Originally of Briscoe near Carlisle, where the family were seated three generations before the reign of Edward I. Crofton, which came by an heiress of that name, has been since the year 1390 the residence of the Briscoe family.
See Lysons, lxvi. 159.
Arms.—Argent, three greyhounds currant sable.
In Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, i. 158, there is a pedigree of a younger branch of this family, who were seated at Aldenham, in that county, previous to 1736.
Present Representative, Sir Robert Briscoe, 3rd Baronet.
Dykes of Dovenby, in the parish of Bridekirk.
The name, originally "Del Dykes," is derived from the two lines of Roman wall in "Burgh," from whence the family at a remote period originated; Ramerus de Dikes, who lived before the reign of Henry II., is the first supposed ancestor. The pedigree is regularly traced three generations before the 50th of Edward III. to the present time. In the Wars of the Roses the Dykes's, like most other families in the Northern counties, were Lancastrian; and in the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century, devoted Royalists, and sufferers for their allegiance to the Crown. Dovenby, formerly the seat of the Lamplughs, came by marriage in the present century. The Manor of Warthole or Wardhill, purchased in the reign of Henry VI., and still in the family, was the former residence. Waverton, acquired in the 10th of Edward II., exchanged in 1619, and Distington, acquired in the 7th of Richard II., and afterwards alienated, were more ancient possessions.
See Lysons, lxxii. 36; Hutchinson's Cumberland, ii. 98 and note; Burn's Cumberland, ii. 49, and i. 157. I am obliged to the present Representative for additions to this account.