Husbourne Crawley
General History
Lysons' Magna Britannia, 1806

Places > Husbourne Crawley > General History

Husbourn-Crawley, in the hundred of Manshead, and denery of Flitt, lies on the borders of Buckinghamshire, about eleven miles north-west of Bedford.  In the chronicle of Dunstaple, Husborn, or Husseborn, and Crawley, seem to be spoken of as two places, although one parish, the church being at Husborn.  The manor belonged anciently to the earls of Albermarle, and afterwards to the families of Flitwick and Finaunce.  In the seventeenth century it was in the Thompsons.  In 1691, it was purchased of Sir John Thompson, by John Lowe; and in 1721, of Francis Lowe esq. by Wriothesly, Duke of Bedford, from whom it has descended to the present Duke.  In the church is a handsome monument, with the effigies of a knight in armour, and his lady, under a canopy supported by Doric columns: it has no inscription, but by the arms appears to be that of one of the Thompson family. The impropriate rectory and advowson of the vicarage, which formerly belonged to the priory of Dunstable, were purchased by the Thompsons, by the ancestors of the Rev. E. Williamson, who conveyed them to the late Duke of Bedford in 1795.  The same year an act of parliament for inclosing the parish, when an allotment was assigned to the impropriator in lieu of the tithes.  In 1796, this vicarage (which was endowned in 1220, as appears by the chronicle of Dunstaple) was consolidated with Aspley Guise.

Extract from: Lysons' Magna Britannia, being a concise topographical account of several counties of Great Britain by the Rev. Daniel Lysons, A.M., F.R.S. F.A. and L.S. Rector of Rodmarton in Gloucestershire and Samuel Lysons, Esq., F.R.S. and F.A.S. Keeper of His Majesty's Records in the Tower of London, 1806

Page last updated: 29th January 2014