Milcote Manor

Description

Listed as site of castle by Harvey. Lewis Grevill was granted a licence to build a new manor house at Mylcote and embattle it and call it Mountgrevell in 1567.

1567: Ludovic Grevell obtained Royal Licence to build and embattle a new house at Milcote and call it Mountgrevell. This he began but never completed. The ruins were still standing in 1730. It is not quite clear whether it was this or the Old Manor House (PRN 1340) that was burnt by Parliamentary troops in 1644 (VCH). The wife of the farmer of Milcote Hall, said that about 1943 foundations were ploughed up in the proximity of the published site. There is nothing to be seen there now, the field being arable and under crop (OS record card). Material collected in the late 1950s included quantities of Post Medieval/Imperial pottery, glass, tile and a fragment of iron (OS record card). A burnt area under plough presumably indicates that this was the building burnt by Parliamentary troops (C. Dyer, 1986, unpublished note). An order dated 4th December 1644 was signed by the Coventry Committee, headed by William Purefoy, to blow up the roof of Milcote house with 3 barrels of powder so as to make it unfit for use as a Royalist garrison. This was partly as a reaction to The Royalists garrisoning Campden house in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire and also Lark Stoke manor, near Ilmington, Warwickshire. At midday on Thursday the 5th December 1644, 200 horses, under the command of Major Joseph Hawkesworth (later governor of Warwick Castle), arrived at Milcote house. The Earl of Middlesex's steward was the only man living at the house and was given a mere 2 hours to remove what he could before the house was fired in 3 or 4 places. Troops then stayed until dark to make sure the house burned. Most of its fittings and contents went with it (B. Gethin, 2009, unpublished document). (Warwickshire HER)

To whom suceeded Lodowik his son and heir then 22 years of age; who being an ambitious and spirited man, procured Licence (Pat. 9 Eliz. p. 3.) from Q Eliz. in 9 of her reign, to make a Castle here at Milcote, and to call in Mount-Grevill, which accordingly he began to do on the top of the Hill above a quarter of a mile Southwards from the old Mannour house, as is to be seen by part of the fabrick yet standing. (Dugdale)

Comments

Not the moated manor house site now occupied by C17 building Milcote Manor Farm (SP17125244) which the VCH states belonged to the Earl of Middlesex.
There are no remains of this house and moat, which was possible the one recorded as being burnt by Parliamentary troops in 1644. Grevell's house, which the VCH records as never finished (Greville was hanged for murder a few year after the licence was granted) but as still standing in 1730. The complete lack of remains does suggest that this was an unfinished building project, although if the Milcote house destroyed by Parliamentery forces was this site then it was habitable in the mid C17, although Dugdale probably writing before this supposed destruction ( Antiquities was published in 1656 but was probably long delayed because of the Civil War) records the house as already ruinous suggesting the house destroyed in the Civil War was the old Milcote manor. There was a deer park which was licensed with the house.