Shropshire Routes to Roots - Shropshire places - Wem
by Samuel Garbet
The name, boundaries, extent, manor, soil, and valuation of Lowe and Ditches
The bulk of this township takes it name from its situation. For it is situated on an eminence, or rise of ground; and Low in Saxon signifies a little hill, whence the tumuli, or mounts which the Danes raised over the dead bodies of their famous men, were called Lowes. There is nothing more usual in the change of the a into o; thus what the Saxons call stanes, we pronounce stones, and what they call Hallywell, we pronounce Hollywell. It being not commonly known that Low signifies a hill, common use joins both together, and gives the houses on the eminence the name of the Lowe hill. The name Ditches was probably taken from some remarkable fosses, or ditches, of which there are no plain remains, nor certain tradition. This township is bounded on the north by Newton, Northwood, and Edstaston, on the east by Edstaston, on the south by Wem, and on the west by Horton. It is a measured mile and a half in length from north to south. The breadth from the Cross Bank in Edstaston to Sir Rowland Hill's farm in Horton is six furlongs.
The soil is generally a reddish clay, or marl, with a small mixture of earth, and in some places of sand. It is about a foot deep, and is equally fit for tillage, or pasture. It produces all sorts of grain, but suits best with wheat. The common manure is marl, muck, and lime, but of the last no great quantities are used. There is plenty of marl, and with this manure the land will bear excellent barley, peas, and oats.
In respect to the land-tax this township. is valued at one hundred and forty pounds per annum, so that at four shillings in the pound the assignment is twenty-eight pounds.
In 1651 the lord's lands were held by Allanson, Thurleigh, and Whitfield.
John Allanson was the lord's bailiff, and receiver of his rents. In his hands were a curious house and yard, with about three hundred acres of land belonging to it, a cottage and yard near Northwood, with eleven acres belonging thereto, and ten acres and a half in other places.
John Thurleigh held six closes, of which, one was called the Wind-mill croft, because a wind-mill then stood in it; another, Drake field, because it lay up to Drake lane; a third, Balcroft, adjoining to the road to Horton on the south, and the Windmill croft on the north, a fourth lying between the mid road on the north, and the house of Thomas Twyford, (Dytcher's hall) on the south. The other two need not be described, being small meadows.
Richard Whitfield held at the will of the lord fifteen butts of land, called St John's Furlong, because it anciently belonged to the chapel of St. John at the west-end of Wem. At the suppression of the said chapel the lord Dacre begged, bought, or at least seized this part of its endowment. From this chapel two fine pastures parcel of the the Rector's glebe are still called the Chapel fields.
The Ditches hall, as it was called when the Twyfords lived here, is a large timber house by tenure copyhold, as are the barns and other out buildings, and one half of the estate. The other half is freehold. The Twyfords had the title of gentlemen. Thomas, Richard, and Thomas succeeded in a direct line. The last of them died 1603. In 1622, George Kylvert was in possession of this estate. His son Richard Kylvert, gentleman, died 1644. About this time Thomas Barnes, of the Lowe, purchased it, and in 1658, gave it to John Edwards, of Nesse, a strange gentleman, as a portion with his daughter Dorothy, my mother in law. About 1663, Mr. Edwards sold it to Mr. Basnet, of Ruyton, whose son, Roger married for his first wife, Ann Pay, of Wem, and for his second, Martha Donn, of the Lowe. By his first wife, on whose issue by him the estate was settled, he had only a daughter Elizabeth, who first married Richard Tyler, of Horton, by whom she had two daughters; and afterwards one Longford, of Ellesmere, by whom she had a son. This son a minor, is admitted to the copyhold, and the freehold belongs to the daughters, one of which, has married Mr. William Basnet, her uncle by the father's side.
James Forgham, of Wem, butcher, has a small copyhold estate at the Lowe, which has been in the family about ninety years.
Mr. William Baxnet, of the new House, in Edstanton, has the estate which lately belonged to the Downs, an ancient family, now extinct. At the time of the survey 1561, it was copyhold, in the possession of Randle Downs. Richard his grandson gave £5. to the school at Wem in 1651, and about the same time got his estate enfranchised by Onslow and Playters. Samuel, son,of Richard, was at first a wild libertine, but at length taking up, became a rigid Presbyterian. Richard, son of Samuel, died of the small pox, unmarried, and before his father, who thereupon settled twenty-three pounds per annum, being his whole estate in Lowe, on his daughter Basnet and her issue, and seven pounds per annum, being land in Edstaston, called Donn's Breeches, on his three grand-daughters.
Pyms farm is freehold. The messuage formerly faced the road, very near the Donn's; but the present house lies a little backward in the fields. In 1561, this estate was part of the lord's demesne, and then, in the hands of the lord's bailiff, Mr. Allanson. He or his son probably purchased it, for it was in the possession of his grandson William at the beginning of the civil war. In those times of confusion; one Pym was pursued, and murdered in a field, then covered with birches and other trees, a little below the house. He was not the owner, but the tenant of this farm, which is likely to carry his name, when, that of all the ancient Landlords is forgotten. In the reign of Charles II. Francis. Allanson, son of William above, sold this estate to one Hesketh, the lord's agent, and he afterwards to Thomas Jebb, of Wem, mercer, who built there a good brick house, the old one being ruinous above one hundred years before. In 1695, Mr. Jebb sold the estate to Mr. William. Smith, a Londoner, and in 1700 Mr. Smith sold it to Job Orton, of Shrewsbury, grocer, whose son the Presbyterian teacher in that town has added nine pounds per annum to it. In this farm there is a remarkable well, from which twenty-three acres of land formerly took the name of the Well field, a name still retained by two pastures of it.
Taylor's copyhold messuage and estate lie on the other side the road. At the time of the survey 1561, they belonged to John Pay. In 1642, Richard Pay was in possession of them. His son John was one of the plaintiffs against Mr. Wycherley in 1673. The expense of that suit, and the bankruptcy of Mr. Samuel Smith, of Wem, mercer, in 1676 reduced him to the necessity of selling his estate to the Taylors. The widow of John Taylor is now in possession of it. The revenue of it belongs to one Price, son of Taylor's sister.
At a small distance John Barnes, esq. has a large freehold estate, and a pleasant seat, by himself much improved. The garden is entirely of his own designing; the plan is well drawn, and executed at a great expense. The canals are large, and well filled with water. The green walks are neat, the shady walk so well contrived, that the boughs meet above, and form a continued arch.
Baron was the ancient name of this family, which settled here very early. 1489. In 5th Henry VII. William Baron, of the Lowe, was of the Homage extra barram, or country jury. 1516. In the reign of queen Elizabeth, Thomas Baron, who is sometimes called Barnes, was of the jury that surveyed all the estates in this lordship. Three years afterwards he was of the jury, 1564, that enquired into, and settled the customs of this manor. John Barnes, son of the said Thomas, was buried December 28th, 20th James I.
Thomas, son of John, born in 1506, on the 20th of June, 1688, married Dorothy, daughter of John Moody, of the Pool Head, by whom he had three sons and four daughters. Before the civil war began, he resigned a great part of his estate to his eldest son Thomas, having built the Folly for the residence of himself and wife, where he died in 1658. His widow survived ten years. On a Sunday evening about 1721, a thunderbolt fell on this structure, and shattered several parts of it in a surprizing manner. At present there are no remains of it, but the cellar. In 1650, sir Thomas Adams chose Thomas Barnes, the elder, and Thomas Barnes the younger, both then living at the Lowe, feoffees with others of the school he had just founded at Wem, to which they gave twenty-five pounds.
Thomas, the younger, was born in 1614: April 23rd 1631, he married Elizabeth daughter to Richard Higginson, of Creamore, by whom he had two sons and one daughter; in 1642, he collected a subsidy, being the last to which the royal assent was given, by the first charter in the allotments of Wem, Prees, Shawbury, and Whitchurch. The estate of the Ditches was bought by him, and he gave it as a portion with his daughter. He built that part of the house at the Lowe which contains the kitchen, hall &c. 1635: and the other half which contains the large parlour &c. 1654. He sensibly felt the miseries of the civil war, his house being frequently plundered, and himself carried prisoner to Shrawardine castle. His consideration money was £100, and when the Shropshire gentlemen compounded for their estates, he was obliged to pay £50. He died in 1668, his widow survived him thirty-five years, for she died at Great Ness in 1703.
John his eldest son dying young, Thomas became his heir,who January 26th, 1671; married Lucy, daughter of --- Lloyd, of Houghton in the county Flint, Esq. by whom he has issue, one son. This Thomas farmed of Dr. Aldrich, all the tithes and profits of the rectory of Wem; on the marriage of his son he retired to Chester in 1702, where he died in 1709, and was buried, at Wem, February 23rd, in the same year. His son John married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Foden, esq. barrister at law, and recorder of Stafford; he was buried, August 14th. 1722, leaving two sons in their minority; of which Thomas the youngest died of a fall from his horse, January 14th, 1750. John the eldest, married Elizabeth, the beautiful heiress of Mr. Whitehead, of Hadley in the county of Salop, by whom he had only one daughter, Elizabeth. In 1561 Mr. Barnes's estate was copyhold, but before the restoration it was enfranchised by Platers and Onslow.
On the road from the Lowe to Whixall, there an now three tenements, but formerly only two, (viz.) Webb's and Whitfield's; which were then copyhold, but are now free. William Webb was of the jury in 1561, and then was proprietor of the first of these tenements: 1623, it was in the possession of William Felton, who for this, and another estate in Horton, was charged eight shillings towards the subsidy paid in 1642: his son had the title of gentleman; being brought up to the law, he was employed by the borough-holders and copy-holders of Wem, 1673, to manage their suit against Mr. Wycherley, who 1680, found means to corrupt and bribe him to betray his trust, and secret and suppress the copies, writings, and evidences which they had put into his hands. This man afterwards sold his estate to the lord chancelor Jeffreys, and so it has since gone along with the barony and manor of Wem. It is at present held by Mr. Barns, as lying up to his own estate.
Roger Whitfield, ancestor of all the Whitfields in these parts, was of the jury of survey 1561, and was then possessed of a large estate, which in times past had belonged to the Cadmans. One of his descendants sold the greatest part of it to Mr. Barnes, of the Lowe; the remainder continued in the family much longer, for Catherine, widow of Thomas Whitfield, was charged towards the subsidy in 1642; and Roland, her son, gave 20s. to Wem School, in 1651. Soon after this he sold his estate to steward Jebb, who got it enfranchised with several others, but Mr. Richard Jebb, grandson of the steward, once a mercer in Wem, and now curate of Whixall, sold it to Mr. Richard Lawrence of Wem, the present occupier. The farthest tenement borders an Northwood, and belongs to Mr. Barnes, of the Lowe; the tenure was changed from copyhold to freehold, at the same time that the rest of the estates were enfranchised.
Page created 22 April 2008 and last updated 22 April 2008
