 The manor house was built for Basil Brent in 1692.It was acquired in Autumn 1764 by Edward Watts, son of William Watts, who had been a senior official in the East India Company, and of his wife, better known as Begum Johnson.Having passed down the Watts family, it was the scene of a murder on 21 July 1912 when William Farrow, Edward Hanslope Watts's gamekeeper, shot his master and then committed suicide.