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STATION ROAD
Part Five
The Manor House: Bringing it up to date
Dr. Ford: Friend Physician
By Stephen Bull

By delving into the past through this series of articles in The Swavesey Meridian we have seen how the church and feudal lords dominated the life of the medieval village of Swavesey. The Parish Church can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon times and the abandoned Priory nearby also has a history going back to the same period.

What the Anglo-Saxons gave us
The other significant influence in the village was brought about, again, through the Anglo-Saxons, with the introduction of the ‘manorial’ form of government and taxation agency, which was the backbone of local government for close on a thousand years.*¹

In medieval times peasants were personally bound to their feudal lords to whom they paid ‘dues’ and rendered ‘services’. These manorial dues were paid by money or by doing work (a form of serfdom) in return for tenure of land. These dues would have been the main source of income for the Lord of the Manor. However, the village also benefited through the philanthropy of the Lords (and Ladies) of the Manor!

“Lady Bountiful Ryder”
One such person who exercised significant philanthropy in the village of Swavesey in the mid-1800s was Mrs. Dudley Ryder, the great grand-daughter of Thomas Cockayne, described as “The Hon. Mrs. Dudley Ryder of Ickleford, Hitchen, Lady of the Manor of Swavesey owner of the Rectory and other properties”. She took a keen interest in the village school and the welfare of the pupils, the church Sunday school, choir and bell ringers and the poor of the village, although she was not resident in the village. A report in The Swavesey Chronicle dated 30th December 1865 states:-
“Gifts to the Poor By the liberality of a lady (Mrs. Ryder), non resident in the parish, 50 widows and widowers were presented with 1lb of beef, and a quart of beer, to enable them to make good cheer at this happy season.”

She was also remembered for helping to finance “the restoration of the old parish church” carried out in 1866-67 (Williams/The Swavesey Chronicle 29 August 1890). No wonder she was referred to locally - rather facetiously as “Lady Bountiful Ryder”!!!

On the death of Mrs Ryder in 1878 the estate, including the Manor Farm, Church End; Ryder’s Farm, Middle Watch; and Hill Farm, Lolworth, was sold off in lots. The estate, so painstakingly built up by successive generations of the Cockayne family, came to an end and the ‘manorial rights’ were acquired by John Osborn Daintree, Esq. on behalf of his parents Richard and Elizabeth Daintree.*²

The Manor and Manor Farm: 1851-1948
Hanslip Long was the tenant farmer of the Manor Farm from 1851 to 1869. He and his wife and family took up residence in the Manor House later in the year. Hanslip Long and his wife returned to their village, Carlton near Newmarket, in 1869. The legacy of their eighteen years’ spent in Swavesey is remembered by the Parish Clock installed in St. Andrews church tower, presented to the parish by his son, George, in memory of his mother and father.

At the sale in 1878 (see above) the Manor Farm with the house and 192 acres apparently passed to Charles Roberts and was sold the next year probably to Thomas Docksey (The Victorian History of the County of Cambridge the isle of Ely Vol. IX pages 382 383). Mention is made of Mr. Thos Docksey of Manor Farm who is reported to have given “a substantial dinner to about thirty of his harvest men” reported 25 September 1880. In May 1892 Mr. Docksey is described as “no fairer, or businesslike man could be found .......”.

In 1903 the Manor Farm probably belonged to a Capt. J.A.M. Vipan. His trustees sold it and 159 acres to James Norman, one of his tenants, in 1908. [See the article on the Manor Farm in The Swavesey Meridian: August/September 1996.] Members of the Norman family lived in the house until 1942 when the farm was again offered for sale.

The Manor Farm was purchased by Taylors, the Solicitors of Newmarket in 1942. During World War II the Manor House was requisitioned by the government and was used to accommodate ‘land girls’ engaged in agricultural work for the war effort.

The Manor House in the Modern Era
The half-timbered gable Manor House we see today was beautifully restored by Dr. and Mrs. Allan Ford, doctor in the village 1945-1975, who purchased the house and farm on 11th November 1948. Inside the Manor House an Elizabethan hall-screen lines one side of the hall and leads to a Jacobean staircase with symmetrically turned balusters (Pevsner page 382). Beams and the original fireplaces in the surgery and dining room and the windows in the landing were exposed during the restoration and added greatly to the medieval ‘feel’ of the Manor House.

During that time many in the village will have memories of visits to the Manor House! The Manor served as the doctor’s surgery which usually entailed lengthy waiting times in the crowded waiting room - there were no appointments in those days! Not only was he “physician” in the village and surrounding area but also a “friend”, demonstrated through his concern for the wellbeing for the young people of the village. For a quarter of a century Dr. Ford and his wife Eileen ran a Bible Class on Sunday afternoons, held in their comfortable lounge.

In the late 1940s and the 1950s Dr Ford provided a cordoned off area for the Swavesey Cricket Club in the large field behind the Manor (depicted on the cover of the August/September 1994 issue of The Swavesey Meridian). When the village green was waterlogged football was also played in this field.

Dr. Ford had a wry sense of humour and would often relate how he could stand in his lounge with one foot in the eastern hemisphere and the other in the western hemisphere! [The Manor lies more or less on the Greenwich Meridian Line.] Similarly, he was always joking that a secret tunnel led from the Manor House to the church, and claimed that the entrance was through an old wooden door in the surgery waiting room, and would point out a stretch of parched grass across the front lawn in the direction of the church, particularly during a drought.

When the sewerage system was put through the village in the 1960s, however, no evidence of a “secret tunnel” was revealed. It became clear that the sewer passed through the old monks’ cemetery in its proper place east of the Priory Church. Some stone coffins were uncovered and have been placed in or near the church. The skulls that came up were placed on the garden fence of the Manor House which at the time housed the doctor’s surgery - thus indicating that others also had a sense of humour! (Ravensdale page 24.)

Click here to view Carol Singers at the Manor House 1972

On the untimely death of Dr. Ford in 1975 Mrs. Ford moved to be near one of her daughters, and sold the Manor House and farm in 1976 to horse breeder/farmer, Miss Bartholomew (of John Bartholomew’s map fame). After a short while the Manor was purchased by the present occupants, Mr. & Mrs. Bayfield, who maintain the house, gardens and grounds in immaculate condition. In spring-time the gardens look a picture.

Today we still enjoy the results of the initial granting to the Norman Lord, Roger de la Zouch, of “fifteen oaks for making lodgings at his ‘manor’ of Swavesey” in 1232.

Click here to view the 'at a glance' history of the Manor House

Notes:-
*1. In Anglo-Saxon times most villages would have had several owners and several ‘manors’ each with their feudal lord and the village of Swavesey was no exception (Fen & Upland page 7). Mention is made of the “Manors of Swavesey, and Hobbledods Bennets” in the Swavesey Chronicle 29 September 1781. The ‘manor’ was the administrative centre for the estate of the 1' local lords. The 'manorial’ system of payment of dues by tenants to the Lord of the Manor for ‘copyhold’ tenure of land, in the form services or money, was adopted later by the Normans following the Norman Conquest in 1066, and continued for close on 1,000 years.
The system of ‘manorial rights’ was discontinued by an Act of Parliament in 1922 and thereby concluded a one thousand year old system of local government.

*2. On the death of Lady Ryder in 1878 the ‘manorial rights’ were acquired by John Osborn Daintree, Esq. on behalf of his parents Richard and Elizabeth Daintree. John Daintree already owned land in the parish and a few years previously had built himself a fine red-brick “Manor House” at the bottom of Market Street. [This modern manor house is close to the ancient “Hobbledod Manor” known as the ‘second’ Manor in nearby Wallman’s Lane.]

Acknowledgements:-

1. “Archaeology of Cambridgeshire: Vol. 2: South East Cambridgeshire the Fen Edge”
   (AoCSEC) by Alison Taylor;
2. “The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire” by Pevsner;
3. “Fen and Upland : 2,000 Years of History" (1961);
4. “History on Your Doorstep” by J.R. Ravensdale (1982);
5. “The Swavesey Meridian”: August/September 1994 August/September 1996;
6. “The Swavesey Chronicle”: Compiled by H. Hepher (1982);
7. Leaflet: “The Story of Swavesey Village Sign”: 1979;
8. “Swavesey in the 19th Century”: Dennis Williams;
9. Guide to “The Parish Priory Church of St Andrew” by Revd. John-David Yule (1996);
10. The Victoria History of the County of Cambridge the Isle of Ely Vol. IV;
11. Mrs. Eileen Ford (wife of the late Dr. A. R. Ford): telephone conversation;
12. Mr. John Shepperson: telephone conversation.