By Jocelyn Wingfield

For the purposes of this article a family “ancestral home” is defined as “a very substantial residence occupied by the Wingfields for a minimum of three generations or 100 years, plus Stonely Priory and Norton House, Sheffield.”

Castles that serve or served as Wingfield ancestral homes, such as Kimbolton, Powerscourt, Sherborne and Stone, are omitted since they have already been covered in “16 Family Castles” and Powerscourt House, Dublin has been covered in Newsletter IV, 3, 7].

Large dower houses (widow’s houses) are listed with the main house. The main Wingfield Ancestral Home of Letheringham Hall with Godwin’s Hoo then the White House at Easton, have been covered in the same issue. None of the homes still extant is open to the public, but you can stay as a paying guest (“P. G.”) at Tickencote Hall. Those visible from the road are anno­tated with an asterisk. If they are so visible and definitely worth viewing and photographing, they are marked thus: **

Since the Wingfields were such a prolific family with so many branches, there are inevitably a large number of residences, which can aptly be described as ancestral homes – most of them being occupied at some stage by descendants of the Letheringham Wingfields. Barrington Park near Burford, Oxfordshire is omitted.

**1. Broughton Hall, Stonham Aspal, Suffolk.  Held in 1596 as “Upton Manor” by Ralph Scrivener, father of Matthew Scrivener, fellow-colonist at Jamestown in 1608 with Captain Edward-Maria Wingfield. In 1667 Amy Morgan, aged about 20, married An­thony Wingfield I of Ipswich & Nettlestead, Citizen of London, draper, widower, thereby bringing beautiful Tudor moated Broughton Hall to the Wingfield family. This house is truly a gem. Anthony didn’t personally hold a Manorial Court until 1698! Broughton Hall stayed in the family for three generations, passing in the third generation to each of three brothers in turn. The last Wingfield owner was Thomas Wingfield, who died in 1762, and the house passed in 1764 to the Crespigny family.  Owner of the house today is David Tydeman, who in 1989 kindly showed the WFS the statue of Anthony Wingfield III (d. 1714) there, and also his own wonderful home, visible from the churchyard path, just off the A1120.

**2. Clarke Hall alias Bradford Hall, Wakefield, West Yorks. Half way be­tween the centre of Stanley and the centre of Wakefield (one mile in all) lies Clark Hall built in 1542 on the site of a much older house. A gem, an attractive Tudor house, now a “House Museum”, owned by lived in by the Wingfields from 1626 to 1711. Before 1677 it was called Stanley Hall alias Bradford Hall. Humphrey Wingfield (1587-1628), 2nd cousin and contemporary of Humphrey Wingfield III of Brantham, and great grandson of Sir Thomas Pargiter, Lord Mayor of London, got into debt and removed from Suffolk to the north, to Stanley, where in 1626 he purchased the house, Bradford Hall, [Grid Refer­ence 342220, on the east side of the A642], one mile NW of the Kay family’s Heath Hall, Kirkthorpe [355204], ap­parently the family home of Captain Edward-Maria Wingfield’s stepmother, Margaret Kay. Heath Hall is today open to the public. There was another Stanley Hall “adjoining Bradford Hall which was that was 1591-1616, the seat of the Savilles.

Humphrey Wingfield married Priscilla Fleming, daughter of John Lyon, medicus, of Wakefield on Aug. 15, 1618. The house passed to their son, Ferdinando Wingfield I (bap.1621, named for Sir Ferdinando Gorges, contemporary and fellow-prisoner of the Spaniards of Cap­tain Edward-Maria Wingfield in 1588 [Virginia’s True Founder, p.66] and his wife, Margaret Storie. Margaret was raised there and then lived there until Ferdinando’s death in 1660.

Margaret raised their children there, and the son and heir, John, lead mer­chant, lived there with his wife, Mary Clarke (daughter of Chesterfield vintner, Richard Clarke and sister of Sir Samuel Clarke, Knight Sheriff of London), until 1677, when John sold the house and 100 acres to his brother-in-law, Ben­jamin Clarke of Hanworth, a hamlet 3 miles NW of Erpingham, Norfolk, Com­missioner for the Duke of Norfolk. He had married Priscilla Wingfield, Ferdinando’s and Margaret’s daughter, who tragically, (as Mrs. Robert Watson) burned to death in 1711, in her chamber there at Clarke Hall, as her husband, Benjamin had renamed Bradford Hall. Benjamin and Priscilla rebuilt the north front in 1680.

Benjamin Clarke’s great grandson, Dr .Samuel Pegge II the antiquarian (1733-1800), a groom of King George II’s privy chamber about 1752 (the year England “skipped” 2-13 September!), was to inherit the house from his first cousin, Wingfield Clarke in 1750, but he did not live there. He wrote “The Gene­alogy of the Newton and Wingfield Fami­lies” by 1781. This old home is today a Museum, showing how Benjamin Clarke and his wife, Priscilla Wingfield lived in the 1670s. Well worth a visit. A beautiful house with fascinating interior and con­tents, restored and furnished to 1670s standards. Children visit in school groups and with servants of the old household ­all in 1670s dress – churn butter, spin cloth or spit-roast chickens. In the upper hall there is a priest’s hole – a room behind the fireplace, reached through the roof of a cupboard at the top of the stairs.

3. Crowfield Hall, Suffolk. Inherited by Elizabeth nee Harbottle, wife of Henry Wingfield [Letheringham-Crowfield Line] in 1598 and left to their son, Harbottle Wingfield I, the keen genealogist (b. 1583 and his papers given in 1683 to John Gibbon, Blue Mantle, College of Arms, back from Virginia). Harbottle was mar­ried to Elizabeth Scrivener, sister of Mat­thew Scrivener (who joined Captain Edward-Maria Wingfield in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. (Wingfield-Scrivener arms can be seen today on the floor of the **beautiful, wooden-timbered Crowfield church under the aisle carpet, NE end). Crowfield Hall was down the track (drive) beside the church – a fascinating site. Dying in 1661 their son, Henry, left Crowfield to his son & heir, Harbottle Wingfield II [Copinger, 11,295], who sold it to Daniel Browning of Twickenham, Surrey, between 1661 and 1674, emi­grating to Port Royal, Jamaica, in 1674. It is not known when the house was demolished, but the site and the church are worth a visit.

4. Letheringham (Old) Hall, Suffolk.(1362-c.1626-1708-1770). Letheringham and Goodwins Hoo (half a mile to NW) and The White House, Easton (half a mile to the east) for the purposes of this article are counted as one home.

Letheringham Manor and the moated Mansion of the Boviles came to the Wingfields in about 1362. when Marga­ret Bovile daughter & heir of Sir Thomas Bovile and widow of Sir William Carbonell of Badingham, Suffolk, married Sir Tho­mas Wingfield, younger brother of Sir John Wingfield of Wingfield, Chief of Staff of the Black Prince. It must have been a vast house to cope with, in the 1440s, some 13 children (“the Elizabeth nee Fitzlewis brood”, 5 were knighted) with the heir’s 16 children (“the Anne nee Touchet brood”, 9 were knighted) in the next, in the late 1470s. Sir John and Elizabeth died as late as 1481 and c.1499 respectively, so the house must have needed an overflow.

Henry VIII’s sister Mary, the late Queen of France, Duchess of Suffolk, godmother of Captain Edward-Maria Wingfield’s father (christening at Calais, 1513) was entertained there by the Wingfields, Sir Anthony Wingfield (who was to become her brother’s Vice-Chamberlain etc.), when Mary wrote a letter from “Letheryngham” on Sep.9,1516 and in another letter dated Sep.28,1516 to Henry VIII, Mary refers to a visit she made to Letheringham Hall. [Jocelyn R. Wingfield, Virginia’s True Founder, p.10; P.C. Rushen, Transcripts of the Parish of Letheringham, 1901]. According to Chapman, the Wingfields held Letheringham Hall “of Charles Bran­don, Duke of Suffolk” as opposed to “of Henry VIII”. [H. Chapman, The Sisters of Henry VIII, 1969, 192-3]. Lived in by the I lead of the Family until around 1628 presumably, when Sir Anthony Wingfield moved to Goodwins. Sold in 1708.

5. Godwins Place alias Goodwins Hoo, near to Letheringham. Strangely, Sir Anthony Wingfield (1600-38), son of Sir Anthony Wingfield “of Letheringham and of Goodwins”, the Letheringham heir, husband (1628) of Anne nee Deane, was created a Baronet “of Goodwins” on May 17, 1627. “He removed from Letheringham, the mansion in that place being very old, to a great house called Goodwin’s in the manor of Hoo [about half a mile away from the great house at Letheringham – JRW]. This manor of Hoo was held with Richmont Honour [?] … it seems to have passed from the family of de Hoo to that of Wingfield… Sir William de Hoo, son and heir of Thomas Hoo, [Collector of the Revenues for Tho­mas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk. [SIANH, 1889, p.60 n.13]]. Sir William died 1362, married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Thomas and Margaret Boville Wingfield. The widow of her son leased it to John Godyn, who built the house called Godyn’s, or Goodwin’s, (which was afterwards occupied by Sir Anthony Wingfield. [c.1628?]) … John Mowbray leased the manor – which was a consider­able estate – to Sir John Wingfield [d. 1389] together with the Hundred of Loes. Sir Anthony [d.1630, or his son, Sir Richard “of Letheringham & Easton” (1631-56) – Wingfield Muniments, Lord Powerscourt] pulled down a great part of that house [?Goodwins,Hoo] and made use of the materials in building his seat at Easton.” [Blomfield, History of Norfolk, I, pp.100-101 and John Kirby, The Suf­folk Traveller, 1732-34, (scores of Wingfield references), Hundred of Loes, p.107; q. at Muniments, p.30;]. Godwin’s Place, was recently occupied by a USAAF serviceman from Bentwaters Airbase.

**6. The White House, Easton, near to Letheringham. [Yes, the Wingfields owned “The White House” – not “that one” – in the 17th Century and another one in Shrewsbury!]. According to Mee it was built by Sir Anthony Wingfield, 1st Bart., in 1627.[Suffolk, 1941, 135]. According to Comthorp, Sir Henry Wingfield, 5th Baronet, 1655-dsp. 1712), sold Letheringham and Easton “about 1700” to the Earl of Rochfort in the reign of William III (1688-1702); but we know from WFS MS02/1708, the Letheringham Sale Document, that he sold them all in 1708 to Ann Wroth, spinster, (Executors: John Wroth of Loughton, Essex, William son of “the late” Anthony Guidott, both of Lincoln’s Inn, John Morley of Halsted, Essex, and the duel-crazy young gambler, the Right Honourable Charles Lord Mohun, Baron Oakhampton in 1708) for 23,215 pounds sterling, a stupendous sum. (Was Ann his lover? Can you work it out from WFS Manuscript MS04/1708? – copies avail­able from the Wingfield Store). [Comthorp’s “Ex.l Baronetcy”, pp.212-218q. in Muniments, p.32; WFS MSO4/1708, 13 pages]. Besides two family brasses in the church, there is also [east wall, left], a colored picture of the magnificent hatchment [shield bearing the coat of arms] of Susan Wingfield nee Jacob, wife of Sir Richard Wingfield, Bt.(1631-52).

Sir Henry Wingfield. 4th Bt., the heir to the Letheringham Hall estates – but not described as “of Letheringham” etc. – (whose father, Sir Richard, had been killed in action when he was one) had died in 1677, having had his leg shot off by a cannonball at Durward in Lorraine. His wife, Mary nee Touchet, eldest daughter of the Earl of Castlehaven in Ireland, raised (as Catholics) the Letheringham heir, Henry Jr., (who inherited the title aged 5), together with his 2-year-old brother, Mervyn (who was to succeed him as the 6th and last baronet), at Southcote Park, Reading, Berkshire. Since both boys were christened there at St. Mary’s, Reading, it would seem that after the 1670s none of the Wingfields actually lived at Letheringham. Sir Henry Wingfield, the 5th Baronet, the last Wingfield to be described as “of Letheringharn”, began to mortgage the Letheringham estates from early 1694, just after he came of age. [WFS MSO4/ 1708, p.2]. Sir Mervyn Wingfield, 6th and last baronet, originally “of Grenan, County Westmeath, Ireland”, inherited but the title (in 1712) and died as “of St.Andrew’s Holborn” (the old London parish of the Kimbolton Wingfields).

“The Shire Hall [of St. Audry’s Lib­erty] of Wickham Market was removed [pre-1700] by a Wingfield Lord of the Manor, and a house therewith built on the moated site of the Wingfields ances­tral home beside the old 16th century bridge at Letheringham and was called Letheringham Old Hall ”  Lord Powerscourt is quoting Kirby here. Scarfe believes that the Wickham Mar­ket Shire Hall may have been rebuilt at moated Letheringham Lodge (quarter of a mile south of Letheringham Hall), but agrees that its reconstruction at Letheringham Old Hall then was pos­sible. [Kirby, Suffolk Traveller; Muniments; N. Scarfe, The Suffolk Land­scape, 1972, p.41 & below plates 29 & 30.]. I agree with Scarfe. I can see no reason for the Wingfields to build up Letheringham Hall after the 1670s.

“The noble old hall of Letheringham was pulled down about the year 1770, and the fine collection of portraits for which it was celebrated, passed probably into possession of the Leman family” (who held Wingfield Castle). The owner of the attractive farmhouse, Letheringham Old Hall today is Mrs. Jean Clarke.

Letheringham (Austin) Priory with 4 black canons lay next to the Church of St. Mary of Trew at Letheringham. Letheringham Priory was granted in 1535-6 (at the dissolution of the Monas­teries) when worth 27 pounds to Sir Anthony Wingfield, K. G. (d.1552), who left it to his daughter, Elizabeth, wife of William Naunton. Their grandson, Sir Robert Naunton, Secretary of State to James I, built a new, huge house there c.1600 that they called Letheringham Abbey (a misnomer). In 1674 it had 37 hearths. This had both wings pulled down (also) about 1770, but the centre still stood in 1928, when a picture of it appeared in the Suffolk Chronicle & Mercury dated June 8,1928. [Dugdale’s Monasticon, VI, 1830, p.596; Camden’s Britannia, 1789, II, 86; SIANH XX, 1, 1928, pp.8-10; 1761 watercolor, Christie’s Sep.19,1978, lot 5]. Only the site of Letheringham Abbey and the (Priory) gatehouse remains today.

**7   Market Overton, Rutland. In the family for 8-9 generations and about 330 years. The Manor was held 1369-97 by the Dennington Wingfields of the Earl of Oxford. In 1629 Sheriff of Rutland, Sir Richard Wingfield (1602-63), godson of Marshal the Viscount Powerscourt [his 1631 will], uncle of Thomas Wingfield of York River, Virginia (1680), held the Lordship of the Manor of Tickencote and of Market Overton, including the Rec­tory. In the vestry in the church are both a picture of the earnest-looking, well-built, bewigged Reverend John Wingfield (1734-73), who was Lord of the Manor & Rector & Patron of Tickencote and Mar­ket Overton and a picture of the large, jovial Reverend Lancelot Wingfield, who was Rector here 1856-91 and who be­came curate of Stroud and Canon of Rochester, Kent. Market Overton stayed in the family until Colonel Johnny Wingfield of Tickencote, author of “Some Records of the Wingfield Family“, sold it prior to 1931.

An attractive Georgian rectory, no longer in the family, is to be seen at Market Overton today and the church is full of Tickencote Wingfield memorials.

Onslow, Shrewsbury, Shrop­shire. And the White House, Shrewsbury and Dinthill Hall, half a mile SW of Onslow across the park. Onslow [grid reference 437129], formerly the seat of the Onslow family, was purchased in 1778 by Rowland Wingfield of Preston Brockhurst (1727-1818), High Sheriff of Shropshire 1753. His son, Colonel John Wingfield (b.1769), High Sheriff 1824, Mayor of Shrewsbury 1833, re­built a vast Georgian mansion in 1820-24. Dying without issue in 1862, Onslow passed to his brother, the Rev.

Charles I (1770-97) and then to Charles’s son Colonel Charles II (1833-91), High Sheriff 1873, author of the fascinating unpublished Crimean Campaign Letters; and thence to Colonel Charles III, Mayor of Shrewsbury 1911, 1912, 1914, High Sheriff 1913; and then to Charles Wingfield IV. He and Maxine Wingfield pulled the huge old house down in 1950 and built the present modem house ­which was visited by the WFS in 1991.

The dower house, Dinthill or Dintle Hall, still stands, half a mile west of Onslow. The White House, Shrewsbury was the Onslow Wingfields’ townhouse and was built by Samuel Wingfield (d.1672), the builder too of Preston Brockhurst, before the Civil War (1642-49). It remained in the family until after World War II.

**8     Preston Brockhurst Hall, Shrop­shire. Samuel Wingfield Esquire of the White Hall (1616-1672), son of Thomas Wingfield, Mayor of Shrewsbury, 1640, at the end of the Civil War (1642-49), purchased Preston Estate from the royal­ist, Sir Vincent Corbet, who had to sell it to pay Parliament a fine of £1588 plus £80 a year ransom. Samuel built Preston Brockhurst and this lovely house, visible today from the road, passed in the male Wingfield line to Samuel’s son, Thomas Wingfield Esquire (1644-1728), Sheriff of Shropshire 1692; then passed to his son, Borlase (1683-1775). Borlase left the Hall to his son Rowland Wingfield, who purchased Onslow in 1778 and left Preston (Brockhurst) Hall to his second son, the Reverend Charles Wingfield I (1770-1851). “The fair hall returned to the Corbetts in 1743. [Mrs. F. S. Acton, A Guide to the Old Mansions of Shropshire, 1142-1660, Shrewsbury, 1888, pp.53-54].

Thomas’s beloved sister, dear Peregrina Wingfield, is the Ghost of Preston Brockhurst. Tragically her fian­cee was killed in a duel in 1675 in the garden, so, aged 18, she hanged herself in the Hall. [Newsletter, V, 3, p.20]. No one can remember when Peregrine’s ghost was last seen, so perhaps it was only a couple of times in the 17th cen­tury. This lovely mid-17th century Wingfield-built house is the private home of Dr. Derek Owen. It is clearly visible standing back from the west side of the A49 Whitchurch-Shrewsbury road.

10. Rhysnant Hall, Four Crosses, Montgomeryshire alias Powys.. (Pro­nounced “Russnant”). The Rev. Rowland Wingfield, Canon of St.Asaph [Shropshire-Rhysnant Line] through his mother-in-law, Anne Clopton (descended from Gualthur de Goncourt of Suffolk, created Lord of Clopton c.1066 – & Clopton Comer is next to Letheringham!), “inherited the Clopton estates including Rhysnant”. Walter Clopton built the 1680s-90s Rhysnant Hall half a mile from the site of the Penrhyn family’s old home – in Llandrinino Parish by the Rhysnant Brook, half a mile southwest of where the B4393 crosses the A483. In 1830-31 he rebuilt the old Hall. The house, famous for its beautiful oak carv­ings including the main staircase and coats of arms, passed in 1846 with 2912 acres to his son, Major Clopton Wingfield (1800-46, served in India, China and Canada) and then to his son Walter Clopton Wingfield (1833-1912), the in­ventor of Lawn Tennis in 1874, who was born in Canada in 1833. Walter only lived there (and before Owen Wingfield was the only Wingfield to live there) from 1864 to about 1867. In 1900 Walter sold most of Rhysnant’s contents; and a wonderful little Wingfield coat of arms, carved in wood, from that sale, belongs today to the WFS.

Walter died in 1912 and Rhysnant passed to his sister, Jane who had married in 1865 their 2nd cousin, Charles Wingfield II of Onslow. Dying in 1923 Jane Wingfield left Rhysnant to her grandson, Owen Wingfield, (brother of Charles Wingfield IV of Onslow) who pulled down the Hall between 1976 and 1985 and built a modem house on the site. It lies in a small park and contains the raised site of a small and very early tennis court – some claim “the earliest” [Daily Telegraph, Peterborough, August 10, 1976], (but George Alexander, Walter’s biographer, denies that this court is that old) outside the front door. [Col. Bobby Wingfield, 1986; George E. Alexander, Wingfield Edwardian Gentleman, 7-8 etc., includ­ing the gypsy curse put on the house; Alfred Mansell, Jan 28 & 29, 1900 Sale of Rhysnant Hall & 216 acres, Paintings by Jansen, Lely, Kneller, Durer, Rubens, & 1000 volumes of “rare and quaint old books”, rateable value £260, sold at 5s-1 is per book; Mansell, Estate Agents, Rhysnant Sales Brochure, Sep 16, 1976].

“11. Stonely Priory, Hunts. Stonely was founded for Austin Canons (Augus­tinian monks, commonly called Black Friars), probably by William, Earl of Essex, in about 1220. By 1442 the priory’s canons numbered just six. It was de­scribed at its Dissolution in 1534 as having an annual revenue of £46 and ­except for the church – to be “in decay and ruin”. [G. Proby & I. Ladds, editors, Victoria County History of Huntingdonshire, II, 81, London, 1932].

Having leased the beautiful, moated STONELY PRIORY for six years from the Crown (i.e King Henry VIII), Sir Oliver & Lady (Frances) Leeder were in 1544 granted the priory’s “site and appurte­nances”. In 1552, when Jamestown’s future first President of the Council was but two, the Leeders sold STONELY PRIORY to the infant Edward-Maria Wingfield’s parents: Thomas-Maria Sr. and Margaret Wingfield. Thomas-Maria Wingfield died when his son and heir was but seven.

It was probably here in 1608 that Captain Edward-Maria Wingfield wrote his spirited A Discourse of Virginia. He held STONELY until his death in or after 1620. “Built in an L-shaped plan with wings extending north and east,

STONELY PRIORY is probably of 16th century origin, but [was] almost entirely rebuilt in the first half of the 17th cen­tury”, reported the British 1926 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments.  Much visited in 1943-46 by U.S. forces stationed in England and less so since, STONELY PRIORY is today a “listed” (protected) building, but not because of its Edward-Maria Wingfield connection.

It receives several mentions in Jocelyn R. Wingfield’s Virginia’s True Founder, Edward-Maria Wingfield & His Times, 1550 – ca. 1614, Wingfield Family Soci­ety, c/o WFS, 301 Belleview Blvd., Belleair, FL 33461, 1993].

**12. Tickencote Hall, Rutland. The pre-1433 mansion of the Daneys, was brought in 1594 into the Wingfield family as dowry, to Sir John Wingfield I (1st of 12 Johns & nephew of the great Lord Burghley) by Margaret Gresham nee Blyth, widow and heiress of Paul Gresham. Tickencote had in the 1530s belonged to the Fettiplaces, later to be settlers at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608 with Edward-Maria Wingfield. [VCH Rutland, II, 276 q. in Jocelyn R. Wingfield, Virginia’s True Founder, Edward-Maria Wingfield, 1993, p.250 & n.46]. In 1602 Sir John and Lady Elizabeth (Wingfield) moved in. In 1700 the Daneys’ Hall was for the most part demolished, but part of it was converted into a stable block and by 1706, Sir John Wingfield IV (1679-1734) had built a new Tickencote Hall. In 1872 a massive extension was built at the rear. In 1947 the main Hall was pulled down and the contents and site were sold.

The purchaser turned the stables (part pre-1433) into a lovely dwelling house, where the name Tickencote Hall survives. Peter & Tam Deardon kindly allowed the WFS to visit on two occasions in the last six years; and they now take “P.G.’s” [Paying Guests, Bed & Break­fast, c/o Wolsey Lodges]. Wingfields are welcome. Just off the Al northwest of Stamford.

“13.  Upton Manor, Lincs. In 1544 King Henry VIII granted Queen Jane Seymour’s former manor to Sir Robert Wingfield I (d.1576), the great great great grandfather of Thomas Wingfield of York River, Virginia (f1.1680). Sir Robert, of Wingfield House, County Middlesex, London, and his wife, Margery nee Quarles, called the Manor’s mansion house – you’ve guessed it – Wingfield Manor! This was very much a family habit. Described by Camden as “a beau­tiful house with lovely walks.” In 1562 the second Manor of Upton was sold by John Stidolf to Sir Robert Wingfield. [Bridges, Northamptonshire, 1741, II, 575; Camden, II, 1739, 167; VCH Northants, 508]. Sir Robert’s grandson, Sir Robert Wingfield III (d.1609) sold Upton Manor to Bishop Dove in about 1600. [See Newsletter VI,5,p. 38,40 about the Upton alias Tickencote Trea­sure; Laurence Tebbutt, A History of Upton Manor, in Cambs. , Huntingdon & Peterborough Life, XIV, No.169, July 1981].

“14.  The Vache, Bucks. Pronounced (the) “Vaytch”, it contains architecture from many periods, including Elizabe­than panelling and beams and Tudor fireplaces and chimneys. The original Lord of the Manor in the Conqueror’s day was called De La Vache. This family owned the house for 300 years. In the next 500 years there were 30 owners including the Wingfields. The owners pre­ceding the Wingfields had been the Fleetwoods, one of whom, Bridget nee Spring, later married Sir Robert Wingfield of Letheringham (d.1597). George Fleetwood, the regicide of 1649, had the Vache confiscated and, was deported to Tangiers in 1664, later fleeing to America. Tim Wingfield (of the mystery Berkshire Wingfields, just possibly an illegitimate line or from a “late-in-life marriage” on the Letheringham Branch – see LINKS #3.2), Sheriff of Aylesbury 1707-08, was Lord of the Manor of the Vache from a date between 1697 and 1707. On Sheriff Tim Wingfield’s death in 1725, the Vache passed to his son, Nathaniel, after whose death in or before 1763, it left the family. A picture of the house in Wingfield times, c.1750, is shown in the NCB Booklet, “A Short History of the Vache”. A part of the crenellated battle­ment of Wingfield days remains on the NW side. The house was lived in by American troops around 1945 and then was a transit house for returning British prisoners-of-war. [Will of TW; Bulstrode Papers; M.Harcourt-Smith, “A Short History of the Vache”]. The huge, attrac­tive house, which is set in 86 acres of beautiful grounds with a park and a lake, became the British Coal Staff College in 1955. [0494-873003/6. 30 minutes from London. Off the B4442, just across the A413 at NE tip of Chalfont St. Giles].

15. London -various. Finally, from at latest the 1470s through Tudor times to the Stuarts there was a grand family house in London. Before that inns were used when staying in London. Back in 1382, Sir William Wingfield of Dennington, MP for Suffolk, is recorded as booking into the inn, the Sword of the Hoope in London. [Anthony Goodman, A History of England, Edward II to James I, 1977, 52-53]. For this article I have counted the grand London houses as one as only the sites are visible today.

In the 1470s Sir Robert Wingfield of East Harling, Norfolk, Comptroller for King Edward IV, held the 12th century house that was later called Scrope’s Inn – then Serjeants Inn, near St.Andrew’s, Holbom (which was for centuries a parish inhabited by the Wingfields, including the Kimbolton/Stonely Wingfields). Sir Rob­ert died in 1481 leaving Scrope’s (pro­nounced Scroop’s) to his nephew and godson, Sir Robert Wingfield, the great ambassador (codenamed Green Sum­mer) and Governor of Calais, who like him became a Privy Councillor. [Besant & Mitton, The Fascination of London, Holbom and Bloomsbury, 1903, 59].

Sir Robert the Younger must have sold Scrope’s at some stage before 1534-35. He acquired or was granted a house called, inevitably – a family habit! – Wyngefeldes Place – “beside Poolwys in Oldefyschstreetes end” [the St.Paul’s Cathedral end of Old Fish Street], kept for him by the Welsh chronicler Ells Grwffyd. [Sources: UP 28 Oct 26 H.VIII, 508, q. in Harben, Dictionary of London, ed. by Jenkins, 1918 & Burke’s; Some Records; Lisle Letters; 2nd figure from left bottom row Tickencote & Boughton Wingfield Knights’ Pictures]. Sir Robert died in 1539.

From the early part of the reign of Henry VIII (1509-47), Sir Richard Wingfield (d.1525), another great am­bassador, K.G., and Deputy of Calais, grandfather of Captain Edward-Maria Wingfield (1550-c.1614), founder of Jamestown, Virginia (1607), had a great house called Wingfield’s Place in Candlewick Street, with burning brands on either side of the grand entrance at night. [Burke’s].

At the time of Queen Mary (1553-57), if not before in Edward VI’s reign, Sir Anthony Wingfield, (K. G. , 1543), head of the Wingfield clan, inher­ited through his wife, Elizabeth de Vere [Earls of Oxford], Old Oxford House in Lime Street, the huge stone and timber house at London Stone, Walbrook, for­merly belonging to the Earl of Oxford (Elizabeth was one of three co-heirs). The 16th Lord Oxford used to arrive there with a retinue of 80 gentleman wearing gold chains and 100 yeoman. The great house stretched from the St.Mary Street junction towards Bishopsgate Street. Sir Anthony Wingfield died in 1552, in pos­session of another great house called Wingfields or Wingfield Rents, just down­stream from the Tower at Stepney, near today’s St.Anne’s Limehouse Church, leaving both houses to his heir, Sir Robert Wingfield, sometime Captain of the Yeo­man of the Guard. In 1599 Sir Robert sold Old Oxford House to Sir Edward Coke, the Queen’s Attorney-General. [Sources:Jocelyn R. Wingfield, Edward-Maria Wingfield, Virginia’s True Founder, WFS, 1993, 164; John Stowe, A Survey of London, 1598, ed. by W.J.Thoms, 1842, 61; Neville Williams, All the Queen’s Men, 1974, 1972 Car­dinal edn., 27].

(1042-1066), lands in Lincolnshire and Eye in Suffolk (which was to become a Wingfield castle in 1509-39 ). Indeed, strangely, there actually were Norman castles before 1066 at Hereford and Dover (where Thomas Wingfield was to construct the harbour in 1540).

Few families- peers, baronets, knights or commoners – can be traced to earlier than 1150 A.D. But in the 17th century Adam Winthrop referred to Sir Robert Wingfield of Letheringham as “the ancientest knight in all Suffolk”. [Robert Winthrop, Life & Letters of John Winthrop, 1583-1630, Boston, 1864, I, 407 q. in VTF, 19]. But how ancient were and are the Suffolk Wingfields?

(1).    Families traceable back to ca. 400 A.D. The O’Neills, Kings of Ireland, and later Earls of Tyrone until 1607 are traceable back to Eochu, the father of Niall of the Nine Hostages, who lived around 400 A.D. (The Powerscourt Wingfields are traceable to Eochu through the female line, in 1590, when Honora, daughter of Teige O’Brien of Inch Castle, Smithstown, 2nd son of Murrough O’Brien, 1st Baron of Inch iquin, married Edward-Maria’ s 2nd cousin Richard Wingfield of Robertstown & Smithstown, Co. Limerick and later of Castle Cragge). [WM; lnchiquin MSS; Carew, Book of Howth, Vol. l]. The head of the O’Neills lives in Portugal.

(2).    To 844-847 A.D. Several lines of Rhodri Mawr, King of North Wales, 844-847, still exist.

(3).    To 886 A.D. Earl Swinton (fam­ily name: Swinton) claims descent from Eadwulf, a Saxon.

(4-7). To 950 A.D./pre-1066. De Glanville (Wingfield forbears; sometimes anglicised to Glandford), (n.2), Malet and Basset, are traceable to before the Con­quest, as are the two Derbyshire families of Shirley (of Ettington, Warwickshire; Earls of Ferrers, descended from Sassuallo alias Sewallus or the Old English Steko) and Gresley (Baronets of Drakelow, Herefordshire). The Shirleys are the only family in England that hold land today that they held at the Domesday Survey (1086).

(8). To 960. (Norman). Giffard, (Earls of Buckingham).

(9-10). To pre-1066. The only corn­moner family with a definite English le­gitimate male line traceable to before the Conquest is called Arden – a family which produced Shakespeare’s mother.

1066 and after:

The family names of many of those Normans who came over to England with William the Conqueror in 1066 have long died out; or genealogists have been unable to trace them, even though 5,000 knights and 4,000 others came over initially, followed later by another 95,000 or so followers. When the population of England was but 1.25 million, by Norman rule, if a man had a daughter and no sons, the estate went to the daughter.

It will be remembered that in 1362, when the Black Prince’s Chief of Staff, Sir John Wingfield, died of the plague, his estates at Wingfield, went to his only child, his daughter Katherine, and not to Sir John’s brother, Sir Thomas Wingfield (whose bride, Margaret Bovile, pre-1365, brought Letheringham Hall and estates into the family). The land that the 12-year-old married (or espoused) daugh­ter, Katherine Wingfield, bride of Michael de la Pole, inherited from her father (as his only child) included Wingfield Frombalds Manor and Wingfield Old Manor. These manors (69 acres), brought to the family by her mother, Alianore de Glanville, included the site if not house where the young newly-wed de la Poles lived. They castellated their house as Wingfield Castle in about 1384-1385 (and became the Earl & Countess de la Pole in 1385). Could the fact that this Wingfield Suffolk property did not go to Sir John’s brother mean that Sir John Wingfield was of Norman descent? Or does it mean that Katherine inherited merely because it was the law of the land? Normandy was lost to England, incidentally, in 1214.

(11-12). To 1066. Clifford (Earls of Shrewsbury). Add Lord Haberton (above).

(13). To 1074. Lord Sackville (family name: Sackville).

(14-18). To 1086. The first Normans who arrived in Ireland in 1167 presum­ably came from England. They included the families of Carew, FitzGerald (ances­tor of the Duke of Leinster), FitzMaurice – all descended from Dominus Otto or Other, father of Walter FitzOther, castellan of Windsor Castle in 1086.

(19-21). To 1086. Barry, Butler, Courcy, Lacy and Nugent.

(22-23). To 1087. De Wingfield of Wingfield, Suffolk. ?Saxon (see last Para­graph below); the Marquess of Waterford (family name: Beresford). Camden stated the Wingfields “to have been seated at Wingfield, Suffolk, before the Conquest”, but offers no proof.

So many Norman families’ pedigrees are hemmed around with “ifs” and “buts”; with phrases such as “heraldry or other evidence suggests…”; “cannot be proved, but are reckoned… ” ; “it is probable… ” ; “though his nephew may well have sprung from…”; “it is now held”; “almost cer­tainly”, etc, etc. For example the Berkeleys “probably” trace back to 1086. The FitzHardings, Barons Berkeley, of Berkeley Castle near Bristol (from 1153), are almost certainly traceable to Eadnoth, father of Harding who held Merriott, Somerset in 1086 – so may be “pre-Conquest”.

Lord Alvingham and Lord Deramore (family name: Yerburgh) – may have been descended from Germund of Grainsthorpe, Lincs (1084, sounds Saxon!) or from Eustachius. In Burke’s Peerage Lord Alvingham is traced back to 1455 only.

I have not accepted any of these “ifs and buts” families as proven.

To the 12th century.(1100-1199). Sir Anthony Wagner, the late Garter-King-of-Arms (he who gave the Address at the Memorial Service held by the WFS for Thomas Wingfield of York River, Virginia (1680) at the College of Arms Church of St. Benet’s Paul’s Wharf, London in May 1988), described the lines of the surviving families of Ferrers (Shirley), and Giffard, as probably pre-Conquest, and many others such as Bruce [?Brews – JRW], de Burgh (alias Burke, of which there are some 19,000 in Ireland and many more in the U.S), FitzAlan (from William FitzAlan in 1160 only), Geraldine, Oliphant and Steward (the Stewarts, re­ally Bretons, are descended from the FitzAlans), etc, etc, as only traceable to the 12th century. The Fitz-Randolphs of the U.S.A. (from 1630) are supposed to be descended from Ribald, who died in ca. 1120-1130]. Other families of 12th century stock include: Assheton, Audley, Cromwell, Disney (De Isney/D’Eisney of Isigny), Fitzwilliam, Greystoke, Lumley, Neville (1131), Okeover and Stanley]. The Wingfields – traceable from 1087.

In his Peerage & Pedigree, [II, pp.81-82], quoted in The Ancestor [VIII, 211, 1905-1908 – see REGISTRA­TIONS, p.1], the great genealogical critic and scholar, J.Horace Round, wrote: “Although its pedigree be disfigured by this silly story of Saxon ancestry, Wingfield is nevertheless an ancient and interesting family.” This was written some twenty years after the publication of Muniments of the Ancient Saxon Family of Wingfield, that great genealogical record of 1894, that quotes several Wingfield pedigrees and Heralds’ Visitations in the British Museum [British Library Manuscript Room], which trace the Wingfields back to Robert de Wingfield of Wingfield, Suffolk, who died in 1087. No relevant records mention Saxon ancestry.

If a family with Norman or French names in the 12th century can be traced back to an English name, that means English ancestry. From very soon after the Conquest it was the trend in landowning Anglo-Saxon families to give the sons French names, such as Robert, T(h)omas, John (Jean), Richard, Roger, Gil(1)es. (And by the 12th century they all did it. Robert de Wingfield (died 1087) could have been a Norman. But if he was a Saxon (perhaps related to Walter son of Grip or to Loernic – both of Wingfield, 1086), he was surely born after the Conquest, to have been christened with the Norman name Robert.

[NOTES: (1) In 1086 Walter, son of Grip, Robert de Glanville and Loernic (the latter clearly a Saxon) held Wingfield in Suffolk of William Malet’s widow, Hesilia. [Domesday – see Newsletter, Autumn 1995, p.50; Rev. George Mundford, An Analysis of the Domesday Book, 1858, pp.16-17. (2).The Wingfields of Wingfield are descended through the female line (from 1362) from Sire Ranulph de Glanville (who commanded some of the Norman archers at Hastings, and held Wingfield in 1086), the 6-greats grand­father of Katherine Wingfield, Countess of Suffolk of Wingfield Castle (1384). [Newsletter, Summer 1995, p.40]. MAIN SOURCES: A.R. Wagner, English An­cestry, OUP, 1961; The Ancestor; Burke’s Peerage; Wingfield Muniments; L. G.Pine, They Came with the Con­queror [1953]; Wingfield Family Regis­trations].