The Noble and Gentle Men of England / or, notes touching the arms and descents of the ancient knightly and gentle houses of England, arranged in their respective counties.

by Evelyn Philip Shirley

See Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iv. p. 338; Hunter's South Yorkshire, vol. ii. p. 394; Burke's Landed Gentry; and "The Grand Juries of the County of Westmeath," vol. ii. p. 254.

Arms.—A cross patonce voided gules. The crest, "a mower of parti-colours argent and gules," is said by Fuller in his "Worthies of England" to have been assumed in memory of the ancestor of the family having so disguised himself in order to escape after the Battle of Hastings. The Battle of Bosworth is the more probable scene of this event, where four knights of the family were in arms on the part of Richard III.

Present Representative, Sir Lionel Milborne Swinnerton Pilkington, 11th Baronet.

Stourton of Allerton, Baron Stourton 1447.

A well-known Wiltshire family, seated at Stourton, in that county, soon after the Norman Conquest. "The name of the Stourtons be very aunciente yn those parties," writes Leland in his Itinerary. "The Ryver of Stoure risith ther of six fountaines or springer, wherof three be on the northe side of the Parke harde withyn the pale: the other three be north also, but without the Parke; the Lord Stourton gyveth these six Fountaynes yn his armes."

The Yorkshire property, and consequent settlement in this county, came from the match with the heiress of Langdale Lord Langdale in 1775.

Younger Branch. Stourton, (called Vavasour,) of Hazlewood. Baronet 1828, first cousin of the present peer.

See Brydges's Collins, vol. vi. p. 633; and Leland's Itin., vii. fol. 78 b.

Arms.—Sable, a bend or between six fountains proper.