Nottinghamshire Contents

Haughton

Haughton Parochial Chapelry. This decayed parish was once the splendid and hospitable seat of the Earls of Clare, and the first Duke of Newcastle, but has now only the ruins of a chapel, a deserted paper mill, a corn mill, and eight scattered houses on the rivers Medin and Idle, 5 miles north-west of Tuxford and 7 miles south-south-west of Retford. It comprises 1,000 acres of rich land and 78 inhabitants. It contains several vigorous plantations, and an excellent decoy for wild fowl, consisting of 20 acres of water, and about the same extent of "cover".

The venerable ruins of the church or chapel are now embowered in a plantation of firs, and appear to be the remains of the nave and north cemetery, in which are several mutilated tombs, and armorial bearings of the Stanhope and Holles families. The inhabitants having no church of their own, now use that at Walesby, and they participate in the benefits of the free school at West Drayton.

The Duke of Newcastle is the owner, improprietor and lord of the manor, which at the Norman Conquest was given to Roger Pietavensis, but it afterwards passed with his other possessions in this county to the Earl of Lancaster. In the 35th year of Edward III, John de Longvillers held here of Nicholas Monboucher, by the service of a rose, two messuages, half a carucate of land, ten acres of meadow, and two water mills. The manor afterwards passed in marriage with the heiress of Longvillers to Mallovell, Lord of Rampton, and from his descendants it went to the Stanhope family, with which it continued till Saunchia Stanhope was married to John Babington, who sold it to Sir William Holles, a great merchant and lord mayor of London, and great grandfather of john Holles, who in 1624 was created Baron Haughton and Earl of Clare, titles which are now merged in the Dukedom of Newcastle, as will be seen with Clumber, which has been the chief seat of the family since about the year 1770.

A tourist, who wrote in 1750 says that Sir William Holles, son of the before-named Sir William, possessed an estate of £10,000 a year in the reign of Henry VIII, and lived at Haughton in great spendour and hospitality. "He began his Christmas at All-hallowtide, and continued it till Candlemas, during which any man was permitted to stay three days, without being asked whence he came or what he was". The fourth and last Earl of Clare married the co-heiress of H. Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and was himself, after the death of his father-in-law in 1691, created duke by that title - his own estate and the Cavendish together amounting to £40,000 per annum. Haughton, upon the acquisition of these estates, was neglected, and the Duke resided at Welbeck Abbey. Afterwards, when the Holles and the Cavendish estates became separate again, and the latter went through the Harleys to the Bentincks, a mansion was probably wanted for the former, and Cluber Park, which might be the lodge before, was by degrees extended to its present size and importance.

Thus the once princely seat of Haughton was left to ruin and decay. All that is now left of the mansion is occupied as a farmhouse, and the extensive park, which was mostly on the north side of the Medin, in Bothamsall parish, is now divided into meadows and arable fields. The farmers are John Camm, junior (and hop grower) Old Hall; George Lee, Warren House; John Lowe (and corn miller), John Mansell and John Ward, Decoy House.

White's Directory of Nottinghamshire 1853

© Copyright C.R.G. Henly 1998