COOKE OF WHEATLEY MUNIMENTS

MANORIAL RECORDS

Manor of Wheatley

Manor of Bentley

Manor of Langthwaite

DEEDS

Manor of Langthwaite

Manor of Wheatley with Skinthorpe

Redcliffe Closes, Wheatley

Miscellaneous Wheatley deeds

Bentley and Arksey

Rectory and tithes of Arksey with Bentley

Manor of Bentley

Bentley lands of the Raynye family

Lands acquired by the Cookes in the 18th.and 19th. cents.

Manors of Cusworth and Warmsworth

Cooke wills and settlements

Cooke mortgages, 1833-1933

Later deeds to the Wheatley Hall Estate

Mineral leases, 1894-1931

Ranby Hall Estate, 1886-1914

Miscellaneous deeds and deeds relating to charities, [1687]-1826, including Bentley and Arksey maps

ENCLOSURE AND DRAINAGE

A bundle of papers relating to enclosure and drainage, but including also overseers' and churchwardens assessments for Sprotborough, 1715-27.

<p>There is a pedigree of the Cooke family in J. Hunter, South Yorkshire, I, (1828), p.56</p>

The estate of the Cooke family in Wheatley, Bentley and Arksey, near Doncaster, was established in the seventeenth century by Brian Cooke, alderman and mayor of Doncaster, (d.1653), Henry Cooke, of Coates, co. Lincs., and Brian's eldest son, Brian (1620-1660/1).

The manor of Bentley was acquired in 1654/5 from Sir Arthur Ingram for £4,800 (CWM/148), the infamous Ingram having bought it from Dr. Levett in 1637. There is an excellent extent of the manor for 1637, preparatory to Ingram's purchase, giving the number of years' purchase and the calculation of the purchase price (CWM/152).

The manor of Wheatley was acquired for £3,000 in 1658 by Henry Cooke from Viscountess Garlingford and the Earl of Dumfries and their feoffee to uses, William Currer, citizen and mercer of London. The accumulation therefore includes the deeds to the manor of Wheatley from 1545, when the manor was conveyed by Thomas Barnardeston to Sir Edmund Walsyngham. Walsyngham sold it in 1549/50 to Sir Hugh Wirrall, who alienated it to Thomas Mounteney of Wheatley in 1604. By 1634, the manor had come into the hands of Viscount Carlingford. The Wheatley deeds also include (CWM/37) draft articles of agreement for enclosure in Wheatley, n.d. [but early seventeenth century]. The Wheatley and Bentley material includes also original papers of the manorial courts from the end of the fifteenth century through to the seventeenth century. The surveys of Bentley by Richard Adwicke at the end of the seventeenth century are exceptionally detailed.

These surveys, the byelaws in the court rolls, and the deeds of the constant purchases of land by the Cookes in the seventeenth century, illumine agrarian progress in Bentley and Arksey. There is ample evidence of consolidation of selions, holding in severalty and the development of closes. The deeds show that ley husbandry, or convertible husbandry was being practised in the early seventeenth century.

Brian Cooke supported the Royalist cause in the Civil War and had to pay the price in 1647, when he was fined £1,460. The pardon, of 1648, is below (CWM/442). His second son, Sir George, was created a baronet at the Restoration (1660/1).

Despite the many family and marriage settlements in the eighteenth century, the estate remained virtually intact into the twentieth century, and was called the Wheatley Hall Estate. The Wheatley Hall Estate was finally sold to Doncaster Corporation in 1933 for £60,000.