Introduction
MIlton Bryan Post Office photographed about 1875 [Z251/37]
Landscape
The parish contains 1551 acres (628 hectares) of land and sits on a slight ridge, the highest point of which is about 530 feet above sea level and the lowest point around 400 feet above sea level. The parish is drained by six streams, of which four flow southwards and two north-eastwards. The Agricultural Research Council define the soil over the whole area of the parish as being of the Oak association - mainly non-calcareous gley soil with imperfect of poor drainage. Underlying this is solid gault clay and lower greensand, neither of which reach the surface anywhere in the parish. Some gravel and sand also occurs and was extracted in the past.
Before Domesday
No prehistoric or Roman finds have been recorded in the parish, neither have any for the Dark Ages but the fact that a settlement is recorded in the Domesday Book shows that there was a settlement here by 1066 at the very latest. It has been suggested that Milton Bryan and Battlesden may once have formed a single estate and were divided at some point before the Conquest - the zig-zag nature of the boundary between the two being cited as evidence of following existing field boundaries.
Domesday
The Domesday Book of 1086 records Milton Bryan as Mildentone meaning “middle farm”. It records two individuals as holding Milton Bryan between them. Odo, Bishop of Bayeux held four hides |and his tenant was one Ansgot. The holding included 4 villagers, 3 smallholders and 8 slaves. There was enough woodland for 30 pigs. Before 1066 seven freemen had held this land between them and it had been worth £2. Unusually, when Odo acquired it the value had doubled to £4, a value it retained in 1086, indicating that it had not been visited by any of William I's armies on their way north to put down rebellion, as happened elsewhere in the county.
The other landowner in 1086 was Hugh de Beauchamp, later created Baron of Bedford, who held six hides, his tenant being William Froissart. The manor contained 6 villagers, 3 smallholders and 4 slaves. This manor had enough woodland for 40 pigs. In 1066 it had been held by Auti, "one of Earl Algar's Guards [huscarles]". It had then been worth £8 but this was halved by the time it was acquired and had only grown to £6 by 1086.
Milton Bryan Manor in 1838 [Z106/7]
Manor of Milton Bryan
It is the manor of Hugh de Beauchamp which later came to be regarded as Milton Bryan Manor. The overlordship later passed to the Mowbray family, Dukes of Norfolk until some time after 1470. By the latter half of the 12th century the descendents of Hugh's tenant William Froissart had been replaced by the Bryan family, hence the modern name of the parish. In 1344 John Bryan gave the Manor to Woburn Abbey and it remained with it until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it was taken by the Crown in 1542 and annexed to the Honour of Ampthill, like many manors in mid-Bedfordshire.
In 1599 Elizabeth I granted the manor to Michael and Edward Stanhope and in 1601 Michael sold it to Christopher Estwick, his family held it until 1626 when it was conveyed to Sir Francis Staunton, his family selling it around 1655 to William Johnson. It remained in the Johnson family until 1784 when Catherine, the heir, married Sir Hugh Inglis (a Director of the East India Company), who died in 1820. The manor remained with this family until it was bought by the Duke of Bedford in 1906.
World War Two
During the Second World War Milton Bryan was the site of radio studios from which so-called black propaganda was broadcast to Germany. The studios survived, in ruined form, behind numbers 22-25 Milton Bryan in Church End.
Population
A total of 10 villagers, 6 smallholders and 12 slaves are recorded as living in Milton Bryan in the Domesday Book. This total of 28 should be multiplied by a factor of at least four to account for these men's dependents giving a healthy figure of over a hundred. In modern times Milton Bryan, in common with many villages in this part of Bedfordshire, has declined in population as these figures show:
1801 – 333; 1851 – 376; 1901 – 182; 1951 – 158; 2001 – 148