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They were then sold by the Crown and have been in private hands ever since. It is likely that Stephen held the manor on either a three generation or a 99 year lease and he and his son Robert were witness to most of the above exchanges. The records show that in 1649 Sir Richard Hovells inherited the Grange known as Hovells from his father, added the brew house and in 1660 partitioned the ground floor. The roof timbers and construction date the Grange at about 1450. The house has some very fine interior timbering, a number of mullion windows and an early wall painting in a geometric design. The considerable slope in some of the upper floors may have been caused by the movement of one or more of the main timbers early in its history. Today ‘Hovells’ is still to be seen, the oldest surviving house in Ickleton. It has been preserved in its original form, together with the mid-seventeenth century additions.
Robert was probably born circa 1505, roughly four years before the end of the reign of Henry the Seventh, and nearly thirty years before Henry the Eighth repudiated the Papal authority and thirty three years before the first parish registers began. Robert therefore escaped having his birth registered. The name of Robert’s first wife is unknown but she bore him two children, Stephen and Dorothy before her death. It is believed that Robert married his second wife Isabel Coe? in Arrington, Cambridgeshire on the 16th of July 1553. It lies on the Roman Ermine Street but the oldest thing it has is a crude Norman font shaped like a tub. Its neat little church stands on a hill looking over the cottages with a peep through the trees to the fine park of Wimpole Hall. It has lost its aisles but their 14th century arches are still in the wall, the windows and the old doorway set in them. The handsome chancel is 14th century and the tower has been partly rebuilt in Tudor brick. Perhaps the best possession of the church is a striking piscina niche; which, though much worn and with one of its pillars gone, it has beautiful arches. At present it appears as though the church is no longer in use, although the graveyard still is.
If it were possible to go back in time and see the English countryside as it was when Robert Swan took his young bride Isabel back to Ickleton in 1553. The first thing that would strike a 21st century observer would be its wildness and emptiness. Many thousands of acres were still covered by woodland and forest, such as those in Epping and Hatfield, in Essex.
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