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this was the manor that subsequently became the manor
of St John’s Ash seems very improbable. At the knighting of the
Black Prince, Otho de Grandison paid ten shillings for the fourth part of
a fee in Ash that William Latimer had formerly held from Roger de Mowbray
and Hasted himself says that Grandison’s son and heir, Sir Thonas
Grandison, owned the manor of Ash, alias North Ash, when he died in
1375. This, the principal’. Ash manor, must surely be the one for which
William Latimer was granted his Thursday market and which had been held
from the de Mowbray family by Mabel de Torpel in the thirteenth century
and by the Latimers in the early fourteenth century. As to St John’s
Ash, if in fact that had once been Grandison property, it is unlikely to
have been the manor sometime held by the Pencompes; in such case, a better
candidate would seen to be a fee at South Ash which derived from the manor
of Chelsfield and was referred to in the Inquisitio Post Mortem
taken on Otho de Grandison’ s death.19
Sir Otho de Grandison was the second son of |
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William, Lord Grandison and nephew of the Sir Otho who
had been secretary to Edward I and became Archbishop of York. The
Grandisons were a famous medieval family, specialising in matters martial
and matters ecclesiastical; sometimes they rather confused the two. The
Otho who was lord of Ash fought in the Scottish wars and at Crecy, went as
Edward II’s ambassador to the Pope and was for a time keeper of Dover
Castle. His younger brother, John Grandison, Bishop of Exeter, and his
son, Sir Thomas Grandison, both in their ways shared his taste for battle;
Sir Thomas was constantly abroad fighting in the King’s service and the
Bishop, for his part, came near to waging war with Archbishop Simon de
Mepham. More creditable, so far as John was concerned, were his great
gifts to posterity, the rebuilding in part of his cathedral and the
building in whole of the beautiful church of St Mary Ottery in Devon, a
replica in miniature of the cathedral. |