Of a long association with the village, the Dormer family are especially commemorated by several impressive monuments in Wing church, and despite retaining a Catholic priest, who occupied a chamber at their house, from which he never emerged, (with the family having to visit him!), even during the increasingly Protestant reign of Queen Elizabeth I the family remained in royal favour. After the death of Sir William Dormer, in 1575 his widow, Dorothy, married Sir William Pelham, of Eythorpe who, having been ‘brought up from his youth in the service of his country’, became commander of the English cavalry in 1586. However, from the wounds he sustained at the siege of Dowsborough he died at Flushing on November 24th 1587, and by his will bequeathed all the goods and chattels of his Eythorpe mansion, and elsewhere, to Dame Dorothy. She enjoyed a reputation for great hospitality, and in evidence at Wing a central plaque of the almshouses reads; ‘Dormer’s Hospital of the foundation of Dame Dorothy Pelham, sometime wife to Sir William Dormer, Knight, lord of the Manor of Wing, 1569’. She further provided an endowment of £30p.a., and the four stone built almshouses still remain. Dorothy died at Eythorpe in 1613, but it would be at Wing that she wished to be buried, alongside the body of her first husband, William.