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Roger de Cressey I William de Cressey I 1201-1232 Sir William de Cressey II 1240-1311 Sir Roger de Cressey III 1278-1314 William de Cressey III 1291-1335 Sir Hugh de Cressey II 1314-1346 Rev Fr John Cressey 1400 Sir Hugh Cressy 1575 Rev Hugh Paulinus Serenus Cressy 1605 Richard Cressey 1632
The name of
Cressey (there are some 20+ variations on the spelling during the past 1200
years)
can be traced to the early 10th Century. My first reference to
the Cressey origins begins at Adelaide de
Crecy born at Gournay-sur-Marne, France. Then appears Elizabeth
deCrecy,
probably born in France about c. 961. There is a record of her having married Bouchard de
Montmorency born c.957.
(Source Genserve) It would appear that from the time of Doomsday, The Hodsock Estate was occupied through Bronze Age and Roman times. It was farmed by the Saxon, Ulsi. Ulsi was the pre-Conquest owner of Hodsock under the Norman overlord Roger de Busli of Tickhill Castle. Roger de Busli was granted massive holdings of land by William the Conqueror. According to the Doomsday Book onwards there appears to be a comprehensive record of the owners of the Hodsock Estate. Much of the archive is deposited in Nottingham University library.
Then came Torald de Lizours, who gained this land from Roger de Busli (Bush). Not much is known about Torald, save that he was thought worthy to witness the foundation deed of 1088, by which Roger de Bush founded Blyth Priory. Blyth’s 900 year old Norman church is all that remains of the Benedictine priory founded there in 1088. The estate of Hodsock had passed to the Cressey Family by the mid 12th century. Hodsock came to be owned by Roger de Cresci in the time of Henry II. The Cressy family were to stay at Hodsock for 9 generations and were a powerful family. Then followed the families of Clifton and Mellish and the present day owner of the land, Andrew Buchanan.
It is probable the families of Cressey and Torald de Lizours were related by marriage. In the mid 12th century Roger de Cressey I became the successor to the Lizours Family Estate, and became the then Lord of Hodsock. The Cressy's built a moated manor house of Hodsock about 1250, for it is known that two kings stayed there. The Cressy family became great landed proprietors by the time of Henry II (1154-1189), for, in addition to holding Hodsock, they held land across the shires of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. The family ruled at Hodsock for nine generations. William de Cressy I rebelled against King John, who was residing at Hodsock December 1215 and January 1216. Edward I was also there in 1280, and again in 1291. In 1297 William Cressy II was called to arms for military service in Scotland. The Cressy's also built St. John's hospital for lepers in Blyth.
During the reign of Henry IV the male line of the Cressy family appears to fail, Katherine Cressy, sister of Hugh became heir to her brother. She married Sir John Clifton (died 1403). The Cliftons acquired the Hodsock estate. The Cliftons who now owned Hodsock were always in the thick of national and local affairs. Most of them were Justices of the Peace and High Sheriffs. One was a 'Night of the Body' to Richard III. They also served Henry VII after the Wars of the Roses. Hodsock was their secondary residence so its fortunes waxed and waned. At a time of prosperity at the end of the 15th century. Their tenure endured for about 350 years or thirteen generations.
In 1491 the Will of Sir Gervase Clifton lists possessions from his house at Hodsock, including wall hangings which would indicate a prosperous establishment and Religious Masses were commissioned at Clifton church for the residents of Hodsock in perpetuity. A 1662 description talks of a 'fine mansion' although at the end of the Civil War the family had been heavily fined and from then on never used Hodsock, which declined to the status of a farmhouse. In the year 1765, (Time period George III) Sir Gervase Clifton sold the estate of Hodsock to the Mellish family, then seated at Blyth. The Mellishs were merchants in Stepney, Surrey, Lincoln and Doncaster, and had purchased Blyth Hall estate from the Sanderson family in 1635. After buying Hodsock their holdings of land amounted to some 20,000 acres. The estate passed to William Mellish, MP for Retford. His son, Charles Mellish, was Recorder of Newark and it was he who built the beautiful bridge still known as New Bridge, between Blyth and Oldcotes, built 30+ miles of local roads at his own expense and planted some 400 acres of woodland. He died in 1796. Joseph his eldest son was disinherited for extravagance and gambling whilst at University. At the same time he benefited by becoming the British Consul in Palermo. Later he settled in Germany, became a friend of the poet Goethe, married a German Baroness and probably had 6 children for they are named in his Will. Colonel Henry Francis Mellish was Charles' heir, his youngest son, who was in the Prince Regent's circle lost his inheritance through gambling, eventually losing the Blyth Estate in 1806. His horses had won the St. Leger in 1804 and 1805. He was ADC to General Ferguson in the Peninsular War and from there he wrote a valuable series of letters to Hodsock where his sister Anne Chambers (nee Mellish) was living. Colonel Henry had been unable to gamble away Hodsock for the ownership of Hodsock had been bestowed on his sister. Mrs Chambers began to rebuild the house, employing the 'Gothic Revivalist' Ambrose Poynter on the south wing in 1829-33. The terrace also dates from this time and was considered to be a garden 'in the Italian style'. Both the sons of Mrs Chambers' died young, there is a memorial to this effect in Blyth church, therefore the Hodsock Estate passed to her cousin William Leigh Mellish, who had married Margaret, daughter of Sir Samuel Cunard of the famous shipping line. Margaret was widowed early and with her four children, (none of whom married), rebuilt the rest of the house in 1874, employing the architect George Devy.
Census 1851 source HO107/2122
Census 1861 source rg9/2420
Census 1891 source rg12/2645
Census 1901 source rg13/3127 In 1937 the estate passed to Mrs Mayhew, ( nee Buchanan), grand-daughter of William Leigh Mellish's sister, Frances, who had married Sir Andrew Buchanan, 1st Baronet, of Craigend, Stirlingshire. Sir Andrew was a British Ambassador to many European cities, which included Vienna, Sophia, The Hague, Copenhagen, Berlin and St. Petersburg. (His youngest son, Sir George, was also Ambassador at St. Petersburg at the time of the Revolution in 1917, he was the last Ambassador to the Czars). Mrs Mayhew and her brother, Sir Charles Buchanan, 4th Baronet, had spent much of their childhood at Hodsock. The Mayhews rented the whole property to the Dixon family and did not move to Hodsock themselves until 1942, then sharing the house with the Women's Land Army for the duration of the War with the gardens given over to vegetable growing. In 1945 it was obvious that maintenance and repairs to the estate had fallen well behind and debts were mounting, land was sold along with many of the house contents to pay off debts..
The present owner, Sir Andrew Buchanan, born in Scotland in
1937 the 5th Baronet, is a nephew of Mrs. Mayhew, who bought out her remaining life interest in
Hodsock Estate on his marriage in 1966. The land is not sufficient to sustain the house
and garden since the endowments and contents went elsewhere, so that outside interests have had to be developed. He and his wife Belinda have 4 children, a grand-daughter and 3 grandsons. Lady Buchanan was a JP in Worksop for 12 years and a Chairperson of Blyth Parish Council. A member of the Lotteries Charities Board and of the Council of the University of Nottingham.
Cressey Family Historical Data
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