Cople is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council ...

. The name Cople is derived from the phrase ''Cock Pool'', a place where chickens were kept, that was mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

History

Cople is part of the ancient

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

Wixamtree Wixamtree is an ancient hundred located in Bedfordshire, England. Wixamtree was one of the hundreds of Bedfordshire, with its council being the primary form of local government in its area from the Anglo-Saxon times to the nineteenth century. ...

. The centre of Cople is dominated by All Saints Church, originally built soon after 1087 by the de Beauchamp family and which later became part of

Chicksands Priory Chicksands Priory is a former monastic house at Chicksands in Bedfordshire. History The Gilbertine priory of Chicksands was founded about 1152 by Rohese, Countess of Essex, and her second husband Payn de Beauchamp, Baron of Bedford. Payn and R ...

. The list of Vicars maintained by the church dates back to 1237. All Saints Church was rebuilt in the 15th century, some parts of it a little earlier, by the families who owned the local manors. The church was extended in the first part of the 16th century. A

toll house A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road, canal, or toll bridge. History Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th an ...

stands at the junction with the A603 (

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...

to Sandy road); the house dates from around 1770 and was used to collect tolls from the road users. It is one of only two toll houses that still exist in Bedfordshire. Cople House, a large manor house, was at southern end of the village, but it was destroyed in a fire in 1971. In 1976 twenty four large homes were built on the site, renamed Woodlands Close, but the original

coach house Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Coa ...

survived the fire and has been restored and converted into three houses.

Rowlands Manor and the Spencers

One of the manors within the parish of Cople was Rowlands, acquired by the Spencer family in 1531 and held by them for several centuries. The Spencer family were a branch of the

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

Spencers (with whom they shared a coat-of-arms). Robert Spencer had a daughter, Ann Spencer in 1575.She was known as ''Ann of Cople'' and Married Hugh Albon(e) in 1591. The sons of Nicolas Spencer Sr. and the former Mary Gostwick,

Nicholas Spencer Colonel Nicholas Spencer, Jr. (1633–1689) was a merchant, planter and politician in colonial Virginia. Born in Cople, Bedfordshire, Spencer migrated to the Westmoreland County, Virginia, where he became a planter and which he represente ...

and his brother Robert both emigrated to America in the 1650s, to Virginia and Maryland respectively. Nicholas served as an agent for his cousin,

John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper John Colepeper, 1st Baron Culpeper ( – 11 July 1660) was an English peer, military officer and politician who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1642–43) and Master of the Rolls (1643) was an influential counsellor of King Charles I during t ...

. Spencer family members continued to reside in Cople and its environs for many years afterward. "The Spencers’ Cople estates," according to the Bedfordshire County Council, "were bought by Francis Brace for the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, and the manor still was known as Rowlands when part of the Duke of Bedford’s estate at the start of the 19th century."

References

External links

Cople websiteCople pages
at the Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service
''Cople, A History of the County of Bedford, Vol. 3'', William Page (ed.), Victoria County History, British History Online, british-history.ac.uk
{{authority control Villages in Bedfordshire Civil parishes in Bedfordshire Borough of Bedford