Dashwood

The Dashwood family family held an annuity paid by the rectory manor of Chewton Mendip from c1670 to 1790 although they were not  clergymen  and they were not local. They lived initially in Middlesex then Boxford in Suffolk.

The annuity had been paid by a Dame Anna Kingsmill who may have been the patron of  Edmund Quarles in 1665. Both people were living in London or Middlesex where the connection with the Dashwood family may have been made.

The records are held in the Hampshire archives and are given the references  19M61/896 to 19M61/905.  The  records are indentures which  confirm that the people  concerned were from the family described in the Wikipedia page below. However, the people who held an interest in Chewton Mendip were younger brothers or some other relative of the baronet so they did not inherit the title.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashwood_baronets

It is possible that the annuity was tied to income from Franklyn’s Farm. Hampshire archive record 19M61/949 suggests the ‘Fee Farm’ was sold on 26th September 1650. Whilst the copy of the abstract of title may refer to Franklyn’s Farm, it lists other income so ‘Fee Farm’ refers to the right to collect fees rather than a specific property.

A second  possibility was that the Dashwoods were involved with Cornelius Burges in some way. He acquired the lands and income of the Bishop of Bath & Wells in dubious circumstances during the Commonwealth period. The 1650 transaction supports this view as the ‘fee’ concerned may have been the pension due to the Bishop of Bath & Wells who may have sold the right to the Dashwoods to prevent Cornelius Burges benefiting from the income.

A third possibility is that the fee may have been the Sacrafield rent that was still levied in the 18th century but that rent was associated with Waldegrave properties.

Another prospect for the Dame Anna Kingsmill was woman who married James Taswell in 1684. The Taswells came from Limington in Somerset and they may have introduced one of their tenants called Franklin to Chewton Mendip which provides an alternative source of the name of the farm.

The Hampshire records show that the Dashwoods concerned adopted the Peyton name and their involvement with Chewton Mendip had finished by 1790.