Axholme Before Vermuyden – The Land and Its Lords – Manor of Crowle

Manor of Crowle

The Domesday Record

At the time of the Conquest, Crowle was the most populous and valuable manor in the Isle of Axholme. The Domesday Book recorded impressive resources: fifteen villagers and nineteen bordars working seven ploughs, thirty-one fisheries valued at thirty-one shillings, thirty acres of meadow, and woodland and pasture measuring one mile in each direction. The manor’s value had decreased from £12 in King Edward’s time to £8 by 1086

Geoffrey de Wirce received the manor at the Conquest as the first Norman Lord of the Isle of Axholme. Shortly thereafter, he granted a hundred of land to Selby Abbey, which had been founded in 1069.

Medieval Monastic Ownership (1086-1539)

From the late 11th century until the Dissolution, Selby Abbey controlled Crowle Manor. In 1281, the Abbot held the soke of Crowle of the Lord King in perpetual alms.

In 1311, an important agreement was reached between Sir John de Mowbray and the Abbot of Selby. Mowbray quit-claimed to the Abbot all his right in Crowle and several other manors, while the Abbot granted Mowbray free chase rights in the manor and soke of Crowle, with the Abbot retaining the right to protect his corn and meadows from wild beasts and maintaining free warren for goats, foxes, wolves, and rabbits.

Surviving medieval records include rentals from the early 14th century, 1379, 1389, and 1428, as well as an account from the bursar of Selby Abbey dated 1481.

Selby Abbey had made some improvements to the water systems for both drainage and navigation before Vermuyden’s arrival, but these were relatively modest compared to the dramatic changes that would come in the 1620s.

Dissolution and Post-Monastic Period (1539-1620s)

Following the Dissolution in 1539, the manor was annexed by the King in Council to the Level of Hatfield Chase in 1548 and placed under the control of the Chase officers, with all issues and profits paid to the Chancellor of the Court of Augmentation. However, the whole water of Crowle and its fishery were granted to Sir Ralph Sadleyr of Hackney, Middlesex.

In 1551 the manor, with many other properties in Lincolnshire and elsewhere, was granted to Edward Fynes, Lord Clynton and Saye, Lord High Admiral, reference being made to appurtenances in Amcotts, Garthorpe, Evylthwayte, Luddington and Eastoft, and it appears to have been re-granted to Queen Elizabeth in c. 1565

The Manor would remain in royal hands until after Vermuyden’s drainage in the 17th century.

This productive marsh economy would be fundamentally disrupted by Vermuyden’s drainage scheme, which attempted to convert the area from a stock-farming system to an arable one, with profound consequences for the local population.