Cogges manor is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, and was for many years held by the De Grey family. It passed through inheritance to Francis Lovell, 1st Viscount Lovell, who was attainted in 1485, and the manor seized by the Crown. King Henry VII gave the manor first to his uncle Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford, and then in 1514 to the Duke of Norfolk. In 1543, it passed to Sir Thomas Pope, founder of Trinity College, Oxford. After the Civil War, the estate was granted to Sir Francis Henry Lee of Ditchley, who sold it to the Blake family. William Blake founded Blake's School in Cogges. In 1726, Viscount Harcourt acquired the manor from the heirs of Sir Francis Blake. In 1784, his grandson George, Earl Harcourt acquired the remainder of the Cogges estate from the heirs of Viscount Wenman, to clear the latter's debts.