ld of the Wicken and Grafton Park estates (fn. 168) and thereafter Wicken Park became one of the family's two principal seats for the next seventy years.
The 2nd Lord Penrhyn died in 1907 and was buried at Wicken, where he was a generous benefactor to the church and parish. (fn. 169) He was succeeded by his eldest son Edward (1864- 1927), who married Blanche Georgiana, a daughter of the 3rd Lord Southampton. (fn. 170) Three of their sons were killed in the first year of the Great War. (fn. 171) The Dowager Lady Penrhyn remained at Wicken Park until her own death in November 1944; the following year the 4th Lord Penrhyn sold the estate (of 3,042 a.) to the Society of Merchant Venturers of Bristol, acting as trustee of the H.M. Wills Charity for Chronic and Incurable Sufferers, for £92,169. The Society subsequently sold the cottages and some of the farms on the estate, but at the time of writing still owned about 1,800 acres of tenanted farmland at Wicken, together with the mansion, which from 1945 was let as a school. (fn. 172)
The Manor House.
The capital messuage belonging to the manor of Wick Dive (and later the unified estate) stood to the southwest of Wick Dive churchyard. (fn. 173) Included in an extent of the manor in 1272, (fn. 174) the house was said to contain merely a hall, chamber, kitchen and barn in 1427. (fn. 175) It was still known as the Manor House in 1670, when it was let with a farm of about 440 a.; (fn. 176) nine years later, when a new lease of the same holding was granted, the house was called the Porter's Lodge. (fn. 177) This change confirms Baker's belief that the rest of the buildings were demolished during Lord Sunderland's time and only the gatehouse left standing, (fn. 178) to become the nucleus of the modern Manor Farm. The present house, which has 19th- and 20th-century additions, is built of coursed squared limestone with a plain-tile roof, of two storeys and attics, three bays wide. A panel contains the arms of the Spencer family. Never more than occasionally occupied by the Spenc