WERPESGRAVE with ESYNDON - (WARPSGROVE & EASINGTON)

 

The 1185 report of the Knights Templars reads of Werpesgrave with Esyndon:

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"The Master and Brothers of the Knighthood of the Temple in England hold and possess the manor of Werpesgrave, with its appurtenances, but by what warrant they do not know, whether by the gift of a certain Richard Foliot, knight, or by the gift of the heirs of that same Richard. And Lord Thomas de Parco is the intermediate lord between the said Master and Brothers and William de Scalebroc, and the said William de Scalebroc is the intermediate lord between the aforesaid Lord Thomas and the Earl of Lincoln. And the whole manor of Werpesgrave, with its appurtenances, amounts to one hide of land, and that manor is held of the aforesaid Lord Thomas de Parco by the service of one knight’s fee, and it owes suit of court to the same Lord Thomas and to the hundred of Ewelme, etc.

The Master and Brothers of the Knighthood of the Temple hold and possess the manor of Essendon, with all its appurtenances, as it can be inquired, by the gift of a certain Lord Ralph of Sunelieworth, knight, and they hold it in chief of Lord Adam the Dispenser, rendering to him the service of half a knight’s fee and suit of court at the hundred of Ewelme every three weeks, and they have there in demesne one virgate of land with appurtenances"

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Warpsgrove and Easington: the Templars’ Lost Medieval Manor on the Oxfordshire–Chiltern Edge

Between Chalgrove, Easington and the Haseleys lies a quiet landscape of fields, lanes and scattered farms. Today, Warpsgrove is barely a hamlet, and Easington remains one of the smallest historic settlements in the area. Yet in the Middle Ages these two tiny places formed part of a working manorial landscape held first by local lords, then by the Knights Templar, and later by their successors, the Knights Hospitaller.

Although sometimes associated in wider local tradition with Gloucestershire or Templar estates more broadly, the medieval evidence places Warpsgrove and Easington in Oxfordshire, in the historic hundred of Ewelme. Warpsgrove lay east of Chalgrove and north of Easington; Easington lay east of Chalgrove and north of Cuxham. Warpsgrove was only 335 acres, while Easington was even smaller, about 235 acres in the 19th century. 

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A small medieval village at Warpsgrove

Warpsgrove was already a separate manor by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086. At that date it was held by Odo of Bayeux, William the Conqueror’s half-brother, and its tenant was probably Hervey de Campeaux. After Odo’s forfeiture, the manor became attached to the honour of Pontefract, held by the Lacy family. The tenancy later passed with Little Haseley to the Skelbrookes, who probably granted or subinfeudated it to the Foliot family in the 12th century. 

The Foliots appear to have been resident lords. Ralph Foliot and his son Richard were both associated with Warpsgrove, and the manorial buildings were probably close to the church and village. The medieval settlement seems to have grown beside the road from Chalgrove to Little Haseley, near a small tributary of Haseley Brook. In 1086 there were six tenant households; by 1279 the number had roughly doubled, with two villeins, nine cottars and one free tenant, implying perhaps 50 to 60 people in all. 

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The gift to the Knights Templar

Around the 1230s, Richard Foliot and other interested parties granted Warpsgrove to the Knights Templar. The Templars’ Oxfordshire preceptory was first associated with Temple Cowley, but from around 1240 their main Oxfordshire base was at Sandford-on-Thames. Warpsgrove and Easington were therefore not major commandery centres in their own right, but smaller agricultural estates managed within the wider Templar network. 

The grant at Warpsgrove included a barn or grange, six strips of land near a stream, 105 acres of demesne arable with meadow, two half-yardland tenancies, a cotland, and pasture rights for a plough-ox and three cows. This tells us that Warpsgrove was not merely a spiritual possession: it was a productive farming estate, with arable land, meadow, tenants, working animals and buildings used to manage produce. 

By 1279, the Templars’ tenants at Warpsgrove owed rents and agricultural services such as ploughing, harrowing, threshing, wood-carting and harvest work. After the suppression of the Templars in 1308, royal accounts recorded sales of grain including wheat, dredge and maslin, as well as cattle, sheep, horses and pigeons kept in a dovecot. Repairs were made to a wheat barn, granary and dairy, showing that the estate had a developed agricultural complex. 

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Easington: a second Templar manor

Easington had a separate early history. In the 9th century it appears to have been part of the bishop of Worcester’s large estate of Readanora, or Pyrton. By 1086 it was held from the king by Robert son of Ralph, and later passed to the Despenser family and then to the Seacourts. 

Before 1220, Ralph Seacourt granted Easington to the Knights Templar. The Templars had already acquired a site on which to build a house, and during the 13th century they added smaller holdings from free tenants. However, once the Templars’ Oxfordshire preceptory was established at Sandford, Easington was managed from the grange at Warpsgrove, rather than developing as a major independent manorial centre. 

In 1279, Easington’s arable land amounted to just over 10½ yardlands, including the Templars’ two-yardland demesne. Its tenants included freeholders such as John Griffin, who held three yardlands, and Gilbert Dreu, who held two. The estate produced wheat, oats, dredge, peas and beans, and in the early 14th century had several hundred sheep as well as cows. 

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From Templars to Hospitallers

The Knights Templar were suppressed in England in 1308. Their estates were initially taken into royal hands and later transferred to the Knights Hospitaller. By 1324, the Hospitallers held Warpsgrove and Easington and leased them together to Sir John Stonor and his brother Adam Stonor for £18 a year. By 1338 John Stonor held them for life. 

This long lease to the Stonors is important. It shows that Warpsgrove and Easington were being treated as a linked estate. Warpsgrove appears to have been the operational centre, with Easington farmed from the Warpsgrove grange. In the later Middle Ages the estates were increasingly used for grazing and sheep farming. Sir William Stonor, who held the lease in the late 15th century, was a prominent wool exporter, and the shift towards sheep grazing may have contributed to Warpsgrove’s decline as a village. 

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The lost church of Warpsgrove

Warpsgrove once had its own parish church, probably established in the 12th century. It stood beside the main road and the medieval village. As the population declined after the Black Death, both village and church were gradually abandoned. By 1377 only 12 inhabitants over the age of 14 paid poll tax, and by 1453 the parish was reportedly deserted. The abandoned church had disappeared by the late 18th century. 

The old church is usually associated with St James, though the exact footprint has not been firmly identified. A crucial clue comes from William Webb’s 1612 map of Golder Manor, which shows a building labelled: “Warpsgrove House in Tymes Past a Parish Church.” The Chalgrove Local History Group notes that this map is not north-oriented and requires careful interpretation, but the label strongly suggests that the former church and Warpsgrove House stood very close together, perhaps even confused in later memory as one ruined site. 

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The best approximate pin for the old church/manorial site is:

51.671533, -1.041258

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This should be treated as an approximate archaeological location, not an exact standing-building site.

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Warpsgrove House and the lost manor buildings

The exact site of the Foliots’ manor house and the Templars’ grange is unknown, but both were probably close to the church and the deserted medieval village. In 1519, the lessee of the manor was given timber to repair “houses standing upon the site of the manor,” showing that buildings still existed there after the medieval village had declined. Webb’s 1612 map then shows Warpsgrove House, identified with the former parish church. 

By the time of the Battle of Chalgrove in 1643, Warpsgrove House was probably already a ruin. Local historical interpretation suggests that the site was later robbed for building material. One tradition recorded in the local account is that Warpsgrove Manor Cottage, now known as Battlefield Manor, may have reused stone from Warpsgrove House. Three stone cottages built about 100 yards from Warpsgrove House may also have taken stone from the ruined house. These cottages were later demolished in the early 19th century, and some of their stone is said to survive in walls near The Lamb Inn, Mill Lane, Chalgrove. 

That story is especially evocative because it shows how a medieval manor can disappear not all at once, but in stages: first abandoned, then ruined, then quarried, then absorbed into cottages, and finally reused again in a village wall.

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Easington’s surviving church

Unlike Warpsgrove, Easington still has its medieval church: St Peter’s Church. The present building is largely 14th-century, but it contains earlier Norman material, including a reused 12th-century doorway and a tub-shaped font. The church has a simple nave and chancel without a chancel arch, 14th-century glass, a piscina and traces of medieval wall painting. 

Easington’s church was in existence before 1148. Its advowson was granted by members of the Seacourt family to Godstow Abbey, and in 1309 Godstow granted the advowson to the Bishop of Lincoln. The living later remained in episcopal patronage until the modern period. 

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What is there today?

Today, Warpsgrove is a landscape of fields, footpaths and scattered farms rather than a village. The medieval church has gone, the manor house has gone, and the Templar grange has left no standing remains above ground. In 2013 the settlement consisted essentially of Manor House Farm, Lane Farm and a nearby cottage. The present Manor Farm was built in the early to mid-18th century, on a site some distance from the former church. 

Easington, by contrast, still retains its small church and hamlet-like form. St Peter’s Church, Easington Manor and nearby buildings preserve the sense of a tiny rural settlement. Easington Manor itself is partly 16th-century or later and does not necessarily stand on the site of the Templars’ earlier house, whose exact location remains unknown. 

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A vanished Templar landscape

Warpsgrove and Easington were never great castles or wealthy towns. Their importance lies in their ordinariness. They show how the Knights Templar held and managed small rural estates: collecting rents, farming demesne land, raising livestock, storing grain, maintaining barns and dairies, and leasing property within a wider network of religious and military landholding.

At Warpsgrove, the medieval village disappeared; at Easington, the settlement survived in miniature. The lost church, the suspected manor site, the grange, the reused stone and the surviving church of St Peter together create a layered story of medieval lordship, religious patronage, agricultural change and local memory. Much of Warpsgrove has vanished from sight, but its history is still written into the fields, lanes, parish boundaries and fragments of stone that remain.