Catalogue description ASHRIDGE ESTATE DEEDS

Collection of deeds, etc., relating to the Ashridge estate in Bucks. Cheddington, Edlesborough, Marsworth, Ivinghoe and Pitstone, Beds. and Herts.

Mainly deeds of properties added to the estate from 1821 onwards, many of them referring to the local families of Seabrook, Seare and Hodson Hudson. Additional items of note include: agreements concerning common rights and stinting of pastures at Cheddington, 1686 and 1719 nos. 76 and 77; assessment to the poll tax for Cheddington, 1694 no. 78; Cheddington settlement papers, 1657-1699 no. 79 and an unusual deed of gift by a married woman, 1697 no. 60. Unconnected with the estate is a small number of deeds mostly relating to Walpole family property in Dorset and elsewhere nos. 55-59, 68, 69, 75.

Egerton family, Earls of Bridgewater

Three deeds of property in Marsworth and Cheddington dating from before 1500 (nos. 4, 5, 27) were returned to the depositor at her request in November, 1965; full calendars of these are given at the end of the present catalogue.

The records here catalogued are part of a collection purchased by the depositor "from a rag-and-bone man who had cleared a bombed lawyer's office" (see no. 86).

The documents were deposited with the Bucks. Archaeological Society in February 1955 and were subsequently transferred to the Record Office; court rolls and other manorial records which also formed part of the collection were not included in the transfer.

An additional catalogue relating to the Ashridge Estate Collecition is available at Buckinghamshire Record Office

The Ashridge estate formed part of the possessions of the Egerton family, earls and dukes of Bridgewater from the 16th century until the death without issue of the 8th Earl in 1829, when it passed to John William Spencer Cust, 2nd Earl Brownlow who in 1853 assumed the surname and arms of Egerton.

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