the bury
Above: The Bury – image supplied by Eddie Smith from a postcard.
Post-dated 31st August 1931 sent to an address in Doncaster.
Researched and written by Geoff P Page
Long demolished and replaced by the Chase Hill Road Estate, Arleseybury was a magnifcent house
dominating the village at the top of the hill to the west of the High Street. The bury was a mansion
house built in 1820 by Sir John Jackson, a director of the East India Company.
This potted history of Arlesey Bury House has been collated from the title
deeds of Arlesey Bury House, from documents supplied by Mrs Doreen Rix
a former member of Arlesey Archive Group and Arlesey – The History of a
Village by William Hames, published by Bedfordshire County Library 1978.
Limited present day remains can be found at the Old Moat Nature
Reserve which is owned by the Wildlife Trust BCNP (open to the public).
The L shaped pond is thought to be the former moat of the medieval moated
manor of Arlesey Bury.
Arlesey Place was the main house for the manor of Arlesey Bury. Arlesey
is recorded in the Domesday Book (1086) as having three Manors: Etonbury
to the north, Arleseybury in the middle and Lanthony in the south.
In 1804 Arlesey Place (manor house) was acquired by Sir John Jackson ,
a director of the East India Company and M.P. for Dover. Between 1808 and
1821 he pulled down part of the old house and turned it into a farm house. A
new mansion was constructed to the east and both buildings can be seen on
the attached map taken from the deeds of Arlesey Bury estate.
The creation of the Great Northern Railway (act passed 26 June 1846)
finally saw the destruction of both the farm buildings and the filling in of
one of the ponds. The estate of the late Samuel Bedford Edwards received
payment of £7,000 by way of compensation. A culvert was constructed
under the railway to take away the spring water from the eastern side of the
railway and still flows today.
The section on the southern end of the Old Moat NR was probably re-dug
in the late 1920s after partial infilling during the construction of the railway.
This was when Arlesey Bury was in the ownership of John Howard Carter.
He is remembered locally by the older generation as a good benefactor to
the poor.
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November 2013
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St Peter's
Church
Arlesey
Place
New Mansion
Above: Details from the Deeds of Arlesey Bury c.1821. Redrawn for clarity
The effects of the depression after the first Wold War were felt much later
in Arlesey, around 1927. This came about due to the closure of the Owens
Pump Works and the Eddystone Cement Company (the pit is now known
as the ‘Blue Lagoon’). Mr Carter1 offered a day’s wage to any fit man who
would come and dig out and extend ‘the moat’. The water was extended
on the southern end eastwards towards the railway where more or less the
previous pond had been to the railway boundary. This can be seen clearly
on maps produced after this period.
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