The Fettiplace family first acquired a foothold in Berkshire in 1263, when Adam Fettiplace, a merchant from Oxford, bought North Denchworth manor, near Wantage. By the mid-fifteenth century a junior branch of the family had settled further south, at East Shefford. Its members included Anthony Fettiplace (d.1510), a younger son, who in 1503 purchased the Oxfordshire manor of Swinbrook, near Burford. In the late 1520s Anthony’s eldest son, Alexander (d.1564), was left several Berkshire properties by his childless uncle, William Fettiplace, who had acquired them by marriage. Located to the west of Wantage, they included Rampayns manor, in Childrey, as well as a string of holdings in and around Reading.
Baptized at Childrey in May 1583, Fettiplace was educated at Queen’s College, Oxford, and perhaps also at Hart Hall, where a man of his name was awarded a BA in January 1600. He was subsequently admitted to Lincoln’s Inn at the request of one of its benchers, Edward Clerke, a Berkshire man and future steward of Reading. Fettiplace entered into his inheritance in June 1613, but if he lived mainly at Childrey rather than Swinbrook he must have shared possession of the fifteenth-century manor house with his mother Anne, who resided there until her death in 1651.
Fettiplace made little impact on either Parliament. In 1626 his only mention in the records was to be nominated to the committee for settling a jointure on the wife of the Worcestershire baronet Sir Thomas Littleton* (9 June).
Fettiplace was readmitted to the Berkshire bench in June 1629. In the following October he bought the manor of North Denchworth from the senior branch of his family, thereby rounding out his holdings around Childrey.