ony Stratford to Buckingham passed through Wicken on Tuesdays and Sundays, and there were buses to Wolverton on Friday and Saturday evenings. (fn. 350) The first of these services had been increased to three days a week by 1940. (fn. 351)
No muniments survive to illustrate the working of the two manor courts in Wicken in the Middle Ages. In the years immediately following the establishment of the honor of Grafton in 1542, to which all Crown lands in Wicken were annexed, (fn. 352) the constables of Wick Dive and Wick Hamon did suit at the honor court held at Grafton twice a year, paid a certainty of 13s. 0½d., and reported that all was well. (fn. 353) Charles Hosier, who purchased the Wicken Park estate in 1716, was said a few years later to owe suit and service to the duke of Grafton's court at Grafton Regis. (fn. 354) In the mid 18th century the Wicken constables' expenses included the cost of 'going to Grafton court' each year (fn. 355) to deliver a payment representing 1d. from every male householder in the parish (widows, spinsters, the rector and the patron of the living being exempt), together with a suit roll listing those from whom the payment was due. Mrs. Prowse believed that this was an acknowledgment of the right each parishioner had to turn cattle into the forest between Old St. George's Day (4 May) and Old Holy Rood Day (25 September). In addition, the Wicken Park estate was still paying 13s. 0½d. (plus 4d. for an acquittance), which she described in 1783 as a 'certainty, or assart money' due to the duke of Grafton, and which she understood gave the owner of the estate and the tenants the right to put cattle in Whittlewood at the proper seasons and free them from paying any other tax to the honor. (fn. 356) The final volume of Grafton manor court minutes (1764- 1801) (fn. 357) make no reference to the presence of the Wicken constable, and in 1802 Mrs. Prowse noted that one of her tenants had only paid the 1d. levy once or twice since he was married 21 years before. Another informant told her that no