Local History and People

Penn’s Naval Heritage

Penn in Buckinghamshire is far from the coast and yet surprisingly it has numerous Naval connections. The earliest links, through the Howe and Curzon families, are somewhat tenuous yet their later descendants were very much of this parish. All of these men were Naval Officers at significant moments in British history stretching from American Independence through two world wars right up to the Falklands war.

  1. Admiral Richard Lord Howe (1726 -1799)
  2. Admiral Hon. Sir Assheton Gore Curzon-Howe KCB CVO CMG (1850 -1911)
  3. Vice Admiral Herbert Whitmore Savory (1857 – 1918)
  4. Francis Richard Henry Penn Curzon CBE RD PC RNVR, 5th Earl Howe (1884 – 1964)
  5. Commander Chambré George William Penn Curzon (1898 – 1976)
  6. Captain Andrew VS Yates RN (1900- 1991)
  7. Edward Richard Henry Penn Curzon. 6th Earl Howe (1908 – 1984)
  8. Captain William Wallace Muir RN (1914 -1964)
  9. Lieutenant Commander Jock Matthew Clarke-Campbell (1920-1985)
  10. Captain Brian G Young DSO RN (1930 – 2009)

 Admiral (Richard) Earl Howe KG (1726 – 1799)


Admiral Earl Howe, 1795, wearing an admiral’s

undress uniform and his own white hair.
The painter was Mather Brown.

It was Penn Assheton Curzon (1757 – 1797), son of Assheton Curzon,1st Viscount Curzon (1730 -1820), who brought in the Howe connection by marrying the eldest daughter of the then First Lord of the Admiralty, later Admiral of the Fleet, Richard Viscount Howe. His name appears on at least three of the memorials in the chancel although there is no memorial to him in Penn Church. Indeed, no record of a visit has been seen, but his son-in-law, Penn Assheton Curzon, was buried in the vault under the chancel which was dug for him in 1797. Admiral Howe was still alive and active so there would seem to be a high probability that he came to Penn for the burial of his daughter’s husband.

He had joined the Royal Navy as a Midshipman at the age of 13, as was customary at the time, and his promotion was very rapid, decisively aided by wealth and royal connections (his grandmother was the Countess of Darlington, George I’s illegitimate half-sister), as well as considerable ability. He was a Master and Commander with his own ship at 19, a Post-Captain at 20 and saw distinguished service in four wars. For a brief period he had been Flag Captain to the Prince of Wales’ second son, Prince Edward, Duke of York, a Rear Admiral, a sign of royal approbation. It is not surprising to find that his biographer described him as headstrong, and obsessed with rank, position and his own self-importance. On the other hand he had vast prestige with his sailors who nicknamed him ‘Black Dick, the sailor’s friend’.

Admiral Howe was appointed commander-in-chief in North America in 1776 and received a commission, jointly with his younger brother, General Sir William Howe, who was already there in command of the army,. They were ‘to treat with the revolted Americans, and to take measures for the restoration of peace with the colonies’. Admiral Howe had often talked to Benjamin Franklin about the colonists’ grievances, and was sent as a conciliator, but arrived after the declaration of independence on 4 July 1776. He was too late.

He was particularly famous for leading the Channel Fleet of some 36 ships of the line to victory in a highly successful naval action 430 miles west of Ushant, against the French Revolutionary fleet on 1 June 1794, ‘The Glorious First of June’, celebrated for many years by the Royal Navy. The decisive point in the battle was a bloody encounter between the two flagships, the Queen Charlotte and the Montagne, which came within a few feet of each other exchanging lethal broadsides. The French were badly beaten with one ship sunk and six captured and he was a national hero. The King and Queen with three princesses went out to his flagship at Portsmouth and presented the Admiral with a diamond-hilted sword (valued at 3,000 guineas, an immense sum at that time), promising him the Order of the Garter.

His final contribution to the Navy which he had served so well for 57 years was successfully to negotiate with the mutineers at Spithead in 1797 and get them back to sea. They had genuine grievances, not least that their pay had not been increased since 1652. He had in fact retired some days earlier, but his reputation with ordinary seamen was so high that he was begged by the King to go to Portsmouth to see what could be done, and he spent several days being rowed about the Fleet speaking to the men. Both his courage and his taciturnity were proverbial. ‘I think we shall have the fight today’, one of his seamen is reported to have said on the morning of the First of June 1794, ‘Black Dick has been smiling’. He apparently often had a harsh and forbidding expression, but he was careful of the health and welfare of his men and they appreciated his ‘grim peculiarities’.

He had been created Earl Howe and Baron Howe of Langar in 1788 and when he died, the most famous Admiral in the country, he was buried at Langar in Nottinghamshire and a monument was placed in St Paul’s. His elder daughter, Sophia Charlotte, was allowed to inherited the barony, but he had no sons and so the earldom became extinct until it was it was renewed for his grandson in 1821, who then became the second ‘first Earl Howe’.


The future Admiral Howe, in 1763,

by Thomas Gainsborough.

© Miles Green, Penn Parish Newsletter No.46, November 2016
Photographs © courtesy of Eddie Morton ARPS


Admiral The Hon. Sir Assheton Gore Curzon-Howe GCVO KCB CMG FRGS  (1850 -1911)

The youngest of thirteen children of Richard William Penn Curzon-Howe (1796 – 1870) he was born in Gopsall, Leics. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant from the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert on 18 September 1872.
Curzon Howe was promoted Captain in 1888 when thirty-seven years old. The same year he was in command of Boadicea as Flag Captain to Rear-Admiral The Hon. Edmund Freemantle. Then he was appointed Assistant Director of Naval Intelligence and head of the Foreign Intelligence Division.

From 1892 to 1895 Curzon-Howe commanded the corvette HMS Cleopatra on the North America and West Indies Station. Having commanded HMS Revenge in 1896 he was appointed to the training ship HMS Britannia in 1897.By January 1900 he had been promoted and was in command of the battleship HMS Ocean when she was commissioned 20 February 1900 for service on the Mediterranean Station. She transferred to the China Station in January 1901, in response to the Boxer Rebellion.

Curzon-Howe was appointed a Naval Aide de Camp (ADC) to Queen Victoria in July 1899, and was re-appointed as a Naval Aide de Camp to her successor King Edward VII in February 1901. He was promoted to flag rank as Rear Admiral in July 1901, which ended the appointment as Naval ADC.

On 5 June 1902 he was appointed second-in-command of the Channel Squadron, and temporarily hoisted his flag on board HMS Cambridge, gunnery ship at Devonport, before he transferred to the battleship HMS Magnificent later the same month.[11] Shortly before his departure from London he was received in audience by King Edward VII. With Magnificent, he took part in the fleet review held at Spithead on 16 August 1902 for the coronation of King Edward VII, and visited the Aegean Sea for combined manoeuvres with the Mediterranean Fleet the following month. Later the same year he was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in the November 1902 Birthday Honours list.

He was flying his flag in HMS Caesar (Captain Sydney Fremantle) in 1906.[In 1907, he was Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet. Curzon-Howe then served as Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet from 1908 to 1910. He was promoted to Admiral in 1909. During 1909 he underwent surgery for a cancerous tumour on his tongue. He was Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth from 1 May 1910 until his death from a brain haemorrhage, age 60, on 1 March 1911 at Christchurch, Hants.

Sources: The Dreadnought Project and Wikipedia


Vice-Admiral Herbert Whitmore Savory M.V.O. R.N. (1857 -1918)

Savory entered service in the Navy in 1870 aged 12 ½ . In 1882 he was promoted to Lieutenant and in 1886 was in command of the first-class torpedo boat T.B. 4. Between 1892 and 1895 he served aboard Impregnable, the training brig Pilot and Agamemnon. In 1895 Savory was promoted to the rank of Commander when nearly 38 years old and then in 1901 he was promoted to Captain.

He commanded the cruisers Hawke (in 1903) and Diadem (in 1905). On the occasion of the special Mission of Prince Arthur of Connaught to invest the Emperor of Japan with the Most Noble Order of the Garter in 1906, Captain Savory was appointed a Member of the Fourth Class of the Royal Victorian Order (M.V.O.).

In July 1907 the Atlantic Fleet (based in Gibraltar) under Vice-Admiral The Hon. Sir Assheton Curzon Howe was dispatched to Quebec to celebrate the tercentenary. Savory was Curzon-Howe’s Flag Captain and commanded HMS Venerable. In August 1907 Savory was appointed to command the battleship Prince of Wales for a year and a half followed by two years as Captain of Training Ship HMS Impregnable.

He was promoted to the rank of Rear-Admiral in 1911 and at the end of that year he was placed on the Retired List at his own request. He was advanced to Vice-Admiral on the Retired List in 1916 and died a couple of years later. His grave is marked by marble curbing and a reclining marble cross at the north end of the main churchyard adjacent to the path.

Source: The Dreadnought Project and National Archives


Francis Richard Henry Penn Curzon CBE RD PC RNVR
5th Earl Howe  (1884 – 1964)

After leaving school he joined the Royal Naval Reserve. When WWI started the RNR became the Royal Naval Division providing forces to fight on land. Howe served as Battalion Commander and saw action at Gallipoli, Salonika and later in France and Belgium.

He subsequently became assistant gunnery officer in the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth and, as a keen film maker, organized the cinematographic service for the Navy. He filmed the surrender of the 74 ships of the German Fleet in Scapa Flow.

As Commanding Officer he was actively involved in the Sussex Division of the RNVR between the wars. He was the RNVR’s longest serving Commodore throughout the Second World War.

Gunnery officer Howe filming
the surrender of the German Fleet
at Scapa Flow in 1918.

Following his retirement from the Royal Navy he lived at Penn House and made a career in Motor Racing, documented here.


Commander Chambré George William Penn Curzon (1898 – 1976)

Trained as a naval cadet at Osborne and Dartmouth as a boy and was sent to sea as a 15-year-old midshipman at the start of WWI. He saw service at the Dardanelles, in the Mediterranean and North Sea in Q-ships. As a cadet he had trained alongside Andrew Yates who recorded a story of George Curzon running aground with a picket boat having passed a buoy on the wrong side. While awaiting rescue he decided eliminate the evidence of this error by moving the buoy from its position  and placing it on the other side of the boat! He left the navy in 1921 but rejoined in 1939, serving in Ceylon as ADC to Admiral Somerville, Commander in Chief of the Eastern Fleet. Between the wars and afterwards, until he retired, he was a stage and film actor: Details on Wikipedia.

He is the father of the present Earl Howe. He died in 1976 and his grave is in the lower churchyard plot no. 163.


Captain Andrew V.S. Yates M.V.O., R.N., Ceng FIEE, (1900–1991)

Andrew Yates served in the Royal Navy from 1913 to 1937 and again from 1939 to 1945. He is chiefly remembered for the important role he played in the introduction and development of radar for Royal Navy ships during World War Two.

He joined the Navy as a cadet in August 1913 aged 12 ½. Although a very bright student who was consistently top of his class, he had the misfortune to catch measles which prevented him taking his Passing Out Exams in December 1916. He believed this dogged his career for many years thereafter. At the end of the World War One he was promoted Sub-Lieutenant having spent ‘two years in a hammock and earned two medals and two North Sea clasps.’

After being sent to Cambridge University by the Navy he joined HMS Repulse in 1921 on which he served for nearly 1,000 days – longer than any other officer in the Atlantic Fleet. He noted that he normally worked a 16-hour day with four minutes for lunch. In October 1923 he started to specialise, undertaking firstly the Long Signal Course where he came out with record marks, and then in 1925 he was sent to Greenwich for the six-month Advanced Signal Course where again he finished first in the class.

By 1932 he was Fleet Signal Officer on board HMS Kent, the Navy’s China Flag Ship, responsible for handling the crucial communications between the British Legation in Pekin and the Foreign Office in London. However, when he was overlooked for promotion in 1935, he was convinced this reflected the Navy’s ‘severe prejudice against specialist wireless officers’ and started to consider life outside the Navy. The British Naval Commander in Chief, China Station, Wei-hai-Wei, wrote that during the two years and four months that Lt. Cmdr AVS Yates served as Fleet Wireless Officer he was responsible for wireless communication of 59 ships and two large shore stations and commented on his zeal, great technical knowledge and organizing power. He was an officer of the highest integrity and most reliable in every way. A man who gets things done but his charming personality means he is deservedly popular.

In 1937 he joined the American firm Sperry Gyroscope to help build up their British subsidiary company, but two years later, on the outbreak of War, he re-joined the Navy.  He then undertook the building and equipping of ten land-based radio stations, followed by retro-fitting as many ships as possible with their first radar devices. He went on to become Head of Naval Radar, framing policy for H.M. ships throughout the world for which service he was promoted Captain.  The Admiralty Signal Establishment of which he was part grew from zero to 5,000 personnel in four years. By the end of the War the last ships built were equipped with thirty radar sets, not one of which had been conceived at the start of the conflict.

After the War he returned to Sperry as Technical Director to develop their Engineering Department at Brentford. Their first commission was to invent, design and build a radar system for Liverpool which enabled the port to continue operating through the worst fogs. Between 1946 and 1956 profits of Sperry grew twentyfold reflecting the growth of the Engineering Department but internal politics later led to Yates’s responsibilities as Engineering Director being reduced. Instead he became Managing Director of another Sperry subsidiary, Wright Machinery Co. He left Sperry in 1960 and then worked as a consultant to Richard Steel’s Servomex Controls Co. as well as to British Aircraft Corporation where his job was to look after distinguished foreign visitors

Andrew Yates with his wife Betty and two young daughters moved to The Red House in Knotty Green in the parish of Penn in 1947. Yates was a man with a gift for friendships and socialising but his contacts seem also to have been aided by good fortune. For example he served alongside Louis “Dickie” Mountbatten (Mountbatten was one of the three other students on the Advanced Signal Course in 1925) and they became good friends. Yates had been on board HMS Malaya in 1917 with Prince Albert (later King George VI) and many years later the King invited him to join the Royal Household as a Gentleman Usher (an unpaid position). On holiday in Malta with Betty in 1950, Yates met the young Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip who were staying with Mountbatten and he got to know the future Queen there. This was shortly before he was invited to become Gentleman Usher. His service to the British monarchy was recognised when he was appointed a Member of The Royal Victorian Order (M.V.O.) in the 1962 Birthday Honours. Another good friend from early days in the Navy was George Curzon who later became an actor for whom see previous entry.

Betty Yates (née Elizabeth Chapman) died in 1965 and is buried in the churchyard at Holy Trinity Penn. Although Andrew Yates later remarried and moved to Old Windsor, when he died in 1991 he was laid to rest alongside his first wife at Penn. The grave is plot number 65 to the right of the left-hand path.

Writing these notes about Andrew Yates, who was my godfather, brings home the extent I must have been a disappointment to him! He was brilliant at maths, I was hopeless at maths. Although he lent me his Shetland pony to learn to ride it was something I never enjoyed and opted not to pursue. He loved riding, especially to hounds and playing polo. He was of course an excellent competitive sailor, where I was a landlubber. But probably my greatest weakness in his eyes would have been my shyness and having a marked aversion to socialising. His obituary in the Daily Telegraph referred to his legendary “clubability”! However thanks to Andrew Yates I can claim to have once offered sausages on a stick to HRH Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Oliver Heal.

Source: Twentieth Century Chronicles 1900-1981 – Unpublished autobiography of Andrew V. S. Yates.


 Edward Richard Henry Penn Curzon, 6th Earl Howe CBE (1908 – 1984)

Following the long family tradition of Naval service Viscount Curzon, as he was until his father died, joined the RNVR London Division in 1928 and in 1931 was Acting Sub Lieutenant.

At the outbreak of World War Two he rejoined the RNVR and served aboard the cruiser HMS Cairo in 1940 and 1942 before joining the battleship named after the Admiral Howe – HMS Howe. His war service included the North Sea and the Arctic as part of the Murmansk convoys and latterly in the Indian Ocean and the Far East in HMS Howe. By 1945 he was Acting Lt. Commander and left the service in 1946.

Born in Hanover Square, London, educated at Eton College and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Howe had an active public service career after the war. He was Sheriff for Bucks, a Justice of the Peace, County Councillor and Deputy Lieutenant. He was awarded the CBE in 1961. He also shared his father’s interest in motoring and motorsport, becoming president of the British Automobile Racing Club and Vice-Chairman of the Royal Automobile Club.

Curzon succeeded to the title Earl Howe in 1964 and took his seat in the House of Lords. He lived at Penn House and is buried at Holy Trinity Church, Penn Street.

Lt Commander Viscount Curzon
with his father Earl Howe on board HMS Howe.


Captain W. W. Muir, Royal Navy (1914-1964)

William Wallace Muir, known as Wally, was born on 16 January 1914 in Gibraltar, where his father was a missionary for The Scottish Mission to South Spain and North Africa. Both his parents came from large Scots Presbyterian families so he was brought up in a disciplinary but loving household. When life in La Linea, Spain, under General Franco, became too difficult the three eldest children, including Wally, returned to Glasgow. He gained a scholarship to Bellahouston Academy and after Scottish Highers entered the College of Seamanship.  As a sub-lieutenant he joined the Highland Line Freight Company and the Royal Navy Reserve until transferring to the Royal Navy in August 1938.

His Second World War experience was mainly gained as First Lieutenant of destroyers, including HMS Charleston (1940-42), HMS Tuscan & HMS Venus. Notable memories from his war time and passed onto his family include when HMS Tuscan hit a mine in the Mediterranean and had to be steered backwards to Milford Haven. As No. 1, HMS Scourge, on tow of the Russian convoys, he was washed overboard but washed back and found the next day. He also participated in Dunkirk, 1940.  Other postings were 2 terms as Training Officer, HMS King Alfred, during which time HMS Spragge (1944-46) was fitted out with heavy electrical supply power equipment. The idea was to take her to and dock in Hong Kong Harbour during its recapture and to supply electricity for the island. The Japanese surrendered before the ship arrived and was ordered to be run around in the Philippines. His service records that ‘As Commanding Officer of HMS Spragge …. [he was] responsible for a noteworthy improvement in morale and discipline among your ship’s company’.  William Wallace was then appointed to Victoria Barracks in Hong Kong and, when the barracks were returned to the army, he became Lieutenant Commander & Executive Officer, RN Air Station, Kai Tak.

On his return to England he was appointed to HMS Blackcap, RNAS near Warrington and in 1949 he was promoted to Commander of HMS Sea Eagle, the joint RN/RAF, anti-submarine school in Londonderry.  Later service was spent on HS Wren in the Persian Gulf, where he was treated to eagles’ eyes by a Arab prince. Then as Training Commander and after promotion to Captain as Director of Training & Sports, HMS Victory, Victoria Barracks in Southsea, Hampshire (1953-55) when it was noted that he ‘ran the establishment with its diverse talks extremely well and inculcated in your subordinates high standards of professional knowledge and duty’.

His final job was Naval Attaché Toyko & Seoul and Senior GB Officer of Staff, United Nations (1956-59) and the Ambassador especially commented upon his ‘conscientiousness’ and ‘good relations with both American and Japanese officers’. This was a sensitive time in the Far East, post the Korean War.

In 1949 William Wallace Muir had met Mary Claris, WRNS Quarters Officer, at HMS Blackcap and they married the following year at St Michael’s Chester Square, London. Mary was the daughter of Commander Douglas John Claris (RN) and Barbara Sybil Fremantle; Mary’s grandfather being Admiral Sir Sydney Robert Fremantle (1857-1958).

After retirement from the Royal Navy the couple and their three children, Penelope Jane (b. 1951), Robert Wallace (b. 1954) and Clarissa Mary (b. 1960), moved to Hogback Wood Road, Beaconsfield, and William Wallace worked as Administrative Executive and Personnel Officer for a London based property and investment company. The family regularly attended Penn Church and the children went to High March Prep School, which Mary had also attended in her youth.  In the words of Mary ‘William Wallace was a man of total integrity with a nice dry typical Scottish sense of humour’ and a great family man, who adored his children and was a keen sportsman playing cricket at Knotty Green.

Aged only 50 years old, William Wallace died on 20 July 1964 and was buried in Penn Churchyard. His family continued to live in the parish until 1978 and Mary Muir served on the Parochial Church Council. After the children had left home she retired to the Petersfield area, Hampshire, where she died in 2009. Her ashes were interred with her husband’s in Penn and marked at plot no. 6.

Clarissa Ward


Jock Matthew Clarke-Campbell (1920-1985)

Ranks Held:1
1st September 1937: Midshipman
1st September 1939:  A/S Lt (Acting Sub-Lieutenant)
16th October 1939: Second Lieutenant
16th May 1941: Lieutenant
16th May 1949: Lieutenant Commander
Retired: 13th May 1958

Warship Commands listed for Jock Matthew Clarke-Campbell, RN
HMS Flanders (FY 600), Trawler: 5th April 1942 – 20th October 1942
Naval Trawlers were used as both Minesweepers and anti-submarine craft.

Memorial Plaque in Penn Church

Jock Matthew Clarke-Campbell (1920-1985) is buried in plot 109 in the New Churchyard at Penn, with his wife Rosemary (1922-2009).


Captain Brian Gilmore Young DSO RN (1930-2009)

Captain Brian Young, who has died aged 79, commanded British forces at the Battle for South Georgia which, planned in great secrecy, ended the three-week occupation of the island by Argentine marines.

On April 10 1982, while the Task Force under the command of Rear-Admiral Sandy Woodward was still assembling at Ascension, Young was given command of Task Group 317.9, which included the destroyers Antrim and Plymouth and the tanker Tidespring; on board were M Company of 42 Commando Royal Marines, the Special Boat Squadron, and the Special Air Service Regiment, under the tactical command of Major Guy Sheridan.

Young’s task was to rendezvous with the frigate Brilliant, the ice-patrol ship Endurance and the freighter Brambleleaf. The Argentines, under Lieutenant-Commander Alfredo Astiz, had landed on the remote and barren island of South Georgia seven days earlier.

The official name of the operation was “Paraquet”, but the men called it “Paraquat”, after the well-known weed killer.

After a helicopter reconnaissance and delays caused by thick low cloud, driving rain and snow storms, SAS troops were landed on Fortuna glacier above the port of Grytviken on April 21. But after the weather worsened, they requested evacuation; in the attempt, two of the three helicopters crashed in white-out conditions, though there were no serious casualties. An attempt by SBS troops to land in boats was also defeated by atrocious weather. Then came warnings of an Argentine submarine.

Young, a Fleet Air Arm pilot, had the satisfaction of commanding the first ever anti-submarine operation successfully conducted exclusively by helicopters. During the hunt Santa Fe was attacked with depth charges and air-to-surface missiles and badly damaged; on April 25 she was caught on the surface off Grytviken.

Reckoning now that the sight of a wounded submarine might demoralise the enemy, Young – who for several days had been juggling with the problems of keeping his ships refuelled and out of sight of enemy aerial reconnaissance – agreed to an immediate landing.

He ordered a bombardment of open ground to demonstrate the superior firepower of the British and, while Sheridan’s marines made their way along the steep slopes of a mountain and SAS troops approached through a minefield, his ships showed themselves at sea out of the mist.

When, the next day, April 26, the Argentine garrison at Leith was persuaded to surrender, the island had been retaken only 23 days after its invasion. Not a shot had been fired by ground forces of either side. Young signalled London: “May it please Her Majesty that the White Ensign flies alongside the Union Flag on South Georgia. God Save The Queen.”

News of the helicopter crashes on Fortuna glacier had been, according to the Defence Minster John Nott, “the worst moment of the war for all of us [in the government]”.

The news of victory brought welcome relief back in London. Outside Number 10, Mrs Thatcher told the television cameras: “Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces and the marines. Rejoice.”

According to the official historian of the Falklands War, Sir Lawrence Freedman, an operation that had appeared difficult had turned out to be surprisingly easy. The citation for Young’s DSO emphasised that the importance of Paraquet to the overall strategy of recapturing the Falklands could not be overstated; nor could Young’s personal contribution to the success. A month later British forces made their main landing on the Falkland Islands.

Brian Gilmore Young was born on September 25 1930 in Kent, where his family, originally Irish Catholics, were farmers. He joined the Royal Navy in 1944 as a cadet, first at Eaton Hall, Chester, then at Dartmouth. He served as a midshipman and sub-lieutenant in the battleship King George V, the light carrier Theseus and the sloop Wren.

Young learned to fly in the United States, serving from 1954 to 1958 with 803 and 804 naval air squadrons, flying Sea Hawk jet fighters from the carriers AlbionCentaurBulwark and Ark Royal, and participating in ground attacks in Egypt during the Suez War.

From 1958 to 1960 he was on exchange service in the RAF as an instructor on Hunters, and then became senior pilot of 804 squadron in the carrier Hermes.

Young’s leadership qualities were recognised by two commands: 892 squadron in Centaur during the Confrontation in Borneo and the Royal Navy’s 766 “top gun” squadron at the All Weather Fighter School.

Returning to general service, Young commanded the minesweeper Wiston and the 9th Mine Counter Measure Squadron based in Bahrain. His next few appointments prepared him well for his role as commander of Operation Paraquet: he attended the Joint Services Staff College; was Staff Aviation officer to Flag Officer Carriers and Amphibious; commanded the frigate Danae; attended Senior Officers’ War Course at Greenwich; and was Assistant Chief of Staff (Warfare) to the Commander-in-Chief Fleet, and Chief of Staff to the Flag Officer Naval Air Command.

Young set and maintained very high standards which he expected everyone else to match, but he was also thoughtful to his crews.

Brian Young, who died on Christmas Eve 2009, married, in 1958, Sheila Young, who survived him. She died in 2012 and her ashes are buried alongside his in plot no. 247 on the righthand path of the lower graveyard.

Daily Telegraph Obituary 12 January 2010.

Capt. Brian Young (right) with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.


Oliver Heal, September 2022

This entry was first published by .

Oliver Heal, Obituary, 1949 – 2024

Furniture Makers Newsletter 31/1/2024

Oliver Heal sadly died at his home in Buckinghamshire on Tuesday 23 January 2024 after a battle with cancer.  He was the grandson of Sir Ambrose Heal (1872-1959) and followed his father, Anthony Heal into the family firm, becoming a director and the last family member to be chairman.  His later life was devoted to researching and publishing about Heal’s and racing his beloved 1927 Sunbeam motor car. Oliver was admitted as a liveryman of The Furniture Makers’ Company in May 1979. He was an active liveryman, giving a Frederick Parker lecture on Heal’s in 2016 and joining the Frederick Parker Committee in 2017; he compiled and edited the first Frederick Parker newsletters.

Oliver’s career at Heal’s began in the 1970s, working first in the bedding department and progressing through all the departments in turn.  He spent several years working with Heal’s furnishing fabrics in Germany and France.  He became a director of Heal & Son and succeeded his father, Anthony, as chairman for two years up to 1983, when the company was taken over by Storehouse. Anthony Heal (1907-1995) was one of the founders of The Furniture Makers Guild, formed in 1951; he was Master in 1959, before it became the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers in 1963.  His portrait hangs in the Hall.

See: Oliver Heal and the Heal family legacy

Oliver was driven to research the early history of the firm partly by his desire to know the date of his own Heal’s dining table!  The study of Heal’s became the subject of his doctoral thesis, from which he developed his seminal book, Sir Ambrose Heal and the Heal Cabinet Factory, 1897-1939, published by Oblong in 2014.  Drawing on the extensive Heal’s archive held by the Victoria & Albert Museum, as well as family memories and private papers, this was the first comprehensive study of the early history of Heal’s.  It is scholarly, meticulously detailed and richly illustrated.

There were two other powerful influences on Oliver’s life.  He inherited Baylins Farm, a 15th century house in Buckinghamshire bought by his grandfather, restored in the Arts and Crafts style, and furnished with pieces by, amongst others, Sidney Barnsley.  And he shared his father’s passion for vintage motor cars, taking over from him the care of a 1927 Super Sports Sunbeam racing car, which he drove at many rallies and races.  He toured in his Sunbeam 20 all over Europe and, notably, in 2019 in north and south New Zealand with about 30 other Talbots and Sunbeams for a month.  He wrote a biography of the Frenchman responsible for the design of the early Sunbeam racers, Louis Coatalen, Engineering Impressario of Humber, Sunbeam Talbot, Darrecq, published in 2020.   Oliver was acknowledged as the leading expert on Sunbeam racers and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Transport Trust in 2023.  His wife Annik is Coatalen’s granddaughter and has published a book on her artist mother, Anna Coatalen, Art for Happiness et Bonheur in 2019.

Oliver will be fondly remembered for his unassuming, gentle and good-humoured nature.  He leaves his wife Annik, three stepdaughters and a son.

A website with details of Oliver’s funeral and links to support charities he cared for has been set up, which can be accessed here.

Furniture Makers Newsletter, 31/01/2024

This entry was first published by .

Baylins Farm, a Potted History

For over a century three Generations of the Heal family have lived at Baylins Farm, a lovely medieval hall house in Knotty Green which had earlier been owned by the Penn House Estate since 1593. Oliver Heal, a friend and colleague, who sadly died in January was the third generation to live there, and has written a history of the house which we discussed together on several occasions. He and his wife, Annik, asked me to take it forward and I set out below a very brief summary of his account of it’s early history.
Miles Green, January 2024

In 1332. ‘Belling’ appears in this first tax return as one of the half a dozen larger farms in Penn.

In 1450. The timber frame still at the core of the present building was constructed by Sir Thomas Scott, a rich draper, Lord of the Manor at Dorney, who was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1458. Interestingly, it was built in the same style and at very much the same time as Puttenham Place. This drawing of the house followed a detailed inspection and dendrochronological dating of its timbers

Artist’s impression based on archaeological survey of Baylins as it was in 15th century, timber-framed with daub and wattle infill. South facing, with the central hall, long cross wing at the east end and a smaller wing at the west end. John Bailey 2002

In 1505. Baylins was bought by Sir Andrew Windsor (later Lord Windsor) and it remained in their family for four generations. The first floor supported by massive ovolo-moulded beams was inserted into the hall, circa 1563, requiring changes to the staircase. The brick chimneys would have been constructed at the same time to replace the hearth in the centre of the hall with the smoke rising to a louvre in the roof.

In 1593.
John Penn, the Lord of the Manor of Penn, purchased Baylins described as ‘the manor of Beelinges otherwise Byllynges with appurtenances and of one messuage, one garden, one orchard, 200 acres of land, six acres of meadow, twenty acres of pasture, twenty
acres of wood, twenty acres of furze and heath, and 4/0 rent with appurtenances in Penne.’ Thus began over 300 years of ownership by the Penn/Curzon family. It is believed that John’s grandson, also John Penn, with his wife Sarah, lived in Baylins before he inherited the Penn estate from his father, as the house was modemised around the time of their marriage in 1626. The property was conveyed to John and Sarah by his father and they went on to have ten children. Sarah may have returned there for the further 40 years of her long widowhood. The building was clad in brick as was fashionable at the time and also provided better insulation. An extension was added on the east side. A snug room was lined out in oak panelling and a new wide staircase was installed. Two large oak doors are of interest because they show taper bum marks which are understood to be connected with Catholics continuing to practice within their homes when expelled from church around this period. The Penn family were known for their Catholic affiliations for over a century after Henry VIII’s Reformation. In the 18th and 19th centuries Baylins was occupied by tenant farmers and remained fundamentally unchanged during that time.

In 1920. Baylins Farmhouse along with 8 acres of land was acquired from Earl Howe (descendant of John Penn) by Sir Ambrose and Edith Heal. They worked with the Arts and Crafts architect, Edwin Forbes, to restore and sensitively modernize the house and Edith created around it wonderful gardens where previously had been muddy farmyard. Among the notable features within the house from that time is the brightly coloured painted decoration of the beams in the sitting room carried out by MacDonald Gill (architect-designer brother of Eric Gill). There are also three distinctive tiled fireplaces. In 1925 the architect Edward Maufe (later Sir Edward, famous for Guildford Cathedral) was commissioned to design an extension for a study with bedroom above.

Baylins Farm from South Side 2009

In 2000. At the beginning ofthe 21st century the house underwent extensive restoration – a new entrance was created on the east side, a re-tiled and insulated roof, re-wired, gas-fired central heating – supervised by the architect Jane Duncan. Secondary glazing fitted subsequently throughout. The barn was converted to a ballet studio, the stables to self-catering accommodation. A swimming pool was installed in the garden and the pond re-lined.

Oliver Heal, (1949-2024) Published in Village Voice, Spring, 2024

See also, Beaconsfield Historical Society, Baylins Farm, Knotty Green

This entry was first published by .

Baylins Farm – Early History 1300-1600

The Name
Although the house now known as Baylins Farm was built in the 15th century, a homestead undoubtedly existed on the site more than a century before that. The name, which must be even older, has evolved (with variations) from Belynges to Byllynges to Bellings to Bealings only settling to Baylins in the 19th century. How the name originated is not clear. Consulting the Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names provides a few straws such as Baylham, near Ipswich, of which the first element is thought to be from the Old English word for a bend.  Or there is Bealings (village in Suffolk) of which the first element is thought, like Belaugh, to stem from Old Norse for an interval and ‘might naturally have been used of a glade in a forest’. The second part of the name ‘Lynge’ seems to come from Old English ‘hlenc’ for a hill or rising ground. So, one could conjecture that Belynges indicated the bend in the road at Knotty Green where the house was tucked in a glade in the beech woods as the road from Beaconsfield to Penn begins to climb quite steeply. However, according to renowned place name expert, Margaret Gelling, ‘the name may simply refer to the bell-shaped edge of the common land which used to lie outside the farm and which is still to be seen outlined by the two tracks off Penn Road which meet at the foot of the ‘handle’ leading up to Baylins’.[1]

Earliest References
The earliest known references to Baylins occur in 1325 when Richard Dreu of Penn granted all the lands and tenements he had of the feoffment (grant of ownership) of John de Belynge in Beaconsfield to Ralf de Wedon, knight. In the same year Johannes Belynges, presumably the same man, was a member of the jury that held an inquisition on the death of John Segrave.  Segrave’s manor was most probably the manor to which Baylins belonged at that period and Johannes would have been a tenant. The Manor Court Rolls show that Segrave Manor covered the southern quarter of Penn taking in Knotty Green, Forty Green, Drews Green, Witheridge Lane and Clay Street.[2] When an assessment was carried out in 1332 for King Edward III by Richard Dreu and Robert ate Oke for the purposes of taxation, ‘John Belling had 1 farm horse at 5/- and 1 cow at 6/- and 11 ewes at 11/- and 6 geese at 3/- and 1 qr. Of mixed grain at 3/4d and 4 qrs. Of oats at 6/8d’. Total 35/- on which he owed 2/4d. It sounds like a small farm at this period but, as a comparison, John de la Penne, the highest tax payer, had just 4 horses, 2 cows and 15 ewes, etc.[3] In 1345 Bartholomew de Bourne appointed John de la Penne as his attorney to receive seisin from John Belynges of all his lands and tenements in la Penne.[4]

In the fourteenth century a major tile-making industry flourished at Penn supplying many thousands of floor and roof tiles for such prestigious buildings as Windsor Castle and Westminster Palace. The clay was dug, the tiles were formed, fired and decorated locally. Simon Billyng, perhaps the son of John Belynges, is recorded in 1351 as Famulus (assistant) to Elie the paver who laid 258,000 of the 4 ½ inch square floor tiles, made in Penn, at Windsor Castle.[5]

Figure 1 Map of Burnham Hundred showing elongated parish boundaries of Taplow, Hitcham, Burnham and Farnham Royal. Note detached parts of Taplow and Dorney further north.

The history of Penn at this period is inextricably linked with parishes by the river Thames and in particular Taplow some 8 miles due south. Taplow is renowned for its 7th century burial mound indicating it had been a Saxon centre of civilization. Penn, with a 5 hide manor and some 600 acres under plough, was subsequently part of King Alfred’s royal estate. But the Domesday Book which surveyed much of England in 1086, makes no mention of Penn or Beaconsfield as geld was then paid through the manor at Taplow even though Penn was nearly fully developed agriculturally with 1500 acres of arable.[6]  These links between settlements by the Thames and places higher up in the Chiltern Hills are thought to reflect the tradition of transhumance where sheep would be driven from lowland to upland pastures and back again later in the year. This in turn came to be reflected in elongated parish boundaries as shown in the map of the Burnham Hundreds.[7] At the turn of the C13th William Penn was ‘bound to carry his lord’s hay from Taplow to Penn’.[8] Further links become evident when King Henry VI set up Eton College in 1440 and endowed it with sufficient land, rights and other benefits to finance the education of 70 poor boys. This endowment included properties in Penn. Similarly, the lands of Dorney Manor between Taplow and Eton, which lies about 70ft above sea-level, had a substantial detached outlier indicated on the map and it must have also retained grazing rights around Knotty Green about 400ft above sea level.

Sir Thomas Scott, DraperDorney Manor in particular is of interest because its owner in the fifteenth century was Thomas Scott, whom we believe was responsible for constructing the timber frame hall house that survives as Baylins Farm today. In 1086 Dorney had been assessed at three hides when it was among the lands of Miles Crispin who also held Hitchham. Ownership went through various hands over the next two centuries before Thomas Scott, a draper from London, acquired it in 1430. His father, Robert Scott was from Dorney which explains his connection to the area. He held the manor until his death in 1470 when he left it to his wife Edith. She in turn left it to their son John Scott when she died in 1475, and he held it until 1505.[9]

Figure 2. from Buck’s View of London 1749 showing Dowgate Stairs (72) and Steel Yard Stairs (76). The Steelyard was the main trading base in London of the Hanseatic League during 15th and 16th centuries. The aspect of the shoreline had probably changed little since Scott’s time.Figure 3. John Roque’s 1746 Map of London (engraved by John Pine) illustrates the position of Dowgate Wharf leading up to Wallbrook and Scott’s Yard off Bush Lane which led up to St. Swithins Lane.

Figure 4 Thomas Scott, Alderman, 1446

Thomas Scott was a successful draper in the City of London. He was a member of the Drapers’ Livery Company, one of the twelve Great City Livery Companies, which had been granted its first charter in 1364 by Edward III and enjoyed the monopoly of trade allied to the cloth industry. High quality English wool cloth was much in demand across Europe at the time and most of it was exported from London. Along the banks of the Thames near the only bridge in London across the river, the drapers had industrial buildings containing dyehouses and other activities concerned with the finishing of cloth. By the time Scott was coming to prominence as a liveryman, the Drapers’ Company had built their/its own hall in St Swithin’s Lane in the 1420s. He is recorded as subscribing to the cost of building the Hall in 1425 and served as Warden in 1434-5.[10] In 1438 the Company received a Charter of Incorporation making it a legal corporate fraternity. They also acquired their own coat of arms. However, Scott was not just an astute businessman as he went on to rise as a leader in the City as a whole.

On 29 April 1446, Thomas Scott was elected Alderman for Dowgate Ward a position he held until 1451. The southern boundary of Dowgate was the river bank where much of the draper’s activity took place and it was also one of the richest wards in the city. In 1447-8 Scott was also Sherriff. From 1451 to 1463 he transferred to become Alderman for Walbrook Ward, at the heart of the City and would have attended the weekly meetings of the Court of Aldermen responsible for running the City’s business. During that time he was Auditor from 1452 to 1454, but the pinnacle of his achievements came with his election as Lord Mayor in 1458 when he became Sir Thomas Scott. Five years later he was exonerated from duty as Alderman on 8 June 1463 on account of infirmity and died in November 1470 having made his will at the end of October.  He was buried at the church in Dorney. A John Scott, gent, (presumably his son), was admitted to the Drapers Livery in 1486 by redemption.[11]  The period between the end of the war with France in 1453 and the accession to the throne of King Henry VII in 1485, was a time when the wool trade flourished and wool merchants had money to spare.

Scott’s Yard off Bush Lane backed onto an important aristocratic city residence known as ‘The Erber’ which was arranged around a number of open courtyards and also had a beautiful enclosed garden hidden behind service accommodation. To the north of the yard was St Mary Bothaw’s church. After Scott’s time, the Draper’s Company acquired ‘The Erber’ including Scott’s Yard in 1543 and from the surviving (1596) plan it is evident that Scott’s Yard contained a row of warehouses from which he would have traded or sub-let to other traders. There was a wide yard suitable for receiving the delivery of goods.  The whole area, including The Erber and the church, was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666 and the buildings were not reconstructed, but the name Scott’s Yard survived on the road map until the 20th century even after Cannon Street Station had been constructed over it.  One of the reasons given for Livery Companies acquiring such properties was in order to provide accommodation for members, who, despite their wealth, were not keen to invest in urban housing but ploughed back their profits into business ‘or into the acquisition of country estates.’[12]

Construction of the Baylins Farm c. 1450

Scott must have been successful in the drapery trade well before coming to prominence in the City because he had acquired Dorney Manor in 1430 and one of the prerequisites to becoming an Alderman was substantial wealth. He would have become more affluent as time went on. From analysis of timber samples by dendrochronology we know that Baylins Farm was built after 1448, around 1450, but until the discovery of Scott’s story there was no obvious explanation for why it was built then. Now we can begin to imagine that Scott wanted a house in the country that reflected his success and he therefore had a solid and impressive, timber-framed house built in the fashion of the time featuring a central high hall with two-storey wings at either end. At the lower end of the hall were the two service rooms while at the high end a solar would have provided a private space for the owners. This solar no longer exists and there is some speculation whether it really would have been built given the fact that the wing at the other end is so long. What remains is the three-frame, south facing, hall with a five-frame wing across the east end. The oak frames were infilled with wattle and daub. The first floor gable of the wing jettied out.

Figure 5. Baylins Farm as it probably looked when newly constructed c. 1450. (John Bailey)

One of the puzzles identified by John Bailey, who researched the history of the building through a detailed examination of the timber frame from which the measured drawings used here as illustrations were produced, was the lack of window openings in the northern part of the first floor of the wing. He suggested that this probably indicated it was used for storage and not as living space. In view of Scott’s business, it is tempting to speculate that it was used to store wool or finished woven cloth. This would provide an explanation for the extra length of this wing.

Figure 6. Ground floor plan of the timber frame of Baylins Farm showing the central hearth in the hall and the long east wing.

John Scott inherited his father’s lands following the death of his mother in 1475. We know from the Calendar of Inquisitions Henry VII, that among the properties he owned (at his death in 1505?) there was ‘a messuage in Penn called Bealynges and divers other lands in Penne’.[13] Could it be that Thomas Scott constructed a house at some distance from Dorney for his son John when John married Katherine? In April 1505 John sold most of his lands in Penn, as well as Saunderton Saint Mary, West Wycombe, Huchenden, Chepyngwycombe, to Sir Andrew Wyndesore. Excluded was a messuage in Penne called Whytes with a garden adjacent and certain lands held by copy of court roll of the manor of Segraves as well as  Haldiffes in Penne and other lands there called Bailifes otherwise called Holmere  [14] (Separately the reversionary interest in Dorney Manor was sold to Richard Restwold who in turn transferred it to Thomas Lytton). John Scott’s wife Katherine had already died and his son, also John, had died without issue, so John senior had to make these arrangements towards the end of his own life. His will, dated 20 August 1505, makes it clear he wanted to be buried at Dorney Church and he left money for a new steeple to be built. His daughter Isabell was a nun in the Abbey of Berkyng.[15]  Andrew Windsor, the purchaser of the properties, undertook to found two chauntries and find two priests to pray for Scott’s family and Windsor’s family living and departed.

Lord Windsor & family
After John Scott sold Baylins to Andrew Windsor it became one of the Windsor family’s properties for four generations. Having said that, it seems unlikely that they made any personal use of the house during their ownership as they had plenty of grander houses available. The Windsors were descended from William Fitzother who had the Manor of Stanwell at the time of the Domesday Book. Andrew’s father Thomas Windsor was made Constable of the castle by Richard III. Andrew, aged 18, as the eldest surviving son inherited lands in Berks, Bucks, Hants, Middx, and Surrey upon his father’s death in 1485. He proved himself an able player in the power and wealth politics of the day, considerably augmenting the family’s wealth. During the reign of Henry VII he was appointed keeper of the wardrobe, a commissioner for subsidies in Middlesex and Berkshire and a JP. In 1509, a few years after he had purchased Baylins Farm, he was invested as Knight of the Bath at the  coronation of Henry VIII. Closely involved with the King’s military expedition to France in 1513, he accompanied Henry’s sister Mary for her marriage to Louis XII the year after. In 1520 he attended Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold and he was one of the commanders in the army sent to France in 1523. In 1529 he was admitted to the House of Lords as Baron Windsor of Bradenham and would share in some of the spoils from the dissolution of the monasteries. But in 1542 when Henry VIII came to stay at Stanwell the King obliged Andrew to surrender his traditional family home to the Crown. Andrew 1st Lord Windsor died the following year. In his Will he stated ‘that the issues of my manors of Bradnam, Weston Turvyle called Mullen’s manor, Weston Turvyle called butler’s manor and Belynges in Penne, with their appurtenances, in co. Buckingham, shall be taken by my executors for the performance of my will and payment of my debts which I owe the King’s highness for lands which I late bought of his Majesty, and other my debts, for the term of 17 years ensuing my decease.’

His son Sir William Windsor inherited the title becoming the 2nd Lord Windsor but he died in 1558, the year that Elizabeth I came to the throne.  His will  states that the income from ‘Bealinges’ and certain other manors be reserved for ‘Dorothee, Ladye Wyndesore late wife of Sr Thomas Wyndesore, knt for and during the space of 20 years.’ (Thomas was his youngest brother).

William was succeeded in turn by his son Edward born in 1532. Edward, 3rd Lord Windsor, is of interest as he was well travelled, well educated, and a cultured patron of the arts. His house in Bradenham, unusually for the period had rooms given over exclusively to the display of paintings and maps. Edward had been knighted by the Earl of Arundel following the accession of Mary to the throne (1553)  and had fought at the battle of St. Quentin (1557) for which he was rewarded by the queen with a chain of gold set with rubies. The Windsors were steadfastly Catholic and loyal Tudors. Edward duly pledged himself to Elizabeth I but as time went on he found it increasingly difficult to reconcile the two loyalties. When Elizabeth went to visit Oxford University in 1566, Lord Windsor was in attendance on her and subsequently Elizabeth stayed at Bradenham from 7th to 9th September where she was entertained in great splendour. But in spring 1568 Edward departed for extensive travels in Europe, ostensibly for his health, which took him away for nearly two years. On his return ‘the reprisals towards Catholics in the parliaments of 1571 and 1572 appear to have convinced him that the remainder of his life should be spent abroad. In December 1572 he made his will, setting his affairs in order’ before setting out again to the continent. He spent the last year of his life in Venice and died there in February 1575 where his tomb can still be seen at the church of SS Giovanni e Paolo.[16]

Figure 7.  Portrait of the family of Edward Windsor, 3rd Baron Windsor, 1568. Bute Collection at Mount Stuart. Photo Keith Hunter. Edward Windsor (1532-1575), his wife Katherine de Vere (1543-1600), his four sons, Frederick, Henry, Edward jnr, Andrew, and an unidentified 61 year old woman. Painted by The Master of the Countess of Warwick (perhaps Arnold Derickson).

Edward Windsor’s lifetime coincided with huge swings in religious practice and tolerance. In 1540 when King Henry VIII was established as head of the Church of England, the Litany and the Bible were to be in English but Protestants who would not hear mass were burned as heretics, while Roman Catholics still loyal to the Pope were executed as traitors. Under the reign of King Edward VI new prayer books were introduced that were carefully worded so both Catholics and Protestants could use them and heretics were no longer burnt alive although zealous reformers pulled down altars, statues of saints and blotted out wall paintings. King Edward was succeeded by Queen Mary in 1553 who believed it her sacred duty to bring back the old faith. She persuaded Parliament to restore Latin Mass and she revived the law by which heretics would be burnt. When Queen Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 it was decreed that the English Prayer Book should be used again and everyone should attend Church. For the first ten years of her reign most English Catholics were loyal to Elizabeth; they paid their fines for not attending church and held their own services privately. But in 1570 the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth so to Roman Catholics she was no longer lawful Queen.  Ten years later new stricter laws against Roman Catholics were introduced with a penalty of £135 and one year in prison for holding a Catholic service. The fine for recusancy went up from 12d per week to £20 per month. To be an open Catholic meant ruin and imprisonment. Edward Windsor must have sensed the way things were going and got out in time although he was not to enjoy his life on the Continent for very long as he was 42 years old when he died.

Edward’s successor was his son Frederick as  4th Baron Windsor but the Fredrick died ten years later in 1585 and the title then passed to Frederick’s brother Henry (1562-1605) who thus became 5th Baron Windsor. It is known that the family’s finances were not good as, by the time Henry died, he had considerable debts. However Edward had bequeathed Billinges in his will dated 20 December 1572 to his youngest son Andrew and it was Andrew who actually sold Baylins Farm in 1593 to John Penn.

From documents in the Penn House Estate Archives we know that Andrew Windsor described himself as of Staplehurst, Kent and he did a deal in January 1593 whereby he ‘bargained and sold unto Jon Pen and his heirs all that messuage tenement and farm with appurtenances called or known by the name of Bealing in the parish of Pen co. Bucks and all other lands etc in Pen or elsewhere now in the tenure or occupation of one Richard Ognell for the sum of £900.’ In the four agreements relating to this sale the name of the property is variously: Bealing, Byllings, Billinges, Beelinges, Byllynges. Although the first document refers to Jon Pen he is after consistently John Penne.

Richard Ognell’s remaining lease was for 16 years from May 1593 for which he was to pay £34 yearly to John Penne. Ognell’s mother Anne, a widow, died in 1594 and was buried in the church at Penn. Amongst her legacies she left sums of money to her four daughters and one of her three sons, Laurence “if he demand it. The above legacies to be paid within one year after my decease, if same can be got out of the hands of my son George”. She also left a bullock plus 10 shillings to one grandson and two sheep and 20 shillings to his sister. Both were the children of Margaret Bingham. The residue of her estate went to Richard Ognell her son and he was to be her executor. The witnesses were John Pen and John Balam.

There remains one piece of the jigsaw puzzle concerning the Windsor’s ownership of Baylins Farm that is difficult to allocate. We know from dendrochronology that 1563 is the likely date for the installation of a first floor in the main hall of the house. The standard of the work with huge ovolo-moulded beams and joists was not simply functional but designed to impress but so far there is no information about who was living in the house at the time that would justify such works. Other alterations such as the installation of a circular staircase and the building of the two large chimney stacks would have been done at the same time. The octagonal newel post dates from c. 1557. Is it too far-fetched to imagine that somehow this was related to the passage of the Queen’s progress nearby in 1566? After leaving Bradenham, Elizabeth 1st dined with John Goodwin at Wooburn Manor, really close by.

[1] Miles Green, Penn Parish Council Annual Report 1995/96.
[2] Miles Green, Penn Parish Council Annual Report 1995/96.
[3] J. Gilbert Jenkins, A History of the Parish of Penn, St. Catherine Press, 1935.
[4] Eton College Collections on line, ECR 36 009.
[5] Miles Green, Medieval Penn Floor Tiles, 2003.
[6] Miles Green, Our Royal Connections, 2012.
[7] See also Simon Townley, Upland and Lowland in South Oxforshire Chilterns, https://blog.history.ac.uk
[8] J. Gilbert Jenkins, A History of the Parish of Penn, p. 8.
[9] Information from ‘Parishes: Dorney’, A History of the County of Buckingham: Vol. 3 (1925) pp. 221-225. Accessed via: www.british-history.ac.uk 27.04.2010. The present Dorney Court was built about 1510.
[10] Information from Penny Fussell, The Drapers’ Company archivist 11.02.2022.
[11] Boyd’s Roll, Past Master Percival Boyd’s register of the Drapers’ Company history.
[12] Sarah A. Milne, The Erber: Tracing Global Trade through a London Building, published online Cambridge University Press, 2020.
[13] Calendar of Inquisitions Henry VII Voll III, Bodleian Library. Information provided by Miles Green. It confirms that ‘the lands in Penne, worth 40s are held of Thomas earl of Derby, as of his manor of Segrave in Penne’.
[14] Eton College Collections Online, Ref. ECR 36 023. 1st April 1505. Sale by John Scotte of Dorney to Andrew Wyndesore … all appurtenances in … Pennes except messuage called Whytes with a garden adjacent in Penne.
[15] Will of John Scott of Dorney, 20.08.1505, proved 21.10.1505. National Archives. Records of Prerogative Court of Canterbury. PROB 11/14/726.[16] Information about the family portrait and Edward Lord Windsor’s life is taken from Edward Town’s study of the portrait and the man. www.artandthecountryhouse.com

Oliver Heal, January 2024

This entry was first published by .

Baylins Farm 1600 – 1920

Part of the Penn/Curzon Estate

The documents concerning the sale of Baylins Farm by Andrew Windsor to John Penn in 1593 give detail of the scope of the farm at that period. It was described as ‘the manor of Beelinges otherwise Byllynges with appurtenances and of one messuage, one garden, one orchard, 200 acres of land, six acres of meadow, twenty acres of pasture, twenty acres of wood, twenty acres of furze and heath, and 4/0 rent with appurtenances in Penne.’ This was the property that would form part of the Penn/Curzon/Howe Estate for the next 400 years.[1]


View as PDF – opens in new window

John and Ursula Penn memorial brass

Just three years later John Penn died in 1596 and was buried in the chancel at Penn Church on 12 October. His widow Ursula survived him until May 1610 when she in turn was buried in the church and they are both commemorated with a brass memorial. The Penns had clearly remained Catholic in their sympathies as in 1584 they were listed as absentees at a time of compulsory church attendance and the following year Ursula agreed to pay a fixed annual fine towards providing horses for the Queen’s service in return for exemption from penalties to which they were liable for their recusancy. Their links to the Royal family may have protected them from more unpleasant consequences. John’s mother Sybil Penn had been foster mother to Queen Elizabeth’s younger brother who became Edward VI. Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth all gave Sybil Penn gifts, land and an annuity. This contrasts with the treatment of the Lord of Segraves Manor in Penn who was imprisoned in 1587 for aiding and sheltering catholic priests.

John himself had been appointed Elizabeth’s Escheator for Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire in 1574. This seems to have been a lucrative function as he was able to buy other properties besides Baylins in the last quarter of the C16th.

John Penn’s eldest son was William (1567-1638) who, having grown up in a Catholic household, married Martha Poulton who was also catholic. He was 29 years old when he inherited the enlarged estate and became Lord of the Manor. In later life he was sufficiently well thought of to be appointed Sheriff of the County in 1624. William and Martha had one son, John, and two daughters, Sybil and Katharine.

John and Sarah Penn memorial brass

This latest John Penn was born c. 1595 not long before the time of his grandfather’s death. He married Sarah, daughter of Sir Henry Drurey of Hedgerley, and they had ten children, five boys and five girls. They must have married c. 1626 as their first daughter was born in 1627 and it seems reasonable to speculate that Baylins Farm became their family home at this time. His mother and father occupied Penn House and the young couple would have needed a sizeable home although three of the ten children are known to have died young.

We know that Richard Ognell, who occupied Baylins Farm when it was purchased by John Penn senior in 1593, died in 1618 and that William Penn was his sole executor. He had no children.  David and George Grove witnessed the will. Apart from legacies to various family members he left £5 to the poor of Penn and £3 to the poor of Beaconsfield. He had four servants (3 men, 1 woman) to whom he left 40 shillings each[2]

The same year, 1618, William Penn paid 20 shillings to King James for the grant of all the timber and free fishing for ever ‘in his manor or lordship of Penne lying and being in the towns and parishes of Penne, Woodburne and Wicombe in our county of Buckingham, and his manor of Seygraves lying and being in Penne, and in his manor or farm commonly called Beelings lying and being in Penne, and in his farm commonly called Le Parsonage in Penne.”  Also included in the grant was Beamont manor and Affricks farm in Little Missenden as well as a farm in Nether Orton, Oxfordshire.[3]

In 1627 William agreed to convey “by fine or feoffment” the “manor, capital messuage, tenement and farm with the appurtenances being within the parish of Pen called Bealings” to Trustees subject to an annuity of £200 to be paid his son Jon Penn and his wife Sarah during his lifetime. Following his death it would pass to John and Sarah and their descendants.[4]

It is known that much work was carried out at the house around this period. The exterior was clad in brick to hide the timber frame and the daub-and-wattle in-fill panels. An extension was built to provide a room on the east side that became a larder and a new wide staircase was installed for access to the first floor.

A room downstairs was panelled with oak wainscot to provide a snug drawing room. Two large oak doors which have been dated by their ledged planks and strap hinges to between 1590 and 1640 were evidently installed at the same time and are particularly interesting because they have taper burn marks on them which are understood to be connected with Catholics continuing to practice within their homes when expelled from the church. Similarly the salt niches in the fireplace are likely to have been used to display significant spiritual objects ‘as a personal badge of affiliation to Catholicism’.[5] In view of the Penn family’s catholic tendencies at the time this serves to reinforce the view that the house was modified around 1626/7 to provide a comfortable home for the newly married John and Sarah Penn.

The application of taper burns to beams within the house is however evidence of an older tradition that must pre-date Penn family ownership and the installation of these two doors. Burn marks can be found on the original timber frame of the house in twelve different locations and in many instances were applied repeatedly. The absence of burn marks in the first floor above the hall, in contrast to all the other rooms on the first floor, implies that it was a ritual that was practiced prior to 1563 (the installation date of the hall ceiling) and thus probably part of an older tradition of apotropaic signs that might protect against lightning, fire or ward off evil spirits.

John’s father William Penn died in 1638 and John only survived him by four years until 1641. In his will he bequeathed the manor of Bealings to his wife Sarah as dower. His son and heir William Penn was only 12 years old so was a ward of the Crown until he was 21 so all profits from the estate were payable to the Crown. The inquisition post mortem recorded that “the said manor of Bealings was held of the King as of his Duchy of Lancaster in free and common socage and is worth by the year in all issues beyond reprises £5. 5. 0.”[6]

William Penn (1628-1693) married Sara Shallcross circa 1651 and it was their daughter Sarah Penn who married Sir Nathaniel Curzon (1640-1719) around 1700.

No information has yet emerged as to who occupied Baylins Farm in the latter part of the 17th century but it seems likely that by around 1700 the Penn family had installed tenant farmers to run the farm. We know that in 1754 George Salter paid a Poor Rate for Bailings and in the same year a Mrs Salter of Bealings was buried as was Hannah Ranger,widow, of Bealings, and also that on 10 September 1759, Joseph, son of George Salter of Bealings, died. These mentions are the earliest positive links between the Salter family and Baylins. The Salters were an old Penn family with records of their births, marriages and deaths appearing in the Penn Church Registers in the last quarter of the 16th century. Edmond Salter was overseer for the poor in 1627 and churchwarden from 1631 to 1633. A George Salter was churchwarden in 1715 when the clock was installed.[7] He and his wife Martha were the parents of the George Salter, (later described as Yeoman of Bailings, Penn), baptized 4 August 1711, who died in 1788 aged 77 years and was buried at Penn Church. In his will he gave and bequeathed ‘unto my dear wife Sarah Salter all the bed bedding and also two pair of my best sheets draws chairs and all other furniture except one pair of chest of draws in the yellow papered room wherein I now usually lie’. He also referred to ‘my copyhold messuage…in the manor of Seagraves…now in the occupation of Miss Isham.[8] Sarah ‘relict of George Salter of Baylins’ lived on until 1808.

Confusingly we know that in 1718 Thomas Winter, who was described as a yeoman of Beelings in the parish of Penn, apprenticed his youngest son John to Alexander Daniel, surgeon of Beaconsfield, for seven years for 10 guineas to learn ‘the art of surgery and all the practice in … setting bones, bleeding, tooth drawing, dressing of wounds, imputacons’ etc.[9] His children were baptized in Penn between 1680 and 1699 but when Thomas died in 1722 he was then a ‘yeoman of little Missenden’ having remarried there in 1718 and so no longer from Baylins.

The next references we have are the Posse Comitatus, which shows William Winter at Baylins in 1798, and the following year when his widowed daughter Mary Allen (née Winter) married Thomas B. Bovingdon of Glory Farm.[10] This William was a son of John the surgeon

By 1810 John Boucher was the farmer and Bailings was assessed at £78 15s for the Poor Rate Book. After Boucher the Langston family became tenants. In 1836 Thomas Langston, farmer of ‘Beylings Farm’, Penn, made his will stating he was ‘weak in body but of sound mind’ and left everything to his brother David Langston ‘now of Baylins Farm’.[11] At the 1841 census David Langston, by then 60 years old, and his two elder brothers, Thomas and Richard, were in occupation. David, his wife and three servants were living there at the 1851 census and he stayed until he died in 1855 leaving everything to his wife Sarah and then to his brother William.[12]

From 1838 we have the details of the Tithe Award Map which recorded the names and acreage of the fields that David Langston was farming at that time. This came to a total of 147 acres, most of which was arable with only 20 acres described as Meadow, pasture and orchard. It excludes any woodland which presumably made up the difference to the amount of land acquire by John Penn in 1593. The farm stretched from Saucy Corner in the North down to the Forty Green Road in the South and went Westwards to Saunderswood.[13]

The field names are fascinating such as Great & Little Wopses and Golden Field.
See also Baylins Farm Field Names   Click on Image to enlarge to screen width …

Baylins Entry in 1838 Penn Tithe and Map

Click on Image to enlarge to screen width …

The next tenant was William Redding who, with his wife, 1 daughter and 4 sons, was  at Baylins Farm when the 1861 census was taken (he was Church Warden at Penn in 1859). He was then aged 35 years and managed 140 acres. Ten years later he was still there and had 2 daughters and 5 sons. The farm had 160 acres, employed 3 labourers and 2 boys as well as a live-in servant Joseph Allen who was 14 years old. Redding’s tenancy terminated on 29 September 1875 and he was succeeded by William and John Priest. But there was no mention of John Priest at the time of the 1881 census but we know that a John Priest was buried at Penn in 1882 with his wife Susannah who had died in 1876. The census records William Priest (38) with wife Eliza (40) and 3 sons (aged 4,3 and 2 yrs) and a 1 year old daughter. They were still farming 160 acres with 3 men and a boy and had three young indoor servants. However there was also a brother of William called John Priest who farmed in Little Missenden where he died in 1899.

Also recorded under Baylins Farm in the 1881 census were Arthur Tapping, Thomas Bryant, John James, William Carter, all agricultural labourers, and all of whom were living with their own wives and families. There was also John Lane retired gamekeeper and Edward Tilbury a brick layer, with their families. One has to assume they lived in cottages around the farm and not in the farmhouse.[14]

In 1896 when the tenancy was renewed again it was in the name of William Henry Priest alone who stayed on with his wife, Eliza, a member of the Salter family, and five children. William continued to run the farm until he died in October 1917. His wife and family were allowed to stay on until the end of September 1919.[15] Their eldest son, William George Priest, who was born at Baylins Farm in 1876, grew up to be a farmer at Farnham Royal but later emigrated to Kyogle in New South Wales, Australia, where his family lived in a house named Baylins. Another son, Ernest Arthur (1878-1942) married Alice Louisa Redding.

[1] Feet of Fines. Bucks, Easter. 35 Elizabeth. Extract copied by Richard Holworthy 1924.
[2] Bucks wills vol. for 1618/19 folio 92. Transcribed by Richard Holworthy 1924. Viewed at County Records Office by OSH, 19.01.2001. ref We27125, Wf22287. Noted ‘brass pot bought off my sister Elizabeth.’
[3] Patent Roll 2171. No. 3. 16 James 1. Part 7. Transcribed by Richard Holworthy, 1924.
[4] Chancery Inquisition post mortem. Series II. Vol. 602. No. 63. Transcribed by Richard Holworthy, 1924.
[5] Information from Dr Jonathan Duck 23.11.2021. who has researched the subject and spotted the burn mark from a photograph. See his articles How to Protect your Home from Evil,  Listed Heritage Magazine, March/April and May/June 2022.
[6] Chancery Inquisition post mortem. Series II. Vol. 613. No. 67. Transcribed by Richard Holworthy, 1924.
[7] Notes taken from the Penn Registers by Ambrose and Edith Heal in 1920. From a 1748 document acquired by Ambrose Heal which gave details of General Fuller’s estate at Gregorys, Beaconsfield, we know that ‘Davenies Farm, consisting of a farmhouse and about 144 acres of land & meadow ground’ was in the tenure of George Salter and the rent was £75.00 p.a.
[8] George Salter, Bailings, Penn, Yeoman. Will dated 26.05.1787, proved 22.08.1788. County Records Office D/A/We/112/47 D/A/Wp/104/2350.
[9] Apprenticeship Indenture 26 March 1718. Ref: D209/137 (via Susan Cooper).
[10] Miles Green  and Susan Cooper letters 2007.
[11] County records Office D/A We/147/2. D/A/Wf/122/125. Although dated 9 May 1836 the will was not proved until 4 Jan 1851.
[12] County Records Office D/A/We/148/45. D/A Wf//123/89. Will 24.08.1853, proved 11.04.1855.
[13] Information kindly supplied by Miles Green.
[14] My thanks to Debbie Marsden for the information in the censuses
[15] Dates of tenancies provided by Mr Widdowson to Ambrose Heal.

Oliver Heal, January 2024

This entry was first published by .

Baylins Farm, Field Names

The earliest easily available source for Penn field names is the 1838 Penn Tithe Map which is a detailed and pretty accurate map of all the field boundaries in the parish with an accompanying Award showing the name of the field, whether it was arable, pasture or meadow, who owned and who occupied it, and its size.  Size was measured in acres, roods (1/4 acre) and perches (40 to a rood).  Woods were not charged a tithe, but their size and name was recorded in the Award.  You can compare with a modern map to discover old hedge lines.

Click on image to enlarge to screen width

Then there is the fun of trying to decide why the field was so-called.  There are field name dictionaries to help with this and common sense doesn’t always work.  For instance, I thought ‘Wopses’ might mean ‘very large’, as in ‘what a whopper’, but according to John Field’s, English Field names, A Dictionary (1972), it derives from Old English wœps meaning ‘overgrown, scrubby’Names can last for many centuries depending on stability of ownership and how much the name was used.  Pond and road names are the strongest survivors, but many field names are centuries old.

The Tithe map extract shows the fields which used to belong to Baylins Farm, which is in Knotty Green, on the right as you drive into Beaconsfield from Penn with fields running up to Saucy Corner.   Oliver Heal, the owner of the farm, has added the names of the fields which used to belong to the farm including several variants of ‘Wopses’.  The fields grouped around the farm house, marked in green, are described by the Tithe Award as ‘meadow’.  All the rest is arable.   Over the years, some of the field boundaries have changed, but many have survived.

‘Drews Meadow’ and, I suspect mistakenly transcribed ‘Great Drews’ and ‘Little Drews’, were named after and perhaps once part of what is shown on the Penn 1852 Inclosure Award as Drews Green, a small common on both sides of the main road below Clay Street which you see now as a wide roadside verge on one side only.  The name could be from an old personal name, Dru, Dreu or Drogo.

‘Cole Hearth Wood’ records one or more charcoal hearths – typically a circular level platform about 10m in diameter on which the hearth made of wooden faggots was built. Also look for dark soil and dust.

Miles Green and Oliver Heal, July 2022

This entry was first published by .