King's Ripton was included under Hartford (q.v.) in the Domesday
Survey (1086), which accounts for the return there of two churches
and two mills. In a suit of 1276 it was stated on behalf of the king
that the manor appeared to have been ancient demesne of the Crown
(which Hartford is shown to have been) 'by inspection of his book
which is called Domesday.' In later documents King's Ripton is
described as a hamlet of Hartford. The earliest record shows it to
have been held by the Crown when Henry I granted his manor of Ripton
to Walter, Abbot of Ramsey, to hold for ever at fee farm, paying £8
per annum. King Stephen granted 'his demesne manor of Ripton' to the
Abbey in free alms, but Henry II repeated the terms of the charter
of Henry I and the fee farm, which later amounted to £10 13s. 4d.
per annum, was paid to the Crown by the Abbots of Ramsey until the
Dissolution. There is record of a grant made by Abbot William
between 1161 and 1177 of some land in King's Ripton 'which Durand,
with the charters which he had had of King Henry the elder of the
same land, gave to the Abbey with his body for ever.' In 1279 the
abbot was returned as holding 'the manor of Ripton Regis which is a
hamlet belonging to Hartford (Hereford). After the Dissolution the
manor appears to have remained for some considerable time in the
Crown, but in 1601 Thomas Bellott and Richard Langeley, acting for
Sir Robert Cecil, obtained a grant of it. In 1609 Cecil, then Earl
of Salisbury, settled it on himself and his son, who succeeded him
in 1612. In 1618 William, second Earl of Salisbury, conveyed the
manor to Ralph Ratcliff, who died seised of it in 1622, leaving his
nephew Edward his heir. In 1630 Edward Ratcliff sold King's Ripton
for £1,550 to Sir Thomas Power, Kt., of London. It was still held by
the Powers in 1659, when it apparently passed to Thomas Parnell. In
1731 a Thomas Parnell and Hester his wife suffered a recovery of the
manor, probably for the purpose of a settlement. In 1755 the manor
was again apparently settled by John Peckard and Mary, his wife, and
Peter Peckard, but the descent of the property from the time of the
Parnells is obscure.
The manor is at present held by Magdalene College, Cambridge, and
Lord de Ramsey is one of the principal landowners.
The abbot had view of frankpledge in his manor here. In 1276, in a
suit between the king and the Abbot of Ramsey, certain of the men of
King's Ripton claimed to be tenants of ancient demesne. They
complained that the abbot, by reason of his fee farm, made
extortionate claims for relief and distrained their cattle. They
contended they should hold by service of 5s. 1d. per annum for each
virgate, paying as relief 2s. 6d. for each virgate, and that they
should be tallaged according to the King's levies on his other
demesne. An inquiry was held and judgment was given mainly in the
abbot's favour. The rent and relief quoted by the tenants were found
adequate, but it was also ruled that they owed the abbot, as lord,
one day's work every week from Michaelmas to 1 August, the day
counting from sunrise to sunset. No ploughing was to be done for
fifteen days at Christmas nor for eight days at both Easter and
Whitsun. When the meadow called Haycroft was cut, the whole township
must attend, and they might receive 8d. per head from the abbot's
purse for scotale. Moreover, each man might have from this field a
bundle of as much hay as he could lift on his scythe. Work during
the actual period of harvesting was also very clearly set out, and
everyone who could carry a sickle was bound to come, each man
receiving a loaf, meat and ale. In the winter two tenants would sow
one rood of land with their own seed; each, in the following
harvest, might have from it as large a sheaf of corn as they could
tie with one binder.
At the time of King Henry the First's gift of Ripton to Ramsey Abbey
a certain pasture of 100 acres in a wood in King's Ripton called
Kingesho belonged to the 'manor of Hereford with Rypton Regis.' The
King had been accustomed to have pannage of his pigs there, but in
the reign of King John, the abbot of that time had the wood assarted
and gave the assart to Walter de Stukeley, then steward of the
Abbey, who afterwards enfeoffed the Prior of Huntingdon with a
portion. In 1279 Kingesho was held partly by the prior and partly by
Walter de Stukeley's 'successors,' Ralph Rastell and Margery his
wife—'and thus the assart is alienated from the rest of the said
manors except in so far as the parson of the said manors receives
tithes of corn of the said assart.'
Magdalene College, Cambridge.
Quarterly and party indented or and azure, a bend azure between two eagles or with a fret between two martlets or upon the bend.
A small portion of land known as Le Heuth in King's Ripton, in the hay of Sapley in the forest of Weybridge (Wauberge) was granted to John Pykard by John de Crokesle in 1301 for a yearly rent of 13s. 2d., to be inclosed out of the forest and reduced to cultivation. It does not appear ever to have been held as a manor. It passed soon afterwards to William de Bureford and Joan his wife; it was subsequently held by John Stukeley, and in 1385 by John Colles of Collesplace in Abbots Ripton (q.v.). A close called Collesclose was farmed with the manor of King's Ripton in 1534.
