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SHROPSHIRE   HOUSES 

PAST  ^  PRESENT 


ILLUSTRATED    FROM    DRAWINGS 


BY 


STANLEY  LEIGHTON,  M.P.,  F.S.A 

WITH   DESCRIPTIVE  LETTERPRESS 
BY  THE  ARTIST 


c)^ 


LONDON  :    GEORGE  BELL  AND   SONS 

YORK  STREET,  COVENT  GARDEN 

1 90 1 


Llo 


C 


CHISWICK    PRESS  :     CHARLES   WHITTINGHAM    AND    CO. 
TOOKS   COURT,    CHANCERY    LANE,    LONDON. 


PREFACE 

IN  this  illustrated  record  of  the  *'  Houses  of  Shropshire,"  the  remnants  of 
old  habitations  will  appear  side  by  side  with  residences  which  have  only 
just  left  the  builders'  hands.  There  is  no  definite  point  of  separation 
between  ancient  and  modern,  and  so  gradual  has  been  the  process  of  decay 
and  renewal,  that  there  is  no  incongruity  in  their  association. 

Changes,  similar  to  those  of  to-day,  were  taking  place  nine  hundred 
years  ago.  The  Normans  ousted  the  Anglo-Saxons,  but  they  did  not  make 
a  clean  sweep,  nor  was  the  new  order  of  things  effecfled  by  force  only. 
Marriage  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  harmonious  relations  which  grew 
up  between  the  Norman,  the  Saxon  and  the  Celt. 

The  passing  away  of  Feudal  Society  is  indicated  by  the  ruins  of  the 
Feudal  Castles.  The  displacement  of  old  names  by  new,  marks  a  course  of 
natural  development  which  nothing  can  resist,  and  which  has  always  pre- 
vailed. Of  the  fifty  houses  represented  in  this  first  volume,  eight  only  can 
claim  a  date  earlier  than  1500,  and  of  these,  four  are  uninhabited; 
five  are  of  the  sixteenth  century  ;  six  of  the  seventeenth  ;  fifteen  of  the 
eighteenth;  and  sixteen  of  the  nineteenth. 

How  have  the  present  owners  come  into  possession  ? 

The  greatest  transmitters  of  inheritances  are  heiresses.  Twenty-six  of 
these  estates  have  passed,  often  more  than  once,  by  female  descent.  The 
new-comers  frequently  disguised  the  break  of  continuity  by  assuming  the 
name  of  their  wives,  a  custom  much  to  be  deprecated. 

But  ever  and  anon,  the  ranks  of  landowners  are  recruited  from  the 
representatives  of  successful  trade.  Shrewsbury,  London,  Birmingham,  the 
industrial  centres  of  Lancashire,  Cheshire  and  Yorkshire,  have  done  much 
to  establish  and  maintain  a  substantial  landowning  class  in  Shropshire. 

v  b 


Thirty-five  at  least  of  these  fifty  houses,  have  been  bought  and  sold 
since  they  were  first  built,  and  certainly  not  less  than  seventeen  owe  their 
foundation  dircdtly  to  trade. 

Families  do  not  remain  in  the  same  position  from  generation  to 
'generation.  They  all  have  their  ups  and  dov^ns,  to  whatever  social  degree 
they  happen  to  belong.  The  process  of  elevation  and  declension  is  constant. 
The  history  of  tlie  English  peerage  exemplifies  this  law.  The  peerage  of 
Shropshire  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  The  Norman  Earldoms  and  Baronies 
of  the  county  are  all  extind.  The  Salopian  peerage  is  essentially  of  late 
Georgian  and  Vidorian  creation.  And  this  is  the  fad:,  although  the  premier 
Earl  takes  his  title  from  this  county,  and  the  premier  Duke  is  Baron  of 
Clun  and  Oswestry,  and  the  Barony  of  Strange  of  Knockyn  is  annexed  to  the 
Dukedom  of  Athol.  The  same  observation  applies  to  other  ranks.  Mr. 
Evelyn  Shirley,  in  1866,  could  only  find  twenty-one  Shropshire  owners  of 
land  whose  ancestors  in  the  male  line,  held  land  in  1500,  and  of  these  one- 
third  have  since  disappeared.  The  common  belief  that  there  are  yeoman 
families  of  great  antiquity,  will  not  bear  close  investigation.  A  yeoman 
family  seldom  lasts  more  than  three  generations.  The  law  of  movement, 
the  impossibility  of  standing  still,  the  necessity  of  rising  or  sinking  applies 
to  all  sorts  and  conditions. 

Trade,  as  has  been  said,  is  the  most  potent  fador  in  the  creation  and 
maintenance  of  a  landed  aristocracy,  and  very  early  in  the  feudal  period 
began  to  assert  its  influence.  Stokesay  is  an  example — Laurence,  the 
clothier  of  Ludlow,  built  Stokesay  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  founded 
an  important  family.  Early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  estate  was  sold 
to  a  man  of  commercial  pursuits.  Sir  William  Craven,  Lord  Mayor  of 
London,  whose  son  was  created  an  Earl.  Again  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
Stokesay  was  sold  by  the  Earl  Craven,  to  Mr.  Allcroft,  M.P.  for  Worcester, 
who  owed  his  position  to  success  in  trade.  It  may  be  said,  without  fear 
of  contradidtion,  that  every  landed  family  is  indebted  to  commerce  for  some 
of  its  wealth,  and  every  family  which  has  existed  for  three  hundred  years, 
has  the  names  of  some  of  its  members  enrolled  on  the  Trade  guilds  of  our 
towns. 


VI 


Some  houses  are  founded  by  lawyers.  Four  such  foundations  will  be 
noted  in  this  volume. 

In  the  accounts  which  accompany  the  illustrations,  the  origin,  as  well 
as  the  devolution  of  the  estates,  will,  as  far  as  possible,  be  noted. 

A  century  seldom  goes  by  without  some  alteration  being  made  in  a 
country  house,  either  by  addition  or  diminution.  Old  buildings  suffer 
more  from  the  wealth  than  from  the  poverty  of  their  owners,  and  the  simple 
arrangements  of  former  days  may  often  be  best  observed  in  the  manor 
houses,  which  have  long  been  occupied  as  farmhouses. 

There  are  often  ancient  muniments  to  be  found  in  houses,  new  as  well 
as  old,  but  furniture,  books,  silver,  armour  and  personal  ornaments,  which 
have  been  in  the  same  house  for  two  hundred  years,  are  rare. 

Such  are  some  of  the  considerations  which  suggest  themselves  to  the 

student  of  the  local  history  of  a  county,  upon  which  the  hand  of  time  has 

been  so  gently  laid,  that  the  memorials  of  the  past  have  not  been  obliterated, 

but  rather  framed  in  a  more  attra(5tive  setting,  by  the  steady  progress  of 

material  development. 

Stanley  Leighton. 

Jprily  1 90 1. 

This  volume  of  the  "Houses  of  Shropshire"  was  complete  and  in  the 
printers'  hands  when  the  unlooked  for  summons  of  death  called  its  author 
out  of  this  life. 

The  final  revision  of  the  proof  sheets  has  fallen  to  me,  and  on  me 
must  rest  the  responsibility  if  any  errors  or  small  inaccuracies  be  found  in 
these  pages. 

The  author  had  in  preparation  five  more  similar  volumes,  to  form  a 
fully-illustrated  county  history,  but  "  L'Homme  propose,  Dieu  dispose." 

Jessie  Leighton. 
Sweeney  Hall, 
June  J  1 90 1. 


Vll 


CONTENTS. 


SUBJECT 

Shrewsbury  Castle. 
Acton  Burnell. 

PiTCHFORD. 

The  Moat  Hall,  Stapleton. 

Lythwood  Hall. 

Marrington  Hall. 

Wallop. 

LoTON  Park. 

Onslow. 

Attingham. 

Apley  Castle. 

Albright  Hussey. 

MoRETON  Corbet. 

Hardwicke  Grange. 

Berwick  House. 

Yeaton-Peverey. 

Adcote. 

Stanwardine. 

Soulton. 

Hodnet  Hall. 

Brogyntyn. 

Whittington  Castle. 

Llanforda. 

Aston  Hall. 

Park  Hall. 

Halston. 


owner 

PAGE 

Lord  Barnard 

•                  • 

I 

Sir  J.  Walter  Smythe,  Bart. 

• 

2 

Colonel  James  Cotes 

•                  • 

•       3 

R.  P.  Llewellin,  Esq. 

•                  • 

•       4 

W.  E.  Montagu  Hulton-Harrop,  Esq. 

•       5 

Stafford  Davies  Price  Davifis^ 

Esq. 

6 

Mrs.  Severne  . 

•                   •                   I 

7 

Sir  Bryan  B.  M.  Leighton,  Bt. 

8 

C.  Ralph  B.  Wingfield,  Esq. 

•                    • 

•       9 

Lord  Berwick 

•                   • 

lO 

Sir  Thomas  Meyrick,  Bart.,  C.B. 

II 

Rev.  G.  Corbet 

•                   • 

12 

Sir  Walter  O.  Corbet,  Bart. 

.                   •                   ■ 

13 

F.  Bibby,  Esq. 

• 

.       14 

Mrs.  Phillips  . 

•                   •                   < 

15 

Sir  Offley  Wakeman,  Bart. 

. 

16 

Mrs.  Darby     . 

• 

17 

Elhs  Brooke  Cunliffe,  Esq. 

•                                            •                                            4 

18 

Viscount  Hill 

,                                            • 

■        19 

Algernon  Heber  Percy,  Esq. 

4 

20 

Lord  Harlech 

•                                      *                                     • 

21 

Colonel  F.  Lloyd     . 

•                                      •                                      • 

22 

Sir  Watkin  Williams  Wynn, 

Bart.     . 

23 

Colonel  F.  Lloyd     . 

•                   •                   < 

24 

Mrs.  Wynne  Corrie 

•                   ■                   < 

25 

Miss  Wright  . 

. 

26 

ix 

C 

SUBJECT 

OWNER 

PAGE 

Hardwicke. 

Rev.  W.  C.  K.  Kynaston 

27 

Oteley. 

C.  Francis  Kynaston  Mainwaring,  Esq. 

28 

Shavington. 

Henry  H.  Heywood-Lonsdale,  Esq. 

29 

BUNTINGSDALE. 

John  Tayleur,  Esq. 

30 

WOODCOTE. 

Colonel  James  Cotes 

31 

Weston. 

Earl  of  Bradford 

32 

Pef>per  Hill. 

Earl  of  Dartmouth  . 

33 

Ar'LEY  Park. 

W.  H.  Foster,  Esq. 

34 

Hatton  Grange. 

Colonel  William  Kenyon  Slaney,  M.l 

3 

3S 

VVlLLEY. 

Lord  Forester 

36 

Aldenham. 

Lord  A<5lon     .... 

37 

Whitton  Court. 

Miss  Mills       .... 

38 

Henley,  Ludlow. 

J.  Baddeley  Wood,  Esq.  , 

•     39 

Court  of  Hill. 

Capt.  Hill  Lowe 

.     40 

Burwarton. 

Viscount  Boyne 

41 

K  inlet. 

Mrs.  Childe     .... 

42 

Clun  Castle. 

Duke  of  Norfolk 

•     43 

Plowden. 

William  Francis  Plowden,  Esq. 

44 

HopTON  Castle. 

Sir  Henry  Ripley,  Bart.    . 

•     45 

Bedstone  Court. 

Sir  Edward  Ripley,  Bart. 

46 

Stokesay. 

H.  J.  Allcroft,  Esq. 

47 

Benthall  Hall,  Broseley. 

Lord  Forester           .... 

48 

Bourton  Cottage. 

T.  H.  A.  Whitley,  Esq.  . 

.     49 

The  Prior's  Lodge,  Wenlock. 

C.  C.  Milnes  Gaskell,  Esq. 

50 

LIST  OF  SUBSCRIBERS. 


W.  J.  S.  Barber-Starkey,  Esy. 

P.  Arthur  Beck,  Esq. 

A.  J.  Beesley,  Esq. 

P'rancis  Benthall,  Esq.  (2  copies). 

Viscount  Boyne. 

The  Earl  of  Bradford. 

Lt.-Col.  James  R.  Bramble,  F.S.A. 

The  Rev\  Ernest  R.  O.  Bridgeman. 

W.  C.  Bridgeman,  Esq. 

The  Misses  Bridgeman. 

Lady  Wilhelmina  Brooke. 

The  Rev.  T.  M.  Bulkeley-Owe.v. 

Mr.  Alfred  Bult  (2  copies). 

Miss  M.  J.  Burnk. 

Mrs.  Baldwyn  Childe. 

H.  Ker  Colville,  Esq. 

Edward  Corbett,  Esq. 

Charles  Cotes,  Esq. 

C.  Beaumont  Cottam,  Esq. 

Stephen  Donne,  Esq. 

J.  Freeman  Dovaston,  Esq. 

Miss  Eddowes. 

The  Hon.  Mrs.  W.  Feilding  (2  copies). 

G.  W.  Ferrington,  Esq. 

Henry  T.  Folkard,  Esq.,  F.S.A. 

Lord  Forester. 

James  Foster,  Esq. 

W.  H.  Foster,  Esq. 

Lewis  Fytche,  Esq.,  F.S.A, 

The  Rev.  W.  B.  Garnett-Botfield. 

Mrs.  Godman. 

Lady  Grant. 

Messrs,  H.  Grevel  &  Co. 

Lawton  Hamer,  Esq. 

Miss  Teresa  Harley. 

Alan  W.  Heber  Percy,  Esq. 

The  Rev.  Henry  V.  Heber  Percy. 

R.  W.  Henry,  Esq. 

Sir  Robert  Herbert,  G.C.B. 

Sir  Clement  Lloyd  Hill,  K.C.M.G.,  C.B. 

Capt.  Hill-Lowe,  R.N. 


Edward  Hodges,  Esq. 

Mrs.  Hope  Edwardes. 

Miss  Hope  Edwardes. 

Capt.  J.  Horner. 

R.  Hovenden,  Esq.,  F.S.A. 

J.  R.  Howard-McLean,  Esq. 

W.  E.  Montagu  Hulton-Harrop,  Esq. 

Capt.  Cecil  Hunt. 

Richard  Jebb,  Esq. 

Mrs.  Robert  Jenkins. 

Daniel  Jones,  Esq. 

Heighway  Jones,  Esq. 

J.  Parry  Jones,  Esq. 

J.  V.  Jones,  Esq. 

The  Hon,  George  Kenyon,  M.P. 

R.  Ll.  Kenyon,  Esq. 

Col.  Kenyon-Slaney,  M.P.  (2  copies). 

Thomas     Frederick     Kynnersley,     Esq. 

(2  copies). 
Col.  Ralph  Leeke. 
Sir  Bryan  Leighton,  Bart. 
Capt.  F.  Leighton. 
Miss  Leighton. 
Mrs.  Leslie. 

Thomas  Longueville,  Esq. 
The  Rev.  Canon  Maddison. 
John  Martineau,  Esq. 
G.  H.  Maw,  Esq. 
Mrs.  Pierrepont  Mundy. 
Charles  R.  Moore,  Esq. 
Miss  Moseley. 
C.  R.  Mostyn  Owen,  Esq. 
Viscount  Mountgarret. 
Mrs.  Naylor. 
W.  E.  Nealor,  Esq. 
H.  S.  Newill,  Esq. 
W.  G.  NoRRis,  Esq. 
E.  C.  Peele,  Esq. 
Mrs.  Algernon  Perkins. 
W.   P.  W.  Phillimore,  Esq. 
Mrs.  Pigott, 


Messrs.  W.  N.  Pitcher  &c  Co.  (2  copies). 

VV.  F.  Plowden,  Esq. 

Robert  Pool,  Eso. 

Edward  B.  Potts,  Esq. 

S.  D.    Price-Davies,  Esq. 

Miss  Roddam. 

Sir  C.  H.  Rouse-Boughton,  Bart. 

The  Misses  Rouse-Boughton'. 

Maj.-Gen.  F.  Salusuury,  C.B. 

Alfred  Salwey,  Esq. 

Humphrey  Sandford,  Esq. 

Mrs.  Seymour  (6  copies). 

Mrs.  Frederick  Sladen. 

Hubert  Smith,  Esq. 

Mrs.  Robert  Smith. 

Capt.  Sir  John-  Walter  Smythe,  Bart. 

A.  Percy  Spencer,  Esq. 

Messrs.  Spencer  &  Greenhough. 

Edward  J.  Stanley,  Esq.,  M.P. 

Lord  Stanley  of  Adderley  (2  copies). 

Mrs.  Swann. 

John  Tayleur,  Esq. 


The  Rev.  Edward  J.  Taylor,  F.S.A. 

Archdeacon  Thomas,  F.S.A. 

The  Rev.  Canon  R.  Trevor  Owen,  F.S.A. 

F.  R.  Twemlow,  Esq. 

The  Hon.  and  Rev.  G.  H.  F.  Vane. 

Rowland  George  Venables,  Esq. 

Lt.-Col.  Edward  M.  Wakeman. 

Sir  Offley  Wakeman,  Bart. 

Capt.  P'rank  Wallace, 

F.  W.  Wateridge,  Esq. 

Barrett  Wendell,  Esq. 

Henry  T.  Weyman,  Esq. 

James  Whitaker,  Esq. 

T.  H.  A.  Whitley,  Esq. 

Miss  Williams. 

Miss  M.  C.  L.  Williams. 

Mrs.  Bertie  Williams  Wynn  (2  copies). 

The  Hon.  Henrietta  Windsor  Clive. 

C.  R.  B.  Wingfield,  Esq. 

Edward  Wood,  Esq. 

John  B.  Wood,  Esq. 


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SHREWSBURY    CASTLE. 

LORD    BARNARD. 

THE  Castle  stands  in  a  commanding  position,  on  the  isthmus,  not  more  than  300 
yards  wide,  which  forms  the  neck  of  the  encircling  loop  of  the  Severn  round 
Shrewsbury.  Built  by  Earl  Roger  of  Montgomery,  about  1080,  this  place  has  been 
continuously  inhabited  ever  since,  but  little  remains  of  the  original  stru<5lure.  It 
consists  of  a  redangular  building,  supported  by  two  round  towers ;  the  whole  space 
between  the  towers  was  probably  once  occupied  by  a  hall,  the  handsome  seven- 
teenth century  timbers  of  which,  may  still  be  seen  above  the  modern  plaster  ceilings. 
The  upper  range  of  windows,  facing  the  courtyard,  were  no  doubt  inserted  about 
1 643,  when  extensive  repairs  were  made.  The  middle  range  of  windows  with  wooden 
mullions  are  a  poor  imitation  of  Gothic  architedure,  which,  together  with  a  small  tower, 
standing  apart  from  the  main  building,  were  designed  for  Laura,  Countess  of  Bath,  by 
the  great  road  engineer,  Telford,  about  1806.  An  acre  of  ground  is  inclosed  within 
the  courtyard. 

After  the  fall  of  the  3rd  Norman  Earl  of  Shropshire  in  the  reign  of  Henry  I., 
the  Castle  lapsed  to  the  Crown,  and  was  attached  to  the  Shrievalty,  for  which  reason 
the  eledions  for  the  Knights  of  the  Shire  were  formerly  held  within  its  walls. 

In  1663,  Charles  II.  granted  this  Crown  estate  to  Francis,  Lord  Newport,  whose 
father,  Sir  Richard  Newport,  was  created  a  Baron  in  1642,  on  presenting  the  king 
with  ^6,000  towards  the  expenses  of  the  war.  Lord  Newport  was  raised  to  a 
Viscounty  in  1675,  and  to  an  Earldom  in  1694.  He  was  Treasurer  of  the  Household 
to  Charles  II.  He  was  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Shropshire,  and  was  removed  by  James  II. 
to  make  room  for  Lord  Jeffreys  of  Wem,  the  Lord  Chancellor.  His  son  Richard, 
Lord  Newport  was  M.P.  for  the  county  in  1678,  and  was  Lord  Lieutenant  from  171 2 
to  1723.  He  left  two  sons,  who  succeeded  to  the  title,  which  became  extind  on  the 
death  of  Thomas,  4th  Earl,  in  1762. 

In  1783  Mr.  Newport,  the  illegitimate  son  of  the  3rd  Earl,  died,  and  the  Castle, 
together  with  the  older  estates  of  the  Newports,  passed,  not  without  litigation,  to 
Frances  Pulteney,  the  wife  of  Sir  William  Johnstone  (who  assumed  the  name 
of  Pulteney),  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury,  1774-1805.  Her  daughter  Laura,  created 
Countess  of  Bath,  married  Sir  James  Murray  (who  also  assumed  the  name  of  Pulteney). 
Lady  Bath  resided  in  the  Castle,  and  died  in  1808  without  issue.  The  estates  had 
already  devolved  under  the  limitations  of  General  Harry  Pulteney's  will  upon  William 
Harry  Vane,  Earl  of  Darlington,  on  whom  a  Marquisate  was  conferred  in  1827,  and 
the  Dukedom  of  Cleveland  in  1833,  in  recognition  of  his  political  services  to  Lord 
Grey  during  the  Reform  Bill  struggle.  His  three  sons  succeeded  to  his  titles  and  all 
died  without  issue,  and  the  Dukedom  became  extindl  in  1891,  when  Shrewsbury  Castle 
and  the  other  great  estates  passed  by  will  to  Henry  de  Vere  Vane,  Lord  Barnard,  the 
present  owner. 

The  Earl  of  Darlington,  the  son  of  the  first  Duke,  was  M.P.  for  South  Shrop- 
shire from  1832  to  1 841. 

I  B 


'X> 


ACTON    BURNELL. 

SIR   J.    WALTER   SMYTHE,   BART. 

THE  house  is  a  plain  Georgian,  porticoed  building,  and  stands  apart  from  the  ruins 
of  the  Castle  (which  will  form  the  subjed:  of  another  sketch),  backed  up  by  a 
hilly  and  most  pi6luresque  park.  The  ruinous  gable  on  the  right  is  the  remnant  of 
the  hall,  in  which  the  House  of  Commons  sat  in  1282,  when  the  Parliament  of  A6lon 
Burnell  was  held  here. 

Edward  Smythe  of  Eshe  in  the  county  of  Durham,  acquired  this  inheritance, 
together  with  Langley,  by  his  marriage  with  Mary,  daughter  and  co-heir  of  Sir  Richard 
Lee,  Bart.,  who  died  in  1660,  In  the  same  year  Edward  Smythe  was  made  a  Baronet. 
The  Lees  were  of  an  old  Shropshire  stock.  In  1387  Robert  atte  Lee  was  Sheriff,  and, 
in  1479,  ^^^  grandson  Richard  filled  the  same  office.  In  1620  Humphrey  Lee  was 
made  a  Baronet;  and  his  son  Sir  Richard  was  M.P.  for  Shropshire  in  1640,  and  was 
fined  ^3,7 1 9  in  addition  to  an  annuity  of  ^169  by  the  ParHamentary  sequestrators. 

This  place  is  associated  with  the  name  of  Burnell,  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells,  the 
famous  Chancellor  of  Edward  I.,  by  whom  the  Castle  was  built  or  re-edified.  From 
the  Burnells  the  estate  passed  by  inheritance  to  the  Lovells,  whose  adherence  to 
Richard  III.  entailed  the  forfeiture  of  their  property.  Their  lands  were  granted  to 
Jasper  Tudor,  Earl  of  Bedford,  from  whom  they  passed  in  rapid  succession  to  Thomas 
Howard,  Duke  of  Norfolk,  and  then  to  Sir  John  Dudley,  Earl  of  Northumberland, 
by  whom  they  were  sold  to  the  Lees,  the  owners  of  the  neighbouring  estate  of  Langley, 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 

The  Smythes  are  one  of  the  old  Roman  Catholic  families  of  Shropshire;  in 
1793  Sir  Edward  Smythe,  5th  Baronet,  gave  a  home  here  to  a  company  of  Benedidine 
monks,  driven  from  France  by  the  Revolution.  His  son,  another  Sir  Edward,  Sheriff 
in  1 83 1,  was  a  famous  sportsman,  and  master  of  the  Shropshire  hounds.  In  the  parish 
church  are  some  fine  family  monuments.  A  domestic  chapel  is  attached  to  the  house. 
There  are  here  portraits  of  the  Lees  as  well  as  of  the  Smythes,  and  a  large  number  of 
ancient  deeds. 


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PITCHFORD. 

COL.    JAMES   COTES. 

WILLIAM  OTTLEY,  a  younger  son  of  the  Ottleys  of  Oteley,  near  Ellesmere, 
engaged  in  the  clothing  trade  in  Shrewsbury,  established  a  house  in  Calais, 
and  was  so  successful  that,  in  1743,  he  purchased  Pitchford,  built  the  house  and  founded 
a  family,  who  lived  here  for  three  centuries.  William  Ottley  was  Sheriff  in  1 500.  Sir 
Francis  Ottley  was  the  Royalist  Governor  of  Shrewsbury  in  the  Civil  Wars,  was  Sheriff  in 
1645,  and  was  fined  £  i  ,300  by  the  Parliamentary  sequestrators.  His  descendants  were 
Sheriffs  in  1738  and  1767.  On  the  death,  in  1807,  at  the  age  of  ninety,  of  Adam 
Ottley,  and  of  his  son  three  months  later,  this  ancient  family  became  extind,  and  the 
estate  was  bequeathed  to  a  kinsman,  Hon.  C.  C.  C.  Jenkinson,  second  son  of  the  ist 
Earl  of  Liverpool.  The  daughter  and  co-heir  of  the  3rd  Earl,  Lady  Louisa  Jenkinson, 
married,  in  1839,  J^^n  Cotes  of  Woodcote,  M.P.  for  North  Shropshire  1832-5.  Her 
second  son,  James,  succeeded  to  the  property. 

Some  alterations,  or  rather  restorations,  have  lately  been  made.  The  courtyard 
in  front  has  been  thrown  open,  by  taking  away  a  modern  brick  passage,  which  formed 
an  entrance  vestibule  between  the  wings.  A  new  entrance  has  been  made  on  the  side 
opposite  the  courtyard  ;  the  bridge  shown  in  the  sketch  has  been  removed  to  a  situation 
lower  down  the  stream.  The  hall  has  been  restored  to  its  original  dimensions  of  fifty 
feet.     Eledric  light  relieves  the  sombre  shade  of  the  dark  paneUing. 

Pitchford  is  rich  in  varied  interests.  The  quaint  pidluresqueness  of  the  red  brick 
clustered  chimney-stacks,  rising  from  a  stone  roof,  covering  the  "  black  and  white  " 
walls,  laid  on  a  foundation  of  stone ;  the  moat  and  the  bridge ;  the  pitch  well, 
mentioned  by  Camden,  which  gives  the  name  to  the  place  ;  the  ancient  lime  tree, 
amongst  the  spreading  branches  of  which  a  miniature  summer  house  has  been  built ; 
the  many  family  portraits,  amongst  them  Sir  Francis  Ottley  and  his  family,  painted  by 
Troueil,  a  pupil  of  Vandyke,  and  Prince  Rupert,  given  by  the  Prince  to  his  companion 
in  arms;  the  manuscripts  of  the  Civil  War  period,  the  books  and  the  family  papers; 
the  hereditary  armour ;  the  adjacent  church,  in  which  is  the  recumbent  figure  of  an 
early  owner  of  Pitchford,  and  three  flat  stones,  with  elaborated  representations  of  the 
Ottleys  in  the  sixteenth  century;  the  park  made  in  1638,  the  deer  being  brought  from 
Lord  Newport's  park  at  High  Ercall,  disparked  in  1790:  all  these  make  up  a 
combination  of  attractive  incidents,  which  few  country  houses  possess  in  the  same 
degree. 


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THE    MOAT    HALL,    STAPLETON. 

R.   P.    LLEWELLIN,    ESQ. 

THE  Stapletons,  who  also  possessed  Thonglands  in  Corvedale,  were  the  early 
owners  of  this  manor.  One  of  them  was  Sheriff  in  139 1,  another  in  1441,  and 
one  was  Knight  of  the  Shire  in  1421.  Elizabeth,  daughter  and  co-heir  of  Sir  John 
Stapleton  in  the  fifteenth  century,  married  Edward  Leighton  of  Stretton-in-le-dale, 
and  in  his  descendants  the  estate  remained,  till,  in  16 14,  Robert  Leighton  of  Wattles- 
borough  leased  *'  Stapleton  with  the  capital  messuage  called  Moate  Hall  in  the 
occupation  of  Elizabeth  Leighton  his  mother"  to  Lord  Keeper  Egerton,  who 
accumulated  a  great  estate  in  Shropshire,  and  is  said  to  have  bought  more  land  than  any 
lawyer  either  before  or  since  ;  he  assumed  the  motto  of"  munda  manus,"  or  the  "  clean- 
handed." His  son,  John  Egerton,  was  M.P.  for  Shropshire  in  1601.  The  lease  to 
the  Lord  Keeper  was  probably  followed  by  a  re-lease,  and  so  amounted  to  a  purchase. 

Subsequently,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  family  of  Powys  became  the  owners 
of  Stapleton  by  purchase.  Ann  Catherine,  the  daughter  and  co-heir  of  Thomas  Jelf 
Powys  of  Berwick,  married  in  1791,  Viscount  Feilding,  the  eldest  son  of  the  Earl  of 
Denbigh,  and  to  the  second  son  of  that  marriage,  Hon.  Henry  Wentworth  Feilding, 
who  assumed  the  name  of  Powys,  Stapleton,  together  with  Berwick,  passed.  Dying 
in  1875  unmarried,  he  was  succeeded  by  his  nephew,  the  Earl  of  Denbigh,  who  sold 
Stapleton  to  Mr.  R.  P.  Llewellin,  the  present  owner. 

Stapleton  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  smaller  class  of  media?val  residences.  The  cluster 
of  buildings  stands  on  very  fiat  ground,  and  is  protected  by  the  moat,  which  incloses  a 
small  garden.  On  the  inside  the  house  and  offices  form  three  sides  of  an  irregular 
square.  In  the  more  ancient  rooms  there  are  some  very  stout  oak  beams,  well  moulded. 
The  place  has  been  occupied  as  a  farmhouse  for  nearly  three  hundred  years. 


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LYTHWOOD    HALL. 

W.   E.    MONTAGU    HULTON-HARROP,   ESQ. 

MR.  HULTON-HARROP  represents  a  younger  branch  of  an  ancient  Lan- 
cashire family,  and  assumed  the  additional  name  of  Harrop,  on  succeeding, 
in  1866,  to  the  estates  of  his  maternal  grandfather,  Mr.  Harrop  of  Bardsley.  The 
Gatten  property  lying  on  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Stiperstones,  was  purchased  in  the 
earlier  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  by  Mr.  Harrop.  In  1877  Mr.  Hulton-Harrop 
purchased  Lythwood  from  Mr.  Hornby.  In  1885  he  served  the  office  of  Sheriff,  and 
for  some  years  he  was  the  Master  of  the  Shropshire  Hounds. 

Lythwood  stands  on  high  ground  about  two  miles  from  Shrewsbury.  The  house 
was  built  about  1782  by  Mr.  Blakeway,  who  having  been  the  lucky  winner  of  a  lottery 
of  j^2o,ooo,  spent  most  of  his  capital  in  the  eredion  of  this  house.  **  Athenian  " 
Stewart  was  the  archited,  so  called  from  his  successful  designs  in  the  classical  style. 
He  was  the  architedl  of  St.  Chad's  Church  in  Shrewsbury,  and  of  Attingham  in  this 
neighbourhood.  The  interior  decoration  and  embellishments  of  Lythwood  are,  as  is 
usually  the  case  with  Georgian  houses,  more  effedtive  than  the  outside  elevation. 

Mr.  Blakeway  having  outrun  his  income,  sold  this  place  to  Mr.  Parr,  who,  sold 
again,  about  1850,  to  Mr,  Hornby,  who  as  has  been  already  stated,  sold  in  1877  to 
Mr.  Hulton-Harrop. 


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MARRINGTON    HALL. 

STAFFORD    DAVIES    PRICE   DAVIES,    ESQ. 

THE  house  stands  on  the  borders  of  Shropshire  and  Montgomeryshire,  on  the 
edge  of  the  beautiful  dingle  of  Marrington,  through  which  passes  the  Camlot, 
the  only  river  which  flows  from  England  into  Wales. 

The  hall  was  built  by  Richard  Lloyd  in  1595.  The  former  owners  of  the  place 
were  the  Bowdlers  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  the  Middletons  in  the  fifteenth,  from 
whom  the  Lloyds  acquired  the  estate  in  the  sixteenth  by  marriage. 

In  1633  Richard  Lloyd  sold  Marrington  to  the  first  Lord  Craven,  in  1733 
William,  Lord  Craven,  sold  to  Thomas  Powys,  of  Berwick,  near  Shrewsbury.  Towards 
the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  John  Davies,  descended  from  the  family  of  Davies 
of  Gwysaney,  co.  Flint,  who  had  already  some  landed  interests  in  the  neighbourhood, 
bought  Marrington  from  the  Powyses. 

The  grandson  of  the  purchaser  dying  in  1877  without  issue,  the  estate  passed  in 
the  female  line  through  Margaret  Davies,  the  wife  of  Stafford  Price,  of  Hendon 
House,  Middlesex,  to  the  present  owner,  Stafford  Davies  Price,  who  assumed  the 
patronymic  of  Davies  in  1882.  Mr.  Price  Davies  was  in  the  Royal  Artillery,  and  has 
filled  the  office  of  Sheriff  of  Montgomeryshire. 

The  arms  of  Bowdler,  Broughton,  Lloyd,  and  Middleton  are  represented  on  a 
somewhat  defaced  stone  over  the  porch.  An  interesting  sundial,  with  quaint  devices, 
which  will  be  the  subjed  of  another  sketch,  stands  in  front  of  the  house. 


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WALLOP. 

MRS.    SEVERNE. 

WALLOP  lies  at  the  head  of  a  little  valley,  on  the  south-eastern  slope  of  the 
Long  Mountain.  It  is  closed  in  by  overshadowing  trees ;  a  rivulet  dammed 
up  makes  a  succession  of  fish  ponds  in  the  garden.  The  house  was  built  about  1870, 
and  took  the  place  of  a  small  shooting  box.  The  property  extends  into  Montgomery- 
shire, and  includes  the  wooded  site  of  Caus  Castle. 

The  family  of  Sever ne,  originally  of  Shrawley,  in  Worcestershire,  came  to  Shrop- 
shire  in  the  seventeenth  century.  John  Severne,  whose  father  had  married  Mary, 
daughter  of  Richard  Langley  of  the  Abbey,  Shrewsbury,  was  mayor  of  the  town  in  1 675, 
and  was  the  first  who  is  designated  as  "  of  Wallop."  His  son  was  Sheriff  of  Mont- 
gomeryshire in  1697  :  and  his  grandson  was  General  Severne,  Col.  of  the  8th 
Dragoons,  who  was  present  at  Culloden.  There  is  a  good  portrait  of  the  General 
at  Wallop.  Dying  without  issue  in  1787,  the  estate  passed  to  his  kinsman,  Samuel 
Amy  Severne,  who  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  John  Michael,  owner  of  Thenford,  near 
Banbury,  as  well  as  of  this  Shropshire  property.  He  was  Sheriff  of  Montgomeryshire 
in  1824,  and  of  Northamptonshire  in  1829. 

He  was  succeeded  by  the  late  John  Edmund  Severne,  M.P.  for  Ludlow, 
1865-8,  and  for  the  Southern  Division  of  Shropshire,  1876-85.  He  was  Sheriff  of 
Northamptonshire  in  1861. 

There  are  here  some  valuable  books,  part  of  the  library  formed  by  Mr. 
Woodhale  at  Thenford  :  and  a  number  of  rare  Bartolozzis.  There  are  also  some 
interesting  relics  of  Charles  I.,  which  came  into  the  possession  of  the  Severne  family 
through  Sir  Edw.  Walker,  the  King's  private  secretary,  of  whom  there  is  a  portrait 
here. 


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LOTON    PARK. 

SIR   BRYAN    B.   M.    LEIGHTON,   BART. 

THIS  sketch  represents  the  north  front,  built  in  171 2,  by  Sir  Edward  Lelghton, 
2nd  baronet,  who  removed  the  family  residence  from  Wattlesborough  Castle, 
the  remains  of  which  are  about  a  mile  distant.  The  south  front  of  the  house  is  of 
rather  earlier  date,  having  been  built  about  1630.  An  additional  wing  was  ereded  in 
1875.  T^^  road,  in  the  last  century,  passed  in  front  of  the  house,  and  the  village  of 
Alberbury  clustered  round  the  hall  on  the  ground  now  occupied  by  shrubberies  and 
kitchen  garden. 

John  Leighton,  of  Stretton-in-le-dale,  descended  from  Richard  Lelghton  of 
Leighton,  M.P.,  131  2-18,  acquired  the  Wattlesborough  estates  by  his  marriage  with 
Ankoret,  daughter  and  co-heiress  of  Sir  John  Burgh.  He  was  M.P.  in  1460,  and 
thrice  Sheriff.  His  son,  Sir  Thomas,  created  a  Knight-banneret  at  Tourney,  was 
Sheriff  in  1495,  and  also  M.P.  Sir  Edward  Leighton  was  M.P.  1563,  twice  Sheriff 
of  Shropshire,  and  twice  of  Montgomeryshire ;  he  was  also  Custos  Rotulorum  of  the 
County,  and  member  of  the  Court  of  the  Marches.  His  brother,  Sir  Thomas,  was 
Governor  of  Jersey ;  a  number  of  his  letters  to  Robert  Cecil,  Lord  Burleigh,  amongst 
the  Hatfield  manuscripts,  are  printed  by  the  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  He  was  M.P.  for 
Northumberland,  in  1572,  and  for  Worcestershire,  in  1 601,  in  which  county  he 
obtained  a  grant  of  Feckenham  from  Queen  Elizabeth.  Sir  Edward's  cousin, 
William  Leighton,  of  Plash,  was  Chief  Justice  of  North  Wales,  and  both  he  and 
Sir  Thomas  were  members  of  the  Court  of  the  Marches.  In  the  restoration 
Parliament,  1661-78,  Robert  Leighton  was  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury,  and  was  nominated 
for  the  proposed  order  of  "  Knights  of  the  Oak."  His  son.  Sir  Edward,  created  a 
Baronet  in  1693,  was  M.P.  for  Shropshire  in  1698,  and  for  Shrewsbury  in  17 10. 
Col.  Daniel  Leighton,  of  Bausley,  his  second  son,  commanded  a  regiment  at 
Fontenoy,  and  was  M.P.  for  Hereford  in  1747.  Sir  Charlton  Leighton  was  M.P, 
for  Shrewsbury  in  1780-5.  Sir  Robert,  his  brother,  who  succeeded  him,  entertained 
at  Loton,  in  1805,  the  Prince  Regent  and  the  Duke  of  Clarence.  He  was  succeeded 
by  his  cousin.  General  Sir  Baldwin  Leighton,  who  was  wounded  in  the  American  W^ar 
of  Independence,  was  a  Brigadier  in  Portugal,  and  was  Governor  of  Jersey.  His  son, 
Sir  Baldwin,  was  M.P.  for  South  Shropshire,  1859-65,  and  was  Chairman  of  the 
Quarter  Sessions  in  Shropshire,  and  also  in  Montgomeryshire.  Dying  in  1 871,  he 
was  succeeded  by  his  son.  Sir  Baldwyn,  M.P.  for  South  Shropshire  1877-85. 

There  are  here  a  number  of  family  portraits,  from  Sir  Edward  Leighton,  the  first 
baronet,  downwards,  and  amongst  them  three  good  half  lengths  by  Allan  Ramsay,  one 
by  Gardner  in  pastile,  two  by  Watts  and  one  by  Lord  Leighton,  P.R.A. 


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ONSLOW. 

C.   RALPH   B.    WINGFIELD,   ESQ. 

THE  first  member  of  the  ancient  family  of  Wingfield,  who  settled  in  Shropshire, 
was  Thomas,  mayor  of  Shrewsbury  in  1640.  His  son  Samuel  bought  Preston 
Brockhurst,  which  he  rebuilt,  from  Sir  Vincent  Corbet,  and  his  grandson  was  sheriff 
in  1692.  Rowland  Wingfield,  sheriff  in  1753,  purchased  Onslow  in  1780,  and  died 
at  the  age  of  9 1 ,  in  1 8 1 8  ;  his  son.  Col.  John  Wingfield,  sheriff  in  1 8  24,  died  at  the  age 
of  93,  in  1862,  and  was  succeeded  by  Charles  George  Wingfield,  sheriff  in  1873, 
colonel  of  the  Shropshire  Yeomanry. 

Of  the  earlier  owners  of  Onslow,  may  be  mentioned  Humphrey  Onslow,  sheriff 
in  1566,  whose  family  is  now  represented  by  the  Earl  of  Onslow,  but  their  connedion 
with  Shropshire  ceased  on  the  sale  of  this  estate,  in  16 17,  to  Thomas  Harris  of 
Shrewsbury.  The  property  was  sold  by  the  Harrises  to  the  family  of  Fownes,  and 
again  by  them  to  the  Morhalls,  of  whom  Richard  Morhall  was  sheriff  in  1770;  they 
sold  to  Rowland  Wingfield,  of  Preston  Brockhurst,  in  1780. 

The  present  house,  the  main  portion  of  which  is  of  Grinshill  stone,  was  built,  in 
1820,  by  Col.  John  Wingfield,  from  designs  by  Haycock,  of  Shrewsbury.  Consider- 
able additions  have  been  lately  made  by  Col.  Charles  Wingfield. 


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ATTINGHAM. 

LORD   BERWICK. 

THIS  fine  house,  one  of  the  largest  in  the  county,  was  built  in  1780,  the  architedl 
was  "  Athenian  "  Stewart.  The  former  house.  Tern  Hall,  was  inclosed  within 
the  new  mansion  and  the  name  of  Attingham  given  to  the  place.  Repton  laid  out 
the  grounds,  and  in  his  book. — on  landscape  gardening,  devotes  several  pages  to  the 
consideration  of  the  principles  which  should  be  applied  in  dealing  with  the  flat 
expanse  of  the  park  and  the  sluggish  windings  of  the  Tern. 

In  1680  Thomas  Harwood,  of  Shrewsbury,  married  Margaret,  the  sister  of  the 
Rt.  Hon.  Richard  Hill,  the  builder  of  Hawkestone,  an  eminent  statesman  and  diplo- 
matist. He  conveyed  Tern  Hall  to  the  Harwoods,  and  greatly  promoted  their 
interests.  His  nephew,  Thomas  Harwood,  assumed  the  name  of  Hill  in  1727,  and 
was  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury  1749-68.  He  married  a  daughter  and  co-heir  of  William 
Noel,  judge  of  the  Common  Pleas,  and  was  father  of  Noel  Hill,  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury 
1768,  and  for  Shropshire  1774-84,  who  was  raised  to  the  peerage  under  the  title  of 
Baron  Berwick  of  Attingham  in  1784.  He  was  the  builder  of  the  present  house. 
His  second  son,  Hon.  William  Noel  Hill,  was  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury,  and  was  the 
successful  candidate  in  a  famous  contest  for  the  representation  of  the  borough  against 
his  cousin,  John  Hill,  of  Hawkestone,  in  1796,  which  is  said  to  have  cost  ^100,000. 
He  was  afterwards  Minister  at  Naples,  assumed  the  name  of  Noel  in  addition  to  Hill, 
and  eventually  succeeded  his  elder  brother  in  the  title. 

The  5th  Lord  Berwick  was  a  man  of  great  mechanical  genius,  and  invented  an 
improvement  in  the  military  rifle.  He  was  also  the  owner  of  a  celebrated  herd  of 
Short-horns  and  Herefords.  Dying  in  1861,  he  was  succeeded  by  his  brother.  Col. 
Hon.  William  Hill,  distinguished  in  the  Burmese  War,  and  Col.  of  the  Shropshire 
Militia. 

A  fine  collection  of  pi6lures  and  books  were  sold  in  1826,  but  there  remain  many 
good  pi6lures  and  portraits,  among  them  an  interesting  portrait  of  Sir  Rowland  Hill, 
the  first  Protestant  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  one  of  Pitt  by  Hopner,  two  fine  full-length 
family  portraits,  and  others. 


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APLEY    CASTLE. 

SIR    THOMAS   MEYRICK    BART.,   C.B. 

THE  history  of  Apley  Castle  takes  us  back  to  Feudal  times.  "  Charlton  Castle, 
built  in  13 1 6,  was  the  work  of  the  ist  Lord  Cherleton  de  Powys,  a  man  of 
humble  origin,  but  who  owed  his  great  advancement  to  an  early  friendship  with  the 
weakest,  though  not  the  most  fickle  of  the  Plantaganets,  Edward  II.  Nor  was  the 
family  thus  favoured  by  his  father  negleded  by  Edward  III.  One  of  the  earUest 
records  of  that  king's  reign  (1327),  is  a  license  to  Alan  de  Cherleton  to  creuellate  or 
embattle  the  two  manor  houses  of  Apley  and  Withyford."  [Eyton's  "  Castles  of 
Shropshire."] 

The  page  and  companion  of  Edward  II.  married  Hawlce,  daughter  and  heir  of 
Owen  ap  Griffith,  Prince  of  Powysland,  and  owner  of  Powys  Castle.  In  13 13  he 
was  summoned  by  writ  to  Parliament  as  Lord  Cherleton  de  Powys.  In  1425  the 
daughter  and  heir  of  the  Cherletons  de  Powys  carried  the  estate  and  Barony  to  the 
family  of  Grey.  The  Lords  Grey  de  Powys  became  extind  in  the  male  line  in  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  and  the  Barony,  which  was  unsuccessfully  claimed  by  Sir  John 
Kynaston  Powell  in  1 800,  remains  in  abeyance.  Powis  Castle  was  sold  to  the 
Herberts  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth. 

Of  the  same  stock  spring  the  Charletons  of  Apley  Castle.  Alan  de  Cherleton 
married  the  daughter  and  heir  of  Hugh  Fitz-der,  and  thus  acquired  Withyford, 
and  as  has  been  said,  obtained  licence  to  castellate  Apley  and  Withyford  in  1327. 
His  grandaughter  and  heir,  about  1400,  carried  these  estates  to  her  husband  William 
Knightly  of  Fawsly,  who  assumed  the  surname  of  Charlton,  and  in  their  descendants 
the  inheritance  remains. 

In  1472  Robert  Charlton  was  Sheriff,  as  were  his  successors  in  1527,  1626, 
1665,  1757'  179OJ  1807,  1845  and  1877.  William  Charlton,  M.P.  for  Shropshire 
in  1554,  was  the  son  of  WilHam  Charlton,  who,  in  1513,  was  engaged  in  the  expedi- 
tion against  France.  In  the  Civil  wars  Robert  Charlton,  uncle  of  Francis,  the  owner 
of  Apley,  who  was  a  minor,  took  a  leading  part  on  the  Parliamentary  side.  The 
mother  of  the  owner  was  on  the  king's  side.  In  consequence  the  Castle  was  garrisoned 
for  the  king,  taken  by  the  Parliament,  and  dismantled.  Richard  Baxter  was  closely 
related  to  the  family,  having  married  a  sister  of  Robert  Charlton. 

In  1820  St.  John  Chiverton  Charlton  married  the  daughter  and  heir  of  Thomas 
Meyrick  of  Bush,  near  Pembroke.  He  left  two  sons.  The  eldest,  St.  John  of  the 
1st  Royal  Dragoons,  was  one  of  the  survivors  of  the  Balaclava  charge,  and  died  un- 
married. The  second,  Thomas,  the  present  owner,  Colonel  of  the  Shropshire  Militia, 
M.P.  for  Pembroke,  1868-74,  was  created  a  Baronet  in  1880. 

The  present  house,  which  stands  a  short  distance  from  the  old  Castle,  now  converted 
into  stables,  is  a  block  of  Georgian  brickwork,  with  a  portico.  In  1859  considerable 
additions  were  made.  The  inside  is  well  contrived  and  convenient.  There  are  here 
some  good  family  portraits,  and  amongst  them  one  of  Richard  Baxter. 

Leland  says  :  "  The  hedde  House  of  the  Chorletons  now  is  Apley,  half  a  mile 
from  Welington.  Howbeit  Chorleton  Castel  seemeth  in  time  past  to  haue  bene 
principal.     There  be  divers  of  the  Chorletons  gentilmen  of  Shropshire." 

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ALBRIGHT    HUSSEY. 

REV.    G.    CORBET. 

THE  piduresque  remains  of  this  old  hall  are  about  three  miles  from  Shrewsbury, 
on  the  Sundorne  estate.  The  "  black  and  white  "  portion  is  an  excellent  bit  of 
Tudor  work,  and  the  date  1524  was  formerly  legible  on  the  porch.  There  is  an  oak 
roof  with  Tudor  mouldings  in  the  principal  room.  On  the  wainscot  of  the  parlour 
there  was  carved  "made  by  me,  Edward  Huse.  1601."  Some  decayed  walling  in  an 
adjacent  field  represents  the  situation  of  the  chapel.  The  stone  bridge  and  a  portion 
of  the  moat  still  exist.     Much  of  the  brick  part  of  the  house  must  have  been  removed. 

The  family  of  Huse  or  Hussey,  whose  pedigree  was  entered  in  the  visitation  of 
1623,  built  the  house,  and  gave  to  it  their  name. 

Either  by  purchase  or  marriage  the  Corbets  of  Leigh  succeeded  them  early  in 
the  seventeenth  century. 

The  following  incident  of  the  Civil  Wars  is  told  by  Gough  in  his  "  History  of 
Myddle."  "  The  Governor  of  Shrewsbury  placed  a  garrison  at  Albright  Hussey,  and 
Scoggan  was  Governor  of  it.  A  party  of  horse  of  the  Parliament  side  came  on  a 
Sunday,  in  the  afternoon,  and  faced  the  garrison,  and  Scoggan  standing  In  a  window, 
in  an  upper  room,  cryd  aloud,  that  the  others  heard  him  say,  *  Lett  such  a  number  goe 
to  such  a  place,  and  so  many  to  such  a  place '  and  '  lett  twenty  come  with  me '  (butt 
he  had  not  eight  in  all  in  the  house).  And  Scoggan,  seeing  one  Phillip  Bunney 
among  the  ennemys,  who  was  a  taylor  borne  at  Hadnall,  he  tooke  a  fowling  gun,  and 
said  '  Bunny  have  att  thee  '  and  shott  him  through  the  legge  and  killed  his  horse.  The 
Parliament  soldiers  took  up  Bunny  and  departed.  Soone  after,  this  garrison  was  re- 
called at  the  request  of  Mr.  Pelham  Corbett,  who  feared  the  Parliament  soldiers 
would  come  and  fire  his  buildings." 

In  1 741  Corbet  Kynaston  of  Sundorne,  dying  without  issue,  bequeathed  his 
estates  to  his  cousin,  Corbet  of  Leigh  and  Albright  Hussey,  and  thus  the  estates 
became  merged. 

In  1864,  on  the  failure  of  Mr.  Corbet's  descendants,  the  property  passed  by  the 
devise  of  his  cousin  Andrew  W.  Corbet,  to  the  Rev.  Dryden  Piggott  of  Edgemond, 
who  assumed  the  name  of  Corbet,  and  whose  brother  is  the  present  owner. 


12 


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MORETON    CORBET. 

SIR    WALTER   O.    CORBET,   BART. 

WRITING  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  Camden  in  his  "  Britannia  "  says  :  "  Then 
upon  the  same  river  (Tern),  Moreton  Corbet,  anciently  an  house  of  the 
familie  of  Turet,  afterward  a  castle  of  the  Corbets,  sheweth  itself,  where,  within  our 
remembrance,  Robert  Corbet,  carried  away  with  the  affedionate  delight  in  architedure, 
began  to  build  in  a  barraine  place,  a  most  gorgeous  and  stately  house,  after  the 
Italian's  modell  :  but  death  prevented  him,  so  that  he  left  the  new  work  unfinished, 
and  the  old  castle  defaced.  These  Corbets  are  of  ancient  nobility  in  this  shire  and  held 
lordships  by  service  of  Roger  Montgomery,  Earle  of  this  county  about  the  coming  in 
of  the  Normans.  ...  In  later  ages  this  familie  farre  and  fairly  propagated,  received 
increase,  both  revenue,  and  great  alliance,  by  the  marriage  with  an  heir  of  Hopton." 

It  is  doubtful  whether  the  house  was  ever  finished.  Tradition  relates  that  a  Puritan 
preacher  in  the  time  of  James  I.,  whom  the  owner  failed  to  save  from  being  carried  to 
Shrewsbury  gaol,  prophesied  that  the  house  he  was  building  should  not  be  dwelt  in 
from  generation  to  generation,  and  shortly  afterwards  it  was  destroyed  by  fire.  In  the 
civil  wars,  however,  it  was  garrisoned  for  the  King,  and  taken  by  the  Parliamentary 
party.  Its  owner.  Sir  Vincent,  created  a  baronet  in  1642,  was  fined  ^1,588  and  _^8o 
a  year  by  the  sequestrators.  His  granddaughter  and  heiress  carried  Moreton  to  her 
husband,  John  Kynaston,  in  1688,  and  his  son,  Corbet  Kynaston,  sold  the  estate  back 
to  his  kinsman,  Andrew  Corbet,  of  Shawbury  Park,  in  1734. 

Roger  Fitz  Corbet,  the  Domesday  founder  of  this  family,  came  from  Pays  de 
Caux  in  Normandy,  built  Caus  Castle,  and  called  it  after  his  Norman  home.  The 
Castle  and  Barony  of  Caus  passed  to  Ralph  de  Stafford  in  1350.  The  lesser  Corbet 
estate  of  Wattlesborough  Castle  passed  by  marriage  before  the  close  of  the  same 
century  to  John  de  Mowthe.  But  about  1240  Richard  Corbet,  of  Wattlesborough, 
married  the  heiress  of  Bartholomew  Turet,  one  of  the  few  Saxon  owners  of  the  soil 
whom  the  Norman  conquest  had  left,  and  Moreton  Turet  has  since  been  known  as 
Moreton  Corbet.  In  1431  Roger  Corbet,  of  Moreton,  married  the  heiress  of  Thos. 
Hopton,  of  Hopton  Castle,  which  remained  in  the  family  till  the  co-heiress  of  Robert 
Corbet  carried  it  to  the  Wallops  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

Since  1 249,  when  Thomas  Corbet  was  sheriff,  twenty  Corbets  have  held  that  office  ; 
since  1309,  when  Roger  Corbet  was  Knight  of  the  Shire,  eighteen  Corbets  have 
represented  the  county,  and  twelve  Corbets  boroughs  in  the  county.  In  addition  to 
the  Edwardian  Barony  by  Writ,  four  extind  baronetcies  have  been  held  by  the  family, 
and  in  1679  ^^^  widow  of  Sir  Vincent  Corbet  was  made  a  viscountess  for  life.  The 
estates  of  A6ton  Reynald  and  of  Adderley  are  still  held  in  this  county  by  descendants 
in  the  male  line  of  Roger  Fitz  Corbet,  the  Norman.  The  estates  of  Longnor  and  of 
Sundorne  have  passed  by  female  descent,  their  owners  having  taken  the  old  patronymic. 


13  H 


HARDWICKE    GRANGE. 

F.    BIBBY,    ESQ. 

THIS  place  was  bought,  about  1725,  from  Mr.  Littlehales,  by  Rowland  Hill,  who 
succeeded  in  1727  to  the  Hawkestone  estates  on  the  death  of  his  uncle,  the 
Rt.  Hon.  Richard  Hill,  a  distinguished  diplomatist,  and  the  builder  of  the  house  at 
Hawkestone  ;  in  the  same  year  he  was  created  a  baronet. 

His  grandson,  the  younger  son  of  Sir  John  Hill,  Bart.,  was  Rowland,  ist  Viscount 
Hill,  G.C.B.,  the  companion  in  arms  of  Wellington,  and  commander-in-chief  from 
18^28-42;  he  lived  here,  and  is  buried  in  the  parish  church  of  Hadnall. 

The  estate  was  sold,  in  1868,  by  the  2nd  Viscount  Hill,  the  nephew  of  the 
commander-in-chief,  to  Mr.  J.  J.  Bibby,  who  was  Sheriff  of  Shropshire  in  1882,  and 
his  son  is  the  present  owner. 

The  house  was  reconstrudled  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  the 
modern  Gothic  style.  It  stands  on  flat  ground,  well  timbered.  The  present  owner 
has  made  extensive  alterations  and  additions. 


14 


r. 


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BERWICK    HOUSE. 

MRS.    PHILLIPS. 

THE  house,  of  the  early  Georgian  period,  is  well  placed  on  the  bank  of  the  Severn. 
The  frontage  retains  much  of  its  original  design,  but  the  side  in  shadow  has 
been  almost  entirely  re-edified.  Till  lately,  this  place  presented  a  good  example  of 
eighteenth  century  landscape  gardening,  and  the  mansion  stood  in  the  midst  of  the 
park,  without  any  surrounding  flower  garden,  shrubbery  or  terrace.  The  kitchen 
garden  was  some  way  off.  The  grounds  are  handsomely  timbered,  and  the  Wreken 
and  the  spires  of  Shrewsbury  are  in  full  view  from  the  windows. 

There  is  a  tradition  that  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of  Shrewsbury  in  1403,  Harry 
Percy  slept  at  Upper  Berwick,  and  on  the  morning  of  the  fight,  calling  for  his 
sword,  was  told  that  it  had  been  left  at  "  Berwick,"  upon  which  he  exclaimed,  "  my 
plough  is  drawing  to  its  last  furrow,  for  a  wizard  of  Northumberland  told  me  I  should 
die  at  Berwick,  which  I  thought  to  be  Berwick  in  the  North,"  and  he  was  slain  that 
day. 

The  early  owners  of  this  estate  were  the  Leybournes.  In  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth, 
and  part  of  the  seventeenth  centuries  the  Bettons,  a  Shrewsbury  family,  lived  here.  The 
Luceys  succeeded  them,  from  whom  Isaac  Jones,  brother  of  Thomas  Jones,  Sheriff  in 
1625,  belonging  to  a  rich  burgher  family,  purchased  the  place.  His  son,  Sir  Samuel, 
Sheriff  in  1663,  founded  the  almshouses  in  the  park.  Sir  Thomas  Jones,  Chief  Justice 
of  the  Common  Pleas  in  James  II. 's  reign,  was  a  cousin  of  Sir  Samuel ;  the  Tyrwhitts 
of  Stanley  Hall  represent  in  the  female  line  the  family  of  the  Chief  Justice. 

The  Joneses  sold  to  the  Hosiers,  from  whom  Berwick  was  bought  in  1728,  by 
Thomas  Powys — the  first  of  his  name  who  settled  in  Shrewsbury — who  built  the 
present  mansion,  repaired  the  Chapel,  and  was  Sheriff  in  1763.  He  was  succeeded 
by  his  cousin,  Thomas  Jelf  Powys,  Sheriff  in  1776,  who  had  married  the  daughter 
and  heiress  of  Thomas  Jelf  of  Bristol,  merchant. 

Catherine  his  daughter  and  heiress  married  in  1 79 1  Viscount  Feilding.  The  second 
son  of  that  marriage,  Hon.  Henry  Wentworth  Feilding,  who  assumed  the  name  of 
Powys,  succeeded  to  the  estate,  and  dying  unmarried  in  1875,  his  nephew  and  heir, 
the  Earl  of  Denbigh,  sold  Berwick  to  James  Watson  of  Warley  Hall,  Birmingham, 
M.P.  for  Shrewsbury  1885-92,  who  made  large  alterations  in  the  house,  and  whose 
daughter  and  heiress  Florence,  the  present  owner,  married  Mr.  W.  W.  Graham  Phillips. 


^5 


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'—'  ^ 

a  o 


YEATON-PEVEREY. 

SIR   OFFLEY   WAKEMAN,    BART. 

THIS  house,  built  in  1890,  on  a  new  site,  represents  the  style  and  finish  of  the 
later  Vidorian  architeifture.  The  material  is  stone,  with  the  exception  of  some 
*'  black  and  white  "  timber  work.  There  is  a  forecourt  with  arched  alcoves  at  the 
angles.      The  details  are  quaint  and  elaborate.     Aston  Webb  was  the  archite6l. 

The  situation,  at  present,  is  deficient  in  trees  and  foreground,  but  the  distant 
views  of  the  Breidden,  and  all  the  Shropshire  hills  are  fine.  The  Perry  flows  through 
the  grounds. 

The  Wakemans  are  a  Worcestershire  family,  and  lived  at  Perdiswell,  near 
Worcester.  Sir  Henry  Wakeman,  who  was  created  a  Baronet  in  1828,  married,  in 
1797,  Sarah,  daughter  and  heir  of  Richard  Ward  Offley  of  Hinton  Hall,  Pontesbury, 
and  thus  acquired  Rorrington  in  Chirbury.  His  grandson,  Sir  Offley  Wakeman, 
Sheriff  in  1887,  and  Chairman  of  Quarter  Sessions,  disposed  of  his  Worcestershire 
property,  and  built  Yeaton-Peverey,  on  an  estate  which  he  purchased  from  Colonel 
Kenyon-Slaney. 


16 


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ADCOTE. 

MRS.    DARBY. 

THIS  house  was  built  by  Mrs.  Darby,  tke  widow  of  Mr.  x'Vlfred  Darby,  of  Coal- 
brookdale,  in  1879.  Norman  Shaw  was  the  archited,  and  it  is  a  good  example 
of  his  method  of  adapting  mediasval  forms  to  modern  requirements.  The  hall  is 
unusually  large. 

The  grounds  from  which  the  Breidden  range  and  the  Stiperstones  are  seen  to 
advantage  across  the  plain  of  the  Severn,  are  prettily  laid  out. 

The  family  of  Darby  have  been  intimately  associated,  since  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  with  the  industrial  development  of  Coalbrookdale  in  Shropshire.  They 
also  established  very  large  works  at  Ebbw  Vale  in  Monmouthshire.  In  1777  Mr. 
Abraham  Darby  construdled  the  iron  bridge  over  the  Severn,  which  has  given  the 
name  of  "  Ironbridge  "  to  the  surrounding  distridl,  and  in  1795  the  Coalbrookdale 
Company,  of  which  the  Darbys  were  the  principal  partners,  construded  from  designs 
of  Telford,  the  iron  bridge  at  Buildwas. 


17 


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STANWARDINE. 

ELLIS   BROOKE   CUNLIFFE,   ESQ. 

(c  ^TANWARDINE  in  the  Wood,"  as  it  used  to  be  called,  Is  situated  on  high 
^^]3  ground,  but  there  are  few  trees  about  it  now.  The  house  was  built  by  Robert 
Corbet,  a  younger  son  of  the  family  of  Corbet,  of  Moreton,  who  was  Sheriff  in  1530, 
and  married  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  Roger  Kynaston,  of  Walford  and  Stanwardine, 
whose  great  grandfather,  Griffin  Kynaston,  acquired  the  estate  of  Stocks  by  marriage 
with  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  John  Hord,  in  the  fifteenth  century. 

Thomas,  son  of  Robert  Corbet,  enlarged  the  house  and  made  a  park.  His  son 
Robert,  Sheriff  in  1636,  was  "  a  very  eminent  person  in  the  county  in  his  time,  he  was 
Justice  of  the  Peace  and  the  Quorum,  Custos  Rotulorum,  and  a  Master  in  Chancery" 
(Cough's  "  History  of  Myddle  ").  He  was  M.P.  in  the  Commonwealth  Parliament  of 
1654,  and  took  a  leading  part  on  the  Parliamentary  side.  It  is  interesting  to  note, 
that  while  the  head  of  the  Corbet  family,  Sir  Vincent,  and  his  relative  Pelham  Corbet, 
fought  for  the  King,  the  other  branches  of  the  family,  the  Corbets  of  Adderley,  of 
Stanwardine,  and  of  Auston  near  Pontesbury  fought  for  the  Parliament.  The  son  of 
Robert  Corbet  was  Thomas,  a  friend  of  Nonconformist  ministers.  Phillip  Henry 
writes  in  his  diary:  "July  12,1671.  With  wife  at  Stanwardine.  Much  made  of 
there,  but  little  good  done  by  reason  of  a  vayn,  unfixt,  unfruitful  heart.  I  accompanied 
them,  killing  a  buck  in  their  own  park,  far  from  being  taken  with  any  great  delight  or 
pleasure  in  ye  sport ;  they  sent  part  of  him  to  Broad-Oke  after  us." 

In  1 701  Stanwardine  was  sold  to  Sir  John  Wynn,  of  Wattstay;  and  this  branch 
of  the  Corbets  disappeared,  and  their  fine  old  hall  has  since  been  used  as  a  farmhouse. 

About  I  8  1 8  Sir  Watkin  Williams  Wynn  sold  the  property  for  ^40,000  to  William 
Sparling,  of  Petton,  and  it  is  now  merged  in  the  Petton  estate.  The  granddaughter  and 
eventual  heir  of  William  Sparling  married  Mr.  Ellis  Brooke  Cunliffe,  the  present 
owner. 

The  building  is  of  Grinshill  stone.  There  is  some  good  panelling,  with  the  date 
1588:  some  of  the  original  window-fastenings  and  door-handlings  remain.  The  Corbet 
emblems  of  the  raven,  the  squirrel,  and  the  elephant  and  castle  are  represented  on  the 
gables.     The  sundial  has  been  taken  to  Petton. 


18 


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P    o 
O   b? 


SOULTON. 

vise.    HILL. 

THOMAS  HILL,  of  Soulton,  built  this  house  in  1668,  and  was  Sheriff  in  168  i, 
the  first  of  his  family  who  filled  that  office.  The  Hills  of  Hawkestone  derive 
their  descent  from  the  Hills  of  Court  of  Hill,  in  the  parish  of  Burford,  now  extind:  in 
the  male  line,  and  became  associated  with  the  north-eastern  part  of  Shropshire  by  the 
marriage  of  Hugh  Hill,  with  the  daughter  and  co-heiress  of  Thomas  de  Wonkeslow. 
In  the  Herald's  Visitation  of  1623,  Rowland  Hill  is  mentioned  as  of  Hawkestone  in 
1592.  A  member  of  the  family  was,  in  1549,  the  first  Protestant  Lord  Mayor  of 
London,  "  a  grave  and  worthy  father  of  the  Citie,"  and  the  great  estates  he  acquired 
in  this  county  passed  to  his  sisters  and  co-heiresses,  one  of  whom  married  a  Barker  of 
Haughmond,  the  other  a  Gratewood  of  Adderley. 

The  families  of  Soulton  and  Hawkestone  were  united  by  cousinhood,  and  the 
properties  are  now  merged. 

The  modern  founder  of  the  fortunes  of  the  Hills,  who  exercised  great  political 
and  social  influence  in  Shropshire  in  the  eighteenth  and  part  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
was  the  Right  Hon.  Richard  Hill,  paymaster  to  the  forces,  and  an  eminent  diploma- 
tist in  the  reigns  of  William  and  Mary,  Queen  Anne,  and  George  I.  He  died  un- 
married in  1727,  having  procured  a  baronetcy  for  his  nephew.  Sir  Rowland,  Sheriff  in 
1732,  and  M.P.  for  Lichfield,  1734,  for  whom  he  built  the  house  of  Hawkestone. 
From  1780  to  1806,  Sir  Richard  Hill  was  M.P.  for  Shropshire,  his  brother  John 
was  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury,  1784-96.  General  Hill,  G.C.B.,  who  was  M.P.  for 
Shrewsbury  in  1812,  was  raised  to  the  peerage  as  Baron  in  18 14,  and  created  a  Viscount 
in  1842,  and  was  for  fourteen  years  commander-in-chief.  Sir  Rowland  Hill,  who 
succeeded  his  uncle  as  2nd  Viscount,  was  M.P.  for  Shropshire,  1821-42,  and  was 
Lord  Lieutenant  of  the  county.  His  son,  Hon.  Rowland  Clegg  Hill,  was  M.P.  for 
North  Shropshire,  1857-65,  and  became  3rd  Viscount.  The  famous  dissenting 
minister,  Rev.  Rowland  Hill,  was  of  this  family. 

Soulton  is  a  good  example  of  a  seventeenth  century  house,  when  the  gabled  style 
was  going  out,  but  mullioned  windows  were  still  in  fashion.  It  also  presents  an 
example  of  the  walled  garden  in  front  of  the  principal  entrance.  A  flight  of  steps 
leads  up  to  the  garden  gate,  and  a  small  terrace  and  another  flight  of  steps  lead  up  to 
the  hall  door. 

The  place  has  been  for  many  years  tenanted  by  farmers. 


19 


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HODNET    HALL. 

ALGERNON    HEBER    PERCY,   ESQ. 

HODNET  is  one  of  the  estates  which  has  passed  by  hereditary  succession  from 
Norman  times  to  the  present,  though  often  by  female  descent.  The  family  of 
Hodnet  took  their  name  from  the  place,  held  under  the  Norman  Earl  Roger  by 
serjeantry,  and  were  stewards  of  his  Castle  of  Montgomery  ;  William  de  Hodenet,  in 
1298,  was  the  Knight  of  the  Shire.  In  the  fourteenth  century,  Sir  William  de 
Lodelowe,  of  Stokesay,  married  Maud,  daughter  and  heiress  of  Sir  William  de 
Hodnet.  The  Lodelowes  held  the  office  of  Sheriff  in  1379,  141 7,  1443,  and  1478  ; 
and  were  Knights  of  the  Shire  in  1307,  1328,  1361,  1373,  1377,  1389.  Early  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  Thomas  and  Humphrey  Vernon,  younger  sons  of  Vernon  of  Haddon, 
married  two  sisters,  the  daughters  and  co-heiresses  of  John  Ludlow.  Humphrey  had 
for  his  share  of  the  estates,  Hodnet,  and  here  his  descendants  in  the  male  line  lived  for 
more  than  two  centuries.  In  1620,  Sir  Robert  Vernon  was  M.P.  for  Shropshire.  In 
1660,  Sir  Henry  Vernon,  was  M.P.,  and  was  made  a  baronet.  The  baronetcy  became 
extinft  early  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  Elizabeth  Atherton  (granddaughter  of 
Elizabeth  Vernon,  who  married  Robert  Cholmondeley,  of  Vale  Royal  in  1675), 
carried  Hodnet  to  her  husband,  Richard  Heber,  of  Marton  in  Craven,  Yorkshire. 
The  grandson  of  that  marriage,  Richard  Heber,  of  Hodnet,  Sheriff  in  1821,  M.P. 
for  the  University  of  Oxford,  was  a  man  of  great  literary  eminence,  and  his  enormous 
library  was  sold  after  his  death,  in  1833,  ^^^  more  than  ^50,000.  Emily,  his  niece, 
and  eventual  heir,  was  the  daughter  of  Reginald  Heber,  Bishop  of  Calcutta,  equally 
eminent  with  his  brother  in  literature.  She  married,  in  1839,  Algernon  C.  Heber 
Percy,  son  of  Hon.  Hugh  Percy,  Bishop  of  Carlisle,  and  on  the  accession  of  his 
cousin,  the  2nd  Earl  of  Beverley,  in  1865,  to  the  Dukedom  of  Northumberland, 
succeeded  to  the  Ayrmine  estates  of  the  Percys. 

The  present  house  was  built  on  a  new  site  in  1870.  The  low-lying  and  incon- 
venient Tudor  house  of  the  Vernons  was  at  the  same  time  pulled  down.  The 
pigeon  house  (1650)  and  the  barn  (16 10),  however,  remain.  The  more  ancient 
castle  of  the  Hodnets  and  the  Ludlows  is  represented  by  a  mound  and  a  ditch.  There 
was  once  a  park  here.  There  are  portraits  of  Robert  Devereux,  Earl  of  Essex, 
Oueen  Elizabeth's  favourite,  and  of  Elizabeth,  Countess  of  Southampton,  both  by 
Zucchero;  of  John  Veron,  died  1592,  of  Sir  Robert,  died  1623  ;  of  Sir  Henry,  died 
1676.     There  are  also  portraits  of  Hebers,  Athertons  and  Percys. 


20 


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2  2- 

SI 

>-   X 


BROGYNTYN. 

LORD    HARLECH. 

PENNANT  ["Tour  in  Wales,"  1784]  says,  "The  place  takes  its  name  from  a 
singular  intrenchment  in  a  neighbouring  field  called  Castell  Brogyntyn.  The 
name  of  the  house  was  soon  altered,  for,  in  1218,  it  was  called  Porkington."  The 
older  name  has  been  lately  revived. 

The  family  of  Lacon  were  the  owners  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Margaret, 
daughter  and  heiress  of  John  Wynne  Lacon,  married  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  Sir 
William  Maurice,  of  Cleneuny,  and  his  granddaughter  Ellen,  who  died  in  1626,  carried 
the  estate  to  John  Owen,  a  younger  son  of  the  Owens  of  Bodsilin,  in  Anglesey,  who 
was  secretary  to  Walsingham,  and  father  of  two  notable  cavaliers.  Sir  John,  the 
eldest,  was  vice-admiral  of  N.  Wales,  Governor  of  Conway,  wounded  at  the  storming 
of  Bristol,  condemned  to  death  by  the  parliament  in  1648,  together  with  the  Duke  of 
Hamilton,  the  Earl  of  Holland,  Lords  Goring  and  Capel,  but  afterwards  pardoned. 
There  is  a  rapier  at  Brogyntyn  with  these  words  inscribed,  "  Ld.  Capel  the  day  before 
his  execution  presented  this  sword  to  Sir  John  Owen,  by  whom,  he  said  he  was 
convinced  it  would  be  worn  with  honour."  William,  the  brother  of  Sir  John,  was 
governor  of  Harlech  Castle,  the  last  stronghold  in  N.  Wales  which  surrendered  to  the 
Parliament. 

The  family  of  Owen  were  more  associated  with  the  counties  of  Merioneth  and 
Carnarvon,  for  which  they  often  served  as  sheriffs  and  knights  of  the  shire,  than  with 
Shropshire.  On  the  death,  in  1792,  of  Robert  Godolphin  Owen,  his  sister,  Margaret, 
the  wife  of  Owen  Ormsby,  of  Willowbrook,  co.  Sligo,  succeeded.  Her  daughter  and 
heiress,  Mary  Jane  Ormsby,  married,  in  18 15,  William  Gore,  of  Woodford,  co. 
Leitrim,  who  was  M.P.  for  N.  Shropshire  1835-57.  His  son,  Ralph,  M.P.  for 
N.  Shropshire  1858-76,  was  raised  to  the  peerage  as  Baron  Harlech. 

"  The  family  mansion,  it  appears,  from  having  been  erected  at  three  different 
periods,  formerly  presented  curious  specimens  of  each ;  this  diversity,  however,  was 
entirely  removed  by  the  heiress  of  Owen  Ormsby,  who  caused  its  beautiful  uniformity, 
and  had  the  strudure  ereded  upon  the  chaste  and  pure  Grecian  style."  [Calvert's 
**  Piduresque  Views  of  Shropshire,  1831."] 

The  sketch  hardly  does  justice  to  the  house,  because  the  fine  cedar  entirely  hides 
the  handsome  Georgian  portico.  Large  additions  were  made  about  1870.  The 
grounds  and  shrubberies  are  extensive,  and  command  distant  views  of  the  plain  of 
Shropshire  and  the  hills  of  Wales.  There  is  much  ornamental  timber  in  the  park. 
Among  the  portraits  is  one  of  Sir  John  Owen,  and  one  of  Mrs.  Siddons,  by  Lawrence. 


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WHITTINGTON    CASTLE. 

COL.    F.    LLOYD. 

A  GATEWAY  and  a  detached  tower  on  the  roadside  in  the  village  of  Whittington, 
are  all  that  remain  of  the  castle,  which  lies  low  and  is  surrounded  with  water. 
In  Blakeway's  MSS.  in  the  Bodleian  is  a  description  of  the  place  as  it  was  in  1545, 
but  even  then  it  had  ceased  to  be  the  residence  of  its  owners.  From  that  account 
there  appears  to  have  been  a  gallery  running  from  the  two  gatehouse  towers,  with 
walls  of  stone  covered  with  shingle,  with  windows  opening  on  to  the  moat,  6§  ft.  x  5  ft., 
thus  uniting  the  entrance  with  the  second  tower,  at  the  back  of  which  was  the  "old  " 
hall,  45  ft.  X  28  ft.,  with  buttery  and  pantry.  Adjoining  the  old  hall  was  another 
round  tower,  and  a  "  faire  chappie,"  34  ft.  x  24  ft. ;  then  came  another  hall  of  timber, 
40  ft.  X  36  ft.,  at  the  upper  end  of  which  was  a  chamber  26  ft.  x  14  ft.,  then  a 
fourth  round  tower,  from  which  ran  a  gallery,  66  ft.  x  6  ft.,  to  the  gate  house  towers. 
The  inclosed  court  was  160  ft.  x  140  ft.  The  kitchen  of  timber  was  30  ft.  x  25  ft. 
Outside  the  inclosure  was  another  gate  house  and  two  small  stables. 

The  Norman  Earl  Roger  w^as  the  Domesday  owner.  The  rebellion  of  Robert  de 
Belesme,  his  son,  brought  it  into  the  king's  hand,  and  William  Peveril,  of  Dover,  was 
the  grantee  of  the  Crown,  his  nephew  William  was  owner  in  1 138.  Another  forfeiture 
for  rebellion  brought  it  again  into  the  king's  hands,  and  Stephen  granted  it  to  Geoffrey 
de  Vere  about  1164.  Again,  however,  the  king  resumed  possession,  and  Roger  de 
Powys  had  livery  of  the  castle  in  1171.  His  family  attached  to,  and  favoured  by 
Henry  II.,  were  the  owners  of  three  generations.  But  in  the  meantime  the  Fitzwarrens 
of-Alderbury  were  laying  claim  to  the  estate  as  feoffees  of  the  Peverels,  and  in 
1 204,  Fulk  Fitzwarren  the  third,  established  his  title,  not  without  a  heavy  fine,  for 
reinstalment.  This  Fulk  was  with  the  rebellious  barons  at  Brackley,  in  121 5,  was 
excommunicated  by  Innocent  III,,  and  in  1245  was  deputed  by  the  barons  at  Dunstable, 
to  give  notice  to  Martin,  the  Pope's  nuncio,  to  quit  the  kingdom.  He  founded 
Alberbury  Priory  about  1220.  Fulk  the  fourth,  conveyed  Alberbury  to  his  brother 
Fulk  Glas ;  and  was  drowned  at  the  battle  of  Lewes  in  1264,  Fulk  the  fifth,  joined 
in  the  famous  letter  of  the  barons  to  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  in  1301,  and  obtained  the 
privileges  of  market  and  free  warren  at  Whittington  in  1282.  Fulk  the  sixth,  obtained 
a  pardon  in  131  8  for  his  adherence  to  the  Earl  of  Lancaster.  For  all  these  details 
Eyton's  "Antiquities  of  Shropshire  "  are  the  authority. 

A  century  later,  in  1420,  Fulk  the  ninth,  or  the  eleventh,  the  last  of  the  name, 
died  without  issue.  Elizabeth,  his  sister,  married  Richard  Haukford.  Thomasine, 
their  daughter  and  heiress,  married  Sir  William  Bouchier,  his  descendant,  John,  Earl 
of  Bath,  exchanged  the  manor  with  Henry  VIII.  Edward  VI.  granted  it  to  Henry 
Grey,  Duke  of  Suffolk,  Queen  Mary  granted  it  to  Henry  Fitalan,  Earl  of  Arundel, 
who  sold  it  to  William  Albany,  merchant  tailor  of  London,  whose  son,  Francis,  was 
Sheriff  in  1595,  and  whose  great  granddaughter  carried  it  to  her  husband,  Thomas 
Lloyd,  of  Aston,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  in  his  descendants  the  estate  remains. 

The*'Gestes  Fitzwarin,"  in  Norman  French,  of  the  fourteenth  century,  translated 
and  edited  by  Mr.  Wright,  is  a  mediaeval  romance  which  describes,  in  unauthentic 
fashion,  the  doings  of  the  Fitzwarrens. 

22 


c 

c 

?     ^ 


Xl 


LLANFORDA. 

SIR   WATKIN   WILLIAMS   WYNN,   BART. 

EARLY  in  the  sixteenth  century  branches  of  the  family  of  Lloyd  lived  at 
Llanfordaand  Llwynymaen,  and  a  third  branch  afterwards  settled  at  Trenewydd. 
They  are  now  all  extindt.  Edward  Lloyd,  of  Llanforda,  a  captain  in  the  King's  army, 
sold  his  estate  in  1675  to  his  "cosen,"  William  Williams,  whom  he  describes  in  a 
curious  volume  of  MSS.  letters,  now  at  Sweeney  Hall,  as  "the  Leviathan  of  our  lawes 
and  lands."  He  left  an  illegitimate  son,  Edward,  a  most  distinguished  antiquary  and 
philologist.  It  is  remarkable  that  another  Edward  Lloyd,  of  Trenewydd,  who  died  in 
17 1  5,  should  have  followed  the  same  pursuits,  and  colle6led  MSS.  for  the  history  of 
Shropshire. 

William  Williams,  who  thus  became  owner  of  Llanforda,  was  born  in  1634. 
His  father  was  Revd.  Hugh  Williams,  D.D.,  a  younger  son  of  William  Williams,  of 
Chawaen  Isar,  Anglesey,  and  his  mother  was  Emma,  daughter  and  heiress  of  John 
Dolben,  and  niece  of  Bishop  Dolben.  He  married  in  1664  Margaret,  daughter  and 
heiress  of  Watkin  Kyffin,  of  Glascoed.  In  1667  he  was  recorder  of  Chester  ;  in  1675 
M.P.  for  Chester;  in  1679  and  1680  he  was  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons.  At 
first  he  adhered  to  the  country  party  and  opposed  to  the  court  party,  and  was  fined 
j^iOjOOO  for  fixing  his  name  as  Speaker  to  a  resolution  of  the  House,  a  judgment 
which  was  afterwards  declared  illegal.  After  the  accession  of  James  II.  he  seems 
to  have  changed  sides,  for  in  1687  ^^  ^^^  Solicitor-General,  and  in  that  capacity 
prosecuted  the  seven  bishops,  and  in  1688  he  was  created  a  baronet.  He  was  M.P.  for 
Beaumaris  and  also  for  Carnarvon  :  he  died  very  rich  in  1 700,  and  is  buried  at  Llansilin, 
where  his  epitaph  is  to  be  seen. 

His  son.  Sir  William,  was  Sheriff  of  Shropshire  in  1704;  and  his  son,  the  first  Sir 
Watkin  Williams  Wynn,  acquired  through  his  wife  the  great  Vaughan  estates  of 
Llwydiarth  and  Llangedwyn,  and  through  his  mother,  the  daughter  of  Edward 
Thelwall,  of  Plas-y-ward,  the  estates  of  Wynnstay. 

In  1780  his  son,  the  second  Sir  Watkin,  commenced  building  a  very  large  house 
at  Llanforda,  which  was  burnt  down  before  it  was  completed.  He  was  M.P.  for 
Shropshire  in  1770. 

In  18 13  the  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  Henry  W.  W.  Wynn,  K.C.B.,  a  younger  brother 
of  the  3rd  Sir  Watkin,  who  was  for  twenty-six  years  minister  at  Copenhagen, 
reconstructed  the  house  as  it  now  appears,  and  lived  there  when  not  engaged  in 
diplomatic  duties. 

The  situation  commands  very  extensive  views  of  the  plain  of  Shropshire,  and  there 
is  plenty  of  timber.  The  stables,  which  are  all  that  escaped  the  fire  of  1780,  are  an 
example  of  excellent  brickwork.     Nothing  is  left  of  the  habitation  of  the  Lloyds. 


23  N 


> 


o 

<   ^ 


ASTON    HALL. 

COL.    F.    LLOYD. 

THE  family  of  Lloyd,  of  old  Welsh  descent,  first  appears  in  Shropshire  towards  the 
close  of  the  Elizabethan  period.  In  the  visitation  of  Shropshire  (1623)  Thomas 
Lloyd,  4th  son  of  Robert  Lloyd,  is  notified  as  of  Owston  (Aston),  and  the  chapel 
here  was  built,  in  1594,  by  Richard  Lloyd.  Col.  Andrew  Lloyd,  of  Aston,  took  a 
prominent  part  on  the  Parliamentary  side  in  the  civil  wars.  In  1640  he  was  an 
unsuccessful  candidate  for  the  representation  of  the  county,  and  petitioned  against  the 
return  of  Humphrey  Edwards.  In  1644,  as  one  of  the  Parliamentary  Committee  for 
the  county,  he  was  a  signatory  to  the  order  for  the  capture  of  Shrewsbury.  In  1656 
he  was  M.P.  His  son  Thomas  married  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  Francis  Albany, 
of  Whittington  Castle.  In  1705  and  again  in  17  10  Robert,  his  grandson,  was  M.P. 
for  the  county,  and  his  great  grandson,  another  Robert,  represented  the  county  in  the 
Parliament  of  1721,  both  in  the  Tory  interest.  By  the  second  Robert,  the  famous 
Dr.  Sacheverel  was  presented  to  the  recflory  of  Selattyn  in  17 13.  On  his  death  without 
issue  in  1734  the  estates  became  vested  in  Elizabeth,  granddaughter  of  Col.  Andrew 
Lloyd,  who  married  Fulke  Lloyd,  of  Foxhall,  co.  Denbigh.  From  1754  to  1803  the 
owners  of  Aston  were  clergymen.  The  Revd.  John  Robert  Lloyd  was  Re6lor  of 
Whittington  and  Selattyn,  as  well  as  owner  of  family  estates.  He  was  Mayor  of 
Oswestry  in  1795.  He  received  the  gold  medal  of  the  Society  for  the  Encouragement 
of  Arts,  for  planting  60,000  oak  trees.  He  kept  a  pack  of  harriers,  and  he  built  the 
present  house  in  1800.  His  son  William  was  Sheriff  in  18 10,  contested  the  county 
in  the  Whig  interest  in  1831  unsuccessfully.  He  also  kept  a  pack  of  harriers.  He 
married  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  Admiral  Sir  Eliab  Harvey,  G.C.B.,  of  Rolls 
Court,  Essex,  His  son,  Richard  T.  Lloyd,  was  Sheriff  in  1874,  and  Colonel  of  the 
Shropshire  Yeomanry. 

There  is  here  a  good  succession  of  family  portraits,  among  them  Humphrey 
Lwyd,  the  celebrated  antiquary,  M.P.  for  Denbigh;  Sir  Nathaniel  Lloyd,  Master  of 
Trinity  Hall,  died  1704;  Robert  Lloyd,  M.P.,  died  1709;  Robert  Lloyd,  his  son, 
M.P.,  died  1734;  Hervey,  the  discoverer  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood;  Lady 
Louisa  Hervey,  by  Lawrence,  and  many  others  unnamed.  There  are  also  some  good 
cabinet  pictures,  including  a  Claude. 

The  extensive  demesne  is  covered  with  large  timber,  and  the  piece  of  water  in 
front  of  the  house  is  a  resort  of  wild  fowl.  The  chapel,  built  in  1594^  was  rebuilt  in 
1742,  by  Thomas  Lloyd,  and  renovated,  in  1887,  by  Col.  R.  T.  Lloyd  in  memory  of 
Lady  Frances,  his  wife,  the  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Kinnoul. 


24 


^    o 


PARK    HALL. 

MRS.   WYNNE   CORRIE. 

IN  1563,  Henry  Fitzalan,  Earl  of  Arundel,  sold  to  Thomas  Powell,  of  Whittington, 
the  land  on  which  the  present  house  was  shortly  afterwards  built.  His  grandson 
or  great  grandson  was  Sheriff  in  1647,  and  adhered  to  the  Parliament  in  the  Civil 
Wars.  The  next  in  succession  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Powell,  described  as  '*  Esquire,"  who 
was  Rector  of  Whittington,  Canon  and  Chancellor  of  St.  Asaph,  Rector  of  Hodnett, 
Archdeacon  of  Salop,  and  King's  Chaplain.  His  son  Thomas,  Mayor  of  Oswestry, 
1690,  Recorder  1698,  Sheriff  17 17,  sold  Park  in  the  latter  year  to  Sir  Francis 
Charlton,  Bart.,  of  Ludford.  Sir  Francis  was  the  eldest  son  of  Sir  Job  Charlton, 
Speaker  in  1673  ;  he  was  M.P.  for  Ludlow  in  1678,  Sheriff  in  1699,  and  dying  in 
1729,  was  succeeded  at  Park  by  his  eldest  son  by  his  second  marriage,  Job,  who  died 
without  issue  in  1761,  when  the  estate  vested  in  his  sister  Emma,  who  married  for 
her  third  husband,  John  Kinchant.  The  father  of  Kinchant  was  of  French  Huguenot 
descent,  and  was  killed  at  Fontenoy  in  1745.  John  Charlton  Kinchant  was  Sheriff 
in  1775,  and  died  in  1832.  His  nephew  and  heir  was  killed  at  Waterloo,  and  the 
estate  subsequently  passed  to  a  cousin,  Richard  Henry  Kinchant,  Sheriff  1846,  after 
whose  death  it  was  sold,  about  1870,  to  the  present  owner,  Mrs.  Wynne  Corrie, 
by  the  mortgagees. 

The  "Black  and  White"  facade  is  artistically  designed.  A  small  domestic 
chapel  occupies  one  wing ;  a  long  low  hall  fills  the  centre,  in  which  is  an  oak  table  of 
a  single  plank,  4  ft.  X2i  ft.  Quaint  Latin  mottoes,  after  the  sentimental  form  of 
Tudor  decoration,  are  engraved  above  the  doors.     Such  as 

"  Quod  tibi  fieri  non  vis 
Alteri  non  feceris." 


"  Murus  aheneus 
Sana  conscientia." 

There  is  a  handsome  oak  staircase,  a  panelled  gallery,  and  some  plaster  work  of 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  on  the  ceiling  of  the  drawing  room.  There  was 
formerly  here  a  gatehouse,  mentioned  by  Evelyn  in  his  '*  Forest  Trees,"  as  an  example 
of  a  beam  of  extraordinary  size,  which  supported  the  upper  storey,  and  upon  which 
was  carved  the  following  verses  : 

"  En  ego,  que  firmis  steteram  radicibus  olim 

Silvarum  dominus  fertilitate  mea, 
Idlibus  heu  crebris  cecidi  pulcherrima  quercus, 

Incumbo  saxis  pondere  pressa  domus — 
Sexaginta  pedes  fuerant  in  stipite  nostro 

Excepta  coma,  que  speciosa  fuit. 

25  O 


Non  facics  Formosa  potest  produccrc  vitam, 

Non  genus  egrcgium  cum  fcra  fata  vocant : — 
Quarc  nc  rebus  nimium  tu  fide  secundis 

Felix  quiquis  agis  :   tempore  cunfta  ruunt." 

A  raised  terrace  formerly  ran  at  right  angles  to  the  side  of  the  house,  and  on  it 
was  a  sundial,  with  the  following  verses  : 


"  Practerlt  stas 
Ncc  remorantc 
Lapsa  rccedunt 
Sascula  cursu 


Ut  fugit  astas 
Utquc  citatus 
Turbinis  instar 
Volvitur  annus 


Sic  quoque  nostra 
Precipitanter 
Vita  reccdit 
Ocyor  undis." 


Great  additions  have  been  made  of  late  to  the  garden  side  of  the  house,  but  the 
entrance  front  has  not  been  altered. 


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HALSTON. 

MISS   WRIGHT. 

ALSTON,  originally  a  foundation  of  the  Knights  Templars,  suppressed  by 
Henry  VIII.,  was  sold  to  Alan  Horde,  who  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  sold  it 
again  to  Edward  Mytton. 

The  Myttons  are  said  to  have  come  from  Wiltshire,  according  to  the  Visitation 
of  1623,  but  Blakeway  suggests  that  they  may  have  come  from  Mitton  in  the  parish 
of  Fitz.  However  that  may  be,  Reginald  Mytton  was  settled  in  Shrewsbury  in  141 3, 
and  was  able  to  lend  a  considerable  sum  of  money  to  Richard  II,  The  fortunes  of 
the  family  were  rapidly  increased  by  marrying  heiresses  in  three  successive  generations. 
Reginald  married  Anne,  daughter  and  heiress  of  Sir  Hamo  Vaughan,  and  assumed  his 
coat  of  arms,  the  "  Spread  Eagle."  Thomas,  his  son,  married  Cicely,  daughter  and 
heiress  of  William  Burley,  who  represented  the  Shrewsbury  families  of  Pride  and  Tour. 
Thomas,  his  son,  married  Elinor,  one  of  the  daughters  and  coheiresses  of  the  wealthy 
Sir  John  Burgh  of  Wattlesborough,  and  obtained  through  her  Habburley,  and  the 
lordship  of  Dinas-mawddwy.  He  was  Sheriff  in  1483,  and  arrested  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham,  who  was  executed  by  Richard  III.  In  1472  he  was  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury, 
and  was  ten  times  BaihfF.  In  149 1  — 1504,  William  Mytton  was  M.P.  for  the 
borough.  Richard  Mytton  was  M.P.  for  Shropshire  in  1553,  and  was  Sheriff  in 
1544.  He  died  in  1591.  "Gentle  Maister  Mytton,  an  alderman  of  Salop,  6  times 
bailiff  of  the  towne,  was  solemnly  buried,  being  about  100  years  old."  [Taylor  MSS.] 
His  widow,  a  devout  woman,  died  in  1602,  aged  90.  Sir  Adam  Mytton,  an  uncle 
of  the  last-named  Richard,  was  Sheriff  of  Shropshire,  1554,  was  seven  times  Bailiff, 
and  four  times  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury,  and  was  a  member  of  the  Court  of  the  Marches. 
It  was  Edward  Mytton,  son  of  "Gentle  Maister  Mytton,"  who  bought  Halston;  his 
grandson,  Richard,  was  Sheriff  in  1610;  and  to  him  succeeded  the  famous  Parlia- 
mentary officer,  Thomas  Mytton,  Major-General  in  North  Wales,  Sheriff  1645,  M.P. 
for  Shropshire,  1654,  Richard,  his  son,  was  Sheriff  in  1686,  and  M.P.  for  Shrews- 
bury in  1690.  Another  Richard  was  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury,  1698- 1708.  William 
Mytton,  the  antiquary,  was  a  younger  son  of  this  house,  and  was  buried  at  Habburley 
in  1 74 1.  John  Mytton,  of  sporting  celebrity,  whose  extravagancies  are  recorded  by 
"Nimrod,"  was  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury  in  1820,  Sheriff  in  1823,  contested  the  county 
in  the  Whig  interest  in  1831,  unsuccessfully,  and  died  a  prisoner  for  debt  in  the 
King's  Bench  in  1834,  under  the  age  of  forty.  His  son,  John  Fox  Mytton,  equally 
extravagant  as  his  father,  sold  the  estate  in  1847  ^^  ^^-  Edmund  Wright  of 
Mauldeth  Hall,  county  Lancaster,  whose  son,  Edmund,  was  Sheriff  in  1858. 

The  older  house  stood  near  the  "  Black  and  White  "  Chapel  in  the  meadows 
beyond  the  sheet  of  water  through  which  flows  the  Perry.  The  present  house  was 
built  in  1690  ;  the  circular  arcade  was  arranged  about  1850  in  the  place  of  the  offices, 
which  flanked  the  main  building  on  either  side.  There  is  here  a  heronry.  The  timber 
is  large,  especially  the  beech  trees.  Among  the  cabinet  piAures  are  some  from  the 
colledion  of  King  Louis  Phillipe. 

26 


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HARDWICKE. 

REV.  W.    C.    E.    KYNASTON. 

THE  Kynastons  came  of  Welsh  descent,  but  were  settled  in  Shropshire  in  13 13, 
and  were  first  designated  as  of  Stocks  in  the  parish  of  EUesmere.  Since  that 
time  branches  of  the  family  have  spread  themselves  over  the  western  and  northern 
parts  of  the  county,  at  Hordley,  Oteley,  Pontesbury,  Walford,  Morton,  Melverley, 
Ruyton,  Shotton,  Haughmond,  and  other  places,  which  accrued  to  them  through 
heiresses,  and  in  many  cases  passed  away  in  like  manner. 

Madoc  Kynaston  was  killed  at  Battlefield,  fighting  on  the  side  of  the  Percys,  in 
1403.  Roger  Kynaston  slew  the  Lancastrian  general.  Lord  Audley,  at  Bloreheath  in 
1458,  and  received  an  augmentation  to  his  coat  of  arms.  He  was  sheriff  in  1462, 
Constable  of  Harlech  Castle,  and  life  sheriff  of  Merioneth.  Sir  Thomas  Kynaston  of 
Hordley  was  Sheriff  in  1508.  In  the  reign  of  Henry  VIIL  flourished  Humphrey 
Kynaston,  called  '^  The  Wild,"  a  sort  of  highwayman  who  escaped  hanging.  He  first 
lived  at  Middle  Castle,  of  which  he  was  Constable,  and  afterwards  took  refuge  in 
"  Kynaston's  Cave,"  on  Nesscliff  Hill,  where  he  died.  In  1599,  Edward  Kynaston, 
of  Oteley,  was  Sheriff  of  Shropshire,  and  in  1623,  of  Montgomeryshire.  Two  Roger 
Kynastons  were  Sheriffs  of  Shropshire  in  succession  in  1603  and  1640,  and  the  latter 
was  fined  ^^921  by  the  parliamentary  sequestrators.  In  1682,  Edward,  and  in  1690, 
John  Kynaston,  were  Sheriffs. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  up  to  the  early  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth, this  family  was  most  intimately  associated  with  the  political  representation  of 
the  county.  In  the  earlier  parliaments  two  only  had  sat,  Francis,  in  1554,  and  Sir 
Francis  in  1620.  But  from  1678  to  1822,  a  period  of  144  years,  members  of  the 
family  were  in  the  House  of  Commons — viz.,  seventy-four  years  for  Shropshire,  forty- 
four  years  for  Shrewsbury,  and  twenty-seven  years  Montgomeryshire. 

Edward  Kynaston,  of  Hordley,  who  was  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury  in  1678,  and 
afterwards  for  the  county,  married  Amy,  daughter  and  heiress  of  Thomas  Barker,  of 
Haughmond  Abbey ;  his  son  John  further  augmented  his  estates  by  marrying  the 
daughter  and  heiress  of  Sir  Vincent  Corbet,  Bart.,  of  Moreton  Corbet.  The  son  of 
this  marriage,  Corbet  Kynaston,  M.P.,  was  crippled  by  speculation  in  the  *' South  Sea 
Bubble,"  and  sold  Moreton  to  his  cousin,  Mr.  Corbet,  of  Shawbury  Park,  and  left 
Haughmond  to  his  kinsman,  Mr.  Corbet,  of  Leigh.  His  half  brother,  Edward,  how- 
ever, succeeded  to  the  older  Kynaston  estates  of  Hordley  and  Hardwich,  and  was 
M.P.  for  Montgomeryshire  1747-74.  He  married  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  Sir 
Charles  Lloyd,  Bart.,  of  Garth ;  and  his  son  married  the  sister  and  heiress  of  John 
Powell,  of  Worthen,  represented  Shropshire  from  1784  to  1822,  and  was  created  a 
baronet. 

27  P 


In  1 73 1,  and  again  in  1800,  the  Kynastons  unsuccessfully  preferred  a  claim  to 
the  dormant  barony  of  Grey  de  Powis. 

The  baronetcy  became  extind  on  the  death,  in  i  866,  of  Sir  John  Roger  Kynaston, 
the  nephew  of  the  first  baronet,  and  the  estate  passed,  on  the  death  of  Mrs.  Sutton,  his 
sister,  in  the  following  year,  to  his  maternal  kinsman  Rev.  W.  C.  E.  Owen,  who  took 
the  name  of  Kynaston. 

The  house  was  built  in  1733  by  John  Kynaston,  on  a  new  site,  in  the  usual  style 
of  the  period,  the  offices  flanking  the  main  building.  The  older  residence  of  Hordley, 
about  three  miles  distant,  is  now  occupied  by  two  modern  farm  houses. 

There  are  here  two  portraits  by  Allan  Ramsay,  and  two  by  Sir  Joshua.  There 
is  some  good  ornamental  timber,  especially  beech  trees  and  larch,  and  there  are  some 
specimen  conifers  in  the  shrubbery. 


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OTELEY. 

C.    FRANCIS   KYNASTON    MAINWARING,   ESQ. 

OTELEY  was  once  the  residence  of  a  family  of  the  same  name,  of  whom  the 
Ottleys,  of  Pitchford,  were  a  branch.  Elizabeth,  daughter  and  heiress  of 
William  Oteley,  married  Humphrey  Kynaston,  of  Stocks,  in  the  parish  of  Ellesmere, 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  Sir  Edward  Kynaston,  of  Oteley,  was  Sheriff  in  1599, 
and  his  son,  a  distinguished  scholar,  Sir  Francis,  was  esquire  of  the  body  to  Charles  I. 
On  the  death,  in  178  i,  of  Edward  Kynaston,  the  estate  passed  to  his  sister  Mary,  the 
wife  of  James  Mainwaring,  of  Bromborough,  co.  Chester,  one  of  the  barons  of  the 
exchequer.  His  grandson,  Rev.  Charles  Mainwaring,  eventually  succeeded,  and  died 
in  1807,  whose  son,  Charles  Kynaston  Mainwaring,  was  Sheriff  in  1829,  ^^^  ^^^  so^"'> 
Salusbury  Kynaston  Mainwaring,  in  1870. 

The  Mainwarings  are  a  branch  of  the  families  of  Peover  and  Ightfield,  both 
extind  in  the  male  line,  and  of  the  family  of  Whitmore,  which  claims  to  be  the  senior 
branch. 

The  Park  at  Oteley,  which  is  one  of  the  old  parks  of  Shropshire,  was  the  scene 
of  the  execution  of  some  prisoners  by  Prince  Rupert,  in  retaliation  for  the  execution 
of  Irish  Roman  Catholic  prisoners  by  the  parliamentary  party.  The  vidlims  were 
seleded  by  lot,  and  after  this  reprisal  no  more  Irishmen  were  executed  by  the  parlia- 
ment. 

An  older  house  stood  somewhat  nearer  the  mere,  and  was  pulled  down  about 
1840  by  Charles  Kynaston  Mainwaring  when  he  built  the  present  mansion  in  the 
Tudor  Gothic  style,  and  laid  out  the  gardens  and  terraces. 


28 


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SHAVINGTON. 

HENRY   H.    HEYWOOD-LONSDALE,   ESQ. 

THE  first  recorded  owner  of  this  estate  was  Dodo,  who  was  succeeded  by  the 
Domesday  Nigellus.  In  the  thirteenth  century  a  family  called  after  the  place 
resided  here.  In  1461  John  Needham  purchased  Shavington  :  he  was  Common 
Serjeant  of  London,  M.P.  for  the  City  1450,  and  afterwards  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Palatinate  of  Lancaster  and  of  Chester.  About  1506,  Sir  Robert  Needham,  Sheriff  of 
Shropshire  1529,  built  the  house.  His  son.  Sir  Robert,  Sheriff  1556,  was  Vice- 
President  of  the  Court  of  the  Marches.  His  son,  also  Sir  Robert,  was  M.P.  for 
Shropshire  1592- 1603,  and  was  created  Viscount  Kilmorey  in  the  peerage  of  Ireland 
in  1625,  for  services  rendered  in  that  country.  During  the  seventeenth  century  the 
annals  of  Shavington  are  a  record  of  an  hereditary  feud  between  the  Needhams  and  the 
Corbets  of  Adderley.  Reginald  Corbet,  a  judge  of  the  Queen's  Bench  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  became  the  owner  of  Adderley  through  his  wife,  the  daughter  and  heiress 
of  John  Gratewood.  Shavington  was  held  of  the  manor  of  Adderley.  Hence  all 
sorts  of  questions  as  to  feudal  superiorities  and  rents.  The  two  properties  adjoined, 
hence  all  sorts  of  questions  as  to  rights  of  way.  The  Church  of  Adderley,  of  which 
the  Corbets  were  patrons,  was  the  parish  church  of  Shavington,  hence  quarrels  as  to 
seats.  The  disputants  often  appealed  to  the  courts  of  law,  and  as  often  took  the  law 
into  their  own  hands.  The  quarrel  culminated  in  the  time  of  the  first  viscount.  Sir 
John  Corbet  had  given  great  offence  by  saying  "  that  an  English  baronet  was  as  good 
as  an  Irish  viscount;"  and  occupying,  together  with  the  re<5lor,  the  whole  of  the 
chancel  of  the  church,  objeded  to  Lord  Kilmorey  building  a  chapel  for  his  own  use, 
preferring  that  he  should  sit  with  the  rest  of  the  congregation  in  the  nave.  At  length 
the  Lady  Kilmorey  died,  and  was  buried  in  the  chancel.  Not  long  after  died  Darby 
Maghkillary,  an  Irish  footboy  of  the  Corbets,  and  he  was  buried,  by  order  of  Sir  John 
Corbet,  without  a  coffin,  in  a  shroud,  on  the  top  of  Lady  Kilmorey.  An  appeal  was 
made  to  the  Court  of  the  Earl  Marshall,  of  which  the  Earl  of  Arundel  was  the 
hereditary  president,  and  Corbet  was  required  to  dig  up  the  body  of  his  servant  and 
bury  him  elsewhere.  In  1637  Archbishop  Laud  sandlioned  the  addition  of  a  Kilmorey 
chapel  to  Adderley  Church,  and  in  1641  Lady  Corbet  sent  "four  serving  men  of 
meane  condition  to  occupy  the  seats  in  the  chapel ;  and  there  was  a  fight  and  blood- 
shed in  the  church."  The  Civil  War  closed  for  a  time  the  prosecution  of  these  disputes. 
Lord  Kilmorey  took  the  side  of  the  King,  Sir  John  Corbet  of  the  Parliament.  Capt. 
John  Needham  was  killed  at  the  taking  of  Shrewsbury,  and  the  sequestrators  put  a 
fine  of  ^^3,560  on  Lord  Kilmorey 's  estate.  After  the  restoration  a  minority  occurred, 
and  the  fortunes  of  the  family  were  repaired,  so  that  in  1679  Thomas,  6th  Viscount 
Kilmorey,  reconstruded  the  house  on  a  magnificent  scale.  Robert,  the  nth  Viscount, 
succeeded  his  relative  William  in  the  great  Irish  estates  of  Newry  and  Morrie  towards 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century;  and  his  son  Francis  was  made,  in  1822,  Earl  of 

29  Q 


Kilmorey  and  Viscount  Newry.  The  2nd  earl,  a  singular  charader,  left  Shavington 
in  1839  and  never  revisited  the  place,  and  dying  in  1880,  was  succeeded  by  his  grand- 
son Viscount  Newry,  Colonel  of  the  Shropshire  Yeomanry,  who  sold  the  estate  to 
Arthur  Pemberton  Hey  wood  Lonsdale,  in  1885. 

The  Tudor  house  was  built  in  two  courtyards,  some  panelling  of  the  "linen  pattern" 
is  all  that  remains  of  it.  The  house  of  1679  was  in  the  E  shape.  The  entrance  was 
towards  the  park,  and  a  great  hall  occupied  the  space  between  the  wings  up  to  the 
roof,  and  a  gallery  with  pillars  and  arches  ran  along  the  whole  length.  This  remark- 
able interior  was  re-arranged  in  1822,  when  bedrooms  were  constructed  over  the  hall, 
access  to  which  was  obtained  through  the  gallery,  and  the  entrance  was  removed  to  the 
opposite  side,  the  original  hall  being  converted  into  the  dining  room.  A  further 
diminution  of  the  dining  room  was  made  by  Mr.  Lonsdale  in  1885. 

The  house  is  of  red  brick  with  stone  coigns,  the  scale  of  the  building  and  the 
extent  of  the  park,  which  is  seven  miles  round,  give  a  certain  sombre  dignity  to  the 
place. 

There  are  here  a  number  of  ancient  deeds  in  good  preservation.  Mr.  Arthur  P. 
Heywood  Lonsdale  was  Sheriff  of  Shropshire,  and  for  some  years  was  master  of  the 
Shropshire  hounds. 

He  greatly  improved  the  house  and  the  grounds,  and  added  largely  to  the 
estate. 


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BUNTINGSDALE. 

JOHN   TAYLEUR,   ESQ. 

AS  early  as  the  thirteenth  century  a  family  of  the  name  of  Taylor  was  associated 
with  Rodington,  In  1516  William  Tayleur  of  Longden  upon  Terne  is 
mentioned.  His  great  great  grandson  William,  of  Rodington,  was  Sheriff  in  1 69 1.  His 
son  William,  Sheriff  in  1733,  purchased  Buntingsdale  from  the  family  of  Mack  worth. 
Another  William,  Sheriff  in  1744,  took  an  adlive  part  with  his  brother-in-law.  Sir 
Rowland  Hill,  in  establishing  the  Salop  Infirmary.  In  1797,  William  Tayleur,  of 
Buntingsdale,  was  Sheriff,  as  was  his  grandson  in  1827.  William  Tayleur,  the  son  of 
the  last  mentioned,  was  M.P.  for  Bridgewater  in  1833,  and  dying  unmarried  in  1873, 
was  succeeded  by  his  nephew,  John  Tayleur. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  Buntingsdale  belonged  to  one  of  the  branches  of  the  Hill 
family,  and  passed  by  the  marriage  of  Beatrix,  daughter  and  heiress  of  William  Hill, 
to  William  Bulkeley,  of  Wore,  before  1600.  It  again  passed,  by  the  marriage  of  the 
daughter  and  heiress  of  William  Bulkeley  with  Thomas  Mackworth,  Sheriff  in  1669, 
into  the  family  of  Mackworth,  of  Betton  Strange.  After  the  death,  in  1730,  of 
Bulkeley-Mackworth,  Sheriff  in  17 14,  the  estate  was  sold  by  Sir  Humphrey  Mack- 
worth or  his  nephew.  Sir  Herbert,  to  William  Tayleur,  whose  mother  was  a  daughter 
of  Thomas  Mackworth  by  his  second  marriage  with  a  daughter  of  Gen.  Mytton,  the 
Parliamentary  leader  in  these  parts. 

The  house  was  rebuilt  by  the  Mackworths  about  1730.  "Smyth  of  Warwick  " 
was  the  architedt.  The  initials  H.I.M.  on  a  piece  of  carving  are  probably  those  of 
Herbert  and  Juliana  Mackworth.  The  date  stone,  somewhat  obliterated,  appears  to 
be  173  I.  It  is  a  good  example  of  the  Queen  Anne  style.  A  large  addition  was  made 
in  i860  by  William  Tayleur  from  designs  of  Pountney  Smith  of  Shrewsbury. 

The  windings  of  the  Tern  through  a  wooded  glade,  with  the  ridge  of  Hawke- 
stone  in  the  distance,  are  seen  to  great  advantage  from  the  terraced  garden. 


30 


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WOODCOTE. 

COL.   JAMES   COTES. 

THE  family  of  Cotes  are  of  old  descent  in  Staffordshire,  and  take  their  name  from 
the  hamlet  of  Cotes,  which  is  still  in  their  possession.  Humphrey  Cotes  is 
mentioned  as  of  Woodcote,  in  Shropshire,  about  1450.  His  son,  John,  was  Sheriff 
of  Staffordshire,  2S  Henry  VI.  ;  and  his  grandson,  Humphrey,  was  killed  at  Bosworth 
field.  In  15 13,  John  Cotes,  of  Woodcote,  was  a  captain  in  the  army  which  went  into 
France,  and  his  great-grandson  was  Sheriff  of  Shropshire  in  1614.  Fifth  in  descent 
from  him  was  John  Cotes,  an  eminent  agriculturist,  who  was  M.P.  for  Wigan  from 
1784  to  1806,  and  for  Shropshire  from  1806  to  1821.  His  son,  John,  who  repre- 
sented north  Shropshire  in  the  Whig  interest  in  183 2- 1834,  married  Lady  Louisa 
Jenkinson,  a  daughter  and  co-heir  of  the  third  Earl  of  Liverpool,  through  whom  the 
Pitchford  property  came  into  the  family.  His  son,  Charles  Cecil  Cotes,  was  M.P. 
for  Shrewsbury,  i  879-1 885,  and  was  a  junior  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  On  his  death, 
unmarried,  in  1898,  he  was  succeeded  by  his  brother.  Col.  James  Cotes,  of  Pitchford. 

A  Georgian  house  with  a  portico,  which  stood  on  the  site  of  an  older  Tudor 
house,  was  burnt  down  in  1875,  when  the  present  mansion  was  built  from  designs  by 
Cockerell. 

There  is  a  fine  bit  of  woodland  scenery,  rich  with  rhododendrons,  not  far  from 
the  house. 


31 


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WESTON. 

EARL   OF   BRADFORD. 

WESTON  gave  its  name  to  the  De  Westons,  its  earliest  recorded  owners.  By 
heirship  or  purchase,  the  Peshales  succeeded  them,  of  whom  one  was  Sheriff 
of  Shropshire  and  Staffordshire  in  1333,  and  another  in  1379.  ^Y  Margaret,  daughter 
and  heiress  of  Sir  Adam  de  Peshale,  M.P.  for  Shropshire  in  1403,  the  estate  was 
carried  to  her  husband,  Sir  Richard  Mytton,  of  Shrewsbury,  about  1410.  William 
Mytton  was  Sheriff  of  Staffordshire  in  1443,  and  M.P.  for  the  same  county  in  1446. 
His  son,  John,  was  Sheriff  in  1495,  and  his  grandson  in  1507.  Joyce,  daughter 
and  heiress  of  John  Mytton,  married  John  Harpesfield^  and  their  son  assumed  the 
name  of  Mytton  about  1 540.  Elizabeth,  daughter  and  heiress  of  Edward  Mytton  [of 
the  Elarpesfield  family],  married,  in  165 1,  Sir  Thomas  Wilbraham,  of  Woodhey,  co. 
Chester,  and  his  daughter  and  co-heir  married  Richard  Newport,  second  Earl  of  Brad- 
ford, in  168  I.  Lady  Anne  Newport,  eventual  heir  to  her  brother  Thomas,  fourth 
Earl  of  Bradford,  married  Sir  Orlando  Bridgeman,  whose  son.  Sir  Henry  Bridgeman, 
succeeded  his  maternal  uncle  at  Weston  in  1762. 

The  family  of  Bridgeman  became  conne6led  with  Shropshire  in  the  seventeenth 
century  by  marriage  with  the  heiress  of  Kynaston,  of  Moreton.  Since  that  time,  by 
purchase,  and  by  marriage  with  the  heiresses  of  Blodwel  and  of  Weston,  they  have 
largely  increased  their  estates  in  this  county.  The  family  originally  came  from  Devon- 
shire. Edward  Bridgeman  was  Sheriff  of  that  county  in  1578.  His  grandson  was 
Bishop  of  Chester,  and  acquired  the  estate  of  Great  Lever,  in  Cheshire.  He  was 
removed  from  his  see  by  the  Parliament,  and  dying  at  his  son's  house  of  Moreton, 
was  buried  in  Kinnerley  Church  in  1652.  The  younger  son  of  the  bishop  was  Bishop 
of  Sodor  and  Man,  the  elder,  Orlando,  succeeded  Clarendon  as  Lord  Keeper  of  the 
Great  Seal  in  Charles  II. 's  reign.  He  is  said  to  have  refused  a  peerage,  and  accepted 
only  a  baronetcy  for  himself,  but  he  procured  a  second  baronetcy  for  his  son  by  his 
second  wife,  which  is  now  extindl.  His  eldest  son  purchased  Castle  Bromwich  in 
1657,  and  was  included  in  the  list  of  Warwickshire  "  Knights  of  the  Oak."  He 
married  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  George  Cradoch,  of  Cavershall  Castle.  The  third 
baronet  added  still  further  to  his  Shropshire  estates  by  marrying  Ursula,  daughter  and 
heiress  of  Roger  Mathews,  of  Blodwell  Hall,  in  1694.  His  son,  Sir  Orlando,  M.P. 
for  Shrewsbury,  1 721- 1727,  married  Lady  Anne  Newport,  the  eventual  heiress  of 
Weston.  Sir  Henry,  the  fifth  baronet,  M.P.  for  Ludlow  and  Wenlock,  1748  to 
1794,  was  raised  to  the  peerage  as  Baron  Bradford  in  1794.  He  married  Elizabeth, 
daughter  and  heiress  of  Rev.  John  Simpson,  of  Stoke.  His  son,  who  had  been 
M.P.  for  Wigan,  1 784-1 800,  was  raised  to  the  rank  of  Earl  and  Viscount  in  18 15. 
The  third  Earl  of  Bradford  of  the  new  creation  was  M.P.  for  South  Shropshire, 
1 842-1 865,  and  filled  the  office  of  Lord  Chamberlain  and  Master  of  the  Horse;  he 

32 


was  also  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Shropshire.  In  1898  he  was  succeeded  by  the  present 
earl,  who  was  M.P.  for  North  Shropshire  1867- 188 5. 

Weston  House  is  in  Staffordshire,  though  a  portion  of  the  park  is  in  Shropshire. 
Its  earlier  owners  were  associated  with  the  former  county,  its  more  recent  owners,  the 
Newports  and  the  Bridgemans,  with  the  latter. 

Although  the  mansion  itself  represents  no  particular  style  of  architefture,  yet  its 
scale,  with  the  church  and  surrounding  outbuildings,  give  it  a  certain  dignity  of 
appearance  which  is  greatly  enhanced  by  the  beauty  of  the  park,  the  timber,  the  water, 
and  the  gardens. 

There  are  here  some  good  pidtures,  a  number  of  family  portraits,  a  library,  some 
historical  manuscripts,  and  some  fine  tapestry. 

The  Wilbrahams  built  a  new  house  in  1671,  but  since  that  time  many  recon- 
strudions  have  taken  place. 


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PEPPER    HILL. 

EARL   OF   DARTMOUTH. 

THE  famous  house  of  Talbot  have  no  longer  any  proprietary  interest  in  Shrop- 
shire. But  the  title  of  the  great  Earl,  the  monument  to  him  at  Whitchurch, 
and  this  remnant  of  a  residence  at  Pepper  Hill,  with  its  quaint  canopied  fountain,  are 
links  which  conned  the  name  with  the  county. 

Leland,  writing  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.,  says  in  his  ''Itinerary"  :  "  Sir  John 
Talbot  his  house  standeth  in  the  Parke  called  Pepper  hill," — "  Sir  John  Talbot,  that 
married  Troutbek's  heire,  dwelleth  in  a  goodly  logge  on  by  the  hy  toppe  of  Albrighton 
Parke.     It  is  on  the  very  egge  [edge]  of  Shropshire,  three  miles  from  Tunge." 

It  would  be  impossible  even  to  catalogue  the  great  preferments  in  the  Church 
and  the  State  which  have  been  held  by  the  Talbots.  The  early  pedigrees  are  confused, 
like  those  of  most  ancient  families,  until  the  appearance  on  the  scene  of  John  Talbot, 
created  Earl  of  Salop  in  1442.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  his  title  is  taken  from  the 
county,  and  not  from  the  county  town  in  the  patent  of  creation.  This  distinguished 
soldier  inherited  through  Ankoret,  daughter  and  heiress  of  Lord  Strange  of  Blackmere, 
his  great  grandmother,  the  Barony  and  Castle  of  Blackmere,  close  to  Whitchurch,  of 
which  not  a  stone  remains.  He  became  Baron  Furnival  in  right  of  his  wife,  Maude 
Neville,  daughter  and  co-heiress  of  Lord  Furnival  in  Yorkshire.  He  was  slain  in 
France  at  the  age  of  eighty  in  1453.  His  body  after  being  buried  "in  a  faire  tomb 
at  Roane  in  Normandie,"  was  removed  to  the  porch  of  the  parish  church  at  Whit- 
church, where  he  desired  to  be  laid,  so  that  Whitchurch  men,  who  had  fought  with 
him  in  all  his  battles,  might  walk  over  his  body.  His  son  was  slain  at  the  battle  of 
Northampton  in  1460.  On  the  death  of  the  eighth  Earl,  in  16 18,  Blackmere  passed 
away  from  the  male  line,  and  the  Earldom  reverted  to  the  Albrighton  branch.  On 
the  death,  in  17 18,  of  the  twelfth  Earl  and  first  Duke  of  Shrewsbury,  who  was  buried 
at  Albrighton,  a  younger  branch  again  succeeded.  On  the  death  of  Bertram,  seven- 
teenth Earl,  in  1856,  the  earldom  yet  again  passed  to  a  younger  branch,  which  had 
already  been  ennobled. 

The  public  offices  held  in  Shropshire  by  members  of  this  family  are  the  following. 
Christopher  Talbot,  M.P.,  1442,  Sir  Gilbert  Talbot,  Sheriff  1485,  Sir  John  Talbot, 
Sheriff  in  1528,  the  Duke  of  Shrewsbury,  Lord  Lieutenant  in  Queen  Anne's  reign. 

Pepper  Hill  has  lately  passed  by  exchange  from  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury  to  the 
Earl  of  Dartmouth,  and  the  last  territorial  association  of  the  Talbots  with  Shropshire 
has  been  extinguished. 


33 


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APLEY    PARK. 

W.    H.    FOSTER,   ESQ. 

THIS  fine  place,  the  rival  of  Hawkestone  in  the  pi<5luresque  beauty  of  the  park,  on 
one  side  of  which  rises  a  red  sandstone  ridge,  called  the  Terrace,  and  on  the 
other  flows  the  river  Severn,  was  the  seat  of  the  Whitmores  for  250  years.  Towards 
the  close  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  Sir  William  Whitmore,  a  citizen  of  London,  bought 
Apley  from  the  Lucys,  and  built  a  house  here.  A  coat  of  arms  was  granted  to  him  in 
1594,  and  in  the  Herald's  visitation  of  1623  the  family  is  derived  from  Thomas 
Whitmore,  of  Madeley,  co.  Stafford.  Sir  William  was  sheriff  in  1620,  and  M.P.  for 
Bridgnorth,  1620- 1625.  His  brother,  Sir  George,  was  Lord  Mayor  of  London  in 
1 63 1.  His  son,  Thomas,  was  created  a  baronet  in  1641,  but  the  title  expired  on  the 
death  of  the  second  baronet  in  1699. 

Apley  was  garrisoned  for  the  king  in  the  Civil  Wars,  and  its  owner  was  fined 
j^5,ooo,  by  the  sequestrators.  At  the  restoration.  Sir  Thomas  Whitmore  became  M.P. 
for  the  county.  The  Borough  of  Bridgnorth  has  always  been  regarded  as  a  **  pocket 
borough  "  under  the  influence  of  the  Apley  family.  On  the  death  of  Sir  Thomas,  the 
2nd  baronet,  the  estate  devolved  on  his  kinsman,  William  Whitmore,  of  Lower 
Slaughton,  co.  Gloucester,  and  from  him  passed  to  Sir  Thomas  Whitmore,  K.B.,  who 
dying  in  1773,  was  succeeded  by  his  nephew  and  son-in-law  Thomas,  who  was  drowned 
in  a  well  in  the  garden  at  Apley  in  1795.  His  son,  another  Thomas,  succeeded,  was 
Sheriff  in  1805,  M.P.  for  Bridgnorth,  and  the  builder  of  the  present  mansion,  in  the 
castellated  style  of  modern  Gothic.  His  son,  Charlton  Whitmore,  removed  to  a 
smaller  house  at  Stockton,  and  his  grandson,  Douglas  Whitmore,  eventually  sold  the 
whole  estate,  in  1867,  to  Mr.  W.  Orme  Foster,  M.P.  for  South  Staffordshire. 
Mr.  Henry  Whitmore,  for  some  time  a  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  retired  from  the  repre- 
sentation of  Bridgnorth  in  1869,  and  Mr.  W.  H.  Foster,  the  present  owner  of  Apley, 
sat  in  his  place  till  the  Borough  was  disfranchised  in  1885. 

Mr.  W.  Orme  Foster,  the  purchaser  of  Apley,  became  in  1853  the  head  of  the 
great  firm  of  Stourbridge  ironmasters  known  under  the  name  of  "  John  Bradley 
and  Co.,"  and  he  was  largely  instrumental  in  the  development  of  the  Shropshire  and 
Staffordshire  iron  works. 


34 


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HATTON  GRANGE. 

COL.    WILLIAM   KENYON   SLANEY,    M.P. 

THIS  place  is  prettily  situated  about  four  miles  from  ShifFnal,  the  Clee  hills  and  the 
Wrekin  are  seen  from  the  windows,  and  a  wooded  dingle  with  pools  and  sand- 
stone rocks,  adds  a  feature  of  unusual  interest  to  the  shrubberies.  In  former  times 
Hatton  was  a  grange  of  Buildwas  Abbey. 

Robert  Slaney,  of  Rudge  and  Hatton,  was  Sheriff  of  Shropshire  in  1707.  The 
family  were  landowners  in  the  counties  of  Warwick  and  Stafford  before  they  resided 
in  Shropshire.  Sir  Stephen  Slaney,  mentioned  in  the  "  Herald's  Visitation  "  of  1623, 
was  Lord  Mayor  of  London  in  1595.  Plowden  Slaney  built  the  present  house  in 
1 747,  and  his  arms  may  be  seen  on  the  south  front.  His  descendant,  Robert  Aglionby 
Slaney,  was  M.P.  for  Shrewsbury  in  1826,  and  represented  the  borough  in  eight 
parliaments.  Dying  in  1862,  he  left  three  daughters  and  co-heirs,  one  of  whom, 
Frances  Catherine,  married  Col.  William  Kenyon,  grandson  of  Lord  Kenyon  (Chief 
Justice  1 788- 1 802),  and  son  of  the  Hon.  Thomas  Kenyon,  of  Pradoe,  for  many  years 
chairman  of  the  Shropshire  Quarter  Sessions,  who  held  the  rich  sinecure  office  of 
Filayer  and  clerk  to  the  outlawries  in  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench.  He  was  Sheriff  in 
1 87 1,  and  assumed  the  additional  name  of  Slaney  in  1862.  Col.  William  Kenyon- 
Slaney,  M.P.  for  North  Shropshire  since  1886,  the  present  owner,  is  his  son. 

The  house  and  grounds  have  been  greatly  improved  and  enlarged  by  him.  The 
original  plaster  ornamentation  of  the  interior,  which  is  good,  has  been  preserved. 
There  are  here  some  excellent  cabinet  pidlures  and  many  family  portraits. 


35 


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WILLEY. 

LORD   FORESTER. 

THE  present  mansion  was  built  about  1815  on  a  site  half  a  mile  distant  from  the 
older  house,  the  stables  of  which  are  still  standing,  by  Cecil  Weld  Forester,  who 
was  raised  to  the  peerage  in  1821,  The  architedt  was  Louis  Wyatt.  The  central 
hall  or  saloon,  lighted  from  above,  and  extending  through  the  house,  is  much  admired. 
The  drive  from  Brosely,  about  two  miles  in  length,  is  richly  timbered,  and  the  wood- 
land scenery  of  Shirlot  Forest,  which  lies  opposite  the  house,  is  as  fine  as  any  in 
Shropshire. 

The  Foresters  inherited  Wijley  by  the  marriage,  in  1748,  of  Brooke  Forester,  of 
Dothill,  with  Elizabeth,  daughter  and  heiress  of  George  Weld  of  Willey.  The  family  are 
of  ancient  origin  in  this  county.  In  141 6  Roger  Forester  was  *'  keeper  of  the  haia  of 
Welington."  In  1520  John  Forester,  of  Welington,  had  a  license  from  Henry  VIII. 
"  to  use  and  were  his  bonet "  in  the  royal  presence.  A  timbered  house  close  to  the 
Watlingstreet  was  their  residence  till  Francis  Forester,  Sheriff  in  1652,  married  Mary, 
daughter  of  the  ist  Lord  Newport  and  widow  of  John  Steventon,  of  Dothill,  whose 
son  dying  without  issue,  left  that  estate  to  his  step-father.  Sir  William  Forrester,  K.B., 
of  Dothill  and  Watlingstreet,  married  Lady  Mary  Cecil,  daughter  of  the  Earl  of 
Salisbury,  and  his  grandson,  Brooke  Forester,  married,  as  stated  above,  Elizabeth 
Weld,  the  heiress  of  Willey. 

Of  the  earlier  owners  of  this  place,  it  is  said,  that  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  Sir 
Warner  de  Willey  married  a  Harley,  Sheriff  in  1301,  from  whose  family  it  passed  to 
the  Peshales,  of  whom  Adam  de  Peshale  was  M.P.  for  Shropshire,  1401  ;  Elizabeth, 
daughter  and  heiress  of  Hamo  de  Peshale,  married  Richard  Lacon,  M.P.  1414,  Sheriff 
in  141 5.  Of  the  Lacons,  another  Richard  was  Sheriff  in  1540,  Rowland,  Sheriff  in 
1 57 1,  and  Sir  Francis  Lacon,  who  inherited  Kinlet  from  the  Blounts,  was  Sheriff  in 
1612,  and  M.P.  for  Shropshire  in  1614,  and  sold  Willey  to  Sir  John  Weld  about 
1620. 

Sir  John  Weld,  nephew  of  Sir  Humphrey,  Lord  Mayor,  was  Town  Clerk  of 
London,  and  Sheriff  of  Shropshire  in  1642.  His  son  was  fined  ^^757  by  the  Par- 
liamentary sequestrators.  His  descendant,  George  Weld,  Sheriff  in  1746,  was  the  last 
heir  male  of  the  family.  The  several  famdies  who  have  owned  Willey  have  generally 
represented  Wenlock.  From  1678  the  Foresters  almost  continuously  held  one  of  the 
seats  till  the  disfranchisement  of  the  borough  in  1885.  George  Forester,  who  died  in 
181 1,  unmarried,  was  known  as  "  Squire  "  Forester,  and  kept  a  famous  pack  of  hounds, 
with  a  still  more  famous  huntsman,  Tom  Moody.  He  was  succeeded  by  his  nephew, 
the  ist  Lord  Forester,  who  married  Lady  Catherine  Manners,  a  daughter  of  the  Duke 
of  Rutland,  and  his  son  was  for  many  years  the  master  of  the  Belvoir  hounds. 


36 


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ALDENHAM. 

LORD   ACTON. 

THE  house  is  so  plain  on  the  outside  that  it  looks  almost  like  an  institution, 
having  been  badly  reconstruded  in  the  nineteenth  century.  A  portion,  however, 
of  the  mansion  ereded  by  Sir  Edward  A6ton  in  1691  may  be  seen  on  the  side  opposite 
the  stables,  together  with  some  mullioned  windows  of  an  earlier  date.  There  is  here 
a  Roman  Catholic  chapel,  a  great  library,  colledted  by  the  present  peer;  and  there  are 
some  interesting  pidlures  and  family  portraits.  The  avenue  is  half  a  mile  in  length, 
and  the  disparked  park  is  pidluresque. 

Edward  A6lon,  of  Aldenham,  was  Sheriff  in  1383,  and  M.P.  for  Shropshire  in 
1378  and  1384.  Walter  Adlon,  eighth  in  descent  from  him,  according  to  the  Herald's 
Visitation,  was  Sheriff  in  1630,  and  was  M.P.  for  Bridgnorth  in  1625,  His  son, 
Edward,  was  created  a  baronet  in  1643,  was  M.P.  for  Bridgnorth  in  1640,  and  was 
fined  _^2,ooo  by  the  Parliamentary  sequestrators.  Sir  Walter,  the  2nd  baronet,  was 
M.P.  for  Bridgnorth  in  1660,  and  his  son  again  was  M.P.,  and  also  Sheriff,  in  1685. 
Sir  Whitmore  Adton  was  M.P.  in  1727,  and  Sheriff  in  1728,  and  with  his  son.  Sir 
Richard,  the  elder  branch  of  the  family  became  extin(5l  in  1791. 

But  from  the  2nd  baronet's  second  son  a  race  distinguished  through  a  succession 
of  generations  descended,  and  eventually  succeeded  to  the  title  and  estates. 

Edward  A(5lon,  a  banker,  the  grandson  of  Sir  Walter,  died  in  1728,  having  had 
two  sons ;  the  younger  became  commodore-in-chief  of  the  Germanic  Imperial  navy  in 
the  Adriatic.  The  elder  married  Catherine,  daughter  of  Francis  Bois  de  Gray,  of 
Burgundy.  He  left,  with  other  issue,  two  sons,  the  second  of  whom,  Joseph  Edward, 
was  a  general  in  the  Neapolitan  service,  and  married  Eleanora,  Countess  Berg  de 
Trips,  of  Dusseldorf,  while  the  eldest,  John  Francis  Edward,  born  in  1736  (who 
eventually  became  6th  baronet),  was  for  twenty-nine  years  prime  minister  and 
commander-in-chief  of  the  land  and  sea  forces  of  the  kingdom  of  Naples. 

"It  was  in  1775,  that  on  the  occasion  of  the  ill-condu6led  attack  of  Spain  against 
Algiers,  he  was  employed  to  cover  the  retreat  of  that  unfortunate  expedition,  and  with 
his  single  frigate  sunk  two,  and  captured  another,  of  the  five  Moorish  vessels,  thus 
displaying  the  native  valour  of  his  ancestors  on  that  element  which  is  most  congenial 
to  a  British  spirit."  [Blakeway,  "  Sheriffs  of  Shropshire."]  He  married,  by  Papal  dis- 
pensation, his  niece,  the  daughter  of  his  brother  above  mentioned.  He  died  in  i  8 1 1. 
At  his  funeral  in  Palermo  a  terrific  storm  burst  over  the  city,  the  mourners  fled, 
leaving  the  body  in  the  street,  until  the  tempest  subsided.  The  son  of  the  Neapolitan 
prime  minister.  Sir  Ferdinand,  married  Marie  Louise  Pelline,  daughter  and  heiress  of 
the  Duke  de  Dalberg.  His  second  son  became  a  cardinal,  and  died  in  1847.  Sir 
John  Dalberg  Adon,  the  eldest,  created  Lord  Adon  in  1869,  married  the  Countess 
Arco-Valley.  He  was  returned  for  Bridgnorth  in  1865,  but  was  unseated  on  petition, 
and  afterwards  represented  an  Irish  constituency.  He  is  a  scholar  of  European  repu- 
tation. Professor  of  History  at  Cambridge,  and  has  colleded  an  immense  library  at 
Aldenham. 

37  u 


H 

81 

X 

> 


WHITTON    COURT. 

MISS   MILLS. 

IN  a  hilly  and  inaccessible  region,  midway  between  Ludlow  and  Tenbury,  stands  this 
manor  house,  lending  an  air  of  dignity  to  a  somewhat  dreary  landscape.  Two 
dates  on  the  pinnacles  of  the  gables,  1611  and  1635,  certify  the  period  when  the  front 
was  rebuilt  by  Robert  Charlton.  There  is,  however,  much  in  the  inside  and  rear  of 
the  house  of  more  ancient  work.  The  centre  is  filled  by  a  hall,  the  Tudor  mullioned 
windows  of  which  look  into  a  "  Black  and  White "  courtyard.  A  very  massive 
panelled  screen  of  black  oak,  with  deep  mouldings,  separates  the  hall  from  the  passage 
entrance.  Over  the  fireplace  is  a  rough  fresco  of  a  hunting  scene,  with  the  house  and 
the  park  paling.  In  the  room  above  the  hall  the  ceiling  is  handsomely  decorated  in 
plaster  patterns,  and  there  are  some  coats  of  arms  in  colours,  with  the  Charlton  coat 
in  the  centre.  There  is  also  some  old  tapestry.  The  remains  of  the  gardens  sloping 
towards  the  fish  ponds  can  be  traced ;  the  deer  park,  long  since  disparked,  surrounded 
the  house  in  former  times. 

Robert  Charlton,  of  London,  merchant,  purchased  Whitton  about  16 10;  he  was 
a  grandson  of  Robert  Charlton,  of  Tern,  descended  from  the  family  of  Apley  Castle. 
He  married  a  daughter  of  Sir  Job  Harby,  also  an  eminent  goldsmith,  and  was  father 
of  Sir  Job  Charlton,  Knight  and  Baronet,  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons  1673, 
Chief  Justice  of  Chester  and  of  the  Court  of  the  Marches,  Judge  of  the  Common 
Pleas.  His  son.  Sir  Francis,  was  M.P.  for  Ludlow  1679,  and  Sheriff  in  1699.  The 
baronetcy  expired  in  1784,  when  the  estate  passed  to  the  nephew  of  Sir  Francis  fourth 
and  last  baronet,  Nicholas  Lechmere  (son  of  Edmund  Lechmere,  M.P,,  of  Severn 
End,  and  Elizabeth  Charlton),  who  assumed  the  name  of  his  mother.  His  son, 
Edmund  Lechmere  Charlton,  M.P.  for  Ludlow  1835,  an  eccentric  character,  who  was 
imprisoned  for  contempt  of  the  Court  of  Chancery,  sold  Whitton  Court  for  _^  1,900  to 
Thomas  Botfield,  of  Hopton  Court,  whose  nephew,  Beriah  Botfield,  M.P.  for  Ludlow, 
sold  it  in  1857  for  ^20,000  to  Mr.  Samuel  Mills,  of  Darlaston. 

In  1884  Miss  Mills  greatly  improved  the  house  and  grounds. 


38 


O    cr 


HENLEY,    LUDLOW. 

J.    BADDELEY   WOOD,   ESQ. 

THE  original  house,  of  which  little  remains,  was  doubtless  built  by  Thomas 
Powys,  Serjeant  at  law,  described  as  of  Henley,  or  by  his  father,  Thomas 
Powys,  described  as  of  Ludlow,  about  1600.  Serjeant  Powys  married  a  daughter  of 
Sir  Adam  Littleton  of  Stoke  St.  Milburgh,  Chief  Justice  of  Chester,  and  was  father 
of  two  Judges,  Sir  Littleton  of  Henley,  Baron  of  the  Exchequer,  and  Sir  Thomas,  of 
Lilford,  Judge  of  the  King's  Bench.  In  1770,  Thomas  Powys  of  Lilford,  M.P.,  for 
county  Northampton,  created  Baron  Lilford  in  1797,  sold  Henley  to  Ralph  Knight, 
fourth  son  of  the  eminent  Shropshire  ironmaster,  Thomas  Knight  of  Downton.  The 
date  on  the  pipes,  *'  1772,"  indicates  the  period  of  the  Georgian  reconstrudion  of  the 
house  by  the  Knights. 

In  1873,  Thomas  Knight  sold  Henley  to  Edmund  Thomas  Wedgewood  Wood, 
of  Brownhills,  co.  Stafford.  Enoch  Wood,  of  Burslem  pottery  fame,  was  of  this 
family,  which  was  nearly  conneded  by  marriage  with  the  Wedgewoods. 

Considerable  additions  have  lately  been  made  to  the  house  and  gardens.  The 
terrace,  shown  in  the  sketch,  has  not  long  been  finished  ;  and  a  bridge  has  been  thrown 
over  the  Ledewich,  which  flows  through  the  grounds. 

The  double  avenue  of  elms,  by  which  the  house  is  approached,  is  very  perfect, 
and  was  planted  in  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  There  is  here  a  small, 
but  very  pretty  park,  with  many  ancient  oaks,  and  a  herd  of  red  and  of  fallow  deer. 
A  quaint  old-fashioned  summer  house,  and  an  odagonal  dovecot  of  brick,  add  interest 
to  the  place. 

Mrs.  Lybbe  Powys,  in  her  Diary  of  1771,  lately  published,  makes  the  following 
note  of  a  visit  to  Henley  from  Court  of  Hill,  where  she  was  staying  with  her  relatives 
the  Hills. 

"  Friday  morn,  a  large  cavalcade,  set  forth  to  see  Henley,  a  seat  of  their  uncle's, 
Sir  Littleton  Powys,  two  miles  from  Ludlow.  Mr.  Powys,  of  Lilford,  has  just  sold 
it,  rather  to  the  concern  of  the  family,  particularly  of  the  Hills,  who  were  most  of  them 
brought  up  there.  They  think  it  a  pity  to  go  out  of  the  name,  that  has  been  in 
possession  such  a  number  of  years.  It  is  really  a  fine  old  place,  badly  situated;  the 
house  and  furniture  of  Henley  are  quite  antique.  In  the  gallery  are  the  portraits  of 
our  family  (not  yet  removed)  for  some  generations,  down  to  the  present  possessor  of 
Lilford ;  among  them,  that  of  the  famous  Lord  Keeper,  Littleton." 


39 


O    O 
CJ    ~ 


COURT    OF    HILL. 

CAPT.    HILL   LOWE. 

THE  family  of  Hill  or  Hull   lived  here  for  many  generations.     Sir  Rowland 
Hill,  first  Protestant  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  and  the  Hills  of  Hawkestone 
are  said  to  descend  from  this  stock. 

The  present  house  was  built  in  1683,  by  Andrew  Hill,  who  married  Anne, 
daughter  of  Thomas  Powys  of  Henley,  near  Ludlow,  serjeant  at  law,  and  sister  of  Sir 
Littleton  Powys,  Baron  of  the  Exchequer.  The  Hill  and  Powys  arms  are  displayed 
over  the  entrance.  His  grandson,  Thomas  Hill,  M.P.  for  Leominster,  dying  in 
1776,  left  two  daughters  and  co-heiresses,  Lucy,  married  to  Thomas  Humphrey 
Lowe,  of  Bromsgrove,  and  Anna  Maria,  married  to  Theophilus  R.  Salwey,  of  Moor 
Park.  Mrs.  Lowe,  whose  eldest  son  was  Dean  of  Exeter,  was  succeeded  in  1855  by 
her  grandson,  Arthur  Charles  Lowe,  who  assumed  the  name  of  Hill. 

The  panelling,  plaster  work,  oak  staircase,  oak  bedsteads,  are  of  the  date  of  the 
house.  The  dovecot  was  eredled  in  1776.  There  is  a  good  "  Weenix "  in  the 
dining  room. 

In  the  **  Diaries  of  Mrs.  Phillip  Lybbe  Powys,"  lately  edited  by  Emily  J. 
Climenson,  there  is  the  following  description  of  a  visit  to  Court  of  Hill  in  1771. 

"  Court  of  Hill  is  an  ancient  building,  spacious,  not  uncomfortably  so,  situation 
particularly  fine.  The  house  stands  on  a  steep  knoll,  which  is  laid  into  a  paddock, 
from  three  sides  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  prosped  more  beautiful,  except 
for  water.  You  look  from  a  vast  eminence,  down  on  valleys  so  sweetly  diversified  ; 
then  the  country  rising  mountain  above  mountain,  almost  reaching  to  the  clouds ; 
Malvern's  famed  hills  just  in  front;  and  as  you  look  round,  eight  counties  are  at  once 
in  view — Worcestershire,  Gloucestershire,  Herefordshire;  beyond  these  the  Welsh 
ones  of  Brecknock,  Radnor,  Monmouth,  and  Montgomery.  Behind  the  house  is  a 
fine  grove,  bounded  by  a  vast  mountain  called  Clee  Hill  [Titterstone,  the  highest  of 
the  Clee  Hills,  is  1,780  ft.],  which  produces  stone,  lime,  and  coal  in  great  abundance. 
This  rock  or  hill  is  dreadfully  steep  to  ascend,  but  dismally  so  to  descend,  though  they 
make  nothing  of  it  in  their  coach  or  on  horseback.  At  the  top  indeed  one  is  rewarded 
for  all  the  frights  and  trouble  in  the  view  around  you  .  .  .  Their  manner  of  living 
as  I've  heard  before,  is  always  in  the  superb  style  of  ancient  hospitality  ;  only  their 
winters  are  spent  in  London.  They  have  a  vast  fortune,  and  only  two  children,  both 
girls,  one  ten,  the  other  five.  Their  house,  Mrs.  Hill  says,  is  ever  full  of  company, 
as  at  present.  Our  present  party  is  sixteen,  all  relations,  but  they  have  nine  good  spare 
chambers  .  .  .  The  Miss  Hills  have  each  a  servant ;  I've  already  seen  eight  maids ; 
how  many  more  there  be,  I  know  not.  The  roads  here  are  wonderful  to  strangers. 
Where  they  are  mending,  as  they  call  it,  you  travel  over  a  bed  of  loose  stones,  none  of 
less  size  than  an  ocftavo  volume  ;  and  where  not  mended,  'tis  like  a  staircase  .  .  . 
They  appear  unfit  for  ladies  travelling,  but  they  mind  them  not.  So  I  mounted 
*  Grey,'  Mr.  Powys's  great  horse,  luckily  a  native  of  Shropshire,  and  up  I  went  the 
tremendous  hill  before  mentioned.  The  fashion  here  is  to  ride  double.  How  terribly 
vulger  I've  thought  this  !  but  what  will  not  fashion  render  genteel  !  As  to  carriages, 
they  make  nothing  of  going  a  dozen  miles  to  dinner,  tho'  own  to  being  bruised  to 
death  and  quite  *  deshabbillered '  by  jolts  they  receive." 

40 


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BURWARTON. 

VISCOUNT   BOYNE. 

THE  house  is  large  and  comfortable,  severely  plain,  and  without  any  special 
architedural  feature,  but  the  laying  out  of  the  grounds  and  the  landscape 
gardening  of  the  slopes  of  the  Brown  Clee  make  Burwarton  a  very  fine  place. 

The  hall  stands  near  to  the  church  and  village  of  the  same  name,  midway  between 
Ludlow  and  Bridgnorth,  about  nine  miles  from  each.  The  ridge  of  the  Clee  Hill  is 
some  two  miles  off,  and  extends  for  four  miles  or  more,  separating  Corvedale  from 
Burwarton.  Some  thousand  acres  of  the  hill  sides  have  been  planted  ;  and,  what  is  more 
rare  than  judicious  planting,  the  woods  have  been  judiciously  thinned.  The  result 
is  that  the  oaks,  beech,  larch,  and  firs  show  themselves  to  the  best  advantage.  On  the 
moorland  spur  of  the  hill  grouse  are  to  be  found,  and  in  the  fir  woods  there  are  black 
game. 

Amongst  the  earlier  owners  of  Burwarton  were  the  Hollands;  Alice,  daughter 
and  heiress  of  Francis  Holland,  married  Henry  Baugh,  of  Aldencourte,  early  in  the 
seventeenth  century;  and  Harriet,  daughter  and  heiress  of  Benjamin  Baugh,  married 
Gustavus,  6th  Vicountess  Boyne,  towards  the  close  of  the  eighteenth.  The  7th 
viscount  married  Emma  Martha,  daughter  of  Mathew  Russell,  of  Brancepeth,  M.P.  for 
CO.  Durham  1828,  who  eventually  succeeded  her  brother  in  the  Brancepeth  estates, 
hence  the  assumption  of  the  name  of  Russell. 

The  Hamiltons,  Viscounts  Boyne,  are  a  branch  of  the  Hamiltons,  Dukes  of  Aber- 
corn,  and  descend  from  Claude,  second  son  of  the  Earl  of  Arran,  Regent  of  Scotland, 
who  was  created  Lord  Paisley  in  1587.  Sir  Frederick  Hamilton,  his  younger  son, 
served  under  Gustavus  Adolphus,  of  Sweden,  hence  the  name  of  Gustavus  generally 
borne  by  his  descendants.  His  son  distinguished  himself  at  the  battle  of  the  Boyne, 
received  a  grant  of  land  in  Ireland,  and  was  raised  to  the  peerage  of  Ireland  as  Baron 
in  17 1 5  and  Viscount  in  17 17.  An  English  barony  was  conferred  on  the  family  in 
1866. 

There  are  a  great  number  of  Hamilton  portraits  at  Burwarton. 


41 


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rwij^  ^T'^TB-'Irjw 


KINLET. 

MRS.   CHILDE. 

KINLET  HALL  was  built  in  1727  by  William  Lacon  Childe,  M.P.,  from 
designs  by  "Smith  of  Warwick."  The  date  and  letters  on  the  pipes  are 
"vv.^c.  1729,"  which  represent  William  Childe  and  his  wife  Catherine  Pytts,  of 
Kyre.  The  arms  of  Childe  impaling  Pytts  are  in  the  hall.  The  main  block  of 
building  is  supported  on  either  side  by  two  courts  of  offices  and  stables.  An  older  hall 
stood  near  the  church  in  the  present  shrubberies.  The  eighteenth  century  fashion  for 
long  approaches  has  been  carried  out  by  diverting  the  main  road.  One  entrance  lodge 
is  a  measured  mile  from  the  house,  the  other  is  three  miles. 

From  Saxon  times  the  successive  owners  of  Kinlet  have  held  an  important 
position  in  Shropshire.  The  manor  once  formed  the  appanage  of  Edith,  Queen  of 
Edward  the  Confessor.  After  the  Conquest,  Bernard  Fitz  Ospac  and  his  descendants 
the  Bryans  de  Brampton,  or  Brompton,  are  clearly  identified  by  Eyton,  as  lords  of 
Kinlet,  through  a  series  of  charters.  The  grant  of  free  warrant  was  made  in  1252. 
Half  a  century  later  Margaret  and  Elizabeth,  daughters  of  the  last  Brian  de  Brampton, 
were  left  co-heirs.  Elizabeth  brought  Kinlet  to  her  husband,  Edward  de  Cornwall, 
grandson  of  Richard,  Earl  of  Cornwall  and  King  of  the  Romans,  brother  to  Henry  III. 
In  1369  Brian  de  Cornwall  was  M.P.  for  the  county,  and  in  1378  Sheriff.  Sir  John 
Cornwall  was  M.P.  in  1420.  William  Lichfield,  who  married  the  daughter  and 
heiress  of  Sir  John  Cornwall,  was  Sheriff  1428,  but  dying  without  issue,  Kinlet  reverted 
to  the  heir  of  a  sister  of  Sir  John  Cornwall,  who  had  married  a  younger  son  of  Blount, 
of  Sodington.  Sir  Humphrey  Blount  having  succeeded  to  Kinlet,  was  Sheriff  in  1461, 
and  his  son,  Sir  Thomas,  in  1480.  Sir  George  Blount,  his  grandson,  the  last  heir  male 
of  the  Blounts,  was  M.P.  in  1547  and  Sheriff  in  1564.  Rowland  Lacon,  of  Willey, 
the  son  of  a  sister  of  Sir  George,  became  heir  by  will,  and  was  Sheriff  in  1571.  Thus 
the  Lacons  were  seated  at  Kinlet,  of  whom  Sir  Francis  was  Sheriff  in  161  2  and  M.P. 
in  1 6 14. 

His  granddaughter  and  heir,  Anne,  married,  in  1640,  Sir  William  Childe,  son  of 
Childe,  of  Northwick,  co.  Worcester,  a  Master  in  Chancery,  and  thus  the  Childes  suc- 
ceeded the  Lacons  as  owners  of  Kinlet.  Thomas,  Sir  William  Childe's  second  son, 
lived  at  the  Birch,  a  house  on  the  estate,  and  was  Sheriff  in  1705.  Sir  Lacon  Childe, 
the  elder  brother,  who,  like  his  father,  was  a  master  in  Chancery,  founded  Cleobury 
Mortimer  school  in  17 14,  and  died  without  issue.  In  1727  his  nephew,  William 
Lacon  Childe,  the  builder  of  the  house,  was  M.P.  for  the  county.  In  1757  his 
daughter  and  heiress,  Catherine,  married  Charles  Baldwyn,  of  Aqualate,  M.P.  for 
Shropshire  1 768-1780.  Their  son  William  adopted  the  name  of  Childe  only.  He  was 
a  great  agriculturist  and  sportsman,  and  was  called  "  The  flying  Childe,"  from  his  hard 
riding  in  Leicestershire,  and  he  kept  a  pack  of  hounds  at  Kinlet.  His  son  William 
Lacon  Childe  was  M.P.  for  Wenlock  1820-26,  Sheriff  in  1828,  and  died  in  his  ninety- 

42 


fifth  year  in  1880.  His  grandson,  Charles  Baldwyn  Childe,  of  Kinlet,  was  captain  in 
the  Blues,  and  was  killed  in  South  Africa,  major  in  command  of  the  South  African 
Light  Horse,  in  1900. 

In  1832  the  family  possessions  were  increased  by  the  succession  of  W.  L.  Childe 
to  the  Kyre  estate  of  the  Pitts  ;  and  in  1848  Millichope  (since  sold),  was  bequeathed 
by  Rev.  Norgrave  Pemberton  to  his  cousin,  C.  Orlando  Childe,  who  took  the  name  of 
Pemberton. 

Of  the  Bromptons  and  the  Cornwalls  little  remains  excepting  what  may  be  learnt 
from  ancient  records ;  of  the  Blounts  there  are  several  handsome  monuments  of  the 
sixteenth  century  in  the  church,  and  there  is  an  Elizabethan  portrait  on  panel  of  Sir 
George  Blount.  There  is  also  a  portrait  of  Rowland  Lacon,  and  portraits  of  the 
Childes.     The  family  pidures  formerly  at  Millichope  are  now  at  Kinlet. 

There  was  once  a  deer  park  here.  The  great  extent  of  the  oak  woods  and  the 
immense  size  of  some  of  the  trees  gives  dignity  to  this  ancient  inheritance. 


IF^> 


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CLUN    CASTLE. 

DUKE   OF   NORFOLK. 

THE  Honour  of  Clun  was  an  independent  Jurisdidion  in  the  Marches  of  Wales, 
and  was  held  by  the  family  of  Say  and  afterwards  by  the  Fitzalans,  Lords 
Marches.     It  was  not  incorporated  with  Shropshire  till  the  reign  of  Henry  VIIL 

From  the  Inquisitions  of  Henry  III.,  Eyton  quotes  the  following  description  of 
the  place  in  1272:  ''The  Castle  was  small  but  pretty  well  built.  The  roof  of  the 
tower  wanted  covering  with  lead  ;  the  bridge  wanted  repair.  Outside  the  Castle  was 
a  Bailey  enclosed  with  a  foss,  and  a  certain  gate  in  the  Castle  walls  thereabouts  had 
been  begun  but  not  finished.  In  the  Bailey  was  a  grange,  a  stable,  and  a  bake- 
house." 

Three  centuries  later  Leland  thus  describes  the  Castle :  "  Clun  is  somewhat 
ruinous.  It  hath  been  both  strong  and  well  builded.  By  Clonne  is  a  great  forest  of 
redde  deere  and  rooes." 

The  sketch  shows  the  condition  of  the  Castle  in  the  present  day. 

Alan  Fitz  Flaad,  whose  traditional  genealogy  need  not  here  be  discussed,  was 
endowed  by  Henry  I.  with  the  Norman  Shrievalty  of  Shropshire,  to  which  was 
attached  the  great  Fief  of  Oswaldstree,  comprising  nearly  forty  knights  fees.  Alan 
Fitz  Flaad  had  two  sons.  From  the  elder  descended  the  Shropshire  Fitzalans, 
Barons  of  Oswaldstree  and  Clun,  and  afterwards  Earls  of  Arundel,  now  represented 
in  the  female  line  by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk.  From  the  younger  descended  the 
hereditary  stewards  of  Scotland,  who  founded  the  Stuart  dynasty. 

William  Fitz  Allan  married,  about  1140,  Isabel,  daughter  and  heiress  of  Helias 
de  Say,  Baron  of  Clun,  and  thus  the  Barony  of  Clun  was  added  to  the  Barony  of 
Oswestry. 

The  history  of  the  Fitzalans,  interwoven  as  it  is  with  the  history  of  the  English 
monarchy,  can  only  be  slightly  indicated  here.  Their  connedion  with  Shropshire 
lasted  from  the  reign  of  Henry  I.  to  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  They  granted  charters 
to  Oswestry  and  to  Clun.  One  of  them  founded  Haughmond  Abbey.  Another 
was  with  the  Barons  in  rebellion  against  King  John  at  Brackley  in  121 5.  Another 
married  the  sister  of  Hugh  d'Albini,  Earl  of  Arundel,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
thus  Arundel  and  its  Earldom  passed  to  his  descendants.  Another  married  Alice, 
daughter  and  heiress  of  John  Plantagenet,  Earl  of  Warren  and  Surrey.  Two  of  them 
were  beheaded.  After  giving  an  account  of  eight  successive  representatives  of  Alan 
Fitz  Flaad,  Eyton  makes  the  following  observation :  "  Not  one  of  these  eight  Fitz 
Alans  attained  the  age  of  sixty  years;  only  two  passed  the  age  of  fifty;  three  died 
between  forty  and  fifty ;  one  between  thirty  and  forty ;  the  two  others  died  under 
thirty." 

Camden  in  his  Britannia,  says,  *' about  the  beginning  of  the  year  1580,  Henry 

43  z 


Fitzalan,  Earl  of  Arundel,  rendered  his  soul  to  God,  in  whom  was  extin(5t  the  surname 
of  this  noble  family,  which  had  flourished  with  great  honour  for  three  hundred  years 
and  more." 

Lady  Mary  Fitzalan,  his  daughter  and  heiress,  carried  the  titles,  but  not  the 
Shropshire  estates,  of  her  father  to  the  posterity  of  her  husband,  Thomas  Howard, 
fourth  Duke  of  Norfolk. 

Henry  Fitzalan,  the  Earl  mentioned  by  Camden,  sold  a  large  portion  of  his 
estates  in  this  county.  His  grandson,  Philip  Howard,  Earl  of  Arundel,  by  the 
attainder  of  his  father  lost  the  Howard  titles  and  estates,  but  succeeded  to  those  of 
his  mother,  and  amongst  them  to  Arundel  and  Clun.  But  he  too  was  attainted  in 
1590,  and  died  in  the  Tower  in  1595.  Clun  was  granted  to  his  uncle,  Henry 
Howard,  Earl  of  Northampton,  v/ho  founded  a  hospital  there  in  1608,  and  died 
without  issue.  The  estate  passed  to  his  nephew  Thomas,  Earl  of  Suffolk,  and  has 
eventually  been  distributed  among  many  owners. 

After  the  lapse  of  three  centuries,  the  present  and  fifteenth  Duke  of  Norfolk  has 
renewed,  in  some  measure,  the  link  of  ancestral  interest  with  Shropshire,  by  purchasing 
the  ruins  of  this  feudal  Castle  of  Picot  de  Say. 

It  is  said  that  Clun  was  the  scene  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  novel  of  "  The 
Betrothed." 


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PLOWDEN. 

WILLIAM   FRANCIS    PLOWDEN,   ESQ. 

THIS  curious  manor  house,  nestling  under  an  oak  wood  in  the  hilly  ground 
adjacent  to  the  Longmynd,  lies  about  three  miles  from  Bishop's  Castle,  and 
under  the  Bishops  of  Hereford  by  military  service  of  forty  days  ward  at  Bishop's 
Castle,  in  war  time,  the  manor  was  held  by  the  Plowdens. 

Eyton  derives  their  coat  of  arms  from  the  arms  borne  by  their  suzerains,  who  as 
Bishops  of  Hereford  were  mitred  Barons.  Others  derive  them  from  a  grant  by  Richard 
I.  at  the  siege  of  Acre  in  1191.  William  Plowden,  in  1203,  is  the  first  whom  Eyton 
identifies,  but  the  Plowden  Chapel  at  Lydbury  North  shows  work  of  the  twelfth 
century.  Fourth  in  descent  from  William  was  John  de  Plowden,  living  in  1342, 
But  the  fame  of  the  family  rests  not  so  much  on  its  antiquity,  as  on  the  distinction  of 
Edmund  Plowden,  the  great  lawyer,  who  was  born  in  15  17.  He  is  said  to  have  been 
offered  the  Chancellorship  on  condition  of  conforming  to  the  Reformed  faith,  and  to 
have  refused.  He  was  the  author  of  learned  "commentaries."  He  was  Treasurer  of 
the  Middle  Temple,  when  the  great  hall  was  built  in  1572,  and  his  arms  are  in  one  of 
the  windows.  He  was  appropriately  buried,  in  1584,  not  near  his  own  Shropshire 
home,  but  in  the  Temple  Church,  where  his  recumbent  effigy  may  still  be  seen.  Of 
other  members  of  the  family,  Edmund  was  the  founder,  in  1620,  of  the  State  of  New 
Albion  in  America,  Francis  was  comptroller  of  the  Household  to  James  II.  William 
was  Colonel  of  the  2nd  regiment  of  guards  on  King  James's  side  at  the  battle  of 
the  Boyne.  The  family  have  always  remained  Roman  Catholic,  and  not  till  1848 
has  any  member  served  the  office  of  sheriff,  nor  has  any  Shropshire  constituency  ever 
been  represented  by  a  Plowden. 

The  house  is  Elizabethan,  and  was  built  by  "  Lawyer"  Plowden ;  it  has  not  been 
much  altered  since  the  date  of  its  construction.  It  contains  two  hiding  places,  and  a 
secret  staircase,  which  runs  from  the  top  storey  to  the  basement,  alongside  of  the 
chimney  stack. 

There  are  here  many  family  portraits,  and  some  good  pidures,  an  old  library, 
some  old  embroidery,  and  needle  work,  seals,  trinkets,  parchments,  indeed  everything 
which  you  would  expe(5t  to  find  in  a  place  which  has  not  changed  hands  for  seven 
centuries  or  more.  There  is  here  a  domestic  Roman  Catholic  Chapel,  in  which  are 
some  memorial  brasses  which  were  once  in  the  Church  of  Lydbury  North  or  Bishop's 
Castle. 


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HOPTON    CASTLE. 

SIR    HENRY    RIPLEY,   BART. 

IN  1268  Walter  de  Hopton  was  SherifF  of  Shropshire.  He  was  a  Judge  of  the 
Exchequer,  and  was  the  first  of  the  name  associated  with  Shropshire.  Hopton 
was  held  as  a  knight's  fee  in  the  Fitzalan's  Barony  of  Clun.  In  1337  and  in  1364 
Hoptons  were  Knights  of  the  Shire,  and  in  1430  Thomas  Hopton  was  SherifF,  His 
daughter  and  heiress  married  Sir  Roger  Corbet,  of  Morton,  and  in  the  family  of 
Corbet  the  castle  remained  till  Elizabeth,  daughter  and  heiress  of  Robert  Corbet,  of 
Moreton,  married  Sir  Henry  Wallop,  Sheriff  in  1606. 

His  son,  Robert  Wallop,  M.P.  for  Hampshire,  was  a  staunch  Commonwealth 
man,  was  one  of  the  king's  judges,  and  after  the  restoration  was  imprisoned  for  life  in 
the  Tower. 

It  was  during  his  ownership  that  the  castle  was  garrisoned  for  the  Parliament  and 
defended  by  Col.  Samuel  More  in  1644.  After  a  gallant  resistance  it  was  surrendered 
to  Sir  Michael  Woodhouse,  and  all  the  garrison,  with  the  exception  of  Col.  More, 
thirty-one  in  number,  were  put  to  the  sword. 

Since  that  time  the  place  has  been  dismantled  and  uninhabited.  Robert  Wallop 
sold  it  in  1655  to  Bartholomew  Beale,  whose  descendant  was  Sheriff  in  1734.  The 
estate  was  sold  by  the  Beales  about  1890  to  Sir  Henry  Ripley,  of  Bedstone  Court,  the 
present  owner. 

The  castle  stands  in  a  secluded  spot  among  the  hills. 


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BEDSTONE    COURT. 

SIR    EDWARD    RIPLEY,    BART. 

BEDSTONE  in  Norman  days  belonged  to  the  family  of  De  Jay  or  Gay ;  Eyton 
records  their  descents  for  several  generations ;  the  manor  was  held  as  a  knight's 
fee  under  the  Barony  of  Clun.  "  Brian  de  Jay  was  the  last  Master  of  the  English  Knights 
Templars;  at  least  he  occurs  in  that  office  just  before  the  dissolution  of  the  Order  by 
Edward  II."     [Eyton.] 

The  present  house  was  built  from  designs  of  Mr.  Harris,  by  Sir  Edward  Ripley, 
Bart.,  M.P.  for  Bradford,  who  purchased  the  estate,  and  was  created  a  baronet  in  i  880. 
It  stands  not  far  from  the  Radnorshire  border,  in  the  parish  of  the  same  name ;  it  is 
situated  in  a  hilly  woodland  country,  and  is  in  itself  a  handsome  elevation. 


46 


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STOKESAY. 

H.   J.   ALLCROFT,   ESQ. 

ROGER  DE  LACI  was  the  Domesday  owner  of  Stoke.  About  i  lOO  he  en- 
feoffed Theoderic  de  Say,  a  cadet  of  the  house  of  Picot  de  Say  of  Clun,  who 
gave  his  name  henceforth  to  the  place.  In  1 274  John  de  Verdon  was  the  owner.  He 
sold  to  John  de  Grey,  and  he,  in  1281,  to  Laurence  de  Ludlow.  So  in  the  two 
hundred  years  after  the  Conquest  Stokesay  had  five  owners  of  different  families. 

'*  The  reign  of  Edward  I.  shows  an  influence  coming  into  operation,  which  in 
after  times  was  to  affedl  the  destinies  of  England  more  powerfully  than  either  the  toga 
or  the  sword.  The  moated  house,  now  known  as  Stokesay,  was  formed  in  the  year 
1 291,  and  represents  the  advance  of  mercantile  genius.  Its  founder,  Lawrence  de 
Ludlow,  had  made  a  fortune  by  successful  trading  in  the  town,  from  which  he  took 
his  name,  and  had  purchased  Stokesay  manor  from  its  former  Lords."     [Eyton.] 

Members  of  this  important  family  were  Sheriffs  in  1379,  1417,  1433,  and  1478. 
They  were  Knights  of  the  Shire  eight  times  in  the  fourteenth  century. 

By  the  marriage  with  the  heiress  of  Hodnet  they  added  that  estate  to  Stokesay. 
In  1497  Anna,  daughter  and  co-heiress  of  John  Ludlow,  married  Thomas  Vernon, 
whose  son  was  Sheriff  in  1524. 

Leland  writes  :  ^'  Stokesay  [be]Ionginge  sometime  to  the  Ludlos  now  to  the 
Vernons,  builded  like  a  castle,  five  miles  from  Ludlo.  Sir  Richard  Ludlo  had  two 
daughters,  one  was  married  to  Humphrey  Vernon,  the  other  to  Thomas  Vernon, 
bretherne  to  the  late  Sir  Henry  Vernon  of  the  Peke." 

The  grandson  of  Thomas  Vernon  sold  Stokesay  to  Sir  George  Mainwaring,  and 
he  sold  again,  about  1620,  to  Sir  William  Craven,  Lord  Mayor  of  London  161 1. 
Stokesay  thus  for  a  second  time  passed  to  a  representative  of  *' mercantile  genius," 
The  son  of  the  Lord  Mayor  greatly  distinguished  himself  in  foreign  wars,  was  made 
a  baron  in  1626  and  an  earl  in  1663.  The  family,  however,  were  but  little  associated 
with  Shropshire.  In  the  Civil  Wars  the  castle  was  occupied  under  a  long  lease  by  the 
Baldwyns  of  Elsick,  was  garrisoned  for  the  king,  surrendered  in  1645,  and  was  happily 
saved  from  destrudion.  In  1869  the  9th  Lord  Craven  and  the  3rd  Earl  of  the 
creation  of  1801  sold  this  castle  to  John  Derby  Allcroft,  M.P.  for  Worcester  1878,  a 
partner  in  the  eminent  firm  of  Dent  and  Allcroft,  glove  manufacfturers  at  Worcester, 
and  thus  for  a  third  time  Stokesay  was  identified  with  that  influence  which,  as  Eyton 
says,  affeds  the  destinies  of  England  more  powerfully  than  either  the  toga  or  the 
sword. 

Stokesay  is  minutely  described  in  Parker's  "Domestic  Architedure "  as  one  "of 
the  most  perfed  and  interesting  thirteenth  century  buildings  which  we  possess." 

The  hall  is  5 1  ft.  x  31  ft.  The  moat  is  well  defined.  The  gateway  is  a  good 
example  of  Elizabethan  wood  and  plaster  work.  The  double  odlagonal  arrangement 
of  the  tower  is  effedive.  The  river  Ony  flows  near  ;  the  surrounding  hills  group  well 
with  the  church  and  the  castle  masonry. 

Although  the  place  is  unoccupied,  the  roof  and  the  buildings  are  kept  in  good 
repair,  and  Stokesay  is  the  best  example  in  Shropshire  of  a  fortified  manorhouse  of 
feudal  eredion. 

47  B  B 


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BENTHALL    HALL,    BROSELEY. 

LORD   FORESTER. 

THIS  is  a  stone  house,  date  about  1600,  with  oak  staircase,  fittings,  panelling, 
plaster  decorations  on  the  ceilings,  heraldic  emblems,  all  of  about  the  same  period  ; 
a  small  but  very  perfed  example  of  Elizabethan  architefture. 

William  Benthall  is  said  to  have  built  a  house  here  in  1535,  but  the  present  work 
is  of  a  rather  later  date. 

The  heiress  of  the  Benthalls  in  the  fourteenth  century  married  a  Burnell  of  A6lon 
Burnell,  who  adopted  his  wife's  name.  One  of  the  Abbots  of  Buildwas  is  said  to  have 
been  of  this  family. 

In  the  Civil  Wars  the  Benthalls  were  on  the  King's  side.  Laurence  Benthall  was 
fined  £12^  by  the  sequestrators,  and  Casey  Benthall,  his  son,  was  made  a  prisoner  at 
the  taking  of  Shrewsbury,  and  was  afterwards  slain  at  the  battle  of  Stow-in-the-Wold. 

Ralph  Browne  of  Caughley,  Sheriff  in  1687,  married  the  daughter  and  heiress  of 
Edward  Benthall.  The  estate  eventually  passed  by  bequest  from  the  Brownes  to 
Lucia  Blythe,  who  married,  in  1771,  Rev.  Edward  Harries  of  Cruckton.  In  the 
nineteenth  century  Francis  Blythe  Harries  of  Cruckton  sold  Benthall  to  Lord  Forester, 
in  whose  family  it  remains. 

The  church,  which  stands  close  by,  was  built  in  1667  in  the  place  of  an  older 
chapel  which  was  destroyed  in  the  Civil  Wars.  It  is  a  quaint  example  of  the  later 
ecclesiastical  style. 


48 


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BOURTON  COTTAGE. 

T.  H.  A.  WHITLEY,  ESQ. 

THE  charter  of  Edward  IV.  (1468)  to  Wenlock,  states  that  it  is  granted  "  at  the 
request  of  our  well-beloved  and  trusty  Counselor,  Sir  John  Wenlock,  Lord 
Wenlock,"  and  in  recognition  of  the  loyal  services  of  the  residents  in  the  town.  By 
this  charter  Wenlock  was  made  a  Parliamentary  Borough,  with  the  privilege  of 
returning  one  member  to  Parliament,  a  privilege  extended  to  two  members  by  Henry 
VIII.  It  is  said  that  Francis  Lawley,  Sheriff  in  1578,  was  declared  to  be  cousin  and 
next  of  kin  to  this  Sir  John  Wenlock,  who  was  a  Knight  of  the  Garter,  and  was 
killed  at  the  battle  of  Tewkesbury.  Duke,  in  his  "  Antiquities  of  Shropshire,"  says  that 
a  Lawley  married  the  heir  of  Sir  John  Wenlock,  but  no  notice  of  this  marriage  is 
made  in  the  Visitation  of  1623. 

In  1428  a  William,  and  in  1450  a  John,  Lawley,  were  M.P.'s  for  Bridgnorth, 
From  1547,  when  Wenlock  was  represented  by  Richard  and  Thomas  Lawley,  to 
1685,  no  less  than  twelve  members  of  the  family  were  M.P.'s  for  the  borough.  In 
1 66 1,  Sir  Francis  Lawley,  Bt.,  was  Knight  of  the  Shire.  His  father,  Sir  Thomas,  of 
Spoonbill,  had  been  created  a  baronet  in  1641.  During  the  eighteenth  century  there 
appears  to  have  been  a  break  in  the  tenure  of  any  public  office  in  Shropshire  by  any 
member  of  the  family. 

Sir  Robert,  the  fifth  baronet,  married  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  Beilby 
Thompson,  of  Escrich,  in  Yorkshire,  and  died  in  1793.  His  son  was  created  Lord 
Wenlock  in  1831,  and  died  without  issue  in  the  following  year.  In  1839  the  title 
was  revived  in  the  person  of  his  brother,  who  had  assumed  the  name  of  Beilby 
Thompson,  and  had  represented  Wenlock  in  1826-32.  His  son,  the  second  Baron, 
resumed  the  name  of  Lawley,  and  was  Lord  Lieutenant  of  the  North  Riding  of 
Yorkshire.     The  present  and  third  Baron  was  Governor  of  Madras. 

The  old  house  of  the  Lawley s,  Spoonbill,  four  miles  from  Wenlock,  has  been 
dismantled,  and  a  farm  house  occupies  its  site. 

Bourton  Cottage  was  built  from  designs  by  Norman  Shaw,  and  is  a  good  example 
of  his  style. 

In  1 90 1,  Lord  Wenlock  sold  his  Shropshire  estates  to  Mr.  Whitley. 


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THE    PRIOR'S    LODGE,    WENLOCK. 

C.   C.   MILNES   GASKELL,   ESQ. 

"  "1  ^  /"ENLOCK  was  the  oldest  and  most  privileged,  perhaps  the  wealthiest  and 
Y  V     JTiost  magnificent  of  the  religious  Houses  of  Shropshire."     [Eyton.] 

Founded  in  the  eighth  century  by  St.  Milburga,  daughter  of  Merewald,  King  of 
Mercia,  and  granddaughter  of  Penda,  this  nunnery,  despoiled  by  the  Danes  in  the 
ninth  century,  had  fallen  into  decay  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest,  and  was  re-estab- 
lished by  Roger  the  Norman,  Earl  of  Shropshire,  and  "  replenished  with  monks  of  the 
Cluniac  Order."  At  the  Dissolution  the  minster  and  conventual  buildings  were  dis- 
mantled, with  the  exception  of  the  Prior's  house,  one  of  the  oldest  habitations  in  the 
county. 

A  corridor,  loo  ft.  in  length  on  the  ground  floor,  and  another  on  the  first  floor, 
lighted  by  trefoiled  couplets,  formerly  unglazed,  and  united  by  a  wide  staircase, 
open  into  the  rooms.  On  the  ground  floor  is  the  oratory  with  an  altar,  and  a  stone 
reading  desk  with  foliated  ornamentation.  The  dining  room  or  refedory  upstairs  has 
a  high-pitched  timber  roof.  The  date  of  the  building,  according  to  Parker  ("  Domestic 
Architecture  "),  is  late  fifteenth  century. 

When  the  Abbey  was  dissolved  its  revenues  were  £4-4-1.  Cardinal  Wolsey's 
physician,  Augustine  de  Augustine,  was  the  first  lay  Impropriator.  He  sold  the 
estate  to  the  family  of  Lawley.  Late  in  the  seventeenth  century  the  daughter  and 
heiress  of  Sir  Edward  Lawley  married,  first,  Hon.  Sir  R.  Bertie,  Kt.,  of  the  Ancaster 
family,  and,  secondly.  Sir  J.  Penruddock,  whose  daughter  and  heiress  married  Joseph 
Gage,  father  of  first  Viscount  Gage.  Wenlock  thus  devolved  upon  Lord  Gage,  who 
sold  it  to  Sir  John  Wynn,  of  Gwydyr  and  Watstay,  a  kinsman  of  the  Ancasters;  Sir 
John  Wynn  dying  in  17 19,  bequeathed  Wenlock,  together  with  Watstay,  to  his 
kinsman,  Watkin  Williams,  the  son  of  Sir  William  WiUiams  of  Llanforda,  who 
adopted  the  name  of  Wynn  in  addition  to  his  own.  In  1770,  Sir  Watkin  WiJliams- 
Wynn  was  M.P.  for  Shropshire.  His  son  sold  the  Abbey  about  1830  to  James 
Milnes  Gaskell,  of  Thornes  House,  Wakefield,  M.P.  for  Wenlock  1832-68,  Lord 
of  the  Treasury  1841-46,  who  married  Mary,  daughter  of  the  Right  Hon.  Charles 
W.  W.  Wynn,  M.P.  His  son,  C.  C.  Milnes-Gaskell,  M.P.  for  the  Wakefield 
Division  of  Yorkshire,  1885,  is  the  present  owner. 


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