Exhibition: The History of Walton Hall

Owners of Walton Hall: The Gilpins

In 1690 The Beale family sold Walton Hall to Richard Gilpin. The Gilpins were of the same family as the notorious highwayman John Gilpin, the subject of the famous poem by William Cowper (1731-1800) who lived in nearby Olney a century later. Little is known about Richard Gilpin. The Buckinghamshire Quarter Sessions Records 1681-90 describe a 'Richard Gilpin, senior, of Walton' as a 'Gentleman'. 

 

At the time that the Gilpin family purchased Walton Hall they already owned Walton Manor and its surrounding land. Thus the two properties were united on the Walton estate for the first time since the thirteenth century.

 

Several Gilpins were baptised and married at Walton during the seventeenth century. A marriage took place at Walton on 25 April 1649 between George Gilpin and Dionysia Beale. It is not known exactly who the couple were, but it’s possible that they were members of the two families who owned Walton Manor and Walton Hall during the seventeenth century and may suggest more than a purely business link between the two families.  

 

The Gilpin family owned Walton Hall from 1690 to 1698. They demolished part of the existing timber structure and extended the property using brick and the interior timber frame. This is the earliest surviving part of the main structure today – the red brick portion of the Hall. A drawing of the house as it may have looked around 1700 is shown on this page along with a photograph of the brick part of Walton Hall which sits to the rear of the main part of the building and dates from when the house was owned by the Gilpins. 

 

During the 1980s Assistant Surveyor David Ball who worked in The Open University Estates Department spent two years researching the architectural history of Walton Hall. David wrote an article for 'Open House' in 1989 about his findings. He commented on, “...finding the little gems about the building, such as going into the roof void and finding roof trusses of about 1690”. The article included David Ball's drawings of Walton Hall as it would have looked over the centuries. David explained that in the late seventeenth century, “Two single storey rooms were built onto the two northern bays of the house, in brick with tiled pitched roofs, probably by the Gilpin family”. 

 

The Gilpin Indenture

An indenture was witnessed and signed on 11 June 1691 by Richard Gilpin (alias Kilpin) of Walton (Gentleman), John Gilpin (citizen and Goldsmith of London) and Thomas Butler (citizen and Merchant Tailor of London), for the sale of some seventy acres of the Walton estate for the sum of five shillings to Richard Newman (Goldsmith) and Thomas Newman (Gentleman), both of London. The indenture also refers to the earlier purchase of Walton Hall by Richard Gilpin from Bartholomew Beale of Middle [Temple] London. This Bartholomew (1662-1727) was the grandson of Bartholomew Beale Snr., and son of Bartholomew Beale who died by suicide in 1674. The indenture is written in heavily ligatured (abbreviated) Latin on vellum and forms part of the process by which Bartholomew Beale sold Walton Hall to Richard Gilpin. 

 

The indenture was donated to The Open University in 1985 by the Earle family who owned Walton Hall during much of the twentieth century. It was fully conserved and framed in 2000 and is now held in the University Archive. A photograph of it is shown on this page. The portraits in the top left hand corner are of the reigning monarchs at the time, William III and Mary II. 

 

The Gilpins’ ownership of the Walton estate was short lived and in 1698 Richard Gilpin sold his property to Sir Thomas Pinfold. Walton Hall and Walton Manor were to remain in the ownership of the Pinfold family for the next two hundred years.