Wrest Park

Summary

Wrest Park up to 1740

The ancestors of the Grey family held the manor of Silsoe, including the site of the future Wrest Park in 1086. Quite when a house was built at Wrest is not clear but by 1308 there was a capital messuage, a dovecote and a substantial amount of land. A highway case of 1330 reveals that as early as 1315 there was a park, probably carved out of ancient woodland. In 1344 Roger de Grey claimed free warren in his demesne lands of his manor of Wrest and had his claim for a park there confirmed.

Edmund Grey, Roger's great-great-grandson, bought Ampthill Castle in 1454 and from then till 1508 Wrest ceased to be the chief residence of the Grey family. As a result of a judicious change of sides at the battle of Northampton and his marriage to Edward IV's sister-in-law, Edmund (1416-1490) was created Earl of Kent in 1465 and became Lord Treasurer of England in 1463. His grandson Richard, however, was a waster and gambled away his money and in 1507 he was forced to sell Wrest to Sir Henry Wyatt. To prevent it being pulled down for its scrap value, Richard's half-brother Henry bought Wrest in 1512. A law suit records that “for as muche as the seyd Sir Henry Grey had then no house of hys owne convenyent for hym to dwellyn and allso for petye he hadde that the seyd house wheryn dyverse and many off his auncestres had dwellyd schould be so utterly dysstroyed, he offered to bye off the seyd Sir Henry Wyat the seyd manour of Wreste and other landes and tenementes in the seyd countye nygh unto the seyd manour.”

Sir Henry claimed he was too poor to be able to use the title of Earl of Kent, yet he slowly bought back parts of the Greys’ former estate and fought protracted legal cases over some of the remainder. By the death of his grandson Reynold, 4th Earl of Kent, in 1573, Wrest was a substantial house that had been expanded from its mediaeval core of great hall, great staircase, great chamber and kitchen. The drawing by Buckler of the east front in 1831 shows the window of the old chapel, which looks Perpendicular.