Shropshire Routes to Roots - Shropshire places - Wem
by Samuel Garbet
The Name, Boundaries, Extent, Soil, and Valuation of Edstaston.
The name Edstaston, which has obtained for some hundreds of years, is a contraction of Edstanston found in ancient writings, and signifying the town of Edstan; who probably was the founder of its chapel, and had his seat on the north side of it, where the scite of an ancient building is still visible. The fine north door of the chapel is opposite to it; and seems to have been made for the convenience of the family that resided there.
The township of Edstaston is bounded by Wem on the south, Lowe and Northwood on the west, Whixall and Cotton on the north, and Lacon on the east.
Its length from Quino brook, its northern boundary to Mr. Basnet's house is a mile and half. Its breadth from east to west is about a mile.
The soil is cold and moist, being generally a sort of clay. It produces excellent wheat and oats; but the dairy turns to more account than tillage.
In respect to land-tax, this township is valued at £380. 6s. 8d. per annum; so that the sum charged upon it at is. in the pound is £19. 0s. 4d.
At the survey in 1561, there were but three free holders in this township, sir Arthur Mainwaring of a messuage, and near twelve acres; Rowland Lacon, esq. of near twenty-six acres; and John Hochekis of half a pasture, called the Moss Pool. All the rest of the township was copyhold. But whilst Playsters and Onslow were lords of Wem, they enfranchised so many estates, that at present the freehold lands exceed the copyhold.
The new Park was formerly reckoned one of the five woods within this lordship; but it has been so well cleared of trees, that no remains of a wood are left. Chetal wood formerly belonged to the lord; but at the survey in 1561, it was held by sir Arthur Mainwaring as copyhold, at the rent of six shillings per annum. This wood is still preserved, consists of oaks, a mile in circuit. Its name was sometimes written Chetwal, Chittal, and Chitto wood.
In ancient times Edstaston had three common fields, of which the greater part was enclosed near two hundred years ago.
Whorrow field lies between Creamore farm, and the first house on the road to Whitchurch. It extended on both sides that way, where the butts thrown up by the plough are still visible. Its name is retained by one, or more closes that were once part of it.
The Chapel field was so called, because it was near to the chapel. The way opposite to the great south gate of the chapel led to it.
The Cross field lay chiefly on the east side of the Whitchurch road, extending westwards to the new Park. The name of it indicates that there was, or had been a cross in the way that led through it; probably at the turning to Edstaston hall. Such crosses were erected to put travallers in mind of Christ's passion.
Whilst the lord's resided at Wem the new Park was enclosed with pales, and stocked with wild beasts of chase. At the survey in 1561, it was considered only as a wood, of which the herbage, and half the profit of the pannage was set at twenty shillings a year, the other half of the pannage was reserved to the lord. At present it is divided into pastures and meadows, which make two farms, be sides two fields belonging to a third. The Park house is a convenient dwelling, belonging to the larger of the two farms. The other messuage is at the extremity of the Park, where it borders upon Whixall. The circumference of the whole is two measured miles. It is easy to trace the bounds of it though not one pale is left. Thomas Adams, esq. afterwards knight and baronet, bought the Park lands as freehold. Sir Charles, his grandson mortgaged them with other estates in Northwood, to his mother-in-law, the lady Roll, who by will devised them to several persons. At present the proprietors are so many, and perhaps some of them under ages that this had obstructed the intended sale of them.
Creamore house and farm were also part of the lord's demesne. The right name is Cranmore, as it was formerly written: importing that a great part of it was a moor, much frequented by cranes; but time has contracted, and softened the word to Creamore, as it is now commonly pronounced. In the Saxon period it belonged to some considerable person, whose mansion house was at some distance from the present dwelling place. The scite there of is overgrown with bushes and trees, but the broad and deep moat about it is still visible, and will long continue so. At the conquest it was given to William Pantulph, and from him descended to William, lord Dacre, who in 1530, 22nd Henry VIII. leased it to Richard Cooper, for the term of forty-one years, at the annual rent of £6. 6s. 8d. It is now a freehold estate, having been sold in the reign of James I. to the Higginsons, who lived upon it a long time. It was lately the estate of Robert Jones, esq. of Gray's Inn, who at his death left £100. to be distributed among the poor of Wem parish. At present it belongs to Mr. Green, of Stafford.
A messuage and lands, now called the High fields, from one of the pastures of thirteen acres which formerly bore that name, was also part of the demesne. This estate at present belongs to Mr. Colthwest, of Chester, as long ago it did to the Sambrokes. Opposite to the present dwelling house on the other side of the road there stood formerly an habitation which seems to have been built in troublesome times, for the residence of some good family, because it was moated round. Perhaps the Sambrokes lived here till they removed to Wem; where 4th Henry, 1489, John Sambroke was amerced three shillings and four-pence for an affray and bloodshed. In 1683, this estate belonged to John Shenton, in 1689 to Mr. Archer, in 1692 to Mr. John Bill, whose daughter by marriage carried it to Mr. Colehurst, the Presbyterian minister at Whitchurch.
Time has made a great alteration in these estates, but a much greater in the families that occupied them, it being observable, that there is but one per son now living in this township, Mr. John Hinton, whose ancestors lived here two hundred years ago.
At the east end of the chapel is a handsome messuage, amid free estate of the Lloyds of the Ford, near Oswestry, which in 1689 came to them by the marriage of the heiress of the Hinstocks. It belonged to the chaplains of Edstaston, till 1540 or 45, when all free chapels were dissolved, and William, lord Dacre, then lord of this manor, seised the revenue of our ladies of Edstaston, into his own hands, though it properly belonged to the crown, and in 1561 granted this estate to William Ash, as tenant, or copyholder, if the latter, it has been since enfranchised, probably in the time of Playters and Onslow.
At the west end of the chapel is a house and lands, late the copyhold estate of the Wellses, and earlier of the Moodies, now of Mrs. Marygold, of Lee Gomery, near Wellington, being purchased by her father, Mr. Andrew Downes, 1707.
Near to the chapel there are two good houses and estates, belonging to the Paynes. One is freehold, the other copyhold. The freehold estate the inheritance of the Ellyses, has a handsome brick house upon it fronting the great road, in a great measure built by the late Mr. Daniel Payne, and now inhabited by major Sutton. The copyhold once belonged to the Hanwoods, and before them to the Olivers. It is now much enlarged by the addition of another copyhold estate purchased of Mr. Payne, of Weston. About 1650 Thomas Payne, of Moreton Corbet, gentleman, married the daughter and heir of Allen Ellys, of Edstaston, who February 17th, 1653 purchased of Playters and Onslow the freehold of several copyhold estates, containing one hundred acres, or thereabouts. This Thomas had three sons, Walter the eldest, Richard who never married, and Daniel from whom the Paynes of Nonely are descended. Walter married the daughter amid coheir of Mr. John Edwards, of Ellesmere, by whom he had Thomas, Walter, and Daniel, which last after he had felt the greatest want, and hardship at sea, recovered most of his paternal estate from William Kynaston, of Ruyton, to whom his eldest brother-had devised it. By his first wife, relict of Mr. Thomas Harwood, of Bridgmere, in Cheshire, he had two sons, Thomas and Walter. By his second wife Frances, relict of Mr. Richard Basnet, of Radnal, in Shropshire, he had three sons and a daughter. He purchased the copyhold estates in Edstaston, was of a strong robust constitution. and might have lived to a great age if in his seventieth year he had not miserably perished by falling into a tub of scalding water. His eldest son Thomas by his first wife married Mrs. Sarah Holmbroke, of the Black Park, in the parish of Whitchurch, and died before his father, but left a son Thomas, a minor. Allen Ellys died in 1666, Thomas Payne, his son-in-law in 1684, Thomas's son Walter four years before, Walter's son Thomas in 1706, and his brother Daniel in 1750.
The four houses above mentioned, with one other that is considerable, are properly called Edstaston, which is one computed mile north of Wem.
Edstaston Hall a large timber house, had its name from its being in later times the residence of the principal family in the township; for here lived time Mainwarings, a younger branch of the Mainwarings, of Ightfield, whose arms are in a window of the chapel, in the reign of Henry VII. T. Mainwaring, esq. purchased two copyhold estates in Edstaston and Cotton, one of John Vazhan, the other of John Hinton. This Thomas died 1508, and his son John was admitted tenant in his stead. April 29th, 1591, 33rd Elizabeth, George Mainwaring, esq. on the death of his father sir Arthur Mainwaring, was admitted by his attorney, and the same day granted a lease of his messuage of Edstaston Hall. with its appurtenances ; the estate above the Chettal wood to George Mainwaring, gentleman, for eighty years, if the said George, gentleman, and his brother Edward, or either of them should so long live. In the time of the commonwealth this estate was enfranchised by Playters and Onslow, with a reservation of only six-pence a year, chief rent. In the reign of William III. 1697, Charles Mainwaring, of Ightfield, esq. sold it to Thomas Catherock, of Stoke Park, gentleman. From the Catherocks it lately passed to the Cooks of the same place. In the house there is nothing remarkable but a great profusion of timber. In the farm there is a small turbary, or turf moor, about two yards deep, in which are found the trunks of oaks, firs, and birch trees, severed from the roots, which continue erect as the grew.
At the Rye Bank is a good house and freehold estate belonging to Richard Goldisbrough, gentleman, descended from an ancient family seated at Goldisburgh, in Yorkshire; whereof was doctor Godfrey Goldisbrough, bishop of Gloucester in the reign of queen Elizabeth. The bishop's eldest son John in 1618, purchased for the sum of one thousand two hundred and eighty pounds, the estate of sir Francis Lacon, in this parish, lie married Rebecca, daughter of Rowland Lacon, esq. and by her at his death left a son Richard, aim infant; who successively married two wives, Elizabeth daughter of William Basnet, of the county of Denbigh, gentleman, by whom he had no issue male, and Frances, daughter of Mr. Vincent Rodenhurst, of High Ercal, by whom he had two sons, Joseph and Benjamin. January 1st, 1675, by his second wife he became possessed of this estate, and several others. Joseph married Mrs. Ann Atcherley, of Wolverley, and 1685 dying before his father left issue only a daughter; so Benjamin succeeded to the estate, and by Ann, relict of Mr. Edward Garland, of Sleap, had two sons, of which one died very young, and the other Richard, the present gentleman was bred up to the law, and married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Sandford, of Sandford, esq. by whom he has no issue. Bishop Goldisbrough died in 1604, his son John in 1620, his son Richard 1692, his son Benjamin in 1730.
At the Paddock Green is a freehold messuage and estate, which passed by purchase from the Lacons to Goldisbroughs, and by Mr. Richard Goldisbrough now living, has been sold to Mr. Price, receiver of the excise. This and the last mentioned farm but one tenement, which, with lands in Cotton township, Rowland Lacon, esq. claimed, to hold free in virtue of a charter granted 30th Edward III. to Nicholas de Cooton.
The Foxholes is a copyhold estate, which formerly belonged to John Rippon, and after his death was divided between his five daughters. John Menlove marrying one of them, he or his posterity by decrees became possessed of most of the other shares. This was a Roman Catholic family, and by one of them the present house was built. The Menloves, 1689, sold to the Glovers, and they to Mr. Andrew Downes, of Preston Brockhurst, whose daughter Mrs. Marygold is now in possession of the whole estate, having purchased of me five small pieces of land that were parcel of it.
The Ash house estate is copyhold consisting of several fields. For many generations it belonged to the Higginsons, in 1684 to the Pidgeons, 1718 they sold it to Mr. Downes above mentioned, who pulled down the house, and annexed the land to the farm at the Foxholes.
Near the Foxholes is a neat box of a house, lately erected by John Groom, the rooms of which are too much contracted by the narrowness of its plan; a small estate belongs to it.
The messuage of the Pool Head took its name from its being built at the head of Castor's pool, which was formerly above a mile in compass, lying chiefly in the township of Whixall, but partly in those of Edstaston and Northwood. The water has been time out of mind drained off, and the soil converted into a great number of meadows, now the property of the earl of Bradford. The dwelling house formerly stood at a small distance from the present, and was moated round. Part of the moat still remains, and has its complement of water, the rest of it has been filled up. The copyhold estate belonging to this messuage was much larger formerly than it is at present, being the ancient inheritance of the Moodies, who got it enfranchised by Playters and Onslow. The Moodies sold it to the Menloves, proprietors of the Foxholes; the Menloves 1689 to the Norcops, a daughter of which family by marriage carried to Mr. Sandford, of Whitchurch; and Mr. Sandford 1709 sold it to Mr. John Hill, of Hawkstone, gentleman, who granted a lease of it to Mr. John Bolas, deceased, for three lives.
At Quino Brook is a messuage and estate, which for some hundreds of years has belonged to the Hintons. At the survey in 1561 it was copyhold, in the tenure of Allen Hinton, son of William, of Newtown, which Allen died in 1685, and his son Allen in 1617. William, son of this last in 1658 procured the enfranchisement of his estates in Edstaston, Cotton, and Newtown, and died at Ightfield in 1685. His son William died in 1702, and his son of the same name in 1750.
At Pepper street is a good freehold estate belonging to Mr. Thomas Payne. The messuage is in Edstaston, but the greatest part of the estate lies in Cotton. It seems to consist of two or three ancient tenements of the Ellyses and Mainwarings. Allen Ellys procured an enfranchisement of them in 1653.
At Pepper-street Mr. George Tyler has a copyhold estate, part of which formerly belonged to Randal Hinton, of Cotton, and part to Robert Sherratt, of Pepper-street, whose daughter carried it by marriage to the Moltons, and Molton sold it to Mr. Arthur Tyler. In 1651 John Tyler, of Cotton, was possessed of the former share; in 1673 his youngest brother George, of Darleston, had purchased it of him, and not long after was employed to manage the suit of the copyholders against the lord Wycherley. His son George was clerk to Thomas Hill, of Soulton, esq. his son Arthur was a tanner, but left that trade to follow husbandry. He built the present house. His son George is an apothecary and surgeon in Whitchurch.
Edstaston chapel was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and therefore in ancient writings it is usually called our Lady's chapel of Edstaston. The 8th of September being the festival of the Nativity of the blessed Virgin, was the day on which it was dedicated, for which the wake is kept on that day, or the sunday following.
The founder I take to have been Edstan, who probably was the ancient lord of this township before the conquest. He founded it for the health and welfare of his own soul, and perhaps of the souls of some of his relations, friends, or benefactors; for whose benefit masses were continually sung here. For in those early times it was an established doctrine that masses were serviceable to the dead, would abate the pains of purgatory, and at last deliver souls out of it. Under this persuasion it is no wonder that men of great estates applied a small part of them in making a provision for the next world.
To say, or sing masses for the dead was the design of all free chapels and chantries; and that the chapel of Edstaston was one of this sort appears from the loss of its endowment upon their suppression. By the statutes of 37th Henry VIII. and 2nd Edward VI. the chapels themselves as well as their houses and lands were vested in the king, who gave, or sold most of them to persons who pulled them down to use the materials. But this chapel though shut up for some time escaped the general ruin, and has for some ages been reckoned a member of Wem church. In the times of popery mass was sung here every day for the advantage of the deceased, and on Sundays the usual church service was performed for the benefit of the living, and so this chapel was of great use to the people of the neighbourhood, by saving them the trouble of going to the parish church. It was not only independent of the rector of Wem, but also free from the visitation of the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, who neither instituted nor inducted the incumbent, so that in this respect it was much on the same footing as donations. It is a large and lofty structure of the Gothic order, twenty-three feet wide within the walls, and lately above ninety feet in length, at present eighty-two and a half. It is remarkable that the doors and the carples of time old roof are not cut with a saw, but hewn with an axe. June 19th, 1723, the inside and middle of the west-end wall fell down in the night, and the roof was so much decayed, that it was necessary to take the greatest part of it down. Twelve feet in length of the roof had been framed anew six years before. In 1724 the new roof was carried on to the west-end wall, which was handsomely rebuilt of free stone, with a large window after time modern fashion. To lesson the charge, a licence was obtained of the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, to make the chapel ten or eleven feet shorter than it had been. Several inhabitants of the chapelry of Newtown refused to contribute to the repairs, but a process being commenced against them, they submitted to pay their quotas, and the charge of the law.
The ancient splendour may be inferred from its floor being laid with tiles, which exhibited flowers and other figures of divers colours, from the devices painted in the windows, where the colours are beautiful and lively, and differed through the body of the glass; and from the inner roof of the chancel, consisting of boards on which the stars were painted, as shining in the firmament, but time has so impaired their lustre, that they are scarcely discernable. In one of the south windows are the arms of the Mainwarings; two Barrs Gules in a field argent, with a crescent, to indicate a younger branch. In the east window is a figure of a noble person in a rich robe sitting on a chair, with a table before him, and a white rose upon it, to denote his attachment to the house of York.
There are some remains which shew the superstition of popish times, as 1st, two stands cut in stone on each side the Altar, to bear the tapers that usually burn there. 2nd, Two bases of stone, one jutting out of the east, the other out of the north wall. On the former stood the image of the blessed Virgin, patroness of the chapel. On the other the image of some other Saint. 3rd, Three steps of stone beneath the south window in the chancel, designed for some use of which I can give no account. 4th, A sort of cupboard near the Altar, for the reservation of the consecrated host. 5th, Two stone basons opposite to each other in the walls of the chapel, one on the north side being round, and seven inches in diameter under an arch of stone, the other in the south wall being square, and eight inches and a half in diameter. The use of these cavities probably was to hold holy water, there being holes at time bottom of each to let it run into the wall when they had no further occasion for it. On the north side of the Altar there formerly was a sacristy, or vestry where the sacred utensils and priest's vestments were kept, and where the priest drest, and undressed himself before, and after service. The door place is still visible, and I had an opportunity of seeing one of iron hooks on which the door turned. Before the west-end wall fell, there rested on it a small pillar of stone resembling a chimney, but it could not serve for that use because it was not hollow, but perfectly solid, perhaps an image, or a cross that stood upon it. The silver plate belonging to this chapel is only a paten and a chalice, the former was bought by me in 1722, with money given at the sacrament. The other was the gift of Mr. John Bolas, junior, of the Pool Head in 1728. At the same time his sister, Ann Shore, of Edstaston hall, gave a scarlet carpet for the Communion table, with a border of silver lace.
Upon the restoration of Charles II. the chapel walls were adorned with the king's arms, the portrait of death, and several inscriptions. In 1710, the porch of the chapel was handsomely rebuilt with free stone. In 1727, the king's arms were painted on canvas, and the other decorations of the wall renewed. At time same time the pulpit was painted at my expense. In 1749, the new gates of the chapel yard were made. chapel has been well sup plied, there being preaching twice every Sunday throughout the year, except on sacrament days.
This chapel, or rather the chantry founded in it, was formerly endowed with a good estate in Edstaston, consisting of a messuage (which appears to be near the same as is now held by John Moreton junior,) with the gardens, orchards, barns, bakehouses, and other buildings to the said messuage belonging, and the following lands, Ridley's Lea. sow lying up to the gardens and orchards, and making with them six acres; a meadow, having Ridley's Leasow on the north, one acre; a meadow inclosed in the Chapel field, called Hallywell Meadow, one acre; a pasture, called the Rye Croft, having the lane on the west, four acres; Ridley's Moor, lying up to Bannister's wood, called Shetenhurst, on the east, six acres; the Pool Leasow having Castor's Pool on the west, three acres; and three nooks of land lying separately in the three common fields of Edstaston, nine acres in each field.
Here are forty-eight computed acres, which might amount to sixty measured ones, and these at ten shillings an acre be worth thirty pounds per annum.
Besides, there were two messuages, and some lands in Wem belonging to this chapel, viz, two crofts adjacent to the messuages, of which one con-tamed an acre, the other half one, and a field adjoining to Creamore farm on the north, and an annuity of one shilling and six-pence charged on some lands in the township of Wem, perhaps for an obit.
Upon the whole, the profits of the chaplain must have amounted to about forty pounds a year according to the present valuation of houses and lands. And yet in 1561, the agents of lord Dacre by copy of court granted this whole estate to William Ashe, at the annual rent £2. 8s. 0d. which equivalent to £9. 12. 0d. at present, considering that the value of money is sunk three parts in four since that time. But Ashe was to defend it at his own expense against the claims of queen Elizabeth.
It is impossible to discover so much as the names of the incumbents of this chapel during its prosperity. Richard Nichols was the last that enjoyed the full revenue described in the last chapter, and the first that was dispossessed of it by the act of 2nd Edward VI. 1548. By this act certain commissioners were impowered to allow what pension they thought convenient to those that were turned out of such foundations; and it appears from a record dated in 1553, that they did settle £2. 9s. 4d. per annum on Mr. Nichols. which was equal to ten pounds a year at present. How long he lived to receive this pension, and how long the chapel was shut up is uncertain. But I know that it was shut up in 1561.
The first rector of Wem that was so good as prefer conscience to interest out of his abundance, allowed a competent salary to a curate at this chapel, which I suppose was thirty pounds per annum, as it has continued from time immemorial.
1640. JOHN BISBYE is the next chaplain I meet with. In 1642, he lived in Cotton, for he is assessed there three shillings and four-pence for his goods in a tax levied at that time. Six years after this he had a daughter baptized. As I find no account of his death, or ejectment, I suppose he removed to a better place.
SAMUEL TAYLOR succeeded him about 1650. Mr. Parsons allowed him the great tithes of Edstaston and Cotton, for serving the curacy. Perhaps they were valued at about thirty pounds per annum, though now they are set at seventy four pounds. In 1662, he was ejected by the Bartholomew act, and became a preacher among the Presbyterians. See dissenting ministers at Wem.
1662. ROBERT SMITH succeeded Mr. Taylor, and in 1674 was removed hence to the curacy of Wem. He was a single man. See more of him among the curates of Wem.
CARTWRIGHT was preferred from Newtown to this curacy in 1674. He had no university education, never wore a gown, preached in a surplice. His sermons were mean, and yet the people had some regard for him. See third masters of Wem school.
JOHN COLLIER came in about 1688, upon the resignation of Mr. Cartwright. See an account of him among the second masters of Wem school.
SAMUEL GARBET in 1713, succeeded Mr. Collier, who then resigned the chapel to him, as before he had done the school. The curacy was given me by doctor Chandler, to whom I had been recommended by Richard, earl of Bradford, and Henry, lord Newport. I have now preached at the chapel near thirty-eight years, which is a much longer time than any of my predecessors did, of whom we have any knowledge.
Page created 7 September 2003 and last updated 22 June 2007
