Reference
LL
Title
Lyall Muniments: relating chiefly to the Flitwick Estate of the Brooks family.
Date free text
1180-1936
Production date
From: 1180 To: 1936
Admin/biog history
The earlier descent of this property after the Reformation is not shown by the documents, and the account of it in the Victoria County History must be accepted with some caution. From Dr Dell onwards, evidence is furnished by the documents.
The estate seems to be based on the holding of Dunstable Priory in Flitwick, which after the Dissolution passed through various hands, till it came (in 1600, VCH) to Robert Honywood. His grand-daughter Elizabeth married Sir John Cotton (d 1702), who transferred the Cottonian Library to the nation. The Cotton family (see Cotton pedigree) ended in four coheiresses; the purparties of two were bought by John Earl of Upper Ossory, c. 1773, and sold by him to the Duke of Bedford, c. 1800 [?]; the purparties of the other two passed (according to VCH) to Dr Humphrey Dell (d 1764), who bequeathed his estate to Ann Fisher the younger, his god-daughter.
Part of Dr Dell's estate was derived from the Rhodes family of Flitwick & Maulden (see pedigree of Rhodes-Blofield-Dell), which had acquired also the land of the Blofield family by marriage. The heirs of Rhodes were Jane Rhodes (d 1713 s.p.) who married Henry Chester of Astwood and separated from him after about two months; and Benjamin Rhodes (w.p. 1735), who bought out Henry Chester, and bequeathed his estate to Dr Dell.
Jeffrey Fisher, of Irchester, Maulden & Flitwick, acquired a life interest at Flitwick in right of his daughter Anne (b1757), the legatee of Dr Dell; he bought the Radwell property in 1753. This Ann Fisher the younger was therefore a considerable heiress. She married firstly James Hesse of Edmonton, and had by him two daughters, on whom the Radwell estate was settled. (see V catalogue). She married secondly in 1789 George Brooks (see pedigree Fisher-Brooks-Lyall). He seems to have been a partner in Messrs Brooks Son and Dixon, bankers in Chancery Lane, living at Green Street Grosvenor Square in 1799, later at Mortlake Chiswick and Twickenham. The estate descended to his great grand daughter Catherine Brooks, and after her death passed to her cousin Colonel Robert Adolphus Lyall, the depositor of the collection.
System of arrangement
LL1/15 were catalogued in 1936-37 by Dr G H Fowler. A note in the catalogue records 'The great majority of the documents in this deposit were found in a loose state; these have been carefully arranged, as far as seemed possible in the limited time at the cataloguer's disposal. Only one bundle of deeds (1/65-72) was preserved in its original state.
Nearly every personal name and place-name is included in the catalogue entries, except for Abstraacts of Title 1/86/4, 1/90, 1/109, Deeds 1/102/2, 1/115, 1/128, 1/134, 1/145-147, 1/151, 1/222, 1/247 and other documents LL2-15.'
LL1-15 deposited March 1936, LL16 found uncatalogued 1952, LL17 deposited 1953, LL18 originally catalogued under a book accession were later incorporated into this catalogue, LL19 deposited March 1987.
Reference
External document
Level of description
fonds