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Email Address, vicwswan@tiscali.co.uk, Telephone, 01305 826848 |
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Vic Swan's Home Page |
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THIS SWAN FAMILY STORY |
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Chapter One Ickleton, Cambridgeshire |
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In the name of God Amen. This 24h day of August in the year of our Lord God. One thousand five hundred and forty and in the 32nd year of the reign of our sovereign lord King Henry the eighth. So starts the last will and testament of Stephen Swan of Ickleton in Cambridgeshire. Stephen was probably born in Ickleton C 1480. According to his will he married Isabel in C 1503 and they raised five children. John was the eldest son born C 1504, closely followed by Robert in C 1505. Three girls, Isabel C 1506, Margaret C 1508 and Joanna in C 1510 then followed these two lads. All of their children reached adulthood married and raised children of their own. Stephen was a Yeoman and bequeathed his farm to Robert his second son. He also provided for his wife Isabel his children and grandchildren. There was one exception, his eldest son John who had predeceased him by ten years. The Black Death raised its ugly head again in the year 1531 and it is believed that it was this plague which was responsible for John’s death and also for that of his wife Margaret who only survived him by a few days. Money was also left to the parish church, in which churchyard he wished to be buried, and also to the poor people of the parish. Stephen was fairly prosperous and apart from his livestock a sizeable acreage of the saffron crocus was cultivated. The ‘Saffron Crocus’ (which gave its name to Saffron Walden in Essex about five miles distant) was very labour intensive, which implies that Stephen was quite a large employer of men. He left the lease of his farm ‘Hovells’ to his son Robert who in turn left it to his sons John and Edward. However, by this time-some fifty years later- Robert refers to his home as the ‘Manor of Hovells’. The archive department at the Cambridge Record Office hold records of the manor starting from 1627. |
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