The Domesday Book is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales, completed in 1086 at the behest of King William the Conqueror. who sent his agents out in 1085 to survey every shire in England to list his holdings and dues owed to him.
The survey's main purpose was to record the annual value of every piece of landed property to its lord, and the resources in land, labour force, and livestock from which the value derived.
This is the translation of the entry for Winemar of Flanders, the owner of the castle in 1085.
Households
36 villagers. 11 smallholders. 8 slaves.
Land and resources
Ploughland: 26 ploughlands. 2 lord's plough teams. 4 lord's plough teams possible. 18 men's plough teams.
Other resources: 5.0 lord's lands. 5.0 new lands. Meadow 11 ploughs. Woodland 1000 pigs. 1 mill, value 12 shillings.
Valuation
Annual value to Lord: £24 in 1086; £20 acquired by the 1086 owner; £24 in 1066.
Owners
Tenant-in-chief in 1086: Winemar of Flanders.
Lord in 1086: Winemar of Flanders. Overlord in 1066: King Edward.
Lord in 1066: Healfdene {of Hanslope}.
The list of people who have owned the manor of Hanslope reads like a roll-call through some of the key events of British history:
Winemar of Flanders, one of William's commanders in the Battle of Hastings where the English King Harold was defeated. His land is listed in the Domesday Book.
His son Michael de Hanslope left Hanslope and his only daughter Maud in his will to King Henry I.
Maud married William Maudit, Chamberlain to the Royal Exchequer. who died around 1118. He was succeeded by his son Robert Maudit, who was also Chancellor. He drowned with Prince William on The White Ship in 1120 and was succeeded by his brother William Maudit who had built what is now the Chancel of St. James Church in Hanslope. His rent for Hanslope was 4.5 Knights service. He was succeeded by his son. Robert Maudit who sided with the Barons against King John.
The King ordered Faulkes de Breauté , head of his mercenaries, to beseige and raze Hanslope Castle c.1215. It was never rebuilt.
King John gave the manor to Breauté and then to Hugh de Neville. In 1217 it was given by Henry III to Henry de Brailof, who was soon attainted (declared traitor), and it was restored to Robert Maudit (d.1222), who was succeeded by his son William Maudit, who married the Earl of Warwick's daughter. He obtained licence to embattle his house and stock the park with deer in 1222. He died 1257. Succeeded by his son William Maudit, married to Alice Segrave. He succeeded through his mother to the earldom and Castle of Warwick. He had no son when he died in 1268, so was followed by his nephew
William Beauchamp who was created Earl of Warwick the same year. He was granted the Licence for Hanslope Fair in 1293. He died in 1298.
Hanslope remained with the family for 130 years until Thomas Beauchamp was arraigned for treason by Richard II in 1396 and imprisoned in the Tower.
The Manor was granted to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk in 1397, who forfeited it after one year, it was then granted to Edmund, Duke of York in 1398 but on the accession of Henry IV in 1399 it was reinstated to Thomas, Earl of Warwick .
After his death in 1401 the Manor descended to Richard Beauchamp then to his son who was created Henry, Duke of Warwick in 1445, but he died in 1446 and the Dukedom became extinct.
By 1451 the Manor reverted to
Richard Neville (Warwick the Kingmaker) who had married the Duke's sister and had become Earl of Warwick. He was killed in the Battle of Barnet in 1471.
The Countess's rights were ignored and the Manor given to their daughter Anne's husband.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III) for 17 years. After he was defeated and killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 Hanslope was restored to the Warwicks by Henry VII and in 1488 the Dowager Countess of Warwick surrendered Hanslope to the Crown.
In 1550 it was granted to The Princess Elizabeth. In the Stuarts' time in 1603 it was given to James I's Queen Anne who handed it on to her son Prince Charles (who became Charles I). His trustees leased it to Sir Kenelm Digby, John Digby (grandsons of Sir Everard Digby of Gayhurst House who was hanged for his part in The Gunpowder Plot) and Issac Pennington. The manor was later given by Charles I to Captain John Pennington 1628.
It was sold first to Basil Brent who kept poultry and was known as Hen Brent. he built the present Hanslope Park House in 1692 on land in the deer park not owned by the Tyrell's.
The old manor house of Hanslope was fortified and a hunting park located in Castlethorpe, it appears to have been destroyed by fire. In 1663 it passed to Sir Thomas Tyrell, a Justice of the Common Pleas under Charles II. His son Sir Peter Tyrell and grandson Thomas sold the Manor to Gervase, Lord Pierrepoint of Ardglass in 1707. He died without issue in 1715. Evelyn,Duke of Kingston who died in1726.
In 1764 his grandson the last Duke sold the manor to William Watts. He served in India under Clive, was governor of Fort William. After the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta in 1750 he concluded the Treaty with MirJafar of Bengal and the East India Company. He amassed a fortune and was in the process of buying Hanslope in 1764 when he died.
The sale was completed for his son Edward, a minor. He later married Florentia Wynch, whose father was Governor of Madras. He had a survey of Hanslope carried out in 1779. Their first son died aged 22 and their second son William succeeded in 1828. He died in 1847, and was succeeded by his son also called William.
He married Caroline Apthorpe of Gumley. He died in 1853 at the age of 32 leaving a son Edward Hanslpe Watts, aged 8 His widow married Robert Walpole and lived in Hanslope Lodge (now Hatton Court).
In 1868 Edward married 1868 Sophia Edith third daughter of Mr R Selby Lowndes of Bletchley, one of the "Eight Belles of Bletchley". Squire Watts was shot and murdered by his gamekeeper William Farrow on his way home from St. James Church in July 1912.
Mrs Watts lived on at Hanslope park until her death in 1930. Her daughter Irene and her husband Mark Poore took over until Mark Poore's death in 1931. Irene remarried and made the property over to her son Robert Poore-Watts, who sold Hanslope Park to the Hesketh Estates. In 1939 it was sold to The Foreign and Commonwealth Office.