The Burninghams

This extract from “Froyle, 100 Years of Memories”, by Annette Booth, describes the Burningham’s in Froyle. Sadly we have no photographs of them to add to this page, however, you will find a link at the bottom of the page to download a copy of Peter Burningham’s Family History, written in 1979.


The Burningham family came to Hampshire from Ireland and Peter Burningham moved into Cattleys Farm in Upper Froyle in 1608, living there until 1612, when he moved to Malms Farm in Binsted, which was adjacent to his fathers land at Stean Farm. On the death of his father in 1620 Peter took over the running of both farms as a business venture until his own sudden death in 1623 as a result of a fall from his horse. He died a wealthy man. Cattleys Farm was purchased by the family and became a key factor in their estate, being in Upper Froyle and opposite Froyle Place, the chief Manor House. It was on the site of Cattleys in 1820 that Thomas Burningham, Esquire, built Froyle House in a vain attempt to rival the Miller family.
But let’s return to Peter’s son, Bernard Burningham, who has just purchased Husseys. At the time of his father’s death he was just a small boy of eight, and, according to the Burningham family historian, Walter Philip Burningham, writing in 1979, he inherited only 5/-. However, in 1637 he married Ann, the eldest daughter of Henry Wheeler, the owner of the Fulling Mill at Millcourt on the River Wey in Binsted parish. Even so, Mr Burningham believed that Bernard still had trouble in paying the final two instalments for Husseys, because for some reason he did not purchase the manorial rights at the same time. This oversight, if it was that, was to prove an embarrassment for Bernard’s son Henry, who took over Husseys from his father.
The Froyle Burninghams were fast developing into the status of the ‘Landed Gentry’ and Henry appears to have acted accordingly! In 1678 he refused to attend the Court Leet of Froyle Manor and pay his dues of three shillings and six pence. He sent a message back to William Horner, the Steward, written in a bombastic manner, saying that he refused to recognise the overlordship of
Samuel Gauden, the then Lord of the Manor of Froyle! He considered Husseys a manor in its own right, which, unfortunately, it was not.
Henry Burningham was tried by the Earl of Danby in the Court of Common Pleas, found guilty and ordered to pay up, with damages! According to Mr Burningham, Henry, “started grovelling and immediately climbed down.”
The first Burningham entry in the St Mary’s Church Registers is in 1670, when Henry’s son, also named Henry, was born. He married Ann Baldwin in 1698, a marriage which ensured that Baldwins Farm became an integral part of the Burningham’s estate and would have greatly pleased Henry Senior.
Henry died in 1736. His son, John Baldwin Burningham, was probably responsible for the Georgian front which was added to Husseys in about 1764, along with the unusual group of four oast houses behind the house, symbolic of the prosperity brought by wheat and hops at that time. In 1820, as we said earlier, Thomas Burningham made the move to Upper Froyle, where he built Froyle House.