Place Name
Recalls the much flipped (to use estate agent parlance) ancient manor of Durnsford, in Wandsworth. Originally owned by Merton Priory, it was seized by the Crown during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538, Henry VIII’s land grab against the Roman Catholic Church. The manor passed to Charles Duke of Suffolk, who very quickly sold it a year later to Thomas Cromwell. When Thomas Cromwell fell out with Henry, the manor passed, in 1540, back to the Crown. It was held until 1563 when Elizabeth I granted it to her favourite Lord Robert Dudley. Dudley wasted no time in getting rid of selling it in the same year to Sir William Cecil, who in turn sold it in 1564 to John Swift. John Swift held on to it for five years before flogging it to Thomas Smith in 1569, and it stayed in the possession of his descendants until 1664 when it was sold to Sir Alan Brodrick. It passed in 1730 to his great nephew, Alan 2nd Viscount Midleton, and remained in the Middleton family until it was apparently sold to James Clark in 1851. By this time the manor was being slowly broken up.
