Mary Abney - Life at The Manor

Life At The Manor

The Manor of Stoke Newington, a small farming community, had been owned and managed directly by St Paul's Cathedral until the early 17th century, after which they granted it to a succession of private Lords of the Manor.

In 1701, following the untimely death of Mary's brother, Thomas Gunston, the manor became her property; though at that date, since she had married Sir Thomas Abney, it would formally have passed to her husband by the rights of marriage that applied at that time – until he died. Mary Abney's husband, Sir Thomas Abney (1640–1722) was a Lord Mayor of London for the first year of their marriage in 1700, and had business interests in the City of London. Sir Thomas, some thirty-six years senior to Mary, already leased a mansion on the magnificent Theobalds estate at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, when Mary Abney married him. However, the couple decided to live at both addresses, and split their lives between the villages of Cheshunt and Stoke Newington. Upon title to the Stoke Newington manor passing to Mary and Sir Thomas Abney, Mary (recently entitled to be called 'Lady' due to the knighthood of her husband by King William) was therefore able to begin to complete her deceased brother's new manor house at Abney Park, later known as 'Abney House', completing in a style that suited her taste and ideas.

Mary's less grand Abney House was chosen as the family's second home. Being closer to London than Theobalds, she frequently stayed there with her husband Thomas, her children, and house-guest Dr Isaac Watts, and shared it with a series of well-to-do tenants who paid for various floors and parts of the house to keep it homely, warm, and constantly lived-in.

Abney House was always much enjoyed by their houseguest, Isaac Watts, for he was granted sole use of an inspirationally designed study room – the roof-top turret or observatory room from which he could survey the heavens as well as the whole of Abney Park, and for some distance northwards of the village, as far as Woodberry Downs.

At Abney Park, Lady Abney commissioned the first map and survey of the Manor of Stoke Newington, and with the assistance of Isaac Watts, she is said to have planned much the planting and landscaping of Abney Park, which included two great elm avenues which became favourite walks of Watts, leading down to a secluded island heronry in the Hackney Brook where he found inspiration for his writings.

Following the death of her husband, Lady Abney became fully installed in her own right as the first female Lady of the Manor; one of only a few women elevated to such a position in early Eighteenth century English society. Some years after the death of her husband, in 1736, Lady Abney moved her household completely from her husband's mansion in Hertfordshire, choosing to live full-time at the more modest Abney House surrounded by the many nonconformist and literary families for which the village of Stoke Newington was noted. Here her household continued to include her nonconformist chaplain Isaac Watts as a long-term guest, as well as one of her three daughters, the unmarried Miss Elizabeth Abney.

Isaac Watts' association with Abney House and Theobalds, in his capacity as the family's long-term guest, became legendary. Initially he had only been invited to spend a week, and at first at Theobalds, but became part of the family. It is sometimes said that he wrote most of his well-known books and poems at Abney House, or in its parkland grounds (in which the island heronry of the Hackney Brook that bounded the estate, was his favourite retreat):

Dr Watts' resided for thirty-six years at Abney Park as the guest of Sir Thomas Abney and there wrote most of his well-known Works, also his 'Psalms and Hymns' .