Batsford Park Estate

A collection of documents relating to Batsford Park and the Freeman and Mitford families' estates

Contents

Introduction

D1447/1 Title deeds

D1447/2 Leases

D1447/3 Inclosure

D1447/4 Surveys

D1447/5 Maps and plans

D1447/6 Estate correspondence

D1447/7 Accounts

D1447/8 Other estate records

D1447/9 Parish and charity

D1447/10 Manorial

A large part of this collection comprises deeds of title to estate property, dating from the 16th century when Batsford Park estate was acquired by the Freeman family.

<p>A family tree showing the descent of Batsford Park is contained in the introduction to the related collection Gloucestershire Record Office D2002, which comprises family papers of the Freeman, Edwards, Mitford and related families.</p>

Documents deposited by Lord Dulverton of Batsford Park

The nucleus of the estate was centred upon Batsford and neighbouring parishes notably Moreton-in-Marsh, Bourton-on-the-Hill, Mickleton, Blockley and Snowshill. From earliest days, the estate also included property in Oxfordshire, centred on the parishes of Swinbrook, Astall and Widford, and in Warwickshire, centred on Great and Little Wolford. The sequence of title deeds is complicated by the addition of property records belonging to families into which the Freemans married. Richard Freeman (chancellor of Ireland, d. 1710) married twice. His first wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Anthony Keck, and this accounts for the presence of a fine series of Great Tew (Oxon.) leases, 1613-1713 (D1447/2/47). His second wife Anna, daughter of Richard Marshall of Sellaby (Durham), brought into the family extensive properties in Durham, together with their title deeds. Richard Marshall appears to have speculated in royalist lands during the Commonwealth, and many of the miscellaneous deeds for other counties seem to have derived from these activities. Richard Freeman's daughter Mary married Walter Edwards, and deeds of property in Bitton, Horfield, Bristol and Langford (Oxon.) derive from the Edwards family.

Following the death without heir of Thomas Edwards Freeman in 1808, Batsford Park estate was devised to his nephew John Mitford (1st Baron Redesdale) of Northumberland, hence the collection includes a number of deeds and other documents concerning property in Northumberland.

Batsford estate remained in the hands of the Mitford family until c.1922, when it was purchased by Sir Gilbert Wills, later Lord Dulverton, father of the depositor. Many outlying portions of the estate had already been sold some years earlier.

Certain of the manorial records in the collection (D1447/10/5, 6, 7 & 15) were acquired by Richard Freeman as steward of the manors concerned. The remaining records in the collection are those resulting from the administration of the estate, including its outlying portions. They include some attractive early estate maps and a good run of surveys.