It and also had associations with the Earl of Leicester who, in the early part of the 12th century, charged Ralph de Halton to oversee the lands.

After the dissolution of the abbey The Lee stayed in the possession of the Crown until 1547 when Edward VI granted a lease on the estate to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford.

The events that led to Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford initially leasing the lands at The Lee to William Plaistowe in 1635 and later selling the land to the Plaistowe family are obscure; either they were mortgaged to pay off debts or were sequestrated as a consequence of the Russells' involvement on the "wrong" side of the English Civil War.

Thomas Plaistowe, who died in 1715, was the first of the family to be the outright owner of The Lee and his namesake in 1785 passed ownership to his daughter Elizabeth, who married Irishman Henry Deering.

He used the timbers of this ship to refurbish, in Tudor revivalist style, the interior and frontage of his famed Liberty's department store in central London.

[3] The parish church in the village St John the Baptist is unusual in that it consists of two buildings: the ancient chapel of ease built in the 12th century which includes a window depicting Oliver Cromwell and John Hampden as 'champions of liberty', and the more modern Victorian construction that was built of red brick in 1867.