Place Name
The Gaynesfords were an important and powerful Carshalton family around the time of the Wars of the Roses but their influence waned over the generations, although their name lived on locally. Originally from Crowhurst, the first of the family to settle in the local area was Nicholas Gaynesford (died 1498) whose father left him the Stone Court manor of Carshalton in 1448. A E Jones in From Medieval Manor to London Suburb writes: “He had come to Carshalton when the Lancastrian Henry VI was on the throne. In 1460, still in the same reign, he attended Parliament as a knight of the shire; he was also Sheriff of Surrey that year and on several occasions afterwards up to 1486. He lived through two Yorkist reigns, each begun in bloodshed, and ended his days under the Tudor/Lancastrian Henry VII who finally brought peace to England after the Battle of Bosworth.” During these febrile times, Nicholas, who had married Margaret a daughter of the influential Sidney family, had to employ some fancy footwork to hold on to his property, especially since he had a habit of backing the wrong horse. Jones adds: “Not unnaturally there is no mention in the Gaynesford epitaph of the occasion in 1461 when Edward IV, having deposed Henry VI and proclaimed himself King, issued an order to seize the manor ‘belonging to the rebel and traitor Nicholas Gaynesford.’ Nicholas had made his peace very quickly with the new monarch and Stone Court was restored to him in 1462. However, he was in trouble again when Richard III usurped the throne in 1483; together with seven peers he was attainted by Parliament for joining the rebellion against the latest King. Nicholas was imprisoned for a time in the Tower and the royal order once more went forth to seize the ‘manor of Burghersshe alias Kersalton’ (the Burghersshe family had been previous owners of Stone Court). Somehow he rode this storm too; he was pardoned in the next year and got ‘Kersalton’ back again. But after Richard III had been defeated and killed at Bosworth, Nicholas Gaynesford figured prominently in the coronation procession of Elizabeth, wife of the victorious Henry VII; and he ended his days peacefully as esquire to that sovereign.” The family were buried in the local church. The bulk of his fortune was left to his grandson Robert, his eldest son John having died in 1486. “The descendants of Nicholas Gaynesford do not seem to have inherited his toughness and resilience. The status he had won in such difficult times they proved incapable of holding when the going was so much easier. None of them achieved any prominence in national affairs, and, in 1547, a great, great grandson, Robert, disposed of the major part of the Stone Court holding.” In 1555 he leased his “fishing rights and the swannery that went with the mill.” His father, Henry, had been referred to in the Court Rolls of the main Carshalton manor simply as a ‘common brewer and miller’… Lands which he left mortgaged were to go to his wife ‘if she do redeeme the same to pay my debts.’ “Robert died in 1558, bequeathing to his infant son, John, an even bleaker inheritance; and all he could leave to the ‘supervisors of his will “for their paynes”‘ was ‘a quart of appylls within the next yeare’. The widow remarried, but died before John was ten. That was, effectively, the end of the Gainsfords (the spelling had changed over the years) in Carshalton. The stepfather packed the boy off to Wales and took over the administration of his property. In 1579, soon after he had attained his majority, John brought a Chancery suit against his stepfather and other relatives, alleging that they had ‘intended his utter disinheritance’. The result of this case is not known, but, evidently, he did not obtain a satisfactory status in Carshalton — though he may have been the ‘Captaine Ganiesford’ who was in command of the troops from Carshalton and district, raised in 1588 to repel the expected Armada invasion. But in 1591 he sold his remaining land, left Surrey for good and settled in Monmouthshire. There he prospered and even emulated Nicholas Gaynesford, his ancestor, to the extent of being appointed Sheriff of the county in 1604. The family name lived on in Carshalton long after the last member of it had left the district. The Stone Court manor house was still called Gainsford’s Place (even when rebuilt) right up to the time of its demolition at the beginning of the nineteenth century.”
