The estate later known as the manor of Baldon St Lawrence originated in two Domesday estates. The first was owned by the Bishop of Bayeux and held by the d'Oilly and Burghfield families; by 1279 it was held by Robert de Louches. The second was also owned by the Bishop of Bayeux but held by Roger d’Ivry, who with Robert d’Oilly had come over with William I. It passed to the estate of St. Valery in France, who remained as overlords throughout the Middle Ages. Again, the local holders were the de Louches family.
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In 1316 Richard de Louches is listed as one of the three lords of Baldon, and it is clear that all the land held by d'Oilly and d'Ivry had been united as the manor of Baldon St. Lawrence. His property descended to his grandson Sir William de Louches, whose daughter and heir married Sir Thomas Camoys, the commander of the English left wing at Agincourt in 1415. Baldon St. Lawrence was listed among the Camoys’ manors at Sir Thomas's death in 1421. It was inherited by his grand-daughters, Margaret and Eleanor, Margaret being the wife of Ralph Radmylde of Great Milton. The estate was then approximately 350 acres, valued at £10. |
 Brass
rubbing of Sir Thomas Camoys from St George's Church, Trotton |
In 1492 the Radmyldes passed control of the estate to Thomas Danvers, a man of some importance in the county and country, with his chief seat at Waterstock. Though Danvers’s connection with Baldon St. Lawrence was very transitory, he was the reason the manor ultimately passed to the Queen's College. He had been a member of William Waynflete’s household when he was Bishop of Winchester, and later he was active in the bishop’s foundation of Magdalen College. His friendship with Waynflete and his interest in learning account for the sale in 1502 of the estate, for £200, to the executors of Thomas Langton, previously Bishop of Winchester and provost of Queen's.
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The executors included Langton's nephew Christopher Bainbridge, who in 1509, having become Archbishop of York as well as provost of Queen’s, gave the manor to the college, in return for masses to be said for his soul and that of his uncle Bishop Langton. John Pereson, provost of Queen’s in 1460-82, had already given the college his estates at Denton and Baldon St. Lawrence. |
Christopher Bainbridge |
Two other small estates mentioned in Domesday were sold to Bainbridge at around the same time. One was the manor of Toot Baldon, which then comprised no more than 100 acres. This estate had been in the hands of the Despenser, family, and later the Loveden family. In 1509 Thomas Loveden sold it to Christopher Bainbridge for £86. Another small estate was originally held by Count William of Evreux, a companion of William the Conqueror. The Count later bestowed it on a monastery at Noyon in France. By 1255 George de Louches was holding the land from the monks. The estate was evidently bought, along with other lands in Baldon St. Lawrence, by the executors of Bishop Langton in 1508. The manor of Toot Baldon, with appurtenances in Marsh Baldon, Denton, and Stanton St. John, when valued in 1535, was worth £10 6s. 8d. a year.
William Pope, 1st Earl of Downe, by Robert Peak
The Queen’s College in the sixteenth century
Acknowledgements
Trinity College, Oxford
The Queen’s College, Oxford
Victoria County History