St Andrew Close

A few properties required to be demolished at the far end of Wallace Street to provide access to the new St Andrew Close estate which was built in 1976. It consisted of seventeen houses.

The name is derived from the St Andrew family who were lords of the manor in Gotham for over 400 years. The manor had been held for the king by one of the Pigots when he was Sheriff of Nottingham and then the de Divas under the Earls of Leicester until the last male heir, Hugh de Diva, died in 1210, leaving three daughters as co-heiresses. The eldest daughter, Matilda, married Sir Saier de St Andrew, the name taken from St Andrews in Scotland, where his grandmother held estates. At first the St Andrew family lived in East Haddon, Northamptonshire where they had a manor but in time transferred their residence to Gotham.

Matilda’s grandson, Roger de St Andrew, c.1279 obtained a further third of the manorial rights in Gotham in exchange for land elsewhere, while the St Maurs or Seymours had the remaining third. Around 1370 the St Andrews lived in the Manor House, and the Seymours in the West Hall. The records for this family are few, but in the mid fourteenth century, an Edward de St Andrew, a monk, worked on the king’s palace at Westminster, being made master of works by Edward Ill.

In January 1626 John St Andrew died leaving three daughters as his heirs, as had happened 400 years before. Again the property were divided equally between them. The eldest daughter, Mary, married Gervase Pigot of Thrumpton. Her sisters had sold her the greater part of their shares.

Eventually, the property, which included the majority of Gotham and all of Ratcliffe on Soar, passed in trust for the use of Penn Assheton Curzon, only son of Assheton Curzon. Earl Howe, the son of Penn Assheton Curzon and a descendant of the female line of John St Andrew thus became lord of the manor of Gotham.

The youngest daughter of John St Andrew, Barbara, married Sir Oliver St John. Her great great granddaughter the Hon. Augusta St John married the Right Hon. Sir John Vaughan whose eldest son the Rev. J J Vaughan became the rector of Gotham. The rector and his son Captain Henry Vaughan were the last of the St Andrew family to live and own property in Gotham.