Cople
Cople | |
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Bedfordshire and Luton | |
Ambulance | East of England |
UK Parliament | |
Cople is a village and
History
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/All_Saints%2C_Cople%2C_Beds_-_geograph.org.uk_-_330009.jpg/220px-All_Saints%2C_Cople%2C_Beds_-_geograph.org.uk_-_330009.jpg)
Cople is part of the ancient
The centre of Cople is dominated by
A
road); the house dates from around 1770 and was used to collect tolls from the road users. It is one of only two toll houses that still exist in Bedfordshire.Cople House, a large manor house, was at southern end of the village, but it was destroyed in a fire in 1971. In 1976 twenty four large homes were built on the site, renamed Woodlands Close, but the original coach house survived the fire and has been restored and converted into three houses.
Rowlands Manor and the Spencers
One of the manors within the parish of Cople was Rowlands, acquired by the Spencer family in 1531 and held by them for several centuries.[4] The Spencer family were a branch of the Northamptonshire Spencers (with whom they shared a coat-of-arms).[5]
Robert Spencer had a daughter, Ann Spencer in 1575.She was known as Ann of Cople and Married Hugh Albon(e) in 1591. The sons of Nicolas Spencer Sr. and the former Mary Gostwick,[6] Nicholas Spencer and his brother Robert both emigrated to America in the 1650s, to Virginia and Maryland respectively.[7] Nicholas served as an agent for his cousin, John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper.
Spencer family members continued to reside in Cople and its environs for many years afterward. "The Spencers’ Cople estates," according to the Bedfordshire County Council, "were bought by Francis Brace for the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, and the manor still was known as Rowlands when part of the Duke of Bedford’s estate at the start of the 19th century."[8][9]
References
- ^ Bedfordshire County Council, Population Estimates and Forecasts Archived 5 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine, estimate for 2007.
- ^ "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
- ^ Historic England (13 July 1964). "Parish Church of All Saints (Grade I) (1114154)". National Heritage List for England.
- ^ Cople, Manor of Nicholas Spencer, Esq., Bedford Estate (Russell) Archives, The National Archives, nationalarchives.gov.uk
- ^ The Visitations of Bedfordshire, William Harvey, Robert Cooke, College of Arms, 1884
- ^ Gostwick/Spencer, The Visitations of Bedfordshire, William Harvey, Robert Cooke, George Owen, Richard Saint-George, College of Arms, London, 1884
- ^ The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. XLV, Boston, 1891
- ^ Manors, Bedfordshire County Council, bedfordshire.gov.uk Archived 15 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Rowlands Manor Cople". Archived from the original on 4 June 2016. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Cople website
- Cople pages at the Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service
- Cople, A History of the County of Bedford, Vol. 3, William Page (ed.), Victoria County History, British History Online, british-history.ac.uk