The Manor of Laxton and Mark Pierce's 1635 map
The lordship of the manor of Laxton had been in the hands of the Roos family from the early-15th century. In the 16th century they built a new manor house in the grounds of Laxton's old Norman motte and bailey castle.
However, in 1618 Gilbert Roos (1592-1621) was forced to sell the manor of Laxton, and all his family's property in the village. George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, bought the manor for £6,000, but he sold it on to Sir William Courten (1572-1634), a London merchant, in 1625. In the late 1620s Courten also bought a 66-acre farm in Laxton from Gilbert's cousin Mr Francis Roos. Members of the Roos or Roose (later Rose) family remained in Laxton, but as tenant farmers rather than landowners.
Courten ordered the surveyor Mark Pierce to undertake a survey and draw up a map (Document 1) in order to know what he owned. The map enables us to see the exact state of the manor at that time. But Courten died soon afterwards, and his son, also called William, went bankrupt. In 1640 the manor was sold again. The new purchaser was Robert Pierrepont (1584-1643), 1st Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull, a member of an old Nottinghamshire family based at Holme Pierrepont Hall.
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