘As a writer I have always declined to handle any subject unless it appealed to me, for without that personal interest there can be no heart, no keeness in any kind of work. I must say I have taken a liking to Stagenhoe and its present owner at first sight.....And perhaps (who knows?) you have a secret passage that may lead on to the discovery of treasure, buried in haste by the Knights Templar centuries ago! I am sceptical about that, but let us rest in hope’.
With this letter, Hine enclosed an agreement that he would produce his history of not less than 100 foolscap pages for £250 plus expenses not later than twelve months after the agreement was signed. The contract was to be signed over a 6d stamp. He also mentioned that he had contacted the curators of Hertford, St Albans, Welwyn and Letchworth Museums asking them to list their holdings about Stagenhoe according to their card indexes..
On 26 November 1935, Hine wrote, ’The good work on Stagenhoe goes forward and I get so interested in it, I cannot keep it as short as I intended. He reported, ‘120 pages already typed’.
When the history was completed, a cheque for £256 11s was sent to Hine on 13 July 1936.
Reginald Hine -
Dave Driver writes from Australia: ‘I was born there on the 11 of Aug 1941, my family lived in East London E17. Evidently the bombing had been bad, and they were sending Mums to country areas. I remember my Mum and Dad taking me to look atwhere I was born in the early 50s, but have never seen it since. Bit posher than E17.
I have been in Western Australia since 1972.’
Oliver Britton writes: ‘I have just visited your site having Googled Stagenhoe. I
was a pupil at the school 1956 to 1960. Whilst I have not kept up with any of my
fellow pupils I remember the school with affection. It provided me with four very
happy years with an enormous amount of outdoor life:in the woods, using the sporting
facilities which were simple and a certain amount of forced labour as we were sent
out with boy-
What is described on your site as a tennis court was used as a basketball court (and,
in various games that we played, as a prisoner of war camp on account of the wire-
Before it moved to Stagenhoe the school had a number of what we called White Russian pupils among whom were the famous Prince Obolenski who later played for England and died during WWII in the air force. he was one of 12 alumni who were killed during the war and who were commemorated by shield of their respective regiments or squadrons in the wood panelled dining room. There were still a number of highly anglicised White Russian boys in my time.
Apart from cricket, rugby ('rugger' in those days), football, golf and tennis we
were lucky to have a squash court. Croquet in the summer was available and year round
there was table tennis and billiards and snooker (on a full size table) and a half-