| Doc Ref No | D590, D(W)0/2, 316, D1164/1, D1231, D(W)1832, D3212, 3648, D5827, 6421 pt, D7162, D7506, 7645, D7849 |
| Description | The D590 collection was deposited at the Record Office in 1959 by Mr. T.A.W. Giffard and is concerned directly with the family estates. Although there were few original bundles, the collection when sorted went easily into the sections, title including legal papers, estate including maps and manorial documents, accounts and personal. Apart from the court rolls, the documents are of sixteenth to nineteenth century date.
The estates fall into three groups, in and near 1) Brewood (including parishes of Penkridge and Tettenhall), 2) Marston near Stafford (including land in north Stafford), and 3) Walton in Eccleshall. Additions to the estates were being made by purchase throughout the period particularly to the Brewood estate. A number of properties, notably (until 1852) the manor of Brewood (from the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield) were held on lease. In 1847 the Marston and Walton estates were sold to the Earl of Harrowby and Lord Anson respectively. Properties in Hampshire, Kent, Lincolnshire, Flintshire, Denbighshire and Warwickshire are mentioned in various marriage settlements, but only for the Welsh estate is there any considerable number of independent documents. Peter Giffard married in 1731 as his third wife, Helen Roberts of Plas Ucha, County Flint and the Welsh properties descended to their second son John but reverted to the main estate on the death of both his daughters without issue. A small collection of purchase deeds, settlements and leases relate to the estates of the Moretons of Engleton. The Giffards of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were much occupied with lawsuits, chiefly in connection with their Brewood property.
There is a good series of estate surveys and plans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Two maps show the field strip system in Marston (Stafford Common area); the Chillington maps show the area before and after the laying out of the park, that of 1761 apparently indicating the site of the village which has now disappeared. The building plans are largely nineteenth century and include only parts of Soane's plans for Chillington Hall c.1786. However, there is a plan/elevation of the pre-Soane Hall among the estate miscellanea (D590/571) and small drawings on the pre-1727 map (D590/363b), and the 1756 plan (D7162/3/2).
There is a group of court rolls for Brewood manor, which runs from 1338-1707 in a very broken series, averaging one year in every ten or twenty. These are supported by a series of court books for Brewood Manor, 1653-1814 (D(W)0/1). There is a series of court books for the Manor of Stowheath, 1645- 1836 (D(W)0/2). Similarly, the meagre representation of rolls for Brewood Deanery Manor and Stowheath Manor, the former of which was held on lease from the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield, is explained by the presence at the Library of rolls for 1781-1922 and 1651-1900 respectively. An interesting survival is the fourteenth century court roll with rental for the manor of Calverton, Nottinghamshire, which belonged to Whiteladies Priory and held its courts at Brewood.
The estate correspondence is almost complete from 1823-1883 and there are also miscellaneous bundles including papers on Codsall Wood and Bishops Wood inclosure, Brewood and Stowheath enfranchisements and the negotiations with the Shropshire Union Canal Company for making Belvide Reservoir. The estate and rent accounts run from 1653 and in the nineteenth century include detailed building, coal, dairy, grain and stock, labour and wood accounts, also with entries relating to the work of Lancelot "Capability" Brown in 1760-1765 (D590/619).
There is little in the documents, except in a negative sense, to illustrate the position of the family as persistent recusants. There is a notable absence of official papers, since the Elizabethan penal laws and the Test Act prevented Catholics from holding public office. On the positive side are found the building accounts for Giffard House, Wolverhampton, with a subscription list headed by Bishop Giffard from which it would appear that the house was built for official Catholic use rather than as a family town house. The settlements show marriage alliances with other prominent Catholic families and there are a number of incidental references in other documents. There are also legal papers concerning the assessment of the Giffards at a double lewn as papists and their claims to exemption from penal laws granted by Charles II to his hosts after the Battle of Worcester. The only papers, in the same connection, referring to the Penderell grant, of which the Giffards were trustees, date from 1884-1910.
The personal papers include letters on the 1841 Staffordshire election and on the "Little fleet" on Chillington Pool as well as the correspondence of Mrs. Mytton, widow of John Mytton, sportsman and eccentric, chiefly about the education of her children. There are also the minutes and accounts of the Chillington Association for the prosecution of felons founded in 1828. The only documents of a semi-public nature are nineteenth century churchwardens accounts for Brewood, letters about the repair of the organ and highway rate books for Chillington.
D1164 and D3212 were deposited in 1971 and 1978 respectively from collections of documents held at solicitors' offices. The former comprises title deeds to properties at Gunston and Brewood and the latter relates mainly to the manor of Stowheath.
[Please note there are further items relating to the Giffard family in the latter solicitor's collection Liddle and Heane of Newport, D627, D3134 etc.]
D5827 consists of a series of deposits of records by the Giffard family of Chillington Hall from 1995 to 2006 and comprises deeds, estate records, accounts and miscellaneous personal papers.
Among the title deeds are some medieval documents which relate mainly to land in Chillington and Brewood but there are also some early deeds to property owned by the Moreton family of Engleton. The numerous settlements and mortgages are mainly 19th and 20th century.
The estate records include survey and survey rentals dating from 1651-1896, six maps, 1761-1897, manorial records including court books for Tettenhall Clericorum, which belonged to the Wrottesley family, 1779-1922, a series of estate correspondence from the 1880s to the 1920s and among the estate miscellanea tithe apportionments and/or maps for Bilbrook, Brewood, Kingswood, Oaken, Orton, Penn, Trysull and Seisdon, Wightwick and Wombourne.
The accounts include rent rolls, 1632-1928, and a series of general estate accounts, 1883-1899. In the personal section there are Penderell Grant papers (accounts, 1899-1966, and correspondence, 1887-1948), pedigrees of the Giffard and other families and among papers relating to the parish of Brewood a poor law assessment for Brewood dated 1684.
There are further small additional accessions including some estate plans, manorial documents and personal papers. |