y Henry Gurney; another 10 a. belonged to the canal company; and the rest of the parish (131 a.) was glebe. There were two small quarries on the road from Wicken to Deanshanger at work in 1838 but no other industry. (fn. 298) Mordaunt made at least one small addition to the estate during his period of ownership. (fn. 299)
Sir John Mordaunt died in 1845, (fn. 300) leaving a son and heir, Sir Charles, who was a minor and whose trustees immediately announced a reduction in charitable donations on the Northamptonshire estates, expressing the hope that Col. Douglas-Pennant would make up the shortfall. (fn. 301) Since Wicken Park continued to be let to Douglas-Pennant until he bought the entire estate in 1877, the Mordaunts were never resident there. As effectively sole owners in the parish, they appear to have behaved in a conventionally paternalistic manner towards their Wicken tenants, providing land for allotments in 1838 (fn. 302) and a new school the following year. (fn. 303) When Sir Charles Mordaunt came of age in 1857 the usual tea, dinner and sports were arranged for his Northamptonshire tenants. (fn. 304) There are, however, few signs of new investment at either Wicken or Grafton Park to compare, say, with the model farms erected on the Grafton estate in the 1840s, nor any building of new cottages.
Little seems to have changed after the sale to Lord Penrhyn in 1877. (fn. 305) During the sixty-odd years in which the Douglas-Pennants owned Wicken, the income from which was unimportant compared with that from their North Wales estate, they made no attempt to develop its resources or to make it pay, apparently remaining content to subsidise the estate from their income from their Caernarvonshire slate quarries. (fn. 306) The estate was enlarged by the purchase in 1877 of Dovehouse Farm on the edge of Deanshanger village, just inside Passenham, whose land marched with that of Dagnail; (fn. 307) a house and four cottages at the Folly, also just over the Passenham border, in 1878; (fn. 308) and a couple of small ad