Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    RO
  • Title
    Russell (Ossory) of Ampthill
  • Admin/biog history
    Ampthill Great Park Ampthill castle and park, formerly belonging to Sir John Cornwall, became royal property in 1524 and was used as a hunting lodge by Henry VIII, although the castle had fallen into disrepair by the middle of the century. It was annexed to the newly created royal honour of Ampthill in 1542 and the Great Lodge was built as the residence of the royal steward there, Sir Francis Bryan. In 1646 Charles I granted Ampthill, Brogborough and Beckerings Parks to John Ashburnham and others in return for an advance of £12,912 and stated that the parks were to go absolutely to Ashburnham, who subsequently paid off the King’s debt to the other two grantees. During the Commonwealth the Honour was impounded as royal property and on the Restoration John Ashburnham was granted the premises for a term of 40 years together with a barony in acknowledgement of his support of the Royal cause; in 1675 Charles II fulfilled his father’s promise by granting the premises to Ashburnham absolutely. (RO1/5) From the early 17th century the neighbouring estate of Houghton House had been the property of the Bruces and in 1666 Lord Ashburnham leased the Park and Lodge to this family for 40 years [see RO1/1]. After the death of Robert, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury in 1685 Houghton House became the home of the new Earl while the Dowager Countess sought other accommodation in the vicinity. She already held Ampthill Park on lease and the Great Lodge had been kept in good repair while untenanted but she decided it would not be suitable for herself and her children and, being a woman of some independence and a sizeable fortune, planned instead to build a house in the modern style, larger even than Houghton House, in the Park. Work was started in the summer of 1685 very soon after the Old Earl’s death and from 1686 was under the supervision of a Cambridge architect Robert Grumbold. The house would probably have been ready for occupation by the summer of 1689 but the Dowager Countess died in April and the work was suspended. She had originally intended the new house to descend eventually to her favourite younger son, the Honourable Robert Bruce but that was not to be, for after the Revolution of 1688 the young Earl was suspected of Jacobite sympathies and forced to go into hiding. There seemed little future for the younger branch of the family at Ampthill Park and in February 1698/90 the Honourable Robert Bruce sold back to Lord Ashburnham the remainder of the lease with the new house, for £6,500 [see RO1/3] Lord Ashburnham had succeeded to considerable Sussex estates on his father’s death in 1679, further augmented by Welsh estates acquired through marriage – to this was now added the property in Bedfordshire which he extended through several small purchases of land in Millbrook in the early years of the 18th century [see RO1, section C). He had some knowledge of building and architecture and was sufficiently wealthy to put his ideas into execution so that changes and improvements were being constantly implemented during the 20 years that the Park was in his hands. The house was expanded during the years 1704-6 by a minor architect John Lumley, under Ashburnham’s control. By the spring of 1706 the whole of the east side of the house was finished and the west was commenced. Ashburnham, however, began to lose faith in Lumley and sought advice from Captain William Winde and later from Thomas Archer. Ashburnham died in 1710, having enjoyed his completed work for only a short time but confidently expecting that his son William, who had married the Bedfordshire heiress Katherine Taylor and thus brought considerable property at Clapham to the family, would continue to reside at Park House but both he and his young wife died of smallpox and the house was left unoccupied. Thereafter the family turned its attention increasingly to the Welsh and Sussex estates and in 1725 the parks of Ampthill, Brogborough and Beckerings were sold off from the Bedfordshire estate. The last two were sold to the Ratcliffe family and further details of this property can be found in the collection H/DE. Ampthill Park was purchased by Lord Fitzwilliam for £18,000 (see RO1/47-48). In 1728 he added to the estate a house in Millbrook called Loddingtons and 8 acres of land adjoining the park on the west (RO1/61-98) and in 1736 a copyhold cottage in Millbrook was also purchased. In 1737 Ann Baroness Dowager of Gowran purchased the estate for £23,226 for her son to whom she conveyed it in 1741. Possibly the main staircase was built during his ownership. He was created 1st Earl of Upper Ossory in 1751. On his death in 1758 the property passed to his son, a minor of 13 who was under the guardianship of the Duke of Bedford. He spent his youth there completing his education at Cambridge and with the Grand Tour [see MIC117 for bills for money drawn at various European banks at this time]. He returned with a profound interest in the classics and the arts and determined to make his house a suitable background for the items he had collected abroad. Early in 1769 he approached the architect William Chambers who had worked at Woburn for the Duke of Bedford. He was to create two separate wings in such a way that they would fit in with the main structures; these were to contain a suite for Lord and Lady Ossory on one side and on the other, the kitchens. Other improvements were carried out and Lord Ossory himself took an active part in planning the alterations. The work was finally completed in 1771. Lord Ossory then turned his attention to the surrounding Park and employed Capability Brown at a cost of nearly £2,500 to landscape it. The finishing touch was made with the erection of a gothic style cross as a monument to Queen Catherine who had been imprisoned at Ampthill. Lord Ossory continued to live in the house until his death in 1818. The title deeds offer little detail about the house and park but the collection includes two items of interest in this respect. A particular of the estate made in 1723 doubtless in preparation for the sale of the property by Lord Ashburnham, gives a good description of the house and park: “A noble handsome well built Brick house well sash’t quite round to the cheif Front. A very large Court Yard raild round with Iron rails and a handsome pair of Large Iron Gates at the enterance in the midle of the Front is a large Noble lofty Hall very finely paved and well wainscotted and a handsome Marble Chimney Peice...” “The hous is Scituate in the midle of the Parke from whence there is a very noble prospect”. and another document of this date describes it as: “... a very Fine Seat, Built about 35 years since. Well Scituated for Prospects etc. with about 20 acres of Gardens walled in, and now in Good order”. On purchasing the property in 1737 Lady Gowran also bought the contents of the house and a detailed list of the rooms, their contents and furnishings was made at this time: “... in the Arcade: a month clock in a walnut tree case made by Tompion... ... My Lord’s Dressing Room: Six Russia leather chairs a mohogany table and a deal table ... a weather glass a plaster bust and six china figures a hercules on a pedestal... ... The Withdrawing Room: Two blew taffety draw up curtains lin’d with silk an easy chair covered with blew damask and lacquer’d frame... a marble table on a guilt frame... a small firescreen and a six leaved India screen...” On the death of Lord Ossory in 1818 the Bedfordshire estate passed to his nephew Lord Holland as devised by will and he also bequeathed him: “all the useful furniture at Ampthill Park to enable him to inhabit it without much expense ...” Lord Holland made his will in 1838 (RH8/1) and makes several bequests of works of art at Ampthill Park: “... landscape by Canaletti in breakfast room at Ampthill Park” “... portrait of Bishop Douglas by Sir Joshua Reynolds at Ampthill Park and the little Elziviv Orrd bound in green morocco generally in dressing room ...” “... bust of Perseus at Ampthill Park” “... bust at Ampthill Park of a Roman Emperor when a child” “ bust of Homer at Ampthill Park” “ drawing of mother by Lady Diana Beauclerk in dressing room at Ampthill Park” and also mentions books from the library there. On the sale of the estate in 1842 it was agreed that £1,000 of the purchase money should be paid to Lady Holland for the furniture and fixtures at Ampthill (see RH9/60/1-2) Sources: Bedfordshire Magazine XIII 72, 113,202,241 and 315 The Building of Ampthill Park, S Houfe See also Bedfordshire Magazine 1p. 234 Ampthill Park, Professor A E Richardson, R.A. deeds in RO1, S/AM and H/DE V.C.H III Outline History of Ossory Estate, 1737-1818 In 1737 Lord Fitzwilliam put up for sale his estate at Ampthill Park which he had purchased from the Ashburnhams only some twelve years before. Its purchase by Ann Baroness Dowager of Gowran for £23,226 started a connection with the county which was to last 80 years and make Ampthill Park the centre of a large estate (see introduction to RO1). The family now proceeded to build up an estate centred on the Park; in 1740 Baroness Gowran acquired from the Denbigh family the manor and surrounding lands of How End in the adjoining parish of Houghton Conquest despite competition from neighbouring landowners (see introduction to RO2). In the same year a small copyhold property was purchased in Millbrook (RO1//116). In 1741 the large estate of the Conquest family in Houghton Conquest was purchased. This family had been established in the parish since the middle ages and had at one time had a very extensive estate though latterly, probably as a result of their recusant faith and their royalist allegiance during the Civil War, they had fallen on hard times and the estate had become so heavily mortgaged that sale seemed the only solution. Here too there was some competition between local landowners; both the Archbishop and the Duke of Bedford were interested but found the price too high and the property was sold to Lady Gowran for her son at £10,000 (see introduction to RO5). The Baroness conveyed all the abovementioned property to her son John in 1741, presumably at his coming of age. Three years later he married Evelyn, daughter of John Leveson-Gower; shortly afterwards his mother died and he succeeded to the estates of her family, the Robinsons, at Farming Woods in Brigstock and Grafton Underwood, Northamptonshire. A few documents relating to the Northamptonshire estates are to be found in this collection (RO34/1-8); the Grafton Underwood estate was sold in 1748 and thereafter Ampthill became the family’s chief residence. A farm of some 80 acres in Houghton Conquest was added to the estate in 1749 for £2,250. Lord Gowran was created Earl of Upper Ossory in Queen’s County in 1751. He became a leading county figure and was M.P. for Bedfordshire from 1753 until his death in 1758. The Duke of Bedford was appointed as executor of his will and guardian of his son John, a minor of only 13. This collection includes accounts of the period of the Duke’s executorship. John’s mother remarried in 1759, this time to Richard Vernon of Newmarket and his vouchers for payments made for his step-daughter Louisa are included here. (RO32/16). A few months before the old Earl’s death another substantial addition was made to the estate; this was the manor of Pilling in Marston Moretain with its surrounding lands. This was the first property acquired in Marston and there is an estate map of it, dated 1773, received from another source. (X1/40) John spent his youth at Ampthill Park, completing his education at Cambridge and abroad on the Grand Tour, where he acquired a taste for the classics and the arts which inspired him to initiate various alterations and improvements to the House and surrounding park land. He married in 1769, after her divorce, Anne Liddell, the wife of Augustus Henry, third Duke of Grafton, at one time Prime Minister and by her had two daughters, Anne and Gertrude. Like his father before him, he represented the county in Parliament, being M.P. for Bedfordshire from 1767 until 1794 when he was created Baron Upper Ossory of Ampthill (the existing peerage, being Irish, had not debarred him from Parliament). When in 1771 the 7th Duke of Bedford, who was his uncle by marriage, died, he succeeded him as Lord Lieutenant of the County, which office he held until his death. In 1774 Lord Ossory purchased a substantial estate in Lidlington, including the manors of that place and of Flitwick and over the next few years other purchases were made in Houghton, Ampthill, Millbrook and Lidlington. On the death of his sister, Mary Lady Holland, in 1778, he took charge of her two children, of whom one was Henry Richard who later inherited the Ampthill estate. In 1804 a large area in Ampthill and Houghton Conquest was added to the estate by virtue of an exchange arranged by Lord Ossory with his cousin the 9th Duke of Bedford. In exchange for the Lidlington estate (including the manors of Lidlington and Flitwick) Lord Ossory received considerable lands around the ruins of Houghton House ( the Houghton Park estate) and the manors of Ampthill and Millbrook, these together comprising almost all that now remained of the Honour of Ampthill. The Honour, formed by Act of Parliament in 1542 almost entirely from the lands of the dissolved monasteries (largely in Bedfordshire but a few in Buckinghamshire) had rapidly dwindled, as these were sold off, to little beyond the manors of Ampthill and Millbrook with a few lands in Campton, Dunstable, Goldington and Steppingley. This was leased by the Crown, first to the Bruces from whom the 7th Duke purchased the residue of the term in 1738, and subsequently directly to the Duke. In 1804 this was ceded by the Duke to Lord Ossory. Only three or four additions were made to the estate between the exchange and the Earl’s death and these were, for the most part, of modest size. After his wife’s death in 1804 Lord Ossory formed a liaison with Mrs Elizabeth Wilson; it was said by Lord Egremont that a few years before his death he offered to marry her but that she had refused. By her he had a daughter and two sons. When the Earl died at Ampthill Park in 1818 he left no legitimate heir. His sister Mary had married the 2nd Lord Holland (died 1774) and it was to their son, the 3rd Lord Holland, that the estate passed in 1818. He had, in fact, been staying at Ampthill only a week before and wrote the following account of his uncle’s death: “My poor uncle died as he had often wished to do, without a moment’s warning or the slightest pain. ´ I am giddy,´ he said, as he was playfully preparing to show his little daughter the steps of a minuet, and sinking into a chair never spoke afterwards” [for the history of the estate under the Hollands see the introduction to the catalogue RH]
  • Scope and Content
    Introduction to Catalogues RO and RH: These two catalogues contain the title deeds and other related papers of the estate purchased by the Duke of Bedford from Lord Holland’s devisees in 1842. Much of Lord Holland’s property had descended to him from his uncle Lord Ossory and material relating to the Ossory estate is catalogued as RO. Transactions relating to this estate which took place after 1818 when the estate passed to Holland are catalogued as RH, as are additional purchases and transactions by Lord Holland. Although in a sense the whole collection could have been classified as RH (Russell:Holland purchase) it was decided to maintain the distinction which had been drawn in the Ossory and Holland bundle list, which had already been in use by students for some considerable time. The overall scheme of the catalogue, therefore, is based on this list, although a few minor alterations have been made. Detailed study of the history of the various purchases revealed that a few deeds had been misplaced in the original bundle list and also made it possible to identify and place some of the “strays” listed there under section 31. For this reason some alterations have taken place in the total number of documents stated in that list to relate to each purchase. A copy of this old list (which is now totally superceded by this catalogue) has been preserved at the end of the RH volume and a few notes have been added to indicate major alterations. THE HOLLAND PURCHASE AND THE DUKE OF BEDFORD’S ESTATE REGISTERS The title deeds of most of the Duke of Bedford’s property are entered, in the form of fairly full abstracts, in large Registers of Deeds, of which the County Record Office has copies. These normally give the same kind of information as County Record Office catalogues although they recite only material relevant to the title of the property concerned, thus omitting much of incidental interest. It has hence proved unnecessary to prepare detailed catalogues of the material dealt with in this way. However, the deeds of the Holland purchase have not been entered in anything like the same amount of detail as those of other purchases – possibly the Duke’s clerical staff found themselves unequal to the task when presented, in 1842, with such a vast quantity of deeds relating to only one purchase! The result was that the most important key conveyances only were abstracted – in many cases the deed by which Lord Ossory or Lord Holland had acquired the property in question – while earlier material was left untouched. (especially any mediaeval documents), being described only as a “bundle of old deeds”. Thus it has been necessary to prepare a detailed catalogue of all material relating to this purchase. Where a deed is entered in the Register, a note has been made in the catalogue of the Register volume number and page where the entry can be found. The whole of this purchase is in fact in Register volume V and is called Bundle 1. Normally this will not add any further information but in a few cases it may prove useful if fuller information is desired about the exact terms of trust-deeds and settlements without having recourse to the original deed. The arrangement of the deeds in the register does not conform to the usual practice followed in County Record office catalogues and hence has not been followed here. General Notes on the Method of Cataloguing Arrangement The collection has been arranged, as far as possible, to show how the estate was built up; the various constituent properties are listed in the date order of their acquisition by the Ossory and later the Holland families. The deeds of each individual property are also arranged to show how it was built up by its previous owners. Inevitably there have been several documents which cannot be assigned to any particular property; if it is clear that such a document relates to a particular section of the catalogue it is listed at the end of that section, otherwise at the end of the whole catalogue. Detail All personal names are given and the property is fully listed (with abuttals) except where a schedule of lands is annexed to a deed (or, rarely, where a great deal of property in other counties is concerned). The provisions of the longer settlements have been omitted, such omissions being indicated as follows: “on trusts...”. In some cases, the Registers may provide further details (see above). Layout Except where fuller details are given, conveyances, receipts, letters etc. are from the first party, i), to the second, ii). Where other deeds are recited within the main deed, the parties of the recited deeds are distinguished by a different series of numbers, e.g: (i), (ii) or i] ii] etc. The properties in a deed are itemised thus: -farmhouse -Home Close and abuttals of property are shown thus: E. Mr Conquest = land of Mr Conquest on the east the following layout: -2 roods ... 1 rood on Long Furlong ... 1 rood on Broad Furlong is used to show how the 2 roods concerned were distributed Place-names The county is given except in the case of Bedfordshire parishes. The spelling of parish and town names has usually been modernised except in some early deeds. For fields etc. within a parish original spellings have normally been retained but components such as Broade, Furlonge etc. have usually been modernised. Initial lowercase letters have been replaced by capitals. Personal names Christian names have been modernised but the contemporary spelling of surnames has been retained. Witnesses are listed without distinction between those to the deed and those to the Livery of Seisin or between those to the signatures of different parties. Seals These are not mentioned after c.1600
  • Reference
  • Level of description
    fonds
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