LOWER GRAVENHURST
Cravenherst (xi–xiii cents.); Eya (xiii cent.);
Eye (xiv cent.); Yon (xv, xvi cents.); Ion (xvii
cent.).
Lower Gravenhurst, now comprised in the same
parish as that of Upper Gravenhurst, was a separate
parish before 1888. The village lies to the southwest on a ridge about 80 ft. lower than that on
which Upper Gravenhurst is built, and is divided from
it by a valley, at this point nearly half a mile wide.
The church, rectory, and a farm-house stand near
each other on the high ground, the church on the west
of the road, with a rectangular inclosure behind it,
on slightly higher ground. This inclosure is surrounded by a shallow ditch, and commands a very
extensive view to the north, south, and east, but is
itself commanded by slightly higher ground on the
west.
Manors
At the time of the Domesday Survey
Hugh de Beauchamp owned a manor
in Gravenhurst, which was held under
him by William Froissart. (fn. 1) The overlordship apparently passed from the Beauchamps to the crown, of
whom the manor was held in 1346 and 1428, (fn. 2) but
from 1562 to 1623 the manor of LOWER or
NETHER GRAVENHURST was said to be held
of the earl of Bath as of his manor of Hardwick. (fn. 3)
In 1228 Mabel, the widow of Geoffrey Brian,
claimed a tenement against William de Beauchamp, (fn. 4)
and the Brians had owned land in Gravenhurst before
this date, as in 1223 Joan, the widow of Robert Brian,
granted forty acres of land from her dowry to the
priory of Chicksands. (fn. 5) In 1302–3, Peter Brian with
Iolenta his mother held land in Gravenhurst and
Eye, (fn. 6) and in 1316 he acquired a messuage and mill
from John of Silsoe. (fn. 7) In 1346 the holding amounted
to a quarter of a fee, still in the possession of Peter
Brian, but by 1428 it had passed by some unknown
means to Reginald de Grey, (fn. 8) in whose heirs it has
remained until the present day, (fn. 9) following the same
descent as that of the manor of Wrest in Silsoe in
Flitton parish (q.v.). In 1445 the rent of the
manor amounted to 65s. 4d. (fn. 10)
William Inge was a tenant under Peter Brian, and
died in 1317 seised of 1 virgate of land, 11½ acres
of meadow, and 11s. 1d. rent in Gravenhurst and
Eye by fealty and by service of 2d. yearly. His possessions descended to his daughter Joan, wife of
Ivo de la Zouche. (fn. 11) Ivo killed Roger de Belers,
and fled to Paris, where he died in 1326, and was
buried in the church of the Austin Friars there.
His widow, Joan, prayed for the restoration of the
lands, which then amounted to one messuage and
sixty acres of land, and were held of Peter Brian by
the service of 16d. and half a pound of pepper. (fn. 12)
The later descent of this holding cannot be traced.
There was another estate in Gravenhurst which
became known in the sixteenth century as BOWELLS
MANOR. The family of Bueles were landowners
in Gravenhurst in the thirteenth century. Eustace
de Bueles was holding land in Gravenhurst in 1221, (fn. 13)
and in 1225 he alienated half an acre of land to
Elias, parson of Gravenhurst. (fn. 14) In 1274 occurred
the death of Peter de Bueles, probably the son of
Eustace. Peter left a son John, who was then under
age. The wardship of his lands in Gravenhurst and
Warden, worth £12 10s. 1¼d., was granted to
Thomas Inge, (fn. 15) who held them until John proved
his age in 1283. (fn. 16) At the end of the thirteenth
century Nicholas, probably the
son of John, was holding with
John de la Mare half a knight's
fee in Gravenhurst and Eye, (fn. 17)
and in 1302–3 a quarter of a
fee with Peter Brian and
Yolenta his mother. (fn. 18) In 1308
John de Bueles was granted
free warren in Gravenhurst, (fn. 19)
and was one of the lords
of Gravenhurst and Eye in
1316. (fn. 20) By 1346, however,
his estate had passed to Peter
Brian, (fn. 21) but it does not appear
to have been alienated to
Reginald de Grey with the
other lands of the Brian family in Nether Gravenhurst, for nothing is heard of the fee until it
appears again in 1543 as a messuage which Benett
Smith, son and heir of Simon Smith, sold to Laurence
Snowe. (fn. 22) The messuage remained in the possession
of the Snowe family until 1567, when Thomas, son
of Laurence, alienated it under the name of the
Manor of Bowells to Sir Henry Compton. (fn. 23) It did
not remain long in the latter's possession, for it was
acquired by Henry, earl of Kent, in 1574. (fn. 24) Before
this purchase, it had apparently been held of the earl of
Kent as of his manor of
Nether Gravenhurst by knight
service. (fn. 25) The manor was held
by the earls of Kent jointly
with their other manors of
Gravenhurst. The last mention of the manor occurs in
1623, when Charles, earl of
Kent, died seised of it, (fn. 26) after
this date it was probably
merged in one of the larger
manors.
Snowe. Party fessewise wavy argent and azure three antelopes' heads razed and countercoloured with their horns gules.
Beauchamp, Lord St. Amand. Gules a fesse between six martlets or with a border argent.
One of the numerous small
holdings in Eye in Lower Gravenhurst probably developed into what was known afterwards as the
MANOR OF ION, and in the seventeenth century
as ION HOUSE. In 1332 Robert de Kirkby of Eye
granted to Nicholas, son of Roger de Aspley and Alice
his wife, a messuage in Eye, (fn. 27) and it may have been
this messuage which was left in 1508 by Richard
Beauchamp, Lord St. Amand, to his illegitimate son
Anthony, (fn. 28) who was holding it under the name of Ion
manor in 1531. (fn. 29) . In 1612 Henry Whitehead died
seised of land in Eye, (fn. 30) and Lysons states that Ion House
was sold in 1639 by William Whitehead to William
Allen. (fn. 31) Elizabeth, daughter of William Allen,
married in 1665 John Sabine, (fn. 32) who was created a
baronet in 1672, and sold the property in that year
to Morgan Hinde, of whose family it was purchased
in 1724 by the duke of Kent. (fn. 33) Ion House is now
a farm, and has remained in the Grey family, Lord
Lucas and Dingwall being the present owner.
Lower Gravenhurst Church: Interior, Looking East
In February, 1637–8, there was some trouble in
collecting ship-money in Lower Gravenhurst, two men
refusing to make a tax upon the town; their resistance,
however, does not seem to
have been very prolonged as
the sheriff was of opinion that
if the calling of their names
was forborne, they would conform to reason without troubling the council. (fn. 34)
Church
The church of
OUR LADY has
an aisleless chancel and nave without structural
division and of the same internal width, 19 ft., the chancel
being 16 ft. 6 in. long, and
the nave 32 ft. At the west
is a tower 10 ft. 8 in. by 9 ft. 4 in. within the
walls. The church is fortunately dated by documentary evidence, having been built by Sir Robert
de Bilhemore, who died in or before the year
1361. (fn. 35) The tower is a late fourteenth-century
addition. The chancel has an east window of three
lights, and two-light windows on the north and
south, all of the original work. At the west of
the chancel is a fifteenth-century screen with remains
of colouring, especially on the lower panels, where the
positions of the nave altars may be seen. On the
north side of its central opening is fixed a wroughtiron hour-glass stand which formerly stood on the old
pulpit. On the north of the east window is an em
battled image bracket, and at the south-east a piscina
with a shelf and two sedilia of the same date as the
windows. The nave is lighted by a single two-light
window in the north wall and another in the south,
the latter having curious tracery of a flamboyant
character. The north door of the nave, of plain
fourteenth-century work, is blocked, the south door, of
the same character, being now the only entrance to the
church. Over it is a niche with a shield beneath bearing a bend within an engrailed border. Lysons says that
there was a porch over this door, but no traces of it now
exist, nor is it shown in Fisher's view, taken 1812. (fn. 35a)
Sabine, Baronet. Argent a scallop sable and a chief sable with two pierced molets argent therein.
The tower, which has a low pyramidal roof with
a large wooden cross, is of three stages with an embattled parapet and two-light belfry windows, and has a
stair turret at the south-east angle and a three-light
west window on the ground story. The tower arch
has half-octagonal responds and moulded capitals with
an arch of two chamfered orders. The roof of the
church is in the main original, having moulded king
posts on the tie-beams with struts to the collars and
pole plate. The pulpit is made up with some fifteenthcentury panels, the remains of a seventeenth-century
pulpit and sounding-board having been made into cupboards and a table for the vestry under the tower.
There are a certain number of mediaeval oak benches
in the nave with some later imitations, and the south
door is ancient and perhaps original. There are traces
of the former existence of a west gallery, the south end
of which was carried on a fourteenth-century corbel
which remains in the wall near the south door.
There are several fragments of the original stained
glass in the north window of the nave, and the west
window of the tower. The altar stands on a thirteenthcentury altar slab with a moulded edge, all five crosses
being preserved, though the two on the east are more
lightly cut than the others. On the south wall of the
chancel close to the eastern angle is the inscription
plate from the grave of the founder, the inscription
running thus:—'Robert de Bilhemore chivaler qe fist
faire ceste eglise de nouvele gist icy dieu de salme eit
merci Amen.' Below this inscription was formerly a
shield with helm and mantling, the indent of which
existed in Fisher's time (1812). On the north wall
of the chancel is a large marble monument consisting
of an altar-tomb with a panelled front carrying a canopied recess, on the back of which are inlaid several
brasses representing Benjamin Piggot, 1606, with his
three wives, Mary (Astrey), Anne (Wiseman), and
Bridget (Needham), with their children. There is
a long genealogical inscription, and the arms of Piggot
with various alliances are blazoned on the monument.
There is a plain octagonal font
probably of early fifteenthcentury date.
There is one bell by Lester
& Pack of London, 1758.
The church possesses an unusually interesting chalice with
a cup-shaped bowl and slender
baluster stem covered with
raised and incised ornament.
It is English work of c. 1600,
but bears no mark except that
of the maker on the bottom of
the bowl, a swan between the letters I. D. It has a
cover paten which matches it and on both is an inscription in dotted letters of the seventeenth century
'B.C. Nether Gravenhurst.'
Piggot. Argent three picks sable.
The oldest register book for the parish runs from
1706 to 1811.
Advowson
The church and rectory of Lower
Gravenhurst were bestowed upon
Newnham Priory by Simon de Beauchamp, its founder, in the reign of Henry II. (fn. 36) The
church remained in the gift of the priory until the
Dissolution, and in 1255 the rectory was worth 3
marks. (fn. 37) In 1535 Newnham Priory received 10s.
from the rectory, while Elstow Abbey had 6s. 8d., a portion of the tithes. (fn. 38) The land from which Elstow
received its portion became known as the Elstow Tithe,
and came into the possession of the Whitbread family,
who were holding it in 1612. (fn. 39) The value of the
rectory in 1535 amounted to £7 12s. 10d., (fn. 40) and at
the Dissolution, the right of presentation devolved on
the crown, in whom it has been vested up to the
present day. (fn. 41) There are no endowed charities in
the parish.