For more than 20 generations William’s descendants would be associated with Soulbury and Liscombe, and to remind of this long acquaintance the three wolves of the Lovett arms may be seen in the eastern window of the village church.

As well as other local interests, by the 14th century ‘Lychescumbe’ manor lay in the possession of Robert Lovett, and by his marriage he also acquired Biddlesden Abbey, where in the Turville chapel a brass, inscribed with two shields, an inscription, and the figure of a knight in armour, would be placed to commemorate Thomas Lovett, who died in 1491.

(Following the demolition of the Abbey in 1704 this brass was placed on the north chancel wall of Soulbury church.) Excepting the chapel, the manor house at Soulbury was pulled down in the early 16th century, and a new manor house would then be built. However, in 1626 the grounds were witness to a tragic incident when, on October 17th, highwaymen murdered Thomas Adams who, with his brother, had purchased the overlordship of lands at Swanbourne.

In fact on the north side of the chancel in Soulbury church, incorporating the shield of arms for the Butchers Company of London, of which he was a member, the inscribed figures of himself and his wife, Elizabeth, plus suitably poignant verse, a brass was placed to his memory, although in time this would be reset into the floor.

(Interestingly, at his former manor house in Swanbourne many sightings of a ‘green lady’ were said to have been made, supposedly the ghost of his wife.) As for Soulbury, in view of the Lovett’s long possession of the manor the church contains several family memorials, including ‘A filial offering to maternal worth.’

This, in remembrance of his mother, was placed on the south side of the chancel by Sir Jonathan Lovett, and the impressive monument is fashioned from Coade stone which, as a material immensely popular at the time, was a product of the ‘Coade Artificial Stone Manufactory.’

With the death of Sir John Lovett, by whom the family mansion was much altered, in the absence of a male heir the inheritance passed to his daughter, and then after her death in 1855 to a cousin, by a son of whom the family’s long association came to an end with the sale of the estate to Ernest Robinson, in 1907.

In fact Ernest was the son of John Peter Robinson, of the London firm of Messrs. Peter Robinson Ltd., but, as always, that’s another story.