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Maidencourt
lies to the east of the parish and was established as long
ago as the twelfth century. Initially it was known as
Meidencote or Meidencota, meaning maiden's
cottage. In the thirteenth century it
became Maydencot and by the seventeenth century, the name had
been lengthened to Maydencotte. From the end of the twelfth
through until the fourteenth century, the Earls Marshall were
overlords, and the first documented tenant was Osbert de la
Herioteria.
Herioteria was succeeded
by Alice de Colville, whose daughters married into
the Birmingham and Beauchamp families, causing
the manor to be split. Maidencourt transferred
to Thomas Lacock in the early 1380s as payment
of £100 security loaned against the manor.
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It
became a Crown property, and was assigned by the king to the
duchy of Cornwall in 1421. It later had connections with Henry
VIII, who granted it to Sir Henry Wyatt in 1511. The
two halves of the manor were not reunited until 1542, when
the estate was conveyed to Richard Bridges. In 1611, Richard's
granddaughter Eleanor sold it to the celebrated law recorder,
Francis Moore of Fawley, who served as MP for Reading four
times between 1597 and 1614. One
of the ablest lawyers of his day, Francis Moore was appointed
sergeant-at-law in 1614 and knighted in 1616. Sir John Moore,
the last of the Moore family to own Maidencourt, sold the manor
to Robert and John Butler of Wantage in 1755, by which time
the manorial rights associated with the estate had lapsed.
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The Butlers
and their descendants never lived at Maidencourt, which was
occupied by tenants including the Palmers, but it is thought
that Joseph Butler was responsible in the early nineteenth
century for the rebuilding of the farmhouse in its present
form. The estate remained in the Butler family until 1872 after
which it was sold to Frederick A, Schroeter. The 1861
census enumerated Henry Parsloe as head of household at Maidencourt,
employing 22 labourers and eight boys on his 750 acres. The
household included a cook, a housemaid, a malt maker, a fogger,
two carters, two plough boys and an agricultural labourer.
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1889 saw the compulsorily
purchase of just over two acres of land from Maidencourt by
the Lambourn Valley Railway Company
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In 1939 Maidencourt
was sold for £7,950 and during the Second World War,
the author V.S. Pritchett rented the farmhouse. The present
owner, David Rabbitts, came as a tenant in 1949, ultimately
buying the property ten years later in 1959. Today Maidencourt
Farm retains its Family orientation with David & June Rabbitts
and sons Jonathan and Jeffrey, still farming in the traditional
way.
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Maidencourt from Lorne
Hill
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The tree lined drive at
Maidencourt provides the photographer with a wealth of material.
Especially in the Autumn.
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Returning briefly
to Maidencourt's history. Former owner - Francis Moore left
intriguing evidence of the government's infiltration of the
Gunpowder Plot. At the time of the conspiracy he often had
to work into the small hours with a client in London. Several
times during 1605, on his way home at about two o'clock in
the morning, he saw Thomas Percy leaving the home of the Earl
of Salisbury, the head of the secret service. Francis Moore
knew Percy, who was the Earl of Northumberland's steward and
it later transpired that Percy was in fact one of the Gunpowder
plotters.
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