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.
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.
 
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.

1889 saw the compulsorily purchase of just over two acres of land from Maidencourt by the Lambourn Valley Railway Company
 
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.


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.
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.