215) although only those in the latter parish can be traced in later references to the property. (fn. 216)
In 1531 the Carthusian priory at Sheen (Surrey) entered into an exchange with Henry VIII, whereby it received the site and precincts of the former priory at Bradwell (Bucks.), together with lands formerly belonging to Bradwell in nine parishes in Buckinghamshire and two in Northamptonshire, one of them Wicken, in return for its own estates in Lewisham and East Greenwich. (fn. 217) In 1541, after Sheen was dissolved, the king granted the former Bradwell lands in Wicken and elsewhere, together with other premises, to Arthur Longfield of Wolverton (Bucks.) in return for Longfield's manor of Stoke Bruerne. (fn. 218) Henry VIII sold the lands at Wicken to Edward Giffard and his wife Christina the following year; (fn. 219) after she was widowed, she settled them in 1556 to her use for life, with remainder to Sir John Spencer and his heirs. (fn. 220) They were thus merged with the manorial estate in Wicken.
Some land in Wicken which before the Dissolution had belonged to Bradwell priory was granted in 1528 to Thomas Wolsey, who in turn added it to the endowment of his new college in Oxford. (fn. 221)
In 1540 the Crown purchased lands in Wicken, Puxley and Deanshanger from John Heneage and his wife Anne in exchange for premises in London, Lincolnshire and Kingston-uponHull. (fn. 222) The estate had been settled on John by his father Thomas Heneage in 1520 (fn. 223) and in 1542 was among the Crown premises in Wicken annexed to the honor of Grafton on its establishment. (fn. 224) What appear to be the same premises were leased, as parcel of the former Heneage manor of Deanshanger, in 1575 and again in 1583. (fn. 225) The land presumably later passed with the rest of that manor. (fn. 226)
In the early 16th century John Ede owned an estate in several parishes near Stony Stratford, including a messuage and 50 a. in Wicken, which passed first to his sons Jake and Edmund and then, after both died without issue, to his daughters, Margaret and Isabel, and their respective husbands, between whom the estate was partitioned. The Wicken portion was assigned to Isabel and Robert Pigott. (fn. 227)
The Medieval Estates.
In 1086 there was land for 10 ploughs on Robert d'Oyley's manor at Wicken. There were three ploughs in demesne, with seven serfs, and seven villeins and three bordars had four ploughs. There were 10 acres of meadow and wood 11 furlongs in length and six in breadth. The value of the estate had risen from 40s. to 100s. since 1066. (fn. 228) Maine's manor was much smaller, with land for three ploughs, although there were two in demesne (with one serf) and two farmed by five villeins and a bordar. The estate included six acres of meadow and wood 10 furlongs in length and three in breadth. Its value was unchanged since 1066 at 40s. (fn. 229)
John Dive's lands at Wicken in 1272 included four carucates of land in demesne and eight virgates in villeinage, together with 60s. rent from free tenants. (fn. 230) In 1427 there were three carucates of arable and four of pasture in demesne on the same manor, as well as a dovecote, worth 2s. yearly beyond charges. The tenanted land included nine messuages, each with one virgate; there were also 18 a. of meadow and 60 a. of wood, cropped as coppice on a twenty-year cycle. Rents of assize amounted to 37s. yearly. (fn. 231)
Hamon son of Hamon's estate at Wicken was said to be worth £4 10s. yearly in 1185, when stocked with two ploughs, 50 sheep, four cows, four sows and a boar; because there was no stock, it was worth only 37s. (fn. 232) In 1247 there were three carucates of arable worth £8 in demesne on William FitzHamon's manor, his customary tenants had 4½ virgates, and there was pasture worth 4s. (fn. 233)
Wick Dive and Wick Hamon each had their own open fields in the Middle Ages, as, it seems, did the hamlet of Dagnall which later shrank to a single farmstead. The best evidence for this is the survival of an unusually large number of separate fields in 1717, when the Wicken Park estate wa