Great Shelford's Three Manors

          Under the manorial system, all the land in the parish belonged to one or other of the manors. In Great Shelford there were three.

Buristead Manor

          The biggest of the three was Buristead Manor. Its earliest records go back to the 11th century, when it belonged to the Abbey in Ely. When the Diocese of Ely was created in 1109, the estate passed to the bishop. It remained in his hands until 1600 when he sold it to the Crown, which in turn sold it on into private hands. By 1614 the owner was Christopher Rogers, and in his will he divided the estate by leaving only the manor house and about 72 acres of surrounding land to his son, and ordering the sale of the rest to pay his debts and bequests. The Cambridge colleges were always keen to extend their land holdings, and in 1614 Gonville and Caius College bought the manorial estate. They were still the owners at the time of the Enclosure.

Granhams Manor

          Granhams Manor was a relatively small manor, and pre-Conquest had belonged to King Harold. It passed to a Norman Lord called Peter de Valognes, and thereafter to a bewildering run of owners. Its manor house and the associated buildings, including a chapel, have long since disappeared, and seem to have left but little trace. Most likely they sit beneath the current house - recently rechristened Granhams Manor - which is 18th and 19th century. In 1714 St John's College bought the entire estate.

De Freville Manor

          The third and last manor was called De Freville or Frevilles Manor. In the land-grab after the Conquest, another Norman lord, Hardwin de Scalers, had seized land from Ely Abbey, and also from some of the smaller Saxon landowners. This he merged into a small manor. He also had a much larger estate in Little Shelford. The land passed in due course to the Freville family. Their name has stuck. It, too, passed through many hands, eventually becoming the property of Edward Chapman from Cambridge, who changed his name to Green. The Greens started from modest roots, and gradually climbed their way up the social ladder until Edward Humphreys Green inherited the estate at the age of four. His family estate was Hinxton Hall, so the Shelford manor was only a small part of his inheritance. Edward married into the aristocracy, and by 1851 he obviously felt the need of a name more suited to his position. He gained the Queen’s permission to call himself De Freville, taking his name from the estate. He also added an “e” to the Green, to become Greene. Presumably this gave it more of an aristocratic twirl. De Freville Manor was the only one of the three manors whose Lord was a private individual, rather than an institution.

The Titheholder

          The three main interests in the village, then, were the manorial lords, but there was one more interest, and that was the titheholder. This was Jesus College. These four were the most powerful players when it came to the business of Enclosure.

v1 © Helen Harwood, uploaded March 2025