THE ARRIVAL OF THE WASHINGTONS
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By 1537, like many such religious houses, the Priory of St. Andrew was greatly in debt, with much land sold or mortgaged, the farms let out and the rent received beforehand for ten, fifteen and twenty years. The Deed of Surrender of the Priory states that the monks led a life of idle quietness instead of labouring for the relief of the poor. In a list of all the possessions of the Priory made in 1538 for Henry VIII after the Dissolution, it seems that Lawrence Washington as early as 1533 had held a lease of a house and garden in Sulgrave, also the estate of Millefield in Stuchbury. When the monastery was dissolved in 1539, he acquired the possessions which had belonged to it at Sulgrave by purchase from the King, paying £324.14s.10d. Also included were certain lands in Sulgrave owned by the nunnery of Catesby and the priory of Canon's Ashby.
Meanwhile, the remainder of the parent manor of Sulgrave had been divided into two portions, the Elington and Culworth Manors. The former Manor was in the hands of the Elington family from 1273 until about 1359 when William de Elington conveyed the estate to John de Stotesbury. When the direct line of Stotesbury died out about 1563, the estate passed to Thomas Lesson, a grandson. This was confirmed in 1564 at the Court Baron of Lawrence Washington. In due course the Elington Manor passed from the Lesson family into the hands of Lawrence Washington's grandson.
The remaining manor was in the hands of the Culworth family from before the reign of King John, passing through the Monlalt, Trafford and Ardern families, until in 1439 it became the property of the Danvers family for the next two centuries.