Pagan Trossebot

Warter Priory, Yorkshire

This name is coupled with that of Botevilain by Wace as two warriors who feared neither cut nor thrust, fighting furiously that day, and giving and receiving severe blows. William Troussebot is first brought to our notice in the reign of Henry I. by Orderic Vital, who includes him amongst the men of low origin, whom for their obsequious services that sovereign raised to the rank of nobles, raising them as it were from the dust, heaping wealth upon them, and exalting them above earls and noble lords of castles. The Troussebots are supposed to have been resident in the north-western part of the district of Neubourg, near the domain of Robert de Harcourt, whose daughter Albreda became the wife of William Trussbot above mentioned, son of Geoffrey and grandson of Pagan Troussebot, who in all probability was the combatant at Senlac.

Geoffrey Fitz Payne, as he is called, was seated before the reign of Henry I. at Wartre in Holderness, in the county of York, and the family was thenceforth styled the Trusbutts of Wartre. The male line failed by the death of the three sons of William without issue, and their three sisters, Rose, Hillarie, and Agatha, became heirs of the estates. The two latter dying childless, the whole property devolved upon William de Ros, grandson of Rose, who married Everard de Ros, a great baron in Holderness, who assumed the allusive coat of Trussbot of Wartre : three water-bougets. "Trois bouts d'eau," or three bougets of water. --(Planche)

The manor of Wartre was granted, soon after the Conquest, to Ralph Paganel or Payn, the representative of a Norman family of good repute, who fixed his residence here. Geoffrey Fitz Payn, nick-named Trussebut, his son or grandson founded an Augustinian Priory here in 1132, and dedicated it to St. James. He endowed it with lands and gave it to the church of Wartre, and several of his descendants added to its possessions. The estate was purchased by the present owner in 1878 and not a vestige of the priory remains to mark the spot where it stood. Warter Priory, the seat of Charles Henry Wilson, Esq., M.P., is a handsome mansion of brick, with stone dressings, surrounded by a fine park of about 300 acres extent. The house has been very considerably enlarged and beautified by the present owner.
-- Extract from Bulmer's History and Directory of East Yorkshire (1892)

The house built by Charles Henry Wilson, owner of the worlds largest shipping company, was demolished in the 1970's due to neglect and disrepair.