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At the following website http://www.workhouses.org.uk/NewportPagnell/ I read:
In 1725, An Account of Several Workhouses for Employing an Maintaining the Poor describes workhouses in operation in Newport Pagnell, Lavington [Lavendon], North Crowle [North Crawley], Olney and Hanslope.

Also on this website is a section headed :
Hanslope, Bucks, Dec. 31, 1724.
The Overseers of the Poor having hired a convenient House, and furnished it etc. The article describes the purpose of the workhouse and the conditions that applied.

Following that article:
A parliamentary report of 1777 recorded parish workhouses in operation in Newport Pagnell (for up to 80 inmates), Olney (30), Hanslop (40) etc

Does anyone know where this workhouse was located and when it closed? I haven't been able to find any other information regarding a workhouse in Hanslope.

I am thinking that the Hanslope workhouse must have closed prior to 1881 as I have Mary Forks (I think it should be Foster), 77 years, lacemaker, blind, born Hanslope in 1881 census at "Union Workhouse" London Road, Newport Pagnell. I haven't seen the actual census page yet, just the transcript so may have been hard to read hence the different name.

Mary Foster was buried in Hanslope in 1882 her abode being given as Newport Union. I am quite confident that Mary Forks is Mary Foster as her age (77) and the fact that she was a lacemaker and had been blind since at least 1861 would no doubt have qualified her for a place at the workhouse.

I look forward to learning a bit more.
Denise

We know that the house now known as Stafford House at the south end of the High Street on the Square was the workhouse for some time, but we have no direct evidence that it was the workhouse as early as 1724.

We are currently transcribing some Feoffee accounts. The Feoffee was a charity which made payments to the needy from funds created from will bequests going back at least to the 16th century. The map of 1779 shows Stafford House belonging to "the poor", along with many other properties. We think this means owned by the Feoffee to generate the income from rent to be able to make the payments to the needy. It seems possible that even then Stafford House was being rented to the overseers for the poor to be used as a workhouse.

In the accounts transcribed so far, there are references to the maintenance of the "hospital" and later the "poor house". It seems likely that these were landlord repairs. There is no evidence that the Feoffee was paying for the maintnenance of the people in the poor house.

We think the Hanslope poor house closed shortly after the act of 1834 which led to the establishment of the Newport Union, where many of the Hanslope sick and elderly ended their days.

Robert Dymond and transcription team

Robert
Thank you for your reply and for the work you and the rest of the team have done and continue to do to make all this information available to us. Just a couple of days ago I came across the 1779 map with buildings marked "the poor" and wondered if they were in fact Poor Houses. Once again, thanks.
Denise

Denise
If you look at the Feofee transcripts ,the Feofee were paying bills for repairs to cottages that anyone could rent .The rent money was used to pay out charity to the Poor .The only Poor House was in the Market Square ,now called Staford House.
Gerald

Thanks Gerald, I'm learning such a lot from this fantastic website and people such as yourself. I really had no idea what feoffee meant until today when I spent some time looking up the word and its associated words. I understand it now.
Thanks for the information that Stafford House was in fact the only Poor House. I'm glad to see that it is still standing and that the charity itself is still in existence and providing valuable assistance. My daughter was the beneficiary of such a grant which was a great help in setting her up at university here in Australia. The rules were pretty strict for qualifying and the requirement for application to study and achievement was of a high standard. It may have been charity but it was hard earned.
Denise