Thame Local History
Baldington

In 1419, at the death of a William Baldington, then living at Albury, we hear for the first time of the manorial holding of 'Baldington'.

William had been the son of John Baldington of Thame. It seems that either he or one of his forebears had been granted land and property in Thame and elsewhere, and that a part of Old Thame, along with tenements in New Thame and elsewhere, had been bundled into the manor of Baldington.

It is not known exactly where the lands of Baldington lay, but the manor house of Baldington manor, also known as Place House, was in Old Thame (on the site of Thame's present cattle market in North Street.)

It is thought that Baldington manor may have owned the fishponds known as the Moats, since a field once known as Moats Close (now Barley Hill School field) adjoins both the grounds of Place House and the Lea Park Moats.

Baldington manor remained in the Baldington family until 1473, when Agnes Baldington sold it, together with Place House, to Geoffrey Dormer.

The Dormer family became the owners of Baldington manor, and Place House was the Thame residence of the hugely wealthy Dormers in the early sixteenth century.

In his will dated 1502, Geoffrey Dormer left to his son Geoffrey the 'Manor of Baldington's Court in Old Thame' with its land and property in 'Old Thame, New Thame, Moreton, Priestend and Attington'.

The north trancept of Thame's St Mary's Church was apparently once known as 'Baldington's Aisle' and later 'Master Dormer's Aisle'.

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Old maps of Thame and the villages




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