East Court

History of East Court, Finchampstead

HISTORY OF EAST COURT

I am indebted to a number of very helpful sources for this history, in particular, the very informative book 'Chronicles of Finchampstead' written by a former resident of East Court, William Lyon in the late 19th century. I am also most grateful to Miranda Seymour for her very informative biography, 'Ottoline Morrell: Life On The Grand Scale'. The Finchampstead Society published 'Finchampstead Past Present and Future' in 1977, and that contains much interesting material about Finchampstead in general, and East Court in particular.

During the times of the great estates, and noble landowners, it was common for properties of this sort to be tenanted - that is to say, the big land-owning families typically owned more than one grand property, and let out other large properties to slightly less prominent occupants. For this reason, there may be some apparent anomalies in dates and names, as some of the historical material does not make clear whether it is referring to the freeholder or the tenant.

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Finchampstead - summary comments from Wikipedia, the National Trust, Berkshire History

East Court Manor - the early years - Domesday Book to the Palmer Family 1843.

The mid-to-late 1800s - the John Walter Family.

East Court in the late 1800s - The Bentincks, Charles Kingsley, Lady Ottoline Morrell, William Lyon.

East Court - 1900 to the present day - The Watson Family, TE Lawrence, GB Shaw.

Renovation programme from 1987.