ST BARTHOLOMEW’S, Great Gransden, offers striking architectural testimony to the long-standing prosperity of the village it serves. The church is large with a tall tower that peers enticingly through the boughs of the trees in the graveyard. A first-time visitor might reasonably expect that it would stand partner to an equally substantial manor house. In fact, the reverse is true.
What has been confusingly and variously known in the past as The Priory, Great Gransden, Reppington and Rippington Manor is a diminutive building. It stands next to the churchyard and overlooks a large garden with high brick walls that falls away to two ponds and their feeder stream, Home Dole Brook. No less surprising than the relatively small scale of the building is the fact that its fabric—which substantially dates back to the 16th century —has undergone such limited and largely cosmetic alteration.
As a landholding, the manor of Rippington, which historically stood in Huntingdonshire, was probably first constituted in the late 12th century. It was carved out of the property of the de Clare family, Earls of Gloucester, and formed part of the marriage settlement of Maud, wife of Ralph, Earl of Chester. She later conveyed it to the Augustinian priory of Repton, Derbyshire (from which the name ‘Rippington’ derives). There is no detailed evidence of how this estate was managed by the priory, but a rent from it was attached in the early 15th century to Pembroke College, Cambridge, and the consequent annual obligation of the owner of the manor to pay what eventually became £10.66 to the Master and Fellows in perpetuity was only finally terminated in 1986.
この記事は Country Life UK の December 08, 2021 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は Country Life UK の December 08, 2021 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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